All About That Bass!

If music be your food of love,

Read on.

If not, click on the little “x” in the top right corner of your screen.

As you probably realise I like music.

My tastes in music are diverse including jazz, classical, rock, R & B, Motown, Funk, Fusion, Folk, C & W and all things in between.

What I really don’t like is covers of successful music that try to sound the same as the original adding absolutely nothing new. They are never as good. Bryan Hyland’s “Sealed with a Kiss” by Jason Donovan being a prime example.

However, I have nothing against an artist recording other peoples music in their own style – just think of how many good covers of Bob Dylan or Lennon & McCartney songs there have been.

In fact one of my favourite popular Cd’s in the last couple of years is “Long Wave” in which Jeff Lynne fondly pays tribute to the songs that shaped his love of music as a child.

Enter Post Modern Jukebox, the brain child of Scott Bradlee, a struggling New York pianist.

In 2013 he began forming Postmodern Jukebox, a rotating group of 20 to 30 musicians producing covers of pop songs in the styles of jazz, ragtime, motown and swing, using live instruments and one-take recording.

He posted the videos of his productions on a youtube channel called ScotBradleeLovesYa, and to his amazement found that people really enjoyed his ideas.

It now has over 1 million subscribers with 150 million views and Post Modern Jukebox are performing live to audiences across the US and Europe.

For me, the idea and the performances are excellent. See what you think.

A lot to listen to but it's well worth it!

Must go – the sun has come out over the Atlantic!

Hey Ho!

Waste Not Want Not

I have just dug up the last of my parsnip crop – two rows grown from small plants that I acquired last spring and transplanted. I was fully aware that this is not a recommended way to grow root vegetables as they will not grow straight and true if their roots are disturbed but the plants cost didn’t cost much, I had the space, so I thought I would give it a try.

True to form the resulting parsnip crop is not a pretty site and would not get through the gates of a supermarket let alone on the shelf. However there is absolutely nothing wrong with them and although they might take a little longer to prepare they are as if not more delicious than their uniform supermarket namesakes.

This is of course true of any vegetable or fruit and something that you soon realise when growing your own produce where survival against the constant attack from pests and diseases is the only concern leaving nature to run its course to the final product.

Remember this handsome looking carrot from last year?

One of the joys for me while at the allotment is listening to the Radio 4 while I am working. It not only stops me talking to myself but provides me with interesting information and entertainment that helps takes my mind of the fact that my arms, legs and back are aching!

All of this leads me to the subject of this blog, Food Waste.

Food waste is a major issue. We throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year, the majority of which could have been eaten. It's costing us £12.5bn a year and is bad for the environment too. Supermarkets demand beautiful fruit and vegetables of perfect shape and colour. It is estimated that 20 to 40 per cent of fruit and vegetables grown in the UK are rejected on cosmetic grounds before they even get to the shops. With potatoes this percentage can be even higher. Most of what we grow ourselves would be rejected by every supermarket in the country but there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. 

Supermarkets are notoriously secretive about the amount of food that is wasted. However Tesco did reveal that it generated almost 30,000 tonnes of food waste in the first six months of 2013. The largest proportion of that - about 11,700 tonnes - was classified as "bakery", and the second largest category, making up around a fifth of the total, was fruit and vegetables.

While planting some broad beans two weeks ago I listened to an episode of BBC Radio4’s Food Program – “Food Pioneers”.

It is the story of how three very different individuals are re imagining food waste - solving problems, discovering flavours, and changing lives.

Chido Govera is a young Zimbabwean woman. Chido is a Shona name that means passion. She grew up as an orphan, and turned into a parent at the age of 7, mothering her brother and caring for her nearly blind grandmother. At the age of 8, she had already experienced the worst possible abuse, inflicted by close family. She promised herself then that when she was older, she would save and protect other orphans from experiencing what she, and so many others, had suffered. At age 11, she had the unique opportunity to learn about food and mushrooms. Mushroom farming enabled her to feed those dearest to her. Mushrooms gave her the chance to help other orphans who lived closed by. She was fortunate to have good mentors who helped her perfect the art and science of farming mushrooms. Over the years, as a young professional, she reached out to over 1,000 women in communities in Zimbabwe, Congo, Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania and South Africa. Her work has reached schools and communities in India, aboriginals in Australia, and entrepreneurs in the US and all around Europe. Hers is a truly inspiring story and now at the age of 28 she is a successful farmer, campaigner and educator with her own foundation, The Future of Hope, travelling the world to help others change their lives.

Isabel Soares, an engineer from Portugal, set up Fruta Feia (or ugly fruit) to deliver perfectly good fruit and veg that were being discarded by the big retailers, to a willing community. So far, Fruta Feia has a staff of only three people, including Ms. Soares, as well as a handful of volunteers, some of whom are foreigners living in Lisbon. It has 420 registered customers and has built a waiting list of 1,000 customers. It has sold 21 tons of food at two distribution centres in Lisbon which provide cheap fruit and vegetables to people who cannot afford the supermarket prices. Its community co-operative model is now wildly successful in Lisbon and has been replicated in the US and UK.

John Greany Sørensen is a scientist by day, chef by night, who in his lab at the University of Copenhagen stumbled accidentally on a way of creating something truly extraordinary from rejected vegetables - veg crystals.

These stories are inspirational and I strongly recommend you to listen to their stories at this link:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/foodprog/foodprog_20150322-1245a.mp3

Chido Govera’s pioneering work on growing mushrooms on waste coffee beans and grounds is now used all over the world including West Sussex.

The Espresso Mushroom Company is a group of coffee-drinking food lovers who produce Oyster Mushrooms grown on used coffee grounds. Recognised by The Grocer as “one of the five most innovative enterprises using food waste”, the Espresso Mushroom Company is based in Brighton where they collect coffee grounds from local cafes then grow and supply mushrooms to some of Brighton's finest restaurants. They even sell kits to grow mushrooms in your home:

http://espressomushroom.co.uk/product-category/kitchen-garden-kits/

I’ll leave the last word to this truly remarkable young lady:

Hey Ho!

End of the Pier

It has been two months since my last entry, not because of any form of “writers block”, laziness or apathy but simply because I haven’t had the time.

Since returning from our six week spell in Tenerife I have been fully employed tidying up the allotment, repairing the raised beds and getting the early crops sown and planted.

Now with onions & garlic shooting and broad beans & early potatoes planted I am pretty much on top of things.

We have also been busy at Selsey getting the caravan back up and running and ready for the new season. Although still early in the year we have had a couple of really nice weekends especially the weekend of the spring tides.

Last weekend was our 47^th wedding anniversary and to celebrate we returned to Hastings and Rye for a long weekend.

We were booked to see “Blood Brothers” at the White Rock theatre and staying for 2 nights in the White Rock hotel, next door to the theatre.

Our hotel room overlooked the site of Hastings Pier where I have spent many hours fishing with friends from Ipswich.

There has always been a great tradition of fishing from seaside piers and Hasting Pier was no exception.

But sadly as piers close or fishing is prohibited on so called Health and Safety grounds it is becoming less and less available.

So it was great to see that work on restoring the Victorian pier was well underway and scheduled for reopening in the summer.

Designed by Eugenius Birch, who also designed the West Pier, Brighton and Eastbourne Pier, Hastings pier was opened in 1872.

The original 2,000 seater pavilion was destroyed by fire in 1917. This was eventually replaced in 1922 and during the 1930s the pavilion extension buildings received an art deco facelift and a theatre rebuild.

In the 1960s and the 1970s the theatre played host to notable artists such as The Rolling Stones, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Genesis, Tom Jones, Ten Years After, and Pink Floyd.

Most famously, Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett played his last ever show with the band here on 20 January 1968.

In 1990 the pier suffered considerable storm damage, requiring a £1 million refurbishment. In 1996 it was put up for sale, but the future of the pier was put in grave doubt as interested buyers were reluctant to invest due to the serious amount of capital needed to improve the unstable structural supports and in 1999 the pier was closed.

The pier was eventually sold in 2000 and reopened under new ownership in 2002. However in July 2006, upon discovering that part of the pier's structure was unsafe, Hastings Borough Council promptly closed the pier to the general public.

On 5 October 2010 95% of the superstructure was destroyed by fire thought to be the work of arson attack although subsequently this was not proven.

Thanks to tireless work by The Hastings Pier & White Rock Trust combined with The Hastings Observer Save the Pier Campaign and funding from Heritage Lottery Fund, the £14 million restoration work commenced in March 2014.

Let’s hope the next 25 years proves less turbulent for Hastings Pier and it again becomes the tourist attraction that it once was - the focal point of entertainment for all ages with fisherman restored to the “End of the Pier”.