Couple of Crackers from the Co-op

The price of everything is hyper inflating these days, except interest rate linked mortgages. I should be rolling in it, the amount I pay out each month to pretend to own a flat has halved in recent years. Yet, I'm not. Somehow the cost of nice stuff- wine, food, travel, central heating- has rocketed. I'm not one for conspiracy theories but it seems remarkable that every penny I've saved on a mortgage has been divided up so thoroughly between utility companies and supermarkets. Here's a graph. Proof if proof be need be.

There's no point in switching supermarkets or utility companies. They're all charging more or less the same. There's just the illusion of choice camouflaging a modern day Zaibatsu. So all I can really do is trade down on the non-essentials, and sadly, mid-week wine falls into that category. On the plus side I've been discovering some remarkable value white and red wines. These two come from the Co-op and are widely stocked.

First up a Chilean Chardonnay for only £4.29. Fresh, buttery, no oak and a fascinatingly spicy palate. This works tremendously well with tomato sauces and spicy ones too. Particularly good with a quality kebab.

Next up a cracking Californian shiraz. This one's quite spicy on the nose has a lovely juicy mouth feel and a lick of liquorice on the tongue. Incredibly it's only £4.99. Remarkable value.

One for sipping while wondering... why, in every other branch of journalism we question why we're being told something, yet when it comes to financial markets, we just accept what we're told?

A Delicious Tomato Risotto

In my teens I became hooked on cheese toasties. For months I'd eat nothing else. Then one night, without warning, the rush was gone, vanished without trace. I wouldn't give up without a fight though and started experimenting with the addition of 'exotics'.

Sometimes it worked... black pepper, sometimes it really didn't... cloves. One night, from the back of my parents spice cupboard, where every spice is still out of date, I pulled a jar of dried basil. Wow, what a revelation.

This combination so impressed my juvenile palette, I risked introducing it to my first proper-ish girlfriend. She was smitten. Not on me though. Months later I found myself opposite her new boyfriend in a bar, above the general hullabaloo all I could hear was, "Cheese toasties... bla bla...basil... bla bla... amazing". A silent rage began to swell, luckily I was just sober enough to hold back shouting across, "That's my recipe you bastard!".

Nowadays I know it's not really a surprise these ingredients mix so well. Pesto after all is mostly cheese and basil. Of course what basil's really famous for going with is tomato, so here's a dish other than pizza that sees them work so well together.

Tomato Risotto

Aside from butter, olive oil and hot stock, this is all you'll need.

The two cheeses are Parmesan and Tomme de Savoie. The tomato sauce is made by liquidising a tin of tomatoes then pushing them through a sieve with the back of a spoon. It's an adaptation of a recipe from the book 'Dear Franscesca' by Mary Contini. Follow the usual risotto recipe: like this one here , but omit the pancetta: and add the tomato sauce just after the white wine but before you start adding the hot stock. I used a low salt vegetable stock cube and it worked a treat.

Both cheeses go in at the end, let them melt then pop in the shredded basil. The original recipe used Fontina cheese but when I asked for some in Mellis's great cheese shop they told me they hadn't stocked it since 2000 !! The guy behind the counter explained it was because while it tastes great eaten in situ in the Valle d'Aosta they hadn't found one that travelled well. Strewth, a cheese that makes you come to it. How demanding. Instead he recommended Tomme de Savoie which worked perfectly, lots of melted, stringy cheesy goodness.

Tomatoes are a notoriously difficult wine match. But in this dish the tomato flavour is tempered by the cheese and basil and this wine worked well. It's on offer just now and an absolute steal for the rather odd price of £5.24. Full of delicious pink grapefruit flavours.

Forte Alto Pinot Grigio, Dolomiti, 2010. Down from £7.99 to £5.24 in Waitrose. What a bargain.

The Calm Before the Storm

The night before Hurricane Bawbag I was invited along to the Inverarity Vaults annual wine tasting. Set in the clubbable splendour of The Glasgow Art Club. After snuffling about a bit, my friend the artist Omar Zingaro Bhatia announced that 'ladies' had only been permitted since 1983. That explained why 'gentlemen' had the use of a vast, beautiful cloakroom within pissing distance of everywhere, whilst the ladies had to hitch up their skirts and hike upstairs. What a refreshing change. Not only that, but urinals manufactured by Adam Ant. How cool is that.

There were 140 wines to taste and a lot of top notch whisky. In a rare moment of focus I scanned the list and quickly identified all the wines that interested me. There were some lovely bottles, far too many to list, but my favourite wine of the night came from the last table I made it to. Just after trying the Mas de Daumas blanc (no nose, interesting flavour), I noticed a Crozes Hermitage blanc. What a cracker. Inverarity's Mike Cottam who was manning the table seemed pleased. Turns out he made the decision to buy this wine after tasting it during a visit to the Domaine.

Lovely honeysuckle and almond bouquet, beautiful palate with an oily texture balanced by acidity and delicious mineral flavours. An absolutely delicious wine so good on it's own, you'll need two bottles if there's going to be any left for dinner. Etienne Barret Crozes Hermitage Blanc is a real bargain at £12.99.

If you live in Glasgow and haven't yet been to Inverarity Vaults 'One on One' shop then go soon. In a city deprived of decent independent wine shops this place is a gem. It's also one of the best places to buy properly stored cigars.

Inverarity One to One

185a Bath Street (it's a basement door)

Glasgow

G2 4HU

0141 221 5121

CLICK HERE FOR THEIR WEBSITE

And here's the now legendary Hurricane Bawbag "OMG Trampoline" footage:

Sea Trout for Dinner

Before industrialisation you couldn't walk through a puddle without standing on a salmon. Service staff had it written into contracts that they wouldn't get fed it more than twice a week. Pollution put an end to that when scarcity made it expensive. Then came salmon farming. In some of the country's most beautiful locations they mastered the intensive rearing of fatty fish whose flesh was only pink because of the dye in the food. The price plummeted and at one point the cheapest fish you could buy in Billingsgate Market was farmed salmon.

The wild fish is a different beast and a hell of a lot more expensive.

Wild Scottish salmon fillet was going for £34 a kilo in MacCallums yesterday. Luckily for me, wild Scottish sea trout fillet, which this is, was just £24 a kilo. I much prefer it's subtler flavour.

Impulse led me to pick up a few embellishments... samphire grass and squat lobsters.

Poached the squat lobsters in salty water, shelled them and used some of the cooking liquor in the samphire grass 'coulis'... how very retro.

The sea trout got pan fried, skin side down for a fair bit to get it nice and crispy. Oh and I scaled it first. The squat lobsters were warmed through in butter.

Went for a bottle of Gewurztraminer because I've become obsessed with trying to find unexpected things it goes with. I even put a few slices of ginger in the coulis to help marry food and wine. This Gewurz cost about £8 in Costco and was lovely.

But it didn't go with the dish. It was just too sweet and exotic, all loukoumi and lychee. Oh well, maybe I'll try powdered ginger next time.

Bargain White Soave from the Co-op

It costs four pounds and twenty five pence. A figure that seems ancient for something worthwhile. If time travel was an option, for the same money, you could splash out on the world's first car, your grandparent's house, a slap up meal in a Hovercraft (for two)... or... a drinkable wine from a decade ago.

Given the exchange rate, I have absolutely no idea how the Co-op sells this so cheap. It can't be easy 'co-operating' with grape farmers, wine makers and shippers at this price. This Soave is not sophisticated and smells of little, but it tastes of pears and grapefruit and goes down a treat. What an incredible bargain.

Soave 2010: The co-operative's own label: £4.25

Nurture the Nuts

Normal is such a hateful word. So run of the mill, average and mundane. Given a choice, who chooses normal? If money was no object would you drive a Fiesta, live in Woking and shop at Tesco? Yet the desire for conformity, to 'not stand out', to be 'just like everybody else' has gone viral. Walk down any High Street in Britain. Look at the shops, the way people dress... capitalism can't even be arsed creating the illusion of choice anymore. It's all gone stale.

I'm waiting for the backlash, it has to come soon. The first time I hear... "Oh, if only I was abnormal, life would be so much more fun"... I'll be popping a cork in celebration and it won't be champagne.

It'll be something life affirmingly odd like this absolutely beguiling Savennieres.

It smells of honey dribbled on hot buttered toast with a hint of foosty old cellar. The colour's deep and oxidised and you'd expect it to be sweet. But it's not, because despite tasting uncannily like golden syrup, it's bone dry.

Utterly weird and totally delicious. Normal is an illusion created to sell product. Don't believe the hype.

It cost just £9.99 from Inverarity One to One on Bath Street. A wonderful little wine shop, tucked down at basement level and run by the very smiley, and extremely knowledgeable Pete. Aside from splendid oddities, this is also the best place in Glasgow to buy good bottles for special occasions. They also stock a fine range of cigars in their walk in humidor.

Inverarity One to One

158a Bath Street

Glasgow

G2 4HU

0141 221 5121

One for the price of two

I came up with a great plan recently. Drink less, drink better. Instead of two wines for £5.99 drink one at £11.99. Benefiting both pleasure and health. Cunning... or so I thought. This was my first venture.

Unfortunately it is utterly, totally delicious, I can't stop drinking it and at £10.99 a bottle it's costing me a fortune. Beguilingly complex wine with a gorgeous texture that's almost waxy. It smells like being inside a top notch Italian deli... salami, icing sugar, honey, lemon, nuts... panatone? On the palette it's a bit like when the runny centre of a boiled sweet bursts. Best drunk not too cold. My extensive experiments have determined ten minutes in the freezer box to be about perfect.

After picking up my latest bottle I was dithering over which red to buy. A very upright older gentleman turned to me and said in a thick French accent, "Zis one is a very good bottle of wine, it iz delicious for the money". What the hell, I'm of an age where acting on the suggestions of older strangers is no longer so much of a concern...

When a Frenchman recommends an Italian's wine you know it must be good. It was, exceedingly good for £7.99. Possibly not to everyone's taste... quite structured, with a piercing smell that reminded me of proper cider, the stuff where the farmers bung in the odd carcass with the fermenting apples to help "flavour it up a bit see".

I was thinking while drinking it, why is a Frenchman a Frenchman but an Italian just an Italian?

Both wines came from Waitrose:

Verdicchio di Matelica (not quite Metalica): £10.99

Barbera D'Asti Superiore, I Tre Vescovi: £7.99

Wrong

Some things in life don't seem right, they just shouldn't go together...

Another is tomatoes and wine...

All that sweet acidic mix. Just for good measure, I threw in some hot kiln smoked salmon. Smokey, oily pungency.

Then the wine. From a single vineyard in Rioja: 5.5 hectares, 46748 bottles, this one was bottle 617. Not necessarily problematic...

Though aging in new french oak barrels for 17 months could be. Surely too long for any dry white?

Well, it almost worked. The wine had nearly enough acidity to cut through the salmon and nearly enough flavour to stand up to the tomatoes. But it was just too oaky.

This was tea before heading off to the Liquid Ship...

... for another tricky match, acoustic nights and crowds.

Between songs, Nairn (Naz) is very funny, that folk club style patter. Afterwards I asked him, "Why is so much acoustic music so bloody mournful? Someone fresh from their bedroom wailing 'I don't know why she had to leave me', to which the obvious heckle is 'We do, she couldn't stand it any more!'"...

Turns out he'd just split up with his girlfriend. So there's another bad match, me and small talk. I'm off to the bedroom to write a song about it now. In the meantime, just to prove my point, here's some video from the night demonstrating the attention span of your average boozer.

Despite asking them twice I can't recall the band's name. Probably the result of something else that doesn't mix... beer and wine, unless you're German of course.

The Free Candy Sessions @ The Liquid Ship on myspace

Naz on myspace

La Dolce Vita

Is any dish more evocative of La Dolce Vita than clam linguine? Clams fresh from the sea, parsley picked in the garden, olive oil from the grove down the road and all washed down with local wine. Over the years, tallied up, I've spent one of those years watching food programmes, sad I know, but I've seen countless TV chefs eulogize this dish. 

At some point, in most series, chefs will rail against the fancy elaborate cooking responsible for their success in the first place. The most perfect realisation of this conceit sees a TV chef placed among "real people". Ideally old fisherfolk with weather beaten faces and an even more weather beaten hut. A simple meal is prepared using 'just caught' fish and 'wife grown' vegetables. Then chef, humbled by the thrilling honesty of it all, tells viewers that these people, this food, what it represents, this is what impassioned him to cook in the first place. An artificial epiphany, and chef, seeing his soul lost somewhere in the firey hell of the kitchens, the endless appearances, the affairs, the book signings, stares out to sea. Then it's on with the show!

I've never eaten this dish overlooking the sea in Italy, or overlooking the sea anywhere else. But it's good. So good, most had been eaten before I remembered to take a photo. It was my best rendition so far, an extraordinary rendition! 

Is it authentic?  Well, it has evolved over time from snippets taken out of programmes, blogs, books and restaurants that are Italian but not in Italy. A modern condensed version of a dish's evolution.

Here's my recipe for 2 people:

Ingredients:

0.5 kg of live clams

glass white wine

olive oil

2 cloves garlic- chopped

2 shallots or a small onion finely chopped

a massive bunch of flat leaf parsley- about 4 tablespoons finely chopped

pinch of chilli flakes

1/4 teaspoon of fennel seeds

1/2 pack of linguine

(A very good tip I picked up somewhere was to rinse the clams then put them in a bowl of cold water in the fridge for a couple of hours before using. I don't know why, but it works, getting rid of any sand that may be in them. Surf clams especially can be gritty).

Method:

Have everything ready to go.

Start cooking the linguine according to pack instructions.

Meanwhile in a large pan with a tight fitting lid saute the shallot in a decent amount of olive oil with the chile flakes and fennel seeds. After 2 minutes put in the garlic. Let that start frying then throw in half of the parsley. Continue frying until the parsley noticeably darkens.  Pour in the wine and let it bubble. Drain the clams and throw them into the pan. Put on the lid and turn the heat up full. Give the pan an occasional shake. Once the clams open they're ready. They take about 5 minutes tops. Drain the linguine and put it in the pan with the clams, or put everything into the drained pasta pan, and mix. Throw in the rest of the parsley and some black pepper. Taste, it'll need a little salt. And serve. It's dead easy and delicious. Some people suggest removing most of the clams from their shells before serving, but I think that's a faff.

Drinking suggestions? We drank this:

Part two of our present for looking after Seamus. I'd been planning to try it with a cheese fondue. But needs must. And the Savoie region was once part of the Duchy of Savoy, which makes it almost Italian. 

It worked well, nice clean apple flavour and surprisingly rich. Think this is the first Roussette I've tried, not really seen it about much. As they say in Manchester, sweet.