Charity

I've just performed my good deed for the year. I usually like to get these out the way reasonably early on to allow me the rest of the year to focus on being selfish.

I'm one of those people that’s usually quite wary of giving to charities (I have my reasons), but I think I may have actually found a way I can help people with minimal effort, little risk and at no cost to myself. I was sent a link by a friend of mine, Mr Matt Holland, to join Kiva; a non-profit organisation that arranges loans to small businesses and individuals in developing countries. The full amount you lend is repaid over time and you can withdrawal that money or put it towards another loan.

It might all sound a bit too good to be true, it did to me at first, but it was when the first instalment of Matt's loan came back to him that I took interest and decided that this might actually be something I could get into. So I browsed my way through the list of borrowers, found one that I felt most comfortable with and made my $25 donation.

I've chosen to donate money to Jeanette in Bolivia who is requesting a loan for a rotisserie oven. I decided that I wanted to put money into the food sector (of course), but on searching through the list of borrowers I found that this mainly consisted of people who ran existing stalls and grocery stores that wanted a loan to purchase stock for their business. I found the idea of purchasing hardware to allow Jeanette to break away from a life of making sweaters to start her own food business more exciting, it appealed to me.

"Jeannette is married and has two children. They live in a rented home in the District of San Martín in the city of La Paz.

Jeannette only has a high school education, so now she sells sweaters and jackets at the street fairs. She has to leave her little ones behind so that she can work more than 10 hours selling her products. Jeannette also generates income by selling food from the doorstep of her house in the evenings. For this reason, she is requesting a loan to buy a chicken rotisserie (for preparing roasted chickens, in other words, a small oven that slowly rotates the chickens while they cook so that they develop a unique and delicious flavor). This will help to improve her earnings. Her husband does not earn much money working as an assistant at an auto repair shop."

So, now I hope to hear back from Kiva when Jeanette receives her oven, and as she profits from the loan they have provided the money should slowly start trickling back to me. I intend to re-loan it to another borrower in the future.

In search of foods

Another post to keep the blog alive whilst I faff about with the small job of building somewhere to live.

I go to a fair bit of trouble to experience different foods. As a foodie (basically a kind way of describing a particular species of geek) authenticity and attention to flavour detail is very important to me, hence when I travel I grab every opportunity to sample local produce and visit delicatessens. As any good foodie will bore you, using local food is a positive thing. It encourages small independent business, keeps traditional production methods alive, ensures freshness and is often prepared with greater care. Healthy competition amongst local businesses drives up the quality of the product.

In Rome I was able to hunt down a few delicatessens. The best (in my opinion) was probably the most touristy, but that did mean that they spoke perfect English which came in handy for someone whose best Italian is limited to nods, grunts and hand gestures. This is located right by the Trevi Fountain, a close runner up was at the back of the square in front of the Pantheon.

Whether or not the charcuterie on display here was genuinely Tuscan boar or Salami from Felino is hard to say. The only way to be sure is to look for the PDO logo on foods that have fortunate enough to have been awarded that status. One thing is for sure - it wasn’t thrown together in a factory in Leeds and supplied to ASDA. This Tiroler spec came from a farmer’s market in Austria.

Farmer’s markets are an essential stop off wherever you are in Europe. These Roman artichokes are from a market in the Piazza Navona in Rome.

Hands down the best I have been to was in the old town in Nice just off La Promenade d’Anglais. Those of us who have experienced only supermarket versions of a vegetable are likely to be left open mouthed at the contrast in colour and size of that at a market stall. In case you’re wondering what the yellow things next to the pomegranates are in the left of the photo, they’re lemons.

Bakeries are a definite must wherever you are in the world as only local expertise will ensure that what you are eating is the real deal. Pictured is a bakery sign in Salzburg, Austria.

And if you want to try something as specialist as the famous Sacher Torte there’s only one place to go...

Nice, Rome, Vienna... don’t I sound like the worldly travelling food blogger? The fact is you don’t have to look so far afield for great food. What we consider to be an incredible experience when we go abroad is everyday fare for the people that live there. A holiday to Cornwall might not sound quite as exotic as Venice, but I’m willing to bet that the quality of the fish caught in a small fishing village such as Mousehole in Cornwall is easily on a par with anything they lay out in the Rialto fish market.

Here I feel duty bound to my Cornish friends to point out that this is what a real Cornish pasty looks like, and that it doesn’t come served cold in plastic wrapping.

Travelling around your own country gives you a bit more time to explore a little deeper into the food side of things, after all you’re not trying to cram as much culture into your limited time away. Here we were able to witness locally grown, freshly picked apples being pressed to make cider at Healey Cider farm.

I would suggest that anyone just takes a look around their local area. I think most people would be surprised at what is on offer. I have a particular addiction to Springs smoked foods, only 15 minutes drive from my house. An award winning business since the 60s and situated out in the West Sussex countryside where you could never chance upon it accidentally, they specialise in smoked fish and poultry. There is simply no supermarket comparison whatsoever anywhere in the world.

Another thing about living in Sussex is that we farm a lot of sheep and goats locally, and where there’s sheep there’s a) lamb and b) cheese and it’s all of the highest quality. Local farm shops supply some fantastic seasonal produce. The shop front pictured belongs to a local food shop in Steyning. Last time I was there I bought locally picked wild chanterelle mushrooms.

Also with the benefit of my local food knowledge I know how to source my ingredients and play to their strengths in my cooking. Recently I made a recipe using fresh squid. I know that the best fish round here comes in to Newhaven (usually to a fish monger’s near the lifeboat station), and that is where my local fish monger sourced my squid from.

I am as equally proud of our local produce in the South of England as I am in awe of the lemons on sale in the Piazza Navona farmers market and the sun dried tomatoes that only taste like the ones in Nice. To me food is as much a part of wherever you are in the world as the architecture, the climate the language and the culture. As for the beer, well that’s another voyage of discovery altogether...