Three-Cheese Squash & Sage Lasagne

Serves 6

Time:
1 hour 45 minutes total
(25 mins prep,
1 hr 20 mins cook)

Ingredients

• 650g
  squash, deseeded and cut into 2.5cm-thick pieces (any variety except spaghetti)
• Pinch dried chilli flakes
• 20g pack
  sage, leaves picked
• 5 cloves
  garlic
• 3 large
  tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 2½ tbsp
  olive oil
• 250g
  mascarpone
• 1 lemon, zest
• 40g
  Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated
• 300ml
  whole milk
• 300g
  fresh lasagne sheets
• 125g
  mozzarella

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (Gas Mark 6). Put the squash in a deep 20cm x 30cm roasting tin and sprinkle over the chilli flakes; season. Tear over most of the sage leaves and add the garlic and tomatoes. Drizzle with 2 tbsp oil, toss together, then spread out in an even layer. Roast for 30–35 minutes, until the squash is cooked through and a little golden. Remove the tin from the oven; lower the temperature to 180°C (Gas Mark 4).
2. Make the cheese sauce. Remove the garlic cloves from the tin, squeeze the flesh out of the skins into a mixing bowl and mash with a fork. Mix in the mascarpone, lemon zest and Parmigiano Reggiano, then stir in the milk a little at a time until the mixture is the consistency of single cream; season.
3. Transfer half of the squash mixture to a second mixing bowl. Spread the remaining mixture out evenly in the roasting tin. Layer over half the lasagne sheets, then spoon over half the cheese sauce. Repeat the layers, then finish by tearing over the mozzarella and remaining sage leaves. Drizzle with the remaining ½ tbsp olive oil, season and put in the oven for 40–45 minutes, until golden and bubbling all over.
4. Leave to rest for 5 minutes, then serve with a rocket salad on the side, if liked.

I noticed a lot of other people around the airport as I waited. Not just games of Gay Or European (what an amazing game!) but also Where The Heck Is He From?

Sat in the cafe it was amusing to watch the two obviously eastern European guys who came in at 7:15pm. They ordered two Vodka, straight. Plenty of harsh looks at each other and others. Of course – Russian. They were the ones the flight to Moskau (from the adjacent gate) had already been calling for five minutes (it was due to leave yet they still had time for Vodka).

The annoying kid running about in the terminal? Well, turned out he was American (although flying within Europe).

The woman in floral print Polyester? Flying to Bulgaria.

Efficiently packed tall people? Amsterdam.

It’s amazing to watch different individuals subconsciously fulfilling national stereotypes.

I’m not sure I conform to any Particular stereotype (except when I’m consciously playing up to it!). If you know me, and want to prove me wrong, please do comment on this post.

…these random moments. I muss talking to friends from other places. From places other than mine. From foreign places.

I miss foreigners.

It’s the excitement I miss. That thing that’s new. Different. Contradictory.

For a person that is always right i really miss being contradicted.

I miss European life.

I should live it more often.

Now there’s a problem here isn’t there. Because in an argument there’s usually a right and a wrong. It’s not all about compromise (what shall we do tonight, darling?) is it. But as Zoe Williams writes on the Guardian website real arguments in couples are seldom between two competing and equivalent positions; one is usually right, where the other is wrong.

Now, as somebody who’s always right, how could I possible agree to the randomness of only being right half the time? I guess I could construct an argument every time it’s my partner’s turn to be right so that he loses on trivial things, but I’m not sure that’s conducive to a long and happy marriage after we Wed in August is is?

At 3:15pm on a pleasant and clear 5 April, at the junction of Camden Road and St Pancras Way in Camden, 20-year-old London Metropolitan University student Paula Jurek was first knocked down and then crushed by an articulated lorry. Her injuries were so severe that her life could not be saved even by the doctors who rushed to the scene from a practice 100 yards away.

Critically, accidents such as these can easily be prevented by an almost insultingly cheap and simple invention. The Trixi Mirror.

Please, read it and sign the petition.

I especially like the double yellow lines. You’re not allowed to park on any side of this road.

I say no! Cabbage can be trendy! Here’s my reply:

"Oliver, I am shocked that you think cabbage is not, nor will be, trendy. Some of the trendiest stews I know (yes, I know what I just said) are cavolo nero feasts! Kale is a trendy dish in trendy Brooklyn restaurants I frequented on my visit last year. And kimchi is served with everything in funky Soho oriental eateries.

I love my cabbage. And all of it. As a vegetarian frequenter of your posts I applaud you for your recognition of it’s variety, the qualities it brings to a dish. It’s almost a substitute for meat on it’s own (unless, like my mother, you only know about peppered/buttered boiled white cabbage – which certainly has it’s place in my diet still).

I, for one, will continue to munch my way, like a very hungry caterpillar, through the vast variety of cabbage-type deliciousness I can – now get the stores around me to expand their horizons and serve more than the bog standard fare!"

Until Saturday I was double booked on Monday. I then rearranged one Monday to the Tuesday. Then I realised I’d double booked Tuesday. So I rearranged Tuesday to Thursday. Since then Monday cancelled and I moved Tuesday to Monday but Tuesday had actually been tripple booked originally. So Monday is now Monday. Tuesday 1 is Tuesday. Tuesday 2 is Thursday. Wednesday is Wednesday and Friday I am going home. All of which means I had actually double booked you on Thursday so can we meet another time instead… maybe next Thursday?

The thing is, for the last five years I felt Facebook already did recognise my relationship. I’m married. My husband was listed as just that. There was no fanfare, except the day or so after our big day when I changed my status from engaged, and then it was from our friends. Then just last week I updated my status again, this time to civil partner. A flurry of likes filled the post on my timeline – but, in all honesty, I felt a bit cheated.

Now, while I welcome Facebook’s recognition of civil partnerships I agree completely with the author that it’s yet another reminder of inequality.

I’m very pleased to be getting married myself, in Canada this summer, a country that allows marriage between people of the same sex… and to be able to say I am married (even though it is only recognised as a civil partnership on this side of the Atlantic). The fact that despite such recognition in the UK a Civil Partnership would count for nothing in Canada is another reminder. If it’s not marriage, it’s not marriage.

Regardless of what it’s called, your partnership should be about what you feel it is.

Until we have real equality in the UK it still won’t officially be marriage – maybe having your relationship as Civil Partner is a way to keep reminding others that gay people still face discrimination and inequality.

“It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. They were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her mother, and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. One of the slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own. So the little girl went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had anyone given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not.

Lights were shining from every window, and there was a savory smell of roast goose, for it was New-year’s eve—yes, she remembered that. In a corner, between two houses, one of which projected beyond the other, she sank down and huddled herself together. She had drawn her little feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold; and she dared not go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money. Her father would certainly beat her; besides, it was almost as cold at home as here, for they had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags. Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers. She drew one out—“scratch!” how it sputtered as it burnt! It gave a warm, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was sitting by a large iron stove, with polished brass feet and a brass ornament. How the fire burned! and seemed so beautifully warm that the child stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo! the flame of the match went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the half-burnt match in her hand.

She rubbed another match on the wall. It burst into a flame, and where its light fell upon the wall it became as transparent as a veil, and she could see into the room. The table was covered with a snowy white table-cloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service, and a steaming roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what was still more wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled across the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl. Then the match went out, and there remained nothing but the thick, damp, cold wall before her.

She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas-tree. It was larger and more beautifully decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant’s. Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches, and colored pictures, like those she had seen in the show-windows, looked down upon it all. The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out.

The Christmas lights rose higher and higher, till they looked to her like the stars in the sky. Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.

She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. “Grandmother,” cried the little one, “O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree.” And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.

In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the New-year’s sun rose and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt. “She tried to warm herself,” said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on New-year’s day.”

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I try my best not to make them. It’s always a disappointment when I don’t keep them. But I remember last year’s:
· Love a little more;
· Worry a little less;
· Be more honest;
· Be a little smarter;
· Pause a little more;
· Keep up the exercise;
· Say what’s on my mind, but not so much that it’s destructive;
· Work a little harder, but not drive myself into the ground;
· Be a little more me.
And I believe I have kept every one.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, my sister. And I am now a very very proud Uncle for the first time.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
I don’t think anybody who was very close to me died this year.

5. What countries/cities did you visit?
Oh my! USA (New York) Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Scotland, Italy (Venice, Naples and Sorrento). That can’t be it surely?

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
More luck, more money, more job security.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
8th March, a special birthday, and a special proposal. And the party a few days later.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting a new job just weeks before people from my old one were made redundant.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I tend to block failure from my mind.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes, norovirus, and numerous colds and strange muscle/stomach things. No broken bones this year.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My new Digital SLR. My flat.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Anyone who’s coped with me.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
I tend not to be appalled and depressed, just disappointed.

14. Where did most of your money go?
On the new flat probably! Rent, mortgage, fees and furniture. And travel.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Moving flat, getting engaged, and going on holiday!

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
I’m not sure there’s a particular song, but an album: The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monae. There’s also Empire State of Mind.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you…
i. happier or sadder?
Happier, my happiness increases annually.

ii. thinner or fatter?
About the same.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I wish I’d had the time and willpower to do more exercise. And reading, I certainly wish I had read more.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
More of nothing – literally. You know those days. They’re rare, but they happen.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
In Canada with my partner and family I hope. If my rescheduled flight leaves, after I was thrown off one on 18th December after 5 hours on the tarmac.

21. How will you be spending New Years?
In the midlands with my own family for “second Christmas”

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Yes. All over again.

23. How many one night stands?
None.

24. What was your favourite TV programme?
Hmmm. This year has been coloured by Family Guy, the Winter Olympics, Ugly Betty and Glee.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don’t think I hate anyone.

26. What was the best book you read?
Peter Mandelson’s autobiography.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Janelle Monae!

28. What did you want and get?
I want for very little.

29. What did you want and not get?
Probably job security.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
The Ghost – about a ghost writer. Incredible movie.

31. What did you do on your birthday?
Went for dinner, got engaged, and had a special birthday party a few days later.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More holiday in the sun.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Very “me”.

34. What kept you sane?
Friends.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Hmmm. Good question, and one I am not sure I can answer.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
I’m not going to answer this but people who know me know what my general political views are. There have been many many issues that have stirred me this year.

37. Who did you miss?
My Gran.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Hmmm. They’re not new people – I have known them since before this year. But only met them properly this year: David E and Chris M. But they’re both out-shone by the best new person I have ever met: my baby Niece, Imogen.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
Life is what you make it.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Our love will sail in this ark
The world could end outside our window
Let’s find forever
And write our name in fire on each other’s hearts

41. Was 2010 a good year for you?
It was, yes.

42. What were your favourite moments of the year?
I’m having three: my birthday, lying on the Barcelonetta, getting the keys to my flat

43. What was your least favourite moment of the year?
Being sat on a plane for five hours in a snowstorm, going nowhere – and the subsequent cancellation and inability to get through to Air France. Oh and getting a summons in New York together with the subsequent court appearance.

44. What was your favourite month of 2010?
Can I have three? February, March and July

45. What was your favourite song from 2010?
I’m sticking to Janelle Monae’s whole album here…

46. What was your favourite record from 2010?
See above

47. How many concerts did you see in 2010?
Three?

48. Did you have a favourite concert in 2010?
Scissor Sisters. And Goldfrapp.

49. Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?
I tend not to get ashamed of things I do.

50. What was the worst lie someone told you in 2010?
I can’t think of a lie I told.

51. Did you treat somebody badly in 2010?
I don’t think I did.

52. Did somebody treat you badly in 2010?
I don’t believe so.

53. How much money did you spend in 2010?
Too much!

54. What was your proudest moment of 2010?
Becoming an uncle.

55. If you could go back in time to any moment of 2010 and change something, what would it be?
There’s nothing I’d ever change.

56. What are your plans for 2011?
Keeping a job, and getting married.

Many many more at http://damnyouautocorrect.com

Before I left on the Eurostar yesterday afternoon I bought a poppy from. The Royal British Legion poppy seller in St Pancras. TV news persevered have been wearing them for weeks – politicians too. And they’re becoming more common around the UK too. But in Brussels it’s like playing a game of ‘spot the patriotic Brit’. (You know, a little wink and flick of your poppy can get you far). Belgians must have thought I was weird. Poppies, of course, are a symbol of Flanders. Those fields are where that symbol cane from!

I’ve had five people, in the last 28 hours, ask what the poppy was for. Of course i knew what it was for – I explained November 11th and Armistace Day in the UK. But the explanations as ever, became increasingly elaborate. Bu the time of my [absolutely fascinating] conversation in the Eurostar terminal as I waited to depart this evening I was recalling stories about my grandfather and his part in the Second World War.

You know, so many questions are asked about Britishness. But the poppy is one symbol that makes me proud to be British. It’s about what’s best in British life – at the most generic level it’s about comeradery, history and endurance. It’s amazing to have had people ask me what the poppy meant. It made me stop and think about it. And did me a world of good.

“‘What happens, particularly in the coverage of the Yemeni issues of recent days, is that we have another huge lurch by the securicrats into making travel even more uncomfortable and an even more tedious ordeal for the travelling public”

The irony of this was not lost on me. The airline that stresses out customers with garish colours, flying to airports many miles from the cities they suggest they’re in, a tinny fanfare when landing ontime, charges for everything they can put charges on is always a stressful experience. As far as possible I now blatantly refuse to fly with them. And yet, Mr O’Learly thinks our comfort should be put before safety. Never known for his commitment to clear truthful statements (like his airline) he was wrong when he said “These [bombs] haven’t been on passenger airplanes,” [they have], and “there has been no terrorist attack on a European passenger aircraft for many years” [again, there has – 2006, suicide bombings of aircraft, Moscow].

Yes the security checks are an inconvenience (perhaps more-so because of the understaffing and lack of space in airports like Gatwick and Heathrow) but I’d rather have someone in charge of my safety that isn’t intent of cost-cutting to the bare minimum.
Who are you trying to kid Michael O’Leary? You couldn’t care less about passengers flying experience! And anyway, there’s a reason flying is safe, relatively speaking, and that’s primarily because those security checks exist.

For more reasons to hate Ryanair, click here.

In a performance that the Guardian described as a “a smart move – making it as spectacular as possible to disguise the fact that the song isn’t very good” she dodged cupcakes thrown by what looked like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party at the Last Supper. Who knows, perhaps the madness behind her could have been her own Tea Party movement!

The Guardian’s liveblog description was fabulous in it’s clear bamboozlement:

8.32pm: Rihanna’s the third singer on, and she’s pulled out all the stops. There’s a huge banquet onstage, and the diners appear to include a tin soldier, a rabbit and Yoko Ono. Everyone’s throwing cake around. And now something’s caught fire.

It’s a smart move – making it as spectacular as possible to disguise the fact that the song isn’t very good – but Rihanna didn’t have to make this much effort. She was following Bon Jovi and Jamiroquai, after all. She could have sat around cleaning the fluff from her belly button and she still would have outclassed them both.

I’m not sure I would consider the last couple of days before we came to Sorrento a ‘holiday’ (with the exception of a day trip Pompeii). Naples has to be one of the most stressful cities I have ever spent time (and I’ve been to some cities that may be considered disorganized, such as Bogotá).

Naples is a city where there are no rules. Traffic, especially, drives everywhere, there are very few sidewalks/pavements for pedestrians to use, and those that exist are generally blocked by parked cars. Crossing the street felt like taking my life in my hands. In fact the whole city felt somewhat like Lord of the Flies but with children replaced by Napolites.

And the city, at least during my visit, was somewhat smelly. Piles of rubbish blocked roads, rotting and stinking and attracting the numerous rats that were scurrying in front of me in the street at night (although not even that stopped the prostitutes plying their trade in amongst the crazy traffic of Corso Umberto I… or the kerb crawlers who though my friend and I were plying our trade too!).

Riots have been taking place in Napoli and a nearby town at the foot of Mount Versuvius where a rubbish tip is being blockaded by locals, recalling recent and arguably more severe rubbish strikes. And as a result the rubbish is again clogging the city. News reports are suggesting more than 3,000 tonnes of rubbish are clogging the streets of Naples. A nun I saw was just throwing her litter at the pile, bags of food, commercial and household litter are growing, locals throwing rubbish from windows to add to the piles.

After all the smells, chaos and traffic dodging I was glad to get on a train this morning and head to a more serene couple of days in Sorrento.