Curried Eggs

Boil some eggs. Cool them. Peel them.

Get some fresh tomatoes, an onion, lots of garlic, lots of ginger, a chilli or two. Do the zizz thing with a blender.

Heat up some oil in a pan. Add salt, asafoetida, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, some star anises and a few bits of cinnamon bark. When the seeds start popping, throw in some curry leaves, stir a few times, then add the blended mix.

Cook it for a few minutes. Then add the eggs, halved, cut sides up. Cook a little longer.

Serve garnished with fresh coriander, with chapattis, yoghurt, pickle.

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It's said that all the best blues musicians have names that comprise:

a) an infirmity (eg Blind)

b) a fruit (eg (Lemon)

c) a US president (eg Jefferson)

Step forward...Asthmatic Kumquat Eisenhower!

(my porn name is Jinx Mt. Pleasant, btw)

Miso hornee

I'm afraid this one veers rather into zen macrobiotic hippy shite territory, but bear with me. I suppose it would be just the thing for those wanting to 'detox'. I haven't a Scooby what all these 'toxins' are actually supposed to be when they're at home, but 'Dr' Gillian McKeith 'PhD' claims you can get them out by sticking a big tube up your ass and pumping yourself full of cappuccino. Diff'rnt strokes, an a' that. I suppose that if you really are what you eat, she must've swallowed a scary witch with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Anyway...

Miso Broth with broccoli and shitake mushrooms.This dish is packed with oovaafu. Oovaafu is the 'fifth taste', after salt, sweet, sour and bitter. Oh, no...wait...I mean umami.

For thems as has never met it, miso is a kind of Japanese savoury jam made from fermented soy beans and/or rice. You can buy instant miso broth in sachets, or buy jars or squidgy packets of the miso itself and turn it into broth by adding to hot water. If the latter, you'd probably want to add make it with stock. Or if turning Japanese doesn't give you the vapors (geddit?) you could even use dashi, the authentic Japanese stock made from seaweed and fishes' dandruff. Not to be confused with dashiki.

So make your stock and keep it hot ready. Meanwhile, steam some broccoli - the long sort, 'flowering broccoli', with the thin, tender stems. In the steaming vessel, add some cubed tofu (yeah, sorry about that) so that it warms.

Meanwhile, take your shitake mushrooms, halved. Heat a wok very, very hot, with the minimum amount of oil. Stir fry the mushrooms until they're begining to brown (you're after a slightly charred around the edges effect).

Now assemble the soup. In a big bowl...broccoli, tofu, shitakes, big handful of fresh coriander. Pour on the soup. Top with a finely-sliced de-seeded red chilli and a few thin slices of mild onion.

Serve with brown rice, if you insist.

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Thought for the day

Never take Ecstacy before visting a Holocaust museum.

Cabbage ears.

The Italians have a really cute kind of pasta called 'orechiette' - little ears - 'coz they look like mouse ears (awww!). The packet I bought says that they were 'traditionally made in brass moulds'. But of course the traditional way of making them involves a mustachioed widow's thumb.

The traditional thing to eat with orechiette is some kind of greens - broccoli, cime di rapa, that sort of thing. In my case, I used cavolo nero. This is a kind of dark, crinkly, loose-leaf cabbage. You could substitute savoy or kale. Don't embarass yourself by asking for caballo nero, though, or else you'll be given a black horse. (A bit like that time I asked for a peccary at the pharmacist's).

So. Cook some orechiette until al dente.

Meanwhile, shred your cabbage finely.

Put some olive oil and a little salt in a skillet-y, wok-y type pan. Heat until the garlic just begins to colour yellow (no more! careful not to burn it).

Throw in the cabbage and stir fry.

Add just a little crushed chilli.

Drain the orechiette.

Toss with the cabbage.

Decant onto a plate, and while doing so, add in bits of crumbled, soft goat's cheese - not the rindy kind.

Top with coarsely grated parmesan and black pepper.

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You'll have heard of the Rolling Stones tribute band whose most popular number was 'Hey! MacLeod! Get Off My Ewe!'

Then there's the Oasis tribute band. They stole all their riffs from The Bootleg Beatles.

BREAKING NEWS: And The Incredibly Bearded Man has just informed me of a new Glasgow tribute band - The Partick Monkeys.

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Have you heard of an Aussie Kiss? It's like a French Kiss, only it's given down under...

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So batman came up to me, hit me over the head with a vase and says "T'PAU!"
So I says, "Don't you mean 'KAPOW!'?"
And he says "No...I've got china in my hand."

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Then there was the cowboy who walked into a German car dealer and said "Audi, pardner!"