thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: Mogador
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/03/mogador.html
Monday, March 09, 2009. What a mighty name for a restaurant. Mogador sounds like a baddy from Lord of the rings, played by an 18 foot hammer-fisted Brian Blessed on PCP. Mogador eats cats, smokes children, and does very unpleasant things to those naughty Hobbits. A swift google reveals that Mogador is many things:. The Portuguese name for the south west coastal region of Morocco. An ancient Phoenician fort in Morocco. A small hamlet near Margery Wood (would she? In Surrey, UK. We could have continued on ...
thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: Les Huitres
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/06/les-huitres.html
Monday, June 29, 2009. How to eat oysters:. Freshly picked from the mangrove, gently smoked, and then guzzled with fingers on a beach in Senegal's Sine Saloum. How not to pick oysters:. Our guide explained this to us. Then he and the boatman drew our pirogue up to the mangroves, and promptly uprooted a couple of branches. Apparently it's OK to destroy the habitat if you have a boatload of white people and are in a hurry. For more on mangroves visit Wetlands International. The Great British Kitchen.
thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: Tales from Kyrgyzstan
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/02/tales-from-kyrgyzstan.html
Thursday, February 19, 2009. The Road to Osh. Maybe it's a beautiful drive through the mountains. One day I may find out. This February Tuesday it seems bleak and unforgiving, walls of snow covered rock briefly intruding out of the steel grey fog. Tough looking men on horseback appear and disappear like shadows. My colleague asks, indicating the earphones she is sharing with me. I nod and smile my agreement. My baladeur. Skips to a song called ' Madan. It's a bit incongruous". That's what I hoped". Sever...
thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: More Istanbul
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-istanbul.html
Wednesday, April 29, 2009. Where were we before that brief hiatus? Ah, yes Istanbul, about two months ago. Istanbul in Feburary is like Manchester in February. Grey up, grey down. It's just as wet, but has more mosques, and fewer children dressed like security guards. It's easily done. You arrive in a new city, one that is throbbing with eating potential, all confident and well travelled, ready to take on the best that Istanbul has to offer. Then you end up in a tourist trap. Twice. A belly dancer arrive...
thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: Catching up
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/03/catching-up.html
Wednesday, March 18, 2009. You wouldn't believe the backblog. I've just been away, eating as always, so things are starting to pile up. Here are some bits and bobs, just to clear the decks. Moules a la Popenguine. Fine dining is, er, fine, but you can't beat a bit of improvised big fisted cooking. A recent visit to Popenguine with friends required exactly that. A few minutes in a pan with a couple of bottles of beer (one for me, one for the mussels) et voila:. How did that crab claw get in there? Please ...
thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: Paris. Sort of.
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/03/paris-sort-of.html
Thursday, March 12, 2009. 8220;Charles de Gaulle is a disgrace … it’s like a third-world airport.”. 8212;Michel-Yves Labbé, president of French travel company Directours, Aug. 14, 2007. If someone else is paying, you might get to fly with Airfrance, who charge about 50% more for a marginally less miserable experience. With Airfrance you get a slightly better standard of barely edible sludge, with a glass of cheap champagne to ensure you wake up with stinking breath. A little wedge of President. And make ...
thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: Samsi
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/02/samsi.html
Friday, February 20, 2009. The morning has passed by in a blur of cold meetings and chilly handshakes. The translator's voice a monotonous soundtrack to our huddled gatherings in freezing offices, hands in fingerless gloves wrapped around steaming bowls of sugarless black tea. At least it's easier to stay awake when when every sentence forms clouds of steam. With a carrier bag full of hot, dense samsi procured from the roadside we head back to our makeshift headquarters in the hope of finding warmth.
thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: Spoonlickers
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/07/spoonlickers.html
Wednesday, July 01, 2009. If the British broadsheets are to be believed, a truly relaxing weekend should involve handing over enormous amounts of money in exchange for a stay at some beige hotel close to a major road where you will be subject to any number of dubious 'spa treatme. Nts' I love a massage as much as anyone, but I can't seem to get excited about making it the focus of a weekend. The Collines de Niassam. Lodge in Palmarin is more my style. Here you can relax without. The staff lay on three me...
thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: In that London
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/07/in-that-london.html
Wednesday, July 08, 2009. You know, there are sometimes in life when only a well made Scotch egg will do. The Scotch egg at Canteen. On Baker street in London hits the spot. While the accompanying pickle lacks punch, each quarter of scotch egg is a taste of Great Britain. A taste of mum's kitchen, long summer evenings sitting outside the pub drinking ale, jumpers for goalposts. It suits me and my Oldest Friend though, as they have a nice spicy drop of Meantime Pale Ale on tap. Our waitress is friendl...
thejiffler.blogspot.com
Experimental Jifflings: Oranges
http://thejiffler.blogspot.com/2009/02/oranges.html
Thursday, February 05, 2009. Back in Dakar, the tree in our backyard is bulging with oranges. Not the sort of oranges you'd want to eat, all pithy and thich, but the sort of oranges you might make into orange juice, if you could be bothered. Say you had Friday afternoon off work. And a four metre. Wooden curtain rail just lying around. The technique is simple; stand on the roof of the flat and thwack away at the oranges with the wooden pole. Half an hour and 100 or so oranges later and you have this:.
