Search for the Green Papaya

Recently, P and I visited Ayutthaya, a Thai restaurant on Nicholson Street. I've been craving a green paw paw salad for about two years now. So, as we were passing, P nicked in to ask if it was on the Ayutthaya menu. He came out and winked. The waitress had assured him that green paw paw was available. We usually avoid east Asian food here because nothing can match that which is available to us at home, but the thought of crunchy papaya and sweet and salty dressing already had me salivating.

Unfortunately, the salad I ordered turned out to be a sort of coleslaw with fish sauce dressing. The carrot and cabbage mix failed to satisfy, despite the tasty dried shrimps and peanuts that accompanied it. So, I'm still on the look-out for a real paw paw salad and will be eternally grateful to anyone who can tell me where to find one in Scotland.

The rest of the meal was very pleasant. P's Tom yum soup was deliciously tangy, although was lacking the fistfuls of coriander that I like. The red curry was tasty but the only true glory of the whole meal was the rice. The sweet glutinous rice was served in a small grass basket. It was sticky (but not at all gluey) and there was a slight chew left in each grain. Having been seeped in coconut milk (after cooking I think) it also smelt wonderful. Unlike other coconut flavored dishes, there was no coconut fat coating left in the mouth after eating. I think I might go back just for that rice!

Ayutthaya has a website and is at 14b Nicolson Street.

Birthday Books

April 24th was my birthday. Armed with a picnic lunch and intent on cycling to the Holy Isle, P and I caught the train to Berwick upon Tweed. Unfortunately, I sprained my ankle running for the train at Haymarket. By the time we reached Berwick, each malleaous ankle bump had transformed into a dent in the swollen purple grapefruit that now joined my foot to my leg. The cycle to Lindisfarne was replaced by a slow hobble around the city walls and lunch looking out to sea over the golf course. Walking back to the train station, we passed Berrydin Books, a second hand and remaindered bookseller. I limped through the door and soon spotted the cookery section.

Cookery sections in second hand bookstores and charity shops are rarely inspiring places, being generally stocked with encyclopedias of microwave gourmet that encourage the creation of entire Sunday lunches using only electromagnetic radiation. However, at Berrydin books I found a new set of titles from the Penguin Cookery Library. As a present to myself, I purchased the volumes Summer Cooking by Elizabeth David, English Food by Jane Grigson and A Celebration of Soup by Lindsey Bareham.

I've read the introduction to English Food and, while still a sceptic, I'm prepared to be convinced of the "wonderful inheritance" of English cooks. I've also read the introduction to the Bareham book, along with the first few sections on Stock-Making, Stock Recipes and Stock-pot Information. This book has so inspired me that I included a soup resolution in the usual list that I write on my birthday.

This year I will abandon stock-cubes and learn how to make quick and easy vegetable, poultry, red meat and fish stocks.

I think I might have to move to a flat with space for a fridge-freezer that is larger than a bread box.