Roadkill

Touchy subject, this.

However most people wouldn't hesitate to pick up a windfall apple, therefore why should roadkill be any different?

Now that the game shooting season is over (or to be fair, even before) I rarely pass a roadkill pheasant or rabbit without stopping to see how fresh it is. Blood at the scene, a flurry of feathers and an absence of rigor mortis all indicate a recent kill.

Plastic carrier bags and vinyl gloves are carried in the boot of the car to transport any finds home. Once there, de-feathering and/or skinning is conducted by the garden tap and rinsed off, with all remains into a carrier bag and the bin, while the meaty stuff goes straight into the slow cooker.

Yum.

Sweet chestnuts

Thinking that the fungi season would be up and running by now, I've been out skulking in the woods with my basket, only to be disappointed.

However a mammoth find of sweet chestnuts (Castanea sativa) was an unexpected bonus. I've collected about 3 Kg, which I've stored in a cool, dampish corner to delay the shrivelling process. Historically chestnuts were an important food crop throughout much of southern Europe, having spread westwards from Asia Minor most likely with the Romans. In some places they still are: on Corsica I've sampled chestnut bread, cakes, liqueur and even beer.

I normally don't bother with these in the UK, since mostly they're too small to be worth the effort of scoring and peeling. However this year, they're swollen and plump. I cut a small cross on the curved side with a sharp knife, shove them in an old colander and roast them on the embers of the wood-burning stove for 20 minutes or so. Delicious.

Boletus erythropus

The season for this is normally late summer to early autumn, however I found one this evening while out hunting for kindling wood.

Most people don't pick this mushroom, since it has the red pores which are normally associated with the (possibly deadly) poisonous Boletus satanas, and the (merely) poisonous Boletus satanoides. However I do, as I suspect do all the commercial fungi collectors who pick the stuff which ends up as dried 'porcini' at Waitrose at £5 for 100g.

Boletus erythropus causes stomach upsets when raw but is edible - and good - when cooked. Hence the reason why shop-bought dried mushrooms must always be thoroughly cooked, since you really don't know what's been sneaked in there under the guise of 'cep'.

A glut of cucumbers

The cucumber vine in the greenhouse has gone mad: every day there are two or three more on it. There being only so much tsatziki or Greek salad one can eat, I've started turning them into cucumber vodka:

Peel two large cukes (or don't if you want an attractive green colour to the vodka for cocktails). Slice in half and remove the seeds. Chop into 1 inch chunks and fill a large clean jar. Cover with vodka and leave in a dark cupboard for five days. Strain with a coffee filter and bottle.

For cocktails, you could just add it it to Pimm's, however I'm experimenting with lychee and rose martinis. Or just on its own, from the freezer.

MORE TH>N 'Green' Car Insurance

Oh dear.

From the MORE TH>N website:

"We have created MORE TH>N Green Wheels Insurance to give our customers the opportunity to take responsibility for their carbon 'tyre-print'. It helps people to understand how their driving style affects the environment by giving them access to information such as their rate of acceleration and braking, the number of short car journeys they take and how long they leave their car idling.

This exciting new eco friendly car insurance product is part of our commitment to the Together campaign which believes that, by offering customers positive environmental choices, large companies can make a real difference in the fight against climate change - you can find out more at www.together.com."

Sanctimonious greenwash bollocks. Anyone concerned about fuel consumption will already know that 'changing into the highest gear as soon as you can', 'driving slowly', and 'not leaving the car idling' saves fuel.

Anyone not so positioned really doesn't care.

However, to get really sniffy, as a marketing 'idea', it is about five years behind the curve. My guess is that someone at Royal & SunAlliance had a box of gizmos they had no use for.

Give-stuff-you-don't-need-away: now that's green.

Wildlife in this heat...

...must be desperate for water. I've given the greenhouse a good hosing, thinking of this little chap who lives there in a mossy nook:

Butterflies, bees and birds also appreciate shallow dishes of water provided for them / wet ground where the sprinklers are on.


Not exactly 'green' I know, but what the hell - some things just enrich us.

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?