Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On

This is a strange post today. Not because it is my customary valedictory address prior to taking my annual summer sabbatical but because it contains a request. A request I would like you all to respect and to follow to the letter.

At the end of this post there will be an image. This image is actually a sketch I drew a few days ago of me. That is my face you will see. Or maybe not. Perhaps for the people who know me in the flesh the sketch will have no similarity to my real self. That is all right. That is what this column is about today.

Please, do not comment on the drawing. That is the request. A simple one. Do not tell me whether the eyes staring at you are well painted. I have no interest whatsoever in what you think about the sketch. That is why I am asking you not to comment on it. About the post? Please, do, I am all ears.

Why the strange request? Because that image that ends my article (in reality it is the clip that follows after the one that brings matters to a close but let’s not push it, shall we? I am already asking you a favour) is not a drawing. It might look like one and you could even aver that it was done using a set of pencils and a sketch book, but, believe you me, the image you are all scrolling down to see is a couple of bunched up towels, a cracked wall, a branch on a tree. What it is not is a drawing.

It is not a drawing, not because I have decided that it is not, but because it has taken on a life of its own and gone on to become a toy. It is a toy. This drawing which is not a drawing is a toy. It is the toy I was told not to play with when I was six years old, in Year 1, in Havana, Cuba. Like all children at that age I liked drawing. Stick figures with round bellies made up chiefly my “artist’s portfolio”. One day my teacher approached me from behind and told me: I’m sorry to tell that you will never be good at maths and art. Singing? Yes, stick to that one. Ah, and also reciting poems, you’re good at that too. But do not waste your time with drawing.

Whilst not quoting her words verbatim I have transposed faithfully the sense of her sentences. The impact was not felt immediately, I can tell you, but I just gave up. There and then I told myself that the only function of a pencil in my hand was to write with it.

In the intervening years I fell in love with the visual arts. I still remember the excitement I felt when confronted with my first impressionistic painting. In college I started hanging out with a guy who was a superb artist. It was around that time that my former teacher’s words began to haunt me.

You see, what that teacher had done was not so much to kill any future artistic ambition, which always has an “if” attached to it. What she had really done was to eliminate the possibility of playing with colour pencils and brushes. By the way, I did take part in art classes in the years following that encounter, yet I always felt apprehensive and exposed to the rest of my peers. I discovered later on that when it came to art I had an inferiority complex.

Going back to the “play” component, though, this is what I noticed had been missing from my early years in the area of visual arts. I had a wild imagination as a child, but where I was capable of using towels as mountains, jungles and ridges and deploy my toy soldiers on them, I could not bring myself to do the same with water colours.

That is one of the reasons why I am writing this post today. Because eventually, after many years reasoning out my teacher’s words and my later mental, physical, emotional and spiritual development, I came to the conclusion that the big gap in my life had been an absence of opportunities to play with a sketchbook and pencils.

This is also the reason why I asked you at the beginning not to comment on the image at the end of this post. Because if you were to do it you would be according my “toy” a space in which to see it under the heading “artistic quality”. You would have to switch off all unnecessary “noise” and focus on the “work of art” (they would be your words, not mine) on the screen. What I want is the opposite: chaos. Art, when intended, is normally detached from our all-invading reality. Play, on the other hand, incorporates disruption, spontaneity and disorder. The reason why I call the “sketch” below a “toy” is because it is the equivalent of the train set that starts on the small table in the lounge and soon takes over the whole living-room. Have you not seen a six-year-old doing that?

The second reason why I wrote this post was that as adults play is normally determined by and arbitrated by society. I know that there are grown-ups who do not give two monkeys about what people think of them. Good for them, I say! But the majority of us become self-conscious whenever we are caught doing something that is not appropriate for our age and which does not fall under any of the categories we have been given, for instance, jobs and hobbies, to mention two.

A couple of years ago we went to Shropshire. It was there that I bought a sketchbook and decided to return to that six-year-old boy who had had his playing wings clipped by this narrow-minded teacher. As I dipped my toes in the ever-confusing world of HB pencils I confess to having felt afraid at first but technology has changed so much in the last decade that I gained a sense of confidence in no time. Youtube is full of do-it-yourself tutorials and the more clips I clicked on, the happier I felt. It was not the same feeling of exhilaration I have when I go out running or play football. Those are hobbies. This other sentiment was one of unbridled fun, namely, the sensation of being a small child again.

Our society and more specifically our education system tends to sideline subjects it sees as “non-vital” or “unimportant”. The stress is on English, Maths and Science. Drama, art, history, foreign languages, philosophy and others do not have the same weight as the triumvirate I mentioned before. This has the undesired effect of churning out students with poor transferable skills. The irony is that if you look around you will see that some of the more important politicians in recent years have dabbled in an art form at some point in their lives: Barack Obama sang with the recently-deceased BB King, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair plays guitar and was even part of a band in the past and Bill Clinton loves nothing more than blowing on his sax every now and then. I have no idea how they discovered their instruments, but I am sure that “play” had something to do with it when they were little.

So, there you have it. What is this post about? About play as the possibility of discovering a long-held, self-denied activity that has lain dormant inside us. Who knows? You might even write about it on your blog, upload an image and call it “toy” like I did. Ah, and you might also ask readers not to comment on it. Thanks, see you in September.

Remember, I am a "toy" not to be commented upon. Thanks.

© 2015

Next Post: “Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On”, to be published on Saturday 12^th September at 6pm (GMT)

Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music... Ad Infinitum

Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin for the Observer

As I mentioned recently temperatures in the UK have apparently been playing on a see-saw. That matters not one iota to yours truly as part of my summer ritual every year is too look for recipes that complement the warm weather.

Veggies, please, look away now for this is yet another meat-rich dish. Pork belly, in this case.

As you know, if you have been reading this blog long, I am a fan of Nigel Slater’s cooking. Not just the cooking but also the way he writes and talks about food. He is an artist, as far as I am concerned. So, I shall let him pick the thread of tonight’s post from here.

The roast is resting – those precious 20 minutes after the Sunday joint and its crackling are taken from the oven and left to sit quietly before we carve. The roasting tin may no longer hold the meat, but there is much treasure there to plunder. We could make a simple gravy, and I usually do, dissolving the good things left by the roast into wine, stock or Marsala. But today I use it for something more substantial altogether.
What lies beneath the meat? Caramelised sugars mostly, sweet, gooey and firmly attached to the roasting tin. It is the concentrated essence of the meat, some charred herbs, sizzling fat, a sticky smudge of roasted garlic. A little magic perhaps. To waste it would be a crime.

I pour batter into the roasting tin. It will take 25 minutes in a hot oven, time enough to rest the meat and carve. But there is more to it than that. I have tossed some diced apple, softened first with a few thyme leaves, into the pan. The little cubes of apple sit in the batter, holding it down a bit, soaking up the juices and savour left behind by the pork. It arrives at the table a little late, slightly eccentric looking, but dark and golden, its surface all pits and furrows of batter and fruit, smelling of roast pork and herbs. I could have cooked the batter pudding separately, all spick and span like a clafoutis without the sugar, but that would be to miss out on the opportunity of using the good things left in the roasting tin; of exploring what lies beneath.

Pork belly with apple and roast potatoes

I ask my local butcher to leave the skin on the belly, but to score it in lines about 2cm apart or in a lattice pattern, whichever he thinks will produce the crispest crackling.

Serves 6

belly pork 1.5 kg, boned weight, skin scored

new potatoes 500g
olive oil 3 tbsp
rosemary 3 large sprigs
garlic 4 cloves

Set the oven at 220C/gas mark 8. Place the pork belly flat on the work surface, skin side down, then slice it horizontally, cutting almost all the way through, to give a large hinged flap. Season generously inside and out.

Put a pan of water on to boil and salt it. Wash the potatoes, but don’t feel the need to peel them. Cut each potato into three or four “coins” then lower them into the boiling water. When the potatoes are tender to the point of a knife, drain them carefully and tip them into a bowl.

Pour the olive oil over the potatoes, pull a few of the needles from the rosemary and add to the potatoes with a grinding of salt and black pepper. Place the pork in a roasting tin. Lay the potatoes, as near as possible in a single layer, in between the two layers of pork. Tuck the remaining sprigs of rosemary and the cloves of garlic amongst the potatoes. Pull the top flap of meat over the potatoes, then place in the oven and leave to sizzle for about 25 minutes.

Lower the heat to 180C/gas mark 4, then leave the pork to cook for about an hour and a half, basting occasionally. During this time the potatoes will soften and soak up some of the juices and fat from the meat.

Remove the pork from the oven, check the potatoes are fully tender, then remove from the tin and cover lightly with foil and leave to rest in a warm place. Serve the pork as it is, carving in thick strips, or utilise the roasting tin and its fat with the recipe below.

To get you in a summer mood, I will start with Thievery Corporation. In the same way the caramelised sugars drip onto the roasting tin, Radio Retaliation will drip into your eardrums. Such a beautiful catchy tune.

Talking of catchy, this next melody is by a band that started very raw-blues, but have mellowed down with the passing of time just like those charred herbs, sizzling fat and roasted garlic. The Black Key’s Fever is pure music heaven and groovy, too.

Let us go back now a few decades and sing along this classic. Beautiful vocals and harmonious accompaniment. Just like the diced apple soaking up the juices and savour left behind by the pork. Canned Heat’s On the Road Again is gorgeous.

We finish tonight with a Chilean rapper. Ana Tijoux first came to my attention when I started watching Breaking Bad. Her song 1977 was part of the series soundtrack. Got the album immediately and have been playing it nonstop ever since. Great artist, just like our dish tonight.

Next Post: “Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On”, to be published on Saturday 20^th June at 6pm (GMT)