Hannah ParryHannah Parry is a concert organist, church music examiner, scuba diving journalist from the UK unexpectedly living in a small German town no-one has ever heard of. Here she shares the life-saving dates recipe and her expertise with cooking lentils.
CHOCOLATE-COVERED DATES
INGREDIENTS
METHOD
LENTILS, LENTILS, LENTILS
Ingredients
200g (1 cup) lentils
Splash of oil 1 large onion 1 zucchini, chopped 4 cloves crushed garlic 1 tbsp turmeric 1 tbsp cumin 2 tsp dried coriander 1 tsp chili ½ teaspoon salt ½ tsp ground black pepper 2 cloves 1 tsp cinnamon METHOD
|
Hannah Parry
Hannah writes:
Several years after graduating from the Royal College of Music and after establishing myself as a freelance organist and choral director, I decided to take a sabbatical. My trips abroad had been quite adventurous; I spent 4 months travelling solo in India and Nepal and my next idea was to visit Mexico and finish my professional scuba diving qualification. My timing couldn't have been better, I backpacked around the southern part of Mexico before working in the tiny town of Xcalak. I passed my tests and started guiding scuba divers to see manatees, dog sharks and a wealth of fish species. As my placement was coming to an end, the impending storm of COVID 19 was on its way towards Europe and not long later I was without work or purpose at my mum's house in rural Norfolk. Not one to sit still for long, I organised a return trip to volunteer in Calais - complete with electronic piano for online teaching - where people who are hoping to seek asylum in the UK sleep rough. After 10 weeks of distributing needed items and meeting amazing people, one thing led to another and I had driven across Europe to Serbia and was soon cooking enormous pots of food for people sleeping rough at the border with the EU. Between shopping for and preparing sacks of vegetables, I made videos for an online teaching library covering aural for ABRSM exams and conducting for beginners as well as teaching one to one piano over Zoom. As the rice and lentils cooked, our small team of four volunteers figured out how to deliver 100 meals to several remote locations, with a clapped out van. The stories I could tell from that time will need a book of their own one day. But I returned to the UK months later having found love and learnt to be an expert at cooking lentils. As a vegan it’s not always guaranteed that I’ll find suitable food whilst travelling for concerts so I always bring snacks of various kinds - especially essential for lunchtime concerts, when are you supposed to have lunch?!
One trip I was rather less organised and had scrounged some extra food from the Premier Inn breakfast, with limited practice time I had only a very short break at Huddersfield Town Hall and was desperately stuffing my face with peanut butter scraped out of the tiny plastic pot with extremely crumbly cream crackers. The dressing room was sprinkled in a fine layer of cream cracker dust as I jogged back up the stairs to the concert. On another occasion I needn’t have brought anything at all. At Bradford Cathedral a lunchtime buffet is served before the concert. I had assumed there wouldn’t be much on offer and went for a walk before the concert. On my return, a selection of sandwiches with avocado and tomato, coronation chickpea, hummus and veggies, as well as a packet of crisps, pot of olives, and chocolate-covered stuffed dates awaited me. After the concert I had to go directly to my next concert venue of the day. I walked to the train station pulling a suitcase in one hand and carefully balancing a covered paper plate in the other. My feast on the train was delicious! Hannah's website:
|
