Blog for Elaine

“It’s not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life; it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the most power”.  Robert T Kiosaki

I have been somewhat remiss with my writing!  I have started a few blogs, most notably one about Hamburg that made several hundred words but it didn’t feel right.  I’m not sure how to explain that, I perhaps flatter myself by alluding to myself as a writer but I do have a “feel” for what is working and what isn’t; Hamburg Blog Mark 1 was not working.  I may attempt another but Hamburg wasn’t what I thought it would be so I may not bother.

Instead I am going to just give my millions of avid readers a quick catch up on what has been going on in the palace of wisdom that is my brainium.

Firstly, I have just this week finished my counselling.  The quote above was in a card my counsellor, Elaine, gave to me after my last session.  I had no idea who Robert T Kiosaki was and had to look him up on Wikipedia but I’m sure he is a terrifically clever fellow so I tip my hat to him.  Thank you Elaine for everything you have done.  I do feel better for having done the sessions which were ostensibly about my tendency to misuse alcohol but I feel was much more about addressing certain issues that had been bottled up.  To further the metaphor, the cork is out and I have sprayed those issues about me excitedly in the manner of a Grand Prix winner.  Things that had to be said out loud to a real live person were very much said out loud.  I like to think I’m a pretty nice guy but 12 hours of listening to me waffling on about myself must be fairly trying so Elaine has certainly earned her salary there.

In our last session we spoke about positivity and in particular how we to an extent reward negativity and aggression in our lives.  I have always had a fond regard for the comedy character Victor Meldrew and enjoyed the TV series Grumpy Old Men; as I get older I found myself more and more like them and was possibly far too comfortable in that.  We couldn’t think of a comedy character that was the opposite of Victor, someone who we laugh at but secretly respect for their rosy outlook on life.  There is my challenge.  I want to make that character exist; on the written page or by my own actions it matters not.  I want to stop moaning and start praising.

With that in mind I am going to mention a few things that have happened recently or re due to happen that have cheered this miserable bugger up a little.

Firstly, I am in contact again after a gap of far too many years with my cousin Michael.  I have two cousins of my own age, Lisa and Jason, who I consider more friends than family these days and I am very glad I am in contact with but Michael was my favourite cousin when I was a youngster.  Michael is the son of my Dad’s youngest older sister and as a kid he was a bit of a hero to me; my slightly eccentric dress sense at times is in homage to how I remember him from when I was ten or so (well, when I picture him I get an amalgam of him and David Niven in my mind but still…).  In the brief time we have been in contact again Michael has introduced me to something called Steam Punk; a phrase I had heard before but not really known about.  To use Michael’s words, it’s like when sad old goths discover brown so you can probably understand how that appeals to me.  With my fondness for Victoriana and classic English styling I am part way there already.

My attitude to dress has changed in recent years because there is nothing I find more embarrassing than a middle aged man trying to dress like a teenager.  I am avoiding negativity here but my idea of hell would be having to wear track suit bottoms and trainers in public when I’m not on my way to a gym.  I am almost 42, my weight is up and down but generally I cut the portly figure of a man that can enjoy a pork chop and a crisp, cold German beer.  Or two.  I no longer try to dress like a rock-dude that never quite made it because I have seen other men of around my age and/or girth that can’t carry off the look and have no reason to believe I’d fare any better.  I still consider myself fairly fastidious; yesterday I insisted on wearing a sweater-vest all day despite the temperature because I was wearing a black belt with brown boots and was convinced everyone would notice.  In the past I have gone as far as to have three different watches with different coloured straps to match my belt and shoes. I have also noted the advice of Go Wank and Tranny and Susannah and avoid horizontal stripes lest it accentuate my greatest (in the majorative sense) feature.  I’ve always been honest about my attractiveness; I’m not a looker (and It would not upset me if John Inverdale said so) and because of that I have to make an effort to look even barely human, which I think I just about achieve, though at times my simian countenance suggests and ancestral heritage unusually varied in species diversity!

Today I am off to Rox.  Rox is a free music festival in my adopted home town of Bognor Regis (Come on you rocks!), mostly featuring local talent.  I have been once before but the past two years I have managed to run out of money before the months end and been unable to attend.  This year I have made measures to ensure I can go; I have a bus pass to get me there and back and am being put up by the very kind Sam and Charlotte (with the added promise of decent sausages on Sunday morning).  I am mainly going to see Matron; a mod covers band that features my friend Ian on bass.  They are fantastic live and if you are in the West Sussex/Hants area and get the opportunity, go see them live.  I am also hoping to see the deeply talented Olivia Stevens aka Ruby Tiger on Sunday afternoon, I haven’t seen her live yet but I am certain she will be fab.  And should If 6 Was 9 (Hendrix cover band) be playing in Cheers over the weekend I’ll be sure to catch them.  I will be making notes and taking a few pictures so watch this space for a follow up blog.

Other upcoming events that will be reported on:  The Chilli Festival at West Dean and hopefully a naturist swim at Halcyon Pool in Eastney, if they ever get back to me. 

Classic Anxiety Dream and Poetry

I had a bad dream last night.

I woke up with my heart racing and slightly stunned.  It wasn't a nightmare as such, I had one of those a few months back where I did actually cry out in fear in my sleep.  This was during the bleakest time in my self worth and scared t'mrs more than it did me.  No, this was more of an anxiety dream.

Anxiety dreams I am sure effect different people in different ways.  Some people, for example, have that one where they are naked in public.  For me that is not anxiety provoking, indeed I quite enjoy those dreams.  I have two kinds of anxiety dreams which are probably quite common.  One involves heights: I am never falling in these dreams but more likely perched somewhere up high and too frightened to move.  In other versions I find myself in unlikely situations like flying a plane or on a roller-coaster.  I suffer from vertigo in real life; only yesterday a cliff edge scene in the film I was watching made me recoil; so you will NOT find me willingly on a roller-coaster or bungee jumping or hang-gliding or any of these things some of you maniacs do.  The height part of dreams are often involved in nocturnal thoughts that are otherwise quite nice and are barely a distraction from the rest of the dream.

The other anxiety dream I have quite often is about being late or more specifically being late and no matter what I do to try and get to where I am going, find myself getting more and more delayed and no nearer to getting there.  I gather these dreams are quite common among fairly normal people so not necessarily down to my being a nutter.  I've had these kinds of dreams since my school days.

In the dream last night I was due to be flying to Hamburg and I woke up late having not set my alarm; indeed already too late for the flight.  Then everything went wrong.  I couldn't find my passport.  I couldn't find the tickets.  All of the clothes I wanted to wear were still dirty in the suitcase from my last trip (in which case they would have been there for four years!) and I had no money for the train to the airport.  Of course this is all nonsense.

I have a real issue about punctuality; I can't bear to be late myself and it irks me terribly when others are late.  My travelling companion to Hamburg, Charlie, is at least as anal as me in regards to timekeeping if not more so and there is absolutely no chance we will not be at Gatwick two hours before our flight leaves.  The alarm WILL be set, in fact we will probably have an alarm each ready.  We will both have suitcases packed in advance and hand luggage replete with passport and tickets ready to grab.   Wifey has already agreed to drive us to Gatwick and is aware at how early we will want to leave (5am!).  Short of some natural disaster we are not going to be late.  We will be too early to check our luggage in when we arrive at the airport so will have to wait around, we will literally be the first on our flight to do so and thus the last to get our luggage at the other end and will have to wait around for two hours before we can board our flight except it will be three hours because the flight will be late.  So I'll end up having a pint or two and will then want a nap in the afternoon.

There here follows a gap of several days where I forgot I hadn't finished this blog because I've actually been busy!

Yes, several days have passed and not two nights ago I had a very disturbing dream.  In this dream I'd had a skull transplant.  No, I don't know how that would work in real life either but it didn't actually happen in real life, it was a dream, so sue me.  The operation had left me bald and disfigured and with massive cranial scarring.  Something then went wrong and a massive bulge appeared on the side of my already malformed head and I was told this was a tumour.  Did I wake up in a fevered sweat, panting with relief?  No, I woke up quite normally and thought "that was a weird dream" and that was it.

So what do I feel anxious about?  Surely as a privileged, white male I have everything I could ever want?  Yes, I suppose I do have a home, a job and food on the table so my lot is not a truly awful one.  But I am a born worrier.  To tell me not to worry would be like to tell me not to have brown eyes; I do and I will.  I am prone to stress, anxiety and depression.  I am not proud of this, I do not feel it makes me more interesting and I do not believe as some do that only intelligent people get depression.  I believe that perhaps the more intelligent people are likely to recognize depression as an illness and get it treated rather than lashing out at society.  Stephen Fry has recently admitted to a suicide attempt and in his admission said what I believe; clinical depression is an illness and there is not necessarily any reason for it.  People in the past have said to me "what have you got to be depressed about?"; they may as well ask what I have to have Colitis about.  Or what someone else may have to have diabetes about.  Wankers.

As a subtext, people who try to tell other people they have nothing to be depressed about are usually trying to let us know how they have it much worse but don't complain about it.  I meet people like this a lot; "I have such a terrible time but I never mention it or complain" (apart from now?); so not only self obsessed but conceited too!  It isn't just depression either.  The same people who make jibes about someone having "man flu" when they have said they have a cold are then the worst people to know when they are ill.  By the way, that "man flu" joke... so ten years ago, really, even if you use it correctly.

Me:  "I have a cold."
Unfunny person: "Aaaah, do you have man-flu?"
Me: "Sorry, I think you have misunderstood.  I said I have a cold.  If I'd said I had flu but my symptoms were merely cold-like then the joke would work.  You're not very bright are you?"

I've had flu twice in my life.  It was really horrible.  I know the difference.  The only real upside to having Ulcerative Colitis is that because I am on immuno-suppressant drugs I get a flu jab every year so I'm not likely to ever have that again.  The other thing that is really horrible, by the way: Tonsilitis.  I've only had it once but it hurts like hell and I couldn't swallow properly for six months after! Anyone who gets that regularly has my sympathy.

I am currently a third of the way through three weeks off work.  I have some minor money worries, as always but nothing like those of four years ago.  Much as I don't love my job, being away from it for a while seems to be helping me realise it isn't as dreadful as I sometimes have myself believe.  And now the bad news!

Trawling through the charity shops of Emsworth a couple of days back I bought myself a couple of Blu-rays (Goodfellas and Scarface) and Stephen Fry's "The Ode Less Travelled", a book about the writing of poetry.  I used to write poetry and then I stopped, thinking it was a bit pretentious and I wasn't very good at it.  Well, so what?  I don't care if it makes me a mewing pansy and I start wearing a floppy hat and scarves indoors, I used to do it because I enjoyed it and it was cathartic! So watch this space... bloody awful poetry coming soon!

On food, nature, name-dropping and The Jesus And Mary Chain

It is fair to say I like my food.  I can pack a fair amount away if I am enjoying it; whether that be a Chinese takeaway or my mother-in-law’s tri-weekly Sunday lunch.  I watch TV shows about food, I read about food, I try to cook and I even partially plan holidays around food (or did when I could afford holidays), indeed I spent my honeymoon in China, mostly to visit somewhere I and my wife hadn't been to but the possibility of eating Chinese food every day for two weeks did not dissuade me at all. 

I like most food.  I have just eaten a bowl of mussels, prawns and squid in a sweet chili sauce.  Very nice it was too.  I realise that not everyone likes seafood but I MOSTLY love it.  Much as I like food there are still certain things I don’t like.  I like seafood very much, the only thing I have tried so far that I really didn’t enjoy was whelks; similar to jumbo winkles and chewy as heck; oversized bogies from a person with a mucus membrane infection.  I have enjoyed oysters, rollmops, crab, kippers, squid, scallops, smoked or poached salmon… most fish you can think of really.  One thing I haven’t tried and probably never will… jellied eels.  When Manuel chides the chef in Fawlty Towers with “cockney stinking eel pie” I relate to his sentiments entirely.  I would try eels and I can cope with jelly in a pork pie but together; ugh!

It is now another day (the words were not flowing freely last week) and the most recent meal I have cooked was a fish pie that had in it cod, smoked haddock, salmon and king prawns as well as yellow and green peppers and courgettes.  In a gesture towards my weight the mash was made not with butter but fish stock and garlic (usually we use vegetable stock but we have run out!)

I watched Masterchef avidly this year.  I don’t always catch it but this year I had a favourite competitor that I wanted to win… and she did!  Her name is Natalie Coleman, she was a chirpy cockney and a bit of a raver by all accounts.  Predictably some of the coverage after her win was about a woman making it in a man’s world… oh please, get over yourself.  This is 2013, this boys against girls stuff really is so 20th Century.

Much as I like Masterchef and much as I like cooking I would never be tempted to enter, no matter how good I became because I just know I couldn’t hack the professional kitchen.  Indeed, you should hear the language that comes out of me when I’m trying to co-ordinate a roast dinner.  You’d think I was my cousin Jason!  I would like to be better technically though and am exploring the possibility of some classes when I am eventually free of debt.

Masterchef is by far not the only cookery programme I like to watch.  My favourites are probably The Hairy Bikers.  

There is something about their personalities that makes up for the fact they are technically probably not the best of chefs on TV and the travel aspect of their shows tend to be more human and involving than many others.  I have also enjoyed the works of Jamie Oliver, Rick Stein, Gary Rhodes, Delia Smith, Sophie Grigson and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall.

The latter named Mr FW also falls in to the category of food writer and I have enjoyed his written works.  This is a guy who cares about food; how it is produced and how it is used.  Like him I think it is important that food is shown respect, especially if like me and Mr FW that involves eating things that used to be alive.  If you are vegetarian or vegan, I am sorry if it offends you but I consider myself an omnivore and I have no plans to stop eating meat and/or fish.  But to give an animal a life of misery before eating it, well, the hippy within me feels that not only is it ethically wrong but it contaminates what we consume with bad vibes, man.  Similarly some people sneer at organic produce but if I could afford it all of my food would be organic and/or locally sourced.  The GM issue is not one I know much about but to my ignorant mind the thought of tampering with the genetics of something we are going to eat doesn’t seem like a good idea.  I say I am against it but I really don’t know enough about the issue (the other day I embarrassed myself by not knowing what Monsanto is so thank you to Jessica O’Brien for pointing me in the right direction on that one).  

If you have children, I don’t, then the question is would you want something genetically modified in your child’s mouth.  Sadly, that does kind of assume that all parents care about their children’s nutrition.  I of course only know intelligent and caring parents but there are still those that would still serve their kids Turkey Twizzlers and act as if Jamie Oliver is a monster trying to deny them their human rights.  There is no entrance exam for having kids.

Another food writer I have enjoyed the work of is Giles Coren and not just because I have enjoyed exchanges with him on Twitter (he described my rhubarb plant as “bolted like an old horse”).  Giles Coren is the son of the late Alan Coren who  I somehow knew was on Call My Bluff even though I don’t remember ever watching it.  He is the brother of Victoria who presents TVs trickiest quiz show (Only Connect… getting a question right on this bugger really does give one a massive sense of achievement) who is married to comedy actor, presenter and writer David Mitchell who I respect hugely.  I therefore can’t help but feel that Giles, Victoria, David (Victoria and David, great name for a couple!) and I would all be great friends if I had any form of talent within me.  I digress.  I am currently re-reading Giles’ collection “How to eat out” which I recommend very much.  He has a sometimes acerbic style but clearly does not have any huge conceits about his own worth, I have seen him praise a sausage roll in the same manner some writers would praise Powdered Anjou Pigeon.  I have also enjoyed his work with Sue Perkins on TV, both have a very natural style to them and to this day they remain my favourite ever TV partnership.  If you feel that television presenters should act with a certain amount of decorum then their shows may not be for you but I loved them.

I have also enjoyed watching shows by Heston Blumethal.  As a former holder of the best Restaurant in the world trophy for The Fat Duck (fuck you everyone who pokes fun at British cooking) he is clearly a unique talent in the culinary field but his TV work tends to be more based on the sensational.  His 80s meal, Halloween feast and giant ice-cream cone all looked like great fun, at least once edited to a television format.  Again, I wish I could be just famous enough to get invited to one of his dinners with my mates David Mitchell and Giles Coren.

Finally, whilst I continue to name-drop (I’ve had a chat with Mark Gatiss on Twitter too… about Dickens no less!) and moving away from food, my mate TVs Chris Packham is on our screens again with the return of Springwatch.  I have enjoyed the work or Mr Packham since I was a teenager and he presented The Really Wild Show and as it became clear he liked the same kind of music as I do I became more interested in his work.  A mutual fondness for The Jesus and Mary Chain is therefore responsible for any knowledge I have about wildlife.  My reference to “my mate” is a running joke based on my once meeting Chris during a talk he did for a local wild life charity, Brent Lodge.  He signed a couple of his books (one that we bought from him there and then) and was friendly enough for a Southampton supporter.  I don’t profess to know much about Wildlife but I always try to catch Springwatch as often as I can.  Chris has a little thing that he does each series where he shoe-horns song titles by particular bands in his narrative; this season it is The Clash.  I know The Clash a little but not well enough to pick up all of the references; unlike the series where he did The Cure and The Smiths, I did very well then.

Springwatch is an important show I think; nature, wildlife, farming and food are all connected.  I wish I was a better shopper and a better eater but financial restrictions do mean I have to sometimes do things I’d rather not such as shopping at Tesco.  I hope to improve.  This is why I got in such a strop last weekend when I based my whole Saturday around the fact that I was going to the Farmer’s Market in Emsworth but wifey had got the wrong week.  Still, I got a couple of new shirts out of it.

Haircut 100(ish)...

I've had a haircut... this is the before picture from yesterday.  Much as I loved the quiff the back and sides needed tidying up.  I will insert an "after" picture below once I can get in the bathroom to put some product in.  The lad who cut it did offer but I declined...

And here it is...

I have kept the quiff!  I think I've finally found a look I'm comfortable with and suits my age.  Hair by Brown's Barbers of Westbourne, by the way.  £9 plus a tip so a tenner. Can't go wrong!

RIP Lord Crimson

 

It is with little regret that we announce the about-timely demise of Lord Crimson, erstwhile Cure Pack tedioso, on 13th February 2013. In equal measures neurotic, self obsessed, libidinous, opinionated and pathetic; Lord Crimson will be missed by few. He succumbed to the emotional injuries sustained in an assault by an aggrieved chimp on Emsworth Station two days earlier after much breast beating and gnashing of teeth. His death had remained unannounced until now as we wanted to make sure he was not coming back as some form of cadaverous lech. He ain't. Gone. Good riddance. 

Lord Crimson is survived by his fun-loving alter-ego, the often naked Minty.  Minty is fond of 80s pop music, Chinese food, French wine, cats and nudity.  Minty will be continuing to write here but things are going to get a lot less fucking whiney!

Planet of Sound

Remember Planet Sound, the Channel 4 Teletext music pages? This was my final entry on The Void (the letters page) where I feature next to the great Tyler Durden. What ever happened to Rebecca Nahid?

Almost... Sweet Talk... Caffeine!

Hmmmmmm, I love me a cup of Joe...

I am making a pot of coffee as I write.  I love coffee.   When I say coffee, I mean coffee out of a bean and not out of a jar.   I like "proper coffee" but find instant coffee undrinkable.  Similarly I can't bear coffee flavoured things;  coffee and walnut cake must be the most over-rated cake EVER and the coffee ones in the Quality Street would be the last to go if they still made them (when I lived with my parents we'd give them all to my Aunt but she is no longer with us and I no longer do.  My wife loved the coffee ones!)

The coffee I am about to have was provided by this company:

http://www.craftedcoffee.co.uk/

Crafted Coffee is a local company that imports quality coffee and grinds and blends the beans so I don't have to and most importantly is run by a coffee lover who I just happen to have met.  I was intrigued by the business and was happy to try the product, I can indeed confirm that their Brazilian Fazenda Rodomunho is delicious.

Even from my crappy cheap coffee machine, which is made my some brand called Solway. Until recently I made all of my coffee in a Bodum cafetiere.  I'm not sure even where the Solway machine came from, I think it was given to us by one of my wife's neighbours when we first moved in together and we'd never used it.  In fact, it failed to sell at the last car-boot sale we did for £1!  But, with a clean up and some decent coffee filters it works fine.  I have produced a robust, rich cup with a good roasted flavour.  I used to have a bean grinder but frankly I am too lazy for that sort of thing and Crafted Coffee make a much better job of it than I ever could.  They also describe the coffee better, so that link again: http://www.craftedcoffee.co.uk/

Having met the proprietor,  Lorraine, I was also enthusiastic about the potential quality of her product due to a mutual dislike (and in my case that is putting it mildly) of Starbucks.  I do like to support local business when possible but at the same time financial restrictions sometimes make using larger chains a necessity.  I've had decent cups of coffee in both Cafe Nero and Costa but the first time I ever went to a Starbucks I was genuinely shocked.  There are various reasons for which one may dislike Starbucks:  Their questionable ethics on paying tax in the UK perhaps? Or their part in driving smaller local businesses out of town by having at least one branch in every town.  But I would say by far the easiest reason for disliking Starbucks is for making such bloody awful coffee.

The first time I had a Starbucks coffee was at an airport.  If I remember correctly I had just returned from Hong Kong, a flight of some 12 hours and I was knackered and jet-lagged.  The only coffee place open at the hour of silly O clock when we arrived back was a Starbucks so we went in and I ordered for myself a large Americano with milk.  A large Americano was my coffee of choice from the Cafe Nero which was near my place of work at the time and it contained enough flavour and caffeine to satisfy me and have me nicely on edge.  Starbucks provided me with a cup of warm, brown water that could have been shamed by Nescafe.  To say it was a disappointment is a massive understatement.  I'd have been more stimulated by walking past a Costa and inhaling deeply.  Fair enough; airport branch early in the morning, perhaps they just didn't have their doo-doos together, so I have tried a Starbucks since then (again, only because of a lack of options) and it was again a feeble attempt at a cup of coffee.  Perhaps they should spend less time arsing about with syrups and toppings and get back to basics!

I am about to have my third cup of Fazenda Rodomunho, it is going down very nicely indeed.  I'm not generally here to plug businesses (apart from http://www.starjammer-internet.com/) but I really do appreciate a decent coffee and Crafted Coffee provide a decent cup of coffee.  So, that link again: http://www.craftedcoffee.co.uk/.  Go on, try them.  To be frank, you can get coffee cheaper elsewhere but I'd be surprised if you can get it better.

Spanish bombs in Andalusia...

I have just made my first paella.  I have made risotto several times and I've had some fantastic goes at that (my own crab and sweetcorn risotto and my wife's roasted cherry tomato risotto are currently tied as my favorites though mine is definitely not to everyone's taste, the rice being initially fried in the oil from a can of anchovies...) but I'd never attempted paella.  To be frank, I've never had a really good paella either.

Manuel: Mr. Fawlty!
Basil: What?
Manuel (wailing): He put mince in it! He put bloody mince in it!!! [he holds Basil's drink and it spills all over Basil]
Basil (very angry): Look what you've done!!
Manuel: Sorry! Sorry! I tell him paella is fish dish.
Basil: Go away!
Manuel: What I do?
Basil: Arriba! Vamoose!

My first introduction to paella was through the Fawlty Towers: The Anniversary episode.  As a special honour Basil is allowing Manuel to cook Paella for Basil and Sybil's anniversary.   Terry the chef is put out and interferes, putting "mince" in it. The shocking thing is that despite never having had it myself, I do vaguely remember in the 70s and early 80s the idea in the UK that paella (pronounced of course as "Pie Ella") being a dish composed mainly of rice and minced beef.  I've always assumed this was down to the British and their backward approach to food in the austere 1970s but a little research has not supported this, in fact I found this text on one site about traditional Spanish food:

Paella is perhaps the most well known Spanish dish that includes bomba, a type of short-grain rice native to Spain. It browns in the bottom of a wide paella pan to form soccarat, a crust thought to be the dish's best part. Various ingredients are included in paella depending on the regional influence. People from inland cattle-grazing areas may include ground beef and diced potatoes. Additional paella ingredients include red peppers, onions, garlic, capers, jamon serrano, tomatoes and mushrooms.

So, there, it is almost certainly down to wherever the first paella recipes were imported from.  Honestly, this reckless abandon to insult British cooking really can be tiresome.

In any-case, Manuel was wrong.  Firstly, I would say "classic" paella used not so much fish as seafood.  Secondly, other than seafood (usually mussels and king prawns) the most common ingredients are chicken and chorizo, a pork based garlic and paprika sausage.  I would go as far as to say that the rich infusion in to the dish from chorizo was vital to the flavour of paella; unless you are a veggie in which case you are not having paella but a not very creamy vegetable risotto.

My second introduction to paella was in Ibiza.  I can't remember much about it but seem to recall not being overwhelmed by the flavour in it but at the same time very pleased to be having something that didn't involve chips.  San Antonio in Ibiza is not the best place to experience Spanish culture.  Here's me on a boat, drinking beer!

My third experience of paella was in Benamadena, Costa Del Sol, southern Spain in 2002.  I remember the year because the World Cup was on.

This is me on the balcony of our hotel in Spain, I've had to crop it as I was nude so you miss the best bits.  Wouldn't bother me but some people are so delicate...  anyhoo, back to the paella.  It was awful.  It had clearly come out of a microwave, was hugely lacking in flavour and was also obviously rationed to two prawns and two mussels per serving.  I was hungrier after eating it than I was before.  The sad thing was that Benalmadena was a slightly nicer version of Torremalinos and Fueturventura, which were to each side of it, so to get such a shocking meal there rather than not having walked two miles either side to somewhere truly ghastly was such a surprise.

My third experience of paella was in a pub in Chichester.  It was almost certainly also microwaved but it was better than the one in Spain.  I think that says it all.  Since then I think I've had a few shop bought microwavable paellas which were all meh.... but better than that one in Spain.

T'other day I was watching Rick Stein make a paella and he inspired me to have a go.  It did look like an easier version of risotto, less labour involved and so long as the timing is correct and the ingredients go in the right order it didn't look too hard.  Here is most of my ingredients:

I say most; the oils on show were hugely insufficient to coat the rice so I had to use a mix of groundnut oil and olive oil. Don't try and cook with JUST olive oil kids, it burns at far too low a temperature and tastes bitter.  I also made up for my lack of mussels (ho ho) by adding a little river cobbler which I'd marinated in lemon juice and rosé wine.  I also added a generous glug of Spanish white wine to the rice, onions, chorizo and peppers when at the pan's hottest point and also gave in to pressure and used a tin of tomatoes as per roughly half the ten or so recipes I read for research.  Finally I gave up on thinking one chicken Oxo would be enough for 1.5 pints of stock (!) and used 2 Kallo organic chicken stock cubes.  I used more garlic and more smoked paprika than is generally suggested and I think the taste results support my choice there... and I ended up splitting the paella in to two pans and adding peas to mine.  My wife won't eat peas!

I'm not one to blow my own horn (oo-er) but it was by far the best paella I've ever had.  It was so full of flavour but without being overpowering.  There are definitely things I'd change if I wasn't doing it on a budget.  Instead of using sliced chorizo I'd buy a sausage, put chunks in and use more of it.  I'd use raw prawns instead of cooked, but they would still be shelled (as in NOT in their shells anymore).  And I'd perhaps use squid or shelled mussels (as in not in their shells) instead of the cobbler. Oh yes... saffron.  I don't care what my wife says, saffron DOES make a difference and I need someone to go to India on holiday so I can get a shit-load of it cheap.

While I am mentioning it... what is all this wank about seafood being served in it's shell?  Unless, like an oyster it is an aid to serving and eating the food, why?   I hate getting prawns in the shell!  It makes my fingers sticky and smelly.  Perhaps the prawn cooks better in the shell; if so chef, you cook it and then take it out so I don't have to, you lazy fucker.  You are bound to be better than me.  I can imagine that the labour involved in taking a load of mussels out of their shells would make the dish too expensive but frankly, when one gets about four prawns on a paella I think the chef should at least get one of his minions to do it.  

Think I'm being petty?  This is 2013.  We have thankfully got past being told how we should like our steaks (in my case:  Knock it's horns off, wipe it's arse, stick it on a plate; but that's just me).   We don't even get told what wine we should drink with a meal; or at least if we do we ignore the pretentious prick doing it.  So, brothers and sisters, insist on your chef taking the shell of your prawn.  You have nothing to lose but the possibility of choking to death in a restaurant.