Bathroom Habits

and Spaghetti

I quite often lie in the bath for up to an hour and have been known to nudge close to two, topping up hot water as needed.  My mother’s dear friend Jen remembered that Mum would also do this when they shared a studio flat in Notting Hill just after the war with only a curtain across to separate the bath from the living area. Jen said she was astonished at how long Mum could spend in there.  I think it must be in the genes. I’ve done it for ever, but now it has become something of a ritual, a way to wind down after the day and also because it’s the only place where my body doesn’t hurt, oddly even my hands which most of the time are of course not submerged, but are up, holding a book.  I tried one of those bath racks which promise to hold a book, a glass of wine and candle while you wrinkle gently in rose scented bubbles.  They don’t work. I don’t like to drink wine in the bath anyway and the book always got wet.

When the bath was first plumbed in in our new house, here in Wales, and despite no electricity at that point I was determined to christen it straight away.  I lit candles and I did actually drink wine in the bath that one time - champagne in fact, given to me by our builder for that very purpose.  I bet no one else can say their builder bought them champagne to celebrate plumbing a bath in.

Joys of a new bath tub.

Many people I know are cold water swimmers, absolutely evangelical on the health benefits, but bathing in hot water is my therapy, physical and mental.  The novels of Georgette Heyer are often my accompanying literary drug of choice, brilliantly written, formulaic, horribly dated and politically incorrect, but somehow, even after reading every single one of them at least three times, they still can still engage and amuse me and take my mind away from everything I don’t want to be thinking about. GH novels are another habit (addiction?) passed on to me by my mother- I’m not sure if she was reading Heyer novels in her Notting Hill studio tub, but she certainly did for the entirety of our shared time on this planet.

GH framed by two of her novels with my favourite cover illustrations - the 1970's versions are beyond awful and I can't bring myself to put them up here even ironically.

I don’t want to be thinking about a lot of things right now, yet inevitably I do because I can’t live in the bath or in a Georgette Heyer novel.  I don’t want to think about the weather, the Palestinian people, Trump, collapsing food systems, arthritis, how skinny the cat is, emptying the storage unit, Putin, my increasing weight, people dying.  The list is endless, as I am sure most people’s lists are.

However, even without submerging myself constantly in scented warm water, moments of hope and joy and positivity do pop up every now and then, like a sunny hour in Wales pops up every now and then, between the drizzle and grey.

I subscribe to a magazine called Positive News which I keep in the bathroom for those times, you know, well anyway - you are learning a lot about my bathroom habits today aren’t you?  The magazine is brimful of good news stories, unsurprisingly, and while some of them are bit Pollyanna-ish most are just that, good news.  Because there is a lot of good news out there, which is so easy to miss when we bombarded by the deep vileness of much of humanity from every angle.  We are made fearful by this bombardment and so look to the ‘strong men’ to save us, much like the afore mentioned novels come to think of it.   

One of the good news stories in the latest edition is about the rise (haha) of better bread.  Not just the ubiquitous sour dough, delicious though it is, but all kinds, including a white slice loaf that is the bun-child of Jodie Smith of Heart of BS13, a group dedicated to bringing good, affordable food to BS13 in Bristol, and Laura Hart of Hart’s Bakery, a humming glowing glory of a bakery next to Temple Meads Station, also in Bristol, which I know well from my years there.

Photo from Hart’s Bakery

Jodie Smith, working with Laura, wanted to create a loaf that was familiar and affordable to the people of BS13, an area in which one in eight households lives in extreme food insecurity. You don’t see really good bread in supermarkets, and especially in the ‘local’ versions in neighbourhoods like this.  A white slice loaf is affordable in these shops but full of crap which is slowly but surely making people ill, along with all other cheap processed foods.  This white slice loaf retails at 75p and is 15% wholemeal.  I think that is astonishing and brilliant and something to be celebrated.  There are multiple articles on other bakers and community initiatives, including another one in Bristol which I am proudly connected to, Batches Bakery which produces sourdough at affordable prices, some even for free. So if you need a little uplift in your news feed I recommend this bit of positivity, online or on paper which is my preference because I can also read it in the bath, of course.

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I have recently been introduced to the Black Mirror series on the telly by my husband, who for some reason hadn’t seen fit to let me in on this totally brilliant thing before now - since it’s been going since 2011 what does that say about him and his sharing abilities?  They are all set in a near, somewhat warped, dystopian future - all sci fi and super technology.  Some of the episodes I have seen have been so close to what we are actually living through it’s uncanny.  Except it isn’t of course because what we are living through has been predicted for decades, if not centuries.  The current ecological crisis was predicted by ecologists (Silent Spring anyone?) and oil companies (Shell and Exxon I’m looking at you) alike a very long time ago, just with very different attitudes to the looming problem.  The dangers of over reliance on technology I am sure have been flagged up over the years in any number of real and fictional scenarios (my researcher is on holiday so I can’t get you any details on that), and, ta da, just last week half the world ‘went down’ in an internet blip caused by a company who’s job it is to protect that very thing from such occurrences.

My slightly feathery mind gets quite excited by things like tech outages - what ever will we do?  How will we manage?  Where is the paper, pencils, candles and tinned food? How long will that tree, if felled and chopped up, last us as firewood?  Who will chop it up (looks at husband hopefully)?  Should I immediately buy the DVD box set of Black Mirror?  How can I do that with no internet and no DVD shops left in the world?

Do you see?  Too many thought paths that lead nowhere, a bit like the muffin business that never happened.  I am aware that my substack posts are not consistent in their content, subject matter or whatever, although I do always come back to food, or nearly always, and a recipe which I have either filched and played with or totally invented.  Some of them are really good - see the latest below.

My most loyal readers are family and close friends and they all say lovely things regardless, but I’m curious to know what those readers who don’t know me, let alone love me, think about my meanderings and what they thought they were signing up to.  Answers in the comments box please.

I will add a recipe here because food is what I do in the real world.  It’s one to enjoy before watching the Black Mirror episode USS Callister  - dark, funny and terrifying.

Spaghetti & Meatballs

Makes loads e.g dinner for 2 plus three packs of 10 meatballs in the freezer

Ingredients

Meatballs

500g mined beef

500g minced pork

1 onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, schmushed

2 tsp fennel seeds

2 good sprigs of rosemary, finely chopped

handful of parsley, finely chopped

two good slices of stale bread whizzed up into breadcrumbs

zest of 1 lemon

salt & black pepper to taste

Sauce (serves 2)

1 tin (400g) chopped tomatoes

1 clove garlic

½ tsp salt

½ tsp sugar

a good shake of dried oregano or 3-4 sprigs, picked and chopped finely, of fresh oregano.  Fresh basil would also work.

Big glug of extra virgin olive oil

Spaghetti

Nobody can agree on exactly how much dried pasta makes a portion.

Regarding spaghetti, my rule of thumb is almost exactly that - the amount  of spaghetti that fits between my thumb and forefinger, in a little yogi pose, is enough for me and my man.  But it entirely depends on your appetite.

Method

1. Put all the sauce ingredients in pan, including a little water rinsed through from the can, stir together and bring up to bubbling, then turn heat down to a very gentle simmer, lid half on. Once the sauce is reduced by about ¼ turn off the heat and put to one side.

2. Put all the meatball ingredients in a big bowl and squish together using your kitchen’s best tools - clean hands.

3. Heat up a frying pan with a little frying oil (rapeseed or sunflower) and fry a teaspoon size bit of the mix.  When cooked allow to cool (very important so as not to fry your taste buds) and then taste for seasoning, adjust accordingly and repeat as needed.  Try not to eat all the mix as you do this.

4. Once seasoning is to your taste roll the meat mix into balls a little smaller than a golf ball.  Or actually any size you like.  I like them quite small so I can have four, and then one more as seconds. You could make them into burgers too if you felt like it.

5. Put the mix aside for about half an hour to let the flavours get to know each other - room temperature is fine, fridge also ok.

6. Assuming you don’t have a small army coming to dinner divide up the balls into containers for freezing, keeping 10 aside for your own and your lucky companion’s dinner.

7. You can either fry or roast the balls you intend to eat straight away. I have an air fryer which almost incinerated them on the first try because it’s so quick, so perhaps frying is better as it’s more controllable. However if you want to roast pre heat the oven to 200cC/180oc Fan/Gas 6 - roast on a an oiled tray for about 20 minutes, until they have a nice sticky crust on them.

8. When they are done transfer to the sauce pan - hubble bubble all of this gently for about 10 minutes to bring everything to the same temperature, ready to serve.

9. While the meatballs and sauce make friends cook the pasta according to packet instructions, drain and mix with sauce and meatballs.

10. Serve with quantities of finely grated parmesan cheese and a crisp green salad with my special caesar dressing (ask me if you want the recipe) - croutons optional but a really nice addition.

Notes and subs.

• You could use all beef or all pork for these meatballs - this would make the texture change slightly. If you can get properly produced veal that is fantastic combined with pork. Lamb is good too but I would suggest using cumin seeds instead of fennel, and substitute chopped walnuts for pine nuts.  Somehow it feels better to serve lamb with rice, I don’t know why.

• I currently use white spelt spaghetti.  I don’t like wholemeal pasta, but I am trying to steer clear of refined wheat - this spelt pasta is a really fabulous compromise.

• Stale bread - loads of uses, breadcrumbs is just one, as are croutons. Never throw it away unless it’s actually green*.

This recipe is adapted from one in a book I bought in Borders (remember Borders? I loved Borders) decades ago called The Food of Italy. It had no author on the front, but was big and full of incredible sounding dishes and beautiful photos. Turns out the recipes are by Sophie Braimbridge who I crossed paths at the River Cafe and Jo Glynn, who I didn’t. It’s published by Murdoch Books which I have only just noticed and makes me feel slightly grubby.

*allowing for poetic exaggeration - if your bread is showing mould, especially if it’s green, throw it out.

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