What's Cooking?

Autumn

 Our family of  pumpkins (potimarrons) - make into soups with ginger and nutmeg

 Mushrooms from the market (cèpes and girolles)

Haricots cocos de Paimpol - this sounds lovely in French, like the coo-ing of turtle doves.  Unprepossessing from the outside, shelled to reveal pearls, boil vigorously for one hour and serve with strong tomato sauce, only available for three weeks in late September.

Figs and walnuts, fig and walnut bread.

By the river

B by the river, taken with his camera

 Me by the same river...

 ...where B took wonderful pictures in the sunset

The Suffering of Trees

In France trees are not left to grow to their full shape but are continually stumpified and uglified.

However, this tree, probably a walnut, has suffered more than most even by French standards.    Each time I go past it, just when I think it has been pruned into oblivion, it has been pruned again.  Why?   A figure has emerged from this tortured tree, a face, arms, a defiance, a statement of its spirit.

Back to school blues

'September is the Monday of the year' says B sadly.

Sadness descends upon France, another summer stopped in its prime, another miserable return to the grindstone, the insults, the threats, the scolding, the pressure...

R began his return to school by enduring an hour long lecture by the Headmistress Mrs Scruton;  all  6 classes in his year assembled in a hall fitted with four microphones, so that when Mrs Scruton shouted 'TAISEZ-VOUS' it caused the children to clutch their ears in pain.  She then went through the same kinds of threats as last year, including repeating the chewing gum rule to make sure it sticks  and then she added three pages of new rules, which as R points out, are mostly as a result of the success of last year's pupils in getting round the old ones.

• Now all pupils must have their ID papers to get into the school on pain of immediate sanction (it was previously possible to borrow someone's ID to get out of school if you had forgotten yours, no longer...)
• The sanction for arriving without ID will be written in a special Book with a P-E-N (not on computer as Some Pupil has hacked into it and not in ID book as you have forgotten it).
• No teacher may take the ID book of any pupil for any reason and so there is No Excuse for not having it on you (I wonder how long it will be before they microchip the pupils?)
• Anyone in the corridor during class time must have a special coupon signed by a teacher giving permission, reason and duration of stay, on pain of immediate sanction.
• No pupil is to fall ill during the class and ask to see the nurse (unless demonstrably vomiting or pooing pants)  they must wait until break and make sure they miss break time to see the school nurse and will not be admitted at the end of break-time only at the beginning.
• No food (complaints that pupils were stealing one another's food, so ban food and end complaints).
• No showers, as pupils turn showers on dressed colleagues, fling open doors to expose colleagues, have water fights and all the other things males in groups do...
• No spray deodorants
• No magnifying glasses...or thick spectacles...and all the flints have been removed from the prison yard...leaving only a handful of sticks to be frenetically rubbed together.
• No earplugs (I jest you not)

Then she announced that 250 sessions of the School Discipline Commission (kangeroo court) had to be convened last year and this This Will Not Do, and that no child is to come to school hungry or suffering from lack of sleep, the school nurse will show no sympathy and will not be giving out food any more.

The hour long threats and rules session finished by reading out the class lists, surname, forename, class number...you had to listen to all the names until you spotted your name and made a mental note of the class.

'Did you lose yourself in your thoughts once you had your class?' I asked R

'I couldn't, because the microphones were booming too loudly' he replied. 'It was BORING'.

Our young neighbour T was in high dudgeon because she was in the last class to be read out;  also she was separated from all her friends and put in a class with people she did not like with a notorious teacher.   When she came round to our place her resounding shouts and squeals made me think she was arguing savagely with R and I intervened to avoid the drawing of blood, but apparently she was just talking 'normally' ie venting.  Everyone has been split up into different classes with a totally new set of teachers, which has made most of them rather miserable and disorientated.

The final fact of the first day, which thankfully only lasted 2.5 hours, was that they went to their classes where the new class teachers told them what books they needed and what forms to fill in and Mrs Scruton and her 'team' came round to each class to issue further threats;  all to no avail as everyone is bored stiff with threats and know that once the tiresome chest beating is over normal school life will resume.

I couldn't help noticing that R and his friends are all shouting and short tempered today  as a result of all the shouting-at that they received on the first day and will continue to receive on a regular basis.  R's friend M was locked down for 2 hours after school because on the first day, his mother had not furnished him with a regulation passport photo on his ID book.    He was beside himself.  They would not let him phone his mum.  Eventually his mum phoned the school, she beside herself and shouted them all down, quite right too, it's outrageous.

 R always laughs when he recounts his tales, he is a born survivor, but... sigh sigh sigh of frustration, there IS another way...counting days to next hols.

Meanwhile bombarded with 20 books to cover in plastic film, a job which causes grown mothers to weep, unless they buy Le Bon Eleve Crystal system with self-stick corners.  Any entrepreneurs out there, if you invent plastic covered exercise and text books, you will clean up in France and drastically reduce the national consumption of tranquilisers.

August is two faced

At the beginning of August, the summer is in full swing, the sky is white with promise, we are bright and outside and the holidays will last forever, but by about the middle, already the dawn tarries and dusk hurries in, the sun's rays take on a slant, the odd crisp wind shivers the leaves, and I collect the sticks that our trees have kindly dropped, and prepare for the time when we will come inside again and light the fire...

The elderflowers have metamorphosed into ripe black berry clusters, and we had elderberry muffins for breakfast;

Recipe for Elderberry Muffins

Elderberry Muffins

8 elderberry bunches
300 g self-raising brown flour
150 g soft brown sugar
125 ml of oil
1 small pot of 'fromage blanc' (or yoghurt)
1 egg.

Mix dry ingredients, wash elderberries and tease them off the stem, add to dry mixture, beat egg, add to dry mixture along with oil and yoghurt, cook at 180C for about 20 mins until lightly golden and firm.


Also making...plum jam from garden plums...got the knack of setting now, does not slide around in the jar at all.  I wait until the 'glooping' of the bubbles becomes 'gloopier' and then watch it for 15 minutes until the jam forms a blob on a cold plate and can trace a line through it without it 'closing' and then wait until it forms a sort of stallegtite of drip off a wooden spoon...yes, the joy of employing human senses, without the crutch of a machine!

Unexpected Salad

JC midway through the Unexpected Salad

All my cooking is unexpected, because I never plan and always use what I can find;  leftover in the fridge, in season, in the garden...

Here I took leftover Quinoa with onion and grated carrot and a few courgette slices, I thought it tasted rather dull last night but perhaps I was in a bad mood.

I added a peach (in season), cucumber, snippets of jambon de Bayonne (like Parma ham, was in fridge) a selection of unexpected flavours from garden;  one or two leaves each from wild rocket, sage, mint, marjoram, lemon balm, oregano, hyssop, fennel, tarragon) squeezed over some lemon juice, a bit of salad dressing, and topped with a veggie burger and melted Comté cheese.  It was v. good.

RoboRoach; At what point would you say 'no' to Cyborgs?

THE  BIG  IDEA...

I take a living creature (in this case a cockroach), as if it were inert material for the purposes of my experiments, a machine to override, a computer to hack...

I 'operate' on the living creature; I remove some parts of its body and cut into other parts, insert electrodes and superglue large (for a cockroach) plastic units on its head and back:  with the aim of being able to 'remote control' the cockroach with my smartphone, according to my whim.  

I make this idea available to everyone, along with the detailed methods and technology needed to carry it out. In particular I aim this project at 'children of all ages', and encourage them to 'tinker' with the living being and become a DIY neuroscientist.    (see site backyardbrains.com)

Cockroach remote controlled by smartphone

I sell this idea as 'the first commercially available Cyborg'.  I aim it at children with an emphasis on fun, hands-on learning.     A Cyborg is a Cybernetic Organism, half animal half robot, an idea which has emerged from a mixture of science, science fiction and the sordid world of video gaming.  

This idea is now, thanks to the World Wide Web, available to everyone without any restrictions;  available to the power hungry and the mentally unstable, the ignorant and the cunning, the greedy and the rich, the desperate and the desperately poor...

I launch my project in schools

I attract a renowned  sponsor, (TED ed) who help organise favourable interviews with the BBC, magazines etc, and I get myself invited into American High Schools to give demonstrations of my product.  

I 'teach' the next generation of children at a vulnerable age:  

• That living beings are no different from inert matter, that I can use according to my creative whim
• To 'override' their natural sentiments of disquiet, disgust or horror in the face of the mutilation of a living being in a demonstration which shows utter indifference to life, to think of their reaction as 'irrational' or 'irrelevant' (see TEDed talk, Cockroach Beatbox, backyardbrains.com)
• That living beings are a kind of machine, robot or computer and may be treated as such
• That it is acceptable for all to experiment on living creatures without the least sense of discomfort
• That it is acceptable to 'override' or 'steal' the freedom of a living creature to behave naturally.  
• To develop an understanding that life is essentially 'mechanistic' (electrical, neurobiological etc) without question.

APPEAL TO ADULT SCIENTISTS AND EDUCATORS;  YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

• The right to experiment on animals is a privilege accorded to scientific researchers, and should not be given to 'everyone and anyone' without safeguard or supervision.
• The right to experiment on animals should be reserved for the most extreme cases where human health and welfare is concerned, and where no other method is possible, not as hands-on fun learning for kids.
• As educators, parent educators and world citizens we all have a responsibility to educate our children to respect life, and not to disregard it  
• We need to remember that the machine imagery we use to describe certain life process is imagery, and not reality.  
• As adults and scientists, the inventors and their mentors and sponsors have a particular responsibility to envisage likely future outcomes of what they put in place globally,  outside the controlled confines of the scientific domain.
• As parents and educators we try to teach a respect for life and not disregard for life.  Children have a natural affinity with animals and nature;  one of the early signs of a psychopathic or sociopathic disorder is a child who experiments on, tortures or kills animals without remorse.  This kind of 'educational' project goes against all we try to build with our children and young people.

CONSEQUENCES NOW AND IN THE FUTURE...

Within this flawed idea of 'cyborgs', is contained possible future consequences...technology obliges...

At what point would you say STOP to Cyborgs?

A cockroach?

A bee?

A fish?

A frog?

A mouse?

A bird?

A cat?

A dog?

A monkey?

People you don't like?

Your family?