THE BOOYAH COOK: RASPBERRY VINEGAR

Ladies and Gentlemen: This Friday some lady friends are coming to dinner and I have been scavenging through cook books, trawling eBay for the right tableware and china, criss-crossing the West End looking for utensils and ingredients - and I was only to happy to have a time out at Milkbar yesterday. I haven't decided entirely 100% what I will be making for the dinner - I mean what do you do for a group of ladies with a series of predilections like non fish eater but eats shellfish, no cauliflower, no chickpeas, no lobsters, no pork, no beef, semi vegetarian, no egg white unless it is scrambled and no dairy? I am semi-sure about a few bits and pieces though. Hence this mysterious Booyah Cook post with half recipes for odd things.

Which lead me to Gerry's on Old Compton Street to buy this:



Danish Taffel Akvavit. I cannot even begin to describe what this tastes like because the first thing I thought of when I sipped it was 'alcoholic chalk'. Scandinavians apparently drink Aquavit [various names] to burn a hole through what they ate to aid digestion. I am going to be using it in a roasting recipe to marinade meat I think. At £24 a bottle I wouldn't recommend getting the whole thing just for a taste but they do sell it by the shot at the Nordic Bakery on Golden Square. I reckon this has potential as a splash in a glass of Prosecco.

I do have a proper recipe for you now though. Raspberry Vinegar! Sometimes it is nice to make your own potion for a special recipe from scratch particularly when it is easy. It is details like this that make you totally Booyah in the kitchen. And when I say easy, I mean easy.



You need:
A 350ml bottle of WHITE WINE vinegar [important you get the right kind - it's common]
About 20 washed raspberries

Tip all the vinegar out of the bottle into a jug. Soak the bottle in a sink of hot water to get the label off. Should only take about 15 minutes.

Then shove the raspberries into the bottle. Fill it back up with the vinegar. Screw the lid back on leave it to stand for about 3-4 days.



By which time the vinegar will have gone an amazing pink colour and be infused with the raspberry flavour. You need to get rid of the raspberries now by tipping out the vinegar and raspberries into a jug, throwing the berries away and pouring just the vinegar back into the bottle. Then you can make your own cool label for it and make lesbo names like "From The Big Dykes Raspberry Cavern" or something more appetising... Up to you. You can use the vinegar in exactly the same way as you would balsamic or something - salads, fish etc. Personally I would choose light kind of vibes, use with virgin olive oil and some salt and pepper - nothing more. Something about this keeps making me think of cheese. Dressing for the side salad on a Ploughman's or something. Now I do have a particular recipe to use this on which I cannot reveal today. But I promise all will be reported back after the dinner of Friday 13th in the case of this vinegar AND the Akvavit.

Oh God and if you live in Tasmania and you are lucky enough to live close enough to visit you could always go to the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm and buy some of their special Raspberry Vinegar dressing!



Those were the days!

xx Lektrogirl

WOE IS ME

It is the last night I spend here in Tasmania and while I hear tales of fisticuffs at the residences' of gentlemen back in London, things have turned sour here too. I accidently slammed my nephews head the the car door in the Kmart car park. It was a stinking day with hot winds and everyone had hot tempers and Sam and I both ended up crying. Me for much longer on a bench outside my sisters house in the wind with tears streaming down my face all about everything and nothing.


Also my exbroken leg from the car accident has been aching all day like crazy. I knew it was gonna rain and it has just started now. It is so weird how that happens.


Today on the way to the raspberry farm, we drove past dozens of poppy fields. Pharmaceutical companies grow them here just in open fields it is a huge business for Tasmania but it is all a huge illegal drug industry too. Each district has a 4 person Poppy Patrol to patrol the fields. How this is effective I don't know because the fields grow right up to the side of the road and are open access to anyone with signs saying "Entry prohibited" and there are loads of fields everywhere. (Mind you - the youth detention centre only just got a real security fence put round it recently when they got sick of kids escaping. Again - highway right nearby. Big scandal recently was staff at the centre were n big trouble for downloading porn onto computers at their workstations. Anyway...) So back to the Poppies. I asked my brothewr in law about the Poppies cause he used to patrol it and he said that people stole crops all the time. But now dummy crops are now mixed in with real crops so that if they are stolen, processed and used the same way as the real stuff in fact the dummy crop will be fatal - you will die. Amazing! Also co-incidentally today we say my B-I-L on patrol at the scene of a major accident and waved to him from the car on the way to the raspberry farm. Some car had decided to do a u-turn in the highway and some other car jack knifed it and there road was blocked and there was a hugh smash up. No-one died though. That would have been gross.

xx Lektrogirl