Roast Red Pepper and Sweet Potato Soup. Garnished with black pepper, yoghurt and rocket pesto.

I thought writing a cookbook would be easy. O vanity! O hubris! It’s jolly difficult, and I take off my hat to all those local writers who make it look effortless — folk like Jane-Anne Hobbes, Erica Platter, Tony Jackman, Ishay Govender-Ypma, Nicky Stubbs, Karen Dudley, Hope Malau, and more. It is enormous fun, though, and the research can’t be beat.

One problem (and I’m sure I can hear all the REAL chefs laughing at me) is that sometimes the very best dishes can’t ever be replicated. But that’s the whole point of a cookbook — that if one follows instructions, one gets a reliable and consistent result.

But as anyone who’s ever created a feast or one perfect dish from something foraged or given as a gift or suddenly in season for pennies at the market will know, it doesn’t always work like that. Here I give you my Roast Red Pepper and Sweet Potato Soup as the classic example. I have made two batches, both sublime, but like all good witches, I used a magic (and secret until now) ingredient. My friend the writer Kathryn White (read her Anna Peters’ Year of Cooking Dangerously for a hilarious and poignant tale of everything that can go wrong with a recipe or relationship) is a serious foodie, and her mum Patsy (a Proper Chef) even more so. Patsy lives in Antigua, and the last time she came to Cape Town to see her daughter, she brought me a jar of homemade fresh tamarind paste — from the tree in her garden. Never has a jar been so redolent of Caribbean sunshine, of tropical heat and colour. So into my soups it went — but only the very special ones. I found it the perfect partner for the following ingredients: carrot, ginger, lemon, orange … and red peppers. The latter can be expensive, but sometimes the local Food Lovers Market has a glut, and flogs them cheaply.

Here’s Version 1: Chop and fry one large onion in at least four tablespoons of oil (I use a combination of coconut and olive) until it starts to turn colour. Now add three to four red peppers, diced into postage stamp-size bits. Stir and fry for at least another ten minutes — the onions should be chestnut-brown, and the peppers crinkled at the edges, and exuding a sticky liquid. Add two large crushed cloves of garlic and at least two chopped carrots. Stir around for another minute, chuck one peeled and diced sweet potato into the pot, cover with water, add a good pinch of salt and set to simmer. You can add stock at this point, but preferably home-made (chicken or my magic vegan stock — here’s the recipe.) Or leave the stock out for now, and rather test-taste once the mystery elements have gone in. Cook until the potatoes are soft. Now for the spell: add the juice and zest (finely grated skin) of one large lemon and one orange. And then a generous tablespoon of Patsy’s Antiguan tamarind paste.

Sigh, and that’s where this all falls apart, folks, because Patsy’s gift is what makes this soup UNIQUE. However, you can try pre-prepared tamarind paste (or the old-fashioned cheap version, which is dried tamarind fruit — kind of a cross between a date and a loquat — soaked, the flesh peeled off the pip, mashed up and popped into the soup). If all this sounds like too much, double up on the lemon juice and add a spoon of soy sauce. (If you want a tiny bit of bite, you can also add two teaspoons of powdered ginger at the simmering stage, or a finely chopped chunk of fresh ginger at the frying stage.) Not perfect, but still pretty good. Blend everything and you’ll end up with a beautiful deep coral-coloured soup, into which you can stir yoghurt if you like, or garnish with fresh rocket. This is my favourite variation: it’s silkier and a little brighter than the second version, which is heartier, and has that slightly porridge-y texture that lentils create.

Version 2 is excellent if you want to serve this soup as a main dish, you have hungry people to feed, or you want to add protein and extra fibre to what is already a seriously healthy soup. Follow exactly the same process as for the version above, but replace the carrots with a cup of dried split red lentils (no need to pre-soak).

Patsy’s jar of magic is all used up now. I made it last as long as possible, and every time I dipped in a teaspoon, I would think of Patsy, and Kathryn, and a memorable dinner we once had together at the Food Barn, and then I’d remember the Caribbean, because in my long and spectacularly lucky life I’ve been to both Trinidad and Barbados, and not as a tourist on a disconnected beach in an artificial resort, but for work and pilgrimage purposes. I met wonderful people there, and then I’d remember THEM, and the adventures we had, and and and. Food and fragrance: powerful time machines and enchanted carpets. Thank you, Patsy, for your gift of both.

What unrepeatable dishes have you created? (Not counting the ones that SHOULDN’T be repeated — we shall draw a tactful veil over those.) I have a version of mushroom stock that still has me wringing my hands because it is possibly the BEST mushroom stock ever created, and an olive marinade from a farm stall (a present) featured in its success… I will tell its story another day.

* I know this word doesn’t exist. But it should!

The fabled tamarind paste from Antigua. Tropical garden in a jar.

Rocket harvest from the garden.

The end of January is on its way, bearing relief for those with salaries, but things are still terribly tight for the freelancers I know; and all over the country, students with little dosh are wondering what to do about supper.

So here I present variations on a meal that’s cheap (mostly); quick (mostly) and easy to prepare (unless you decide to handcraft your own zucchini noodles). I’ve been eating all these variations because one of my Januworry resolutions was to eat the stuff lurking in my pantry, where I found two packs of buckwheat spaghetti (much nicer than it sounds — also: how did that happen?).

These recipes follow the principles of almost everything I cook: get a handle on the basic technique or process, then adapt, adapt, adapt, according to pocket and taste.

Variation #1: Get a pot of water to a rolling boil (you need a stove, alas — tricky to try this with a microwave). Note that you need much less water to cook pasta than you think you do. Drop in some sort of strand-y pasta (spaghetti, tagliattelli, fettucine, noodles), add a teaspoon of salt. How much pasta? If you’re moderately hungry, touch your thumb and forefinger together. The amount of dry spaghetti that fits through the circle you’ve made will feed you. If you’re ravenous, use middle finger and thumb. Cook for three mins if the pasta is fresh, eight minutes if it’s dry. Drain. Return the pot with the drained pasta to the heat (but switch off the plate if it’s an electric stove, or turn the gas flame right down). Add a dessert-spoon of oil per person (preferably olive oil, but cheaper alternatives are fine — you can also use butter or even, grrr, marge), and one smallish crushed clove of garlic per person. Stir gently around the pot for a minute so that the garlic cooks slightly and the remaining water evaporates. Add at least a handful of fresh herbs (you can use dried herbs, but then add them with the garlic — also: not quite as good). Rosemary, basil, thyme, mint, sage, alone or combined: whatever floats your boat. This is what will make this dish. Add LOTS of salt and black pepper. This is also when to add a few flakes of chilli, if you like it (I do). Eat while hot — this will turn to glue if you let it go cold. (This is the CHEAPEST variation. If you make it with fresh pasta, it’s also the quickest to make.)
Troubleshooting: What if my family hates garlic? You have my condolences. The best I can suggest is that you grate the zest (skin) of a lemon into the pasta in its place.

But, but: I’m not doing carbs! Okaaaaay, here are your options. You can buy noodles made from cauliflower and spinach and courgettes, etc (I love these, but they sure are costly); or you can use a spiraliser or vegetable peeler to turn baby marrows/courgettes into pasta strips or noodles, then cook as above (cheap — but fiddly). Note that these are also gluten-free options. When I do these versions, I save all the drained-off water, supposedly for stock, but tbh, it’s so good, I drink it.

Variation #2. This is my personal favourite. Proceed as above, but to the pasta, add a quarter cup of frozen peas for each person. It is now essential that you add a big handful of torn-up fresh mint at the herb stage. I then sprinkle the lot with parmesan cheese (the cheap pre-grated kind) or crumbled feta cheese. Variations: instead of (or alongside) the peas, add roughly chopped broccoli or mushrooms. Or add chopped spinach one minute before serving. I personally add fresh wild rocket every time, but that’s because it’s threatening to take over my garden, and eating it is a defensive move. Another cheap addition that always perks this up is the snipped-up green tops of spring onions, chives, or garlic chives.

Variation #3: This from my friends Gail and Leonard, who cycle everywhere and need FUEL. This is good if you have hollow-legged teens in the house. Peel a large sweet potato (this will do two hungry people) and dice into bits the size of the tip of your thumb. Add these plus macaroni (or other shell pasta) to the boiling water. The sweet potato and macaroni take the same amount of time to cook, c’est voila. In this case, put some grated cheddar cheese on the table for everyone to sprinkle over their helpings.

Variation #4: It’s pay day! Depending on how much you want to splurge (or what you might still find lurking in the kitchen cupboard), to the cooked pasta, you can add: olives; fried crumbled bacon or fried sausage, well chopped; salted almonds; proper hard parmesan grated with your own hands; peppadews; toasted sunflower seeds; fried aubergine rounds. Artichokes are sensational, if you can afford them.

Variation #5: The fishy one, and it’s not my favourite, but a great way to stretch a tin of tuna. Once the pasta is drained, add a WELL-DRAINED tin of flaked tuna, an extra spoon of oil (if you’ve used tuna in brine), and stir it around until the tuna is warm through. This needs a squeeze of lemon, or the lemon zest trick, and capers take it to the next level. Pricey, but you can achieve the same effect by adding a few finely chopped nasturtium leaves.

Variation #6: Make Variation #1. Pour my squidgy tomato sauce aka Luscious Magic Tomatoes over it (recipe at the bottom of this post here). This also works well stirred into Variation #3. Accept compliments.

My one slight worry is that these all taste good to me because of the cupfuls of fresh wild rocket I chuck in, so bear that in mind for the veg garden, even if yours is pocket-hanky-sized. Also: now you see the importance of having a row of herbs on the kitchen windowsill.

It should also be clear that these variations cover every kind of eater: vegetarians, vegans, carnivores, pesckies, gluten and/or dairy avoiders, the carb-aversive — you’ll find one for them all.

Loadshedding survival kit that won’t break the bank: cooler bag, solar lantern, thermoses, hot bag, fire extinguisher, small torch, candles, matches.

The last few days have been frantic, as I’ve tried to meet deadlines, especially for international clients, while suffering the national fate of mugging by Eishkom. In the midst of this came a call from my writer friend Ted Botha: did I have advice on how to cope, based on my tendency to tell all and sundry how to save water? Now Ted is a mensch of note and very high in my personal pantheon because HE FOSTERS KITTENS. So I wrote him a piece for a travel site, which is now the basis for this post (with permission).

How to save electricity and how to cope with load-shedding are actually two very different enterprises, but right now South Africans find themselves thinking hard about the first while trying to manage the second.

First, take an absolutely volcanic rage-y rant about the powers that be that got us into this mess as given. I’m just too tired to write it, and frothing at the mouth won’t power our businesses or homes.

In Wise About Waste: 150+ Ways to Help the Planet, I explain that by far the most effective electricity-saving things we can do as individual homeowners is to insulate our houses (cooler in summer, toasty in winter) and install a solar geyser (or try the cheapo version – lag your existing geyser by wrapping it up in a special blanket). But while this will have a most pleasing effect on your electricity bill while also taking a bit of pressure off the grid (and thus the planet, don’t forget), it doesn’t help us survive Eishkom’s current “we are finding new ways to screw up our one job” scenario.

My parents lived for decades on a smallholding where the power would go down for easily three days at a time. It was not unheard of for the Telkom line to go down too, ditto the wifi gizmo installed in the garden, often all at the same time. Or rather, the local cellphone masts would lose power, and then not even cellphones were any good. My folks actually had to keep a CB radio — remember those? — powered up in case of emergencies.)

How did they cope?

First (and at least fairly affordable), you will need torches (both heavy-duty and small penlights), batteries, candles and matches. Make sure you know where all these are, and that you can lay your hands on them at any given moment, including in the pitch darkness. One torch per family member is a good ratio. Most cell phones can also double up as torches, but you have to keep them charged, obviously. The best option I ever saw: a wind-up torch.

Next, I swear by my solar lantern (mine is plastic, not glass, so unbreakable and portable). Visit your camping shop for these, along with paraffin and similar lamps, also small wind-up gadgets like torches and radios. (Yes, it’s ironic that we need to go to expensive shops pitched at the recreational market for these supplies; also try hardware stories.)

Generally, it’s a good idea to cook on gas, but replacing your electric stove with a gas one requires a rather large lump of dosh (can we please bring back the rebates offered for doing this back in 2010?). You can get by with one small camping-style gas cooker. Keep it to hand, along with a kettle specially for using on it — coping with load-shedding requires many, many cups of tea. Speaking of which, invest in thermoses. I have five, and fill them all ahead of load-shedding. This meant that this morning (brace yourself for unspeakable virtue-signalling) I had hot water for tea, washing up, and even for my bucket bath. This doesn’t necessarily “save” electricity if you’re boiling all that water in an electric kettle first, but it does slightly ease Eishkom wear and tear on the nerves.

If you run a small hospitality business (such as a B&B, a deli), however, install a gas stove pronto. Tourists want their bacon and eggs piping hot.

Once again, it takes money, but for winter, install one of those super-efficient small wood-burning stoves that consume little wood and heat an entire house. Make sure it has the kind of flat top you can put a kettle or saucepan on. This means that in winter, you can have warm toes, soup AND hot chocolate without relying on electricity. Also consider the bright side – at least we have a climate that doesn’t require us to heat our homes in winter or freeze to death. Plus we can get by without air-con in summer, mostly.

If you’re using candles, paraffin lamps or stoves, or fires for light, heating, boiling water and cooking, take HUGE extra precautions to prevent fires. Make sure all your children understand the “fire rules” (teens can be amazingly blase about candles) and follow them (no naked flame may ever be left unattended, not for for one nanosecond; make sure you know how to put out a fire – a friend once threw a bag of flour onto a small pan fire, and burned down her entire kitchen in the process). Yes, you DO need a fire extinguisher in your home, and make sure you know where to find it in the dark.

Keep your fridges and freezers closed during load-shedding. I keep long-life milk out on the counter during power outages so I can have plenty of tea from my smug thermos without ever opening a fridge door. If you have a separate freezer, you can keep its contents going for days during power failures simply by keeping the lid shut and storing a few two-litre containers (I use milk bottles) three-quarters full of water in them (this tip courtesy of my Sainted Neighbours). You can also improvise a fridge with a cooler bag.

Cheap and simple solution to the dilemma of serving up a hot meal: cook a big pot of soup, rice, curry or stew and put it in a hot box (you can make your own with straw and an old sleeping bag – see Lord Google) ahead of a blackout. The food will stay hot (in fact it will continue gently cooking) for hours.

My heart bleeds for those trying to run small businesses or enterprises under these circumstances. As a freelancer, it maddens me not being unable to meet deadlines. Especially as international clients are often bewildered by my excuses for not replying to emails, submitting documents, scanning contracts, etc. No real advice here, other than keeping everything with a battery (laptops, tablets, phones) charged up.

Generators? As many Zimbabweans will tell you, these lead to thoughts of murder unless you live on a smallholding and have deaf neighbours. They’re also not a cheap or green substitute. Rather reserve for small (and large) businesses. I’ll be investing in portable storage batteries and inverters, but once again, it all takes money, and as usual the poor get the worst of it. *deep breath, averts impulse to rant*

Now for the REAL spend (although this is also the way of the future): roofing your house with solar panels and storing the power in huge batteries (“Tesla walls”). Yes, you will have to notify your municipality about these and have them checked the same way any electrical contractor has to register their work and pass a safety inspection. The city doesn’t want you burning down the neighbourhood or electrocuting your family. But if you’re thinking about building a house or doing major renovations, then budget for an off-grid building. One good thing (although I can’t understand why it’s taking so long) is that the technology will improve at the same time as the costs come down, so this will become less cumbersome and more affordable as time passes. Imagine the pleasure of being independent of Eishkom, captain of your own fate.

And now for something happy. No power? Ditch the telly and have a good old-fashioned family evening in. Play cards (maybe not poker: too easy to cheat in the dark) and other games. Get a wind-up radio and dance. Have a sing-along. OK, too Kumbaya? In which case, get out that solar lantern (or my next best thing, a little battery-powered reading light that clips onto a book) and read, read, read. Daytime blackouts? Local writer Nerine Dorman has invested in a beautiful fountain pen, and when the power is down, she handwrites letters to friends. Knit, crochet, do the mending. At least you’re doing something more constructive than tearing your hair. I save all the housework that doesn’t require electricity for load-shedding, and my kitchen is looking unusually pristine. THANKS, Eishkom (but I’d rather you did your job).
And to cheer us all: there are bebe francolins in my garden. Proof below

Soup in progress.

I’m finding that writing a cookbook is rather more tricky than you might think. Especially an environmentally friendly recipe book, which means presenting low-cost, seasonal, locavore dishes with a strong emphasis on vegetarian and vegan offerings. At the same time, I refuse to accept that Worthy Food has to be Dull Food (remembering all those lentil stews served in the stern lefty communes of my youth — eek).

So my publisher and I thought up the following guidelines or rules for inclusion: everything has to be (1) delicious; (2) fairly easy to make; (3) nourishing; and (4) inexpensive, with easily available ingredients.

This makes for an interesting challenge, especially as the book is geared towards novice cooks — often young people who would like to eat in ways that lessen their impact on the planet, but who don't have that much knowledge of either cooking or nutrition, and don't own posh kitchen equipment, or have money to throw around.

That said, why on earth am I posting a recipe for asparagus and amaranth soup, of all esoteric things? This is because of the great rule of green cooking (alluded to in my earlier posts on water and waste): cook with what you have. What’s in the fridge, the pantry, the veg garden, or cheap in the shops because it's seasonal.

The other principle this soup demonstrates is that everyone needs to learn just a few basic cooking skills. These are often fascinating little experiments in food science or chemistry, and you need to know both the principles and the techniques. A lot of cooking is very easy because it simply involves combining things (as in most salads, although the dressings get a bit more interesting, because they usually involve the chemical process known as emulsion). But there are still a few things you need to master if you're going to make tasty basic dishes.

So back to my soup. Which arose because my local Food Lovers' Market (which I frequent because much of their produce is sold loose, and the rest isn't too hideously overpackaged) was selling hefty bunches of fat fresh asparagus, four for fifty bucks. I adore fresh asparagus, usually a luxury, so that was a no-brainer. Went home, steamed the lot and ate asparagus hot with butter and cold with aioli for the next two days. But I still had a lot of steamed asparagus to use up...

My friend Gail had just been to Uganda, and being a sensible person with an excellent understanding of what is truly important in life, she offered to bring back FOOD for her friends. I begged for tea masala and amaranth flour. I first encountered amaranth in the Caribbean over ten years ago; it’s a wonder food (basically a semi-tropical weed) and you can read more about it here. I found it added to the West Indian dish broadly known as “provisions”, a mix of yams, taro, cassava, to which greens and salt fish might be added. This arose when colonial settlers put slaves and indentured labourers to the backbreaking work of growing sugar cane and other crops in a sweltering climate, while feeding them as cheaply as possible, and I could write an entire post about the health benefits — ironic given its brutal history — and Caribbean food in general (including the story of how Elinor Sisulu and I ended up in a beautiful book on the food of Barbados), but let me gallop down that avenue another day.

My interest in amaranth flour was whether I could use it as a substitute for wheat flour in making a white sauce — the starting point for many creamy or thick soups. A soup that starts with a white sauce is velvety and well suited to ingredients with more delicate flavours. And making a white sauce is one of those things (see above) every cook needs to know how to do.

Here goes (vegetarian version first): melt two heaped tablespoons of butter in a pot on medium heat. When the butter is a slightly sizzling puddle, sprinkle in two heaped tablespoons of flour and stir like hell with a wooden spoon (yes, it has to be a wooden spoon — the only acceptable substitutes are those indestructible silicon spatulas, but stick with a wooden spoon for now). The fat and flour will combine to form a kind of patty. Push the patty around the pot for a minute or two so that the flour cooks — otherwise your sauce will taste raw. The patty shouldn’t go brown, but it should start to sizzle very slightly around the edges. Have a cup (250 ml) of milk/vegetable stock on standby (baker Hazel Carmichael taught me that if this liquid is room temperature or very slightly heated, the sauce is a lot easier to make). Now start adding this liquid to the pot slowly while beating madly with your wooden spoon. At first it will look as if you are mixing cement, then a lumpy liquid will emerge. Your goal is to bash all the lumps out. Stir energetically, and miraculously the whole thing will turn into a smooth creamy sauce. If there are still lumps (the story of my life), grab a whisk and beat the mixture like crazy. After a few minutes, the sauce will start to thicken. Congratulations, you’ve just made white sauce. For soup, add another cup of liquid and repeat all the mad stirring.

Why the amaranth flour? Some people choose to avoid gluten — the protein found in wheat, barley and rye grains — or it makes them really ill. I once had a strapping sporty housemate with coeliac disease, and a gram of wheat flour could land him in hospital. So I am always on the lookout for substitutes. Besides, for reliable thickening and smoothness — the two things you want in a white sauce — many find that using Maizena (corn flour) instead of wheat flour works a charm, and I wanted to see how amaranth compared. In this case, the slight vegetable taste of the greenish amaranth flour went very nicely with the asparagus, and made for a very silky sauce.

Once you have a fairly thin and runny sauce, you can now add any of the following veggies: steamed broccoli or cauliflower or both; steamed fresh asparagus; spinach or chard (no need to precook, just chop finely and chuck in); baby marrows (either steamed or finely chopped, raw), salt and other seasonings (this depends a lot on the liquid you use, of which more soon). You can do so much at this point; if your white sauce is thick and not too runny and you add spinach and let it cook on low heat for a few minutes, bam, you have creamed spinach, a vegetarian standby that’s great on its own, and even better poured over butternut or chicken. If you’re set on soup, make the sauce thinner and runnier, and if you’re using baby marrows or broccoli, you could add half a cup full of feta or grated parmesan cheese just before blending and serving. A thumb-sized bit of blue cheese is particularly good in baby marrow soup. Note that veggies like spinach and baby marrows ooze water, so check your sauce isn't too runny before you add them — it will thin out a little as they cook. Ideally, you should buzz these soups with a stick blender for super-smooth results, but it’s not a trainsmash if you don’t.

For vegans: substitute the butter with coconut oil (or another vegetable oil). You can also use vegan stock (and here I reveal the secret of my gourmet home-made vegan stock) or the drained liquid from a tin of chickpeas (in which case you won't need to add salt) instead of milk. Keep the chickpeas for making your own hummus, or use them as the basis for a salad or curry.

Making a white sauce takes a little bit of practice, but it's an NB part of being an adult. Srsly. Like learning how to change a tyre or an electrical plug. Make sure your children (of ALL genders) know how to do this. If you have seasonal veggies, a little flour, fat and liquid, it means that a comforting soup is never far away. And as you can see, you can make these dishes for vegetarians, vegans, gluten-intolerant folk and more.

You can serve this soup hot or cold. I had a bowl the next day, cold, with double-cream yoghurt swirled in and a grinding of multi-coloured peppercorns.

I haven’t written a green blog for months, not even to announce the arrival of the second in my series of little green books (although so far the books are blue). This was Wise About Waste — 150+ ways to help the planet, and it arrived in the nick of time for the Open Book Festival two months ago, and then the Prince Albert Leesfees, and then a rollicking launch in Jozi. Too much was happening too fast, and what with much of South Africa in the grip of horrendous drought, my first green book (101 Water-wise Ways) has also been getting fresh attention. As my publisher says: “These issues aren’t going away.”

But let’s make it official: meet Wise About Waste! Don’t you love the whale on the cover? — beautiful, but it conveys a message too.

My waste book is fatter than the water book (it’s a far more complex subject), but still designed to be handy, practical, and user-friendly. I tried very hard to make it accessible and even funny at times, and the brilliant Marius Roux, who did the design, and my editor, Kelly Norwood-Young, broke it into bite-sized nuggets that will help you get to grips with our throw-away culture. (“When we chuck something away,” says writer and environmentalist Dawn Garisch, “where is away?”) These issues are overwhelming, so the book isn’t a thundering scold (although you’ll see a few of my favourite soapboxes scattered around) — it’s meant to help and encourage. Please let me know what works and what doesn’t, and keep sending me tips — we’re all on a learning curve here.

Thanks to all who’ve supported the launches and events so far — at Open Book, the Prince Albert Leesfees, and the surprisingly hilarious launch at the splendid Love Books in Jozi. Also to those who’ve interviewed me on air or reviewed the book so far: I appreciate the oxygen. For an account of the Love Books launch, complete with great pics, see this report by Pamela Power: https://go-see-do-gauteng.co.za/helen-moffett-wise-about-waste-book-launch/. Here are two reviews by book bloggers (and very kind souls) Nerine Dorman and Karina Szczurek: http://nerinedorman.blogspot.com/2019/11/wise-about-waste-150-ways-to-help.html; and https://karinamagdalena.com/tag/wise-about-waste/.

Wise About Waste in the wild at Love Books. You can (and should) also get a copy of South Africa’s Survival Guide to Climate Change, by Sipho Kings and Sarah Wild. Sarah interviewed me, did a great circus ringmaster job, and answered all the difficult questions.

Meanwhile, as I gallop along merrily with Book No 3 in the series (food, glorious food), I’ve realised I need a new moniker for my Green Hat blogs. “1001 Water-wise ways” was fine. “1001 Water and Waste-wise Ways” got a little ponderous. “1001 Water, Waste and Food-wise Ways”? Nope, that’s getting silly.

What do you think? I’d like to keep the word “wise” in there somewhere — a suggestion made by indefatigable broadcaster and journalist Nancy Richards, who insists, very kindly, that these are my two most important books. Maybe I should just call my blog “Green and Wise… green and wise”, sung to the tune of “Edelweiss”. For everyone under forty who is now baffled, here’s a clip of Christopher Plummer singing it as an anti-fascist anthem (The Sound of Music wasn’t just about whiskers on kittens and singing nuns, but the Nazi occupation of Austria on the eve of WW2), so I guess if the cap fits.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6-P3pFhmQI