Man in the Kitchen - Part 2

By OISE Oxford Tutor Kit Villiers

By last Sunday I'd finally run out of excuses. It had been a full 6 months since I did my cookery course in July 2013; OK, I had been able to play various cards - the wounded cook (a cut finger), sheer exhaustion brought on by the course, and far more competent cooks being around - to stave off the inevitable , but on January 19th a combination of factors condemned me to at least one more bout with the pots and pans.

It was my sister's birthday. She and her husband would be visiting from Surrey, and it seemed a bit tough on her to have to spend the day slaving over a hot stove. She also gently reminded me that it had been her idea for me to do the course, and that she felt after all this time perhaps it was time that she got (so to speak) her pound of flesh.

'We' -that is they - decided that I would have a shot at 'Sausage and Fennel Seed Ragu', one of the four menus I'd grappled (not entirely successfully with last July, as it appeared to consist of four simple steps. One step not mentioned was how to obtain the simple ingredients. On the course the coach/trainer had prepared little trays in advance for d each of us (unwilling in some cases) participants. '3 garlic cloves, crushed' and 'pinch chilli flakes' proved tricky as of course I had little idea what they were or where to get them, but after some searching I finally assembled everything - except the fennel seeds themselves. My suggestion that we should cancel the whole thing and send out for fish and chips instead through the lack of this essential ingredient was regrettably turned down out of hand, and I was shown where our kitchen was and unceremoniously dumped there.

The first issue was cutting up the onion. I reflected in passing that cookery seemed to involve amongst other things mastering a whole new set of verbs. Here was the first one - the onion had to be 'finely diced'. My niece said she'd kindly help, at least to set me on my way. "It means cutting it up into small bits" she opined. "Surely your instructor taught you how to do that?" We both tackled the thing, and after frequent rests to recover from streaming eyes were faced with another baffling verb: the onion had to be 'sweated' until translucent. "That means 'cooked' my niece (now realising that little would be accomplished unless she stood guard) patiently explained - "in the frying pan".

I was starting to feel the pace a bit by now, and we'd only done step one; luckily even I was able to follow step two which basically said throw in all the other ingredients, and step three which said cook the tinned tomato for an hour. I had more trouble with the last step which required the aspiring (perhaps that should be perspiring) chef to fry the sausage meat until golden brown. I'm a bit colour-blind, but my meat never really attained this hue, and despite the cries of rather exaggerated rapture which greeted my effort I warned the party that perhaps they should temper their praise until they'd slept on it...

And the last verb? 'Season'. I thought it referred to the time of year, but apparently it means you can add salt and pepper to taste. Even I could manage that.

Angkor Wat Half Marathon

By OISE Oxford tutor Kit Villiers

Was that an elephant I see before me? I had reached about the 20k mark when I noticed that there was a slight delay ahead; a couple, possibly French, who had just passed me, were slowing right down, together with about 3 other runners ahead. We were near the back of the field, and I supposed that the course had been re-opened to traffic: sure enough, a mini-bus was trying to get through the narrow gate of one of the lesser temples which surround Angkor Wat, and which the course seemed to be taking us through. Slightly irritated, the 6 of us paused as it squeezed past, but then, hard behind the bus was an elephant; nobody seemed to be riding it, and as far as I knew it might have been a wild one fresh out of the surrounding jungle. Anyway we were still on the narrow causeway inside the temple so there was little choice but to run on and hope one wasn't scooped up in its trunk or, in the alternative, crushed under its large feet. Well, we survived, slightly startled but intact, and shuffled on towards the finish, all of us no doubt reflecting that we had one more  'animal encounter'  story to add to our respective collections. There were lots of monkeys too....

I was in Cambodia for the Angkor Wat half Marathon, the 18th running of which was on Sunday 1 December. It seemed a great idea when we conceived it a few months ago - seeing a new country, experiencing an exotic tropical location, and joining one of the most international fields you could imagine sounded like fun too. My mate Steve had suggested that we fly out the Friday before the race,  meaning we could have the pleasure of working the whole week beforehand(!?)  Steve then pulled out, leaving me (with great assistance from Jo) to battle on with the arrangements alone.

The issues with flying in to a strange country with a race to run the next morning became apparent even before I left England, and I more than once soundly cursed Steve for his somewhat optimistic last-minutism.  I was going to arrive at Siem Reap (the airport for Angkor Wat) too late to register. You had to collect your racepack the night before, before 8pm. I didn't land until 8.20pm, and then needed to get my visa and find my hotel. After a mad flurry of emails to the organisers and my hotel beforehand, luckily the hotel had come up trumps and for the cost of a return taxi fare, they sent some unfortunate minion to register on my behalf. You can imagine the sigh of relief when they handed my number and chip over when I checked in, and without demur I handed over the $12 they requested for the minion's time and trouble.

The start being at 6.30am and not having a clue where to go or how I was going to go to wherever it was,  the next thing was to get a really early morning call organised, and I plumped for 4.30am. I'd also worried in the plane as to what I could eat or drink before the start, as I was clearly going to be too early for the hotel breakfast, and I presumed tap-water would definitely be out. Fortunately in the room there were two complimentary bananas and two bottles of water. So what this nourishing fare  together with half a Yorkie bar left over from Heathrow I hoped I had just enough inside me to get at least to the first water station. In the event getting to the race proved no problem as the lobby soon filled with runners of all descriptions, and all the tuk tuk drivers had clearly got up early too so there was plenty of transport.

Apart from a slightly messy start, which might have been caused by the semi-darkness and the fact that there were other races to set off (including, this being Cambodia, divisions for amputees as well as the more normal wheelchairs),  I really enjoyed the race. The temperature naturally climbed as the sun rose, but it never got too hot nor too humid. Even so, jet lag and lack of fitness told in the later stages, although I finished in one piece, sharing a tuk tuk back to the hotel with an Australian girl who just pipped me at the end.

Would I do it again? Certainly! Although I didn't see it in the dark, to start at Angkor itself could hardly be more exotic. Later on we passed innumerable other temples and runners would dash over and get a picture before carrying on through the treelined course, telling their friends back in the US, or wherever, all about it on their devices....Very friendly, and worth the trip. My hotel even kept its buffet breakfast going for the less talented runners (e.g. me) and the beers are cheap in Cambodia too!

Horse Chestnuts for the Chop

By Kit Villiers, OISE Oxford tutor and Chairman of the Friends of Cutteslowe and Sunnymead Park.

Another of England's classic trees is under threat. The horse chestnut, better known to hordes of English schoolboys down the ages as the conker tree, has developed a deadly disease. Will it go the same way as the elm, which has virtually disappeared from our countryside?

Cutteslowe Park, Oxford's largest public park, has over 100 of these beautiful trees, many of them in three large avenues. Some trees are more badly infected than others, so one possibility that has been put forward is to remove the worst ones and replace them. However, at a well attended AGM recently, the Friends of Cutteslowe and Sunnymead Park were told that the problem with that solution is that new trees find it hard to get established against existing ones. The Council's tree officers therefore would prefer to fell a whole avenue at a time, and replace the chestnuts with something else. The denuding effect of this suggestion appalled some worthy locals in the audience, who in a questionnaire generally inclined to the view that if filling the gaps was not acceptable, at least we should spread out the felling as long as possible, perhaps over nine years. It was also suggested that after the first avenue has gone, we should take stock of the situation before demolishing any more. Unfortunately it would appear that all the chestnuts will go in time. The Council can't take the risk of a diseased limb falling and injuring someone - a distinct possibility in this very popular park - so they are not keen on delaying the felling and replacement process too long.

Luckily the news isn't all bad. There are 119 chestnuts altogether, 69 of which are in the three avenues, but this is out of a total of 1,711 trees in the Park as a whole. Also we can be quite imaginative in what replaces them. Here we have some choices, and nothing has been definitely decided. Should we retain the avenues with one species? Or perhaps a different type for each avenue, or even alternating types within the avenues? One possible replacement which has been suggested is liquid ambers. We've got one at home, and it looks lovely in the autumn, so I'll be supporting that as at least one replacement possibility. Let either Oxford City Council or the Friends of Cutteslowe and sunnymead Park know if you've got other ideas.

The other mitigating factor is that replacement saplings are likely to be be at least two metres tall even when first planted, so hopefully the Park won't look totally bare even if a whole avenue is taken out at a time.

What I want to know is what will schoolchildren do for conkers when all the conker trees disappear?

HMS Defiant - the making of a movie

When my father was approached to help sail the two sailing ships which were to be used in the making of HMS Defiant (or 'Damn the Defiant' as the Americans have it) I was at school in Kent, grappling with 'A 'Levels. Luckily the bulk of the filming was due to take place in the summer holidays, and my brother, sister and I were able to join our parents for a month on location in Denia, at that time a small, rather poor fishing village on the Mediterranean coast of Franco's Spain, where the crew - both ship's and film - were gathering. 

HMS Defiant was a frigate in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars, and the story takes place in 1798, culminating in the Nore Mutiny. My brother and I were signed on as ordinary seamen, but as we were bound to appear on screen along with the extras, we were both made up as late 18th century naval ratings, with wigs and somewhat baggy trousers.  Even my 16 year old sister got a part: as a 'loose woman of the town',  she and a few other lovelies got rowed ashore in Portsmouth (actually Denia) just before we set sail to join the fleet.

Denia is on a promontory and sticks out into the western Mediterranean. This was ideal for the film company as they were able to shoot what were supposed to be deep-sea scenes quite close to shore. Time was money, though and we had to be on board before 7am in order to use all daylight hours. That didn't apply to the three stars: Alec Guinness (in command), Dirk Bogarde (No 2) and Anthony Quayle (seaman, the leader of the mutiny) were whisked aboard by fast launch only when they were needed. The food on board was pretty good as I recall, but to drink we had the choice only between cold beer and coke. I've disliked coke ever since, having poured it down under the hot Spanish sun to keep cool.

I appear a few times. When the film first came out, a careful perusal disclosed about 6 rather fleeting appearances, but in recent viewings I've managed to see myself only twice. Once I'm coming down the rigging following the order "All hands on deck to witness punishment", and the second is where I am steering the 'Defiant' when a mutineer taps me on the shoulder and whispers "All set for 6 bells" (or something on those lines). Not being in Equity (the actors' union) I don't speak but merely nod in reply. Actually all dialogue had to added in the studio as the noise of the generators driving the floodlights drowned out most speech on board.

Was it thrilling being near the stars? For me, not particularly. Alec and Dirk behaved like the officers they were portraying, and rarely strayed from the quarterdeck.  Quayle was a little more approachable, perhaps because he played an ordinary sailor like us, but even he, although an active man who sometimes canoed out to the ship, was not allowed to go aloft in case he fell (shades of 'The Guns of Navarone'). I did once play chess with the young man playing the midshipman, but I can't even remember the actor's name  - I don't think he ever became famous.

But if you asked me if I'd do it again, I would say, despite the heat and the constant hanging about, definitely a maybe; after all, all these years later people still ask me about what it was like just being there.

If you want to see 'HMS Defiant' just wait for the Christmas TV schedule. It's surprising how often it gets reshown.

by Kit Villiers

Man in the Kitchen - by Kit Villiers

Phew! Give me teaching any day! Cooking? I never realised what hard work it is. Following a day's cookery course at Denman College last week, I crawled back to Oxford determined never to enter the kitchen again except perhaps to select 2 slices of Mother's Pride and casually flick down the lever of our old trusted toaster, spreading the result with thick butter and having no greater decision to make except whether to slap on Marmite or jam.

I had been enrolled on the course as a birthday present some months ago, and as the day got nearer I got more and more apprehensive.  Surely I wouldn't need all these freezer blocks, food bags and plastic boxes to take home the result of my efforts. It was more likely that anything I produced would immediately be binned or possibly put down as a new kind of rat-poison.

I was somewhat reassured by the olde world appearance of the college, and by the low-key coffee reception where I took the precaution of eating an extra cake in advance of my now imminent failures in the kitchen, and finally by the fairly unforbidding appearance of my 5 fellow "students"  - all of whom seem to have been dragooned into attending by their wives. Soon the cook/trainer/coach arrived and I marched off after the others through the lovely grounds to a large block, part of which was an enormous kitchen.

I thought I was fairly fit, but I found being on my feet all day, cutting, slicing, trying to figure out how to turn the gas on, not to mention endlessly washing up, totally exhausting. We all had our own cooking range, but I was constantly sneaking a look at my rivals trying to ensure I wasn't last or to see I was doing it right (mostly not). There was quite an incentive to get the stir-fry chicken right as we were going to eat our own concoctions for lunch. Actually despite everything even mine was pretty tasty. We must have been a pretty poor class though - the instructions said we were going for a nice walk around the grounds after lunch, but instead we found oursevelves slaving away over our respective hot stoves again almost immediately.

The day ended with cake in the lounge - fortunately not made by us - and a chance to get our breaths back.

For the record I took home: sausage and fennel seed ragu
coq au vin (with apologies to Delia Smith)
keralan prawn curry
one minor flesh wound