Runners and Courgettes.

In-between the floods of Texas, the old gits birthday and a glut of runner beans, the month comes to a balmy close.
This August has gone so quickly I can almost recall it minute by minute.
My little red car had new pistons because I drove it into the ground without oil. My car does not have aeroplane controls, it’s just me, a sound system and a clock thats stuck to the dashboard with blu tac. So I had no idea, until the knocking started, that we were clear out of the crude stuff. What will I do when we go electric, or hybrid, or even wind powered, which is what happened to my body when the car stalled in the middle of a road, on a bend, round the corner to my Bowen bloke in pouring rain. My mechanical genius turned up, threw me the keys to his car and rattled round to his garage in my car, where he fixed it.
I’ve attended a birthday in a tippee, a gathering on Hastings Pier, a dinner in a Hackney Warehouse and two trips to Brighton to see ANGELS IN AMERICA, the live streaming from the National Theatre. Don’t like them as a rule but this marathon of 7 hours was full of Denise Gough, Russell Tovey, Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane, Susan Brown, James McArdle, Amanda Lawrence and Nathan Stewart Jarrett, plus an assortment of angel shadows and star turn scene shifters.
Not even a bout of senior Sciatica, could mar the performances. The man sitting next to the ‘oosbind brought a jute bag full of sandwiches, bottles of wine, suckable nibbles and his mobile phone which he turned on in the two intervals. There were several plaid shirted women and short wearing men, there was a full house of oldies and an army of professional armchair critics. The consensus was that Tony Kushner, who wrote it yonks ago, didn’t put a foot wrong. I was utterly enthralled.
No foreign travel this year, although we are going to Galway in September. Just reading about the flight delays, road works, station closures and traffic accidents, was enough to remind me that a Staycation in Stop-at-Home was just what the doctor ordered.
I’m gearing up for the autumn, three projects are sniffing round the corner, and a gals body is nearly what it should be given it’s vintage.
I made a Nadiya inspired banquet, which included Latkes, old style. Last Thursday I craved my mothers fried fish and fried potato cakes. Prized the Jewish cook book, off the shelf and pulled the food processor out of the corner. Grated potatoes and onions, added matzo meal and 2 eggs, mixed and slapped them into shape. Vegetable oil, heated hot in a wok, three Latka’s slipped into the boiling fat, turned constantly until a crispy golden brown. We ate them with carrot and parsnip bhargis, watermelon/helloumi cheese/and focaccia kebabs, alongside a huge green salad with two home made sauces – tamarind and chile. Not to mention Lamb Chops marinated in pomegranate molasses and garlic. The only thing birthday boy really liked.
I cooked for three hours, then sat at the table as my guests praised and applauded me. I swear we cooks only feed people for the plaudits.
Tonight is the new Bake Off. should I, shouldn’t I? I’m too curious not to watch, but I do feel guilty, like reading the Daily Mail bar of shame…. I swear if people only read the Daily Wail they could be forgiven for thinking that life was only about breasts, boobs, mammaries and a Big Bother, yup it doesn’t deserve an ‘R’.
From Brexit humiliation to Trumpeting terror, we all have to keep the nasties in the light, don’t we? Never giving up on believing that humans really are good, because if you believe what you read half the time, along with me, we would be holding hands and jumping off cliffs.
Time for some left overs and a new batch of running beans in spicy tomato sauce.
Helloo September.