Another day, another salad

I love my salads almost as much as I love my soup. So that's the first thing I thought of when a couple of friends came round for Sunday lunch a fortnight ago bearing a large smoked duck breast as a present (wine writers don't often give other wine writers bottles of wine when they're invited for lunch – for some reason culinary gifts are deemed to be far more acceptable).

The duck breast in question ended up in a fine salad that Mark and I enjoyed midweek – it's the kind of thing I like to rustle up when I'm busy and don't have much time for faffing in the kitchen (and at the moment I have very little time at all, what with trips to Burgundy and Bordeaux, plus all kinds of impossible deadlines – at least six before breakfast each morning...)

I bought some of those tender young salad leaves – nothing too bitter or peppery – sliced the duck, then extracted the seeds from a ripe pomegranate. I also added a little finely sliced red onion and some chopped walnuts, then dressed it all with a simple vinaigrette based on walnut oil (yes, walnut oil again – but I'm not sick of it yet), with a little pomegranate molasses (a sweet-sour syrup that I used as a substitute for balsamic vinegar – only a little, mind) and some red wine vinegar plus a dab of Dijon mustard.

We enjoyed it so much I went out and bought another duck breast at the weekend so we can have the same salad again some time soon – as long as our late winter gives way to a slightly warmer spring.

Redemption songs

I'm feeling quite virtuous because, despite the bad weather, I've hauled my sorry carcass out for a run twice in the past three days. The last time, half an hour ago, I made it all the way round the park. OK, so I had to walk across the centre, splitting my figure-of-eight run in two, but I did it!

One of the things that helped was having some music to run to (I found that Prince's 'When the Doves Cry' got me going, but John Lee Hooker's blues weren't quite as helpful). What I need to do is create a playlist of get-up-and-go tunes that will, er, get me going.

Now I wonder whether I should tell James that I made it round the park or not?

Fiddly food

I think I've already explained my theory that highly flavoured food is more satisfying when you're on a diet than bland food. I also tend to think that food that takes a while to eat because it's fiddly in some way (eg chicken wings, shell-on prawns, etc) also does the trick.

So this dish of Thai-spiced mussels (above) has to be the ideal combination of fiddly and flavoursome. We certainly enjoyed them this week.

Thai mussels for two

1kg mussels (I think smaller rope-grown black mussels are tastier than the big green ones from New Zealand)
1 tbsp grated ginger
1-2 small chillies, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp vegetable or peanut oil
1/2 onion, sliced into thin rings
2-3 stalks of lemongrass, bashed about a bit
300 ml fish stock
300 ml low-calorie coconut milk
1-2 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla – if you don't have any, light soy sauce will do)
lots of chopped fresh coriander, Thai basil (use the regular stuff if you can't find it) and mint

Make sure the mussels are clean before you start cooking. This means getting rid of their beards and the worst of any dirt clinging to their shells.

Stir-fry the ginger, chillies and garlic in the oil in a big saucepan for about 30 seconds, until they start releasing some of their aromatics.

Turn the heat down and, adding the onion, cook on a low heat until the onion is soft and translucent.

Add the lemongrass and cook for another few seconds.

Pour in the stock, coconut milk and fish sauce. Bring up to the boil then reduce to a simmer.

Tip the mussels into the pot, put the lid on and cook for just long enough for the shells to open (overcooked mussels go rubbery, those that are just cooked are tender and sweet). Shake the pot vigorously a couple of times to ensure the mussels cook evenly.

Serve in large bowls with a spoon so you can sup the sauce as if it were a soup.

We also had a small green salad with half a sliced avocado and some toasted sesame seeds, dressed with a simple mixture of lime juice, a bit of soy and a splash of sesame oil.

Letting myself down

Most people find the early days of a diet the hardest, but I was so fired up with enthusiasm in the early weeks – and the results were so immediate – that I had no problem at all sticking to the regime.

Now I seem to have struck the doldrums. My weight isn't budging at all (cosmic payback for my excesses in Burgundy perhaps) and, far from being close to being able to jog right around the park (as James promised I would by the end of March), I'm struggling to make it halfway round – a point I reached almost a fortnight ago. I feel I've let him down as well as myself.

Add to that the fact that I've now lost just enough weight to start being able to wear clothes I enjoy wearing, and it's not surprising my willpower's wearing thin (even if I'm not wearing any thinner).

The only thing encouraging me to stick at it at the moment (at a time when all around me are eating chocolate Easter eggs) is Mark, who's started to refer to me as the 'slinky minx'. That and the fact that I'm so stubborn that I'll be damned if I'm going to be put off now.

The French have an expression: 'reculer pour mieux sauter', to take a step back in order to take a better leap fowards. I hope that's what's going on now.

Blow me down

I don't deserve it after last week (see item below on why France is a bad idea), but this week's weigh in revealed a loss of 300 grammes. I'm down to 87.3 kg. Maybe it was all the walking I did from the wine producers' tables to the spitoons and back.

Going to France is a bad idea

Hold on. Let me rephrase that. Going to France is a bad idea if you're on a diet. Any time you sit down at the table, the diet devil will be sitting at your left elbow, intent on tempting you to sin.

'A little slice of terrine de foie gras, perhaps?' asks the waiter. 'Or maybe Madame would prefer to start her meal with some snails.'

Snails by themselves would be just fine. But snails come swimming in molten butter flavoured with garlic and parsley, all of which screams to be mopped up with crusty white bread, strictly verboten and therefore thoroughly tempting.

Main courses come piled high with mounds of protein: poulet de Bresse or Charolais beef (the latter capped with a slice of foie gras – which was a bit of a recurring theme last week).

Desserts are orgies of cream and butter and sugar. Not to mention chocolate.

The only thing lacking in all this was fresh green vegetables. I spent all of last week, from first thing on Monday to Saturday evening, in Burgundy, normally one of my favourite places to be. I was there to taste my way through wines made from grapes grown from Chablis in the north to the Maconnais in the south. So far, so good. After all, spitting is considered to be the polite thing to do (even though about a glass' worth of alcohol for every 15-20 wines you taste).

The damage was done, in the main, at mealtimes. Apart from one memorable lunch, where we were treated to fresh seafood, cured salmon and a variety of salads, midday meals were thoroughly unhealthy affairs at which the only edible options were mini quiches, small bowls of creamy purées, gooey cheeses, foie gras sandwiches and, on one memorable occasion, what looked like a pizza covered in pink puke (I think it was some kind of dessert, but I wasn't about to find out for sure).

Dinners were even worse. Somewhat more edible, perhaps, but incredibly lavish. In addition, seating is assigned, so you end up being split up from your mates and placed at tables where you know no one. Sometimes you end up having a fun evening. Sometimes you get so bored your teeth ache from the tedium. One night I was put on a table with three local winemaking couples, who all knew each other. Even though my French is pretty good, I just didn't have the energy to make the effort, so I pretended I could only speak English and got whisked away to another, more convivial, table. Naughty me.

On evenings like this, the food keeps coming. It's not unusual to be served five, six or even seven courses. And none of it's designed for anyone counting calories. Wine is also merrily poured into your glass – but nobody minds if you tip it right back out again and try something else, so at least I can keep the alcohol levels down. As ever in these situations, I just try to aim for small portions.

Despite my best efforts, though, I ended up feeling like a Strasbourg goose the week before Christmas. I wasn't expecting much from my weekly weigh in, either.

Soup, glorious soup

I've been feeling a tad guilty for not having put enough recipes on the blog recently, so over the next few days I plan to post a number of dishes that have helped to keep me going over the recent chilly weeks.

The first recipe I want to post is this gorgeous, tasty bowlful on the left. I love soup with a passion, and in my single days would sometimes cook a vat of the stuff and live on it from one end of the week to the next. This particular soup is fairly simple to make, yet I find it incredibly satisfying. Oh – and it's pretty healthy, too. But you do need one key ingredient to make it work, and that's home-cooked chicken stock. Store-bought stuff will do at a pinch, but you can forget about stock cubes. I've included a recipe for chicken stock below, just in case you've never made any at home – but don't worry, it's simplicity itself to make.

Soup with spicy pork balls and cabbage for two

300g minced pork
4 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
bunch of mint leaves, chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 small fiery chilli, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
600 mls chicken stock (see recipe below)
1/2 savoy cabbage, cored and shredded
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Mix the pork, spring onions, herbs, soy sauce, chilli and garlic together in a bowl, then form into walnut-sized balls.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, then fry the pork balls, a few at a time, until they're nicely browned on all sides. Put the cooked meat to one side until everything's ready.

While you're frying the pork, bring the stock to a boil in a saucepan, then lower heat until it's simmering.

Heat the pork balls in the soup for a few minutes, until they're thoroughly cooked through.

Add the cabbage and cook for another minute or two. Season to taste and serve.


Chicken stock

chicken carcasses (or chicken wings if you can't get hold of whole carcasses)
olive oil
a brown onion, halved and peeled
3-4 celery sticks
a couple of carrots
tsp peppercorns
2-3 bayleaves
bunch parsley
salt

I've deliberately left the quantities for this recipe vague as you can make as much or as little chicken stock as you need (and your stockpot will allow). If you end up with more than you need, stock freezes very well once it has been thoroughly cooled.

Brown the chicken carcasses or wings with the oil in a saucepan. Cover with water, then add the remaining ingredients, apart from the salt.

Bring to the boil, skimming the brownish scum that forms on the liquid. Reduce to a simmer – it's important to get the heat as low as you possibly can, so that only the occasional bubble breaks the surface. That way the stock should remain fairly clear once you're finished.

Carry on simmering for at least a couple of hours (I sometimes leave my stockpot on the stove for up to four hours).

Strain the chicken bones and vegetables, reserving the liquid. Now's the time to taste the stock. If it still needs to be more concentrated, put it back on the stove and boil until it's reduced to the appropriate concentration. Then – and only then – should you add salt (it can get very salty if you add your salt before concentrating the stock).

Allow to cool and (preferably) place the stock in the fridge overnight. You should find that any fat will float to the surface and harden to a solid, which will allow you to remove it easily. Your stock is now ready to use or freeze.

Just a quick word

There's so much I've been meaning to post about this past week – like the fact that I managed to jog halfway round the park across the road without passing out or dying, woohoo – but I've been flat to the boards with work. In the past 6 days, I've written one 1,500 word article (about rosé), another 1,500 worder (an account of a tasting I helped judge, which involved sampling 120 wines in the space of four hours – and then collapsing in a gibbering heap afterwards), 800 words on matching wines from Alsace with Asian cuisines, doing 8 interviews (for the rosé article), went to three tastings, written a précis of the minutes of the last committee meeting of the Circle of Wine Writers (I'm the group's Secretary) and then got up at 6 this morning to write 900 words on matching German wines and food. To cap it all, there were nine of us round the lunch table today – we had bolitto misto, a Northern Italian dish that involves boiled tongue, chicken and zampone (a pig's trotter sausage), home-made horseradish sauce and salsa verde. We also had a cheese platter and finished things off with a dessert I invented based on rosé wine, a bit of rosewater, some gelatine and some berries.

Are you exhausted reading all that? I certainly am. And the reason I'm mentioning it all now is that I'm off at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go to Burgundy tomorrow for the rest of the week. If I can find a computer while I'm there I'll post some more, but if you log on to cyber-radio silence, you'll know why. Until next time...

More kilos go

I thought you might be getting bored with seeing the fireworks image every time I have a successful weigh in, so I thought I'd try a popping Champagne cork instead. Arguably, it's more appropriate in any case.

This week, the scales read 87.6 kilos. Only another 19 or 20 to go...

Did anyone hear a loud bump?

If you did, that was me falling off the wagon last night. I'd been invited to the annual Caballeros dinner – one of those wine trade events where people get inducted into an association while wearing voluminous robes and funny hats (see left).

I didn't get to wear any robes myself (thank god, scarlet velvet has never really been my thing), but I was subjected to a four-hour-long onslaught of good food and Spanish wine. I've been working hard recently, and I'm tired, so my willpower wasn't quite what it should have been. So I sipped at my cava, swigged my glass of manzanilla, took a slug or two of the Sauvignon Blanc and the Albarinho that went with a starter of sea bass and rice with prawns, peas and ham, and drank slightly less of the two reds that went with the fillet of beef with wild mushrooms and foie gras (I managed to restrain myself and only had a small slice of the foie gras).

I hardly touched the Rioja that accompanied the cheese platter (although I did nibble at the dried fruit on the plate). It all fell apart, though, when I was poured a glass of PX sherry (a very sweet, almost treacly dessert sherry) and handed a plate with a sticky toffee and date pudding. In mitigation, I will say that it was a very small pudding, and I didn't eat the ice cream that went with it, nor did I finish my glass of PX. But I did get a bit of a sugar rush afterwards – and a lingering sense of guilt this morning.

Work smart, not hard

Well, when I say smart rather than hard, what I really mean is no harder than you need to. According to James, a lot of people who want to lose weight tend to do masses of cardio exercise and neglect to do much in the way of resistance work. But while cardio is definitely good for you, the body repairs itself pdq. Resistance work, on the other hand, means that the body needs to repair itself overnight as it restructures the muscle, which means your metabolism carries on working harder for longer. Not only that, but the more muscle mass you have, the more active your metabolism becomes. So you end up burning more calories overall.

And doing more muscle work doesn't mean that you will look larger. If you work out in the right way for your body, you can make your muscles more efficient without adding any bulk.

The downside, if there is one, is that muscle weighs more than fat. So even though you may be firming up, you may not necessarily see huge results on the scales. Pay just as much attention to the way your clothes fit as to the readout on the bathroom scales.