Just a wee round up!

Been a bit too distracted to blog much recently and my joke posts don't count although I hope the Welsh St Francis of Assisi got a giggle out of learning how he got his name.  I knew I was on the mend when my rather odd sense of humour returned.  Swapping Wales for the Falklands!  Now I read today that the Shetlands, the Orkneys and the Western Islands want to cede not only from the Union but also from Scotland.

Since successive British Governments have argued the right of citizens to determine their own future in order to hang on the the Falklands it will be amusing to see how Cameron wriggles out of this one if they vote to cede.

Doggy has done it again, delivering a litter of twelve live and one still born puppy.  That's a total of twenty two in two litters so far.  Fortunately, interest in them is such I already have good homes earmarked for them.  There is a mixed Chinese and Vietnamese building crew working near here.  They get all the rations from Marcia's shop.  They said they would take all the puppies.  I know we shouldn't stereo type but I was kind of uneasy about that.  One of the Chinese guys speaks a bit of English so I asked him if he ate dog.  He was appalled.  I felt bad about insulting him, especially since he really is a nice guy, even though it is agony trying to have a conversation with him.  Every time he hears a word in English he does not recognise (about every other word as far as I can tell), he insists I write it down in his book, explain to him what it means so that he can delicately create the work of art that is the Chinese translation.  He also insists that when he is with me, I can't smoke the cheap Angolan cigarettes I am more or less used to but must smoke his Chinese fags.  Jesus, I thought Russian tabs were deadly.  So I let him choose a puppy.  Now, every time he comes to the shop he is tailed at close quarters by an extremely well fed and intensely loyal little dog.  Let's hope all the new owners look after their little dogs as well the Chinese seem to.

This is just a round up so as a complete aside, above is the way beans should be cooked.  Not that anaemic salty sugar sweetened crap you get in tins but in palm oil.  Both beans and palm oil are healthy eating options but that's not why I eat them like this.  I eat them because they are cheaper than chips and taste delicious.  They are good alongside virtually anything else; fish, meat, whatever, and if you mix in pork and blood sausage, is a meal in itself.  It is the palm oil that makes the difference.

This bed looks pretty wild but in amongst that lot are various tree saplings almost ready for transplanting around the site, and watermelons.  I like watermelons.  They are as easy to grow as they are to eat and on a hot day, they are delicious.

Everything DOES taste bettter if you grow it yourself, doesn't it?

Naturally, a round up would not be complete without a photo of my personal weapon.  This ashtray is a cut down 105mm cartridge case which was fired in the Falklands.  Even cut down, it is still jolly heavy.  If the PM is ever forced into negotiating the future of the Falklands with that mad frothing Kirchner, I shall have it polished up and sent to No 10 so that it may once more be fired in anger.

A while back I posted photos of the hand crafted restaurant chairs.  Here are the tables.  All made out of scrap wood and not a screw in sight, these things are glued and nailed together.  Measuring 96x96 cms, they are bloody solid and weigh a tonne.  These are not the light patio furniture you get from B and Q, these would survive years of service in an Army cookhouse.

Final sanding was done on site to smooth out any slight warping of planks and to remove oily hand prints and the evidence of spilt beer.

Then, following Master Craftsman and Under Boss of the Alviti Family Kev's advice, I oiled rather than varnished the wood.  I am VERY pleased with the result.  In fact it was working on these tables that did much to get my blood temperature to below boiling after the recent theft and mob brandishing fire brands and machetes.  I don't know, maybe it is all the Chinese furniture being imported here but varnished wood to me looks cheap.  This is nice to look at, nice to touch and easy to keep clean.  These are solid drinking tables made to have tankards of ale bashed down on them and strong enough to support a dancing girl in a bikini (I am not dead yet, I can dream, can't I?).  Sure, Fifth Columnist, or his heirs, will never be bidding on these at auction in the future but I would never have been able to afford a similar quality and build from a restaurant supplier.  These things soak up one litre of oil each so the irony is, the cost of the tables (materials and construction) were cheaper than the oil used to finish them off as the oil was the one thing I had to import.  Everything else, wood and labour, was local.  I have already had one order for tables and chairs which, once I have all my needs sorted, I will fulfill.  I may be a bit slow but even I am beginning to realize, I could make money out of this.

Marcia was deeply skeptical about me arranging to make all our own restaurant furniture but now that she has seen the finished result, I can see the dollar signs in her eyes.  I am not going to last forever and Marcia is only 32.  My sons are 14 and 4 so I need to make sure she has everything going for her when I pop my clogs or suffer the long overdue accident arranged by some irate corrupt sheriff.  Owning a furniture making business will be yet another string to her bow.  I already have several designs for coffee tables, book shelves, TV cabinets and beds prepared.

There are a number of skilled artisans in Angola.  It is just that they are generally only ever asked, and rewarded, for producing cheap knocked together furniture using nothing more than a cross cut saw, a hand plane, a few chisels and a hammer and nails.  Tell them exactly what you want, provide them the materials and the tools and pay them an honest wage, and they can produce some really nice stuff.


I hope you have all noticed that the Idiot Gardener has abandoned Blogger and set up a new site.  I can't be bothered to embed the links in the text of this post so just look under my list of favorite blogs down the right had side of my blog and visit the new, far more professional looking Idiot Gardener site.  Now I like IG.  He calls a spade a spade (not so long ago he pisshed the city of my birth, Berlin, a clear indication he not only had eyes in his head, they were connected to a functioning brain)  and freely admits the sight of a well turned ankle does something for him.  I believe he sympathises with the moral dilemma I face every time my teasing nieces clad only in the most miniscule swimming costumes deliberately provoke me when they come to stay for the weekend. 

I have no idea what IG does to earn his crust.  Having built a greenhouse out of Tsunami scrap, he is now into Charcuterie.  Butchery to you and me.  I live in the middle of the countryside and am surrounded by the pigs, goats and catttle he clearly would love to slaughter, mince and carve up into bite sized portions.  By an amazing coincidence, I was chatting with a South African friend of mine about IG's plunge into charcuterie and how I felt that a decent butchery here could rake it in, especially if value was added to the product by processing.  He agreed wholeheartedly as friends do when they are mostly through sharing a bottle of scotch.  I went on, in what I supposed was for him, boring detail.  Salamis, bacon, sausages. air cured hams, biltong.  Get a decent vacuum packing machine that can handle liquids as well and we could do ready for cooking meals, all those expats too tired to cook themselves a decent meal after work can just boil in the bag or slide the contents out into an oven dish and heat it up.  We could supply not only my restaurant but all the other restaurants around here and, of course, sell all the products through Marcia's shop...

'I used to be a butcher' Henry said.

'...and then let's not forget all the staff houses and the retailers in Benfica most of whom Marcia knows',

'What did you just say, Henry?'

'I said,' said Henry, 'That I used to be a butcher'

Henry is a production engineer, I never thought of him as a butcher.

'What's more to the point,' he continued, 'I still have all the equipment, a complete butchery from the heavy three phase stuff like bandsaws, grinders, sausage stuffers and walk in freezer right down to the stainless steel tables, display counters, trays and drop forged steel knives'  I looked at him dumbfounded, 'I even have an industrial vacuum sealer. And I'm selling it all' he finished.

Blimey!

I offered to buy the stuff off him as a job lot.  He readily agreed and gave me a price that I immediately said was far too cheap (c'mon, he is a mate and we were both drunk by then).  So we chatted some more.  All the while, in the back of my mind, I was reminding myself that I know bugger all about butchery.  I hardly think that having a copy of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's 'Pig in a Day' DVD qualifies me.

We drank some more beer.

'OK mate, why don't we do it this way?' I suggested. 'I get a freightforwarder to stuff the kit in a container and bring it here.  I build a butchery to your design, and then you, me and Marcia are partners in the business.'  Obviously, if I wanted his butchery, I also needed his skill and expertise.  And I really would like a butchery.  I really would like to put quality cuts, quality sausages, quality hams, bacon etc, onto the market.  The demand is here, easily outstripping supply so margins are healthy and overheads are low. 

The deal having been concluded, we went back to general chit chat.  Naturally I wanted to know why he had mothballed his butchery.  His tale was one that would be all to familiar to a UK high street butcher.  The South African economy is stuffed and traditional butchers have been, well, butchered by the big supermarket chains.  He now earns far more, and in hard currency, running the production line making cans for Coca-Cola and the local brewery in Angola for a lot less risk and effort.  Of course he would much rather be back in SA at home with his wife earning a reasonable crust but sheer economic necessity had driven him so far away from home.  You have no idea how I could relate to that but at least I can try to make some sort of life here and keep my family together.  Sitting thousands of miles away from his family watching cans roll off a production line must be miserable for him.

Serious looking slicer

Bandsaw, label printing scales, and two other bits of kit I don't recognize

Henry's wife sent me loads of photos, far too many for me to bore you with here but, trust me, there's a serious amount of kit there.  I'm also impressed with the size of his garage!

I tell you what, Henry, let's seal the deal with a 'High Five'!

Remind me to change the blade on the band saw.... now I know why he gave it up.
Actually, Henry lost these after his hand was dragged through a set of gears and a chain. 
Eek!  At least I lost mine clean.

Bloody hell, I haven't even opened the restuarant and shop yet but it looks as if I am in the butchery, sorry, charcuterie business.