Wild Food Self Delivers, Again

Part 1
Last year as I was typing away, a collared dove topped itself by flying into the french window next to me, it was a bit of a shock, especially for the bird. My first thought was that I'd have to finish it off; death to me was even newer then, so I steeled myself. However, by the time I got to the bird it was stone dead, floppy neck and everything. I stood a few minutes wondering what to do until the Warner Bros effect hit (seeing wild/living things in one's mind'e eye as a tasty treat, steaming on a grand platter with cheffy paper crowns on feet/ribs) so I put the little corpse in the utility room until it had cooled down and stiffened up and crossed the River Styx from wildlife to free meat. It went into the deep freeze plucked and drawn and finally into a pigeon rillettes dish which was pretty good, lots of pork fat (same source as my first ham) and some lovely warm spices, prob a River Cottage recipe.

As you probably know, pigeons mate for life so while the one was safely frozen, waiting for more to join it (my plumber is a crack shot so we trade red wine for pigeons, or "cushies" as they are called here) the widow/er would sit on the power line outside my kitchen window and gaze (accusingly, I thought) at me from above. I was tempted to have a go at it with the air-gun but it's too built up here.

Part 2
This whole story came to an end yesterday when the greyhound and I turned into our back lane to go home and there, almost immobile on the ground was the second dove. It would have been easy to walk past, despite the dog's interest but as the bird didn't move when we got close I decided to act rather than leave it to be tortured to death by a cat (we have particularly some cruel sadists here). The dog caught hold of it and I wrung its neck, but, as usual with things that have such non-central nervous systems, it didn't seem dead so I had to have another go, and typical Tweedy heavy-handed novice, I pulled its head off entirely this time, surely that means it's dead? But the message still didn't get through to the body for a minute or so. Just like chickens I suppose. Anyway, the greyhound got an early supper, in the lane there is just a scattering of feathers, nothing wasted apart from the crop. The dog loves the ends of the feathers too.

Sherbet Skin and Tonic

If you mix and gin and tonic, say 1 to 2 (okay, it's a breakfast stiffener) then if the gin comes out of the fridge at about 3 degrees and the tonic sits in the utility room at about 10, then the temperature of the whole drink will be about 7.5 degrees, about the same temperature as the North Sea was this afternoon. That's according to a diver, anyway. I managed about 5 minutes before my hands went numb and decided to get out to enjoy the instant endorphin hit. Following this addictive sharp-focus and total-wellbeing stage is the sherbet, when my skin is re-filled with blood from my core and starts to feel a bit fizzy.

This really was the most challenging dip of the year, (the New Year dip was toasty in comparison at about 14 degrees) because it really only gets cold in March. I am now full of confidence for the rest of the year having missed January and February because of the stormy seas; submitting to a mirror calm chilly sea is one thing, but being slapped about the face at the same time is too much. In the warm days floating in the sea and enjoying the kelp and fish I almosst miss the really cold swims -getting in the water is not so much of a challenge and being naturally lazy being able to swim in cold water is one of the few things I can be proud of. Never actually broken ice to swim, but would love to, one day, if only to say that I have done it.

Green End Gully at low tide - had to wait 10 minutes while the divers byoogered off, what a pain, there were 5 of them splashing about, each of them like a cross between Darth Vadar and some kind of cyber seal, couldn't even find a gap to get in the water, it was like cereal.

Windy and a Gail

Finally working out the label for a new product, heck, the first product which I hope will help me start a business doing foods here, have got a basic food hygiene exam on Wednesday and am swotting hard. Just because no one has ever really failed it doesn't mean that I can't. My feeling is that germs are generally underated as an ingredient so I am going to have to pretend to be clean and goodly for this exam then get back to my naturally organic approach to cooking.

The afternoon was taken up exercising retired greyhounds in Reston and my favourite LBB (little black bitch) has finally found a home. Gail has been waiting for the right family for about two years and I really wanted to adopt her but we don't have the room. She is not an elegant beast; she is also a bit thick with bulgy eyes but is brave and tough and thuddingly affectionate when she throws her chunky body against my thigh. I will miss her very much but I know she is going to live at the coast with her new love Walter, BBD (big black dog) with a couple who are already potty about her and won't mind if she nicks a sandwich or two. Had a bit of a blub when I took her muzzle off after our last ever giddy dash-about together in the exercise field.

Town meets Country

Just back from a shopping trip to an industrial estate at the back of Berwick; while Long Suffering was buying bits for the boat I took Bob the greyhound for a little walk up a hill away from the units - at the top near the railway was a field with some Shetlands, half asleep, and a man with a honey-coloured, rangy beast that looked like a hoond. Bob my greyhound spots his kin from a distance so we went to say "hello". What a dog we met! Long, strong legs, good broad front and deep chest, also biddable and very soft - a dog sold to the man by the travellers for "two hundred and fifty bar" he said. Magical to watch him running, he is called "Cookie" and although he is still too young to be bringing bunnies back he is sure to be a superb provider.

Cookie's parentage was not obvious, apart from lots of greyhound, but perhaps his almond eyes would be a give-away for a lurcher expert, funnily enough, the man looking after him had the same eyes, they do say that you pick a dog that looks like you.

Picking dogs; retired greyhounds such as Bob are not supposed to be used for rabbiting, not least because they are fragile (a bit like the balsa wood planes we used to make) and usually not smart enough to avoid barbed wire and other obstacles when focused, so I've always fancied owning a lurcher (or two), although I daresay Long Suffering would have something to say about this, perhaps "cough, cough, snort, snort" from his dog allergy...

The travellers who reared Cookie are hunkered down in a railway siding and keeping out of sight. I am still not sure where I stand on this whole thing - I wonder whether people ought to be given houses or land if their self-professed money-raising methods are, at best, borderline tax-legal and at worst proudly dodgy. What do you think Dr. Bob?

Next week I hope I can squeeze in a bitg of pesky pigeon purging at my friend P's down the coast; she has an infestation and I think netting might be the way to go, too near a wood with walkers for bang bangs. Thinking potted pigeon with some duck fat and some spices and things.

Crunch, crunch, shuffle, shuffle

My old greyhound is over his high temperature this morning and is eating a lamb bone behind me with great cracking relish. It's by Cross and Blackwell. I am supposed to be working on a website but find my feet jigging back and forth in a white-girl salsa to Ibrahim Ferrer whose CD arrived in post just now.
Down at the river the wild garlic is covering the earth and I have an appointment in an hour to meet a man about a cold store and food-prep premises down in the town.  The plan is to buy local rare breed pork and convert it into Italian style cured meats and sausages. There has already been some success; a half a pig (Tamworth/Saddle Back cross) was reared in a back garden in Reston (the whole pig was raised there, it later became a half-pig) a village about 5 miles away and has rendered, amongst other things, a huge tenderloin, a beautiful ham (now nearly all eaten) flesh dark as mahogany, melting and salty-sweet and creamy fat which seems to carry even more flavour.

The back fat was cured and then left to hang in a dark shed, whose roof, sadly, leaked and left the beautiful pearly blocks all green and furry, I didn't try eating it, it was just too far gone.

The shed failure led to discovery of an old boat-building shed being used by Long Suffering and his almost business partner, it's a draughty old place, but water tight and down by the river. It occurred that the moist cool air from the river and the occaisional Harr might mimic the soft mountain mists of Emilio-Romagna. So far it has, and I wonder if it is my imagination but the seaweed in the tidal part of the river might even have added a certain iodiny quality to the ham.