3: And our douze points go to...!
Bread is the hero of our time...
In my opinion, this is the greatest Eurovision song of recent years.
Please do @ me if you disagree.
For a long time, I’ve had a tradition involving watching Eurovision while gossiping about it through Facebook Messenger with one of my best friends. Last year, for the first time, we were able to watch it from the same room, at my first Eurovision party! I was hoping to be able to do the same again this year, but instead I’ll be hosting a virtual Eurovision party. If you have any tips on how to pull that off I’ll gladly hear them.
I’ve somehow also managed to volunteer myself to run a Eurovision round on my parents’ Zoom quiz on Sunday night. Cripes.
Recipe: Polenta Chips
I love polenta as an almost-instant alternative to mashed potatoes - and the potato similarity extends to being able to make chips with it! The best bit is that all the ingredients are either shelf-stable or close to it (a wedge of hard cheese will last for weeks and weeks in the fridge) so you can make polenta chips whenever you want.
This recipe comes from Jamie Oliver’s Veg, scaled down to use half a bag of polenta:
Cook 200g polenta in 500-600ml vegetable stock (this is much more densely than you would usually cook it) and stir in 50-60g finely grated parmesan/ grana paranoid cheese, salt, and pepper. Tip into an oiled baking tray and leave to set.
Once the polenta is set, heat the oven to 180C, cut the polenta into chips and toss gently with olive oil. Spread out in a single layer on baking trays and roast for 40-50 minutes until golden and crisp.
Serve with tomato chutney to dip into (or ketchup will do just as well).
Kitchen Tool: Bottle Opener Keyring
Full disclosure: this isn’t exactly something I already own. On my keychain I have a very battered University of Bath (#blueandgold til I die) beer bottle opener, and it comes in handy far more often than you might expect. I was on the train north from London at the end of February, sitting across a group of Austrians who had a 4-pack of Almdudler in glass bottles with beer lids. They opened the first bottle off the second, the second off the third… and then looked stumped when it came to opening the fourth. I offered them my bottle opener and we had a chat (in German) about the intelligibility (or otherwise) of Austrian German as compared to ‘standard’ German. As you do, right?
From breaking the ice with strangers on a train to facilitating spontaneous beers in the sunshine, to coming in handy at a party when no-one can find the opener (and someone’s about to break their belt buckle…), I can recommend carrying a beer bottle opener at all times.
The only thing that could be better - an every-bottle opener. You can get this cute personalised portable corkscrew and bottle opener at Notonthehighstreet.com. It’s worth noting that you can’t take a corkscrew through airport security, though.
Eating at home: Pizzeria 1926
Edinburgh is blessed with a huge number of great pizza places. One of my favourites, and with a distinct Napoli flavour, is Pizzeria 1926 on Dalry Road, five minutes from Haymarket station.
They have a smallish menu but one that’s impossible to make choices from, and, in normal times, a packed dining space - you have to book ahead! A couple of weeks ago they relaunched on Uber Eats, so I ordered one of their pizzas and some arancini - absolutely delicious. Edinburgh friends, they’re open Thursday to Sunday for delivery only - use that information well. Check out the Maradona - a white pizza topped with mozzarella cheese, pork belly, potatoes, onions, and rosemary.
Kaffeeklatsch: The Pieces of Ourselves
After spending half of the Bank Holiday weekend soaking myself in favourite Young Adult romances I’ve read countless times before (The Anna and the French Kiss series by Stephanie Perkins), I decided to make the most of Sunday afternoon by soaking myself in the bath. Pushing the boat out, I took up my friend’s suggestion of a bath beer (Paolozzi Helles, delicious) and augmented it with a few Percy Pigs, and the newest YA romance from Bath-based Maggie Harcourt. The Pieces of Ourselves is set in and around Hopwood Home hotel, a formerly Great House now running as a boutique hotel. The protagonist, Flora, is finding her way after the Incident that caused her to drop out of school halfway - literally - through her GCSE exams. A hotel guest a couple of years older than her, Hal, suddenly shows up and needs her help researching an old story about a soldier he’d been told by his grandfather. They follow the soldier through time and place and find that his story has real resonance for their lives in 2019 (because of course they do).
If you love Victoria Hislop’s The Island and are keen to try Young Adult fiction I’d recommend this. The closest ‘readalike’ I can think of is This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales, which I credit with helping me get out of my nervous breakdown at uni. It follows Elise, a high school student struggling with serious depression, who finds her way back into herself by finding something she’s good at and by remembering what it is to enjoy doing something. In Elise’s case, it’s DJing - pretty different to Flora’s historical research, but the point stands.
And if you’re an Austen nut you’ll love that the head of housekeeping at the hotel is called Mrs Tilney!
Lastly, some personal news - as well as this new venture into food writing, I have been working on a novel for the last couple of years. It has, very excitingly, won a place on the longlist of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize! I’ll let you all know what happens next…
Find me on Instagram: @LilyMCooks
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