All entries for Friday 09 September 2005

Food Report: Mushroom and spinach risotto with scallops and samphire

Risotto is usually impressive, but easy to create (tip for single men, this works wonders!). For this I used Sainsbury's Risotto Pronto, fish stock, organic baby leaf spinach, chopped chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped courgettes and shallots, and frozen peas. The scallops were gently grilled with some salt. The samphire was boiled for a minute (less if you like it to have a strong flavour). The risotto rice should not be too dry, as the liquid gives it a creamy texture.

A quote from Emma: "I really liked the risotto, moist, the flavours of the vegetables".

Robert O'Toole : 09 Sep 2005 11:15 |  Tags: Food Recipes |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Reflection: The best things that I have done

Follow-up to Reflection: My personal manifesto from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

It's interesting to note that few of these represent my work in e-learning, despite that being of very great importance to me. There are just no "big achievement" moments. We have made much progress, but it seems to be slow and incremental. This might be simply because we just aren't brave enough to go for recognisable big achievements. Also to note is the lack of team achievements, apart from the many things in the list carried out by Emma and I. That says a lot about the kinds of teams that I have been in. Again they have focussed upon small incremental change rather than big news-worthy achievements.

What is also of great significance is that, although the items on the list below may seem really good, to me it is mostly insubstantial. It doesn't add up to much other than merely being entertained by the world. To me that just is not good enough. Maybe I am unrealistically ambitious. Perhaps it is the case that most people are just too easily satisfied with what really just amounts to passive entertainment. Anyhow, there's nothing on this list that resembles the achievements of the people I really admire.

Here's the list…

• Reading Anti-Oedipus from cover to cover, and understanding it.
• Completing my undergraduate dissertation on Kant, Nietzsche, Deleuze and Guattari.
• Presenting a paper at Virtual Futures.
• Getting a first.
• Our wedding at Jijima.
• Getting a paper published in a book on Deleuze.
• Speaking at the Shock of the Old conference at Oxford.
• Walking with Jim and Mari in a frozen Port Meadow, Oxford.
• Scotch bonnet chilli eating showdown with Mari and Jim.
• Eating samphire for the first time (in Dorset).
• Swimming in big waves at Porthkernow, Cornwall.
• Seeing big paintings by Miro at the Foundacio Miro.
• Sleeping on the grass in the Real Alcazar gardens in Seville.
• Watching a hummingbird in a car park at Oracle in San Francisco.
• Seeing the Cloudbusting video with Kate Bush and Donald Sutherland.
• Listening to the Hounds of Love album for the first time.
• Being in a herd of 500 elephants at Chobe.
• Camping alone at Ngwethla Pan in Hwange, and getting chased away by elephants.
• Hearing lions in the camp site at Ngwethla Pan.
• Being chased by a honey badger at Sinamatella, Hwange.
• Driving to the Grand Erg Chebbi dunes at Merzouga in the Sahara.
• Walking to the top of a big Sahara dune.
• Crossing through the snow line in the Atlas mountains in Morroco.
• Crossing back through the Tizi-en-Tichka pass in a storm.
• Driving to the Atlantic at Lamberts Bay, South Africa.
• Seeing flamingoes in the Sahara, the Karoo, and millions of them flocked in the Makgadikgadi Pans in the Kalahari.
• Seeing the Makgadikgadi pans full of water.
• Driving through the West Caprivi, Namibia in an old Hilux bakkie.
• Walking through a pride of lions with Frank Watts at Shimuwini, Kruger Park.
• Seeing lions at night in the Kruger Park.
• Seeing the Marsh Owl doing its silly walk at night in the Kruger Park.
• Seeing a wild elephant for the first time, along the road between Nata and Kasane in Botswana.
• Flying over the Okavango Delta in a small plane, and seeing a herd of a thousand buffaloes.
• Floating along the Delta in a mokoro with Obe.
• Staying at Delta Camp, Okavango, Botswana.
• Having my leg bitten by a (baby) lion.
• Seeing an african wild dog pack in Savuti.
• Watching a cheetah catch a springbok in the Kalahari (Transfrontier) Gemsbok Park.
• Getting soaked crossing the foot bridge on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls.
• The end of the trans-Africa chapter of Jupiter's Travels.
• Riding with Ted Simon at the end of his RTW.
• Riding my GS cross-country from Cherbourg to Nouailles (near Villefranche-le-Rouergue east of Toulouse) in a day.
• Riding across the Pyrenees on a small road somewhere east of Andorra.
• Riding around the Place d'Catalunya in Barcelona 5 times before admitting that I was lost.
• Riding from Shaftesbury to Stonehenge off-road in heavy rain with CW's.
• Kick starting my R100GS-PD for the first time.
• Passing the direct access motorcycle test.
• Riding a 1000 miles in a day, Oxford to Toulouse.

Robert O'Toole : 09 Sep 2005 08:53 |  Tags: Bmw Gs Motorcycle Travel Travel Travel And Motorcycles Travel Writing Writing |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem