Asian food is everywhere, but there’s something missing

Asian food is everywhere in London with Thai Green Curry fast replacing Chicken Tikka Masala as our national dish. Ten years ago, we didn’t know our Pho from our Tom Yum, now your local pub probably has them on the menu.

I lived in Thailand for 8 years and love cooking Thai food, but frankly what passes for Thai food in the UK is often industrially produced rubbish with a lot of it not really Thai, but an unlovely mix of Thai, Chinese and Malaysian cooking. What is sold as Pad Thai is often just a gloopy mess. Part of the problem is that restaurants find it hard to source all the essential Thai ingredients. Thai aubergines are not so easy to come by in London town.

One small London restaurant chain that does quite a reasonable Som Tam or papaya salad is Rosa’s Thai Café. (Som Tam is the benchmark dish for me, if they get that right I’m in) I’ve been to their restaurants in Spitalfields, Soho and Brixton and while not perfect, their food is recognisably Thai. Try their pork grapou, som tam and gai ped met ma muang or chicken and cashew nuts.

If you fancy a try at cooking Thai then most supermarkets carry the essentials: fish sauce, galangal, lemon grass and green curry paste. It’s also worth a trip to the Longdan supermarket on Kingsland Road, which specialises in ingredients from all over Asia and the Orient. They even have Thai aubergines on occasions. It’s open on a Sunday so you can combine a visit to Columbia Road flower market.

I also highly recommend all Blue Elephant products, particularly their Massaman curry paste. These are now available in the UK.

So what’s missing? Well there’s one essential element of Thai, Cambodian and Laos cuisine, that hasn’t made it over here: fried bugs. Stroll past Asian street-food sellers and there’s usually a wok full of deep-fried crickets, grasshoppers, worms and beetles. For some reason we are quite happy to eat prawns, which are just aquatic bugs but not so keen on eating their land-based brothers. Asian’s enjoy these delicacies as a snack food combined with a beer rather in the way we eat nuts or crisps with a chilled lager.

I have a feeling it’s going to be an uphill struggle to make these snacks popular here, but in many ways, they should be. As we attempt to feed an ever growing world population, bugs have a lot going for them. They are full of protein with little fat or calories, are easy and cheap to raise and require little technology to do so. They are a far more sustainable food source than livestock, which accounts for nearly a fifth of all green-house gas emissions, plus they’ll eat almost anything.

Still not convinced? Westerners find bugs hard to swallow, but would you eat an energy bar made with extracted bug protein? The people at Eat Grub clearly hope you will and are out to convince you that bugs are a sustainable, nutritious and above all delicious source of food.

But if bug related food is not your thing, go and buy a pack of Blue Elephant Thai green curry paste, some strips of chicken, jasmine rice, a bottle of fish sauce, substitute peas for Thai aubergines and you’ll have a feast of your hands.

The best Thai food in London is often served at our house, but I’m afraid we don’t have room for you all.

How come it’s OK for men to piss in public?

Sorry for the rather crude headline, but I thought it might grab your attention.

I’m not just talking about homeless people here, it now seems any man can get his todger out and start spraying the London landscape, willy-nilly. Just yesterday I was out with the mutt in our local park and a man was leant up against a tree giving it full flow. Seeing him, the dog had a quick pee in solidarity, but close by were children and unaccompanied members of the clergy.

My wife says men are filthy creatures and we’ve always done it. I disagree, I think a change has occurred and men now think this is acceptable behaviour. Perhaps the council is to blame for not providing enough public loos, but I don’t like it and it stinks.

Whatever the case, you probably want to go and wash your hands after reading this post. At your convenience, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts.

The Unwelcome Guest: Celebrity Endorsement

Since I last posted: Stephen Fry has fessed up, George Monbiot, the writer and environmental activist, has outed himself and now Bill Turnbull, the former BBC Breakfast host is in on the act. Prostate cancer gets the full celebrity endorsement as all the poor bastards have it; proving that PC is nothing if not democratic.

When I meet people who I may not have seen for a while but who know about my condition, I gauge four different responses.

I’d like to make it implicitly clear, without mentioning the subject, that this is something I feel very uncomfortable about and I don’t want to talk about it.
I kind of want to talk about it or sense I should, but feel uncomfortable raising the subject.
I’m concerned about you, so tell me: “How are you getting on?”
I’m concerned about you, want to know how you are getting on, want to know what kind of treatment you are receiving, if the side effects are awful and what the prognosis is.

Let me say right away that every response is just fine. If you don’t want to talk about cancer as it gives you the heebie-jeebies I completely understand. It can give pleasant banter a savage blow to the head. Instead, let’s chat about playing guitar in a rock & roll band, when Wenger will finally leave Arsenal, how wonderful Aimee Mann is or the relative acting merits of say Jennifer Lawrence or Amy Adams. Dammit I’ll even talk about Donald Trump if we have too and yes, I have read ‘Fire and Fury.’ If you don’t want to talk about prostate cancer, then neither do I.

As to the second response, I can usually sense when someone is not sure whether cancer is a subject that should be raised in a social situation, so I raise it anyway but make it clear I’m not going to bore on about it. People usually want to know why I first went to the doctor (I had blood in my urine), how I’m feeling (Just fine thanks, I don’t plan on collapsing over the finishing line any time soon) and are you still able to drink? (Yes, and mine’s a large one) People are so dear, I’ve never been bought so many lunches and drinks, so thank you.

My response to those who come right out and ask me how I am is pretty much the same as the above, but with a little more detail. I went to the doctor because I had blood in my urine, but that’s gone away, so thank god I got checked out because if I hadn’t it would now be spreading and the two things we all know about cancer are:

a. We don’t want it.

b. If we’ve got it then let it be small, insignificant and localised.

Health note: (ignore the next couple of paragraphs if you are of a nervous disposition) I then assume the serious face and tell the guys to go get their PSA (Prostate-specific antigen) checked. It’s just a blood test but gives doctors an inkling as to whether you might be in trouble.

My PSA is quite low at 2.61 and a few years ago doctors may have left it at that, which would have been a mistake, but my Gleason Score, which grades the cancer, is quite high at 7. This is me: Gleason score 7 (4 + 3). I’m told most of the cancer cells found in the biopsy are likely to grow at a moderate rate, though some look likely to grow more slowly. It also indicates, as does the MRI scan, that most of the cancer is retained within the prostate, with just a small section attempting to break on through to the other side. I could now go on to tell you about the glories of having a biopsy but as you’ll probably never need one, I’ll leave it there. Put it this way if a prostate biopsy was rated on TripAdvisor, it wouldn’t get many takers.

And so finally to the person (rare in my experience), who wants the full enchilada, the whole story. Frankly, if they want it, they get it. It doesn’t really become me to be coy and reticent when here I am blogging to all-comers about my predicament.

I tell them about my treatment: no prostatectomy, which is the removal of the entire prostate gland, as a tumour is too close to my rectum for safe cutting and hacking. So, I’m on hormone jabs to shrink the tumour until September when the guest will be blasted with radiation in an effort to encourage the little bastard to check out. I could tell you about the side-effects of hormone therapy, but I think, dear reader, you have suffered enough. And frankly they are as nothing compared with the side-effects of being sixty-three.

What’s up dog?

Dogs, they have an interior life. Who knew? I haven’t had a dog living in the house since I was a kid and just assumed that dogs were simple creatures; if you took them for walks and gave them bones they were happy and if they were hungry or not well looked after they were unhappy. Perhaps I was thinking of men not dogs. Anyway, it turns out it’s a little more complicated than that.

While we were sunning ourselves in Florida, the Mighty Bucket, AKA Rusty, AKA Battersea Bucket was being looked after by a local dog sitter. On our return we were told that Bucket had not behaved well, had peed everywhere, had not got on with the other dogs and would not be invited back. Oh dear.

Despite being pleased to see us, she was not the happy Bucket we had left behind. The tail was almost permanently down, she wasn’t excited about walks and didn’t even chase squirrels – unheard of. It took her around three days to be restored to storm force Rusty. So, what is going on in that little head of hers?

Every time we pass Battersea Dogs & Cats she gets excited, pulls to go in and quite clearly has fond memories of the place.

I tie her up outside the local Sainsbury’s when I’m shopping. The other day another dog was leashed outside. Was she thinking: ‘Poor dog, wonder how long the owner will be inside and what the hell do they get up to in these places anyway?’

I let Rusty off the lead on walks and only put her on when we are near a main road. Does she think:

A: ‘Why the hell do I need to be put on a lead?’

B: ‘Yeah well fair enough, I am a little nuts and will probably go play in the traffic.’

I know this is all anthropomorphic nonsense, but If anybody knows what they’re thinking, do let me know.