NOBODY WITH THE POWER TO BE EFFECTIVE IS GOING TO WORRY ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE NEXT THREE YEARS…

As an impatient American politician pointed out some years ago to a rival selling irrelevant cure-alls to the voters  -- “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Sure, anyone with an IQ in double figures can see that our suicidal misuse of this planet is heading towards an end to all life forms bigger and more demanding than, say, a mussel  or a microbe  --if we don’t accelerate vital restraints on those turning our sky into a lethal greenhouse ceiling

But effective action depends on the biggest carbon infectors. The USA is by far the worst, China next then Europe followed by India and then parts of South America. But the Americans  and Europeans can barely spare the time to pay lip service to the carbon diminishment cause. They are desperately trying to survive the worst economic disaster in World history.

This is a disaster so enormous and so immediately fast in its pace towards a worldwide economic black hole, that even the Great Depression of the 1930s is now seen as a simple event so  easily cured by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Maynard Keynes the economist and a good old manufactures-eating World War.

China is experiencing the first full flush of a prosperity its citizens have been waiting 5 000 years to taste. So the average citizen is overjoyed  living downwind from black-belching refineries and factories and not very interested in carbon except for finding more and more ways to produce more of it. Chewing up the mountains of metal supplied without stint by the rest of the world is giving them the same thrills of prosperity as the Brits discovered when they started the world’s industrial revolution back in the 1700s and 1800s – and the beginning of our carbon problem.

India, on its way to a similar unprecedented prosperity is, likewise, not very interested in future disasters. They’ve had a few millennia of them and nobody took much notice of the most recent – at Bopal - which gassed and poisoned some twenty thousand people when a not-very-well-built American refinery exploded, filling the air with stuff a lot more immediately deadly than carbon.

Europe’s economic community – so ecstatically welcomed by those cheek-by-jowl nations after 800 years of nearly continuous warfare including two world wars – was a fairy-tale come true to Ireland, Greece, Italy and  Spain which have now bankrupted themselves  by joyfully spending easy EEC loans, subsidies and corrupt budgeting as if there was no tomorrow.  France and Britain have come perilously close to that disastrous brink. 

How did such lunacy happen? It is summed up by the entire civil service of the great European Economic brotherhood and powerhouse. These  fraternal fat cats were asked, last month, if they could please extend their thirtyseven hours and thirty minutes five-day  working week  to a five-day, forty hours week at the same pay. This would save the EEC quite a few billion Euros a month and help  bail out the four nations on the brink of bankruptcy.

The request was immediately refused  as an offensive attack on the worthy desk-wallahs and not in the spirit of the great European Union. 

SOME GREAT COLD SOUPS FOR SUMMER – ECONOMICAL, TOO!

Despite the fact that I noticed with fear some pork shoulder chops at R65/kg and some bacon at R105/kg in a super market this week – while wholesale porkers and baconers are selling at R19.84/kg and R18.90/kg to the trade – there are some bargains around in poultry. So let’s get at the chickens and turkeys as much as possible.

Meanwhile, try these excellent  iced soups when we get our share of global warming this alleged summer.

Fijian Suva Soup.  Chop and blend a 5cm piece of fresh ginger, 1 onion, 2 bananas, 2 pineapple rings 1 fresh hot chilli or a ¼ teaspoon chilli powder, 625ml milk, 315ml cream. Chill and serve.

Baby Marrow Soup.  Or courgette or zucchini soup, if you want to be a bit posh. 500g chopped baby marrows, 950ml chicken stock. Make a roux of 3 tbs flour and 50g butter sautéed together gently. 330ml warm milk, 150ml cream, 1 tbs  brown sherry or marsala, juice of one lemon. Salt and pepper, a pinch of nutmeg.

Toss  the little marrows in butter and simmer till soft in the chicken stock. Blend it. Pour the milk on the roux slowly in a pan, stirring vigorously until it boils making a thinnish white sauce. Add the stock  and remaining ingredients to it except the cream. Mix well.  Remove from heat and mix in the cream then chill.

Vichyssoise Soup.  4 cleaned leeks, not too thin. 1 large onion. 125g butter, 1 litre chicken stock – cubes will do the job if you haven’t real  stock. 2 medium potatoes peeled and sliced, 1 stalk of celery finely chopped, a heaped tbs chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste, 300ml chilled double cream. Finely chopped chives for garnish.

Slice leeks finely both white and green. Chop onion finely. Melt butter in a large heavy saucepan and saute’ leeks and onion until soft – about 10 minutes. Don’t brown or burn. Add stock, sliced potatoes, parsley, celery, season to taste.

Simmer about 30 minutes, until potatoes are soft. Cool the mix and then either process or blend.  Heat until just beginning to simmer. Don’t boil. Adjust seasoning if necessary. Chill thoroughly. Chill your soup  bowls or cups, too. Just before serving stir in the double cream. Sprinkle chives on each helping.