Cardboard Spaceship

Yum, Yum, Pig's Bum!

The title of the post is what small brutish British children being brought up in their upper class nurseries and boarding schools would shout when presented with bacon. 

The reason I am writing about that is that the Spaceship has been working with pork this week.  Mrs Spaceship ordered a half pig from one of the local farmers recently, and spent Saturday down at the local abattoir making sausages and packaging our half of the beast in question. 

Eating meat has some conundrums, which for me are:  "what the hell am I actually eating, and did the animal suffer?" 

The local abattoir is a very small affair that does one beast at a time.  So the animal comes with the farmer, without being stressed, and then is dispatched, and butchered on an individual basis, with the local butcher, and the people who are taking the meat, so you know what you are getting - bio grass fed local produce.

Mrs Spaceship was told that when these local beasts raised on grass outdoors go the main abattoir, it turned out that the staff in the main abattoir would get bribed up to a thousand Swiss francs to swap the good beast for a factory one by the local retail butchers.  So the Boucherie de Molard, one of the best in Geneva, now sends all its beasts to the small local one here to make sure that there is no substitution.  (Something that apparently is obvious to a farmer, that might not be obvious to the layman, it seems.)

Mrs Spaceship came back with some of the initial produce last night, and as today dawned sunny and pleasant, we decided to do the first barbecue of the year, which is not bad for the 31st of January.

Here is the barbecue lighting up:

I decided to cook not just with charcoal, but also with cuttings off the local grapevines, which give a lovely smokey flavour.  Just to finish it, I added some rosemary and laurel leaves.  The sausages are made yesterday.

 

And they cooked up just fine, thank you. 

Great way to have a Sunday lunch. Wonderful to be standing in the winter sun, and cooking outdoors.

Cave Ouverte in Jussy...

Been a bit light on the blogging this week, as I was doing a three day workshop in Germany, sunny old Walldorf as usual, SAP Headquarters, so there are still potential banking projects moving out there, despite all the turmoil and chaos. 

Was nice to see my colleagues in the flesh for a change, and had a very good knockabout workshop with a nice bunch that I have worked with many times over the years... 

The weekend brought the caves ouvertes here in Geneva.  This is when the local wineries throw open their doors to the general public, and show people around, and have a rip roaring time feeding adults wine, doing nice things for the kids, etc.   Normally I buy most of my wine at the local main winery, the Chateau du Crest, but it quite crowded on the open days, as it is a (relative to Geneva) big producer, and so we had the pleasure of going to another smaller local cave that has just started selling its new red wine, aided and abetted by the owners of the local terrain. 

The weather was gorgeous, and we wandered round this lovely domaine in the sun enjoying the wine, and the sun, and then went for a buffet lunch with a load of local friends, and sat in the shelter of the trees having a lovely lunch and afternoon. 

Here is the proprieter of the cave (wine cellar) trying to keep up with the locals, and what can be a rather insatiable thirst.  His red was very good, and generally very well received. 

This jovial chap is Mr Terrier, our charming next door neighbour, and former long serving mayor for the commune.   As he said, "I have often been photographed with a glass of wine in my hand, but it is rare to be snapped with the whole carton."

A small pony was on hand to provide amusement to the young girls who came.  (The young boys all went and had a fight on the nearby trampoline.  Innate gender differences, eh?)

Here is a rare picture of Mr and Mrs Spaceship standing in the gardens of the domaine, which as you can see are rather nice. 

It's easy to smile in the sunshine, with a supply of good wine near to hand. 

Here we all are sitting at lunch.  The Smallest Space Cadet of them All is sitting in the tree on the right, if you look closely. 

Marvellous time had by all, and Mrs Spaceship got sunburn. 

Next day we invited a few friends over for Sunday lunch, and here on the subject of innate gender differences are the boys on a nice sunny day.    Doing the important job of squishing electronic ghosts on the PS/2 and scrupulously avoiding the risk of sunshine. 

Meanwhile the girls are all out playing on the electronic battery powered bike that we have.  (Bought in the local bric a brac for 90 euros.  Money well spent.)

So, nice to go away, very nice to be back, and will be posting more regularly in the next couple of days. 

Kebab was Invented!

Here is something, amongst the many things, that I did not know.  The humble Kebab, that greasy evil thing that you find lying on the pillow next to your head after a good night out as a student, was invented in Germany.  I had just assumed, that because of the elegance and simplicity of the idea, that it had always existed, but no, it was invented by a Turkish chap who wanted something to make his kebabs easier to eat..

He has sadly passed away, but I think that we can all join together in a small lager smelling huddle in the rain at midnight, and salute his legacy. 

Buy Canned Food and Shotguns

The really scary stories of the last few weeks have not been the credit crunch ones, although they have had their moments, but the sudden impact of food shortages.  Now, the first to be impacted are the poor, which is not surprising, but hungry poor people don't necessarily sit round starving quietly.   In fact they riot and protest, and have done so.  Then they migrate to places that have food, if they can.  That means closer to me and thee. 

Alarmist?  I was taken aback when I read "I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food."  Not in "Granola Tree Hugger's Weekly, but in the Wall Street Journal.  Ike.