Mean and green

The Lotus Elise. My one indulgence.

Hand-built in Norfolk, there's no carbon footprint in manufacturing, just an (albeit six-toed) human one.

The car returns 35mpg on combined urban/non-urban use since it is incredibly light: the aluminium bonded chassis, fibreglass monocoque body and 1.8 litre 2ZZ-GE metal matrix composite engine result in a kerb weight of less than 850 Kg.

Plus there are no silly add-ons like cupholders or air-conditioning (just take the roof off) to add weight and hamper the blistering performance: 0 to 60 in 4.9 seconds.

Ferrari performance for a quarter of the price and none of the running costs or social stigma (people let you out at junctions in an Elise). What's not to like?

The car scrappage scheme

What's the point of this? I can't believe it is ever 'greener' to scrap an older car in favour of a new one, given the carbon footprint of modern automated manufacturing methods.

Especially if classics like this (sadly not mine) are scrapped in favour of a Kia Picanto:

Barbecue Season

LOL. "Now that BBQ weather's here" is something I often read. Ermmm... if it isn't actually tipping down with rain, I'm barbecueing.

Getting the thing started is simple with scrunched up newspaper / a few sheets torn out of the phone book - useful since telephone directories can't otherwise be recycled - topped with dry twigs and a few pieces of lumpwood charcoal:

When the flames are leaping, cover in more charcoal, or just wood.

Wood takes longer to develop the required ember base for cooking, but the results are well worth it - beechwood is my favourite for flavour. Choose similarly sized pieces so that they all reach the ember stage at the same time.

Once I've finished cooking and the embers are dying down, I then close all the vents and throw on some fresh beech twigs, followed by a piece of trout or salmon. Whack on the lid for 20 minutes until it's cooked through, and the resulting hot 'smoked' fish will be succulent, flavoursome and enough to convert even the most ardent fish hater.

Which wild food books?

I get asked quite a lot about which books to use for wild food indentification. Here are my bibles:

1. Roger Phillips Mushrooms and other fungi of Great Britain and Europe, ISBN 03302644193. This is the definitive work in my view, the big selling point being the visual key to the main families on pages 10 - 12. It's now out of print, however used copies do appear on Amazon from time to time. Bag one if you can.

2. Roger Phillips Wild Food, ISBN 0330280694. A bit of a 'period piece' this, however the recipe for beech leaf noyau on page 67 is worth the cover price alone.

3. Richard Mabey Food for Free, ISBN-10:0002201593. The seminal work, and more useful for plant identification than Phillips' Wild Food in my opinion, however the two complement one another rather nicely.

4. Antonio Carluccio Complete Mushroom Book, ISBN 1844001636. Actually too far from 'complete' to ever use for identification, however it is a useful source of recipe ideas and inspiration.