Rhubarb Rhubarb Rhubarb ...

For much of my life I’ve had what some would term an irrational vendetta against rhubarb. The only thing I like about it is the way it sounds. I firmly hold the belief that it is essentially a form of sweet celery and, as anyone who has ever had a celery dessert would agree, that’s not a brilliant idea (I’m not one of those people, luckily, because it sounds like a really, really bad idea). I should mention that I’ve never actually tasted this particular vegetable (fruit?) and am basing my opinion entirely upon its appearance, but even so. I have long resisted the fruitless efforts of my family to force rhubarb upon me.

Anyway, a lifetime’s worth of abstinence from rhubarb came to a conclusion about ten minutes ago, when I came home to discover a tray of muffins on the kitchen bench. I regarded them approvingly.

‘You should have a muffin,’ my mother suggested.

‘What’s in them?’

‘Raspberries and… other things,’ she said deceptively. My clue should probably have been in the fact that she said it deceptively.

I naively responded by removing a muffin from the tray, taking it upstairs and starting work on one of my assignments. I was well into the second paragraph when I absent-mindedly picked up the muffin and bit into it. My absent-mindedness was short lived.

I promptly dashed downstairs to encounter my mum, smugly happy in the realisation of her evil plan.

‘Did you like the muffins?’ she cackled manically. Or possibly just said normally. I definitely remember it being in an evil tone of voice, though.

‘ARE YOU TRYING TO POISON ME?’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, as if she hadn’t just had an integral part in a plan to take my life.

‘There’s RHUBARB in this!’

She appeared less ashamed of herself than I would have liked. ‘Yes. Did you like it?’

I looked at her coldly. ‘No. It was horrible. You spoiled a perfectly good muffin.’

She shrugged, and I went back upstairs to try and get back to work. Then I decided that it would be a better use of my time to blog about the things I eat. That’s because I’m impractical, and is also my mum’s fault, somehow.

Unfortunately, I now have to impart a terrible, terrible secret.

Rhubarb is freaking delicious. It’s got a sort of pleasantly tangy jam-like taste and is nothing whatsoever like celery (not that I eat celery. Rhubarb is one thing, but I will never be enticed to eating celery).

But now I can never reveal it to my family, (a) because that would mean going back on eighteen years of consistent anti-rhubarb-ism, and I like to be consistent, and (b) then my mother would win. And I will NOT let my mother win this battle of wills. That’s absolutely what it is. It’s not just me being childish.

So goodbye for now. I have to go and finish my muffin, while mourning the loss of a fruit that I never knew well, and now will never have the chance to get to know. Or possibly a vegetable.

How To Run A Food Stall Creatively

 'If you need to set up a stall, there's no reason why you can't do it CREATIVELY! Why be restricted by social norms and boring, PRACTICAL ways of running a temporary food-vending business? Follow this brand-new world-exclusive HOW TO and prepare yourself for the WORLD of FUN that will ensue!'

- Leslie M. Harper, Head of Creative Psychiatry at the University of Uttoxetercamfordbridgedam and Specialist in General Excitingness

You will need:

15 friends, with varying degrees of enthusiasm

1 box pre-assembled noodles

1 box non-pre-assembled fried rice

1 box cold spring rolls

2 microwaves

2 desks

1 floral tablecloth

cups, forks and spoons

a sense of misplaced optimism in the whole proceedings

CREATIVITY

 

Every year at school, we have an event named ‘Harmony Day’. On this day several of the senior students are expected to run stalls at lunchtime, each one selling the cuisine of a different country. This year a group of friends and I were given the responsibility of running the China stall. I’m not sure exactly how it was supposed to inspire interracial harmony as I spent much of the time having a verbal war with the Canadians about table spaces and then stealing Britain’s sticky tape. All the same, though, we had been told to run a table. And run it we did.

However, this is not a post about simply setting up a stall. This is about setting up a stall CREATIVELY. ANYONE can run a Harmony Day stall. The REAL challenge is in running a stall in as creative a way as possible. And so, I’ve provided these handy instructions for anyone who might need them.

For some reason I was the only one in our group to have a double free before lunchtime, which means it was my job to set up the stall.

The way I see it, creatively setting up a tiny stall to purvey shoddily assembled Chinese-like comestibles in the space of an hour and a half can be done in five main steps. In case you need help remembering them they can be known as the five ‘S’s. The first is STALL; the second SIGNAGE; the third SAVOURIES; the fourth SUPPLIES; and the fifth SELLING.

 

1. STALL

The first step is to set up the stall itself. If you are living in an ideal, creative world, you will have a professional shop area, exciting and unusual foodstuffs to vend, and countless blank slate opportunities to scribble all over with the phenomenal creativeness of your mind. You will also live in a castle, have a butler named Jeeves, and ride a unicorn-drawn chariot to school every morning. This is not an ideal world.

If, like us, all you have available is two desks and a floral tablecloth, you should nonetheless be prepared to set them up in as CREATIVE a way as possible. First it will be necessary to move (steal) desks from your French classroom. I recommend using a friend to help you with this. I chose to use Brandine, despite the fact she wasn’t actually one of the group of people supposed to be helping with the stall. It is quite difficult – nay, tantamount to impossible – to lug a heavy desk around by yourself. I discovered this when Brandine left shortly after helping me move the first desk, leaving me with the second. It was painful. I ran into two walls. Luckily, the protection provided by the desk prevented any part of me from actually making contact with the wall. Unluckily, the wall was in contact with the desk, which was in contact with me, which led to a not insignificant amount of pain and bruising.

Move your desks to where you want them. Here is a great opportunity for creativeness. Why not leave the desk in the middle of the main quad? Place it upside down in front of the science classrooms? Push it down the stairs in front of the canteen?

Odds are, however, that if you want people to actually come to your Harmony Day stall, you’re going to have to set it up somewhere accessible. After some deliberation I went with putting the desks under the arch in front of the library. But I’m sure you can still think of some way to set them up CREATIVELY! You could … well … well, let’s move on to the decoration. There are LOTS of creative things to do with decoration.

Having moved your desks to wherever you want them you will then need to apply some form of decoration. What kind of thing, exactly? You’re a creative person! Cover the table with origami wolverines! Create a world map out of interestingly coloured stones and bits of glass!

Unless, of course, all you have is a mildly stained yellow tablecloth covered in daisies. In which case it will be a little harder to attain creativity. Still, I’m sure you’ll think of something interesting to do with the PLACEMENT of the tablecloth. Peel a couple of bits of spilled wax off the tablecloth – or don’t, you creative person, you – and decide how you want to place it. Underneath the desks? Perhaps on a different stall altogether?

Given that you want your stall to actually look like a stall, maybe you could consider placing your tablecloth ON the desks and spreading it over them. But whatever. I’m the last person to want to restrict someone else’s CREATIVE URGES. It’s just a suggestion.

 

2. SIGNAGE

Aha! Finally a chance for some REAL creativity! The signs are of vital importance to your stall. How else are people going to know what you’re selling?

As we had the China stall, I made a giant poster to tape on the wall next to us. You don’t have to be restricted by the limitations of a POSTER, of course. A piece of sculpture will do just as well. If you’re willing to give up your whole lunchtime to performing it, you could even try some interpretive dancing. But, you know, for general convenience, a poster works pretty well. And it should probably have the name of your stall on it. And I personally chose to make my poster look like the Chinese flag. But you can make it look like a CREATIVE Chinese flag, if you want.

You’ll also need price lists.

Even if you can’t be as creative as you’d like to with the poster, I’m sure you can go absolutely crazy with the price lists! There’s no LIMIT to the amount of creativity you can cram into that black-and-white A4 sheet!

But you should probably include the names of the things you’re selling on it as well. You know. Just in case people want to buy things. You’ll need the prices too.

You know, at first it seemed so EASY to run a stall creatively, but this is just … wait! Savouries! That means FOOD! Food is creative!

 

3. SAVOURIES

Savouries is where the creativity REALLY begins to flow freely. There are so many things you can do with FOOD! Tofu ice cream! Tibetan goat cheese kebabs!

Or, yes, well, it is a CHINESE stall, so you’ll probably need Chinese food, but you can still be CREATIVE!

Unfortunately most creative foods are extremely difficult to make. We ended up with a box of fried rice, one of noodles, and one of spring rolls. Myself and Vyvyan – also someone who wasn’t actually in the group responsible for the stall, so I’m not sure exactly why she was helping – had to reheat them in the Senior Common Room.

Except it wasn’t ALL reheating. We had to assemble the fried rice – the rice, egg, and ham were all in separate boxes.

CREATIVITY TIME!

We had to mix them together and heat them in the microwave with some water in order to, essentially, cook them. You might think that there’d be little opportunity for creativity in there, right? Well, you’d be WRONG.

Due to the fact that we had a very small microwave and a very large box of rice, we were forced to frantically shovel the rice into a smaller plastic box, warm it up enough so that while it may not technically have been COOKED it was at least a good temperature. Hmmm. Not much room for creativity so far. I suppose, if you wanted to, you could do something quite interesting like gently warming the rice in the loving light of the sun, or placing the ingredients in the toaster, which Vyvyan suggested doing twice. Except that really doesn’t cook the rice enough to allow you to serve it. Damn this dearth of creative opportunities.

We warmed up the noodles at the same time in another microwave, and this time we actually left them in the box. Which was virtually exactly the same size as the microwave itself, meaning it didn’t have room to turn. That’s a little bit creative, isn’t it? It’s different, anyway …

Although we ended up causing the carousel in the microwave to fall out, which, while certainly EXCITING and UNUSUAL, will not help you in your stall-running aims. So while I certainly am not going try to restrict the creative nature of any one, ever – that would mean actually making assertive decisions – DON’T do this. Not ever. Never.

Well, you’ll have finished making the food by this point, and yes, I know it hasn’t been very creative so far. This is so DIFFICULT. At least you can be creative in the way you carry the food down to your staid, boring, non-creative stall. BALANCE the noodles gently on your head whilst gently tossing the box of mostly-warmed-up rice from hand to hand. Form the spring rolls into some kind of head dress and warble native songs as you walk carefully down to your stand.

Or just carry them. Which, you know, given they’re kind of hot ‘n all, and the lids come off easily, might be a bit safer. Or …

NO! NO! We CAN be creative! You could … or … or maybe … PLEASE TELL ME THIS ISN’T ALL THERE IS. There MUST be more opportunities for creativity! Please …

 

4. SUPPLIES

You can do supplies creatively … can’t you? It is possible? Well, yes, I suppose … of COURSE it is. EVERYTHING is creative to creative people like us. It is now in your hands to decide what it is people are eating FROM, what they’re eating WITH, and WHAT they’re putting on it.

Being a creative type I’m sure you like to see people turning back to nature, but your customers might not enjoy eating noodles from their bare hands. I know, I know, they’re just not as creative as you are. It’s probably best to provide some kind of disposable cup or bowl. We went with cups. They were cheaper. But you know you can still give people the OPTION of eating unrestricted by the tawdry plastic containers you’re giving everyone else … you haven’t sold out COMPLETELY … there’s still some creativity here … isn’t there?

Not to worry! You can still be creative about the type of cutlery to provide!

IMAGINE the range of eating implements you can provide. How about some sporks, to begin with? Then … wait, why be hemmed in by traditional cutlery? Give each customer a clarinet to eat with! Finally, we’re allowed to use some CREATIVITY!

Except forks and spoons are cheaper, so we ended up buying a packet of each of them and giving customers those.

We also provided a bottle of soy sauce for customers to season their food with. You could provide something else, I suppose. Maybe your customers would be interested in having hand-ground sugar gently sprinkled over their noodles or fried rice. Perhaps you could completely get rid of any CORPOREAL idea of seasoning and just chant a short, self-composed poem over each cup.

Or, you know, you could stick with the soy sauce.

Oh, God, this is so DIFFICULT … I joined this group because I thought I could finally use some of the CREATIVITY I’ve been telling people I have … they told me, they told me I’d have to do some things seriously, but I didn’t realise quite HOW MUCH … oh, lord, DON’T MAKE ME FACE LIFE FOR WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS, THERE MUST BE SOMETHING CREATIVE I CAN DO AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGHHH NO … I’m sure I can feel my chakras clogging up.

 

5. SELLING

Selling is the most important part of any of these steps because this is when all your HARD, CREATIVE WORK comes to fruition. The savouries, supplies and signage should all be set up on your stall. At this point, CUSTOMERS will begin to come around.

Customers, unfortunately, aren’t generally creative people. While I’m sure that if YOU were a customer you’d approach it in a highly original way, most people are simply interested in purchasing comestibles from you and moving on. Philistines. Luckily, there are LOTS of creative ways to RESPOND to customers.

Generally speaking, the customer will begin by saying ‘I’d like a cup of noodles, please,’ or words to that effect, and offer you some money. At which point you … well, do whatever you want!You could leap over the stall, clutch the customer to your breast dramatically and cry ‘Comrades, the revolution is here!’ You could throw a spoon at them and then sink slowly down behind the stall and out of sight. You could predict their future with some of those magical healing crystals you bought online.

Actually, in THIS situtation in might be helpful if, I don’t know, you took their money and put it in the change box. And then you should probably give them the noodles. Because as creative as it might be to take their money and NOT give them the noodles, it’s also technically against the law.

I CAN’T MOVE IN THIS CREATIVITY-BARREN SOCIETY! WHY can’t I be creative? IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

This is so STRESSFUL … I’m going to take a minute out to listen to Enya.

Except to do that I’m going to have to put my iPod headphones in my EARS, instead of out the window, or in the vegetable section at Coles, which is so STAID, and EMOTIONLESS.

I CAN’T LIVE IN A WORLD IN WHICH SELLING FOOD IS PRACTICAL AND UNINTERESTING.

WHAT am i doing here I CAN’T TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS TELL ME I CAN MAKE THIS CREATIVE, PLEASE!! PLEASE!!! LET ME HAVE THIS … I NEED CREATIVITY!!!!

At the end of the day, pack up the stall, wash up remaining boxes and return everything to its rightful place.

And THAT, my friends, is how to run a food stall creatively.

Leslie's Recipes: Swiss Roll

Since I started doing Hospitality I've discovered that this actually means we have to cook things. At school. Ah, the stories I could tell ...

The time we got really confused as to how big to make our scones and ended up with nine, where most other people had twenty-four ...

The time we forgot to turn the kitchen on (yes. Normally you just have to remember to turn the oven on. At school we have to turn the KITCHEN on. How were we supposed to remember that?)  ... 

The time right after we turned the kitchen on, when I tried cooking potatoes, forgot that the power was on and let them boil out all over the stove ...

Impressive as these stories are, if there's one I'd like to commit to posterity as one of Leslie's Recipes, it's the time we tried to make swiss rolls.

You will need:

Eggs (several)

Milk (some)

Flour (some more)

Sugar (a bit)

Jam (lots. I use raspberry, plum, or cherry, because those are the only kinds I like)

A cooking partner (in my case, I used Ness, but feel free to substitute other people if Ness is not readily available, which, as a rule, assuming you're doing this in the privacy of your own home, she won't be)

Some kind of interesting song to sing about swiss rolls

1. Collect eggs, flour, and milk from front. Panic about eggs being grey colour. Have Ness (or cooking partner of your choice) reassure you that colour is purely due to cardboard coming off on eggs. Reserve your judgement.

2. Begin to separate egg whites from egg yolks.

3. Do first egg successfully.

4. Drop second egg. Decide it is probably fine and convey contents to their respective bowls anyway.

5. Break third egg in disastrous dropped-glass-bowl-on-it tragedy.

6. Ignore teacher's disapproving look, collect fourth egg.

7. Do fourth egg successfully.

8. Wait for Ness to be done with fancy electric egg-beater type thing. In the meantime, decide to warm milk up ready to be added to mixture.

9. Discover microwave isn't working.

10. Plug microwave in, then try to warm milk.

11. Burn yourself on surprisingly hot milk. Drop milk.

12. Retrieve more milk from front. Avoid teacher. Warm it successfully.

13. Once Ness is done with egg-beater type thing, begin to whisk egg whites.

14. Whisk for five or so minutes then begin to wonder how to tell if it's finished or not.

15. Remember Hospitality teacher telling you yesterday that if you can hold the bowl upside down without the now meringue-like egg whites falling out, it is done.

16. Try the above.

17. Egg white is not done.

18. Vow never to try test again.

19. Put egg white back in bowl with help of wet cloth and continue whisking.

20. Get bored. Assume mixture is done. Mix sugar and egg yolks in, followed by flour and milk.

21. While doing this sing a song you made up on the spot about making swiss rolls. Mine went to the tune of 'Mr. Blue Sky', but feel free to experiment. Be imaginative about the lyrics. I personally managed eight different rhymes for 'swiss rolls'.

22. Discover that not everyone loves songs about baked goods sung to the tune of ELO songs as much as you.

23. Desist your singing.

24. Mixture now being done, follow cooking partner's example and tip it out on to a tray. It is vital that you remember to put baking paper on tray FIRST. I didn't, the first time.

25. Spread sponge cake type mixture out very thin and put in oven.

26. While waiting for sponge to cook, begin to wash up. Confuse hot tap with cold tap and experience painful burn. Become quite embarrassed by foolish accident. Lie to Ness and pretend nothing happened. Then wait for excruciating pain to die down.

27. Realise have forgotten how long swiss rolls were in the oven for.

28. Luckily, Ness remembers. Take hers out first.

29. Wrestle boiling hot flat sponge cake on to damp tea towel, roll up successfully. Leave to cool.

30. Decide to take mine out of oven. Look for oven gloves, which Ness had put down literally five seconds ago.

31. Still looking for oven gloves.

32. Still looking.

33. Give up. Decide must be due to the ghost in the Hospitality room. Use tea towel instead.

34. Pull tray out of oven. Drop it inelegantly on cooling rack.

35. Try to pull paper off screaming hot sponge cake while Hospitality teacher looks on interestedly. Manage to pull cake across to damp tea towel and roll it up with only minor incident involving the near removal of Ness's thumb with a butter knife. When Hospitality teacher looks away, casually burn yourself on tray.

36. Collect jam from front. Discover to horror, disgust, and scorn that it is strawberry.

37. Melt first jug of jam - Ness's - in microwave. Remembering milk experience, decide to heat it only slightly.

38. Jam comes out exactly the right temperature. Pleased with success, decide to heat other jug of jam for same length of time.

39. Jam comes out slightly below the boiling temperature of iron. Burn yourself.

40. Become mystified at apparent disagreement in jam temperatures. Question Ness.

41. It transpires that the second jug of jam had already been heated by Ness, who had then forgotten to tell you. Ignore her with dignity.

42. Stop ignoring her when you need her help to pour molten jam over now unrolled swiss roll.

43. Bell goes while you are still rolling it up again.

44. Panic, roll swiss roll up hastily, try not to damage your fingers while frantically slicing the ends off, throw roll in container, run away to your next class.

45. Show off your finished swiss roll to envious classmates (viz. a mildly interested Lala and Kapish).

46. Experience satisfaction with job well done. Congratulations! You now know how to make a Leslie M. Harper certified swiss roll.

47. Decide, as class has not yet started, to try part of awesome swiss roll.

48. Burn your fingers.

Leslie's Recipes: Leek-and-Potato Soup

My family are convinced that I am a budding young chef. They refuse to accept the fact that the only time I ever cook things is when I'm hungry, and even then it's just mixing varying amounts of milk, flour, and eggs together, tipping the mixture into a frying pan, and hoping some kind of pancake-like product comes out at the end. And so, when my mother suggested to me that I could cook leek-and-potato soup for dinner, I was less than enthusiastic. I think I would have objected had I not been watching an episode of 'Whose Line Is It Anyway' (the British version, obviously) at the time. I was distracted, and my will power was minimal. And so, here is my own, personalised, recipe for leek-and-potato soup. Do not try this at home.

1. Find 2 leeks. Notice that the recipe calls for 6 leeks. Decide it probably doesn't matter, as they are big leeks. Try to wash leeks. Get bored. Leave leeks in a bowl of water to wash themselves.

2. Find some potatoes. Spend 10 minutes looking for potato peeler. Find peeler. Peel potatoes.

3. Try to measure out 30g of butter. Get frustrated with butter. Put a medium sized lump that looks like it weighs about 30g in the pot. Then put another one in, because I like butter.

4. Viciously hack the tops and bottoms off the leeks. Chop leeks. Have leeks inspected by nearby adult, who pronounces them 'not clean enough'. Put bits of leek in a different bowl of water to wash themselves properly.

5. Find onion. Decide cannot be bothered to chop whole onion. Chop onion in half instead. While doing this, let the knife slip, leaving a painful cut across two fingers. Chop onion half into pieces as quickly as possibly, then throw pieces into the pot and slam the lid in, to prevent them from making your eyes red. It is very important that you drop quite a lot of onion while doing this.

6. Find 2 cloves of garlic. Throw away one when you find a weird black spot on it (the plague?). Chop remaining piece and put in the pot with the rest of the stuff.

7. Rescue leeks from water. Put them in pot. Turn stove on and put the lid on the pot.

8. Look in fridge. Find some leftover chocolate icing remaining from the Ringo cake. Eat icing. Forget to stir pot.

9. After 10 minutes, remember to stir pot. Hope family aren't that sensitive to burnt food.

10. Put water in pot. Discover that recipe says to 'add one fresh bayleaf'. Cannot find fresh bayleaf. Put two dried bayleaves in to make up for it. This is what they call creative cooking.

11. Leave soup to boil. Go and watch television. Return to kitchen when sister complains soup is making 'weird noises'.

12. Discover 'weird noises' are made by soup trying to boil over. Turn heat down. Go back to watch television. Turn television off when cooking show comes on.

13. Soup has finished boiling. Now for the fun bit: to blend the soup. Search kitchen and discover family is too cheap to own a blender. Find a stab mixer instead.

14. Stab mix the soup. Lack of prior experience with said instrument means both kitchen and you are liberally spattered in green mush. Looks like you've been sneezed on by a giant.

15. Realise you forgot to remove the bayleaves before starting the blending. Decide it is probably too late, as little bits of bayleaf are now scattered all through the soup. Hope people don't notice the dark green, leafy specks.

16. Serve soup to family. Realise have forgotten to put seasoning in. Are basically serving bland green mush.

17. Warm up bread rolls to have with soup.

18. Eat soup. Receive assurances from family that bread was 'very nice indeed'.