Well, just had two days of a Carmen consortium meeting. Very interesting to see how things have changed as time goes on. Also, two days of University food with a stop of at "Louis" last night; the latter is in Jesmond, so as you might guess the restaurant was affected and effete. You could tell that it was very high quality, though; they used big white plates, with the food in the middle and a sauce drissled around the outside. It's good to eat such high quality food even if, as in the case, it doesn't taste that great. The soup was vegetables lightly boiled in a weak broth, while the aubergine lacked only aubergine. The University food, on the other hand was, well, University food; lunch today consisted of potato in several forms.

Tonight I had some bread, humous and a salad, with sweetcorn to start. Ah!

I've been to Gerswhins, which is on (or under) Dean Street before, but for a quick pre-gig meal. This time was a more leisured affair. The place is underground, in a wine cellar. It's dimly light, from 100s of fibre optic strands from the ceiling. It's a jazz resturant apparently. So, later in the evening, they had caberet; a guy in a dinner jacket, crooning to a recording backing track. He was actually pretty good, very professional and a competent singer; half-way through a Sinatra melody, an older couple, very elegantly dressed—man in blazer and tie, woman in skirt and formal top—started wheeling around the dance floor (that is the small gap between the tables). The woman looked happy and entertained, the man dignified and serene, although I noticed a momentary look of relief as he got to sit down again.

I could help thinking that the dimness was partly to cover up the flaws; there was a ice bucket hidden partly next and partly under my seat, catching drips from the ceiling; or at least the ones which didn't fall on me. The toilets were dark, but with spotlight urinals which were stainless steel; the parabolic bowls shined the light back bright enough to burn your retinas; while engaged, however, my head blocked the light and, already half-blinded, meant I had to aim using echo location. And one of the taps was not screwed in properly, rotating Exorcist style rather than producing water.

A strange night; Gershwins is a bit tacky, but gets away with it for some reason; it was both elegant and naff simultaneously, which should be impossible.

Oh, yeah, and the food. I had a pepper and courgette soup followed by a mushroom curry; they were both excellent, even if the curry was a bit pokey. I had a pepper soup a couple of weeks ago (on the Grand Canyon of all places) which was lovely, so perhaps I should try this.

After my last experience with rice, I decided to get straight-back in there. Bought some more, and cooked it with beans and stuff. Managed to overcook the rice, which I haven't done for a while.

I've been thinking about why I've started to each so many beans recently; then it came to me. I've got salad obsessed recently. My fridge is smaller than my freezer. Salad goes into the fridge, beans the freezer. It's all perfectly logical.

How the world has changed. Once upon a time, rice was my main staple. I used to eat tons of the stuff. Nowadays, I have a more varied staple diet: noodles, pasta, bread, wheat, cous-cous, rice and, of course, the occasional tattie. While I was cooking some rice last night, I noticed to my dismay that it had got some infection — small mites by the look of things which, fortunately float obviously on top of the water.

I've had a 10kg bag of rice in my house for most of my adult life, but I fear now that I have seen my last. I shall be buying 2kg bags in future.

The mites were incredible though; it's wonderful to me that a thing so small, smaller than this comma, can be a complete multi-cellular organism. Wonder what species they were?

The inspiration for tonights meal was by from my brother, who did me something like this a while back. A bean salad, with bread essentially.

Very simple: tin of mixed beans which I have had for quite a while — I think fresh would have been better; some fresh garlic, lightly chopped; olive oil; pepper; balsamic vinegar and lime juice. Served with an undressed green salad (with addition carrot and and parsnip), eaten with one of those boil-in-the-bag batton loafs.

Very simple, very nice. Back for more.

Having been in Vienna for a week, I thought I would comment on the food. In general, it's very good. I can't point my finger at a single bad meal (although several inappropriate ones — more later). The most common kind of food that I eat was Italian. As a world cuisine, it has the advantage of being the least offensive to all concerned. Both resturants that we tried were good; one of them managed to achieve a feet that I would have not believed possible and cooked a meal which might just have had too much garlic (gnocchi in garlic, chilli and olive oil). I eat Austrian food twice. One resturant mostly served boiled cow; here, I had Chanterelle mushrooms in white sauce which were nice, although the meal needed more variation. The other was for the conference dinner — queues were long, everything was meat, with the exception of fried, battered vegetables. The wine was not very good either. I think beer would have worked better for a meal consisting largely of bones. In general, conference meals were good though, although occasionally dull. The salads were really nice, although they kept running out. I guess the Viennese eat these as garnish, and served them in quantities appropriate for this.

The two highlights, though, were the the bakeries. I had croissant and coffee everyday. The coffee was rich, strong and without bitterness, while the croissants were delicious. The only exception here were the two breakfasts I had in the Ibis Hotel where I was staying; the croissant were stale and tasteless. And, finally, last night we found a Japanese. Not the greatest I've ever been too, but it hit the spot. The food was pleantiful, cheap and well cooked. I ended up having a second main meal, although we split it between two of us.

Blackfriars is a very posh resturant in Newcastle. I've been there a couple of times, and the food is reasonably good. On monday, I eat there; the veggie option is small but looked reasonable. I went for the stuffed aubergine in the end. It came with breadcrumbs and ratatouille (that is the contents of the aubergine cooked in tomato), rather than the cous cous that was on the menu; a pity as it happens, as the whole thing was rather too dry; something that would probably not have affected the cous cous.

In general, it's confirmed my opinion. Blackfrairs is okay, but when you get down to it a polysyllabic menu, and artful arrangement on the plate does not make up for the unspiried dishes and a lack of flair for vegetarian food by the chef.

Course, the meat might be great. I can't comment.

Went to the Cafe de Vie for lunch today. It's quite nice inside, although would be better without the music. The menu was okay, rather than inspired: it's basically posh sarnies, italian style, served by the French. The food looked okay on the counter.

Their service was interesting: the heated food (toasted sandwiches, sorry panini's) was very slow to come. When it did come, the waitress described it in French, and seemed genuinely surprised to be answered in English. Everyone else got their food, but mine never appeared. I went and asked; they had forgotten.

So, no idea at all what the food is like, but I can say that it did offer a genuine and authentic French experience.

In the shop today, I noticed that they had some frozen soy beans. So, I thought I would give them a go. I've always been a fan of edamame that you get in Japanese food shops, so I decided to try and replicate it. Sort of. The beans were not in pods and I don't have a steamer.

In the end, I boiled them with some fresh garlic that I had, strained, the water of, tossed them with chilli olive oil and soy sauce (heat and salt), strained the excess and eat them. Nice actually. Needed a bit more than the 4 minutes simmer the packet said, so I ended up giving them a quick microwave.

Not bad, although not exactly refined. I need to work on this one.

The rest of the mean was dry, curried tofu and chickpeas, a spinach curry and rice. Done this many times before. I need to do it more often, not least as I appear to have 3 kilos of spinach in my freezer.

Tried a new technique last night; basically, I just slow, shallow fried large lumbs of tofu. After a while, once they had sealed, I threw in some cayenne, garlic and, then, some Udon noodles with a bit of stock to let them cook.

Worked pretty well, as it happens. Took ages, as you'd expect from a bit lump of tofu, but required little effort.

Did a Spicy Tofu in Pitta as Simon and Rina were coming up. I thought they might be late, and we'd be in a hurry (they were, we were), so I wanted something easy to eat of the move.

This is incredible simple. I cut the tofu into blocks about 1cm x 1cm x 2cm. This goes into a frying pan with some rice vinegar, soy, and chilli sauce. This is all fried in, on a low heat for, well as long as you can be bothered to wait. Within reason, the longer the better, but an hour is a reasonable time. This is then served in pitta with salad. I added some felalal as wel, as I had it in the freezer.

We only had time for a quick bite each. However, we left the gig at 11 and the curse of Newcastle hit us, with all the food places closed and we scoffed the rest when we got back.

I tried a new tofu dish last night. Very simple. I boiled the tofu in a frying pan with a stock made from some tamarind stock cubes, oxo veggie cubes and some garlic flakes, flavoured with cumin and MSG. I also added some rice vinegar which turned out to be a mistake as it was far too sour — in the end, it needed sugar to perk it up. Anyway, after boiling the tofu and reducing the stock somewhat on the hob, I toasted the top under the grill. Then, finally, returned it to the hob, added a little water to dilute the stock again, and sprinkled on raw garlic and onion. Left this for a few minutes till the onion was soft, and eat with ramen noodles.

Worked quite well, in general. As is my usual practice, I'll probably do the same dish again tonight, while it's still fresh in my mind.

Tried a garlic broth this week, with garlic flakes. Think that this was a mistake; a couple of bulbs of garlic would have been better. Essentially, I fried lots of garlic for a while with a some onion and then some stock. Then added tofu, potato and udon noodles.

The taste was fairly good, although it didn't keep that well. The main problem was the colour; it was pretty palid looking and would have been better with, say, lots of soy in the broth base.

I will work on this; I like the concept of garlic as a main ingredient rather than a garnish.

Bought a copy of Bend it like Beckham a while back; personally, I disagree. I'd rather be able to cook Aloo Gobi than kick a curve ball. Fortunately, I can, I did. Yeah, it was alright.

Have been suffering from a problem; due to some over-exuberance, I've had to eat with a teaspoon for the last few days. Fortunately, on sunday I'd cooked some bulgar wheat with chickpeas. Today, was curried rice.

Very simple: garlic flakes, oil, pepper, black mustard seed, all fried. Then add rice vinegar and some soy. After a few minutes of frying put in a enough rice and fry it drish, then add enough water. Finally, spice with an Oxo cube, cumin, coriander, turmeric and add a small amount of tomato puree and chilli sauce.

To give it a bit of bulk, I added peas, broad beans and some quorn chicken. Turned out rather well, as it happens. Takes about 15 minutes in total.

Simple meal today; onion, a suede and quorn mince, fried for a while (yes, with chili and garlic flakes), then simmered with tomato puree, and thicked with Oxo cubes and gravy granules. Add mashed potato, peas, beans and spinach. Thick, warm and filling. Pity, really, that I got around to this just as the weather is starting to get warm.

And, yes, it should have been a pie. I've clearly been scared by the pastry experience of last weekend.

Decided to do sausage rolls and beans after a hill walk on sunday. Nice idea, but I turned out to have no beans, no self-raising flour and forgot to put fat into the pastry. The pastry was solid. The sausage actually worked okay, though. Some dodgy Sosmix from down the road. Just add boiling water. I put in spinach and garlic flakes into the water first, and lots of pepper.

Pretty good, actually.

I used to think that aduki beans were a joke from the Beano. When I was a kid, Baby Face Finlayson used to eat them after coming up with some dastardly scheme.

More recently, I discovered that they were real. So I tried cooking them last night. Rather nice, as it happens.

The meal was this:

• tofu
• red onion
• garlic flakes
• rice vinegar
• soy sauce

All of this was fried in garlic flavoured olive oil, tofu first with the soy and vinegar till brown and then all the rest dumped in. This was eaten with rice, with peas and broad beans, with a light drizzle of liquidizied chilli.

Very nice as it happens. The aduki beans taste like a cross between baked and kidney beans, but didn't overwhelm the rest of the meal.

Decided to try the curry house from a few nights ago, as I was on the Quayside last night. I think it's called "the Rasa" but I forgot to write it down. Sadly, it was suffering from the Newcastle disease — it was fully booked. I don't understand why this is such a common problem here, but there you go.

Instead, we ended up next door at Vujon. It was okay. The seafood angle was well covered, but the veggie options were poor. I ended up with the set of side dishes option, which were adequate.

Finally got around to buying some garlic flakes that I saw being used in t a resturant a short while back. Combined with a bit of chilli, as well as being garlic flavoured, this are actually quite hot.

Cooked them with some potato, tofu, red onion and bulgar wheat. Very nice indeed.

Went out for a curry tonight, with an old friend of mine. Fortunately, he knows lots of nice places to eat in Newcastle; this is good, because, currently, I don't.

I can't remember the name of the place, but it's near the Quayside, and rather pink. But the food was excellent. We had a daal, a strange pancake bread, a cabbage dish, dosa and some vedna. I've been a fan of dosa for ages, since discovering them in the Punjab Tandoori in Manchester. I've only had then in one other place, so it's great to find another resturant cooking them. I even tried making them for myself once, using some of the wonderously named "Mr Git's Dosa Mix". It never worked.

As well as his dosa mix, Mr Git also makes vedna mix. I did buy some, but never tried it. So, this was the first time I've actually got to eat them. They were great. A light donut made out of lentils.

Afterwards, we went back to the pub and I almost fell asleep. I hadn't realised how tired I was.

Went to Bob Trollope's today. It's a veggie pub, near the quayside. Went there before, but got confused — I ended up looking at the menu of the pub next door.

Wasn't bad at all. Had a pretty good menu. As I'd been standing outside in the cold for most of the day, I went for the mixed grill. Was alright, but I think they need to make it a bit different from the meat version — it was too dry. I couple of pots of dips (a light chilli sauce, some brown sauce and something a little sweet, perhaps) would have been perfect.

Still, it's a pleasure to be in a veggie place, with lots of choice on the menu. It's not been that easy in Newcastle.

Having dug out my old recipe for bulgar wheat, I've been going all cereal. So I bought some polenta. I've never tried this before. It's like cous-cous, but a bit finer. You cook it for a while, then it goes solid.

It's relatively tasteless, but is spices up well. I did it with parsnips and potatoes that I'd lightly fried with lots of spices.

It was alright, but I need quite a bit more work on the polenta. Less water, I think, more spices.

I bought some soya mince the other day, mostly for old time sake. Soya mince much like the larger equivalent, soya chunks, are fairly horrible. They tend to be overly chewy, with a slightly unappealing texture. But they are cheap, and about 50% protein. I used to eat lots of this stuff when I was a student and then stopped, because I could afford nicer food. But I saw some the other day, and remembered that I had one dish where it was quite nice. This is it.

Ingredients

1 Red Onion
Handful Soya Mince
Handful Rice
Tomato Puree
2 potatoes

Toast

Spices

Garlic Puree
Various Curry Spices

Preparation

Essentially, this is your basic curry — fry the onions, then add garlic puree. After it's cooked for a while, add some lime juice, then cumin, coriander, tumeric and any other spices you fancy. This makes it pretty dry, so before it burns add tomato paste, and then water. Today, I also washed added some garlic pickle. Milk is good as well. Cook for about 10 minutes. Then add the soya mince.

While this is doing, parboil the potatoes, then add them to the curry. Follow this by part cooking the rice in the same saucepan, and add this to the curry.

The combination of the rice and soya mince will soak up a lot of the moisture. Add a bit more water if needed: there should not be much left by the time everything is finished; it's supposed to be dry.

At this point, it tastes okay, but sort of wish you hadn't added the soya mince. But this is the good bit; make some toast, then spoon the biryani on top of it, and stick the whole lot under the grill for a couple of minutes and serve.

Today, I tried some bulgar wheat which I haven't cooked with for several years. I think it was fairly succesful.

Ingredients

1/2 Red Onion
Large Handful Bulgar Wheat

Spices

Garlic Puree
Dark Soy Sauce
MSG
Rice Vinegar
Chilli Sauce
Pepper
Veggie Oxo cube

Preparation

Fry red onion, with some garlic and pepper and the Oxo cube in a small pan, with olive oil. When half done add decent splosh of soy. Wait till the soy starts to brown somewhat. Add the vinegar to shift the soy stuck to the pan. Wait till most of the vinegar has evaporated off, then ad the bulgar wheat, followed by a cup of water, put a lid on and simmer.

The wheat takes about 10 minutes to cook, after which most of the water is poured off, leaving enough to keep it moist. Then, it's served and garnished with a some few threads of the chilli sauce.

Served with

In this case, I used this to accompany some quorn garlic and herb chicken things. And topped it off with some garlic bread that's been hanging around for ages.

Comments

So, yeah, this meal had a lot of garlic in it (the olive oil was garlic infused as well). It was reasonably hot. I really like the MSG/Soy/Rice Vinegar combination which I discovered recently and currently using in lots of food.

I quite like the Bulgar wheat; it's nice to have another staple to play around with.