We had a lovely day on Saturday when we went to visit Matt´s dad and Carolina. I enjoy visits to Nava as Carolina always makes us lots of tasty food. This time it was avocado vinaigrette, followed by courgette flan, potato and beetroot mash and French beans (all of the main course came from their garden), and for desert a piece of cooling melon, which was perfect as it had turned into a very hot day from a cloudy start. We also had something very interesting to drink which was some posh lemonade by Minute Maid (part of the Coca-cola company, unfortunately), made with lemon juice and pulp, sugar - no nasty sweeteners - does everybody know where aspartame comes from? No? Well I´m going to go off on a tangent here, so sit down, make yourself comfortable and I´ll tell you story:
Once upon a time some very clever scientists in the United States were developing a pesticide to kill all those horrible bugs that live on our fresh fruit and vegetables. One day, one of the clever scientists was going about his work and accidentally tasted the pesticide. Well, wasn't he surprised to discover that is was very sweet and tasted just lovely. So, the clever scientist got together with all the other clever scientists and decided that it would be a very good idea if they could sell the pesticide, which they decided to call aspartame, to drinks and food companies as an artificial sweetener. However, first of all, they had to ask the government for permission to do this. Now, the nasty government said "hang on a minute, you want to let people eat and drink a pesticide? We don´t think that this is a very good idea." So the poor scientists carried on their work with pesticides and put the aspartame plan to the back of their minds, but did not forget it. They were waiting for the opportune moment. A few years later this moment came. The people had decided that they didn't want the nasty old government any more but that an old film star was a much better idea for a president. The clever scientists were very excited about this as they had some friends who were friends with the film star. So they went to the government with their brilliant aspartame plan and this time the government thought it was an excellent idea and said "Well done, you clever scientists you. Of course you can sell aspartame as a sweetener and make yourselves and our companies a disgusting amount of money. Did someone mention cancer? No, I didn't think so". And so the clever scientists were given permission to sell their wonderful product, nobody got fat or lost their teeth any more, and everyone made a fortune and lived happily ever after.
And that, dear reader is the story of how aspartame came to our dinner table.
Anyway, to get back to this delicious lemonade. What made it extra special - apart from the lack of aspartame - was a the tiniest touch of spearmint. It was scrummy, and next time I have a spare few minutes I shall try and make some myself, although getting hold of spearmint might be difficult. I wonder if the peppermint from our garden would work instead?
So, we had a very tasty lunch and then went to a ´Medieval Market´being held in a village down the road. It was the usual fare, although I would've liked to have had my camera with me as there were people spinning wool and making silk and others in traditional dress doing Asturian dancing. There were lots of stalls with hand-carved wood and a mirror took my fancy until I saw the price. So we satisfied ourselves with a loaf of bread and some rather fine home-made, wood-smoked cheese which we had for dinner along with other bits and bobs, including Matt's own red tomato and ginger chutney, when we finally got home. We downed it all with (what I later discovered was) almost a full bottle of Lidl´s finest fino (a bargain at €1.49).
Saturday's dinner
Coming soon - 'The weekend: Sunday - John Mayall and The Bluesbrakers'
Once upon a time some very clever scientists in the United States were developing a pesticide to kill all those horrible bugs that live on our fresh fruit and vegetables. One day, one of the clever scientists was going about his work and accidentally tasted the pesticide. Well, wasn't he surprised to discover that is was very sweet and tasted just lovely. So, the clever scientist got together with all the other clever scientists and decided that it would be a very good idea if they could sell the pesticide, which they decided to call aspartame, to drinks and food companies as an artificial sweetener. However, first of all, they had to ask the government for permission to do this. Now, the nasty government said "hang on a minute, you want to let people eat and drink a pesticide? We don´t think that this is a very good idea." So the poor scientists carried on their work with pesticides and put the aspartame plan to the back of their minds, but did not forget it. They were waiting for the opportune moment. A few years later this moment came. The people had decided that they didn't want the nasty old government any more but that an old film star was a much better idea for a president. The clever scientists were very excited about this as they had some friends who were friends with the film star. So they went to the government with their brilliant aspartame plan and this time the government thought it was an excellent idea and said "Well done, you clever scientists you. Of course you can sell aspartame as a sweetener and make yourselves and our companies a disgusting amount of money. Did someone mention cancer? No, I didn't think so". And so the clever scientists were given permission to sell their wonderful product, nobody got fat or lost their teeth any more, and everyone made a fortune and lived happily ever after.
And that, dear reader is the story of how aspartame came to our dinner table.
Anyway, to get back to this delicious lemonade. What made it extra special - apart from the lack of aspartame - was a the tiniest touch of spearmint. It was scrummy, and next time I have a spare few minutes I shall try and make some myself, although getting hold of spearmint might be difficult. I wonder if the peppermint from our garden would work instead?
So, we had a very tasty lunch and then went to a ´Medieval Market´being held in a village down the road. It was the usual fare, although I would've liked to have had my camera with me as there were people spinning wool and making silk and others in traditional dress doing Asturian dancing. There were lots of stalls with hand-carved wood and a mirror took my fancy until I saw the price. So we satisfied ourselves with a loaf of bread and some rather fine home-made, wood-smoked cheese which we had for dinner along with other bits and bobs, including Matt's own red tomato and ginger chutney, when we finally got home. We downed it all with (what I later discovered was) almost a full bottle of Lidl´s finest fino (a bargain at €1.49).
Saturday's dinner
Coming soon - 'The weekend: Sunday - John Mayall and The Bluesbrakers'
4 comments:
Thankd for the science lesson! I hae all that diet crap - that stuff tastes rotten. Urgh. You can feel that artificial sweetener rotting your guts.
The Saturday dinner looks delicious!
Lovely, lovely, lovely food!
You omitted to mention that the fabulous new film star president was also suffering from senile dementia!
Lorenzo.
Aspartame is infintely preferable to High Fructose Corn Syrup which makes most US non-diet pop undrinkable. Besides, if I can't have artificial sweeteners I can't drink Tesco diet cola with almond which tastes like you're drinking a Bakewell tart. Yum.
Stewart, I don't want either of them, bleurgh. just give me sugar. And this is stating the obvious, but if you want Bakewell tart taste, then buy a bakewell tart!
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