Oyster

Had a hell of a busy week, starting off with the Steve Earle gig at Perth Concert Hall. I went with Claudia Massie and her brother (and the Spectator's political blogger) Alex Massie. Steve Earle has just released an album of Townes Van Zandt covers and was great. Very good banter, especially his tale of Townes' horse Amigo and the trips they used to make across mountain ranges. Steve said that the day Townes had to sell Amigo was the day "he started dying". Quite emotional stuff as Townes was Steve's hero and became a mentor, collaborater and friend. Great gig and another winner for Perth which seems to do well for a northern-central small Scottish city.

Then off to Edinburgh to catch a lecture at St Cecilia's Hall on the Cowgate entitled "Scotland's Historians: the Development of Eighteenth Century Historical Studies" with Tom Devine, Chris Smout, A.I MacInnes and C.A Whatley all speaking, chaired by Brian Lenman. All very august and distinguished professors in their field and a fascinating subject, but having been spoilt by the much more dynamic Richard Oram and Michael Penman at Stirling University, these men seemed rather stuffy and spoke awkwardly and frankly, badly. Typically, many academics who look so good on paper are very disappointing when put in front of an eager audience. By the end of the talk (I left before the questions) I counted at least five very suspicious nodding heads - by that, I mean amateur historians driven to deep and untroubled sleep by the woeful presentation on show. However, I encourage you all to read these professors books - they are wonderful.

After this made a rather dismal paella round at Fleur MacIntosh's house, the lady behind Godiva and go-reborn about which I have written reams. Check out the go-reborn shop in the Princes Street Mall and Godiva on the Westport off the Grassmarket. The large quantities of wine used to wash the paella down seemed to do the trick, then I was out and the night of Edinburgh was my oyster.

I prised it open and took a big, voluptuous bite.

Back in the country now and up to my eyes in mud, horses, dogs and fog, all of which I will write more about later.

The Return of the Food Blog: Moules & Kedgeree at Dudley Drive

Took a trip to Glasgow to catch up with an old friend and his Spanish girlfriend, and was immediately waylaid by a table-full of tapas – ensaladilla rusa, smoked salmon on toast, chorizo, Parma ham, blue cheese on biscuits, pizza, olives and feta, and a nice bottle of Rioja. The next day a plan was formed to venture to the Kelvingrove Museum where we were treated to a rousing organ solo (plus a close up of the organist’s feet) and a reverential visit to the skeleton of the Baron of Buchlyvie. He was possibly the most famous Clydesdale stallion to stalk the fields of Stirlingshire and is spoken of in hushed and hallowed tones in Buchlyvie itself, where blogger resides.

We went to the Alan Beveridge fishmongers on Byres Road and purchased smoked haddock, smoked salmon, kipper fillets, a bag of mussels and left grinning inanely. Then it was next door for a handful of limes, a bag of flatleaf parsley, onions and garlic.

The plan was to make a big steaming bowl of moules with garlic, white wine, cream and parsley and wash it down with the Martin Codax Albariño I got at Peckham’s and follow it an hour or so later with a steaming bowl of kedgeree and some more rioja. Some call us greedy. Some call us blessed by the hand of a foodie god. Whatever. Here´s what we made, and by golly were we a happy bunch of sailors. Kedgeree is an Anglo-Indian dish purportedly taken to India by Scots and traced back to some Macdonalds in the 1790s. This seems somewhat apocryphal to me and I prefer to believe it was invented by Indians and stolen by the Victorians. Diana Rigg´s mother Beryl, stationed in Jodhpur in the 1930s, made it with sultanas and tinned sardines. Our version is slightly richer and inspired by Delia Smith´s recipe from her book ‘Fish’ (BBC 2003). Also, managed to get hold of some enormous duck eggs on Byres Road which ups the ante a wee bit.

The moules were unable to be photographed as they leapt wildly down our throats.

The food was unreal:

Moules:

Fry garlic and onion gently in olive oil

Add huge amounts of white wine

Add mussels, put lid on

Wait til they open

Add lashings of cream and loads of flat leaf parsley

Cook a wee bit more

Eat with loads of bread and white wine

Kedgeree:

Poach the fish in milk for 10 minutes

Hardboil four humongous duck eggs

Seperate fish and keep milk aside

Fry garlic and onio in olive oil

Add rice

Add fishy milk to rice and some hot water

Leave rice to simmer on low heat for 15 minutes

Flake fish and chop up positively gigantic duck eggs

Mix

Add loads of flatleaf parsley (chopped)

Top with a gutsy dollop of creme fraiche

Put wine in glass

Gorge

Photos by Andrew Faraday Giles and David Daker. Wine not included.

go reborn: XMAS 2009

Paper X

I've got some poems published in this, a great publication with a bloody good attitude towards dissemination of artwork. More soon.

Gas

Michael Kearns has finally published his historic tome 'The Drama of AIDS: My Lasting Connections with Two Plays that Survived the Plague'. This poem to celebrate that, and to remember all my brothers who were lost.

It is ostensibly about Katharine Hepburn.

I’ll let you into a secret. I’m not a fan
of the pricks that ask for a hymn or a
gin-bottle memory of me and my African
man so I drive about booted up like a
soldier, head up and my chin out like
a hunting rifle
foot on the gas
and a whisper so the crowds don’t
part: fill her up, please, spat out in tiny
bullets.
Kate, Kate,
Calm the voice, tone it down or
you’ll hitch that hick on your knife-
sharp suit; this fruitcake’s got me doing
a Hepburn high kick but like I told him I’m
just passing through. Clatter Kate he called
me, stilting tower-high down Sunset in his
textbook memory with my stilettos
(they
weren’t stilettos kid but knives on the soles
of my feet to deal with the wives.
What a
schmuck.) I’m your biggest fan; here we go
again, just pour me the damn juice. I’m
an ass - and this cut-out moose for an attendant?
He wobbled like a set-piece and clocked me
flustering
feather-thin which is all
I can muster these days.
I’m old.
He’s all slick with grease-monkey gumption
and a pot of gold and a box-set and in debt
to my career so I told him:
Buster, stick to the pumps.
I could have pushed him over with my pinkie

and when the sky came down like a fist
the winded revelation went something like
this: you ain’t got more smarts than me Miss
Hoity-Toity so get off my ass.
Damn, boy’s a
pro. But if I’m not good to go in five seconds
I’m finding a cop
and he laughed a big meaty laugh, I said get off my
ass Miss Kate and I had to laugh too,
jazz-bop and
bamboo-lined booths and the grooves with me in my
uptight fishnets and a cigarette on a stick with
Mister Tracey fug-bound,
mouthing something quick.
Those were the days.
I have a life kid, so fill me up
then I’m highway-hugging ‘til I hear singing.

Spencer, oh how the boy talked of Spencer,
queer little pump kid with Hollywood’s back bars
and fast cars and an old film-star in his
forecourt, filling me in and sucking up the fame:
an addled dame and a boy with an eyeful
on her angles.
I’m getting tired

Every kid’s got a Tracey in their soul, a Tracey-
sized hole that makes them drive a state or two
to fill it up.
That’s on the house, not like you deserve it but
like I say and he turns away too quickly.
I can hear the smoky sounds of a faraway
jazz night, boy, but I won’t tell you
that, right? Better put up a fight and like I said I’m
only passing through.
Thanks kid. I shove on the old Hepburn
grimace: nice pumps, shame about the face.

Gas, AFG

The Green Gallery, Buchlyvie

Colliding Tides, Roseanne Barr

Just popped in to peruse my acquantaince Roseanne Barr's work currently showing at the hidden gem Green Gallery in Buchlyvie, fifteen miles from the city of Stirling. Near Buchlyvie I have made my home, hence the bucolic posts and rhapsodic tales of countryside living. I went with blog friend Claudia Massie, her of the incomparable landscapes and featured many a time in this blog. Both artists are fresh from a triumphant run as finalists in the Jolomo Awards earlier this year, and Claudia has spent the summer as part of the 'go reborn' project and also showing at the Flaubert Gallery in Edinburgh's Stockbridge (see earlier posts).

We were met by Andrew Walker, husband of the inspiration behind the Green Gallery, Becky Walker. He gave us a marvellous tour of the gallery which is set in fab surroundings in the village of Buchlyvie. They've quite recently moved from a place in nearby Aberfoyle and here the bespoke space is a gleaming light-filled old Coachhouse with a spectacular sculpture garden. Outside in sweeping fields a shepherd was a work with his three sheepdogs, and the grounds of the house at Ballamenoch where the gallery is situated are pretty special.

Becky herself shows various exhibitions every year and apart from Roseanne Barr, other well-known local artists such as Marion Drummond, Rowenna Laing and Francis Boag can all be found here. For a more comprehensive list check Becky's website.

It's wonderful now I'm out in the sticks to find such a thriving art scene, situated as we are between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the Green Gallery is well worth a look.

For more info about Becky Walker, the lovely Walker family and their space out here in Buchlyvie call 01360 850180, or email greengallery@sol.co.uk, or find more details and directions here.

More art posts (mostly Edinburgh based) are available and updated regularly on my 'go reborn' collective blog which you can find here.

Cormac McCarthy: The Road

In anticipation of the new film with Viggo Mortensen, possibly the finest man ever to exist (actor, poet, multilinguist and craggy beauty - ooft), and because of my love for all things American or rather americana I bought this on one of my forays into the big smoke. I'd read 'All the Pretty Horses' and 'The Orchard Keeper' and various others and loved the wide, sweeping images of the States and, of course, anything with cowboys and horses is generally good. Fact. I even liked the movie 'No Country for Old Men', although found Javier Bardem's role as a Wild West Uncle Fester somewhat bemusing and unfortunately hilarious.

'The Road', as my mother would say, is a different kettle of fish. It is clearly a McCarthy book - those staccato rhythms, glaucous images of nature and monosyllabic characters all stand out as his trademarks - but the subject matter (a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by fire) is something new. His nameless characters in a featureless landscape managed to evince such emotion from yours truly that I spent two hours wandering around the streets of Stirling thinking the world had ended. It is, admittedly, quite easy to do this in Stirling, being as it is a semi-wilderness, but it is the kind of book any writer would give their teeth to get close to creating.

Now any book I read after seems clumsy, pretentious and longwinded. Strangely when I started 'The Road' I though his habit of piling up short sentences was to be his downfall, but the build up of tension obviously works as I could not put the book away. It is not often that you come away from a book feeling so entirely ravaged, wretched and yet strangely elated, and it shows a master at work when the cityscape you are trudging around is blurred out and you are left lost in a landscape straight out of a book. Very pleasing, in a way, and the best kind of escapism.

Can't wait for the film - of course there are shallow reasons, but one must never overlook ogling as a pointless pastime. Cormac McCarthy is probably the best American writer of his generation, all things considered, and now that he's captured the future of our human race so succintly as well as the past and present, he seems to have reached heights previously undisturbed.

The film also stars Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron. Checking out the cast list I notice a chap called Mark Tierno bagged the role of 'Baby Eater' - a clue as to what you might find on a post-apocalyptic menu.