Happy Birthday America!

(Mental note to self: must not use exclamation marks in every post title).

Travelling Tuesday moved last week to a Thursday to encompass and embrace the 4th July and the accompanying celebrations for American Independence Day.

As someone working on Israel/Palestine issues I am only too aware that one set of people's Independence Day can easily be another's catastrophe so it was with some trepidation that I approached 4th July. It helps that the lovely American friends in Hackney we invited to join us are exactly the sort of people who would uphold Native American/Indigenous/American Indian people's rights and claims for justice. And I would have been quite interested in having some conversations around this issue during our soiree. But limited time and other factors conspired against this. To be honest, though it's fun to invite others to share our Travelling Tuesdays, it does rather take away from any intentional conversation around the place/celebration we are sharing and I think it is quite possible that the kids remain as ignorant about what 4th July means to Americans as they did before we enjoyed our BBQ!

I feel like I am getting less and less adventurous with the food bit of this project. But I have to keep telling myself that it a) needs to be sustainable and I shouldn't beat myself up about its purity and b) sometimes the food will take second place to the celebration or festival itself and the religion/country behind it. (I am already planning an iftar for this week... but not one which most Muslims would recognise!)


THE DISH
So, an All American Bar-beeee-que. Hooray for the wonderful BBQ weather we're having at the moment. It would have been a sad state of affairs indeed to have to have eaten indoors!

Burgers - I never buy burgers. But I testify that Sainsbury's Taste the Difference burgers are totally awesome (well probably about as best as you'll get in a supermarket anyway!).
Corn - never quite got it on the BBQ due to lack of space (and a ridiculously mini BBQ which would get laughed out of town in the States!) but never the less it was very good.
Coleslaw - I cheated and bought some but, in homage to Ali Adeney Lawrence who made coleslaw for every single community event she ever went to, I added salted peanuts and raisins. Yum.
Veg skewers - A triumph of red, white and blue even if I say so myself. As I put the mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and, um, dark blue/black grapes on the skewers I did realise I should have plumped for black olives. But actually they went down a storm. BBQ-ed grapes. A new discovery??
Chicken - marinated in garlic and cider vinegar and lime.
prawns - marinated in sweet chilli dressing and lime. Lots of lime used generally. Such a great ingredient.
Green salad - no great shakes just chucked together what was in the fridge.

Firecracker punch - a mash up of various recipes I found which also seemed to get the thumbs up.
0.5 l ginger ale (or more if you like more kick. And adding ginger wine, of course if you want yours alcoholic)
0.5 l lemonade
a good glug of cranberry juice
a good glug of summer fruits cordial (undiluted - all the recipes I found have some sort of sickly sweet ingredient in there somewhere!)
juice of a couple of limes

I decorated the glasses with cocktail sticks of strawberries, blueberries and marshmallows, and plastered mini star-spangled banners everywhere for good measure!

DESSERT

We were somewhat drowning in berries and ice cream. But I didn't hear anyone complain. The raspberries in our garden are just about ripe too so it felt good to be celebrating the abundance of summer. Kari's mum had worked on blueberry farms in Indiana and I have fantastic memories of strawberry picking as a child. Mental note to self no 2: take kids strawberry picking this holiday.

And watermelon. We had watermelon. It just makes everyone happy. 

THE VERDICT
Unless you abandon your evening's conversation it is pretty difficult gauging exactly what kids eat on an evening like this, let alone gauge their response. It helped that Little Elizabeth (as we call her.. to distinguish her from the Minister!) inhabited the role of 'mum' to her family of 4 kids (most of whom are double her age) and I could happily abdicate responsibility of who was eating what to her. She even got them to wash their hands before dinner. (She can come again!).

But no one went to bed hungry. And we didn't have much left over. And though Justin had never before in his life drunk a Budweiser I don't think we did too badly at good ole U S of A authenticity for such an occasion (though we sort of run out of time for the sparklers I'd bought... though in the broad daylight of a summer evening they might have been a bit odd). And we even got to our second engagement of the evening in time. So all in all another triumph!

 

International Sushi Day

OK so it's more than 2 weeks ago now. Sorry. I am getting slack at this blogging lark. I ought to get back on track otherwise by the time I am writing about the past week I have to be thinking about the next week and that makes for more stress in my life than I like to have.

It was International Sushi Day on 18 June and though I am normally full of disdain for those made up days of celebration I thought it was too much of a gift for inspiration to pass up. 

The only thing is that... sshhhh (don't tell anyone)... well, how to put this? I have never actually had sushi. What a 21st century faux pas! Does it just mean that I am over 40 so naturally slow with new fads? Or is it a stark indication that, after all these years, after 9 months in India that I thought had cured me, after all these Travelling Tuesdays, I am still am an unadventurous, fussy eater at heart? Shock horror.

I have, at least, been lucky enough to have a sumptuous dinner at the best Japanese restaurant in Town - Nobu on Old Park Lane - thanks to Steve and Mel's impeccable taste for their wedding banquet. But little packets of cold rice wrapped in seaweed has just never really yelled 'eat me' loud enough for me to hear.

And friends, I admit it, I projected all my conservatism onto my children, especially as it was while N was in Mozambique and I knew I wasn't going to be able to big it up quite enough to get away with it.

So here is the sorry tale of sushi served up with what could only be described as a ploughman's lunch. Is this a culinary first?

The response, in a nutshell, wasn't great. Mr Middle would barely get it to his mouth. Eldest gave it a good go when she realised one had tuna in the middle but didn't really like it and though I, at least, did eat all of one (is there a singular noun for sushi?) I can't say I'll be queuing up at Yo Sushi! anytime soon. But, in the great way that kids have of blowing away all your preconceptions, Youngest took one look at the neat ball of rice (he's a bit of a rice king) and without a fuss or a negative word, just popped it all in his mouth at once. I nearly fell off my chair. I can't say he loved it, but I think he would try it again, so I guess that's a result.

I did, finally, get to make some elderflower cordial though - yippee.

24 flower heads
1lb sugar
2 lemons
half packet citric acid (round here it's sold as 'lemon salt')
2 1/2 pints water

Boil the water with the sugar, citric acid and grated lemon rind. Leave to cool off a bit. Add lemon juice and flower heads and steep for at least 24hrs, longer if you like. Sieve and strain and bottle.

Not very Japanese though.