Well January came and went, in a whirl of italian delicacies.. sunny wintry days should always begin with a cherry jam filled brioche and a coffee... they should always include some porky deliciousness of prosciutto, pate and of course my all time favourite-porchetta..
I enjoyed some lovely cheeses, all the pecorinos, from fresh, just out of the sheep, to the wizened old crumbly cave stored lumps enfused with a flavour and stench to rival an old bishop.
Road trips were a plenty, calling in some old haunts, and some new ones. Montepulciano was a lovely hill top village and the day was beautiful, the wine and cheese tasting was plentiful, and there were more leather boots than you can shake a stick at.
After a lovely month in Florence, I travelled back and spent 36 hours in london. I visited the Hunterian museum (a walk from Covent Gdn) which was one of the strangest collection of articles i've ever seen. It cannot be explained, it must be seen to be believed.
I also visited the Natural History Museum, for the first time. I saw a dinosaur and a blue whale and a wooly mammoth and and and....
I was startled and amazed by the big mammal/dinosaur skeletons. but i couldn't help thinking about what the chops/bacon/sausages/fillet would be like from many of the animals.. I think vegan Paul is lost forever...
On returning to the UK, i had a job interview in Oxford for a bushcraft company, and i had to do a short presentation. I talked about the relationship between food and farming, meat and death.
The more awareness people have of the relationship between meat and death, the more open the state of animal welfare will be. The more open the nature of animal welfare is, the better quality meat we will all be able to enjoy, and the more small specialised farmers will be able to viably sustain themselves.
On the subject of meat. I tasted possibly the nicest sausage i've eaten recently. It was from a butcher in WK, and it was pork and black pudding, it had the lovely twang of black pudding, but with the lovely soft texture of a good sausage. I recommend it highly!
Finally, away from the subject of meat, my cake of the month has to be the raspberry and white chocolate blondie at Sweetpea in WK. If you are unlucky enough to live somewhere other than WK, then i suggest you make the trip, from Meols, London or Nepal. It's worth it.
