Mind Your Mushy Peas and Qs

Mushy peas are a decidedly British side dish - a must with fish and chips. And it seems to be one of the green veg offered at most London food establishments. I had mine at the aptly named Mad Hatter Pub. Our waiter was a bit nutty and had carrot orange spiky hair and every time he approached the table you didn't know what was going to happen. The recipe that follows is courtesy of  Jamie Oliver, who I respect immensely for not only his take on British cuisine, but also for his campaign to get healthier food into American kids. He takes a short cut however and uses frozen peas, while traditional recipes call for marrow root peas (mmmm, don't they sound scrumptious?) that must be soaked overnight. Either way, it's like really tasty, gourmet baby food. All that I'm saying is, give mushy peas a chance.

Now, maybe I've been living under a rock (even I prefer on the rocks), but I was always under the (false) impression that "Mind your p's and q's" was all about good manners. Wrong. Imagine my surprise to find this common admonition (unlike most that derive from horse racing - "by a nose", "photo finish", "neck and neck") is actually an English drinking reference. And I quote: 'Mind your pints and quarts. This is suggested as deriving from the practice of chalking up a tally of drinks in English pubs (on the slate). Publicans had to make sure to mark up the quart drinks as distinct from the pint drinks.' You know, so after drinking like a lout, they knew how must your bill totaled. Brilliant, truly brilliant, and so much more useful than "mind the gap".

The Recipe:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bunch spring onions, chopped
1 handful fresh mint, leaves picked
1 pound (500 grams) frozen peas
2 large knobs butter (I have no idea how much this is, but it's my new favorite saying)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a pan and add the chopped onions, mint, and peas. Cover and leave for a few minutes to steam. Mash with a potato masher. You can do this with a food processor as well, just pulse it until smooth. Whether mashing or pulsing, when it's done add the butter and season very carefully, to taste.

Professor's M.I.Tea

Here's how this process usually works: usually I am inspired by some dish or recipe. Then I think of a clever (in my mind anyway) pop culture tie in. Then I cook it, photograph it and by Thursday or Friday of each week I begin to formulate a post in my head occasionally jotting down ideas or funny lines. By Sunday of each week I begin writing said post in paragraph form. By Monday I put the finishing touches on it and Tuesday do one last proof read before publishing. That's on a good week. Sometimes, however, I draw a complete blank. Completely uninspired and desperately grasping at straws. And then fate plays her hand, and a post like this one falls into my lap...

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and with the death of Russell Johnson (who played the Professor) this week I was forced to Return to Gilligan's Island ( the cookbook, that is). And, what better than the Professor's own breakfast drink of champions? The recipe calls for ice tea mix, lemonade mix, cinnamon, cloves and TANG. Yes, the quintessential 60's beverage. No longer available at my local grocery, I did find that I could've ordered it online but I didn't have time -  a man is man is dead here people. Luckily I had an orange powdered energy drink substitute in my pantry (don't ask). Turns out TANG (which was invented by the same guy who brought us Cool Whip and Pop Rocks) has actual health benefits, too, like caffeine and B vitamins. Who knew it was so good for you, other than the geniuses at NASA that it is? I guess it is rocket science after all.

So you are the smartest guy on a deserted isle with six other castaways and all you have are your wits, a transistor radio, an odd assortment of college text books (which most of us would take on a 3-hour Hawaiian cruise) and unlimited amount of coconut shells. How do you spend your time? Re-inventing the wheel for bicycle (aka Gilligan) powered "machinery" and eating bananas of course. The Professor was also the only one of the magnificent seven to have their own hut, but I can only surmise it was to give him alone time to invent ways not to get off the island. Far be it from me, however, to attempt to explain the inner workings of a brilliant mind. Theoretically, It wouldn't be a quantum leap to make the argument that both MacGyver and Survivor were Gilligan's Island spin offs. Just saying....

The Recipe:

1 cup TANG powder
1 cup instant tea
1 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 10-ounce package lemonade mix

In a large bowl combine all of the ingredients. Store the mixture in a jar. To make beverage add 2 or 3 tsp to 1 cup boiling water. Makes about 68 servings - enough to last a lifetime or until rescued. 

Herbie Goes Bananas Bread

So I originally started making bread while visiting my much older sister. She was ahead of her time, with a rudimentary, non-electric bread maker that resembled a large golden bucket with a churn that aided in the kneading and rising of the dough. Doing macrame and making bread in 1970s San Francisco was her thing and she can be credited for turning me to Beard on Bread, James beards bread bible as it were and a lifelong love of carbohydrates. And being 12, for my first foray I selected to make banana bread - left to my sisters devices it more assuredly would have been zucchini. Anyway,  fast forward blank number of years and I'm still making it, from Beatd's original recipe. Moist and flavorful, but not overpowered by the bananas - and for the record I'm not nuts - that is say I never add them.

The Herbie movie and TV franchise, started in 1968 with feature film The Love Bug and went on to Go Bananas, Ride Again and Go to Monte Carlo all before winding up as an ill fated 1982 TV show starring Bill Bixby (so sad to see Mister Eddie's father go wrong). Truly  movies made for the drive-in, never has so much been made with so little (a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle that is). By the way, Lindsay Lohan and her spate of blasphemous Disney classic remakes will not be discussed here, ever. Enough said. Anyway, with Dean Jones in the driver's seat (although, Herbie didn't always need him) and Michele Lee (who went on to star in the absolutely most fab show ever - Knots Landing) riding shotgun and some Buddy Hackett for good measure, Herbie, wearing number 53 and living the dream as a race car, was the little engine that could.

The Recipe:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup mashed, very ripe bananas (2 large or 3 medium), I like my bananas green, so a great use for the nasty ones

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (purely optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lavishly butter a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan.

Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar. Mix well. Add the eggs and mashed bananas and blend thoroughly.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Combine the milk and lemon juice, which will curdle a bit. Slowly and alternately fold in the flour mixture and milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients (sing to yourself "some dry, some wet, some dry some wet to the tune of "Sunrise, Sunset". Blend well after each addition. Stir in the nuts. Again, at your own risk.

Pour batter into the pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the bread springs back when lightly touched in the center.

A Close Shave Ice

Shave Ice: It's not a snow cone. A decidedly Hawaiian treat, consisting of mounds of shaved (not crushed) ice firmly packed in a cup and loaded with tropical  flavors like mango, pineapple, guava and the more mundane like cherry and blue raspberry. Eaten with a spoon, not sipped or gnawed at like an ice cream cone. The ice has the texture of feathers and melts in your mouth like candy floss. And shave ice stands are as ubiquitous as plate lunch joints in Hawaii. Commercial machines are quite expensive, but we did manage to purchase a home model quite reasonably last summer. It of course doesn't have the blades or the power really needed to do the job, but it's a nice substitute between trips to the islands. A-Lo-ha.

Wallace and Gromit, a decidedly British comedy duo from the hands and imagination of Nick Park. A man and his dog ( who clearly the brains of the operation) who enjoy afternoon tea, cheese and crackers and of course zany inventions (like the Knit-O-Matic). After their cheese holiday to the moon, our stop motion claymation friends find themselves unwittingly embroiled in a sheep/wool smuggling scheme headed by the evil robot dog of Wallace's love interest and wool shop owner, Wendolene. Gromit gets framed for the caper and is sentenced to life, leading to one of the funniest dog prison film sequences ever. He does manage an early release and vindication for being a model prisoner, and being the brains of the pair, exposes the real criminal. A Close Shave won the 1996 Academy Award for Animated Film. It's crackin' good.

The Recipe:

Kids, don't try this at home. Get the first plane to Oahu.

But, if that's not an option, get your hands on a home machine. It's best to start from a block of ice, never cubed. Mound and pack the shavings to the size of a softball in a cup. Add fruity flavors and enjoy.