Sunday, November 12, 2006
Beef day
Today we will sample the first fore rib from Pinegar's, our new butcher from Cheam. The only shop I know that still operates a cash window separate from the meat counter. The nearest thing was a butcher in Swanage who had the window, but no longer in use. This particular butcher had been in business since I was born in 1949 and sold excellent bacon - sliced from the side on the premises.
The beef will not be accompanied by allotment cabbage (Jannuary King). We had one the other day and while quite edible, the heart had not really hardened up so we think we will leave the rest for a month or so - covered in net to keep the pidgeons off - something we never had to bother with when I was little. On the other hand it was a very handsome cabbage with a good spread of leaf providing a home for a good range of livestock. Remains a mystery how the market can knock out beautiful clean cabbages at 50p a pop given the amount of work it takes me to grow the things by hand. And I don't suppose they even count as organic because I put chicken pellets on the ground by way of fertiliser.
In the absence of cabbage we will have the perpetual spinach instead. Rather a bad year for it (unusually poor germination - at least of the intentional variety - see above (bearing in mind that the way this thing is organised what goes before appears below rather than above)) but we have enough for a meal or two and we might as well eat it before the deer do. Last year we saved some for Christmas but they got in on Christmas Eve and grazed it to the bone.
Continued threshing cucumbers. A sheet of birch ply does quite well to dry the seeds on, the only catch being a tendency to stick. I imagine newspaper would be worse.
Finished off this year's runner beans in yesterday's mince. We can now move onto last year's which having been hanging up in the garage roof for a year or so waiting for occupation.
The beef will not be accompanied by allotment cabbage (Jannuary King). We had one the other day and while quite edible, the heart had not really hardened up so we think we will leave the rest for a month or so - covered in net to keep the pidgeons off - something we never had to bother with when I was little. On the other hand it was a very handsome cabbage with a good spread of leaf providing a home for a good range of livestock. Remains a mystery how the market can knock out beautiful clean cabbages at 50p a pop given the amount of work it takes me to grow the things by hand. And I don't suppose they even count as organic because I put chicken pellets on the ground by way of fertiliser.
In the absence of cabbage we will have the perpetual spinach instead. Rather a bad year for it (unusually poor germination - at least of the intentional variety - see above (bearing in mind that the way this thing is organised what goes before appears below rather than above)) but we have enough for a meal or two and we might as well eat it before the deer do. Last year we saved some for Christmas but they got in on Christmas Eve and grazed it to the bone.
Continued threshing cucumbers. A sheet of birch ply does quite well to dry the seeds on, the only catch being a tendency to stick. I imagine newspaper would be worse.
Finished off this year's runner beans in yesterday's mince. We can now move onto last year's which having been hanging up in the garage roof for a year or so waiting for occupation.
# posted by Jim @ 3:01 AM 
