Car Booty

The Party kitty was, well not quite empty, but perhaps feeling a little peckish. An election was, well not quite imminent, but in the offing. The Meeting was collectively wondering what to do about this undesireable state of affairs, when somebody mentioned a car boot sale.

Now as you can imagine this isn't something Lunchista could take on alone, lacking a boot, a car and indeed permission to move anything larger than a bike (with or without trailer) along the public highway. So I offered to be co-pilot to whoever took this on. And somebody (let's call him Will) rose to the challenge. It turned out that, lurking in Will's garage, was a load of stuff he wanted rid of. You know the kind of stuff that's absolutely indescribable until you look at it and try to enumerate it, and even then it can be a challenge. Old camera gear, board games, a bathroom cabinet, shoes, well-used sports kit, ugly ornaments. And that was before the call went out to everybody else to take a long look at their wardrobes, bookshelves, cupboards and (for the better-off) garages and perhaps even sheds (though we're not the kind of party to have many punters with stables and outbuildings...yet!).

More and more stuff arrived at Will's house. I never asked (out of a kind of British politeness I suppose) but I'm willing to bet he was beginning to regret taking this on. Then a promising weekend materialised: the local car-boot, held at a former airfield, turned out not to need bookings, and the weather chart just said

HIGH

so we went for it. In mufti, so as not to scare off people (the vast majority of the population, in fact) who vote for parties other than ours.

By the time we got there things were already in full swing, and we drove past rows and rows of colourfully-laden tables, following directions and gestures, to a spot under a tree in the far corner. We had driven through the entire "field of combat", and it was massive!

As soon as we got out of the car and openned the boot, a crowd gathered round and people jostled for position to see what we had on offer: some of our things got sold before we'd even unfolded our table's legs. I began to get a bit worried about the money tin, especially now it already seemed to have quite a lot of money in it. As the morning grew hotter (it was high summer, literally, and we were becoming thankful for that tree and its shade) the action continued, at a scarcely less frantic pace. I couldn't get over the number of people there, or indeed the variety of languages that chattered past us.

We hadn't bothered to label prices for anything and it turned out that was just as well: better to adapt your price to your punter, using as a guide their apparent affluence and/or enthusiasm. If they stopped to ask, they were interested. If they didn't, my sales pitch became "come over here out of the sun, we're the coolest pitch at the airfield today!" or if people hesitated: "just because we're in the shade, doesn't mean we're shady!".

We took turns to sit on the one deckchair we'd brought along (there hadn't been room in the car for another), and were glad to have had the prescience to have brought along something to drink, and sunhats.

By about 2 pm we realised that most of the bulky stuff had gone, the crowds were beginning to thin out and the heat was just ludicrous. The shade from our tree was long gone and I had resorted to using my umbrella as a sunshade, far-Eastern style. A particularly long lull gave us a chance to consult the money-tin. It contained an indecent sum of cash and we decided to beat a retreat.

In case you may be wondering why I'm writing about summer exploits (and not even this year's, at that) when in fact we're facing the back end of October, it is for two reasons. Firstly to reminisce about hot weather (which is always kinder to memories than it is to real people at the time), and secondly to "compare and contrast" with a more recent car boot session.

Just last week we were back at the booty: same personnel, same venue, same vehicle. But making a wild difference to our fortunes were the range of goods we had on offer (lots of glass ornaments this time, and no ancient camera kit or home-made jewellery), the ambient temperature (although it was still bright and sunny) and of course the times of credit crunchiness to which we are now exposed.

One or more of those factors made the difference between clearing nearly £100 last summer, and our more recent, but rather less impressive, net total of £25. Sadly, however, it doesn't look as if we're in line for a bail-out from the government.

Riding out a previous Recession

Some people thrive on recessions. No I don't mean in the sense that their business only comes about when other people are suffering (pawnbrokers, undertakers, drug companies, etc) I mean something a bit more subtle. During a recession, to put it perhaps a bit too bluntly, people stop posing and start thinking.

Who here remembers the 1980s boom? Yuppies barking into mobile phones the size of bricks, flashy cars doing stupid things, people talking about their house price and nothing else, and Walkmans introducing us to the delightful concept of not really being able to talk to anybody anyway. People went about with bank accounts instead of brains. They watched Dallas. Good grief it was boring. Lunchista's job paid less, per month, than the typical monthly rise in sale price of the humblest studio flat. So I did the logical thing: I packed it in, and went off with my savings (the ones that couldn't buy a fraction of a flat) to study something interesting. I emerged from my studies to find a recession in full swing.

All of a sudden everything was cheap. I shared a house with two Chinese lads, it cost less than half what I was paying for a similar place with posher decor during the boom. The place had no heating, next-to-no carpets, and a clothesline on the landing. The decor in my room was just plain white walls with carefully-handwritten nuggets of cryptic wisdom such as:

"Never trust a man in a trenchcoat. Never drive a car when you're dead"

and:

"It's memory that I'm stealing, but your moment when you dream"

It was near an entire street full of curry-houses, the Chinese shop and the Market. The landlord even paid our poll tax for us. In short, it was perfect. We threw parties. Not the sort where you present perfect dishes on perfect tables and talk as politely as you can (backed by your perfect decor) about house-prices and the perils of too much immigration. I mean the sort of parties that spontaneously materialise when you've been helping someone with a spot of decorating/proof-reading/physics, and either beer and curry materialise at theirs, or you ask if they'd like to bring a few bottles round to yours later on and you'll knock up a massive stir-fry.

Because it was in that house that Lunchista learned the black art of stir-fry. And how to clean up afterwards.

Now, any real aficionados will have noticed the "deliberate mistake" in the illustration for this post: Lunchista's present cooker is electric and not gas. But the cooker in our old house was gas-fired and it went like a rocket. And we had a purpose-built rice-cooker, which I am going to assume is absent from your kitchen arsenel, dear reader, but do at least run out and buy a good old-fashioned, indestructible Wok. Smear a bit of sunflower oil over the inside surface and set it on a ring til it just begins to smoke, then take it off. Perfect.

For rice, use one large mug per 4 people who are eating: rinse it in hot water, then put in a pan with 2 mugs cold water for every 4 people. Cover then bring it to the boil, then turn it right down and simmer very slowly while the real fun starts.

Slice up very finely 3-4 oz meat (pork, chicken or turkey are best) per person and put it in a dish where you can cover it with ShaoHsing wine (the stuff in the bottle with the red label. Warning: do not attempt to drink this wine, when raw it tastes disgusting! In fact an unwanted guest helped himself to some once and I like to think that was its own punishment. Better to get someone to pour you a glass of Red, or a beer). If the Chinese shop is closed and you can't get your ShaoHsing, you can slum it with cheap sherry instead. Then pour on lots of soy sauce: dark "mushroom" soy is best. If you're the type who likes to plan ahead, you can do the meat bit the day before and leave it to marinade overnight.

For vegetables, you can use any of: chinese leaves, any veggies from the Chinese shop, broccoli, carrots, bamboo-shoots, water-chestnuts... best to include some things with dark or strong colours. Chop them up finely, also chop up some mushrooms, ginger and spring-onions. The total weight of veggies per person should be 8-9 oz.

Light the gas as hot as it will go. Put the empty wok on it (you might have to get someone to turn off the fire alarm at this point). After a few seconds it should be good and hot. Put in a small amount of sunflower oil and swirl it round. Lift the meat from its marinade and put it in to fry: start stirring after a few seconds. If it flames briefly, don't panic: this means it's good and hot! When all the meat surfaces are fried, lift it out but leave the oil in: it will have some fat from the meat, which will prevent it from getting hot enough to do the veggies, so pour it away safely (these days I carry it out into the garden).

Find the marinade, stir in a teaspoon or so of cornflour.

Pour fresh oil into the wok, heat it up, and add all veggies except the mushrooms and onions. Add a sprinkling of sugar. Again, fry as hot as you can. Add the mushrooms, and when they look done, stir in the marinade. As it boils it will thicken and change colour: add some water if it gets too thick. Make sure it boils.

Put the fried meat back in, add the spring-onions last.

Pour a little water over the rice. It should be slightly sticky, so it can be picked up with chopsticks. Turn the fire-alarm back on. Chow-time!

Now, all this fun and games can make a real mess of a rented kitchen, especially for us because there wasn't anything as fancy as a cooker-hood. So the lads brought in Soda Crystals (not to be confused with the more mild-mannered Bicarbonate of Soda), which they used for cleaning at the Chinese restaurant where they worked.

Looking back, I think the thing that really lit up life at the time was culture, in all its forms. None of it cost any money, which was just as well because the Lunchista income (from a bit of Physics in a professional capacity, for two hours a week) just covered the rent, and I qualified for no benefits. I got involved in singing opera, and I learned a bit of Chinese (and ended up with a Shanghai accent, which I'm told is the equivalent of sounding like a Scouser). For once I had time to read classics (picked up second-hand) like Tess and The Woman In White. We all became avid followers of England's fortunes in the 1990 World Cup and discussed endlessly what made a good match/team/country. Someone found me an ancient bike which I did up. I still have it, and it still goes.