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

I haven't posted about avocado for a while. Four years to be more exact. So, I thought that with the mild temperatures we have been having in London and that early feeling of summer, what better food to have than a light lunch with avocado in the lead role? The recipe and photo were taken from The Guardian Cook supplement and they took it from the blog What Should I Have for Breakfast Today.

Avocado baked with an egg and chorizo

1 avocado
2 eggs
1 chorizo sausage, roughly chopped
Olive oil
Salt and black pepper
2 slices of bread, preferably multiseed
2 tsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Cut the avocado in half, remove the stone and scoop a little extra of the flesh out, so you can fit more egg into it. Break the first egg into a bowl. Using a spoon, place yolk in one half of the avocado, then carefully start to add white (you may not manage to add all the white). Season with salt and pepper, then repeat with the other egg and half of avocado. Place the avocado halves in a small baking dish that fits them snugly, so they won't tilt and the egg will not spill out – scrunched-up foil in the base of the dish helps to hold them level. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the white is opaque and the yolk is done to your liking. Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a frying pan and cook the chorizo sausage pieces until crisp, then drain on kitchen paper. Fry the slices of bread in the same pan, adding a little more oil if you need it. Serve the avocado on a plate with the sausage, seasoned with salt and pepper and a scattering of herbs, with toast on the side

The music to accompany this tasty recipe has to be equally savoury. My first offer is The Unthanks with a beautiful and enchanting melody, King of Rome. The arrangements are superb just like the combination of avocado and chorizo.



Magic is at the centre of cooking and magic is what makes music good music. Tiganá Santana came recently to my attention via Songlines magazine. Elizabeth Noon is one of those tracks that leave you licking your lips just like our recipe tonight.



There was a time when, if someone asked me who my favourite classic composers were,  I would say straight away: Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. Chopin, Handel, Brahms and the others would follow closely after but it was mainly the first three that did it for me. Not anymore. Whilst I continue to love Beethoven and Mozart's oeuvre, it is into Bach's music that I have delved more over the years (especially after reading two biographies on his life and work) and which I find spellbinding and filling. Like avocado, which to me it's filling. The Prelude in C Minor is my way of explaining why Bach's music makes feel this way.



I live in Londontown and Bellowhead sing about London Town. So, it follows that if I want to sign off tonight with an uptempo number I should go for this band made of members of whom only one is from... Londontown. Enjoy.



Next Post: "Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music", to be published on Sunday 11th May at 10am (GMT)

Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

You are walking down the street. There is another person coming towards you in the opposite direction and at some point both of you cross paths. She/he moves to their right and you move to your left. You correct the motion by moving in the opposite direction. Wrong again. Third time lucky? No, still, right for her/him, left for you. Quick smile, she/he stays on their right, you move to your right, too and you both resume your journey.

Train station, early morning. You are standing on the platform and you see a neighbour of yours walking along it only to stop right beside you. You know her/him. She/he is the one who lives two doors down from you. You sometimes wave hello from a distance on your way to the newsagents at the weekend, but other than that you too have never exchanged words. Now she/he takes their headphones off and realises that the person standing next to them is you. Her/his neighbour. Your train arrives. It’s your neighbour’s train, too. You sit next to each other and... what to do? Engage her/him in conversation? If so, what to talk about? For how long? How much should you reveal about you and your work and how far can you go when you ask the same questions back?

It is your first day at work in the school to which you have been transferred. You already know some of your colleagues and meet the ones you didn’t. One of them, a female teacher, is having problems trying to carry a large number of boxes up to her classroom. You ask her where she is taking the boxes and she points to the very top of the building. You notice she is wearing a large blouse, bulging around her waist. You volunteer to help her out. She gives you a look of puzzlement but accepts your offer. On the way up you ask her how far along she is. She bursts out laughing and tells you she is not pregnant. From that moment on, every time you see here around in the school you avoid her eyes. By the way, it is not the first time you have made this mistake. Remember the time on the bus when you got up and offered your seat to a lady you thought was pregnant? Or how about the other time as you commuted to work on the Underground when you pointed at a woman across the carriage and beckoned her to your seat? You even made the shape of a tummy with your hands. She threw daggers at you with her eyes.

We teach children about manners. We give them valuable tips to get by in life: not to talk to strangers, to wear a helmet when they are on their bikes, to put a coat on when it is cold. But how do you deal with awkwardness? How do you deal with that “unplanned instant” for which we have no natural reaction? The silence that descends uninvited and unexpected in what was until now a lively conversation? The split second in between us attempting to kiss someone on the cheek and that person turning the other one, resulting in almost an accidental smacker on their lips?

Life is full of moments like these. Some people call these moments embarrassing. To me embarrassment occasionally precedes awkwardness and sometimes includes it. Being introduced to a colleague’s partner whom we have never met before and calling him by the name of her ex-partner is embarrassing. But how are you supposed to know? Until recently she was always going on about Mr X. Nobody told you that she had dumped Mr X and hooked up with Mr Y.

Embarrassment is longer-lasting. Awkwardness is fleeting. I have always seen the latter as a lapse in our methodical lives, especially if, like me, you are a city-dweller. This is the reason why I value awkward moments, even when the outcome is detrimental. Awkwardness is a sign that not everything has been learnt, that there is still space for the clumsy, the unprepared, the unplanned. We live in a world where one of the top-selling online retailers, Amazon, trades in data. It collects data, our data, so that it can target us, as consumers, more effectively. Supermarket giant Tesco knows all about our shopping habits and it bombards us with offers left, right and centre. Against this invitation to order, the existence of awkwardness is a balm for the soul. Proof that the robots will never take over, no matter how many people aver to the contrary, because they would not know what to do about uncomfortable silences in a conversation. To deal with a situation like that, someone would have to programme “uncomfortable silence” in their hard drives. And even after that our metallic friends would still be at a loss when presented with the sight of a colleague wearing a blouse bulging at the waist.



© 2014

Next Post: “Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music... Ad Infinitum”, to be published on Wednesday 7^th May at 11:59pm (GMT)