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Apples, Bloody Apples And An Apple Cake Recipe

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

We only have three apple trees in our garden, but they have been massively fruitful this year. In fact, they have produced so many apples I cannot even hope to use them all, even with friends and family taking them. Nature has been so very fecund that even the quince bush outside of our front door has fruited; in the last 10 years, I reckon we have had had one quince on the bush in total, whereas this year there are seven. It must be nature’s response to two harsh winters – up the reproduction and spread more seeds to survive.

Fruitful Apple Trees In Garden

Apples Picked From the Garden

Windfall Chutney 2010

So over the last two weekends, we have peeled for hours, then: picked and stored the eaters for later this year rather than chomp on out-of-season, flown in fruits from some high street chain; made apple puree, which has been frozen to lighten the fruitless days in the depths of winter; eaten baked apples using up leftover mincemeat for last Christmas that is now gorgeously matured and very boozy; made two types of chutney – General Gordon’s chutney and Windfall Chutney; and still made no dent in the apple harvest.

I love the plenty of harvest time, but I hate to see the waste when there is such an excess, while I know that in February/March I will be longing for fresh fruit in the knowledge that I was so wasteful in September. And we have so little fresh fruit in this part of Northern England.

I have, also, cobbled together several different versions of apple cake, which both have a charmingly spiced, old world flavour to them.

Apple Puree Cake

Apple Puree Cake

Ingredients:

175g / 6 oz / 1 cup apple puree – cooking apples, stewed, pureed then sieved
110g / 4 oz / 2/3 cup sultanas
1tbsp currants
1 mug strong black tea (optional)
200g / 7 oz / 1 cup Fairtrade organic caster sugar
225g / 8 oz / 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 large eggs at room temperature, lightly whisked
340g / 12 oz / 3 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of sea salt
½ tsp nutmeg powder
½ tsp cinnamon powder

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F. Prepare a 22cm / 9 inch cake tin by lightly buttering it and lining the base.

If you have not got any pre-made apple puree, peel some cooking apples then core and quarter them (weight will be more than the 175g / 6 oz but you can eat the balance with some sugar, while cooking the rest of the cake). Place in a pan and put lid on; heat under a medium heat until hot, then reduce heat to a low heat and let the apples stew until soft. Squash them through a sieve to give you your apple puree.

This next bit is optional and involves preparing the dried fruit. I put the dried fruit into a pan, then brewed a strong mug of black tea. The black tea was then poured over the fruit and I boiled the fruit for about 10 minutes until nice and plump. Sieve off the excess tea and leave to cool. You can ignore this stage and simply use the dried fruit, but I like doing this as it reduces that jaw-aching, chewiness of dried fruit, while adding another flavour dimension to your baking.

Sieve together the organic plain flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sea salt, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Cream together the butter and caster sugar. Add the eggs – half at first, followed by a tablespoon of the flour mix, then add the remainder. Now add in the cooled apple puree and mix thoroughly. Add the rest of the flour mix and mix together. Finally add the sultanas and currants and make sure it is mixed well.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 50 minutes. Towards the end start checking the consistency of the cake, by gently touching the top and feeling whether it is springy rather than liquidy. If it is cooking too slowly reduce the temperature to 160C / 320F and cook for another 5 – 10 minutes.

Leave to cool in tin for about 5 minutes, then remove from the cake tin and let cool completely on a wire rack.

For the second apple cake recipe, this will be in my next blog…

Tags: apple, apple cake, apple recipes, apples, Autumn, baking, Blog, chutney, cooking, Food, foodie, foodie news, green blog, green way of life, lifestyle, organic, organic food blog, recipe, Recipes, spice, spices, Steenbergs, Steenbergs spices, vegetarian, vegetarian recipe, Yorkshire
Posted in Recipes, food & cooking | 3 Comments »

Recipes Using Venison From Hornby Castle

Saturday, September 18th, 2010

I bought some delicious venison steaks and diced venison the other day from Hornby Castle in North Yorkshire. Since then, we have been experimenting with a couple of different casseroles, and have come up with two different ones – a traditional richly marinaded and cooked venison and a lighter and meatier venison stew in ale.

Roger and Julia Clutterbuck farm at Hornby Castle, which is one of those quintessentially English old country houses. Hornby Castle dates back to the fourteenth century and has been rebuilt several times of the centuries including a major overhaul in the 1760s by John Carr. The mediaeval St. Quintins Tower was knocked down in 1927 and the John Carr East Range was demolished in the 1930s. The Clutterbucks bought the estate in the 1930s from the estate of the Duke of Leeds as that old English family slowly dissipated.

Hornby Castle is an 850 acre estate, comprising about 350 acres arable and the remainder grass. On some of the grass, Roger introduced red deer and bison during 2004-5; these are processed as cuts of meat or into sausages, burgers and casseroles. The venison is butchered by Yorkshire Game and Masham Sausages make their venison sausages, while Langthornes processes the bison and makes the burgers. Julia is in charge of developing recipes and marketing the meat, which is a real hidden gem that more people simply just need to know about.

Truly enterprising executive chefs really should get this on to their radar screens, but while I suspect they will continue to miss out. Anyone who can get to Hornby Castle should contact Julia Clutterbuck (01748 811 579 or email julia@parklandrange.co.uk) and get some of their bison and venison. It is best to ring beforehand as there is no shop and it is a case of when it’s there, it’s there, so you cannot be guaranteed that what you are after is actually in their freezer.

I bought some venison recently to fry up as simple steaks and also some diced venison for a casserole. The Haunch Steaks come vacuum packed in pairs; I purchased two packs to feed the four hungry Steenberg mouths at £5.32 and £4.94 at £21.46 per kilo.

I lightly seasoned the Haunch Steaks with salt and pepper, then fried them in sunflower oil for about 2 minutes on each side. I put the cooked steaks in a warm oven, then fried off the juices in a couple of tablespoons of rosé wine thickened with a knob of unsalted butter. This light rosé jus was drizzled over the venison steaks and served with new potatoes and steamed broccoli and fine beans.

Hornby Castle Venison Steaks

Lightly Fried Venison Steaks

Hornby Castle venison has a deliciously meaty flavour and a really succulent texture that has a good lean bite, without becoming to chewy. Because the red deer is butchered at 18 to 24 months old, there is none of that overly strong gaminess and excess richness that often comes with venison and that can make it almost overpowering. Jay loved it so much he has already asked me to make it again – we will see, but a meal the kids want more of is always a blessing.

This weekend, I made a Classic Venison Casserole. This is quite a time consuming process involving overnight marinading of the venison in a lot of red wine (I used Hermitage 1995 – Cuvee Marquise de la Tourette which was a treat), followed by slowly cooking the venison in your oven for 3 hours. The result is worth the effort – a classically, rich venison taste in a deep, dark and rich red wine sauce with meat that is so soft and delicate. We ate it with a celeriac- potato mash and purple sprouting broccoli, which allows you to mop the delicious red wine sauce up in the mash, which gives you a lovely comforting feeling.

I have to admit, however, that the need to marinade the venison means it might put you off wanting to make this recipe regularly, while I find the concept of throwing away most of the marinade ingredients horribly wasteful, so I have also created a quicker and thrifty way to cook the venison. But unlike what Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says, the venison does not come out dry and pickled from the long marinade, or it did not for us; perhaps, this says more about the venison and wine that he used when he has tried marinading venison overnight. I will explain my simpler venison casserole in my next blog post.

How to make Axel Steenbergs Classic Venison Casserole

Ingredients

900g/ 2lb diced venison

For the marinade

1 medium onion, chopped finely
1 carrot, sliced
1 celery stick, sliced
1 garlic clove, smashed and chopped finely
6 organic juniper berries, lightly crushed
2 organic cloves
1 organic bay leaves
290ml claret
2tbsp sherry vinegar
1tsp organic lemon juice
6 organic black peppercorns

The rest

1 tbsp sunflower oil
30g / 1oz butter
110g / 4oz onions, peeled and chopped finely
1 garlic clove smashed and chopped finely
110g / 4oz mushrooms (whole or halved depending on size)
2tsp plain flour
150ml / ¾ cup beef stock ( I used one by Truefoods that you can get in Waitrose and Booths)
1tbsp redurrant jelly
Salt and pepper
Natural cane sugar or brown sugar
Chopped fresh parsley

What to do

Cut the venison into 3cm (1 inch) cubes and place these into a dish. Pour over the red wine, then add the rest of the ingredients for the marinade as you prepare them. Give it all a good stir, cover, then leave overnight in the fridge or a cool place.

Marinading Venison In Red Wine, Vegetables And Spices

The next day, heat the oven to 170C/ 340F. Next lift out the cubes of venison and pat them dry with kitchen paper. Strain the marinade and keep flavoured liquid to the side for later.

Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan and brown the venison, a few at a time. Put these into a casserole dish. When you have finished browing the venison, pour half the marinade into the pan and scrape the pan to get all the fried pieces up and add this all to the casserole dish.

Browning The Venison In Frying Pan

In a seperate pan, melt the butter and fry the onions and garlic until translucent and place into the casserole, then cook the mushrooms for two minutes before placing these into the casserole. Stir in the flour and cook for 30 seconds, slowly adding the marinade stirring to prevent any lumps forming.

Remove from the heat, then add the rest of the marinade and the stock and heat until boiling. Add boiling stock to the casserole, then put in the redcurrant jelly and season with salt and black pepper.

Cover the casserole and cook for two hours, checking it does not dry out and in the last half an hour taste and adjust the seasoning, if needed.

Venison Casserole Hubbling Away

When cooked, add chopped parsley and serve hot with mashed potatoes.

Traditional Venison Casserole

Tags: Blog, Food, foodie, green way of life, pepper, recipe, Recipes, sea salt, Yorkshire
Posted in Recipes, food & cooking | 3 Comments »

Should We Encourage People From Countryside To Cities?

Saturday, September 11th, 2010

…Self doubt gets you thinking. I am still thinking through my concerns about Fairtrade and I wonder whether I’ve got it arse over tip.

People who live in the countryside are relatively poor compared to people who live in an urban environment, but is that because there are, firstly, too many people in the countryside trying to eke out an incremental profit from cash crops to keep themselves above water, and secondly you actually are richer and better off just by being in a city or town.

There is a strong argument that workers shifting from rural Amazonia and moving to Manaus (the regional capital of the Amazon region) to carry out industrial activity have taken farmers out of Amazonia and so reduced pressure on deforestation, allowing those remaining in the countryside to farm more efficiently and spread their profits across fewer people, while simply the act of going to a city has improved their personal finances. So rural-to-urban migration is good for everyone financially and great for the environment!

There is a strong case (and made by people much cleverer and knowledgeable than me) that people living in the slums of big cities and the favelas of Latin America are one of the most dynamic and happening economies of the world. These are people getting on with life, generating income and stepping up out of poverty. These places are not the pits of despair that we all once thought and continue to be taught. Okay, they’re not perfect but they’re significantly better than rural poverty. And city dwellers have less children, so women are liberated from their historical rural position as child-bearing machines that must cook, fetch water and bring up children. City life gives them freedom and the creative energy of the fairer sex is a massive force for good and economic improvement.

So should we be encouraging rural-to-urban migration rather than preserving current rural farming structures. Urban living is better for the environment as it is more efficient on the world’s resources. Urban living is better for women. Urban living reduces overpopulation as people living in towns and cities have less children – overpopulation is effectively a rural problem. Finally, when people move to the city it reduces the amount of people living in the countryside and so reduces the burden from humanity on the countryside and nature quickly recovers – yes, the rainforest does just simply regrow when people leave it be.

Lastly, is our nostalgic lova affair with the countryside and rural idyll and farming (I don’t know if it is just an English obsession, and I mean English in this case as I cannot speak for others here) simply wrong and something that just makes us look via rose tinted glasses at all rural farming, believing that this must be a great, wonderful and rewarding life for everyone in the countryside, rather than something most farmers just want to escape from, and be liberated from the back-breaking, never-ending drudgery of subsistence living and would rather become housekeepers, labourers, doctors and accountants or whatever is available in the nearest mega-city. Who are we in the developed world to deny those in the developing world from wanting to live a better life with loads more consumer stuff to ease their daily grind? Who are we (the great polluters and destroyers of the world) to deny the rural poor a new start and free women from the potential prison of a rural life?

I suppose what I am saying is that if farmers cannot make a living wage from growing sugar or tea or vanilla or fruits or rice, shouldn’t we encourage more of them to move to cities so then less people grow these crops, so then there is a relative shortage of supply over demand and then prices will go up until farmers can then earn a living wage or more. Are we not just perpetuating an imbalance of excess supply over actual demand by offering a bit above market prices via Fairtrade?

In stark figures, a rural farming family in Madagascar earns $600 per annum, with Fairtrade vanilla they can earn $2000 per annum, but what could they earn were they to live and work in the capital city of, for example, Madagascar – Antananarivo – and perhaps their family size might also fall*. So isn’t it better to get them to migrate to the cities where education and public services are better and they will have a lower impact on the environment?

I honestly don’t know the answer, but it remains a dilemma that is constantly fighting itself out between my heart that says “yes to fair trade and ethical food” and my head that says “yes to free trade” and reducing levels of rural farming and shifting population towards the cities.

As in everything in life, the answer I suggest is a fudge – we need to trade ethically to ensure that those farming now are not disadvantaged and abused hence Fairtrade, while at the same time providing incentives for people to move from the villages and rural economy into the nearest cities, and then to ensure that cities become as economically vibrant, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable as possible. But I will probably never answer this quandary to my own personal satisfaction, so will remain racked by doubts and indecision.

* I asked The Foreign Office and World Bank for help on numbers here, but the former could not help and the latter never deigned to answer or acknowledge my request. That is a worrying starting position for Madagascar.

Tags: Antananarivo, Blog, ethical, Fair Trade, Fairtrade, Fairtrade blog, Fairtrade spices, Free Trade, green way of life, International Development, lifestyle, Madagascar, Manaus, political blog, rural, Steenbergs
Posted in Economic & political | 1 Comment »

A Sense Of Community

Monday, August 30th, 2010

On Saturday morning, I went to Havenhands the Bakers in St James’s Square in Boroughbridge*, then on to the Post Office before going to Ripon to watch the start of the Annual Raft Race in the Ripon Canal Basin. On that short journey, I met several people who I knew really well in both personal and business life, and a few others who I knew well enough to pass the time with.

It made me realise why I enjoy living in the country, in a rural space, rather than in a town or city. I love that sense of community that gently underpins life in our rural community-scape. We know the current Mayors of Pateley Bridge and Ripon quite well, which sounds grand but it’s not especially so in our small community – this ain’t London or New York. We know the family that runs Boroughbridge post office, many of the local postmen, the local courier drivers, a good proportion of the local policemen, the local vicars and Dean of Ripon and many of the local schoolteachers and so on and so on. You soon realise how many people you know who create the fabric of our local community. And we know many of the local business people well enough to have an idle natter with, and we do have those chats.

I like that, having been brought up in a rural Northumberland. City life never fitted comfortably, and the money never got close to compensating for a loss of that fabric that can bind people together. While some business gurus talk about the business environment giving that community spirit, it does not really work, as there is always a hint, an undercurrent, of tension and aggression; business does not forgive mistakes and transgressions, whereas real communities live with, forgive and forget, and perhaps are defined by their own sense of forgiveness and tolerance for day-to-day transgressions amongst their own.

I feel that the Internet can go some way to recreating that sense of community and rebuild a fabric for society and go some way to letting people have a sense of belonging to something, a community, and hopefully that is a civil and decent digital and online community. Maybe the Internet and its web can bring people together in a way that Governments really have failed to do, in spite of the billions in cash spent and huge amount of brain cells and legislation proposed on areas such as social inclusion and redevelopment. In the end, it is people and communities that matter not politicos with an agenda to grab power.

Recently, Ripon as a community celebrated its founder, St Wilfrid, with the exuberant St Wilfrid’s Parade, full of joy and singing and not a small amount of indulgence. This weekend our real life community had fun with its Annual Raft Race held at Ripon Canal Basin, where teams competed on a course in a mobile swan and on home-made, but rather professional, rafts; then on Sunday, it was the turn of the duck race held by The Water Rat at Alma Weir in Ripon. What is great is the huge amount of fun and joy that people have when taking part in these community events – just look at the smiles on peoples faces and in their eyes.

That’s community, that’s North Yorkshire.

Photos from St Wilfrid’s Parade 2010 (more at Facebook):

A Vampire Screams

The Jolliest Zebra I've Ever Seen

A Jolly Bee With A Lovely Smile

The Great And Good Of Ripon - The Wakeman, The Dean, The Mayor

Photos from Great Raft Race 2010 (more photos on Facebook):

Mayor Of Ripon In A Swan

Happy Face

Pirate Boat

Pirates Rowing Hard

Getting Dunked...

...And Splash

Photos from Great Duck Race 2010 (more photos on Facebook):

Helping The Ducks Over Alma Weir

In The River Skell

* I bought croissants, jam doughnuts, cinnamon Danish and a loaf of bread which Havenhands bake every day on site and the bakers still live above their bakery. How about that – I bet you thought small village bakeries like that had died away and the only ones were the new wave of hip, ultra healthy microbakeries.

Tags: Blog, community, green blog, green way of life, lifestyle, North Yorkshire, northyorkshire, Ripon, Ripon canal, Ripon Raft Race, rural, social networking, st wilfrid, St Wilfrid's Parade, Yorkshire
Posted in Life Up North | No Comments »

New Razors – Old Razors

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

I have been spending the last week and a bit shaving with two new razors that I bought on Ebay. They are Gillette Razors from the late 1950s – a Red Tip and a Blue Tip Super-Speed Razors. Why, you might rightfully ask; well, with razors, Gillette is like your mother’s cooking in bakery comparisons, everyone always say “X is great but not like an old Gillette”. So I reckoned that you needed to try an old Gillette to discover the truth in the statement.

Gillette Red Tip Razor From 1950s

They both look very stylish in a futuristic 1950s way like a Chevrolet El Camino, with sleek handles and decent designs on their handles that definitely improve the grip. The handles are short at just over 7cm long, while the weights are a light 46g for the Blue Tip and a weighty 66g for the Red Tip. I find the handles a tad on the small size for me, preferring the 9½cm handle of the Mühle razors, but that is a small price to pay for the really excellent balance on the Gillette Red Tip. The Gillette Blue Tip, being much lighter but with the same razor head, is less well balanced.

Gillette Superspeed Red Tip

Gillette Superspeed Blue Tip Razor

The beauty of these classic razors is in the engineering of the head. Both razors have the same smooth finished, compact and well-organised and built butterfly razor system. By twisting the tip, the razor mechanism starts moving through its complex set of synchronised moves, opening up elegantly, ready to take the blade. It really is a dream to watch rather than the functional and clunky butterfly mechanism on the modern Parker razors (you can watch a quick video on Youtube of the mechamism by me following this link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqt–_P19YU).

Butterfly Mechanism On Gillette Red Tip Razor

I was mildy apprehensive when actually shaving with these two little beauties, as the Ebay seller had dubbed the Red Tip “the most aggressive razor ever”, but it was as deadly as a cute, little tabby cat. The angle of the Wilkinson Sword double blades was just right, flowing smoothly over the face and handling well over the edge of the face down to the neck. While a little large, the razor head worked decently around the nose. Overall, I rated the Red Tip a really good shave, while the Blue Tip was too light in the hand so, even though the actual razor head was the same, I did not enjoy that shave so much.

So the crucial question, will I be changing my shave? No, not yet but I will try and track down a Gillette Fatboy; for me the Mühle R89 still gives a closer, neater overall shave, but the Red Tip is a close second. As for the blade mechanism, that is a true joy and is much more robust and better engineered than the Parker razors. It really is a pity that Gillette has switched from being a razor maker to a blade manufacturer, changing from a creator of long-lasting icons to becoming the billboard of our throw-away, use-your-blade-a-few-times modern culture.

Tags: Badger And Blade, Blade, Blog, Gillette, Gillette Blue Tip, Gillette Red Tip, green way of life, lifestyle, Mühle, Parker razor, razor, Steenbergs
Posted in Steenbergs | 2 Comments »

Biodegradable Tea Bags

Friday, July 30th, 2010

It was brought to our attention recently that some tea bags are not really biodegradable as they use polypropylene glues to seal the edges of the tea bags. This is only the case for tea bags that are heat sealed in the tea bagging process. The tea bags used in Steenbergs bagged teas do not use polypropylene as they are crimped shut rather than heat sealed. However, there is the metal staple in the tag which is not biodegradable on a short time frame. The long and short of it is that you can chuck your tea bags onto your compost heap ithout any problem but you need to put your staples either into your recycling or in the bin. In the future, we will remove the staple part of the tea bag. Finally, you can use Steenbergs Loose Leaf Teas which comprise the majority of our range, which have no tea bags, but you have a nice tin that can be refilled with our refill tea packs that come in sizes up to 1kg, or can be recycled.

On the downside, Steenbergs organic Fairtrade Mulling Wine sachets are heat sealed and so are not biodegradable easily as they used polypropylene in their manufacture. We will now start looking into whether we can remove this without causing other issues, especially things that may use genetically modified corn starches.

Tags: bagged tea, biodegradable, Blog, compost heaps, compostable, eco, Environment & science, Fairtrade, Fairtrade blog, Fairtrade spices, green blog, green way of life, mulling wine sachets, polypropolene, sachets, Steenbergs, tea, tea bag, teabag, wildlife
Posted in Tea | 4 Comments »

Two Books For All Environmentalists

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

I have just finished the second of two books that are must-reads for those interested in our planet. They are Nigel Lawson‘s “An appeal to reason – a cool look at global warming” and Bjørn Lomborg’s “Cool it – the skeptical environmentalist’s guide to global warming”, both of which are very much in the skeptical to anti-climate change camp. It is important that you read all sides of an argument to be sure that there is nothing that you have missed out nor that you simply are self-justifying your position by selective reading of information and data, so there’s something healthy about reading such diatribes.

If you don’t have the fibre to read both, then Nigel Lawson’s book is shorter, tauter and much better written. Bjørn Lomborg’s book does not match the hype, blurbs and comments on the book; it was a really slow and boring read and I almost gave up as it had no real forward motion to its argumentation, ranking as one of those smarmy, smartass sort of books that are basically dull – a bit like your classic Booker Prize winning book that you can really do without reading, as it makes you feel intellectually inadequate as you just don’t get why it is meant to be a good book in the first place.

Both books are unconvincing, and wrong, in their attempts to refute the science of climate change or global warming; both basically misinterpret weather for climate, using the short term vagaries of weather to try and undermine the longer term patterns of climate. Then, they simply state a truism for the rest of their books, being that people must make a socio-political and economic decision on how to address the issues that may arise from global warming and climate change. Well, that’s clever, but not worth the fancy intellectual credibility that they have been afforded.

For me, there does need to be a greater collaboration between scientists and people on these issues and a deeper explanation of the science and potential issues arising from climate change, together certainly with a whole lot more openness. The two camps slugging out each side of the global warming debate need to be ignored and the conservatively-minded, prudent and slightly humdrum people like me, who occupy that big bulge in the middle ground of socio-economic thinking, should be allowed to come to their own conclusions on the priorities of each country’s socio-economic development over the short-, medium- and longer terms. Leaving it to the intellectuals on both sides will simply result in a huge muddle like everything our lords and masters ever touch – money wasted on grand schemes that spend our money on their individual desires to be written into the history books. A nervous shiver runs down my spine every time I hear politicians dreaming of how much money they can spend and commit for climate change projects, potentially one of the biggest attempts to transfer current and future wealth from the pockets of ordinary people in the developed world to infrastructure projects and to provide aide to other countries.

Let an honest debate begin, with honest science and sensible criteria rather than the garbage that has been, and continues to be, spouted by the media and the political oligarchy. We do have a little time, so let’s have some quiet, calm thinking time as the sums and impacts of addressing climate change are life changing for the economies of the world, so must not be imposed by ukase.

And please stop damning all people all the time, as an ennui has set in about environmentalism, especially climate change, as we – the people – are sick of being stigmatised and blamed for leading lives that are better for us, yet are told that we are simultaneously destroying the planet; it’s become like a collective guilt complex that ignores the great heap of good and goodness that ordinary people do every day for the planet, for themselves and for others.

[By the way, I find it highly ironic that I sound like the smartass fool in this blog post, having accused Bjørn Lomborg of the same about his book "Cool It..."]

Tags: Blog, climate change, climate skeptic, eco, Environment & science, global warming, green blog, green way of life, lomborg, nigel lawson
Posted in Environment & science | 1 Comment »

Razor Review From Steenbergs

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

For many years, I shaved with a Gillette safety razor that used a classic plastic double-bladed Contour disposable blade until mid 2009. However, I did not find the shave particularly close or satisfying, and I didn’t like having to chuck the blades in the normal trash can. So I have been on the hunt for a better shave that also might have less of an impact on the environment.

My first blind alley was on the environmentally friendly. I looked at a disposable razor from Preserve, but they were disposable, cheap looking and they didn’t offer a special blade, so you were advised just to use the normal Gillette razor blades. What a waste of time.

So I decided to go back to the start. I have had my Gillette basic razor for over 25 years and it has served me well, while my dad has been using the same classic Gillette Safety razor for 60 years. The razor itself, therefore, lasts and has no impact on the planet unless you buy disposables but they are a terrible shave, so I reckoned that perhaps I should spend some money on getting a really good razor that has been engineered well and looks good, shaves well and glides well over the face. So the search began.

Let’s start with the Merkur Razors. These are made in Germany by DOVO Solingen, look good and are generally really well engineered, just as you would expect from a German product.

Merkur Razors 34C and 42

I began with Merkur 34C which is a good-looking shiny, closed comb steel razor, with a heavy weight and relatively short handle at 76g and 8½cm resepectively. The handle has a useful cross-harch design that is good for grip and the end twists to release the top of the razor head to enable you to place the razor blade easily onto it. The blade is then screwed down simply using the twisting knob. As a razor, I found the handle of the Merkur 34C just a bit too short, but that’s because I am used to a longer handled razor, but the balance was good and it moved over the face well to give a decent shave. I found that the razor head seemed to stick on my skin a bit as it moved around which meant that I had to tug a little as I went along; I could imagine that this could cause cuts on a bad day or for those less used to wet shaving. But overall, I liked the look, weight, balance and shave, although I do prefer a lighter razor with a longer handle.

Following on from this, I tried the Merkur 42. This was lighter than the others at a mere 65g and with an 8½cm handle. The design is a hexagon with a fancy design but none of this helps as the grip is less sure than the 34C and uncomfortable. The blade mechanism is difficult, as you need to twist the whole handle and then the top of the razor head comes off, yet it all was quite stiff and laborious. As for the shave, it was fine, sticking a little as you move the head over the face rather than gliding; I reckon this must be something to do with the angle of the blade, the distance of the blade from the comb on the razor head and the skin which is off a bit, or at least wrong for my face. All in all not as good as the Merkur 34C, feeling and looking cheaper as if it was going for style over substance.

Then, there’s the Merkur Futur Razor which is a gorgeous beast of a razor – it’s the Porsche to the Vauxhall Astra that’s the Gillette Contour razor. The Merkur Futur comes in at a heavy 119g with a 10½cm handle, designed with a futuristic, curvaceous style like the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Aston Martin One-77, but hugely cheaper. The mechanism is simple and neat to use, you just flip the lid and off comes the top of the razor head, so you can slot on a razor blade. Next, there is a neat function where you can adjust the distance between blade and edge between settings from 1 – 6, giving much greater accuracy of the shave and the ability to change the shaving style to suit your own face and way of shaving. At 6 more of the blade is exposed, down to 1 which has less blade exposed and gives a safer shave. The Merkur Futur gives a great shave, but like a fast car, it’s not really a razor just to casually have a go with, as you are likely to cut yourself a few times; this is for someone who is experienced with a wet shave and wants a bit of luxury.

I have, also, tried the Mühle R89, which is a German made three piece razor that you twist apart and then place the razor into the parts. The Mühle R89 weighs 67g and has a 9½cm handle. The design is good looking with a well engineered German finish, that has a great feel to it as these razors are well balanced. While the three piece razor top is fiddly, all the pieces fit together perfectly, resulting in the razor blade sitting really snugly on the razor head. For me, the handle was just right, with a good grip from the knurled handle and the weight & balance is good. As for the shave, it was great, moving over the face very well and giving a good clean finish and not at all aggressive, feeling a bit like the classic Gillette Super Speed razor. For me, it’s probably the best looking razor of the ones I am reviewing here and has become my favourite shave of all those razors that I have tested recently. The Mühle R89 would be good as a starter wet shave razor and for those who have sensitive skin.

Muhle R89 Razor

Next, it’s the turn of Parker Razors which have been manufactured in India by JTC since 1973. They have a retro feel about them and are generally pretty well made, and the packaging has recently got better, looking less cheap and plasticky. The two Parker Razors that I have tried are the 71R and 90R.

The 71R looks good with a long matt black handle that’s 10½cm in length while the weight is 80g. The mechanism is a safety razor head that twists off with the whole handle and then the comb and razor top. Unfortunately, the balance of the razor is not good with it definitely swaying to the head, giving you less control in the movement of the razor head over the face. The razor head glides over the face pretty well, but the actual shave is not very close and does not leave a great finish. All-in-all the Parker 71R was not great.

However, the Parker 90R is a different matter all together. The Parker 90R razor has a similar long handle at 10½cm, but is much lighter at 73g and is much better balanced, although still a bit top heavy. What I really like about the Parker 90R is the razor blade mechanism, which is a butterfly mechanism that you twist the base of the razor’s handle and the top moves, then opens out, allowing you to simply place the razor blade on top of the razor head easily and safely. The shaving action is similarly easy, gliding over your face, giving a decent smooth shave. The distance between blade and razor and face is well proportioned meaning that even new wet shavers should be able to shave without too much hassle. I had been shaving with the Parker 90R since I stopped using my trusty old Gillette Contour of 25 years, but have just switched to the Mühle R89 for everyday shaving.

Parker Razors 71R and 90R

So for now, Steenbergs is selling the Mühle R89 and Parker 90R razors as entry level razors for those just starting with wet shaving, while the Mühle R89 is also great for those who have more sensitive skin. The Merkur Futur is for men who prefer a more aggressive shave and want to invest into something really heavy and flash.

Tags: Blog, Gillette, green way of life, lifestyle, male grooming, Merkur, Muehle, Muehle razor, Parker, Parker 90R, Parker razor, Preserve, razor, razor blade, shaving, Shaving Cream, Steenbergs
Posted in Steenbergs | 3 Comments »

June 2010 Food Blog Round Up

Monday, July 5th, 2010

At Chocolate & Zucchini, there is a delicious sounding recipe for sablés from Yves Camdeborde’s book Dimanche et Famille. Clotilde Dusolier’s blog then sent me around various links on her site to several other biscuit recipes that sound fantastical, with amazing flavour combinations like Matcha Shortbread Cookies (which remind me I must do something about launching my green tea salt blend) and sablés croquants poivre et noisette (crisp hazelnut and pepper sablés), which has a wondrous flavour combination of pepper, rose water and hazelnuts that must be skirting fairly close to flavour and textural overload for the senses. Finally, catching the end of the them of my update from last month, there is a recipe for a Rhubarb Tart With Lemon Verbena, combining another intriguing version of sweet pastry dough, plus my favourite early fruit - rhubarb – and then lemon verbena, which sounds great as a variant on lemon peel which is what I would usually use as the tart flavour for stewing the rhubarb.

At Cook Sister, there is a variation on the standard summer veg tarts that I have always cooked, called a Zucchini, Tomato Pesto Tart, which fits neatly alongside the French Tomato Tart that I found at David Lebovitz’s blog last month. I will have a go and see if it will fit into my repertoire, even though I am not a fan of pesto, which I find tends to add an unnecessary hint of bitterness to food. She also played with pesto for an Asparagus Salad With Pesto, which sounds an intriguing variation on the simple way we normally eat asparagus, sprinkled with a bit of salt and some butter.

At David Lebovitz’s blog, who seems to be suffering from the heat in Paris (my body temperature gauge falls apart when the temperature gets above 10^oC, which is one of the reasons I failed to like living in London), he has a delicious and easy sounding Almond Cake recipe. We like the words “easy” and phrase “hard to mess up”, but I’ll give that statement a run for its money.

Helen at Fuss Free Flavours is a women with my style of cooking, with a different way of preparing asparagus that I will definitely try next asparagus season. A year, however, sounds a long wait for it, so I will try and rootle out some asparagus that’s still just about in season here in the north. I think the mix of the slightly charred taste will go well with the bitter-sweet flavour of asparagus. And she serves plain and simple with salt and butter; perfection. And I love the idea of making your Elderflower Cordial on Midsummer Night like some sort of new age pagan ritual, plus it is basically free food that earths you to the soil. And while never a fan of tofu, I am a fan of Ottolenghi so I will try the Black Pepper Tofu recipe although I might reduce the chile and increase the black pepper a bit as our kids will never survive that intensity of heat.

At just the food blog, there is a great and wholesome Cold Multigrain Salad that will make you a lifetime of food for lunches during the week. And it has next to no calories to boot. It mixes three grains – pearl barley, wild rice and quinoa – and in the dressing melds together the umami kick of soy, with the uber sweetness of agave and cider with the heat from some chile flakes. I reckon you could do a neat variation switching pearl barley for bulgur wheat.

Mahanandi’s recipe for Bean Sprout and Peppers makes great use of the bean sprouts that we have been growing over the last few weeks, and does something more exciting than chomping on them raw or in a salad. I reckon that I would put a few different types of bean sprout into the mix, for example sprouted fenugreek seeds and chickpea seeds to give it more variation in texture. And I love the colours and taste of aubergine (a.k.a. eggplant or brinjal) and the recipe for Brinjal Cilantro will get on the list for our next full on Indian meal as we are always struggling with inspiration for new flavours, rather than being unadventurous and sticking to the familiar. When our tomatoes come out, I will have a crack at the simple Green Tomato Chutney recipe.

At Not Without Salt, there is a great Perfect Pizza At Home recipe, which is great fun family food. I usually start by making the pizza dough and tomato base, then let the kids finish it off, so you get a random flavour, but one also that the children cannot complain about as it was their creation in first place! I would be tempted to use a 50:50 mix of durum and bread flour rather than 100% all-purpose flour (plain flour in UK). At Dana Treat, there’s a perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that’s worth noting as it was created with Ashley of Not Without Salt.

The theme for summer seems to be coming through as galettes and tarts, so at Smitten Kitchen there’s a gorgeous sounding Zucchini and Ricotta Galette plus some great links through to earlier galettes with the Wild Mushroom And Blue Silton one from 2006 winning a place in my dream for a new take on my classic summer tart recipes. Her Lamb Chops With Pistachio Tapenade caught my hungry eyes and is tempting me to cook some up next weekend, yet I might be tempted to try a version with toasted pine nuts – maybe 50:50.

At The Pioneer Woman Cooks, I love the sound of Spinach With Garlic Chips as a variant on our stock in trades of Spinach With Nutmeg or Spinach With Toasted Cumin. And The Best Coffee Cake Ever reminds me that I started trying to find the best coffee cake ever and stopped after one average attempt…laziness crept in and I must get back to it, although I was looking for a coffee flavoured cake not a cake for afternoon tea or coffee time, although the Mystery Mocha pud gets closer to the flavours I am after for my dream coffee cake.

Another great recipe from Ottolenghi was posted at The Wednesday Chef of a variation on potato salad – Potato Salad With Yoghurt And Horseradish. Yotam Ottolenghi is certainly on message for recipes with everyone at the moment, and I love the idea of adding some tartness to potato salad which can get a bit samey. We often use a mayonnaise-yoghurt-horseradish mix for smoked fish and crab salads and this sort of fits into that vein.

As I wonder through [sic - I spelled this incorrectly first time round and I like the metaphor] the food blogosphere I am constantly surprised at the new ways of tweaking some of my old favourites in our kitchen, reinspiring me to recreate and revisit things like the summer vegetable tarts that I have make for years now, as well as to try and improve on the trusty old pastry recipes that I have made since my mum taught me how to bake oh-too-long-ago.

But I am in awe at how beautiful everyone else’s creations look and how great their photography is, while my food looks like a dog’s dinner and the photos like some amateur hack from a one horse dorp (which I suppose I am). We’ll get better at it, but I can never expect to reach the dizzy heights of the wonderful photos on blogs like Cannelle et Vanille, Mahanandi, or The Pioneer Woman Cooks and The Wednesday Chef.

Tags: baking, Blog, blogoshere, cooking, curry, Food, food blogs, foodie, foodie news, green blog, green way of life, Indian cooking, pepper, recipe, Recipes, sea salt, Steenbergs spices, vegetarian, vegetarian recipe
Posted in Recipes, food & cooking | 2 Comments »

Walk Around Nosterfield Nature Reserve In Yorkshire

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

Silt Pits At Nosterfield Nature Reserve

When I went to track down the Thornborough Henges, I parked initially at the Nosterfield Nature Reserve. Nosterfield was formerly a sand and gravel quarry for Tarmac that has been restored to open water and shallow pits. It has become one of the best places in North Yorkshire for passage and wintering waders and the birds were making a jolly, happy racket while swimming around on the waters. It is claimed that there are 150 species of birds, 25 butterflies and 297 plants that are to be found on the site. Perhaps even more lovely is that fact that when I visited the other day it was basically empty of visitors – there were 3 others tootling about. They were all garbed out in proper twitching clothing with huge, showy cameras and binoculars and (as always) proper sturdy walking boots, while I had my camera, a notebook and a cheap pair of trainers on from Sports Direct.

There are black-tailed godwits, avocets, moorhens and ruffs (note to self: get bigger zoom lens). I was particularly taken by the butterflies and some awesome small bee orchids that I came across. The photos I managed to get of the butterflies included mainly common species but they are still beautiful as there is still beauty in the commonplace, which is one of my main campaigns in life, i.e. for people to realise that life is good and to see the beauty on your doorstep in the seemingly and supposedly mundane. I saw cuckoo spit, ringlets (with very feint ringlets), speckled wood butterflies, burnet moths (really gorgeous), green-veined whites and small skippers and many more that just would not stay still!

I shall be back to look more closely as it is just on my doorstep by West Tanfield.