Rolling the butter…we make lots of different types of flavoured butters also known as compound butters in the kitchens, some are used to flavour bruschetta and fish, others to thicken and flavour reductions for sauces.

I first wrote about this nearly four years ago and offered some variations on flavours and uses so for more info please click here. What I didn’t do was record the way we roll the butter in cling film to form a tight cylindrical shape which makes it easier for cutting.

For the purpose of my diary I thought it would be good to look back in the years to come and remind myself of how many times I did it!

That’s it I told myself, bloody pigeons pinching all of the bird seed from my table feeder. I get remarkably grumpy when anything larger than a blackbird eats the food I put out. They should know it’s not meant for them! So, yesterday morning I went out to peruse the extensive gardens of Chez Collins when I noticed something in the bird feeder. Is it the robin? I wondered and carefully approached with the skill of a ninja ballerina..

For the love of Pete…that bloody mouse again! He’s swapped sides since last year when he raided my peanut feeder on the opposite fence. Now he’s climbed up the leg of the feeder, over the sides which ARE SUPPOSED to stop pigeons et al and got stuck into the seed and mealworms.

Some of you will recall my suprise at the amount of nuts the birds seemed to be getting through until my long camera lens uncovered the real truth in 2008 and then after a short vaccation he returned, this time it was left to my iPhone to capture the blighter…

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Cardio and more especially stationary bike is incredibly dull, I dislike it with a passion but it has to be done. As my weight training moves into its next phase (see yesterday’s entry) I have been instructed to double the amount of cardio I am doing and as my instructor weighs twenty two stones I have to comply!
So the question is how do I stay interested during my cardio sessions? Now for most men the answer would be to watch the women working out but as my luck would have it there are virtually no women who frequent the gym I go to (it’s old school) so I needed another source of inspiration.

So I decided to turn my negative into a positive (my motivational tapes are available at $150 for changing your life and $500 for success in business on the shopping channel) and kill two birds with one stone-read a book! Yes, I never get time to read properly so now’s the time to do it and I shall put my new and improved physique and weight loss regime down to:

Dr Henry Kissinger!!….

Yes, I’ve bought this epic and made a start. Very interesting stuff so far. I am very interested in this era and all things American during this period and I know he has his fans and haters in equal quantities but I have, thus far no qualified opinion on the man other than his lengthy book will take my mind off cardio. Let that be his legacy!!

Here’s a dish I came up with based on the theme of ham and eggs with a couple of extras thrown in for good measure. I quite like playing around with old standards, on the plus side you are doing something the customer can relate to whilst adding a little twist to make it your own.
What I love using are smoked ham hocks for this, the flavour is outstanding and I use them in all sorts of dishes, they always remind me of my mother’s German soups. They make a brilliant stock so if you cook one always have some dried peas on hand to make a fabulous pease pudding.

It’s pretty simple really, smoked ham hocks cooked slowly all afternoon in a vegetable stock, the meat stripped from the bone and rolled into a cylinder with chopped shallots, gherkins and capers for extra flavour. Some potatoes are boiled in the stock and these are dressed with a light red wine vinegar flavoured cream dressing.

A couple of soft boiled eggs are added along with some lovely brown anchovy fillets and there you have it, ham and eggs!

Well, after eating like a proverbial horse for the last six months it is now time to diet down and see if I have achieved anything at all in the gym. This diet lark isn’t easy but I enjoy the discipline of it and feel better for shedding a few pounds. Despite ‘bulking up’ for a few months I have kept a clean diet, I don’t like junk food so going on a diet isn’t a problem for me, it’s just getting used to eating smaller amounts again.

So the carbs have slowly cut down, I only eat good sources of the stuff anyway but now I look forward to my next meal as opposed to dreading it because I’m still full!!
All of that said I went for a pizza last night-very unlike me but I treated my seventeen year old trainee chef as a way of saying well done for her hard work and attendance at college. Average pizza but a nice tea time treat for both of us. Particularly enjoyed the rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ they blasted out for the toddler on the next table…

I took this image yesterday and it struck me that my local council were being quite brave here. It is the St. George cross and the flag of the English which, rather sadly has become synomynous with the National Front movement. In recent years stories have turned up about the use of the flag with Tesco apparently refusing to sell it during a football competition, police officers telling motorists to remove them from their cars etc so what’s the deal here?

This is the stairwell of one my city’s main car parks, recently ‘done up’ and cleansed of the local wino’s and graffiti, they have put this on the main facing wall. If you live in England then the media will have you believe you can no longer do anything in fear it might upset the muslim element in our society and whilst there have been cases of moronic sucking up by councils petrified of upsetting anyone with a religeous belief I do not believe all of the hype.

For me personally it is a flag which is the flag of the English (I’ll leave any historical inaccuracies to my brother) and should be flown without fear or concern for others. There should be no pre-empting apologies about not being racist because by and large the English people are not, it is our flag and we should fly it. We should be as proud of our flag as any other nation.

Either way it’s still a crappy stairwell!!!

This last week has seen me spend as much free time in my studio as possible. I love it in there, it’s a quiet, relaxing and inspiring. My friend Laurie has recently become the main UK distributor for an American bodybuilding brand of clothing and I’ve been photographing some of the items for an advertising campaign we shall be running on our websites.
As well as that I have been thinking about various backdrops for portrait work and 2012 is set to be an interesting year in terms of alternative forms of photography.

So here’s a snapshot of what I’m up to, I love using the iPhone for this diary and other projects but nothing compares to using the black beast featured in the photograph; the Canon EOS 1D Mark 1V. Simply awesome.

Studio Photography

It’s a rough old couple of months for the boss (me) I’ve got three chefs with landmark birthdays; twenty one, eighteen and thirty. Doh! First up is Carrole, twenty one and a hell of a worker, she started working for me when she was nineteen and reminds me very much of another girl who worked for me for many years. Never complains, never late or off sick and just gets on with it. A very rare commodity, particularly at that age.

So I bought her a cake and the boys stood and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her (a miracle) and watched her blow the candles out….

I was in two minds about this one if I’m honest. When I saw the scene I was struck by the bitter irony of it. Someone sleeping rough in the doorway of a bank.

I was walking through the city centre and on my way to check my bank balance when I saw this sleeping bag. It was a cold morning and the persons head was buried beneath the cover. I looked at the ‘deal’s’ plastered on the windows of the Santander bank wondering if ever they had or would apply to the person laid on the floor beside them. I took the photo hurriedly and discreetly, not wishing to drain anymore dignity than was already lost. I do not wish to make judgements about the homeless, whilst there are those who have surely brought much of it upon themselves there are many out there who are very vulnarable and whatever our persuasion it cannot be right that we have people sleeping outside in cardboard boxes in the middle of winter.

So my iPhone diary for 2012 wonders how far we have really come? and you know in many respects I don’t think we’ve come very far at all..

Sleeping Rough