Quincy, me?

I'm just doing a little bit of random surfing and keep ending up at foodie sites (possibly thanks to the mouth-wateringly delicious sounding recipes on http://www.romanticdinnerforthree.com/) which got me thinking about a couple of ideas (and more) we brought back from Skiathos.

I mentioned in my last post that there was a quince tree/bush (is it a tree or a bush? It's like an apple type of affair so I'm going with the tree option - I can't see many botanists, or even arborists for that matter, taking their time to read my little corner of the information supermotorway...but enough and onward!). F and I racked our somewhat addled brains and couldn't recall ever having tasted quince (a play of F's surname would not be appropriate right now) and resolved to pick some before our journey home in order to "cook something wonderful". The chilblains beat us two it and came chasing down the lane each carrying a quince. Not being sure if the tree (I remembered) belonged to anyone we hid them in our bag and swaggered off innocently. Anyhoo, the fruits are almost five days off the tree (again) now so I think I may have to attempt something with them...one quince crumble coming up with pics and a review to follow!

The other thing that we are going to try came to us one night in a harbour side cafe, which wasn't a particularly upmarket place but looked like one of those where you get the best food. We had placed our order a while ago (sausage and chips for the boys - as that's all they'd eat - spag bol for F and a steak for me) and were impatiently waiting for our food when a bowl of bread and a small dish of what can only be described as black mebb was placed unceremoniously in front of us. We examined the black stuff and came to the conclusion that they'd dipped a ramekin into the harbour and been lucky enough to catch some raw crude oil. Now some people think my attitude stinks but you should have smelt this stuff...! It was pungent to say the least. We thought maybe it was to ward off evil spirits or at the very least the prevalent stingy-winged beasties. Still, when in Rome and all that, so I piped up and asked the waiter what it was. "Crushed olives," was his somewhat dour reply, "it's very tasty, very good."

Hmmm...I wasn't convinced, but with the amount of lager that had gone down my throat over the past two weeks I figured that anything harmful in there would be immediately sanitised by over exposure to alcohol. I placed a small teaspoon of the potion onto a slice of slightly stale bread, prayed briefly and took a bite. It was delicious! Really, really nice. Aha, thinks I, let's pile some on the bread now and have a proper taste...slightly overpowering when you have too much (a bit like marmite) but still nice. F was intrigued, as were the chilblains and everyone had a taste. The kids attempted a faithful recreation of Tom Hanks' caviar eating scene in "Big" but F was also hooked - the problem was that we ran out of bread, and didn't think it'd go well on slightly damp beer mats.

It was simply black olives which had been crushed to make a paste. Anyways, discussion turned to how best to serve it when at home and we decided on bruscetta. F was of the opinion that it would be nice with anchovies on but I reckoned that would be too salty and much preferred the idea of sundried tomatoes and feta on top. Experimentations will be made soon. Oh, one word of warning if you fancy the sound of the magical mebb...it repeats!

Btw, did you spot what I did with the blog title...?! I've been dying to use that one!