Hello there my lovelies! How are you all doing? I wish that you could be here with me right now- the weather is as grey as a sink of dirty dish water, but the trees in my garden have turned yellow and dropped those leaves like a yellow-ochre carpet. I wish you were here on my terrace, wrapped in a blanket, sipping on frothy hot chocolates admiring the next season that is upon us.
We had such incredible weather over the weekend that just passed that the doors were open and we were in and out of lounge, able to admire the walnut tree that is now a mass of sunny yellow and the poplar trees are their typical dusty yellow and brown, and I found myself wondering how I’ve not ever really noticed the autumn in my garden. Quite obviously the reason lies in the fact that every unCovid year has been spent elsewhere, our departures to and from home under the cover of winter darkness, without so much as a breath of a chance to stop and appreciate the autumn colours.
Right now, late October, with many, many weeks between my first CovidTimes blogpost- when I sat on my terrace admiring the barren winter trees and dead garden, and today, as I still sit on my terrace and admire the now colourful autumn trees and leaf carpet, with so many mixed emotions, I can’t figure out if I’m Arthur or Martha. The last 7 months have been surreal and weird, haven’t they?
To recap my news up since mid September: I had returned to work for 20 hours a week, the only shifts were evenings and on the weekends. I was initially pretty bummed as it meant I wouldn’t be seeing my girls 3 evenings a week but I realised that I would be free during the day to write, photograph and cook at home, to my hearts content! As a result, I created a second Instagram account to share my culinary tips, advice, creations and stuff. I also had great plans to exercise alot, and catch up with my friends and be in a positive mental head-space.
Alas, my head got a little bit too full up with the demons that sit there, and after a month of sharing plenty of recipes and food photos, I’m beginning to doubt whether I have what it takes to pull off an online personal ‘brand’. Of course, I should determine why I spend my time doing it and I realise that it should be purely personal, that I’m not in it for income or attention, and just do it because I’m having fun.
Anyway, life continued for 6 weeks; me getting in my Fitbit step count after taking Beth to school, taking in the seasonal changes, cooking dinner, binge-watching on Amazon Prime, taking afternoon naps, and heading in to work as the proverbial ‘locum chef’ from 7 until 11 in the evening. Along the way, I lost the initiative to remain positive and keep my days occupied, and I became a little bit lonely in fact: without my girls being at home during the day, hubby being at the office for long hours, and my relative isolation in my work kitchen, the slump had hit. I felt the distinct absence of meaningful conversation, and so with October 25th looming, I decided that come Covid Hell or Highwater, I would be celebrating my birthday this year.
Have you tried planning a CovidTimes birthday party? No sooner had I decided who I could invite to a Sunday lunch, and send out an invite (with the warning that we planned on being 12 adults and 5 pre-teen kids, and they could decide for themselves if they wished to risk a bigger group) did the infection statistics here in France literally burn off the jet fuel under the Appollo 15 rocket and take to the stars.
10 000….12 000….15 000….20 000….22 000…
At this point Alsace was still not a high alert zone: the health department has created a method by which departments are determined to be risky, and 2 weeks before my birthday, there were 8 cities across France that were put under curfew and Strasbourg were being warned that we could no longer be a gathering of more than 6 people.
As a result, a much-awaited Pub night with the YummyMummies and HardWorking Dads was postponed- how much had I looked forward to speaking to people outside the characters in my books?
Also, my own birthday plans needed to be renegotiated: who could cross the Rhine border, who would risk breaking the rules, who would risk their health?
The next debacle was the knowledge that pub customers have tested positive, and we were all advised to be tested. Since I was going ahead with birthday plans, I decided to succumb to the long super-flexi-earbud swab test being inserted up my nasal cavity, down into the Sphenoid Sinus and scraped there like I had just taken a great bite from a horseradish root.
Me test came back negative, happily, and can’t help but wonder at the effectiveness of the masks we wear as soon as we are 6km’s away from the city centre. Our serving staff are always masked up and as yet, we have no positive results. But that said, how have the statistics risen like they have? The weekends testing figures came in at an excess of 40 000 positive cases- where did we go so wrong? Are the French tired of being regulated and contained?
So yes, there it is. The second wave has come with a vengeance, and the country PM announced a further 38 cities would go into curfew as of Saturday 24th.
However, I kept my birthday plans intact, albeit illicitly as we were 9 people under my roof and day drinking is all the rage. However, restaurants were forced to close by 20h30 so I have (happily) been sent back home on chômage again, to eat 5 meals a day at home and do all the laundry on time. Of course, as I sit here rumours seem to be flying around the chat rooms of another confinement period, so while we’re all waiting to say goodbye to 2020, I think 2021 will bring in much of the sameness. This isn’t going away, that’s for certain.
Moving on from Covid babble, I wanted to write about my latest culinary attempts.
I’ve written before how we take pride in all the pub meals being fait maison, how Xav makes his own spaetzle, we do our own foie gras, burger pattys etc etc, including Smoked Salmon, and I’ve been wanting to share the process on my @gaenor_chefwitchery_ Insta page. Since the Instagram page is to inspire cooking at home, I needed to determine the steps within a reasonably equipped kitchen environment. Nonetheless, there is obviously a marked absence of cooking smokers sitting around our cupboards at home, so I decided that my own BraaiMaster Hubby should attempt to smoke the salt-cured salmon in the dying embers of a braai-ed birthday lunch lamb leg.
The result didn’t turn out exactly as I hoped; certainly the smokiness wasn’t as noticeable as it potentially could be. The salmon itself was definitely cooked through the 24 hours of salting, and we could afford to decrease the temperature and increase the amount of woodchips we used. Nonetheless, it was a happy experiment, worth trying again. I’m going to include my steps below in the event you come across a salmon fillet with the skin on and fancy trying something different. And if you succeed at smoking it over the coals in your braai/Weber, tell me your tips!
Weber Kettle-Braai Smoked Salmon
½ side of filleted Salmon, skin on (it’s approximately 600g weight)
500g mix of coarse and fine salt
200g fine sugar
5 cloves, 2 star aniseeds, 1 teaspoon mustard seeds, ½ teaspoon ground coriander, zest of 1 lemon, 4 sticks thyme, 2 garlic cloves crushed with the bottom of a knife.
Combine the salt and sugar, mix the herbs and spices in and pack it around the side of salmon in a tray- underneath as well as on the top.
Leave it in the fridge for more than 24 hours, after which you can wash the salt off, wrap in a dishcloth and dry the salmon overnight.
Regarding the salt and spices amounts in the list above: they can be approximations, so long as you maintain the ration of 5 salt:2 sugar. The 700g was a bit of a waste on the half side of salmon, as I had planned on doing one full side of salmon, but couldn’t pack it in my fridge, so we went with a half fillet. However, I am so accustomed to really packing the salmon in salt, so it’s my go-to method.
To smoke the salted salmon:
We had planned on cooking a lamb leg in the Weber Kettle over 3 hours , so when we removed the lamb once it was ready, we had enough residual heat from the coals that weren’t too hot to burn the soaked Cherry wood woodchips. We scattered the chips over the hot coals, placed the salmon fillet onto the grill, and placed the Weber lid back on. The temperature rose a bit- a little too high at 160˚C, but we left the salmon on for 30 minutes to smoke, turning it over once.
The salmon was not the piece de résistance of the meal, it was for my pescatarian friends, but it was really quite a lot of fun trying something new on the kettle braai, and definitely something we will play around with more often.
My next culinary research is Project SourDough, and the entire cosmos of a homemade wild yeast starters and artisan bread. There is a relative cornucopia of information on Instagram, but no definitive idea of who to follow for the best results. So armed with some random google-suggested article, a stack of Inst accounts to follow and the advice of some people I am actually on friend terms with, I am excited at the prospect of naming my starter baby WHEN he or she has actually grown to something beyond a twinkle in my eye. I already have thrown away 1 attempt last week. The lack of growth may have been a result of so many faults: was it the use of the metal spoon or that I used boiled water on one day? When I did the discarding and used a new glass bowl to do prep day 4, was I wrong to change the bowl? Is my kitchen just a little bit to nippy or was it the use of wholewheat flour? Alas, you and I will never know.
As of today for Attempt 2, I will feed the flour for the 2nd time, so it’s the 3rd day, and we’re looking a little more promising this time. And while I go through the motions, I can’t help but remember the fiction story called ‘Sourdough’ by Robin Sloane!
Anyway friends, I am going to wrap this up for today. There is a beef shin that needs attention in my kitchen, and actual children that require food and attention, so let me bid you au revoir for now.
As usual, here is a printable recipe for salting the salmon. You know where to find me if you have any queries.
All my love and best wishes,
G.
PS: I had a fantastic Covid Birthday by the way, certainly one of the few people of the world who got to celebrate and I am eternally grateful for all the messages and phonecalls. Thank you everyone!
Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals 