Bistecca alla Fiorentina

Or rather not. They don't cut the fore rib in quite the same way in Epsom as they do in Florence, plus I don't know how they cook it. I did ask the chap at Camber Sands how he did his Dexters and I think the answer was hot oven but I don't rightly recall. And nor does the Blogger search function. Reduced to searching my email archive (from the same shop) which reveals the relevant post on May 29th this year. More searching angst.

That being as it may, we have 5lbs 8oz of cow chop, a single bone but cut on the slant to maximise the take at the butcher. Wedge shaped affair with a good blanket of fat for once, maybe a quarter of an inch. 1.75 hours at 190C, 0.25 hours resting. Oven opened once to bast. Very nice it was too, served with a late season pointy cabbage and mashed white potatoes. One day hot, one day cold and one day through the Spong No. 10 mincer and now simmering - while I wonder how much such a mincer would cost now, assuming that one can still buy such a thing. The sort of kitchen which could justify having it would probably prefer something with an engine. But the more important point being that mincing cooked beef gives a quite different result from mincing raw. Although, as it happens, we have a Spong No. 10 precisely because it can mince raw whereas my mother's No. 3 or whatever could only manage cooked.

Wound down with some news items from the DT, the free Guardian and word of mouth, in no particular order.

It seems that some people want to make a law which will punish doctors with up to five years' imprisonment for inappropriate chemical coshing of demented residents of nursing homes. Or perhaps even demented people in the care of their loved ones at home. Do these people forget that the bucket into which we put the criminally insane is commonly labelled schizophrenia, the name for which used to be early onset dementia, or dementia praecox. My suggestion is that such people should be made to do 12 months care assistanting in an underfunded care home for the demented before they get too stroppy about the use of chemical coshes. Let them try the straight jackets and padded cells for size.

And then there is the lady who minds children in her home and is getting excited about a walnut tree which overlooks her garden. She is very worried that some of her children, some of whom might have nut allergies, might get to see a walnut. She is angry because the council say that it is a heritage tree which may not be chopped down or otherwise tampered with. I am worried because if all the walnut trees are listed how am I going to be able to buy a proper shotgun, with a proper English walnut stock if all the walnut trees score as heritage? Like cows, you can only consume walnut trees which have been killed. Wouldn't touch one which has pegged out of natural causes.

Nearer home still, we have the case of the former girls' grammar school which, it is alleged, allows their girls to have and to hold mobile phones in the classroom. Which seems a bit odd. How on earth are you going to teach anything if half the class are away with the fairies on their little screens? And then we got to wondering about examinations. How are you going to stop the same girls taking mobiles into examinations and getting some of the answers with them? Are you going to have to search the girls on entry? How many searchers and people invigilating the searching are you going to have to have to deter the human rights lawyers? Maybe you can buy some machine from one of those dodgy shops in Tottenham Court Road which blocks all known mobile phone signals. Or better still, which makes them emit some ear painful but inaudible signal if you put the thing to your ear.

Time for breakfast.