Plat de jour

The thumbnail may look like another of my fungal finds but no, they are pumpkin seeds and this was supper: celeriac steaks. Such a great discovery that I felt I must share it.

The celeriac arrived in our vegetable box. I quite like celeriac but usually use  it for soup or mash or maybe in chunks along with other roast veggies. But I thought I'd try something different and found  some online recipes for celeriac steaks: just thick slices roasted until soft along with some additional ingredients to add flavour. And they were outstandingly good!

I used this recipe simply because my freegan friend had dropped off a bag of manky limes which were fine for juicing (I also made a lime polenta cake). As usual I made a few alterations to the recipe: tablespoons of maple syrup and vinegar instead of teaspoons, more oil, pumpkin seeds rather than walnuts and I probably cooked the steaks for longer so that they were slightly caramelised. Give it a whirl if you're stuck with a celeriac and don't know what to do with it, or better still get one for the purpose.

I'd also like to recommend It's a Sin, the new mini-series  on Channel 4 about the AIDS crisis in 1980s London, by Russell T. Davies. It's brilliant, moving and consummately acted. It brought back poignant memories of a dear friend and colleague, Henry McAllister, an out gay, Glaswegian, psychiatric nurse with whom I worked in the early 80s. He was a such a warm witty life-enhancing individual, and therapeutically gifted into the bargain. AIDS killed him and his partner. Such a loss, along with so many others in that decade.

(This memory just came back: I had lost touch with Henry before he became ill, having been taking up with becoming a mother, and I didn't know about his death until after the event,  I think his sister rang me having found my name in his address list. She said that whenever they visited Henry when he was dying they always came away feeling better than when they went in, such was his ability to comfort and console them.)