An ode to Desperados

As the summer kicks in and the temperature rises, it's hard to really have much enthusiasm for food. The idea of standing over anything hot is incredibly unappealing, particularly when it's about 27 degrees at 8pm. Today was the first 'cold' day we've had this week, and even then the temperature barely dipped below 25.

With weather such as this - not that I'm complaining! - there's little incentive to cook anything that involves standing in a hot kitchen for too long. Salad has become the basis of pretty much every meal I've eaten this past week, including today's dinner.

But I'm not here to talk about my salad which was good, but nothing particularly special. No, what I'm writing about is the beer that has become my new best friend/worst enemy (delete as appropriate) and is standing just behind it.

Anybody who knows me will know that I've always preferred wine to beer, but there's something about Desperados that really, really appeals. Despite its Spanish name and obvious Mexican influence (flavoured with tequila and most often served with a wedge of lime), it's brewed in the Alsace region of France. I've always preferred Mexican-style beers, but usually I'd pick a Belgian wheat beer like Hoegaarden over a Corona if I absolutely had to have beer. However, when the weather is hot and you're looking for something that really refreshes you, I don't think you can beat Desperados. The lime that you really have to have with it stops it from tasting too bitter and makes it dangerously drinkable. It's something of a staple of the student fridge down here, and at the FISE (Festival International de Sport Extreme), I'm told there was a Desperados tent. That makes me regret not popping down to see what the buzz was about now that I've become a convert and have joined the ranks of Desperados fans.

I'd definitely recommend checking it out because it really is perfect in the summer. In the absence of Pimms - I'm devastated that it's going to be July before I get my first glass of that! - I think I've found my new summertime drink. Cheers to that.

Fruit salad

I have, as my parents will doubtlessly testify, always been a bit of a magpie. This is particularly true for food. And now that it is moving towards summer and the fruit section of my local supermarket is full of beautiful, fresh, local produce, the only logical thing to do seems to be to make fruit salad - and lots of it.

Kiwi, strawberries, mango and apple - all, apart from the mango, from France. It's the perfect thing to have in your fridge in the summer, and is gorgeous either as it is or with a dollop of Greek yoghurt on top as breakfast or even as a virtuous pudding. This was also my first attempt at preparing - or, as my friend's family calls it, "hedgehog-ing"- a mango. I had a quick look online to see what was the best and easiest method of getting the fruit out, and it turned out that hedgehog-ing it was the most popular and simplest way. Delia told me to slice down around the stone, then to score into the flesh, being careful not to cut through the skin, then push it and cut the cubes of mango off the skin and into a bowl, making sure you have something to hand to catch all the juice. 

It seemed simple.

It isn't. 

When Delia said "stone", what I didn't realise she meant was "massive flat thing that's as big as the mango itself and impossible to locate when you're cutting down through the fruit". After butchering the poor mango trying to find where the stone finished so I could have as much fruit for my fruit as possible, I then failed to avoid cutting through the skin, forgot to put a bowl underneath to catch the juice, and generally made a bit of a hash of it.

Word to the wise - mango juice stings if it gets into cuts. I found this out the hard way.

Despite my apparent inability to do something that should've been pretty simple, I did eventually succeed in getting the mango from the fruit into a bowl and then added my strawberries, kiwi and apple - all of which were much easier to prepare, poured in some orange juice, and gave it a stir.

Et voilà! Pudding/breakfast/part-of-your-five-a-day all in one very pink bowl. It is officially summer.