Change

You would think that by the time you reached your mid sixties you would be quite set in your ways.

In fact the changes started earlier in my sixties when I gave up smoking (never thought I’d see the day!)

Apart from the smoking, I have come under several new influences.

The first one was the Farmers’ Markets, with all sorts of interesting produce and much of it organic. This converted me to the organic movement.

The next one, which arose from the first, was the vegetable box scheme. I visited the stall over several months before deciding to go for it.

I have always hated vinegar as my only experience of it was malt vinegar used to preserve beetroot and pickled onions. Therefore I knew I would hate balsamic vinegar when it became so fashionable.

Wrong.

After several years of saying “no thank you” when offered it, I finally was put in a situation where it would have been rude to refuse.

Wow!

At first I always had it mixed with Extra Virgin Olive Oil (by the way how can something be extra virgin? – It’s either virgin or not). Soon I used just the balsamic vinegar without the oil as a salad dressing. So there’s a major turn around.

The big change has come with the organic veg box delivery. You can tell them if there is something you don’t like (although that requires you to try something at least once).

I didn’t realise how, when I went round the supermarket aisles I tended to select the same old, same old, but here I was offered new things to try and found new things at the farmers’ market. I was tucking in to Jacob’s Sheep loin chops yesterday – they have so much flavour that they required no salt, and steamed greens can’t be salted, so that is so much healthier.

As regards the steaming of the greens, I had to buy new pans for my pride and joy, an induction hob - now there's another change in my sixties, although it was prompted by the fact that the flat was fitted with these awful old solid hotplates and we can't have gas. One of the pans had a steamer part, which fitted on top of the pan and was fitted with the pan lid. Don't know if that is clear but prior to this I had only these baskets which sit inside a pan.

With the organic vegetable box, I have discovered Savoy cabbage (I know it has been around for ever, but I had never tried it), celeriac, which is yummy, Swiss chard and so on.

Following advice, I have found the Good Housekeeping cookery book to excel on cooking vegetables.

I am going to check the ingredients for pork cheeks to make a casserole, having tried that once before, and also the ingredients for pheasant breast, the latter of which I shall make for this weekend. This will be my second cook of pork cheeks - if you can get hold of them they are truly scrumptious.