Food Porn

As most of you will know we are now in Lent and have been for 17 days (and nights), not that I'm counting or anything. Well I am really as I have used the Lenten period as a way of cutting out two "food" groups. One (alcohol) because I find it good to give up for a period once or twice a year and the second (chocolate) because if I was allowed I would eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. So the second one is a real sacrifice and Lent, after all, is about giving up something that you really enjoy. It's a Catholic thing, and me being the good Irish Catholic that I am......! Being Irish (and Catholic) there are various rules or get out clauses that mean you can indulge in your forbidden food on certain days during Lent. Sundays and St Patrick's Day are the main ones although when I was growing up we didn't do the Sunday rule. We (my brothers and I) always gave up sweets for Lent. This didn't meant that we didn't get any sweets, we still got sweets but we each had a Tupperware container (that we kept in the sitting room, each with our own hiding place to stop a greedy sibling from stealing our stash) that we put them in and collected them until Easter Sunday when we could then gorge ourselves on them. Not really the spirit of the thing but we always had great fun. I remember breaking the Lenten fast many times by sneaking into the sitting room and helping myself to some of my stash (always my stash, I was a very honest child), it was risky and exciting, or as risky and exciting as it gets being a six year old.
So in my state of abstinence I find myself watching food programmes and reading books about food! Hence the food porn title. Raymond Blanc is the main culprit with a whole episode on chocolate, chocolate mousse, chocolate torte and a cup and saucer made out of chocolate with more chocolate on the side. Enough, spare a thought got the Lenten fast BBC! The upshot is that I now need to make a chocolate fondant, it seems to be the holy grail of the pudding world and I think I'm ready, well after Easter.
As for the reading, I loved the film Julie and Julia, I think that might be an understatement but lets go with it for now. I loved it so much I bought My Life in France, Julie and Julia and Mastering the Art of French Cookery the day after seeing it. I picked up the Julia Child one a few weeks ago and loved it, especially the living in Paris in the 40s and 50s and eating great French food. And I am now half way through Julie and Julia which is very funny, especially the Lobster chapter where Julie becomes a murderer! If I can't eat chocolate I can certainly get my kicks in other ways, role on Easter Sunday (I hope Milan is ready for my post Lenten chocolate needs!).