Grounding myself

 I went to a conference this week. (A lot of you know that. Quite a few of you were there.) It's the most Together With People work thing I've done since the start of covid - three solid days of interaction, paying attention, sitting in seats I have not chosen, chatting with old friends, networking with new folk, feeling thoroughly on display (working for a big national organisation does that to you) and feeling very at home (I've been working in this area a loooong time). Oh, plus massive travel uncertainty thanks to Avanti (it worked out fine). And a gala dinner with free booze - definitely not something I've had since all this began.

Also healthy outdoor pursuits. Unconfined modern dovecot from the walls of Chester was fun

 

Conferences are always pretty intense. Probably even for extraverts, but all I can confidently tell you is for introverts with anxiety they are hard. Good and worth it, but hard. Was it obvious I have to be on the side of the room by the exits? Probably not all the time. The time I sat behind the last row of chairs in a breakout, on the floor, because all the seats were too hemmed in, maybe. This isn't covid recovery, that's just my brain. The waiting to see if a flood of covid reports comes in post-conference (and quizzing myself for every sneeze caused by alternative chemical cleaning products)? That's covid.

I'm doing another one in a week. Yay planning. 

Meanwhile, I am home and it is German month for my cookbook challenge. And this is a very good thing. I need comfort food, and the sort of thing that no catered hotel buffet would serve in a million years. (Do not ask about the conference food. It was perfectly fine and utterly not what normal people put on a plate at 1pm on a workday. It never is.) Almost all the recipes I'm doing come from one cookbook (Anja Dunk's Strudel Noodles, thanks again Paula for sending on your copy). There are fancy bits in the book, but its strength is in basics that you actually want to cook, are satisfying and a smidge different from what I'd cook if I were doing this from my own imagination. 

For example, scrambled eggs. Or, let's suggest, Bauernfruhstuck (there should be umlauts). Farmers' breakfast. Ham, some kind of green veg, spring onions, sliced cooked potatoes (SEE? Always useful), fried up.

Then add eggs mixed with cheese and a blob of sour cream, with some chopped marjoram if you could get any (oregano available here is a strong substitute, but basically aromatic herb of choice would work - basil, coriander, you name it). You're meant to do it like a frittata, on the stovetop then in the oven, but who has the time or the money? So a bit of unwieldy omelette turning gets you a very decent outcome. Infinitely flexible - I'd always use spuds, and cheese in the eggs, but otherwise it could be so many things, and it's the antithesis of hotel food. If you do it as frittata, leftovers would probably be nicer than cold omelette, but it's fine.

What else is comfort food of home? Dumplings, that's what. These were fun and very easy too. Based on grated small cooked potatoes (LITERAL I TOLD YOU SO AT THIS POINT), scattered with a little cornflour (50g for a kilo of spuds, so less for me), seasoning, a load of fresh nutmeg (seriously, loads and loads), some chopped oregano (should be marjoram, as before), and an egg yolk or two to hold it together. 

Squidge that unlovely mixture into small tangerine size/shape dumplings, and boil for 15 minutes. Not one for those who can't do claggy hands, it's messy, though also brief.

Meanwhile, says the recipe book, make a vegetable ragout. Meanwhile? But they are right. I started it earlier as I like a tomato sauce that's been cooked out a bit, but you could absolutely do this in 15 minutes. Chop a courgette, chop a fair few tomatoes, maybe a spring onion or two? Put them in a pan with some butter, and cook till they turn into a sauce. Add tarragon, if you can. Absolutely simple, and really good when it's done.

It's very basic in some ways. The dumplings are staggeringly unphotogenic and a splodge of sauce only redeems them in terms of more exciting colour. But my goodness, it's delicious.

This is veg-forward/veggie week. Sorry about the ham. September of cooking is being compressed into three weeks, and some principles are being compromised. But the cooking is all good. 

Oh, and there's always "peaches in cold wine soup". Which are pretty much just that (a bit of vanilla and sugar), and not a bad end of summer option *at all*.

The winter looks bad, doesn't it? I'm trying to think of ways to plan so I use the oven once a week or thereabouts. We'll see how that goes.