Sugden’s posterous

What is it about 'free stuff' that make the 'giver' laugh when you say "no thank you."

 Well not 'laugh' exactly - more sneer, with a sorrowfull look that says "how can you be so stupid it's free?". . .

 What they don't realise is the overhead the free item imposes on me.
. I have to carry it with me until I can read it
. I have to make a decision about it's use to me and whether in fact I NEED to read it
. I then have to dispose of it

 So thank you Mr (Mrs, Miss, Ms) I don't want it. Despite the fact you only get paid a pittance and only if you manage to give them all away

 :-)

 Sent from my iPod

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We had numerous discussions in America about what exactly constituted Eggs Benedict. I couldn't remember exactly what the dish contained - or even if there was such a dish. I remembered Eggs Benedictine and Eggs Arnold Bennett but assumed that Eggs Benedict was an American view of one of these.

Just tonight I decided to track the dish down. I used:
The Cookery Repertoire 13th edition Le Repertoire de la Cuisine (L. Saulnier - Trans: E.Brunet_
The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery (1907) (A. Escoffier - Trans: H.L. Cracknell & R.J. Kaufmann)
Professional Cookery - The Process Approach: Daniel R Stevenson
Advanced Practical Cookery 2nd edition: Ceserani, Kinton and Foskett
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggs_Benedict
http://www.fabulousfoods.com/recipes/article/56/19018

First of all - all the dishes use Poached eggs - so the name following 'egg' is a garnish.

Eggs Benedict seems to be a modern abbreviation of Eggs Benedictine. There are lots of recipes around the internet for Benedict and all seem to involve Ham as well as the standard Hollandaise Sauce and Toasted Muffin.

However, the original (assuming that we take Escoffier as an original recipe writer) consisted of a cooked pastry case, covered with Brandade of salt cod (a fish paste, roughly the consistency of mashed potato, mixed with chopped truffle), then soft poached egg and sauce creme. This rich and probably very filling dish seemed to have dropped out of vogue in the 60's.

It seems to have reappeared on toasted muffin, layered with tongue and becomes topped off with Hollandaise sauce and Truffle. Later recipes suggest that the tongue may be replaced with ham! Modern recipes show ham and no truffle and no 'ine' becoming Eggs Benedict. In the States, we found that some cafes had no ham, some had raw (Serrano type) ham and some had huge lumps of fatty gammon-like ham. There seems to be no consistency.

For me, it would be nice to see the dish served on toasted muffin with just a little wilted spinach replacing the meat, then egg covered with tarragon flavoured hollandaise (bearnaise) and then - if you like - just a pinch of finely sliced tongue. Top dish!

Please click to visit the picture owners sites on Flickr. I didn't photograph any of the dishes.

Arnold Bennett has smoked haddock and it gratinated just before service - I think (can't find it again ...)

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Well it's been a week now (almost) since we got back from holiday. http://dsugdenholidays.wordpress.com and I'm still tired. See Eduvel blog soon http://eduvel.wordpress.com. 

Today though, was a nice change. I got up leisurely and went to Emma's because it's her birthday. Ben was there, so it was nice to see them both in the same room together - it's not often I see that. It was also great to see the girls - growing up quickly (it's only a few weeks since I last saw them, but Charlotte, the youngest has shot up.

Then I went to meet Lilian for lunch. We had a greasy, sticky, Jumbo's http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsugden/3862083252/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsugden/3861990903/ before going to Coffee Evolution to do some work. http://www.bizwiki.co.uk/cafes/191029/coffee-evolution.htm

We have to plan our gig for ALT-C and this was the day to begin tightening it up (watch this space)

As I say - great to be back in action and inspired (I'm always inspired after meeting Lils)

David

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I'm on holiday at the moment.

http://dsugdenholidays.wordpress.com/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsugden/

But still reading blogs ...

David

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What a wonderful week: Very tiring, but wonderful nevertheless. I’ve not had the time to reflect on Friday’s work and two others were fairly rushed but – hopefully – I can do that now.

Early in the week I’d come across http://write4.net and used it to create quick reflections, which were then directed to Twitter as links. This was disastrous for all sorts of reasons. [Having said that – I did manage to post two to the Eduvel blog earlier.] Mainly, time and connectivity prevented me from reflecting properly. Both Khawar and I were ‘on’ at all time between 9.00am and 6.00pm (she was usually sorting problems then until dinner at 7.00pm). I managed to get back to my room on two occasions for a shower before dinner! This was an all-enveloping course from Sunday 5.00pm until about 11.30pm last night! I drove back from Wetherby this morning. But it was a fabulous experience – on all sorts of levels.

I was also thwarted on the blog-reflection front by a very poor connection in the hotel bedroom (no opportunity in the delivery room) and, on one memorable occasion, by a truculent Vista/2007 laptop! If I could have poised it out of a window and NOT hurt anyone – I would have. Similarly, phone connectivity at Weetwood prevents any real communication from within the building – you have to go outside.

Anyway.

The whole week has been a revelation to me. I’ve never presented to a mixed group of non-native-English speakers before and I’d worried that my usual delivery might fall on deaf or (at worst) non-understanding ears. But they were brilliant. They ‘got’ the humour; they understood me despite my strong accent and they appreciated ‘the message’. Khawar and I had worked together to realise her original plan. We’d started with two days of intense ‘stuff’, including the need to use a blogging tool for their reflection and lots of theoretical stuff. I think we had the balance just right for the first three days. Wednesday was a half-day in the classroom (well – conference centre) and a half-day shopping in town before going back to Khawars to cook food for everyone (they did that – not me). I think we (mainly ‘I’) lost the balance a bit towards the end of the week. Thursday was very much ‘me’ and the sort of stuff I do – and to be fair to the group, they stayed on task and thoroughly enjoyed the day, but I think it was a little too long. We’d started with Audacity and Mypodcast(.com) recorder, then moved onto CamStudio and PhotoStory 3, before introducing Windows Movie Maker (WMM). I think the afternoon task – to edit the films they had taken whilst shopping was one task too far. The laptops couldn’t take the pressure and I’d not prepared well enough to tell the learners that they should first make a folder and add their assets to that folder; before beginning work. Then – save, save and save as you go! So although they stayed on task – I think that we were seriously in danger of de-motivating the group – which would have the opposite effect to the purpose of the week.

I think we should give the same amount of time to learn WMM as we gave them for the other tasks and introduce ‘assessment’ as a motivating task for the last (after break) session. This would then lead nicely into the Friday session which looks at how they have learned and how they might apply their learning.

We all met that night at the Bridge Inn in Walshford near Wetherby for a 'cultural evening' - Murder Mystery.

Just how the group coped with the concept of amateur actors acting out a pretend murder (or two) - especially where the scenario was a complete mystery to them (an aging holiday camp) - I don't know. But ....

They won!!!!!

How brilliant and end to the week was that.

[posted here because Wordpress is playing silly bugger]

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