Have Fork Will Travel

HHDD#29 Roasted Garlic Round-up

2009-11-08T20:53:00.065Z

For this month's HHDD#29, it was all about the roasted garlic. When I’d been asked to host this month’s HHDD event I high-tailed to my still emerging donna hay magazine collection, plus a couple of her cookery books. I wanted something I would like to eat, a recipe that was simple and crucially others would be inspired to cook and tuck into also. And in the spirit of this event I was keen to find a recipe that I would follow slavishly and not just use as a springboard to my own creations.

So in my case that means absolutely no tomato, no bananas nor every of the other black listed ingredients I normally swerve around. My donna hay magazines are full of little post-it note tabs, so inspiration was not a problem, it was more a matter of filtering the ‘I want to cook’ pile to manageable proportions. To someone who hasn’t discovered Donna Hay yet it’s hard to define what is particularly unique about her style, but really that’s the word – ‘style’. Donna’s style is all the about the mouth-watering looking food enhanced with whiter than white, neutral palette accessories, photographed in a diffused light so the shadows are soft and the whiteness seems endless. If the immaculate white bowls or un- crusty white casserole dish need adornment it’s most likely to be a crisp white folded tea towel acting as a tablemat or pot holder. When I am channelling Donna, that’s exactly the route I try and go down and feel the urge to inhabit an entirely white place with a teetering tower of plain white crockery and a stack of crisp white tea-towels.
So after all the consultation and pondering I settled on creamy pancetta and roasted garlic pasta. I like pasta and this one is entirely devoid of tomato and is laced with sweet and juicy roasted garlic cloves and Donna hay’s recipe is:

roasted garlic
2 heads of garlic
1 teaspoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 180C/fan 160C/355F. Cut off the tops of the garlic heads so the cloves are just showing. Drizzle the garlic with olive oil and wrap in aluminium foil. Place on a baking tray and cook for 45 minutes or until soft. Set aside to cool slightly before peeling off the skins*.
Place cloves in a bowl and mash with the back of a fork.
*The garlic will be so soft and jammy that you'll be able to press the flesh out by gently squeezing the cloves between your fingers, or gently lift each clove out with a skewer.
Then taking your caramelised garlic cloves and transform into a tasty pasta dish:

creamy pancetta and roasted garlic pasta
400g dried or fresh pappardelle pasta
2 teaspoons olive oil
300g piece mild pancetta, chopped
1 head roasted garlic, mashed
½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes
125ml pouring cream
sea salt and cracked black pepper
1 cup coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley
finely grated parmesan, to serve

Cook the pasta in a saucepan of salted, boiling water until al dente (10-12 minutes for dried or 3-5 minutes for fresh pasta). Drain and keep warm.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook for 2-3 minutes or until browned. Remove from the heat and add garlic, chilli, cream, salt and pepper and stir to combine. Add the warm pasta* with the parsley and parmesan and toss to coat. Serves 4
*the heat from the pasta will thicken the sauce
- donna hay magazine issue 38

I decided that as I hadn’t made some for a while I made some silky fresh pasta (for one) with 100g 00 Italian flour and 1 large egg. After rolling out I cut the golden dough into fat strips with the fluted pastry wheel and left to dry over clean white tea-towels (how very Donna!) hung over the kitchen doors.
I was happy with the recipe choice, the roasted garlic was unctuous, I am always partial to pancetta and wasn’t remotely drowned in cream, so clearly I normally use too much cream with my pasta. As there was no specification of Parmesan quantity I finished off with another sprinkling. Fortunately there were some other guests who also enjoyed this dish.

Zaira of La Cocina de Zaira has translated the recipe into vegetarian Spanish version and spiced hers up by using multicoloured shell pasta. I’m not sure the garlic is roasted but is sautéed with lots of herbs and pine nuts.

Mardi of Eat, Live, Travel, Write did go the whole roasting the garlic route and used some delicious looking mushroom pasta. It seems that someone feels the same as I do about pancetta and bacon, and home-cured as well, very impressive.

Homemades by Arfi opted for roasted smoked garlic and used a plump globe artichoke for the vehicle of the sauce instead of pasta.

Denise of Chez Us also whipped up a batch of creamy pancetta and roasted garlic pasta for her guests and I am loving the Donna-style whiteness of the bowl and background.
I had great fun planning this month’s homage to Donna and thank you to those who joined me in roasted garlic worship.

The question of cream

2009-10-30T20:22:00.005Z

The recipe I chose for this month’s HHDD called for ‘pouring cream’ and it called up an interesting question about cream globally. The differences between regions and the white stuff their cows produce is often the subject of heated debates. On travels with my fork I have heard displaced Brits in France and other parts of Europe lament the local cream (even in creamy Normandy) where crème fraîche is de rigueur and dream of the cream from back home amongst the black and white dappled dairy cows (Friesians).
To me cream is normally double cream, one this is thick, doesn’t split when added to hot sauces and can be whipped into airy peaks. It used to always seem to be in the blue pot but I noticed Waitrose for one have gone all arty and just the words ‘double cream’ and the patterns on the cream jug are blue.
Alternatively we have the one in the red pot- single cream, one that I use less as I don’t drink coffee and the like nor do I like cream poured over my strawberries (balsamic vinegar every time for me). For this recipe I have bought single cream however, as I believe this is equivalent to an Australian pouring cream and in the US – light cream. Though I’ve also read that it is almost like the US half and half – except the butterfat content is a little higher. So if you’re still planning to shop for your cream to make your Donna pasta with the roasted garlic, I recommend pouring, light, or single if in Australia, the US or the UK. If in Europe the struggle might be tougher, if all you can find is crème fraîche as that is a little sourer. I seem to recall cartons of crème liquide and that seems to fit the bill better.
I am sure there are other complications in other parts of the world but I hope you can find a local equivalence to make a lovely cream sauce. Hopefully see you tomorrow!

Hay, hay it's Donna against vampires

2009-10-11T20:33:00.020+01:00

This month I have the honour of hosting the 29th hay, hay it’s donna day. I had all sort of worthy things I planned doing this weekend but I have instead been getting lost amongst the pages of the donna hay magazine. I like many seem to have a plethora of fluorescent tabs marking the most ‘must cook’ of her recipes but what to choose, what to choose? I’ve decided that feeling full of mellow fruitfulness and nearly that time of year when the vampires are out in force (or is that just the little plastic fanged trick or treaters?) I’d go for roasted garlic. Donna Hay seems to favour the roasting treatment for her garlic bulbs; I spotted these sweet nuggets of golden stickiness cropping up all over the place but the recipe I’ve chosen for HHDD #29 is creamy pancetta and roasted garlic pasta. It may only be a few months since pasta appeared at this event but I make no apologies for another HHDD pasta recipe as last time it was more of a salad and featured peppers and tomatoes – as I’ve chosen this recipe, mine contains neither! I think this pasta sounds delicious, is undeniably easy, quick to whip up and is adaptable for the non-meat eaters/bacon haters. Despite the ‘pancetta’ in the title, this could be easily swapped for a bacon-like substitute or replaced entirely for a handful of woody autumnal field mushrooms. The pasta is up to you, if you want to knead your own golden egg-yolked fresh strands please do or if you rather rely on an Italian artisan and their hand-cut dies, that’s also perfectly okay. As long as the roasted garlic features amongst some creamy pasta, and the essence of Donna’s recipe is honoured, I think we have a HHDD dish.
For the rules of the event click here, for previous entrants we are a little out of sync on the timings this month so please can I have your homage to Donna’s creamy pancetta and roasted garlic pasta post by the end of the month? I will gather all your entries, summarise and post a roundup by 5th November.

If like me you like to leaf through your donna hay magazine stack to see the original recipe this is reproduce faithfully from issue No. 38. But if you aren’t such a recipe pack-rat, the recipes you’ll need are below. First – roast your garlic, this is how Donna does it:

roasted garlic
2 heads of garlic
1 teaspoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 180C/fan 160C/355F. Cut off the tops of the garlic heads so the cloves are just showing. Drizzle the garlic with olive oil and wrap in aluminium foil. Place on a baking tray and cook for 45 minutes or until soft. Set aside to cool slightly before peeling off the skins*.
   Place cloves in a bowl and mash with the back of a fork.
*The garlic will be so soft and jammy that you'll be able to press the flesh out by gently squeezing the cloves between your fingers, or gently lift each clove out with a skewer.

Donna assures us we can make a batch of roasted garlic and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week. My experience of roasted garlic is the aromatic pungency that lingers, as lovely as it is I don’t really want it to pervade my breakfast, so make sure your pre-roasted garlic is tightly sealed – unless of course you do have a problem with vampires!

Take your caramelised garlic cloves and transform into a tasty pasta dish:

creamy pancetta and roasted garlic pasta
400g dried or fresh pappardelle pasta
2 teaspoons olive oil
300g piece mild pancetta, chopped
1 head roasted garlic, mashed
½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes
125ml pouring cream
sea salt and cracked black pepper
1 cup coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley
finely grated parmesan, to serve

Cook the pasta in a saucepan of salted, boiling water until al dente (10-12 minutes for dried or 3-5 minutes for fresh pasta). Drain and keep warm.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook for 2-3 minutes or until browned. Remove from the heat and add garlic, chilli, cream, salt and pepper and stir to combine. Add the warm pasta* with the parsley and parmesan and toss to coat. Serves 4
*the heat from the pasta will thicken the sauce

- donna hay magazine issue 38

Inspired by my garlic musings I thought I’d do a spot of amateur Donna Hay food styling for this post with the obligatory folded rough linen white cloth and a very J heart-shaped dish. The simplicity of a single ingredient plus the white on white-ness vibe always makes me feel I’m channelling Donna! Happy garlic roasting and pasta cooking everyone, I hope I’ll see your dish soon.

Hay, hay, hay - Donna does chicken

2009-09-14T19:18:00.031+01:00

“Hay Hay it's Donna day” is the first blogging event I stumbled across when I started my culinary ramblings and the whole concept of these random bloggers all over the world all emulating the signature white and clean stylised look of Donna's food really intrigued me.
I'd discovered Donna Hay and her inimitable food styling from her Marie Claire days and when confronted by stacks of white plates and bowls and that exquisite Vendee light back in October 2006 I was inspired to create a homage to Donna and attempt her quintessential appreciation of all that is pale and interesting.
Reading the other entrants of the HHDD blog event I realised that what was missing from my life was the donna hay bi-monthly magazine. My cookbook addiction is only slightly tempered by my obsession for cooking magazines. Over the years I’ve subscribed to some, dabbled with several and tracked down a few more. My only problem is occasionally whittling down and recycling them when they threaten to overtake my home.
The donna hay magazine is not a regular on the UK newsstands so I had to try a little harder to procure. I found a newsagent in Knightsbridge that specialised in foreign magazines and that worked for a while but I wanted a more regular supply. My local newsagent eventually managed to become my customary provider and has managed to pickup a couple more fans in the local area as his issues are always pounced on.
I was only thinking recently that now I have amassed a small collection of said magazine I should try another go at the HHDD event. And when I leapt into the world of tweeting and commenced trawling for mutual foodie tweets, I spotted a familiar twitter-er called HHDday and in the sometimes small world of food blogging learnt that this month’s host is Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness fame. Chez Us host the event but as Stephanie's interpretation of last month's HHDD challenge, she gets to choose this month's Donna recipe. Stephanie was the fabulous host of the monthly blogging parties but has taken a hiatus from these exertions so it was really great to see her back blogging and back at the head of the table again.
Stephanie sensibly wasn’t taking any chances with us seizing her theme and twisting it in a non-Donna sty-le so she provided her choice of Donna Hay Parmesan and Polenta Chicken recipe. I was determined to track down the original recipe only because I was fascinated to see Donna’s presentation. I combed through my magazine hoard to no avail and even my donna hay chicken cookbook couldn’t help me. But with a little digging I found another food blogger who’d been taken with the same recipe and had mentioned that she’d espied it in donna hay magazine #31, a couple of months before my collection started, that explains it.

Parmesan and Polenta Chicken
donna hay Magazine, Issue 31
2 cobs corn, husks and silks removed
olive oil for brushing
2 x 200g (7oz) chicken breasts
flour for dusting
2 eggs, lightly whisked
1/2 cup(100g/3 1/2 oz) polenta
1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
100g (3 1/2 oz) baby spinach leaves
1/2 basil leaves
grated parmesan cheese, extra to serve
dressing
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons honey
sea salt and cracked black pepper
To make the dressing, place the mustard, lemon juice, garlic, oil, honey, salt and pepper in a bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 220 C (425 F. Brush the corn with oil, place in a baking dish and roast for 25 minutes or until golden. Slice the kernels from the corn and set aside.
Slice the chicken in half horizontally, dust with the flour, dip into the egg and press into the combined parmesan and polenta to coat. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and cook the chicken for 2-3 minutes each side or until golden and cooked through. Arrange the chicken, corn, spinach and basil on plates and spoon over the dressing and grated parmesan to serve. Serves 4

Unusually for me I followed the recipe to the letter, my only substitution was the spinach for lamb’s lettuce and pea tops that I already had in the fridge. I’d never used Parmesan and polenta for a crispy jacket before and it definitely added a pleasing crunch to my 'happy' chicken breasts so will definitely do this again. I’m never shy to use Parmesan (or Grana Padana) and especially after absorbing Easy Tasty Italian from cover-to-cover I was even more convinced that was the way forward.
Not seeing the original recipe I wasn’t entirely sure how to present the chicken so I thought I’d go for both constructed and slightly deconstructed version. I suspect the corn kernels scattered over the plate is truer to the recipe and possibly looked the prettiest but the corn flavour was much punchier munching it off the cob – excuse the butter on the chin though! Style over content, the choice is yours I think.
It’s wonderful to be back in the company of Stephanie again, and has been great fun channelling Donna again. Check back here for how my fellow HHDDers fared.

U-mamma!

2009-09-12T18:27:00.000+01:00

I read two separate tweets yesterday extolling the virtue of the new cookbook Easy Tasty Italian available in all good bookshops (and most likely those not so good) early next month. One of the tweets handily mentioned how a rampant cookbook-ophile such as me might feed their habit and procure a copy ahead of time and much to my delight a shiny copy of said cookbook was sat on the doormat awaiting my pleasure today. Who knew our post could be so efficient? And this is not just any cookbook this is a really good one! I feel I can speak from the vantage point of an expert of cookbooks, having managed to amass a veritable tower of them over the years and if there was an organisation called Cookbooks Anonymous I would be there taking the pledge.
The author of this delightful missive is the occasionally acerbic and always wise Mrs. Santini from Waitrose Food Illustrated. She’s thrown off her guise of culinary agony aunt and we get to meet the very elegant half Italian Laura Santtini (yes, in the transformation she’s gained a ‘t’!), daughter of the now retired proprietor of Frank Sinatra’s favourite restaurant Belgravia’s Santini.
So why does the world need another cookbook, Italian or otherwise? Well what Mrs Santinni is going to do is add a little va va vroom into your cooking. Her U.S.P. is the U-bomb or umami bomb, the little taste rockets she conjures up are flavoured butters, tasty pastes, salsas, marinades and most intriguingly - the potions and elixirs. The first section of Easy Tasty Italian is all about whipping up this wizardry. There is an artichoke, prosciutto, lemon & ricotta trifolata to juzz up a pasta dish. A rosemary, apple & lavender marinade to transform pork or veal, horseradish & rose butter with which to anoint red meat or oily fish. The glamorous sounding savoury enhancer wild mushroom & anchovy stardust or the secret weapon in many a risotto a Parmesan & prosciutto paste. And not forgetting the surely magical black chocolate elixir to provide that ‘je ne sais quoi’ to a beef dish. Laura Santtini defines umami as the "things that make you go 'mmmmm'" and as umami is the Japanese name for deliciousness she has christened her Italian version of this tongue tingling culinary alchemy as u-mamma! And where can you find this u-mamma in the larder? The answer is in some of those Italian stalwarts - Parmesan, prosciutto crudo, porcini mushrooms, white truffles, balsamic vinegar and salted anchovies. And though I can't bring myself to trumpet the tomato I'll concede their usefulness in Italian cooking, though frankly not in mine!
On top of the larder essentials she spices them up further with her alchemic pantry ingredients, a taster being - hibiscus flowers, pomegranate seeds, Amalfi lemon, pistachios, rose water, pink and green peppercorns, sumac, ginger and for that essential little bit of bling, edible gold and silver. Armed with this epicurean toolbox and a few grinding, cutting and cooking utensils this is where the magic happens. The rest of Easy Tasty Italian doesn't follow the usual formulaic cookbook format of chapters entitled spring, summer, autumn, winter or salads, meat, fish, vegetable accompaniments and desserts. Here in section two we have four poetically entitled chapters that are, Air ‘I was raw’, Water ‘I was cooked’, Fire ‘I was burned’ and Earth ‘I am tasty’. You’ve got to admit that’s a little different!
In Raw there’s prosciutto wrapped mozzarella balls with a soupçon of tapenade, scallops anointed with rose stardust and carpaccio and various ‘rich & thin’ alternatives. In Water the magic is applied to soups, pasta and risotti. I can’t wait to try the ‘cheeky lobster’ though the cherry tomatoes may accidently be forgotten. The creamy pesto with asparagus & crispy pancetta will be a must when asparagus comes back round again and the strawberry and balsamic with a few grinds of black pepper I already know I love but with risotto? I have to try that!
In Heat there’s the oxymoronic ‘hot carpaccios’, the beef tagliata with that ever so captivating black chocolate elixir, the strawberry and cucumber salsa’s swordfish (though I fear swordfish is now too endangered to enjoy) and veal Milanese with a variety of exotic twists. There’s a great bit headed 'roll, wrap & splash' which has all sorts of loveliness rolled in Parmesan gratings, wrapped in prosciutto and then doused in something suitably alcoholic or just extra-virgin olive oil if you must. The beef fillet with mascarpone & rose horseradish sounds truly inspirational.
And Earth is all about slow cooking so we have beautiful hunks of beef drowned in Barolo, the tongue-in-cheekily named Leg-over lamb (check out her reason for how this dish got its name), the infamous 36-clove spring chicken and a dozen twists on vegetables. I’ve always felt that mash potato is pretty tricky to beat but Mrs Santtini adds mascarpone and sweet roasted garlic to elevate it even further and she then suggests you could add an extra dimension to this mimosa with her wild mushroom and anchovy stardust.
If all this has still not whetted your appetite we round up with some charming take on desserts and if I need a licence to gather more table accoutrements Laura suggests ‘pimping your plate’ by procuring all sorts of random little glasses and cups in which to serve your accompaniments. For a final flourish the last recipe is a pink-hued Prosecco cocktail which has a sprig of rosemary as a verdant swizzle stick – sounds delicious!
I’ve been completely entranced by this book on first opening, I’ve already amassed some jazzed-up butter to slice a couple of rounds off to top steak or vegetables but after reading this I think I need to broaden my butter mountain further. I’ve been checking how my larder would pass muster as an alchemic kitbag and I fear it falls a little short, time I think to get out of a culinary rut, take a leaf out of Mrs Santtini’s enchanting book and drop a few U-bombs. They do say Italians do it better and this one may just might!

A little birdie told me

2009-09-10T21:56:00.011+01:00

Despite being fully Twittered up for a few months yet unaccustomed to such brevity of thought I hadn't conjured up the appropriate bon mots with which to christen my account so it remained entirely bereft of tweets. I started to gather followers though and thinking how odd it was that Cheryl Cole would take time out of her busy life of mini skirt wearing and strutting her stuff in Girls Aloud to follow someone who hadn't even deigned to form a single little tweet was put straight by multi-brothered J. The excessively sibling'ed one also goes by the name of Wiki for his unparalleled knowledge on all that is www and he informed me that my so called followers were not loitering intent on hanging onto my every word should I ever get around to writing any but are probably just spamming me. But inspired by Giles Coren talking about how he has to get himself out there more - media speaking that is I thought I'd take another look at this twittering lark. Giles and I have another thing in common other than a love of writing about their epicurean tendencies though only one of us gets paid for it, but also we both work for 'the man'. Giles spoke of the live aspect of his restaurants reviews by submitting his thoughts via his phone on the repast en passant. This did intrigue me and i pondered following suit but read his column whilst I was I was holidaying in North Norfolk and seemingly entirely deprived of network connection in that far from isolated idyll I couldn't eat and tweet. Being back in the hub of unprotected wifi connections and a pretty reliable 02 such indulgence seems plausible but apart from a couple of tiny tweetettes under my new J with fork mantel I had mainly followed other more prolific scribes.
But today being my birthday initally I was inspired to tweet about yearning for chocolate cake then the joy of finding a dream cake of such substance on arrival to work. But when thoughts of an unplanned fabulous evening of dining out starting to enter my head I thought as well as consulting the usual suspects of restaurant guides I'd ask for advice on solo dining in London on Twitter. And sure enough I got a suggestion that seemed just perfect and headed forth in the direction of that tweeter's recommendation. And keeping on with the theme of giving the world a running commentary of every tiny musing I dutifully tweeted the experience in between appreciative forkfuls. It's a curious medium though, you really feel you have to be very immediate and unlike blogging where I invariably end up with a backlog of posts I guess if you can't say if there and then the moment has passed. And whether the online masses are intrigued and/or amused by your stream of consciousness can also be measured and critiqued in real time And of course by tweeting you are (possibly thankfully for any readers) curtailed in the act of scribing the more verbose of missives. If this post had been strapped into the confines of a 140 character tweet I'd been able to write as far as 'bon mots' maybe curiously prophetic but somewhat lacking in any sense at all I suspect.
If you are remotely inclined to follow a little trail of breadcrumbs of my random bursts of ruminations and nibblings, you'll find the link here or on the right under "eating & tweeting" tweet, tweet, tweet!

Next-the-Sea or even In-the-Sea

2009-08-19T18:10:00.001+01:00

MC feels the need to catch a few more waves before we go out to dinner but it seems a bit of a palaver heading back to Hunstanton beach so instead as we are staying next-the-sea we go and check out the sea closest to our cottage. The beach is accessed via the local golf course – fore! – and the links turn into dunes which turn into the beach. The soft dunes are very difficult to traverse; apparently it’s good for the calves though!
The beach is easier to walk on as the sand is more compact. We meander over to the sea’s edge and at least I can say I did dabble my toes in it and as I always suspected, it was chilly! But as we marvel at how fast the tide is coming in we turn around to see we are being cut off by the rapidly advancing tide flowing in behind us also. We grab our bags immediately and wade across the fairly fast flowing water. It was barely ankle deep but surprisingly speedy but finds its level quite quickly. A small boy and his father had in anticipation painstakingly built a sand island to stand on top of and try a spot of King Canut impersonating. I’m not sure if they were entirely successful.
We enjoyed the impromptu paddle but I wonder how many unsuspecting visitors who venture here to admire the sunset are suddenly surprised to find their possessions being whisked off further down the beach whilst they’re taking the plunge.

In search of crab

2009-08-19T13:12:00.002+01:00

With our minds firmly on thoughts of crab sandwiches our only consideration is where to partake in such crustacean consumption. We immediately leave Hunstanton as we know they do good fish but Sunny Hunny doesn't conjure up images of spanking fresh crab.
Instead we headed further along the coast and perhaps a little excessively all the way to Brancaster Staithe Harbour. Well we know there’s a hut dispensing the crabs that only a few hours ago have been sidestepping their way all the shoreline. Letzers Crab Hut supplies us with fat baguettes crammed full of crabby goodness which we consume sat dangling our legs over the wall watching the boats in the mud. The tide seems so very far away, we can hardly see it on the horizon. I am learning that this is another unique feature of this coastline, for much of the day the sea is very far away and the incredible flatness means that huge tracts of land disappear when the tide rushing in unimpeded. We vow to check out high tide later before dinner.

Sunny Hunny

2009-08-19T11:38:00.013+01:00

As this is supposed to be the sunniest day of the week we've designated it 'beach day'. D had the foresight to pack beach towels (whereas I would never have believed they’d be necessary!), we grab sunglasses, hats and reading material and head forth for Hunstanton. This is the first time I've been to 'sunny Hunny' and it hasn't rained but that thought doesn't seem to jinx the day and a veritable stream of sun worshippers snake down the short sandy descent to the beach beneath the dunes and cliffs. It is certainly a popular spot, everywhere we look families are eagerly erecting all manner of constructions designed to enhance their beach experience. As I said previously we didn't really do English seaside 'en famille' whilst I was growing up but I do remember white sands on a Greek island, golden sands and possible shark spotting in Perth, Australia and brief bursts of baking on Pensacola sands but what I don't recall is this vast batterie of accoutrements accompanying us on these forays. I'm sure there was a bucket and spade occasionally and I know for sure we had a polystyrene board for 'pretend' surfing in Perth but definitely not all this paraphernalia. I will concede that the most popular item is pretty useful, a windbreak. From every unclaimed patch on the beach you can hear the tap, tap, tap of generally frustrated fathers trying to hammer the windbreaker supports in the stony sand with mallets, hammer and more desperately shoes. Though I am beginning to understand the necessity it would be better if there were quieter, once they’ve been erected you would think they’ll just their job protecting you from the wind whipping down the beach but whereas a canvas breaker would probably just do that sadly the majority are gaudily striped plastic that flap, flap, flap in the persistent breezes which makes it sound like they’re huddled beneath a giant crisp packet. And then next to these windbreaks little tents were mushrooming up everywhere, more tapping and banging in of tent pegs. I certainly don’t remember tents when I was last on a beach but I was assured that this was another device to both shelter and aid sun enjoyment.
Maybe to be fair as our rare seaside excursions were very far from home so such excessive accessorising wasn't entirely possible even if we'd been so inclined. I guess that pesky little wind on this beach does require a little curtailing and I guess the only good thing about this excessive territory bordering is that we are protected marginally from the wind's unbroken path even, I suppose, with all the noise it was worth it.
MC was valiant enough, or crazy enough, to brave the sea. Being much wiser about sea temperature in England even in August I opted to corral the abundant pebbles into more pleasing shapes instead. As rare as this uninterrupted sun-worshipping is we are now feeling the urge to abandon our plot and go foraging.
There's an awful moment whilst we hear a mother has lost her little 5-year old girl on this now very crowded beach. It's a heart-stopping time, the anguish on the mother's face as she yells herself hoarse crying desperately for her daughter drives all thought of food from our minds as we wonder what we can possibly do to help. The best we can do is hold our collective breath and join the many others is scanning the beach, dunes and beyond for the purple swim suited escapee. After what seems like and eternity a cry of joy is issued across the sands and an ecstatic and tearful mother appears clutching her daughter close to her possibly for ever more. We are all hugely relieved the drama is over and we can vanquish the dreadful fear of those stark front page headlines tomorrow and go back to thinking of crab sandwiches. At least all we have to do is shake off the sand from our towels and grab our bags, another reason I am glad we didn’t come fully loaded!

I spy Cley

2009-08-18T21:02:00.007+01:00

Studying one of the handy guidebooks we picked up in Sheringham we decide that a trip to Cley-next-the-Sea might be in order to procure some provisions for a table picnic back in the cottage tonight.
Cley is unusual on two counts, one - it is pronounced ‘cly’ not ‘clay’ as non-local visitors often mispronounce it and two – it is no longer ‘next-the-sea’ as land reclamation has rearranged the landscape somewhat to cut it off from the coast. And there's a third thing, instead of a typical self-catering cottage you can stay in a seven roomed windmill here.
On our journey we spot a wonderful nod to the local vernacular with a couple of unique road signs around Wiverton (home of the ‘bonkers’ café) to encourage motorists to calm down their speed on the winding lanes and probably raise a smile or two in the process also!
There’s some lovely local pottery and jewellery on show but the main point of our excursion is smoked goodies and pie and other stuff.
Cley Smokehouse is packed with freshly smoked delights and soon our shopping bag is bulging with smoked Barbary duck, kiln roasted hot smoked salmon, potted shrimps, venison pâté and a new taste for us – smoked mussels. D isn’t as fond of smoked comestibles as MC and I but agrees that the mussels are very fine. The smoked haddock looks alluring also but we can’t really incorporate it tonight’s meal and it doesn’t keep particularly. But if we were planning a fish pie it would certainly find its way in there.
Next it’s across the road to Picnic Fayre, a fabulous cornucopia of a multitude of the usual deli delights plus their own unique delights. MC samples their spice paste and peruses the shelves whilst D and I complete our haul. First in the bag is a wonderful plump lavender loaf which we are assured will go with all our savoury bits, roasted broad beans, artichokes in oil, the last two of their special venison pies, herby crisps, Mrs Temple’s Binham Blue for the resident mouse and a rather scrummy soft Cheddar which sadly I cannot recall the name of.
There are some enticing deserts, syrupy treacle tarts, gooey chocolate cakes and voluptuous apple pies but we decide that should there be any room left after all this we have the standbys of chocolate truffles and rather a lot of ginger bears.
We return with our wares and lay it on glass plates on the extravagantly decorated table, I didn’t think until afterwards that it would have looked nicer on the bare wood but at least if there had been any mess, it would have been easier to deal with. You can tell we don’t live here because there is not a cheese board nor cheese knife to be found amongst the copious cupboards and drawers. Our collective kitchens back home are awash with a multitude of cheesy accoutrements but this won’t hamper the cheese consumption it is just duly noted.
As we dine in style we ponder the highlights of our ‘foraged in’ Cley banquet. MC and I agree that the smoked duck, sliced ever so finely atop the wonderful lavender bread and the venison pies win – the guide book listed these pies as one of the top ten things to do whilst in North Norfolk and they are seriously good – worth the trip alone! The venison is gloriously moist and meaty with a light pastry and adorned with a pastry ‘V’. The venison pâté from the smokery and the soft, tangy Cheddar from the deli are both very tasty also. The smoked mussels are considered a success but in small quantities. MC, our resident mouse, has no issue lavishing the local Binham Blue on his bread and we all declare it a fine spread washed down with Drove Orchards Cox’s Orange Pippin apple juice. There’s even a little left for lunch tomorrow should we want, though I suspect that fresh-from-the-sea crab sandwiches will somehow win the day.

Eggs, wood, pigeons and flint

2009-08-18T17:16:00.001+01:00

Today we are off to Holt again. On our last trip to Norfolk Holt became the shopping mecca of our trip and MC is concerned D and I will run amok and binge ourselves in their lovely shops like we (apparently) did last time. But he needn’t fear we are perfectly capable of restraint! As it turned out we ended up with one a mere couple of household fripperies between us. D had a bowl made from a wood called purple heart with a silver ball set into the rim from Lapwing Woodturning whilst MC discussed all things shiny wood and woodturning tools. He’s thinking of ‘turning’ his hand to some curvy wood projects and was looking for advice on lathes etcetera. It is amazing what things of beauty are realised from all this little bits of wood and refreshingly we are encouraged to touch to entice us to make purchases. We taste some delicious wines again from Adham’s and I resist (just) the urge to add another picnic hamper to my collection. D acquires a vibrant pink spoon which as lovely as it is I am very allergic to. That last few years it has been astonishing how many items of kitchen paraphernalia has been ‘enhanced’ by the addition of silicon and to a lesser extent latex. I am sure it has wonderful non-slip and non-scratch properties but as it irritates me so much I try and limit contact. I love my silicon whisk but only because the handle is metal, and my oven gloves only have the rubbery stuff on the outside so my hands are safe but rubber washing up gloves, a pan with silicon hiding underneath the handle or an all silicon spoon would be way beyond my tolerance.
We ponder the Thornback & peel pigeon wallpaper in Ginger Rose and are intrigued by the suggestion for its deployment in a boy bedroom, at that moment coincidentally LLcT calls D so we can scare him with such musings. It may actually go with his new charcoal and silver curtains but he needn’t fear. I was hoping they’d have the pigeon and raspberry jelly bag that I still hanker for but they only had the rabbit and lettuce.
But staying on the raspberry theme the only purchase I actually make is an Orrefor Swedish crystal tea-light holder in the shape of a raspberry. And wonderfully tactile and weighted it is. I’m tempted to consider another use so it can retain its tactilability which lighting a tea-light would inevitably dissuade.
We stop for refreshments at Byfords which claims to be a café, deli and posh B&B. Well we don’t need a bed but sustenance is definitely in order and MC and D share an impressive meat platter whereas I am drawn to the Eggs Benedict which are two words on a menu always to fill me with joy. And these are an excellent component of the dark art of Eggs Benedict making with an unctuous herby hollandaise and the yolks just that prefect level of golden ooziness. The cakes enticingly arranged in their windows look good also if we were in the mood for something sweet. They soon get moved however, the wasp-tastic explosion North Norfolk is suffering from is making such an enticements way too risky.
As we wander around Holt I am drawn yet again to the unusual construction of many of the cottages – the white Norfolk flint and bricks.
The rounded flint pebbles appear to be set in a strong mortar and then bordered by bricks. Normally the bricks are red matching the tiled roofs but occasionally they are painted white. It gives the walls a very neat appearance and clearly some of the newer builds are continuing the tradition.
Even the cottage where we are staying in Holme-next-the-Sea has a similar style but after further research it appears that this is slightly different as it’s a form of hard chalk called clunch, hence the less pronounced texture on many of this village’s walls compared to those in Holt above.

Wish you were here?

2009-08-17T21:58:00.004+01:00

Feeling all nautical after our pizzas we swing by Wells-next-the-Sea so we could have a little stroll along the sand. It looks like a busy day of sun worshipping has occurred here but the beachcombers have all but left in search of restorative fish and chips and probably a couple of glasses of the very good local dry cider. All that remains are a few dog walkers and hardier souls.
Somehow it looks all very far away; maybe the quintessential beach huts in their pastel coats belie the fact that we are on more exotic shores.
But there’s no denying this is a picture postcard place especially when the sun graces us with such bounty.
The tinges of red sky again as the sun set bodes well for tomorrow, I am having to put my scepticism on hold; apparently we do know how to do summer here.
As a matter of random local knowledge - the ever erudite Stephen Fry stars in a TV drama called Kingdom set in the fictional Norfolk town of Market Shipborough. Market Shipborough is actually a melange of several locations around this parts, the harbour piece being supplied by Wells-next-the Sea.

Hot stuff!

2009-08-17T21:53:00.015+01:00

The day starts with another little meander Yurt-wards. MC has declared that he couldn’t possibly have a full English breakfast ‘every’ day but after D and I order the haddock with tomatoes and the entirely tomato-free sausage sandwich respectively he relents. He figures that we might have other plans for tomorrow so he better get another full English in!
I wash my sausage sandwich down with the tastiest apple juice I’ve ever had – no acidity, metallic taste or gassiness of some others just – you won’t believe this – lots of apples! And Cox’s Orange Pippin to be exact; a damn fine juice and incredibly moreish!
Due to two (what turns out to be entirely mistaken) beliefs that a) there is a dearth of Lloyd’s banks around this here parts and a sudden urgent need for one and b) the weather will be a bit iffy we sally forth for Norwich. We locate the bank, no thanks to my google maps which bizarrely believes I’m currently strolling around Bury St Edmunds and persists in trying to direct me there and as it’s about 40 miles away and it thinks I’ll make the journey on foot it recommend a handy 13 hour itinerary. Maybe the satellites were busy that morning!
Whilst in Norwich it seems appropriate to seek out one of their famous exports (Delia Smith being the other) and go in search of the mustard shop. Colman’s have been producing their hot golden elixir since 1814 and the factory is just outside Norwich. The mustard shop is, as one would expect, dedicated to all things mustard, there are powders and ready made mustard, some with even more added kick, mustard pots and spoons and a whole host of mustard-abilia in cabinets. It didn’t seem to be like the mustard shop in Dijon where you could take along your favourite mustard receptacle and pump (in the style of a beer tap) your mustard of choice directly into it, but it certainly the condiment available in every form possible. Coincidentally I surprised ‘new’ S with a little hamper full of mustards and a little chilli for his birthday which he would have spotted on his chair today on his return from New York (jealous, moi?) and couldn’t resist the urge to add another one squeezy bottle of Colman’s English to the collection. Well he always said he liked mustard!
After a little explore around Norwich’s lanes we stop for a cup of tea and a bit of refreshment, I go for the rather random garlic mushroom and Parmesan quiche, MC a pork pie, D a ham sandwich not realising that these were served up which a large and some would say extremely eclectic salad. A single sliver of radish okay, a single shaving of kiwi fruit – a little odder! The quiche was tasty though, quite unusual by not having the mushrooms distributed throughout the custardy mixture but just buried in the middle like some dark fungal treasure. MC was defeated by his pork pie, though at least he had plenty of mustard to accompany it with.
On the journey back the sky is still gloriously blue and I find I am curiously drawn to the fields and especially the round hay bales. Bearing in mind I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever considered a hay bale of any shape previously I believe I haven’t come across one of these before. They are rather striking and I do spend quite a lot of the journey trying to capture a field of a few in all their majesty. Not really being in a position where I can easily get right in there with the bales I am struggling to find a suitable vantage point in all this flatness but it’s fun, and dare I say, slightly perilous trying. Those cars can whiz along the pavement-less winding lanes. I guess being such a city girl the countryside is holding a certain new allure. The more mundane cuboid bales seem very pedestrian now I only want round ones!
I was also rather taken with a windmill which is also rather glorious!
At we get back to our little stretch of the North Norfolk coast we’ve read about the pizzas at the Jolly Sailors in Bradcaster and think it will be worth a try. They have one of those wood burning ovens and everything smells very promising. Unusually I find something on a pizza menu that I can order unadulterated and so without really thinking I ask for a Letzer’s Fish Calzone – garlic base, smoked salmon, smoked haddock, prawns, peas and mozzarella. It turns out to be a bit like a fish pie encapsulated in a pasty and as promising as it started off it just became all a little stodgy. The pizza base seems pleasingly thin but the whole calzone thing was mistake, just too much dough I think. If I could have started from the beginning and just forget the whole pizza pasty malarkey I think I would had continued with the garlic base, then perhaps a simple ham and cheese. D and MC loved their pizzas mine was sadly a bit cloying and defeated me quite early on. But I will conclude that it was my poor ordering and not the fault of the calzone per se – I just now realise that I don’t like calzones. Well at least I know for next time!

Clockwork orange!

2009-08-16T22:22:00.006+01:00

As we return from our steam-filled day we pull up outside the Orange Tree at Thornham as we are drawn by a banner claiming their national award for their pub food and send MC in to bag us a spot for tonight. Duly secured we return to the cottage to chill and then spruce ourselves up. We pondered taking the little Coasthopper so no-one has to stick to soft drinks but the last bus leaves a whole five minutes after we are due to sit down for dinner so cancel that idea!
Unusually they don't bring round the bread basket, not a problem but it has been many hours since our full English and the mint choc cornet in Sheringham is also distant memory. But fear not it is not long until I'm looking down at one of their specials - a bowl of steamed Brancaster cockles, Chadonnay and black pepper cream, gremolata and spiced salami. I had something similar on my last trip to these parts at Titchwell Manor, not surprisingly I feel that urge to hit the seafood when I'm this close to all that salty water and sea air. I like the addition of salami which adds a little piquancy and colours the cream. The cockles hit the spot but are a bit of a faff to deal with but hey, when at the seaside…
D in a similar frame of mind goes for the Crab Tempura which is lengthily described as soft shell crab, slow cooked belly pork, chicken satay, pinapple and chilli salsa.
MC being not so inclined plumps for the Pressed Norfolk Rabbit & Ham Hock Terrine with toasted pumpernickel bread, warm carrot pannacotta, caramel prosciutto crisp. We all feel that our week of Norfolk culinary excellence has well and truly kicked off. Bring on the mains!
I go for the Pan Fried Organic Sea Trout – Fresh Norfolk pea & our smoked salmon risotto, pea velouté, marsh samphire - continuing the fishy theme and making sure I get my first taste of the luscious samphire in. Despite what you may have heard, samphire is worth the effort, but I’d abandon the knife and fork. Tuck your napkin in if you have a sauce and extract the scrummy green goodness by scraping the fronds on your teeth and discarding the tough core. This was worth the effort! The whole dish was very nice; I am not adverse to risotto as a one of the elements to a main dish not just the main feature.
MC stays with one of his favourite themes - Roast Rack of Sandringham Estate Lamb Petite ratatouille, roasted Piedmont pepper, lemon couscous, tomato & rosemary consommé. He assures me it was lovely but to me it is so wrong on just so many levels – tomato, peppers, did I mention tomato and couscous.
D’s still riding the seafood wave and goes for the Pan Roasted Norfolk Skate Wing - chorizo and spinach croquettes, lobster bisque, pickled wild fennel but panics slightly when realises that she has had some wine and has also been enjoying that lobster bisque. D is one of those people who suffer badly when consuming seafood and wine in the same meal, the bisque is avoided just in case.
To round off our meal I have a White and Dark Chocolate Terrine – mille feuille of Norfolk raspberries and coconut macaroons. D has the coconut macaroons for later.
I am pleased to see that the mouse is back and MC is curiously drawn to the cheese board. Cheese is apparently big in these parts and he gets frozen grapes, Binham blue, Wells Alpine, smoked poacher, crackers and gooseberry chutney.
We are all really delighted with our Orange Tree meal, a clean white welcoming place with intriguing Thai-style art and dark leather chairs. The food is undoubtedly locally sourced, flavoursome, presented well and their chef Phil Milner deserves his award and now he has another – three forks!

Oh I do like to be beside the sea

2009-08-16T16:21:00.002+01:00

We found ourselves sat in the old first class carriage of the steam train that enthusiasts man back and forth between Holt and Sheringham. We'd been trying to find a way to spend our first full day in Norfolk and a bit of steam powered perambulation seemed a fine choice.
I've been trying to cast my mind back to see if I've ever been actually aboard a proper full sized steam train. I've travelled on various fabulous trains in the UK, Europe and the US but we've always had more modern engines to pull (and often push also) our elegant extravagantly decorated rail-running temporary homes. The nearest memory I can conjure up is the coal fire at my grandmother's (always known as little gran) house, the evocative slightly sooty air that also powered her oven. This fire was a constant fascination to me with its dancing mostly orange but occasionally blue flames and and if I was very lucky a warming meat and potato pie lurking inside the oven. We can smell the smoke and occasionally a fleck of smut drifts in the window and threatened to smudge our clothes so despite the authenticity we moved a little away from the window. We only have a short journey on the North Norfolk railway and the stations are a delight crammed with vintage luggage, old enamel signs and a cornucopia of railway memorabilia being poured over by men in railway caps and jackets bearing all sort of gold insignia. From the train we see our first glimpse of the sea beyond the corn fields. When we arrive at Sheringham - the end of the line - there's the whole process of moving the engine from the front of the train as was to the new front of the train and taking on water. This is all accompanied by enormous plumes of steam, ear-piercing tooting on the whistle and much picture taking by passengers, onlookers and steam fans.
Sheringham is rather packed, surprisingly the ding ding dings emanating from the amusement arcades means that some people are not on the beach nor partaking of the finest of crab sandwiches rustled up by Joyful West's. Rather thoughtlessly captured by the shining sun its alluring rays we have furnished ourselves with ice cream cones as we walk to the sea front and sadly have no space to chase this with crab sandwiches and i know they are very good as we had them on a grey August bank holiday on my first ever foray to these parts. The crabs (or swinners I've learnt they're referred to around here) will have to wait for another day!
We soak up some images of the beach and the crashing greeny blue waves to revisit on a gloomy wintry day back home. M always had an infinity with the sea, she said it was because she was a Pisces, I'm not sure if she saw this part of the North Sea coast but I'm sure she would have enjoyed this journey. I couldn't help thinking about M whilst we were on the train also. Our last holiday was on the Grand Luxe railway (sadly no more) exploring the US west coast treasures and all my most memorable treasured train journeys are ones we took together. Especially as we crossed paths of the dining cars on a special Sunday lunch train my mind shot straight back to happy times fine dining on the Orient Express, British Pullman and the Northern Belle.
In preparation for the days ahead we arm ourselves with sheaves of tourist information guides on the local eateries, galleries, shops, museums and touristy delights. MC is rather taken by an exhibition of tanks and D and I make a mental note of interesting shops, delis and restaurants we'd like to try. After a meander around Sheringham we board the last steam train for the days and marvel at how some children are allowed to run wild whooping and running up and down the carriage whilst their indulgant parents look on and no doubt hope their little cherubs will tire themselves out before bedtime. We've had a fun day both on and off the rails and now we just have to consult our guides books for ideas for dining tonight. Ah the tough life of a holidaymaker!

Holiday. Celebrate!

2009-08-16T15:48:00.004+01:00

I may have to take it all back, our unpredictable British weather has done good and the sun is out and the sky is blue. I would illustrate this with a snap of suitably sun drenched North Norfolk fields but am struggling with posting pictures to my blog remotely so the on-the-spot pictorial reportage will have to wait until I'm back on home turf. (update - Yey... back to civilisation) But there is no doubt that the golden rays have imbued the day with the holiday spirit and even made us think that perhaps we should have packed that sunscreen after all.
The day started with breakfast that soon became brunch in the popular new canvas topped trellised and ribbed eatery at Drove Orchards. Though perhaps a little too popular as it turned out because the sudden influx of breakfast demanding holidaymakers descending upon their jolly restaurant meant they quickly reached their sausage and bacon sizzling capacity and we had a long stomach gnawing wait for our full English.
They were awfully nice about it however and as MC availed himself of their excellent coffee D and I tried to distract ourselves with the Sunday papers, wondering where in the queue we were and hoping it would be worth the wait.
And thankfully it truly was, the sausages alone were enough to dispel all the inconvenience of delay. The rest of the breakfast was pretty fine also. The deliciously smoked bacon wasn't really to D's taste but MC and I fully appreciated it. The mushrooms were far from those flabby pallid fungi some lesser establishments serve up and were dark and delicious and I hear the tomatoes were pretty good also - if you like that sort of thing! Eager to discover their provenance we were informed that they were Arthur Howell's olde English and are sourced locally from Wells and Burnham Market. We all agreed that they are possibly the tastiest sausages we've ever had and the lure of these will definitely bring us back to the friendly tables of the Yurt nestling amongst the pick-your-own raspberries even if we have to wait a little while for the food. To compound the Yurt's deserved popularity we only just managed to secure a table reservation for dinner on Friday as the rest of the week is spoken for. It has made us think we should consider our options and secure all week's dining experiences.
After being well sated in the way only a full English can we headed off for Burnham Market. Not in search of the aforementioned stunning sausages I hasten to add but as I haven't yet been to the oft-called Chelsea-on-sea and as D and MC had regalled me about the pleasant Saturday afternoon they'd spent whilst I'd been first wrestling with a leak that had sprung in my bathroom and then with London Transport's cunning ploy to thwart the wary weekend traveller by closing lines and other skullduggery. But if course it's Sunday now and many of the intriguing browse-worthy shops have drawn their blinds for the traditional day of rest so we head forth for other adventures.

The mobile fork

2009-08-15T18:18:00.004+01:00

Multiple-brothered J thinks my blog needs a greater sense of urgency which is a fair point especially considering the dreadful delinquency in my postings recently. I'm finding life rather tricky to handle at the moment and random musings seem to be one of the first casualties of that state of mind. But on the second leg of my journey that will take me back to Holme-next-the-Sea where I'll commence my 'staycation' I thought I'd see if my lovely new Apple iPhone could be deployed in such an exercise. Apart from the previous weekend foray to Norfolk all my trips this year have been borne of need and duty, desperate dashes to hospital bedsides and all the related to-ing and froings that ensued. This is a train journey albeit more tortured than I hoped due to the incessant need to reorganise part of the railway network every weekend. I got to visit a part of south London which I wouldn't normally find myself, and remained relatively unscathed apart from being somewhat annoyed by being forced to undertake such a preposterous detour. My lofty plans of fine dining were curtailed by the delay and being utterly unable to find acceptable tomato and mayonnaise free sandwiches in the paltry time remaining before boarding my train. But the rest of the week lays ahead strewn with culinary delights so a night off is probably a good thing. Though I have to admit a pang of jealousy knowing D and MC are planning vinegar-soaked parcels of fragrant fish and chips.
Pondering my ruminations on staycationing yesterday I forgot to add that I am fortunate enough to live in a place where at least our ancestors (though not particularly ancient I hasten to add) would take their holidays. It was a popular pleasure spot where some would 'take the waters' whilst others would visit the cloth merchants, tailors and seamstresses in order to procure next season's wardrobe. The wells of spa waters have since dried up, the cloth merchant's buildings now house a department store and my least favourite supermarket but on a balmy Saturday night the crowds will still happily swarm to the rivers edge. I suspect the water they take now has been brewed by Germans or perhaps fermented in barrels by Chileans but the expectant buzz of an evening of felicitous escapades remains.
Due to D and MC's handy situation I am now a regular-ish visitor to Cambridge and even after eight years of these trips still feel like I'm on holiday on every visit.

Staycations - the new black!

2009-08-14T18:12:00.002+01:00

It has become terribly fashionable to eschew the lure of bustling airports, cumulating air miles and foreign shores in favour of our more local coastlines and Sainsbury’s sent me this delightful edible map of the British Isles as an incentive to discuss this phenomena. I might be quite unique in my lack of experience of domestic holidaying – my father’s airline job meant that as a child we got to sample the exotica of Greek islands, Perth – Australia, France and many miles and states of the US. Whilst my peers were discussing caravanning and camping in the Isle of Wight, Guernsey and Wales I had never experienced these types of holidays so couldn’t share their reminiscences of rock pools and buckets and spades. Though this isn’t entirely the case as I was taken for day trips to Southport, Buxton and Blackpool by my grandparents but my donkey riding exploits are very few and far between.
Coincidentally I have taken the trendy step of delaying my much anticipated photography holiday in the Dordogne for a week in ‘sunny’ Norfolk. And therein lies the rub, those of us familiar with a British summertime know how unreliable the ‘summer’ weather can be and have been seeking more dependable climes for our hard-won summer holiday fortnight for years but now the general consensus is that in these straightened times we should pack our waterproofs, our umbrellas and be more faithful to the rich diversity of rain-soaked destinations on our doorstep. And yes, I could just be being dramatically gloomy; we do have fabulously sunny days in Britain- sometimes. I’ve seen them on the front pages of our red-topped newspapers accompanied by pictures of happy people cooling off in municipal fountains, or packed like ants on the beaches complaining of a lack of deckchairs and nursing blistered foreheads. The latter is due to the unfortunate pastime many have, myself included, resorted to due to the vagaries of our weather – the act of sun binging. If like our continental cousins we could expect day after day of unbroken blue skies we could ration our sun worshipping to acceptable levels and sensibly build up a healthy glow. But when the sun graces us with its presence the temptation to soak up every last ray not knowing when it will be back round again is curiously compelling. Like many others, I have over indulged by the simple act of taking a book to the park and absorbing too many hours of precious sunbeams and then regretting it the next day when my sun gorging has carved its revenge on my pale skin. Generally now I am more sensible, we know what dangers lurk in such practices so I favour my sunglasses and large brimmed hats rather than bronzed limbs.
I guess if we had reliable seasons we’d never discuss the weather and everyone knows the British are always curiously obsessed with weather. We rejoice when an unseasonal day raises our temperatures above those of a typically hotter spot or we contact our relatives back home and hear of wind and rain whilst we are toasting ourselves faraway.
So really the only way we can possibly embrace a more domestic holiday is get beyond the weather and appreciate all the other delights Britain has to offer. And we truly do, the rugged coastline of Cornwall has understandably sent our painters and authors in to raptures for many a year. The lush green mountains and endless pools of the Lake District have enamoured many others. The islands and highlands of Scotland have awestruck many and our native flora and fauna have much to inspire. We can stay in quaint sandy stone cottages or rambling manor houses and marvel at the towering majesty of the country’s castles and ancient monuments. Those of us that live in the cities can abandon commuting, the train strikes and the pollution in search of peace in the countryside where you are woken up by over-enthusiastic cocks crowing and not car alarms. Those who have cows and sheep as nearest neighbours can leave off jam making for a few days and soak up the bright lights and shiny baubles of the cities.
And wherever we go in Britain we can celebrate the food. It seems that we are now so keen to assimilate the food we experience on our foreign travels into our own culture we have almost forgotten what truly rich pickings we have closer to home. There is no asparagus to beat our own when it’s in its too short season, our strawberries are just the most tastiest and perfect and with the upsurge in allotments and the urging to ‘dig’ ourselves out of our current predicament we are able to appreciate how our native vegetables should taste when it not all about uniformity, year round yields and air freight. Our shorelines are still swimming with the plumpest of seafood, our beef (despite scares) is the finest and there is a cornucopia of regional delicacies waiting to be unearthed and honoured. And just think without this need to hurtle myself halfway across the world I wont have to endure a moment in an airport, be asked if I packed my bag or ponder what on earth is my sirline meal supposed to be emulating.
As I plan for my ‘staycation’ as well as ensuring that I’m covered for all that Mother Nature might fling at me I am rather excited about the luscious freshly picked crab and other seafood that lay ahead, the samphire and other sea salads so championed by Mark Hix (himself proud proprietor of a seafood restaurant in another staycationning hotspot – Lyme Regis) and other culinary delights that await. I have been combing local guides for new restaurants to discover as well as few old favourite we are planning to relive. I might not come back with a tan but I will be well-fed, I better pack my fork! Happy staycationing one and all!

First bite of the Apple

2009-07-19T20:30:00.005+01:00

Well I wasn’t going to, but I was at my wits end with my elderly mobile phone having constantly drained its battery whenever I whipped it out of my handbag to make an important call. I sidled into my local mobile phone shop and whilst the telephonic vendors were otherwise engaged I had a little look at the gleaming new Apple iPhone 3GS. Hmmm it was very intriguing, it could do all manner of things I’d never realised were missing from my life but now I knew I could do such things I felt a sudden need to fill this gap. I’d been deterred from an iPhone previously because of my apparent too long nails for such touch screen manipulation but really it just takes a little getting used to. And it wasn’t long before I’d swapped networks (yes annoying there is only one that an iPhone can communicate over) and found myself a proud possessor of a shiny black iPhone. Then I immediately had to hurtle home to load all my music and see what apps I should adorn my new gadget with. And of course this being a food and travel blog that was one of my themes for app selection. Firstly I could actually access my blog on it, something my BlackBerry hadn’t been able to cope with – too many photographs or something! And within a matter of moments I had furnished myself with a plethora of colourful travel guides, a useful translation app for those tricky menu items, a restaurant locating program, the UK Michelin guide, the huge Epicurious recipe database and even a mobile Ocado app so I could order groceries from wherever I am. I used the Google maps to locate a restaurant we’d forgotten to write the address down of within hours of owning it and the inbuilt camera was also immediately deployed to snap a few of the delicious delights we ate. There’s a great collection of photographic apps so I can recolour photos or rather bizarrely make any picture I take look like a seventies cookbook image. I’ve also got a couple of painting programs so I can while away train journeys both listening to music or an audio book and creating things like the illustrative apple bite picture above, though I don’t feel Van Gogh needs to worry himself too much! I can’t really rationalise my need to have Excel close to me all the time but I blame my inner geek there and now even that desire has been sated. I noticed there was an app to help with grilling meat but feeling I know how to do that task I have managed to resist so far. I’ve also been able to hold myself back from Cooking Mama but I did plump for and am now a big fan of Cooking Quest – a hidden objects game ever so slightly based on the theme of cooking, but still fun nonetheless.
I also have ELLE à table, my French is far from fluent but I have always been fond of the pictures and trying to read the magazine and now that A-A will not be nipping over to Paris regularly it will be harder to get my French recipes magazine fix. And to try and make inroads with my clearly inadequate French I have also uploaded all Michel Thomas’ French lessons CDs. I shouldn’t be too surprised that I have found my little Apple so strangely alluring, I always was a fan of a gadget and this has got to be one of the ultimate ones. This has been my very first foray into the Apple world, I’d been one of those mavericks with another MP3 player not the one that all the boutique hotels in New York provide adapters and chargers for. No I had to be different! And that’s not just because I didn’t fancy white earphones.
As much as I had admired an Apple Mac from a distance I was determined to stick with what I know and what my clients pretty much exclusively have when choosing a new laptop but I can really see the allure.
But for now I am happy to report that I think that I am pretty covered for fruit based communications devices - I have a BlackBerry for work and an Apple for pleasure. Let me know when they bring out an Apricot or even better my favourite RaspBerry but I’ll pass on the Banana as I really don’t like the smell!

Easy like a Sunday lunchtime

2009-06-07T13:52:00.003+01:00

As we are staying ‘next the sea’ this weekend when we surface on Sunday morning we sally forth for a final burst of the bright lights and seaside air of Hunstanton. But of course this is English summer so it quickly transforms from persistent drizzle to torrential downpour so a paddle in the sea is pretty much out of the question, not that I think we ever really considered it. So we have to resort to the other seaside activity when the deckchairs are packed away and the donkeys trot to shelter and that’s the amusement arcades. We run into the tawdry lighted hut nearest the car park, shaking off our wet tresses we change some notes into buckets of tuppences and hit the machines. When frequenting these gaudy establishments as a little girl when my grandmother would take me on a day trip to Southport or Blackpool, or even Buxton (you’ve got to love that miniature train) I used to be drawn to the one armed bandits but the fruit machines have been replaced by way more complicated ones now. So D and I eschewed those incredibly noisy things and stuck to the old fashioned 2p slot machines, the ones where the 2 pence pieces drop and hopefully knock some of their coppery friends into the waiting retrieval slot below. Though frankly the coins are considerably more likely to slip down the side and into the bowels of the machine, an action which sadly makes all the right noises but doesn’t give up the goods. But despite the terribly unlikely odds D and I are determined to stick to these machines and inexplicably put untold effort into procuring a little plastic skeleton. One slipped out of D’s grasps and committed suicide down the side of the machine but after further 2 pences were rained into the slot she succeeded in winning one, why this pleased us so excessively is hard to explain perhaps it’s a memory of all the times these machines robbed us of our pennies as children, especially those giant hooks that would tantalisingly hover over a vaguely desirable toy but evade all attempts to grab said item and deliver into our eager hands. Ha, revenge is sweet!
With our vast winnings of a plastic skeleton, 2 lollipops and still with 50 pence in the kitty we felt we could now tackle lunch so much to MC’s relief we head over to Titchwell Manor. As soon as N heard I was off to this neck of the woods for a weekend she said I should check out Titchwell Manor and we were immediately inspired to add it to our culinary destinations list. It’s still raining when we arrive but we have to explore and are very taken by their cottagey looking rooms aptly named Rosemary, Basil, Tarragon etcetera encircling a neat herb garden. D is particularly taken by the Potting Shed a little wooden house with a deck to sit out and catch a few rays over breakfast – sadly not today though.
Soon we are sat cosily in the conservatory watching the torrential seaside rain lash the glass roof and the lush secret garden beyond, grateful for the Sunday roast smells wafting enticingly from the kitchen and the fact we had abandoned thoughts of coastal pursuits in favour of a good feed up. The worse an English summer can fling at you can certainly be tempered by a good hunk of beef. And it looked like the finest of beasts were on offer particularly in the form of one of the set lunches of Roast rib of 28 day matured beef, Yorkshire pudding, duck fat potatoes, red wine gravy - there was also Roast loin of Berkshire pork on offer but I didn't spot as many eager takers. It seemed all around us were appreciative noises coming from contented diners forking beef and Yorkshires.
I was very intrigued by undeniably the largest Yorkshire pudding I've ever seen and spotting a handy baby at a neighbouring table I can vouch for the interesting fact that these giants of the Yorkshire pudding world are as big as a baby's head. But to be honest I'm not as wildly excited by these batter behemoths, I wouldn't say "no" if one turned up on my plate but I don't hanker for them particularly so I opted to explore the menu further and was considerably enamoured by the thought of Organic Red Poll Sirloin (Royal Sandringham Estate don’t you know) with horseradish risotto, pea and oxtail. I know John and Gregg from Master Chef would be yelling "don't you know that risotto is a dish in it's own right, it's not an accompaniment to the main feature" but occasionally I've thought that as delicious as a particular risotto is I'd quite like to move on to another flavour.
But before our beefy loveliness we had the small matter of the starters. D and MC had both opted for the Sunday lunch menu so they had Hobson's choice of local asparagus, duck egg dressing, parsley - not I hasten to add a bad thing but having a wider menu to select from I was determined to eke out the seaside theme and plump for the Brancaster cockles with white wine, shallots, cream and soft herbs. It took me many years to appreciate the joy of the fruits of the sea and I remember the first time I decided to try mussels whilst holidaying in Dijon and became an instant convert. Oysters I conquered on my first visit to Normandy. I think my natural aversion to mussels especially had been a frequent juxtaposition of the black glistening bivalves with the dreaded tomato. Michel the chef in Dijon made a special ‘sans tomates’ version for me and I saw the light. The only throwback to those seafood dodging times is a big preference for my seafood not being fridge cold. The oysters I preferred were the ones we'd topped with slivers of chorizo and grilled rather than just shucked and swallowed and I normally leave the prawns to everyone else unless they are warm. A fat prawn wrapped in a little Parma ham, skewered and then grilled is a very interesting proposition whereas a cold and slightly flaccid one lying there suspiciously close to a tomato laced Marie Rose sauce fills me with total dread.
But the clams were tasty - fiddly I have to admit, more work than mussels but with undeniably pretty shells, albeit a lot of them.
After our starters were polished off it was the turn of the beef, bring on the beasts! D and MC’s plates were a towering glory of beef crowned with the gargantuan Yorkshire puddings which they consumed with gusto.
Mine was the more elegant organic sirloin with horseradish risotto and added peas and oxtail. It is stylish, hearty and utterly delicious. There is a yummy breaded nugget of oxtail nestling in some gorgeous risotto with three slices of pink, juicy beef – this is Sunday lunch heaven!
To accompany all our beef we have a wonderfully verdant bowl of spring greens and another of broccoli gratin which seems incredibly apt when surrounded by all glistening greenery through the glass.
With the benefit of hindsight I should have chosen the hot Valrhona chocolate fondant but wanting to go against type I chose the elderflower and lemon tart with Italian meringue and raspberries. It certainly looked pretty and summery, topped with little elderflowers and tasted okay but just not outstanding. The lemon just wasn’t tart enough, it was just a tad bland but then the main course had been a lot to live up to.
D has selected the dessert with her name all over it, the apricot consommé with almond sorbet, marzipan and basil. Not my idea of a good time but then it wasn’t my name all over it! She was extremely happy claiming it to be one of the best desserts she’d ever had. Hmm I think I may have to return to this place and go for the chocolate fondant as it clearly had my name all over it but I chose to ignore the signs.
MC went for the rhubarb and liquorice sorbet with meringue and compressed fruits; he seemed to enjoy his unusual combination.
The conservatory at Titchwell Manor is an oasis of culinary calm from the delights of the June weather outside. We all decide that we’ve eaten enough to sink a small battleship but bizarrely we still want to check out the opening of the Yurt restaurant at Drove Orchards. Though the proviso is that we don’t eat anything no matter how many delicious plates of intriguing nibbles they wave in front of us. However truth be told I did succumb to a small wedge of a Scotch egg. A proper home-made Scotch egg is a wonderful thing and if this is indicative with the Yurt has to offer on future occasions I think another visit is definitely in order. Though not today as that sliver of breaded egg nearly pushed me over the edge.
Titchwell Manor was a fabulous recommendation by N and I am definitely drawn to the place perhaps even for a visit sometime. Perhaps I can surrender to that fabulous Valrhona chocolate fondant and then give them that third fork. Not that it was lacking as truly the memory of that succulent beef will linger for a long time, I know that D would definitely not concur but I didn’t end on a high. Hmmm, I wonder if they’re free next Sunday.

Journey to the bottom of the sea

2009-06-06T22:51:00.015+01:00

So just to ensure this weekend was pretty much about food, and perhaps a bit of shopping, we stopped off on the way back to the cottage to secure at table at Titchwell Manor for Sunday lunch. That done we then we got ready to come out to our much anticipated meal at the Neptune Inn. I’d done my usual trick of forgetting that a trip to the English Seaside even in a month that purports to be ‘summer’ will probably require some warm layers and sadly possibly various garments of rain protection. I was working on that age old premise that ‘I’m on holiday’ and therefore will dress accordingly, but this is Norfolk, it is June and they say the wind is very lazy around these parts – i.e. it doesn’t go around you, it goes right through you! Fortunately our trip to Holt meant that I had manage to procure a useful extra cover up and though my new wrap will be forever referred to as my ‘furry fairy wings’, though not some device to advertise being out with my like-minded attired girlfriends on the razzle on a hen night I hasten to add but I will concur that the design on the back did seem to conjure up a glamorous bat at rest. But at least I was warm!
The restaurant was one of those neutral modern places, cappuccino walls and high back stripy chairs with linen clad tables. If I was being hyper critical then I would say it was a little gloomy, but some places just want to hamper my recording of their culinary delights and then ending up looking a little murky on this blog despite my best Photoshop efforts. Maybe I will have to resort to the miner’s helmet I was thinking of deploying for restaurant visiting! How fabulous would that look with my new wrap?
Our little amuse bouche was a perfect little crunchy fish finger served in a little Marie Rose sauce (so one end of mine joined D’s) but that was exactly how a fish finger should taste, Fish fingers sandwiches anyone?
To continue the fishy theme D and I immediately opt for the Norfolk Lobster and Five Spice Mousse, Pea Purée and Lobster Salad. We could have also tucked into grilled mackerel with crab salad or seared tuna with black olive dressing. But I think D and I chose very well, the vibrant green soupy purée with that little ‘je ne sais quoi’ hit of five spice and the sweet collops of plump lobster tail partially submerged in the verdant depths. The lot was crowned with the garnish du jour – pea shoots. If I was being critical I thought that that the purée to lobster ratio was a little off but maybe I just wolfed down my lobster too quickly!
MC plumped for the pretty looking Courtyard Farm Ham and Mozzarella Terrine Poached Quail Egg. Oooh do I spy some more micro cress?
We all eschew the fish theme for our main course so instead of the pan fried brill of the red mullet MC and D have the Sedgeford Leg of Lamb, Lamb Sweetbreads, Broad Beans, Potato Purée. I can’t vouch for the lamb but I tasted the potato purée and it was pretty good. The plates were wiped clean to I guess that’s a good sign.
I enjoy the Loin of English Veal, Cauliflower Purée, Deep Fried Veal Tongue, Wild Mushroom Sauce instead and am reminded how much I enjoy a beautiful hunk of English rosé veal. So much tastier than the veal I recall from the first Italian restaurants I ever ate in, way before I’d heard the word ‘provenance’ and understood why we should eat our ethically reared British veal or else calves are culled or shipped off in crates to other countries where they do not have any sort of albeit brief life. I particularly enjoyed the little cylinders of deep fried tongue and the smooth, creamy cauliflower purée.
Our little interlude before the dessert is an Earl Grey jelly topped with milk foam in cute porcelain cups.
True to form we each find a dessert with our name on, I choose the Milk Chocolate Mousse, Ras El Hanout Caramel, Chocolate Sorbet – lots of chocolaty goodness.
D has the light, zesty elegant plate of Poached Peach, Peach Mousse, Mango Sorbet, Raspberry Sauce and Macaroons.
Our resident mouse MC enjoys a Selection of British and French Cheeses, Biscuits and Grape Chutney.
And just when we thought we couldn’t eat another thing they produce a little pot of chocolate with some sugary doughnut sticks to dip into it with a chaser of chocolate truffles. D and MC indulged in these on their last visit so D was able to resist. Even though I don’t normally get excited by doughnuts these sweet twiglets were rather fine. And obviously chocolate sauce is always a good thing!
The Neptune Inn deserves its recently awarded Michelin star; it manages to capture that breezy seaside feel without resorting to hokey lobster pots and nets strewn about the place but with monochrome coastal images and an oyster colour palette. Two forks for the Neptune, I know D and MC and planning a weekend there in August and I am sure they’ll have a truly fabulous time. I am just madly jealous that I have other holiday commitments planned and can’t gatecrash!

Shopping and eating...actually mainly shopping!

2009-06-06T15:57:00.013+01:00

We had barely parked the car in picturesque Holt when we found the first ‘must have’ purchase. Holt is awash with little independent shops and artisans with a myriad of alluring wares calling to us from attractive window displays. In a short space of time D was clutching amongst other things a china cup for Piggle, a moon-gazing hare, a whizzy salad dressing whisk and aromatic oils. A drawer knife for shaving the ends of broom handles (yes, it’s a mystery to me also) had caught the eye of MC, he’d been able to indulge in an array of wine tasting and he had also befriended a woodturner’s wife with a definite date to return to meet the woodturner himself. My ample bags were stuffed with a pair of fetching stoles (well it had turned rather nippy), a large French ‘bol’ style cup for soup, not only the same whisk as D but a heart shaped larger sauce whisk and last but not least ‘another’ picnic hamper. D and MC insisted on referring to it as ‘another’ picnic hamper as they think I have sufficient hampers already. Sufficient, is that possible? Anyone who’s read my blog possibly knows how unfeasibly excited I get when the weighty Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols hamper catalogues satisfyingly thump my doormat each festive season. But a hamper is not just for Christmas as I can succumb to ‘hamper porn’ any season! This new one has an attractive linen lining, limed washed exterior, proper glassware strapped to the inner lid and is a perfect basket for two or an opulent one for solo picnicking! It has acceptable white square plates but would be even better with my strawberries and vines china picnic plates and some crisp linen. Let’s hopes the weather holds out this summer so I can indulge.
Actually the final flourish would be one of the gorgeous linen napkins courtesy of the fine styling of Thornback and Peel. And as luck would have a little present of one of their bunny napkins was awaiting me when I arrived at the cottage, I think it was meant to be!
If you haven’t come across the gorgeous wares of Thornback and Peel I urge you to have a look. D had fallen in love with one of their deckchairs in the style section of the Sunday papers and had introduced me to them. In fact exploring Holt we fair tripped over their goldfish or ladybird adorned table mats and pigeon and raspberry jelly strewn cushions (frankly only the second time I’ve liked a pigeon, the first being when a wood pigeon has discarded its plump breast in my salad). Looking at their website I must admit that I am taken with the canvas bags featuring the aforementioned pigeons and pink jellies. And talking of hampers I also got one of their lobster (aka Pinchy) tea towels in my Christmas hamper from D&MC.
We’ve had a bit of a seafood/lobster theme for the last few years and though we are late this year with the annual Cambridge seafood festival there is still time to get out the new crustacean themed napery and tuck into some suitable crabby delight. In fact we’re in the perfect place for a spot of crab but thinking that most of our meals are sewn up we avoid the enticing delis and crab sandwich purveyors.
In the lovely shop selling Alessi hedgehogs, expanding pan stands and my utterly favourites heart shaped spoons, the owner was keen to point out her friend’s gallery as a must in Holt and then to head forth for Wiverton Hall Café for a spot of afternoon tea as it was in her words ‘truly bonkers’! “Bonkers food in a bonkers and colourful place with bonkers but jolly service.” Well mindful of the delights of the Neptune that lay ahead we were determined to see how it could be quite so bonkers and once we couldn’t carry another thing we thought we’d check it out before going home to change.
It turned out to be a pick your own fruit farm with a café attached. It was a vibrant place, there were lots of children running around and the place seemed pretty packed. The counter was festooned with cupcakes, scones, flapjakes, chocolate cake and a Victoria sponge which seemed the most popular as every moment another hefty wodge was carved off.
D and MC had a cheese scone and I had an unfeasibly large slice of the chocolate cake. The bits with the chocolate butter cream was okay but the rest was a tad dry but that was fine, I wasn’t that hungry and mainly wanted a sit down, a nice cup of tea and to see how bonkers this place could be! It was certainly colourful, there was a plethora of spotty and heart adorned Emma Bridgewater crockery to serve our selections on. The tables had various wipe clean clashing patterned tablecloths and with the leaflets, menus and now obligatory fairy dusted cupcakes the whole effect was certainly a cacophony of riotous colour. The staff were also preparing for a new offering of evening tapas so there was a flurry of chorizo chopping and decanting olives into bowls.
I particularly like the promotional graphics they use on the menus and aprons wrapped round the waists of the servers designed by Annabel Grey. The theme seemed to be strawberries and pigs which seemed a good combination to me, I was nearly tempted to add to be burgeoning tea towel collection but opted for the postcards instead.
Holt will definitely be revisited, there is still plenty to explore and if on our next visit we fancy cake, tapas or a barbeque we know a bonkers place we can go afterwards!

Next-the-sea?

2009-06-05T21:36:00.005+01:00

D and MC had suggested I joined them in Norfolk at the cottage they were renting off D’s friend H. I didn’t ask where it was but I did know though that it was somewhere near to King’s Lynn as that was the train station they’d fetch me from. I figured that it would be near Hunstanton, the seaside resort of their youth that I’d been introduced to a couple of years ago which was almost right but to be precise the cottage is actually in the quaintly named village of Holme-next-the-Sea. The premise seemed to be that it was very close to the sea but not on the coast, Holme-near-the-Sea if you will. I kept wanting to say “next-to-the” but apparently that’s not the local way!
The weekend of ‘fruits de mer’ dining delights was kicked off with a visit to their favourite fish and chip shop in Hunstanton knowing full well that fish and chips always taste better with salt in the air and the distinctive call of an occasional seagull circling overhead. Even Heston agrees hence the deployment of iPods preloaded with the prerequisite aural delights of waves crashing and gulls crying as you savour his taste of the sea!
Feeling determined to honour my Northern roots I persuaded D to let me get some sliced white bread and butter to ensure the treat was complete.
As it turned out this was just the first meal we were to enjoy. We had already secured a table at the delightful Neptune for Saturday night and were fairly sure that the day would start with a big breakfast and it did because we headed for Deepdale Café in Burnham as soon as we surfaced. Nothing would persuade MC to alter his intention to tuck into ‘The Big Breakfast’ but D and I had set our little epicurean hearts on Eggs Benedict and when we were thwarted when it transpired that they don’t do that with eggs we plumped for an omelette of locally smoked haddock and Parmesan instead. It was suitably plump and held fat flakes of soft tasty smoked haddock in its depths and set up it fine for the day ahead. We’d had to wait a while for a table as the popularity of this café had got many a family, party of soon to be surfers and visitors heading for their extensive breakfast menu. As we queued D had furnished herself with a pile of local information pamphlets and magazines and on leafing through them some intriguing and attractive items apparently available in the market town of Holt soon decided our next port of call.

A C-food diet

2009-05-29T22:24:00.004+01:00

F and I went to school together and on our long, meandering walk home every day we developed complex games, peculiar songs and elaborate schemes. We see each other very rarely now, in fact until this year where I've spent a disproportionate amount of my time travelling back and forth between London and Manchester it had been about 5 years since we’d met up. But she wanted to come round and cheer me up and I offered in turn to cook us some supper. I'm pleased to say that F can still turn her inventive mind to a cunning plan. Her idea was born from watching friends and colleagues incessantly count things when out dining with them. They might be counting calories, points, carbs or some other unit designed to make you feel a little guiltier and enjoy your dinner less. Feeling left out she decided to devise a plan so that she could count her chosen units and modify her consumption accordingly. I hasten to add that her scheme has no nutritional value and has the unusual goal to accumulate as many points as possible, and points of course mean prizes! So how does one win points in her undeniably unique 'maintaining your C-level' diet? Well you may have guessed it; it is all about the letter 'C'! So the optimum foodstuffs are chicken, cheese, cream, chips, chocolate and cake (double points for chocolate cake!) In addition, if you are eating food not based around the letter 'C' then the knack is to add more food to top up your C-level and if all else fails resort to suitable adjectives and/or foreign languages. This brilliant regime wasn't explained to me until after I had cooked a restorative supper for us tonight but inadvertently I had not done too badly. The starter of salmon and leaves didn’t really work but I chose better for the main and dessert.
It's almost May and the English asparagus is just perfect but unbeknownst to me I had opted to turn a distinctly un C-level food round by anointing the spears in a soupçon of cheesy cream sauce. The fat bronzed happy chicken was a winner already. The Jersey Royal potatoes didn't really cut it but if I'd been forewarned I would have sautéed them and cut them differently and then described them as crispy cubes of potatoes to get those all important points.
We couldn't really go wrong with a gooey wedge of Gü chocolate tart but of course I would have achieved a higher score if I'd gone for a chocolate cake instead! And rather luckily I had some cocoa-dusted chocolate truffles to hand to wrap up the meal.
The drinks are another consideration, now a C-leveller is confined to drinking Chablis, Chardonnay and Champagne. I certainly don't mind a glass of bubbly but I prefer my wine redder so we decided that if I'd prepared I would have procured a bottle of Chianti Classico or a full-bodied ‘Cab Sav’ to follow a Champagne cocktail and for those who like that sort of thing you can finish with coffee. As I would favour an occasional tea I would from now on have to refer to it as a 'cup a char'! I can’t really think how to justify water unless I’d conveniently got some Cotswold, Chiltern Hills or Caledonian Spring. But again with curious foresight I’d served it in crystal glasses, does that count?
Showing that I haven’t lost my knack for such bizarre stratagems either I explained to F that for the bloggers’ choice blog party last year I had chosen the letter ‘J’. But I suspect that a diet based on Jaffa cakes, jacket potatoes, jam and jelly babies is sadly not really sustainable. We pondered whether it would viable for an F-plan but again I doubt that a menu of fish fingers, fennel and fudge would really work. So ‘C’ it is I guess!
Now that I am in the know I will plan my C-food menu very carefully next time. But I am so torn (I can so see why F chose C now). Firstly there would be crab on little croutes for a little nibble to accompany the Champagne and Chambord aperitif. Then the starter would be scallops cunningly in the form of coquilles Saint Jacques or perhaps Carpaccio drizzled with a little crème fraîche or even maybe a bowl of Cullen Skink. The main event could be the obvious chicken but it could be cod wrapped in crispy coppa (which is the pork shoulder or neck version of Prosciutto), served rather incongruously with cauliflower cheese, a pile of curly courgette ribbons and Chantenay carrots. I was trying to think how I could incorporate some potatoes without resorting to chips; a suggestion would be to add spring onions to mash potatoes to conjure up some delicious champ. This would be followed by a cheese course of sliver of Camembert on a cracker maybe. And if there was any room after that, a little pot of chocolate cream.
F envisages herself as a “maintaining the C-level” guru, desperate diners could contact her and ask for help with their culinary dilemmas. Imagine you really fancy Shepherd’s Pie tonight and the easy solution of opting for Cottage Pie is not what you want. So F would suggest adding carrot cubes and a little celery to the lamb and a crumbly Cheddar cheese to the potato topping, perhaps even rustling up some crunchy cabbage to go on the side.
Thank you F, the meal tonight definitely had the desired effect and cheered me up as I haven’t laughed so much for ages. I’ve been distracted from all the arrangements I need to organise and now have a new obsession – C-food!
And strange as it may seem, it just may catch on!

The hardest ever blog post to write

2009-04-25T23:59:00.011+01:00

I’ve been absent from the blogging world for a while. Though to be honest I could say I’ve been away from life for a while. The worse of all possible things happened and I lost my dearest M at moments before midnight on April 25th.
Despite her being so ill she was determined to beat the dreaded stomach cancer and being so used to getting her own way - it was such a shock that her incredibly valiant efforts were in vain.
I still can’t believe that she isn’t there anymore and even after a few weeks I have found it immensely difficult to even start to write this post and days to actually finish it. I’m so used to us sharing the minutiae of our daily lives and I still reach out for the phone to relate some snippet I heard or saw and then of course it hits me again and that overwhelming feeling of emptiness descends.
One thing we haven’t been able to share for a long time is a meal. The last time we did was back in September for my birthday meal at Michael Caines @ Abode in Manchester. It was a wonderful tasting menu which I haven’t blogged yet, maybe due to the connotations around that day. At the end of the meal M was feeling very sick and it turned out to be the beginning of all that was to come. She started being sick every day but she thought she knew what ailed her and that she could deal with it by mainlining Gaviscon and hot mocha chocolate drinks. Little did we realise then that it was something much worse, how pervasive it was becoming and how life was never going to be the same again. I now know much more that I ever needed or wanted about enteral feeding, metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma and linitis plastica (words I never dreamt would appear in my blog). I know fascinating facts now for example that stomach cancer is more prevalent in Asian males, may be caused by helicobacter pylori (which is the rabid acid producing stomach bacteria problem M thought had returned) and is generally considered to be exacerbated by a high salt, low vegetable diet. Have I been right all along about all that vegetable dodging?
I really can’t imagine life without her but as that choice has been taken away from me I will just have to find a way to keep smiling. I am lucky I have some amazing friends who’ve been so incredibly supportive, have showered me with beautiful cards and heartfelt messages, who’ve been there when I needed them and left me alone when I yearned to be by myself. And K even sent me a red heart-shaped Le Creuset casserole dish for when I am feeling more inclined to mass catering. Thank you so much, all of you, without you I couldn't have got this far.
I’ve always tried not to live with regrets but I do regret that we didn’t talk more about what was happening to her, our fears and how we really felt about it all. M was going to beat this for sure so what was the point? We would talk about our next holiday – probably that Paris trip we’ve been promising ourselves for way too long or what crab filled treat I would cook her when she could eat again. Maybe that was our way of dealing with it all. She never even read the post I wrote when I was first coming to terms with everything and I wish I’d read it to her whilst I had the chance. I would love to know if she approved of the funeral service I organised, the songs and readings we listened to through the tears, the cascades of our favourite white lilies on a very alternative and green bamboo casket (not the type of bamboo pandas eat though!), whether the specially requested canapés passed muster and if she appreciated the significance of me wearing my red shoes. Though I know for sure that she would have been delighted as I was by how many people came to say goodbye to her.
In the words of Mary Poppins M declared herself to be “practically perfect” and even though I would never admit it before she was possibly right and everything will be a little less perfect without her. Goodbye M, I will always miss you.