Where's the Jerk?

After I got the pigs I had to find a source of fruit and vegetables to feed them.  Ideally I wanted organic but there is no one growing or selling locally.  I found a vegetable shop in the nearby town delighted to give me slightly old produce.  A lot of the stuff is a bit shook but some of it is surprisingly good.

Pigs are not keen on onions and I had been fishing them out and putting them aside if they were ok.  Then the other day I rooted in the crate and found a load of chillies.  There were some beyond use but lots were perfect.  Anything too rotten to feed to the pigs goes into my compost. 

I made Jamie Oliver's recipe for Jerk seasoning a couple of years ago.  We made a huge jar and promptly forgot about it.  It was in at the back of the fridge.  After about a year I remembered it.  It was still perfect and had mellowed and was no longer breathtakingly fiery.  I had used Scotch Bonnets and when I tasted it initially I didn't like it at all.  After the long storage it had completely changed character and was fantastic with pork, ham hocks and chicken.

I modified the recipe slightly as the chillies I had got for free were the ones pictured.  They are not as fiery as Scotch Bonnets but they still have a bit of kick.

Ingredients                                                                                                
a good big handful of chillies (equivalent to about 4 packs you buy in supermarket)
4 red onions
4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon each of nutmeg, ground cloves, cinnamon and all spice.
a sprig of thyme
4 bay leaves
salt and pepper
5 tablespoons vinegar
5 tablespoons rum

Blitz everything in a food processor except the bay leaves.  Transfer into clean dry jars and store in fridge for as long as you can.  The above quantity made 3 jars.

To use marinate the pork or chicken for a couple of hours with the jerk and then as it cooks continue to baste the meat with it.  If cooking ham hocks boil until the meat is tender and falling off the bone.  Remove, allow to dry and then coat them in the jerk and roast in a hot oven until crusty and browned.

Jamie Oliver   Jerk Seasoning  Scotch Bonnets  Chillies  Ham Hocks  Food  Recipes

Wine Post

Picture the scenario - it's a Friday evening, it's wine o'clock, and suddenly something incenses me or something earlier in the day has incensed me.

Up comes the laptop lid and I let fly.

It never ceases to amaze me the ease with which I type a post having wellied into a bottle of wine.  Yes, I know all the statistics about drinking.  I'm not making an excuse and I don't recommend it (well I do actually - but not officially). 

The posts I write in these circumstances are what I refer to as my rant posts.

They get the largest number of views by a mile.

The fact that they have to be edited the next morning is hardly surprising but what is surprising, is that the editing is surprisingly small.  When I sit at the keyboard stone cold sober, I change every sentence over and over, to get it just right.  I deliberate on how I want to lay it out, I wonder if my punctuation could be better, have I checked my spelling.

What I really want to know is; who reads them.  What does the reader think.  Do they agree or disagree.  Do they think - oh no here we go again.

It's like I'm ranting in a vacuum.  It's like a very unsatisfying row where no one is countering with the opposite viewpoint.  I love a good row, I always have done.  But a rant is not the same as a good row.  It's self-indulgent.

So my question is - should I give up the wine or should I give up the writing under the influence of wine? Is the rant a result of the wine or is the wine a result of the rant?

Tags: Wine Post Wine

Dear Tesco

Dear Tesco,


I am writing this letter more in vain than in hope.


You opened a huge new superstore near me in a bog in Co. Cavan, not long over a year ago now.  When you opened it was a miracle!  Suddenly we had a shop that supplied dragon fruit, fresh tuna and papparadelle.  It was a miracle - no a mirage - in a bog.

The locals had never seen the like and the "foodies" were in heaven as they had no longer to drive to Dublin to get ingredients.

I was able to tell my sister, resident in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, that I could get her celery seeds so that she could pickle her glut of cucumbers.  Who would have thought?  (or if you are on Facebook, who would "of" thought?)

It was sheer bliss; but like the megastore you opened in Bloomfield in Dun Laoghaire with it's stunning fish display - it was short-lived.  You realised - no profit realised - that Cavan people were; "meat and two veg" and not much else, so the rest of us, could get lost.


The dragon fruit was replaced with swede and parsnip and the tuna with chicken fillet.


The pasta aisle diminished from De Cecchi to Dolmio, from oricchiette to short-cut macaroni.


The spice racks from galangal to cinnamon.


We, foodies were of no importance.  But to be fair we realised that you had profit margins and shareholders to consider. 


However, the final straw was, as far as I am concerned, your decision to stop stocking free range chicken.  We here in Ireland have access to British television though Sky.  We are aware of Jamie Oliver's campaign to try to improve the plight of the intensively-reared chicken.  Some of us actually care that chickens have horrendous lives.  But your care is only "lip service".  The free range chicken in Bailieboro does not sell so instead of making the effort to sell, you take the easy way out and stock the intensive stuff. 


Your staff in Bailieboro are probably the nicest and most helpful in Ireland but they haven't a clue about food.  You don't bother to invest the time to train them. So the friendliest staff have no idea of the hapless lives the chickens lead that they sell on the shelves.  It's no wonder that they look at me like I have ten heads when I ask, "where are the free range chickens"?


I know your answer before I ask - profit margins.


But sometimes principle must come before profit; even in the multi-nationals.  Sometimes it is right to do something even if it does not make a profit.  Sometimes a company has to be reputable.  You are a British multiple trading in Ireland.  You are responsible for the displacement of many local retailers and suppliers.  You have a responsibility, albeit a moral responsibility to consider the welfare of animals you supply as meat.  You have responsibility to your customers, to give them the option to make the right decision. Do you care? Do you heck?

Tesco   Free Range Chicken  Jamie Oliver  Galangal  De Cecci  Dolmio  Celery Seed  Cavan