Jamie’s Tomato Ketchup

I’m not normally the sort of person to go as far as making my own tomato ketchup, ok I have done once before (different recipe) when I had the ‘luxury’ of only having one child and had the time to worry about what exactly was in supermarket ketchup but as it turns out we don’t use that much ketchup anyway. But Girl Lacer has quite sophisticated tastes as far as dipping sauces are concerned, so I thought I’d have a go at Jamie’s recipe, which can be found here, sixth post down a thread on the Jamie Oliver forums, which originates from Jamie at Home.

It’s actually incredibly easy to make and smells delicious as you’re cooking. It takes a while to reduce the sauce down. The result is a lovely sauce which is so much more ‘complex’ than ‘normal’ ketchup, with a nice spicy warmth that creeps up on you (I think totally but not completely aided by half of one of my home grown chillies in the sauce, which have a pleasant warmth that only then subsides to reveal their spicy kick). The kids had some (a small amount) for their tea and loved it and I’ve just demolished a packet of crisps dipping it into the sauce. As I was cooking it and waiting ages for it to reduce, I was thinking “I’m not going to make this again”, but actually, now I’ve tasted it, I think I’m going to miss it when that jar runs out . . . Plus I think it’ll make an excellent base for sweet and sour type sauces or barbecue sauces or probably a whole host of thing!

Russell e-mails

Not me unfortunately, no a series of e-mails from Russell T. Davies to a Doctor Who magazine journalist who was working on the book Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale, has just been published in The Times here. The article is a great insight into work on the last series and the politics involved, for example Davies wanted J K Rowling in this year’s Christmas special, in some sort of storyline where she’s transported into a world of her imagination and the Doctor has to rescue her but David Tennant thought it sounded like a spoof (it would have been an interesting storyline but I think Tennant is right), so they stalled the idea to keep him happy. We also learn how the people up top were desperate to keep Davies for another series and how Davies approached Stephen Moffat to talk about the ‘white elephant in the room’, i.e. Moffat taking over, sounds almost like the Blair – Brown relationship!

Russell also talks about how he writes, I like his opening e-mail in the article;

 

There’s little physical evidence of the script process to show you. No notes. Nothing. I think, and think, and think…and by the time I come to write, a lot has been decided. Also, a lot hasn’t been decided, but I trust myself, and scare myself, that it’ll happen in the actual writing. It all exists in my head, but in this soup. It’s like the ideas are fluctuating in this great big quantum state of Maybe. The choices look easy when recounted later, but that’s hindsight. When nothing is real and nothing is fixed, it can go anywhere. The Maybe is a hell of a place to live. As well as being the best place in the world.

I filter through all those thoughts, but that’s rarely sitting at my desk, if ever. It’s all done walking about, going to town, having tea and watching telly. The rest of your life becomes just the surface, chattering away on top of the Maybe…and the doubts. That’s where this job is knackering and debilitating. Everything – and I mean every story ever written anywhere – is underscored by the constant murmur of: this is rubbish, I am rubbish, and this is due in on Tuesday! The hardest part of writing is the writing.

 

Finally Russell also talks about who he thinks should be the next Doctor . . . . Russell Tovey, who played Midshipman Frame in the last Christmas special and is more famous for being in The History Boys. I don’t know, I think he’s a bit too young and a bit too goofy looking. Anyway not Russell’s decision anymore!