Lockdown

While this whole Covid lockdown thing has been very challenging and in some cases deadly for many people across the world, I guess we are very lucky and very well placed for this sort of thing.

I can work for home, as well as anywhere, so it makes little difference and my work is no more or less busy and the company I work for has been excellent both in support and flexibility.

We have plenty of storage, although a bigger freezer would help, it's not a huge issue.  We've always shopped with lists and always bought in bulk things we like, so if long lasting things, i.e. olive oil, pasta, rice, toilet paper are ever cheap we buy loads.  We cook most things from scratch, use a lot of dried / canned goods and ignore Best Before and Sell by dates.  I also buy a lot of very long lasting hams and chorizos on our frequent trips to Spain, similar things when we go to Italy.

I counted up what we had, before this happened.  I had nine types of pasta, five types of rice, canned and dried beans, chickpeas, lentils, couscous, polenta, bulgar wheat, fuets, chorizoes, jamons, morcilla....
I also had six different flours and another 4 bags of strong, although most of that has gone now and flour is the one thing, especially strong and 00 that is still in short supply
The freezer is either meat, cheese, cooked portions or green veg.  These are all well packed, not extra packaging  / air as in pre-made meals and I know what's in the freezer, I know a spreadsheet is anal, but it works, especially for shopping.

A shopping list App (AnyList - excellent) and a meal planner both also help in buying what we need and no more, we are both passionate about minimising  food waste and nearly have a wake if we have to throw out anything

Even did a bit of foraging for the laff this week, picked some wild garlic (ramsom) leaves in the Castle's park and made pesto

As I'm home a lot, I've tried choux pastry and made some eclairs, plenty of granola bars, brownies, as well as lots of sourdough,
I've had beer delivered by craftcentral.ie and wine from winelab.ie, I will be ordering some veg for delivery this week

While it terribly tough for many people, certainly people in Ireland, seem to be being responsible and listening ot the HSE and government and hopefully some good, positive habits will come from this

2019-2020 Sourdough

about I year ago I decided to try making sourdough, definitely been a long hard trial, not a good baker at the best of times, but eventually got there.  Several problems, mostly my oven was not hot enough, got that fixed the week before the Lockdown!  Also big difference between non- and organic flour in the starter I've found, but while it's been mostly not great, flavour has been theree and I've enjoyed the process, however frustrating.

Some pictures of progress:

 

 

Lots of very flat loaves, not many worth photographing, last photo is by far the best loaf, I did another the day before , but left it in for about 5 minutes too long, so a bit burned on top, but apart from that good.

Like most baking, it's all about process and repeatability and am enjoying it, although flour has been hard to come by in the Lockdown

The best article I found was this:
https://www.ilovecooking.ie/features/sourdough-bread-masterclass-with-patrick-ryan/

As I live in Ireland, the kitchen is never really warm enough in winter, spring, autumn for good rising and the hot press / airing cupboard is a bit too warm, so I've struggled to get a consistent starter, I switched between organic plain, strong and buckwheat flours for feeding it, especially now when flour is hard to come by

Update 18APR20
Best yet:

 

Mixed flour, as I'm running short 25% strong brown, 75% strong white, only enough strong flour for a couple more, then I'll be mixing plain / cream with brown and odds and sods of strong, organic, buckwheat, garam flours.
But I think my technique is there now and one day there will be enough strong flour back in the shops or I'll have died of the virus, so it won't matter

Update June20:

Bought a 16kg bag of excellent bread flour from  Kells Wholemeal, I will buy flour from them from now on, got yeast as well and will be buy prooving baskets from them, when they are back in stock, latest loaf:

2020 Seville

At the end of February, just before the lockdown, we had a week in Seville, one of my favourite cities in the World and visited  the Roman ruins at Italica, which has been on my to-do list for evah. :)

Loads of great food, including a great little bar near Triana, that we stumbled upon. They did fried quails as a specially, looked nothing special from outside, but when we looked it up, it was a "must visit"

 

 

 

 






Just as we were leaving Sevilla, we could see the storm of the Lockdown coming, so back home and less then 2 weeks before the country closed down

2020 - Barcelona

Usual long gap, 2 holidays this year and maybe no more!  A long weekend in Barcelona in January, stayed near Poblenou, too cold for the beach, much more of an industrial German vibe than Spanish, new area for us.  Found some great food especially El 58 and Minyam.  Llurita was a little fish bar with live music, walking back down from Parque Guell

 

 

Next stop Seville

More Malaga

Forgot to mention, the most stand out breakfast in Malaga is La Recova, slice of toast on a bit of grease proof paper (like the tapas in La Cueva de 1900 - always worth a cana), 5 little pots, sort-of hummus, sopressata (similar to 'Nduja), pork paste, mashed banana and a sort of toffee marmalade! as well as some sliced tomatoes and a couple of grapes, there is also an adjoining craft shop and an art gallery upstairs, unmissable.

Although I love the Cervantes restaurants, and will always go back, staying in Soho, Meson Iberico is close and we went in a couple of times for a drink and tapas and we booked for a Friday night - highlight of the month, staff, service, food all exemplary, this sort of thing:

 ace tapas an

The profiteroles were free with the bill, food was spectacular and is on our must visit list here forever afterwards, same as Gabriel's Cervantes places.  Only a few days left, so feeling a bit sad :(

Happened upon a Sorolla exhibition that had just opened in El Palacio Episcopal de Málaga, unexpected and lovely.  The Revello de Toro Museum, was again great, his painting of women and girls is superb, plus his colours in something seemingly white.   

Museo Carmen Thyssen was good, some great seascapes and a good temporary exhibition on North Africa.  All three Museum / Galleries worth a visit

A couple of of other places, La Queseria, does what is says, great cheese with an excellent selection of great wines, another must for the next visit.  Uvedoble Taberna, San had this on her list and went last night, trendy, local, great wine and food, fancy going there for a meal next time.  Last place for now, Te Piko, just a little bar on Plaza Enrique Garcia-Herrera, but nice tapas and every time we have been, there is great music on, old-school rock and 70's & 80's

We went to Hasta los Andares a few times, great wine bar in  SoHo with a bit of  free tapas, usually great jamon or cheese, with some great racions of the same as well if you need it.  Always great for a last glass.

La esquinita del chupa y tira, a great little Italian deli / cafe / bar, just up from Plaza de la Mercad,  very good, there was also a decent brew pub on the same road, La Botica de Cerveza