Sunday, February 20, 2011
Pomolo
Now half way through our second ever Pomolo, the first having been noticed on November 29th last. A little drier than the first, perhaps been in the shop for a little too long, but quite eatable just the same. More fun that its small cousin the grapefruit as one can spend many happy minutes fiddling around with skin and pith. Bit like a pomegranate in that regard.
The shop was in North Cheam and carried an interesting range of groceries and vegetables. I also bought a mouli, the stump of which I finished for breakfast this morning. A sort of giant white radish, much milder than our small ones. Rather good. While in the shop, I also made the acquaintance of a carpet seller, originally from Lahore, who was also an enthusiastic cook. It seems that he had married an English girl who stuck to English cooking and his children followed suit. So although it is not the custom for men in Lahore to cook, at least not in a private capacity, he has now become, on his own account, an excellent cook. He advised me on the proper use of the jars of ready made sauce of which the shop carried a wide range. Sadly, the carpet selling business had gone bust in a rather messy way. He was very sour about the ways of banks. Much the same story as used to be common among the builders in TB: the banks encourage you to borrow to build your business, but when they lose money in some far flung land you have never heard of, they pull in all their loans in this one.
My problems are rather more homely. So over the past few days I have been pondering over the role of string, twine and rope in my life; a role which it seems to me is larger than average - although I do know one or two other people who are keen on string. Must of been something which happened when I was very little.
The result is that I keep significant supplies of both twine and rope hanging in the garage roof. Twine is sizal and comes in large balls from agricultural shops - for example Mole Avon at http://www.moleavon.co.uk/ - while the rope is blue nylon and comes in similar balls from similar shops. And not only do I keep supplies of new, I carefully hoard the old, tying all the scraps together and hanging the resultant hanks from the roof. Hanks made up in the special way I learned in the Boy Scouts - or perhaps when Outward Bound. Interest in string not quite as strong, but still present: this one more the preserve of the BH.
A related interest is knots. So I can still tie a reef knot behind my back and a bowline with one hand. I could probably still do a back splice although I have not tried that one for a while. No opportunity missed to demonstrate my skill with the Spanish windlass. And nothing but a full blown square lashing good enough to tie a couple of sticks together.
Which then associates to knives. One clearly needs a decent knife to mess around with rope. On which front I am sorry to have to report that I have lost track of my army style knife with a two and a half inch knife blade and an old-stype can opener on the front and a three inch spike on the back. A spike which we used to be told was for getting stones out of horses' hooves but is actually for getting knots undone which have been strained tight and hard. Laguioles might have excellent blades - the best I have ever come across - but they come with neither can opener nor spike.
The shop was in North Cheam and carried an interesting range of groceries and vegetables. I also bought a mouli, the stump of which I finished for breakfast this morning. A sort of giant white radish, much milder than our small ones. Rather good. While in the shop, I also made the acquaintance of a carpet seller, originally from Lahore, who was also an enthusiastic cook. It seems that he had married an English girl who stuck to English cooking and his children followed suit. So although it is not the custom for men in Lahore to cook, at least not in a private capacity, he has now become, on his own account, an excellent cook. He advised me on the proper use of the jars of ready made sauce of which the shop carried a wide range. Sadly, the carpet selling business had gone bust in a rather messy way. He was very sour about the ways of banks. Much the same story as used to be common among the builders in TB: the banks encourage you to borrow to build your business, but when they lose money in some far flung land you have never heard of, they pull in all their loans in this one.
My problems are rather more homely. So over the past few days I have been pondering over the role of string, twine and rope in my life; a role which it seems to me is larger than average - although I do know one or two other people who are keen on string. Must of been something which happened when I was very little.
The result is that I keep significant supplies of both twine and rope hanging in the garage roof. Twine is sizal and comes in large balls from agricultural shops - for example Mole Avon at http://www.moleavon.co.uk/ - while the rope is blue nylon and comes in similar balls from similar shops. And not only do I keep supplies of new, I carefully hoard the old, tying all the scraps together and hanging the resultant hanks from the roof. Hanks made up in the special way I learned in the Boy Scouts - or perhaps when Outward Bound. Interest in string not quite as strong, but still present: this one more the preserve of the BH.
A related interest is knots. So I can still tie a reef knot behind my back and a bowline with one hand. I could probably still do a back splice although I have not tried that one for a while. No opportunity missed to demonstrate my skill with the Spanish windlass. And nothing but a full blown square lashing good enough to tie a couple of sticks together.
Which then associates to knives. One clearly needs a decent knife to mess around with rope. On which front I am sorry to have to report that I have lost track of my army style knife with a two and a half inch knife blade and an old-stype can opener on the front and a three inch spike on the back. A spike which we used to be told was for getting stones out of horses' hooves but is actually for getting knots undone which have been strained tight and hard. Laguioles might have excellent blades - the best I have ever come across - but they come with neither can opener nor spike.
# posted by Jim @ 2:19 AM 
