Triumph!

If I was a normal sort of person, I would start this blog with the photos I have taken of food that I have made or eaten in the last couple of days and go from there, a diary starting with the day that you start writing sort of approach.

Not being a normal sort of person, however, and liking things neat and tidy (although you would never believe that if you saw the state of my room sometimes) I would like to tie up loose ends and start from the very beginning, from the very first photo that I took of some food that I made.  And here it is:

This is a very blurry photo of some linguine alle vongole, or linguine with clams if you're not being pretentious. I took it because I was feeling triumphant - this was one of the few meals that I have ever made without using a recipe book.  (Don't get used to that as a theme though, this hardly ever happens.  I freakin' love cookery books.)  I had just been to my local farmers' market and had bought a handful of clams on a whim from the lovely fishmonger there, who told me how to cook them in this way.  Unfortunately, I didn't write it down and I think I took this photo in February - something to do with steaming them in some white wine and garlic and then tossing them with drained, cooked pasta, and chucking over some olive oil and chopped parsley.  Hey, I DO remember it!  

This next photo is another triumphant, no-recipe moment:

This is definitely a morning-after-the-night-before type of brunch, although I was obviously not feeling too dreadful if I managed to whip this up.  Just pretty damn hungry by the looks of things.  Jesus, I've even put it on ciabatta for heavens' sake.  Yep, definitely wasn't hungover.  I think the stuff on the left is a mixture of mushrooms, tomatoes and rosemary and I've put some parsley all over the top again.  Who says you can't garnish when you're cooking for one?!

Just one last picture I think (after all, I don't want you getting bored, dear reader), still illustrating the theme of triumph:

JAM!  Yeah baby, I made jam!  From scratch, no sugar thermometer, it actually set to a good consistency instead of being fruit soup or fruit cement - jam!  You blatantly can't read the label, so I will tell you that it is rhubarb and ginger.  I did make it from a recipe, but I was inspired to make it by my grandmother talking about the jam that her aunt made when she was little - my grandmother being little, not the aunt.  Although maybe she was little, I don't know, I wasn't there.  Anyway, the recipe was for just plain rhubarb jam, but I added chopped stem ginger and some of the syrup from the jar as well.  It wasn't super gingery, but it had a nice warmth to it and it is definitely a recipe that I will be repeating when rhubarb is next in season.  And yes, I did give a jar to my grandmother.