Thrifty meals

At 6.30 when I wake my thoughts wander into dark places but picking up this phone and writing has become a way of repelling them. So here I am blogging again.

As you know we are getting pretty good at thrift in our household. A week ago I read an article about the weekly life of an out of work Liverpool man as he tried to make financial ends meet. He was a victim of circumstance and poor policy. It is a gritty tale worth reading, and in particular I was sadddned to read that he spent his tiny food budget on frozen foods to stretch it far enough. In this household we might have few pennies but we have hearty appetites and meal times are something we look forward to. Eating together brings us a lot of joy. I wish I could cook something for him now.

I don't really understand what happened to our attitudes to food. I'd like to share with you a dish that we regularly make for its thrift and its flavour. You will love it, but it isn't complex, and you won't need to pull aside a shop assistant to point at something alien on your shopping list. This dish is what we consider to be peasant food, just tasty, nourishing, economical food for the hard working. Well, that's all we ever want. Food has yet to become so dull to us that we have to start inventing exotic ingredients, or arranging things in architectural fashion on our plates. I've been there and done that in my perfectionist past. I have stressed about dinner parties, now that is shameful! At the end of the day I look for a bit of pleasure in the making, for me this usually requires a certain amount of meddling with the recipe.

Most of the ingredients are things we consider to be store cupboard ingredients in our house; we cook a lot and these are ingredients that last for ever. So this meal of around 6 servings tends to cost us around 20 pence per head. It will cost more if you are not in the habit of keeping a good stock of basic spices.

Yellow spilt pea dahl and rice.

Serves: 6

1 1/2 dessertspoon vegetable oil
4 cups yellow split peas
12 cups of hot water or better still light stock
1 onion roughly chopped
2/3 cloves garlic just squashed
3 pinches of sea salt
3 teaspoons tomato puree,
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground coriander
lemon juice of half a lemon
Tabasco sauce or chilli if you like heat

Cooked rice to serve it with

Gently heat the oil in a deep pan, add the salt, onion, garlic. Turn the heat low, cover and leave to sweat (5 min) but not brown.

Pour in the hot water or thin stock. Add the yellow split peas. Cover and leave to cook for 25 minutes.

Add the tomato puree and turmeric and cook until tender and thickened. Stir it from the bottom continuously now and add more water, if necessary, to prevent drying out or sticking. Continue simmering and put some rice on.

Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium heat and add all the ground spices; stir until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add this to the cooked split peas. Squeeze in the lemon and add heat to taste. Stir well. At this point I use a hand blender to blend and mix everything. It makes for a smooth dahl which Xavier prefers.

Serve over rice and at the table we leave it to you to squeeze extra lemon juice, add drops of Tabasco, and season further with black pepper. A knob of butter on top is even better.

This feeds us for a couple of days and we keep it in the fridge to heat a quantity as needed. On reheating we usually have to add a little more water. You can decide if you prefer a thick or thinner dahl. If you have fresh herbs like mint or corriander they serve up really well with this meal. I sometimes add dried thyme when it's cooking.

If you do decide to make this it would be great to hear how you get on and see a picture or two. I should take a few snaps when we next make this. Like I say, it isn't fancy but boy it is good. My difficulty is that I get bored easily so i like to make lots of different meals, whilst my family keep requesting favourites like this!

Jump Start

I am trying. Please don't judge me. All I have left in me to do is write. I dressed and went to find the jump start my father lent me. I followed the instruction but nothing happened ... the van just grumbled for a brief time. Fail. So I went back inside and here I am. I don't have much resilience do I. But don't judge me. This is my best for now. Being dressed is an advance on yesterday and so is opening the front door. With a little encouragement or even a kick I might even shower. Just not right now.

This is the disgusting face of depression. I want your understanding but I expect you can barely look at me. This is the ugliest form of humanity. All that potential, all those perfectly healthy limbs and organs, just being wasted. And the self pity. That is to lie in the gutter and not even bother to get up.

Leave me here. I'll be alright. It will pass.

Scratched Vinyl

This morning is just about being unwell. It is dull, not worth blogging about and certainly nothing to waste your time with reading. I've said everything there is to say about these feelings. I've started days like this a thousand times. This is the bit I endure and the bit you won't understand unless, sadly, you too have experienced clinical depression.

Sometimes writing is a way of scraping that ancient hole into my skull and letting the demons escape. Cutting out the stone of madness. Right now it is out of reach.

I'm taking one day at a time, actually I'm just getting by from one moment to the next. This is tricky. Every day has its minor triumphs, the things we take for granted when in good health  ... but the goal is more than to just make it to the other side of the day... it has to be.

I haven't been well enough to work and this is a source of real concern. Working for myself means I can go back at any moment ... and that keeps me hopeful. But in the mean time I am shut up in this house, trying to think what it is I can say to my customers.

It is a risk writing here so openly using my real identity. Customers are easily able to progress from my business web site to Googling me and finding out a little more. This is common sense when you are inviting a stranger to work in your house. I would certainly do it and my unusual name means it is incredibly easy to connect me with the business. However, given the ignorance that surrounds depression and other mental illness, I don't imagine it would be a selling point for me. At this point I should launch into some rationale about why I don't blog anonymously, how I'm trying to challenge stigma and discrimination. But the truth is I blog honestly and openly, without censorship, because that is what I vowed to do from the very beginning - those words are still there at the foot of the blog from the first day I published. There is no other reason. It makes decisions about what and how to write easy because I'm not looking over my shoulder, second guessing my readers.

I've only met one customer that admitted to seeing both websites and connecting them. I know at the time it terrified me... and I felt very exposed, despite her kindness and willingness to employ me. But I can't on the one hand campaign for an equality alongside those with physical illnesses, whilst at the same time taking advantage of the fact that depression can be concealed from others. That is surely to have it both ways isn't it?

I sometimes wonder if I should go further and link the two sites myself. Be totally upfront about being in business and living with depression. Is that a good idea? In my home town there is a wonderful place called The Café des Arts, a Social Enterprise that provides people with autism with an opportunity to work,  learn and show their art work. It seems to work.

But I suppose depression has its own baggage doesn't it. Not everything that is laid at our door is prejudice and misconception. Having depression makes answering the phone difficult at times, talking to people is hard, being reliable from one day to the next is impossible during depressive episodes. I'm not even sure I would employ me. And yet I'm a good person, my work is of a high standard and I'll always do my best for my customers. There should be room enough for people like that in this world shouldn't there?

What do you think, continue with my double life or be upfront about depression?

Scrounger

It's getting to be time to dig deep. I've written recently about our financial circumstances openly and honestly so that the complex problems that arise around mental ill health are plain for others to see. I'm surprised that there isn't more reading and support out there for people with depression. The big push at the moment seems to be to raise awareness and get people talking. Charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness collaborate to run 'Time to Change" campaign aimed at ending mental health discrimination. After all, coping with a mental health condition is enough to deal with on its own.
In October 2011 the campaign received its first government funding of up to 16m over four years. Ironically though, this is the same government that is attacking the benefits system and our weakest members of society to fund the mistakes of our financial institutions.
Say benefits, step back and then watch the fireworks. Only the other day the news stories about UK benefit caps brought to light opinions held by people I know that I can only, politely, describe as deeply ignorant.
In the UK the welfare benefits system is complex and the regulations change frequently. I would go further and say it is obstructive. Often claimants require expert support to overcome the application processes; it is the primary reason why my local Citizens Advice Bureau and the Advice and Representation Centre are overwhelmed with clients in desperate need of their support. These are both volunteer based charities, funded in the main but not exclusively by local government grants. With debt and unemployment on the rise it is again ironic that these charitable organisations, providing the last post for help, have had their funding slashed. It must be difficult for the most vulnerable members of our society to not feel victimised by the policy moves of this government.
I've mentioned already that Alicia and I tried once before, unsuccessfully, to make a claim for Employment Support Allowance. Well, I have been in employment all my life, working not in the city but instead educating your children for a wage that Alicia once calculated, hour for hour, was equivalent to working a till in a supermarket. I have always paid my taxes, even in self employment. My National Insurance contributions are up to date. In the UK National Insurance contributions build up one's entitlement to ESA and other state benefits.
This morning I made a claim over the telephone. I was more determined than before, driven a little by anger I think. The claim form, which is best completed over the telephone, is 56 pages long. I provided detailed information relating to both Alicia and I about our employment, our house, our mortgage, our incomes, our education over the last 5 years, pensions, insurances, savings, health and health care, our bank accounts and the movement of any funds in and out of the accounts over the last month, my business profits, assets, and accounts. The calls require around 30 minutes to connect with an advisor and the claim form takes anything upwards of an hour to complete. I knew what to expect and so had a folder, around 3 inches thick, stuffed with the information I would need to have this telephone conversation. Like before, I expect the form will arrive, several times over the next few days, and I shall need to complete it again. And I will. I will provide whatever evidence they ask for and see how it goes. I've been told that each time I am ill I will again have to go through this application process from the start, and given the pattern of things that is quite likely.
So today, despite the van having a flat battery, another day unwell and my mood crashing in the early afternoon, I held a telephone conversation with a stranger. That is an accomplishment. And I am seeking the financial support I'm entitled to for our family. That too is an accomplishment. Round one to us, though it doesn't feel much like winning, but I'll keep you posted.