Jottings
- rosemary
- Jun 18
- 7 min read
"Jottings: Quickly written short notes" Cambridge Dictionary
I'm making a batch of marmalade because David has run out. It's time consuming and a bit tiring, hence an oddments piece with the title jottings, because indeed these are going to be short and moreover quickly written. I've left David to stir the marmalade for a bit, whilst I try to do at least one jotting.
This is a page from one of Nigel Slater's notebooks - somewhat pretentious I guess both in the very fancy writing, the notebook itself, and the fountain pen with which he writes. It's all very self-conscious and sort of deliberate isn't it?
And I've just started another little project that involves actual writing in a notebook as well. Inspired by Meera Sodha, finding her way back into cooking after a crisis of withdrawal from cooking, by writing down in a notebook the very simple things she began to make, when her husband had had enough of doing the cooking. So I thought I would write down - just for myself, some of the thrown together dishes I make during the week. Just for fun. I suspect this won't last very long.
But first a tiny, tiny bit about derivations.
This is jot - well jod - the tenth and smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It's name actually comes from the Greek 'iota' which is the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet. They look similar too - well sort of - Hebrew on the left, Greek on the right:
The Hebrew word for the letter is jot - which has related but different meanings to the writing one - other than that it is a letter of course,
"Jot is related to our modern English word iota, meaning “a very small amount.” The Hebrew spelling is yod or yodh." Got Questions
You learn something every day. My further jottings, are mosly recipes from here and there.
Yes I guess it's not that out of the ordinary or special, but it's an Ixta Belfrage recipe so it's not just any old midweek pasta dish - although it could be. I found it in a Guardian newsletter from Rachel Roddy in which she was talking about different pasta shapes. When she came to rigatoni she recommended this recipe - and some others. The secret - and unexpected ingredient here - is silken tofu. Now I've never tried tofu - I'm not tempted, even mildly repulsed, but maybe I should experiment with this. I could become a convert. And because it's Ixta the sauce, of course is laden with chillies - in the form of Calabrian chilli paste, which I doubt you will find, but I guess you could go for your favourite - or find a recipe for the Calabrian one.
Speaking of Ixta Belfrage a recent Ottolenghi substack newsletter, had a list of other substack lists that you might be interested in and top of his list was Ixta's.
What is substack you might ask? Well it's the latest thing in online newsletters - and here's one cynical view of them:
"Meta, YouTube, and TikTok platforms aren’t paying up like they used to. It’s why your favourite food content creators are launching paid-only newsletters; why influencers are jumping on every lucrative marketing partnership they can get; and why your favourite recipe sites now have their cooking content tightly locked behind a subscriber-only paywall. In 2025, The Gold Rush of “pivot to video” has solidly run dry.” Best Food Blog – The 2010s video frenzy that changed things forever
He or she is certainly right about the paid-only newsletters - although most of them have a free version which gives you a taste, but not the whole thing. I subscribe to the Ottolenghi one, and so I get the introductory blurb - which is sometimes, in fact increasingly, interesting, but not all of the recipes on offer. I suspect some of the other substack newsletters may be completely free, but most not. I'm not sure this writer is right about pay walls on favourite websites though. I haven't come across any of them - well some newspaper sites, and also some foodie magazines. But so far I have not come across a blogger, or a celebrity chef who charges - although they may severely limit what they publish online. It's a topic worth investigating more some time. In the meantime if you are interested in such things, Ottolenghi's list has some interesting looking ones - including David Lebovitz, Noor Murad and Ixta Belfrage.
June is a month of three birthdays in this family and so on June 29th I am hosting the big birthday bash, so when I saw these delectable looking mouthfuls in the latest Coles Magazine I thought I might try them for a nibble as they all arrive, looking for food - especially the boys. They are even vegetarian so I won't be doing my vegetarian granddaughter out of anything. Basically you just put some slices of red onion on top of some flavoured olive oil on a baking sheet, cover each slice with a piece of puff pastry and bake. Fli pand serve. That's honey in the jug at the back. And there's where you could use your hot honey!
As cooked on TikTok
My Lovely daughter-in-law gave me this book as a Christmas present - the Christmas before last. I read through it, marked a few things, and have kept it on my desktop ever since meaning to do a piece on it. I think I have referred to it now and then, but never tackled the whole thing for some reason.
It was an interesting read but not because of simple things that I just had to have a go at. In fact some of the recipes in there were very long - two pages long, which is not at all what I expected. I shan't be throwing it out, but I also suspect I won't be using it very much - maybe I should try something once every few months.
But today - a tip and a recipe. The recipe first - Korean corn cheese from Chef Chris Cho, who interestingly, in his introduction online, says it isn't traditionally Korean:
"However, in recent years, corn cheese has been growing in terms of popularity as an add-on to Korean BBQ and Spicy Ramen. The sweet and creamy flavor would often complement and slightly tone down any spicy and savory food it is paired with." Chris Cho
And the tip - The only omelet technique you need - they call it:
"Obviously, it involves cheese. Crisp a thin, even layer of shredded cheese in a nonstick pan, then add your whisked eggs and proceed. Bask in the browned cheesy crust" Not sure how I feel about that.
I drooled when I saw this picture in The Guardian, via a link in the newsletter. The recipe is from our own Alice Zaslavsky which she describes as 'a loose play' on khachapuri imeruli - the Georgian cheese-bread which I wrote about recently. That looked pretty nice, but I have to say this looks even better. Maybe this would be even better than the little onion tarts. You could slice into bite sized pieces couldn't you? And More hot honey. It's very trendy.
Tom Hunt writes The Guardian's Waste Not column each week, which is given a link in their Feast Newsletter. I was a bit intrigued by this one, in which he uses the dregs of a tahini jar, to make the Japanese sesame based sauce Goma dare. Now I'm not much into Japanese food, so I probabaly won't do this, but for those sushi fans out there, this might be just the thing. The noodles are soba noodles, the black stuff is nori seaweed and the strips of vegetable are aubergine. Then there's sesame seeds, spring onion, miso paste, plus, ginger, sesame oil, mayonnaise and garlic. I admit it does sound interesting.
It's Ottolenghi. Well you've got to have at least one Ottolenghi recipe don't you? It came in one of his substack newsletters where he pondered on his preference for vegetable steaks over meat ones. I'm not a huge fan of broccoli, but maybe this is worth a go. And that's the thing with Ottolenghi isn't it? He makes you - well me - try things I otherwise would not. And in this bit of introduction he had this to say about steak:
"It’s not just vegetable steaks stirring debate. Have you noticed how steak-cooking has turned into performance art? Viral videos of men (it's almost always men) in rugged outdoor settings, wielding knives the size of small swords, slapping huge cuts of meat onto fire-heated stones. It’s all a bit... Daniel Day-Lewis." Ottolenghi
Which is marginally amusing. As I read my way through Jamie's America - I can see what he means about the knives the size of small swords. That newsletter also had some useful general tips on steak as well.
I know this looks rather pale and bland, but I suspect that it's utterly delicious. The author is Kitty Coles - who I do not know - and it was published in The Guardian recently - so British I assume.
There are potatoes as well. What's not to like?
So that's it for my jottings. Marmalade done and looking as if it's going to set. Soup about to be made from the leftover dinner party chicken sauce and the leftover petits pois. In fact I'd better go and get it started now and come back to finish this off with the editing and other bits.
YEARS GONE BY
June 18
2023 - Over the top?
2022 - Some leftovers
2020 - Deleted
2018 - Just to share
2017 - Nothing
Prompted me to pick the cumquats