Monthly Archives: August 2010
The BeanBlogger’s A to Z Guide to Beans
Recently on the London Bloggers’ Meetup Group website I noticed a competition about BEANS. The prize is a lovely luxury bean bag from Ambient Lounge and all the entrants have to do is write a short (Epicurienne? Short? That’ll be the hard part…) post about BEANS. This made me think. Hard. I love beans, so I decided to create an A to Z to help me to remember how many varieties there are.
A Well, this has to be for Ambient Lounge, the supplier of the bean bag prize/s for this competition. They’re super-cool, are used to furnish Kensington Roof Gardens, a top London club with views over London, and there’s even a sun lounger bean bag – how hip is that?
B There are loads of BEANS beginning with B: Baked, Black, Broad, Butter. Beansprouts are great for salads and stir fries. The Adventures of Beans Baxter is a US TV series. Brazil is currently the biggest producer of dry beans and I come from the generation who all know what a Bean-o comic is.
C Did you know that the Chickpea is a bean? Now you do. There are Cocoa beans for hot drinks and chocolate making, Coffee beans to keep us awake, Castor beans which give a delightful flavour to sugar and the Common bean which can be used for just about anything. Coral beans and Cranberry beans are a bit more exotic. In France, Cassoulet is a wonderful meal comprising duck stewed in its own juices with fat, white beans. It’s a hearty winter meal in itself.
D stands for Designer Bean Bags upon which to launch oneself after a long day of arduous work, while watching The Food Channel. There is also a Dolichos bean which sounds delicious.
E is for Edamame, or soy bean, upon which patrons crunch in smart Asian food establishments.
F The Fava bean is another name for the Broad bean. Fagioli is the Italian word for bean. Flageolets are wonderful, juicy white beans which are popular in France (and in Epic’s London kitchen) and Fabaceae is one name for the family of plants whose seeds become BEANS on our plates at home. Flatulence can be the embarrassing result of eating too many BEANS but BEANS are too tasty for us to worry about a bit of wayward wind, no?
G The Green bean is a staple of many a mean-and-three-veg dinner, but for something a little special, you could always seek out the Goldmarie Vining Pole bean.
H Haricots Verts are the French green beans and who doesn’t know the slogan ‘Beanz Meanz HEINZ?’. Hannibal Lechter of ‘Silence of the Lambs’ is renowned for the following spine-chilling quote: “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti,” and on many an international boardwalk you will find teenagers doing unbelievable tricks with their bean-filled hacky-sacks.
I is for India, the second most prolific producer of dry beans in the world.
J is for the eponymous Jack, famed for the magic beans that grow into a giant beanstalk in one of the most popular fairy tales of all time. There is also a variety of bean called the Jack, and everyone has a favourite colour of Jelly bean, although the manufacturer, Jelly Belly, has extended the flavour options so far that having just one favourite is probably a thing of the past.
K is for Kidney beans.
L stands for Leguminosae, another family of plants responsible for giving us beans. There is also the Lima bean variety and LL Bean, the classic clothes mail-order catalogue from the States – very New England.
M Here we find Mung beans (edible) and Rowan Atkinson’s doofy character, Mr Bean (not). Monty Python sang ‘Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam and spam is delicious, trust me!’ Personally, I can’t stand Spam but will take the baked beans any day.
N is for Navy beans, and
O is for Onions. The gardener’s advice is to never grow your beans next to onions – it will end in tears. But onions as a base for bean dishes will add texture and flavour.
P Beans grow in Pods, just like Peas, which are also beans, but let’s not confuse the issue by going into that here. It’s a whole different blog post. Polyanthus beans and Pinto beans come under Beans Beginning With P.
Q Beans form a vital ingredient for the classic Mexican Quesadilla.
R is for the classic Runner bean, the Refried bean used for Nachos, the Red bean, the Rice bean and the Roman bean. Go one up on the Joneses by serving the Roc d’Or or the Royalty Purple Podded Bush beans at your dinner parties.
S Beans are seeds and when planted will grow more beans. Beans beginning with S include Soy beans, Sieva beans and Scarlet Runner beans. The Latin name for the Sword bean is GLADIATA (perfect to give you energy before taking on Russell Crowe’s mates in a Colosseum somewhere). Spilling the beans will only get you in trouble.
T is for Tepary beans, and Tavera beans, otherwise known as French green filet beans.
U finds us with the Urad bean which is black with a soft white interior and highly popular in India, and
V gives us Vanilla beans and Velvet beans – what a sumptuous name.
W stands for Wattie’s, the New Zealand company who canned the baked beans I ate during my downunder childhood and
X is a tricky one so I’ve cheated – X is for TeX-MeX, a cuisine which makes great use of the humble bean.
Y is for the Yardlong bean and
Z is for ZE end.
That’s my A-Z of beans. Now if only I had a big fat bean bag to fall into… I’d be a very happy BEAN indeed.
Where Epic finds she cannot bear her seatmate/s on Eva Air
When Monsieur booked our flights to Bangkok a couple of years ago, he chose Eva Air. “Eva who?” I asked, somewhat concerned that there existed an airline I hadn’t yet heard of. “They’re Taiwan’s national carrier,” he explained, as if it were common knowledge, which it probably was to everyone else in the world, but not me. Nonetheless it inspired a frisson of excitement that we’d soon be flying with an airline I’d had no clue existed until we booked this trip.
When the departure date finally arrived, we were understandably excited about spending the next couple of weeks in the Far East. Then, to make things even better, the Eva Air check-in clerk gave us an upgrade from sardine to premier sardine class. “You’ll be sitting by the bulkhead. Is that okay?” she asked, and I wondered why she asked us anything given that with the upgrade we’d be sitting in seats considered to be better and therefore more expensive than those we’d booked. “Of course it’s okay!” we replied with a grin. Little did we know.
On board, we were seated in the central two seats of a row of four, directly in front of a bulkhead. Indeed we had extra leg room, thanks to the upgrade. On a thirteen-hour flight, that counts for something. This trip was starting well.
To my left was a man with a baby. He was friendly and chatted with me about rugby until his wife, seated directly behind us, decided that we were chatting a bit TOO much and insisted on swapping with him. Directly after take-off, the problems started. A flight attendant appeared with a cot for the baby, which was strapped to the bulkhead, thereby blocking my access to the aisle and destroying any leg room gain that may have existed a mere moment before. Added to which, there was so much baby paraphernalia now encroaching on my space that getting into my armrest for in-flight entertainment controls was becoming an issue. I’d say ‘excuse me’ and she’d huff and puff with a grimace, as if I were inconveniencing HER! Meanwhile, baby wipes and muslins and teats and all sorts of baby items were making their way across to my seat and my foot space. I was not a happy bunny.
I do sympathise with parents who travel with babies. It can’t be easy, what with extra carry-on and push chairs and feedings and little ears popping on ascent and descent, not to mention crying. Some parents manage incredibly well although they tend to be the ones who stay quiet and calm with their babies. Their demeanour seems to rub off on their wee one. Unfortunately, the mother next to me was not one of those people. She was tense and moody and grumpy and a downright pain in the arse. For the first time in my life I regretted that we’d ever been offered an upgrade and wished myself back with the regular sardines.
Then, out of the blue, and somewhat temporarily, Grumpy Mum started treating me like a human being. I think it probably had something to do with the fact that the cabin was now echoing with the incessant howls of her offspring. He screamed so long and so loud that I was tempted to ask if he had been born with any numerical birthmarks, like 666. Bugger it, I hadn’t brought any ear plugs.
(the grumpiest baby to be found on Google images. Not sure to whom I should attribute this image, because loads of different sites have used it…)
Eventually, Grumpy Mum realised that a soiled nappy was the reason for the screaming. At the risk of stating the obvious, and I know I may not be a mother myself, but isn’t that one of the first things you check when a baby starts to cry? But wait, there’s more. Instead of taking the baby to the rest room to change him, she removed his stinky, pooey, messy nappy right there in the cabin and did so with such lack of care for her child that the screaming intensified. Three flight attendants tried to tell her to take the baby to the rest room, but Grumpy Mum wasn’t moving. No sir. She was changing the nappy right there and then. In hindsight and on behalf of my fellow passengers, I should have taken the nappy and rammed it up her nose. Inconsiderate doesn’t even begin to describe it. The cabin stank for hours. Literally. I remind you that this was a long-haul flight.
With the aroma of baby faeces wafting up my nose I wondered how airlines could decrease the likelihood of such scenarios happening. Perhaps they could issue guidelines for people travelling with small children (if they don’t already)? Perhaps they could create a cot that sits IN a seat so that aisle access is not blocked – something that could be dangerous in an emergency. Perhaps they could follow a protocol so that passengers are informed if they are going to be seated next to a baby and can change seat allocation if that’s going to be a problem for them. On a site called Flying With Kids experts suggest that some airline assistants will block out the seat next to the parent of a young child to allow them extra space – according to availability. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for us and as far as I was concerned the pilot couldn’t fly us to Bangkok fast enough. If my baby neighbour had been a new incarnation of the devil, it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least. To be fair, though, I think his non-stop screaming were due to poor parenting. Had I had enough opportunity to relax and sleep on the flight, I may have found energy to feel sorry for the kid. But, no. I’m embarrassed to admit that infanticide was the only thing on my mind by the time the plane landed. I practically ran off the plane to escape the previous 13 hours of smelly, noisy confinement. So what can we do to help ourselves avoid the baby cot scenario in future? Here are some tips. Feel free to add to them in the comments below.
- Sometimes airlines upgrade you because it will help THEM out. It pays to be aware of this. In our case we must have looked polite enough to put up with a 13 hour flight next to a screaming baby. Never again.
- If you are travelling à deux, never, ever accept a pair of middle seats in the middle row. By taking an aisle and a middle seat together, you will only disrupt your companion if you need to get up.
- If you are offered bulkhead seats, ask if your neighbours will be requiring cots.
- Reserve your preferred seats online wherever possible to avoid losing out in the lottery of last-minute seat allocation.
- If the clerk at check-in asks you to change seats, ask to see a plan of the cabin so you know exactly where you will be.
- Note that when travelling on low-cost airlines, unless you pay extra for preferential boarding, you will sit wherever there is space. There are often no set seat allocations.
- Pack ear plugs in your carry-on. For those unexpectedly noisy moments, like the screaming child or the high-decibel snoring coming from 33D.
- Ditto rosemary essential oil. A dab of that under your nose will help mask any unpleasant cabin smells without adding to them.
- And for the instance where your seat-mate decides to use the reading light when you want to sleep, take an eye-mask. You can get them imbued with lavender nowadays – which will help you relax and further reduce any effects of strange smells in the cabin.
- Have I forgotten anything?
- Oh yeah. Beta Blockers. They work every time.
To Segway or not to Segway; That is the question
Some time back my friend, Razzbuffnik, posted a photo of people touring about Bruges on Segways. Like Razz, I don’t really understand why a Segway might be preferred to simply donning your walking shoes and getting some exercise as you explore a new place, although plenty of people seem to be keen to take a spin on these Jetson-like sets of wheels in the name of tourism, which raises the question: what do you do with the Segway when you reach a museum or other place of interest? Do phrasebooks now contain “where do I park my Segway?” or “would you mind if I leave my Segway at the door while I lunch at your establishment?” or “Are the museum’s corridors wide enough for my Segway?”, or “my Segway’s battery is running low. Do you know where I can charge it?”
It’s not just tourists who are taking to their Segways, however. Last November, Monsieur and I spied a pair of policemen using Segways to get around the Portuguese capital. Stood a good foot taller than anyone else on the street, they stopped at a newsstand, answered the public’s questions, before zooming off at a reasonable pace to the next stop on their beat. I just wondered what would happen, should they take chase to a bag-snatcher, so I visited the Segway site to see if these vehicles are fast enough to catch a thief.
The Segway site tells us that the standard setting is 12.5 miles or 20 kilometers per hour. As they put it, this is “roughly equal to a 5-minute mile, a really fast run.” So I guess a Segway-riding policeman has a reasonable chance at catching the perp.
As they’re a green alternative to other modes of inner-city transport, being charged by electrical sockets, the energy of which causes “fourteen times less greenhouse gas emissions than driving a car,” and as they don’t take up as much space as cars or scooters, the people at Segway must be hoping that interest in their product will steadily increase. A single charge will see you travelling a full 38 kilometers and 15 minutes of charge will allow you to go 1.6km. But if you weigh more than 117kilos, you can forget it. Segways can only carry so much of a person. And if you’re a lightweight at less than 45 kilos, the Segway won’t work effectively so this is an off-limits vehicle for kids and small people.
I admit I’m curious to try one out at some point, but I doubt it will be on an organised Segway tour of, say, Florence. But first I’ll have to make sure my weight doesn’t double and I up my lingo. FYI, an outing on a Segway is called a GLIDE. Sounds a bit odd, no? “I’m just going for a glide.” or “how about you glide on over for coffee?” Hmmm. Not convinced.
So before I sign glide off, have you ever been on a Segway? If so, please do tell. I’m keen to hear whether or not they have fans (apart from the Portuguese police) and why. Did you know there’s even such a thing as Segway Rally Races? Oh yes, people, it’s true. God bless Google; you learn something every day.
Here’s the link to Razzbuffnik’s Segway post.
