Oh My Darling, Oh My Dahling, Oh My Dhaling, Clementine...

My banting also seems to include dhal-ing. Lentils are a very good part of your diet if you want to eat foods with a low Glycaemic Load. GL is a measure that takes into account the amount of carbohydrate in a portion of food together with how quickly it raises blood glucose levels. Dhal, made from lentils, is a nourishing, sustaining food - as people in the Indian Sub Continent have known forever.
Do not confuse Dhal with Dahl! The first is the lentil dish, the second is the Norwegian surname of Roald [the writer] and his granddaughter Sophie [the cook] She has actually published a recipe called Sophie's Dhal. The clementine** is simply there so you can look at the pictures and sing the song!

On Monday I cooked up a batch of green lentils and kept them in the fridge. That way I could sprinkle some into a salad and serve the remainder with chicken breasts and green beans for our evening meal. I have green lentils, red lentils and yellow split peas in the pantry [all dried] My new Fresh India Cookbook has a number of lentil recipes - as does the Ottolenghi 'Plenty More' book which I gave Bob.
Did you know that the word lens comes from the double convex/circular shape of the lentil?
In Italy and Hungary they eat lentils on New Years Eve - their round shape is reminiscent of coins, and symbolises hope for a prosperous year ahead.
Jewish people eat lentils as part of their mourning tradition - for them, the shape is symbolic of the cycle of birth, life and death.

**I just realised whilst singing 'Clementine' to myself that I took a photograph of "Herring boxes without topses" last week.

In a cavern, in a canyon,
Excavating for a mine,
Lived a miner, forty-niner
And his daughter Clementine

Oh my Darling, Oh my Darling,
Oh my Darling Clementine.
You are lost and gone forever,
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Light she was and like a fairy,
And her shoes were number nine
Herring boxes without topses
Did for shoes for Clementine.

[In another interesting plot twist, I have just discovered a friend here in Ferndown is actually a descendant of Mr Banting!!]