COVID-19 Musings - Food - What is in your fridge or pantry today?

 #SLVMemoryBank
The State Library of Victoria has asked for contributions to a Memory Bank project tied in with the current COVID-19 lockdown in Victoria. The first prompt is What is in your fridge or pantry today?

As I was planning to write a series of posts on how the COVID-19 is affecting our life in Victoria I will use some of their prompts as well as my own topics.

Week 1 of the SLV Memory Bank project was to make a list of what food is currently stored at home and / or menus for the week.

This proved to be an interesting exercise. 

Quantities - Before COVID-19 when we had nearly finished a packet of food we would write it on the shopping list. Now we make a note on the list as soon as we open a packet to purchase an extra one  so we try to have a spare. Last month there was a rush on some basic items such as flour, pasta and rice. Even yoghurt disappeared for a while. However by the time we required replacements the items had returned to the shelves and limited quantities could be purchased.

We normally go shopping a couple of times a week when we buy meat or fish, fresh vegetables and any extra ingredients required for a meal. Consequently the foods in the lists below tend to be staple food used in basic cooking.

Pantry
Flour - self raising flour, plain flour and corn flour
Breadcrumbs
Cereal - oats, bran, coconut, nuts and other ingredients to make home made museli
Sugar - also icing sugar, castor sugar and brown sugar
Sauce - tomato sauce, soy sauce, tartare sauce
Pasta
Pasta sauce
Rice
Teabags
Canned soup
Canned tomatoes
Canned corn
Canned beetroot
Olive oil
Containers of fruit - apricots, peaches
Dried fruit - raisins, sultanas, dates
Honey
Herbs and spices though we often use fresh herbs from the garden.

Refrigerator
Eggs
Milk
Butter
Margarine
Cheese - block and shredded
Yoghurt
Jam
Lindt chocolate (special treats, especially when on special)

Freezer
Bread
Frozen peas
Frozen chips
Frozen packets of mince
Ice cream (from when the grandchildren were allowed to visit)

Fruit and Vegetables
Bananas
Pears
Apples
Potatoes
Sweet potato
Brussel sprouts
Carrots
Mushrooms

When the lockdown began we were eating salads and therfore had lettuce, tomatoes, avocado etc but now that it is cooler we tend to just have cooked vegetables. In other years we have relied on salad ingredients and some vegetables from our garden but the very hot weather at the beginning of this past summer followed by a cool spell when it is normally warmer was not really condusive for growing garden produce. We are therefore preparing the vegetable beds for next summer's crop.

Menus
Each week we have a pasta dish one night (normally Monday), salmon on a Wednesday, cordon bleu (or similar) on Thursday and sometimes steak on a Friday. There is often a roast on Sunday and Saturday is usually take-away either Asian food or fish and chips. Tuesday is more variable -could be sausages or turkey breasts or .... Some might say that we are in a rut! 

Homemade lasagna with garlic bread

However there has been variety in some of the meals served recently as I have had time to prepare meals that Mum used to make such as Cottage Pie or meals I cooked when I was at home looking after our children. Therefore homemade Lasagna, Toad in the Hole and, on Good Friday, Fish Pie are some of dishes cooked during the last month. The general consensus is that we should prepare such meals more often. Another dish from my childhood that I plan to make is Tuna Kedgeree and Macaroni Cheese is always a favourite..

Fish pie with eggs, mushrooms and peas

Left over dinner usually becomes lunch during the week or is sometimes converted into another meal - eg fritters - depending on the quantity left over. Some meals, such as stews, taste even better a day or two later.

Poached egg on salmon with tomatoes and muchrooms

Sometimes for lunch I have left over salmon on avocado toast or a roll topped with a poached egg - delicious and a great way to use leftovers.

SLV Memory Bank

See also all posts in this blog on COVID-19

The Dictionary of Lost Words

This is a book about words. Words that formed the Oxford English Dictionary created between 1857 when a meeting of the Philological Society proposed a new dictionary of the English language and 1928 when volume 12 was published. The production of the twelve volumes was largely the work of a men though a few women were granted permission to assist. Not surpisingly the decision to accept words and their definitions omitted many words used by women.

Pip Williams incorporates names of people and events relating to the creation of the dictionary into her novel which recounts the life of a family involved in working at the Scriptorium, one of the locations in Oxford where suggested terms for the dictionary were evaluated.

Esme, who is six when the novel begins, spends part of each day playing under the table in the Scriptorium while her father and the other men go about their work. Esme develops a love for words and eventually becomes a member of the dictionary team. However, over time, Esme realises the necessity to also collect current words, used largely by women of the lower classes, which have not made it into literature but are equally important as part of the English language. She keeps a collection of these words with their definitions and quotations and eventually they form a dictionary of lost words.

The time period in the novel covers the endeavours of the suffragists and the suffragets to gain the vote for all women in England which is not achieved until 1928. The First World War also looms largely in the second part of the novel. The book is also a study of attitudes of men towards women and the attempts of some women to overcome these attitudes. The book also reflects on the class structure early in the twentieth century as well as being a story of love and relationships.

This beautifully written book provides a celebration of words which will cause the reader to consider the evolution of language over time and the need for inclusiveness of language. 

This was a Monash University Alumni Book Club Book in 2023.

The Paris Secret

When a collection of Dior dresses is discovered in her grandmother's cottage on the Cornwall coast, Kat Jourdan does not anticipate the revelations about to be discovered about her grandmother and other relations during the Second World War.

The Paris Secret is a novel by Australian author, Natasha Lester. The story is told within different time frames and locations - Cornwall during the late 1920s and early 1930s; England and France during the Second World War and Cornwall and Australia in 2012.

As a child, Skye Penrose enjoyed growing up in a cottage near the beach in Cornwall, especially when she could spend time with her best friend, Nicholas Crawford. Skyes' mother brought up her two daughters alone and the girls are very aware that they do not have a father. However Skye developed a special relationship with her mother who teaches Skye and Nicholas to fly an aeroplane.

With the outbreak of war there is opportunity for pilots to join the RAF, but not if they are female. The novel looks at attitudes towards women in a male dominated world during the war and the fight by women for acknowledgement of their abilities. The role of women in the SOE is also a theme of the book.

 The Paris Secret is a work of fiction but many of the incidents described, especially in the section dealing with events in the 1940s, are based on actual events. At the end of the book Natasha Lester provides information about her research for the book and some of the sources used. The book is also about relationships within families, including sibling rivalry, plus close friendships forged when faced with danger. It is about learning to trust people, dealing with loss and how to decide whether something which may not be as it seems should be investigated or left alone. This is also a romance novel.

I have not read any other novels by Natasha Lester but after thoroughly enjoying reading The Paris Secret this omission will be rectified.

Two other books reviewed and recommended in this blog dealing with some of the themes covered in The Paris Secret:

The Lost Girls of Paris  by Pam Jennoff

Sapphire Skies  by Belinda Alexandra

The Good Turn

This is the third book in Dervla McTiernan's series about Detective Cormac Reilly, an Irish policeman endeavouring to solve crimes despite interference and lack of support from a number of his colleagues.

When the abduction of a young girl is reported Cormac and his small team endeavour to investigate. Additional support was requested and refused leaving a skelton team to locate the missing girl before she is harmed. All does not go to plan resulting in the suspension of Cormac Reilly while Garda Peter Fisher is relocated from Galway to the small town of Roundstone while his future is decided.

While Cormac continues to work on the case of the missing girl from afar he also becomes involved in assisting to uncover corruption in the  police force. Meanwhile Peter investigates a double murder that occurred on a farm near Roundstone and endeavours to resolve his relationship with his father. Cormac also needs to resolve his relationship with Emma who has moved overseas to work.

The Good Turn continues of some of the themes occurring in the two earlier books, The Ruin and The Scholar as well as revealing more of the backstory and lives of Cormac Reilly and Peter Fisher. Another excellent book in this series by Dervla McTiernan.

Trace Elements

Donna Leon has been writing this series of books about Commissario Guido Brunetti and Venice for many years. This novel is the twenty-nineth. I always look forward to a new novel in this series because the stories are about people, their love, fears and foibles, about living in Venice as well as a crime or two to investigate. It is summer in Venice and the author vividly describes locals trying to cope in a hot, crowded, tourist city where there are few places to escape the heat and the many visitors exploring tourist destinations.

In Trace Elements Guido and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, are asked to visit a woman who is in a hospice and has a story that she wants to tell the police. As they leave the hospice they are not sure whether the information that she gave them refers to a crime or not. On their second visit a few days later the patient dies. Guido and Claudia decide that the woman's story has to be investigated which leads to trying to discover how and why her husband died and what is really going on at a water plant that could be threatening the lives of people living and working in the surrounding area.

Added to this, when Vice Questore Patta becomes concerned with young pick pockets in Venice giving the city a bad name when a campaign in a magazine to promote the city is to be launched Guido is summoned the resolve the issue.

The issues in these novels are ethical issues and are never straight forward. They therefore provide Guido and the reader plenty to think about.

A Conspiracy of Bones

I read a number of Temperance Brennan books by Kathy Reichs in the past so when this latest volume in the series, A Conspiracy of Bones, was recently published I decided to revisit the series to catch up on the latest exploits in the lives of Temperance Brennan and Andrew Ryan.

When Temperance Brennan receives photos on her phone of a faceless corpse she wants to investigate the case but she has a new boss who does not want Tempe working on the project. Tempe then enlists the support of friends including Skinny Slidell, a member of the local police force, and they proceed to try and establish who the victim is and how he died. As the investigation proceeds Brennan and Slidell encounter a series of conspiracy theories linked to the dead man and his colleagues. They also suspect that there may be link to the deaths of children ten years previously, a cold case that Slidell is investigating. The author provides lots of information as the plot unfolds, including information that leads to dead ends, as Brennan and Slidell persist in trying to establish the truth.

The book also reveals more of the private life of Temperance and Andrew Ryan. Ryan is now a private investigator in Montreal and he and Tempe have appartments in both Montreal and Charlotte, North Carolina, as Tempe works for organisations in both cities. Tempe has been ill and is receiving treatment for an anerism. During the investigation she often wonders what is true and what is imaginary.

This is a novel where the reader needs to concentrate in order to keep track of what is happening as the investigation continues. However, this current time of social / physical isolation may provide the perfect opportunity to read this novel.

(A Temperance Brennan Novel no 19)

The Bass Rock

The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld is a disturbing novel about the violence men have inflicted on the female characters in the book over time. There are three threads in the novel - the story of Viviane (marked I) who is in Scotland to sort through her grandmother's possessions so that the house may be sold; the story of Ruth (marked II) who after the Second World War married Peter and looked after his children (one who became Viviane's father); and the story of Sarah (marked III) who lives in the 1700s and has been accused of witchcraft. The book is also divided into seven sections at the end of which is a series of short accounts of a woman suffering from the violence of a man.

I did not find this an easy book to read; not just for the subject matter but the jumping from one story to another which interrupted the flow of each story, making (in my opinion) the narrative of each section difficult to follow. Added to this, Sarah's story (III) did not really connect with the other two sections except to demonstrate that women had encountered mistreatment for centuries.

This is therefore a dark novel illustrating how the violence that may occur against women continues to affect lives. The references to the Bass Rock looming in the background add to the uneasiness existing in the novel emphasised by the characters' awareness of the presence of ghosts, who in their turn have faced violence in the past.

Winner of the 2021 Stella Prize (outstanding book written by an Australian female author)

The Bass Rock - review in The Guardian 21 March 2020

The Bass Rock in Scotland - Transceltic