Earth Hour, Gray Wolves and Two Fat Ladies

I do hope you will remember to do this tonight, of course in Australia the time has passed. I saw a picture of the Sydney Opera House without lights, but it looked as though there were still hundreds of lights on in Sydney itself. This morning I had three separate reminder emails from the World Wildlife Fund, different departments. One thing I was disappointed about, my personal WWF Earth Hour site was taken down by yesterday and I had one more friend who wanted to sign up. I shall draw this to their attention. I did manage to persuade 17 of my friends to sign up on my site, well 18 to take part. I hope more friends will do so when they see the news coverage today. One thing WWF slipped up on they were describing 10 things you can do during that hour and one was something about relaxing, taking time for yourself and reading, in the dark? As I mentioned, we will be at a friend's house this evening and will presumably have finished dinner, so we will just talk ourselves silly during the hour. Canada is supposed to have signed on to this wholeheartedly which makes me proud of my country.

However, bad news this morning, protection has apparently been removed from the Grey Wolf in the Northern Rockies as of a few hours ago. There are now entries on Google about planned wolf hunts which is a horrible thought. Here's a short article about it read here which says they are going to hunt them because of their predations on livestock, my reaction is move your cows, but I know that is unrealistic. I am not a vegetarian, but I cannot justify in my mind killing an animal because its in your way. I have trouble with hunting anything - we aren't dependent on hunting for food any more. I am afraid I am a bit hypocritical about the whole thing as I understand the way animals are bred for the table is pretty horrendous. This is, of course, a very big topic and one I am not going to address. Just don't hunt wolves please.

I don't know if you remember The Two Fat Ladies, two British cooks from TV, one of whom, unfortunately died a while back. We used to love to watch their programme and I have a number of their recipes. This is one of them:

Scallops with Leeks
Serves: 2

8 oz scallops
8 young leeks
2 oz butter
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 shallots, finely chopped
1/4 pt dry white wine
4 tbs dry vermouth
1/4 pt thick cream
1 bunch flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Wash the leeks and discard the green parts. Slice the white stems lengthwise into narrow strips about 2 inches long. Place in a saucepan with 1 oz of the butter, a pinch of salt and 8 tbs of water. Cover and simmer for 20 mins. Keep hot.

In another pan melt the rest of the butter and gently cook the shallots until they are very soft. Add the wine & vermouth. Bring just to the boiling point, add the scallops then turn the heat very low and simmer for a minute until scallops just firm. Do not overcook.

Remove the leeks from their liquid using a slotted spoon and place in a heated dish. Using the same spoon place the scallops on top. Add the leek juice to the scallop juice and boil until the liquid is reduced to 8 tbs. Pour in the cream, return to the boil and bubble for a moment or two. Season, pour over scallops and scatter with parsley.

They never worried about calories, diets, fat content or anything else, but this is a delicious recipe. I was so sad when Jennifer, the one with the glasses, died. I understand Clarissa runs a book store these days. Wikipedia has an interesting article about the pair of them.

Have a great day.