I was fortunate to be treated to a few days at the lovely Lygon Hotel in Broadway (December 2021). The stay itself was faultless and the dinner was interesting. Now if that sounds like an insult, it isn’t. I love a dinner to be interesting because that makes it memorable. It could be because it the food was faultless but it could also be for some eccentricity or unusual setting/occurrence.
We dined in a barrel vaulted dining hall. We started with bread which came with a tomato jam. The crust of the bread was the toughest I’ve ever met. Not the enjoyable crumb splattering of a French baguette, this was a proper crust which took so long to masticate, it made me look like a hamster bedding in for a very hard winter. The tomato jam had a unique consistency which despite my best efforts left me and the napkin looking like Lady MacBeth evicting her dog Spot.
The main which was lamb came with a lovely splat of pea puree which if my mother had used to introduce me to peas as a kid, would have avoided thirty years of acrimony between me and the green bullets. The lamb had a good crispy skin but it was definitely not pink inside and I had to ask for a steak knife to be able to manage it. They also had very skinny forks which gave my hand cramp. Although I felt smug at my lack of dexterity when the chap at the next table dropped his onto the floor. The waitress retrieved it in lightning time so it’s possible they have a betting scheme based on this.
Pudding was mostly excellent – a passionfruit cheesecake with a cocoa biscuit base – a perfect mix of sharp and sweet. Although is came with a coconut sorbet which tasted of desiccated coconut and took me back to age 5 when I first tried a Bounty bar and took up a life of crime from the trauma.
The espresso that broke my heart
Then came the espresso which shall remain in my mind. I require an espresso to be bitter, hot, foamy on the top and served in a tiny cup where I must use a posh pinky and I can’t get my nose into the cup. It is the perfect end to a good meal. It stays nicely warm as it’s a small cup and wafts me and my full stomach towards a gentle end to the evening.
It arrived in a large tea cup and my heart was broken in shards.
A relaxing weekend away with my beloved led me to ponder what animal songs means in context.
There I was enjoying a massage in a rather nice hotel spa in the Cotswolds, and the old brain decided to rummage down the back of the sofa. I was relaxing in a darkened treatment room having my calves skewered which was mostly relaxing with the odd hot poker of discomfort.
The room was decorated in restful browns and muted colours. The sinks were those raised stone bowls with accent taps, which are rather good for not splashing the groin and looking like there has been ‘a little accident’.
So lying prone and drifting off to gentle music and the aroma of all those nice smells which merge into a one, the music then became a short chorus of whale song. I muffled a giggle into the towel headrest. I did not want to explain my cerebral journey to the masseuse as I was sure she has enough weirdness on a daily basis without me pontificating.
But here is my problem – and I blame the hilarious Adam Kay and the late great Terry Pratchett. In Adam Kay’s book This is Going to Hurt, he tells the story of a woman coming into hospital to give birth who has a birth plan that details candles, music, scents and other such Stuff to give birth to. Apparently the pain kicks in she demands all the drugs and to turn the fucking noise off – she had chosen whale music to play in the background whilst a bowling ball ripped its way out of her vagina. Personally I’d have gone with Metallica’s Black Album – Through the Never or Don’t Tread on Me.
So there I am muffling a laugh and I then remember Terry Practchett’s take on board song which is to attract a mate or to repeal a trespasser – or a as friend of mine succinctly put it “Fuck me” or “Fuck Off”.
I then got to thinking that whales inhabit a large space and and travel far for food. Is it just possible that the whale song is the equivalent of “You off to Tesco Kev? We’re out of bog roll, and get me 20 Marlboro light love”.
In which a good friend asked me to try out some new coffee and pass along my thoughts.
A wonderful thing happened a few days ago. A good friend of mine asked me to give my opinion on a new coffee which she sells in her shop. I was very flattered. Anyone who has known me for a long time will know that coffee, never wine, is my thing. Dinner guests are asked to bring a pack or two of ground or bean coffee. It’s usually cheaper than wine and means I get a very good range of coffee I wouldn’t usually see. Anyone bringing decaf does the washing up. I implemented this when we got to 20 bottles of red wine.
So I trundled home with a pack of Ugandan Wugar beans and did the tasting without looking anything up at all about the coffee. Once you look up what another person has thought of a coffee then your tastebuds will always say – “Oh yeah – I got that hint of essence of unicorn but I didn’t tell the brain about it”. Is it possible to side-eye your untruthful taste buds?
I used a Cusinart bean to cup machine, set the strength to medium and let it do its thing. I drank it within 20 minutes of it being brewed. I had mine with Alpo Soya milk and a fellow taster also tried it with semi-skimmed milk. I also tried it black. I tried it on two different days as I had a stuffy nose on the first day and so much of coffee’s taste comes from the smell.
Here are my findings: It is rich. It fits the after dinner coffee bracket. It is also earthy and reminds me slightly of numerous Turkish coffees before you get to the gob full of bottom dwelling grounds. There is a slightly hint of chocolate but you do need to go looking for it. It’s comforting.
And then I googled it. Apparently I missed the taste of stone fruit? Really? Stone fruit? Well I’ve now had four cups of it and stone fruit eludes me but I am slightly buzzed by the caffeine. I am still perambulating about the house and exclaiming to each passing cat “Stone Fruit?”. The cats look back piteously and hope it’s dinner time soon.
Last week saw me brave the border and drive north to Caledonia, and then come back again 6 days later. My return drive cost me less than a third of a standard class train ticket would have been if bought a month in advance. It really shouldn’t be that way.
Having worked in Edinburgh for a few years, all of which sadly which included Augusts, I was quite content to go back in October. The Edinburgh festival which now smudges the month or so either side of the benighted August is a boon to traders and a bane to commuters who just need to through the clogged arteries of that historic city twice a day.
But even in October at the end of a pandemic, our day trip was busy. We started with coffee at Coffee House on the Royal Mile. I shall remember it for three things;
The nosiest, creakiest sodding stairs ever. It sounded like you were tap dancing up grandad’s arthritic spine in running spikes it moaned that much. You may wish to be assured that both my grandfathers passed away before I could dance.
The kind staff who even though it was counter service only and they were very busy, made time to wait on an older gentleman who couldn’t make it to the counter.
My first ever Cannoli! I only recently discovered what a Cannoli is. I long remembered it as a line from the Godfather delivered by Clemenza – “Leave the Gun, take the Cannoli”. And a few days ago I had my first. It’s like a cream horn in shape with two open ends and stuffed with cream and decorated with fruit. But the pastry is a short darker pastry with a good crunch. The open ends are dipped in chocolate before the cream and fruit is applied. The taste is amazing and I must learn more about these gangster pastries.
After that we ended up in the Grassmarket where I plunged into nostalgia by visiting Armstrong’s the second hand clothes store. My barathea winter coat which cost £50 in the 1990s, is still worn by me in the winters and, unlike me, looks no older.
We also dropped by the Cuttea Sark on Victoria Street for some coffee supplies and a tea cosy. When your forties hit you never realise that bed socks and tea cosies are in your future, but arrive they do. Just go with it, and what the heck, co-ordinate them if you must.
As it neared 12 lunch became a thing. Now even in the low season finding a table in Edinburgh can be tough so jump at the start of lunch service. I have a weakness for French bistros because they make me 57% cooler just walking through the door. I can pretend I speak French, but I don’t because it’s just better for everyone. I still can’t differentiate between hair and horse – the words are similar. Anyway they had a specials menu, two courses and non espresso coffee – £14.90. Our mains were of note. My mother had the vaguely titled French Stew which turned out to be a boeuf bourguignon which had spent much time getting friendly an unctuous gravy and some vegetables.
I opted for something called a Tartiflette without having a clue what it was. I wanted to rename it a flibbertigibbet just for the way it sounded. Anyway it is spuds, cream, wine, bacon, onion and cheese. And it made me a better person. Good value, not huge portions, comes with a baguette and butter!
Tartiflette (aka Flibbertigibbet)
Our walk back to the car park led us past the statute of Adam Smith who has been double coned. Just waiting for Glasgow to say “Hold My Beer”.
Adam Smith goes one better than the Duke of Wellington
And we finished our sojourn by walking back past what is now known as the Golden Jobbie. And yes it it is even more like a turd close up.
Growing up in rural Aberdeenshire in the seventies/early eighties, junk food was always a distant dream. We had neighbours who had a cheese board that had three Primula squeezy cheese tubes on it. That was damn well exotic!
And then there were Findus Crispy pancakes. I remember there were cheese & ham ones and beef & onion. I also remember that my mother would never buy them in the same way that one trod the path to hell if one bought a shop-made cake.
And since then I have lusted after them, their Trump level orange faux breadcrumbs, the crunchiness of them, their feigned cheese type filling that had more in common with wood glue than dairy, and their ham chunks that had more in common genetically with Percy Pig, than an actual porcine.
All of this added up to my sadness in 2016 when their manufacture ceased, knowing I would never experience that many additives on one dinner plate.
In February 2020, Findus brought back the crispy pancake. And tonight, thanks to A, who saw them and bought me a box – I have now, more than thirty years after seeing the advert, had some.
A pink box? I wanted red.They spilled their guts like a mob informant.
I tenderly unwrapped them and put them in the air fryer for the allotted time at the correct temperature. And afterwards they reposed on a platter for a few minutes, when they promptly deflated like a dream of sunlit uplands.
They have a tortured and mocking expression. I feel responsible for their welfare.
They tasted exactly how they looked. Like ruscoline over wood glue with essence of pork in pink shreds. I could have waited another thirty years and not missed out much.
Aah well another fond childish yearning has been splatted by reality.
Now I’m on a roll with this, does anyone have a 1988 Opel Manta GT-J 2.0 in good running order?
For an anniversary present, I was given a track day at Castle Combe. It involved a Ford Fiesta, a Ford Focus, a Lotus Elise and a demon called a Formula Ford. I love it, hated it, was terrified, was delighted, never want to do it again, really want to do it again.
It started with a briefing about all the famous drivers who had come up through Castle Combe circuit and discussed the track layout and driving line.
And then came the pairing up of the drivers and instructors. I was regularly paired with sedate older instructors which I was very happy about. I got the feeling that being an older woman and not a speed freak hopped up on the testosterone and immortality of youth, was a welcome relief.
The Ford Fiesta was the first vehicle I drove. My memories of Ford Fiesta were of the rusty Mark I 950cc fart mobiles with added spoilers and driven by very skint petrol heads on mum’s TPFT insurance. This Ford was very comfortable and a lot of fun to drive. It handled positively, the gear box was well-behaved and whilst it wasn’t the nippiest, it was my favourite.
The Ford Focus was a very different animal. It was faster but had a gear box in more denial than a tory politician trumpeting the benefits of Brexit . Worryingly I was told not to worry about the engine warning light. It also lacked an ignition key or substitute. I’m quite attached to turning a key to kill the engine – pushing a button just doesn’t feel the same. It’s like not being able to slam the phone down.
The Lotus Elise is a car in the same way that a 99p Maccie D’s is a meal. Fortunately I had packed padding in the form of body fat because the seats certainly didn’t have any. It had the bare minimum of kit inside but bizarrely a suede dashboard when I’m sure some 2 ply would have sufficed. It was designed to go very quickly. My biggest issue with the car is that getting in it needs planning but getting out requires block and tackle. I owe a molecule of respect to those mid life crisis morons who buy this car to recapture their youth – they will certainly have had to work on their mobility.
And now for the demon – some people call it a Formula Ford.
Right I’m going to strap you in to a go cart and bolt a noisy engine right under your arse. You’ll be walled into a fibreglass condom, your elbows will be so restricted you’ll have a side plate for a steering wheel and a moody flip switch for a gear box. Your feet which are entombed a long way away in the dark and have three small pedals which suggest to the demon whether it will speed up or slow down. It’s a bit of a lottery which pedal you hit. It’s going to kill you.
I went out on the track in the wind and rain was determined only to do one lap and come in through the pit lane swearing and vowing never to do it again. And then it was the second lap and it wasn’t that bad. Then on the third my instructors comments came back into my head. And then on the forth I started to really speed up and attack those double apexes. By the time my six laps were up, I wanted to do more.
Mother’s birthday present is late. I really am trying to do a nice painting she can hang in the bathroom. I even know the shade of green I need to match the bathroom. I tried to start it tonight. Something else happened.
When the Snark household is feeling hospitable, we hold a dinner party. So that it does not all go to hell in a Tesco’s basket, I oft have a plan. It’s on a large whiteboard and has times and activities. It includes everything from ironing napkins, laying the table, and cutting the cats’ claws because guests who bleed have a poor appetite and my Hello Kitty plasters are not always appreciated. Of course it also contains the various cooking phases and timings.
Over the years of providing hospitality we have an extensive wine collection. To some this is not a problem but as Mr S is a beer drinker and I consume about a bottle of white a year, this was an increasing issue. The only time we drink wine is when we hold a dinner, but alas guests always bring more than they drink. When I go to dinner, I am always confused as to what wine to take. I feel bit of a fraud going for a mid priced supermarket bottle of Rioja because I can’t stand red and I am a member of the Auslese/Spatlese German wine cult – look it up we’re old-fashioned and weird.
I struck upon an idea. We ask guests only to bring wine if they want but we’d prefer a bag or two of ground or bean coffee. If they bring decaf , they are doing the washing up. I have discovered quite a few new coffee flavours this way.
It also makes sense to me. I view the household as an economic unit and attending a dinner removes resources from the household in the form of food, and I partially replace those resources with my charming wit. But it is appropriate to replace it with something. So if you ever ask me to dinner and ask me to bring a bag of dishwasher tablets or a big pack of toilet roll, I won’t even blink.
Today was a treasured day away from the grind to attend Grand Designs for myself and S.
The two highlights were an architect who actually seemed to have come up with a quasi barn conversion I could (shudder)… like, and a company selling repurposed plane parts as furniture.
As usual the NEC enjoys engaging your navigational skills and improving your cardiovascular health before you even set foot in the place. When you approach the NEC to attend an event you are at the fat end of a complex calculation about which car park they have allocated you. The £16.00 the parking costs for a day shows you just how tough that calculation is for them. If you discover the answer is East 4 – pack your crampons and gird your loins, but only if they aren’t running the bus service. I understand they are more distant car parks (N10 or S7)so I shan’t complain that loudly.
The bus driver was a chirpy Brummie who squashed us in very tightly with cries of “Move Down” and was determined that we all got up close and personal. There was muttering sotto voce about social distancing but because I am British, I stared at the floor, breathed shallowly through my mask, and pretended I wasn’t there.
The Covid control to get in to the event was pretty good. One individual behind me on the bus proudly announced they hadn’t had the vaccinations and hadn’t done a test. They offered up no mitigation or explanation. I was quite heartened to see when they approached the barriers they were turned down like a bed spread.
Now back to the barn conversion. I have seen many atrocious acts done in the name of barn conversions. One pictures a bucolic idyll and sometimes from the outside it will look that way. However, there are those who have chosen a fertiliser shed built in the eighties from green corrugated iron and stretched the word barn to fracture point, mixed in a planning exemption and called it a Barn Conversion. And then they paint it black. To those perpetrators, I wish you a Sunday afternoon trying to navigate Milton Keynes’ road and under pass system as a pedestrian.
The one that caught my eye is a new build barn in the Dutch Style. It’s a bit marmite but then I spread bovril on Toast so that tells you what a barbarian I am. See what you think – I’d have preferred it if they could have lessened the angle, turfed the sides and grown wild flowers.
We had a holiday home brochure thrust upon us at some point because I have found it in the bag of things from that day. It looks like these homes are ready to pull the ramps in and take off, either that or launch a ground assault on the surrounding wildlife. I half expect to see a pair of red sparkly shoes poking out from under it – ‘Well splatted Dorothy, these holiday homes are far more accurate than a Kansas wood shack crewed by an adolescent girl and small dog named after a pop song famous for it’s rhyming.’
And then S had much fun at a stall which marketed flexible wood. It’s called Woodolex. You warm it, shape it and it stays how you’ve shaped it.
But after that we found the maddest, unapologetic but coolest stand in the place. Their website is https://dappraviation.com
They take aeroplane interiors and exteriors and make things out of them. A bench with exhausts as legs, a fruit bowl from a flange and a food trolley coated in lego. It’s a bit pricey in places but the coat and key rack below is quite nice.
There were numerous purveyors of small external offices one can construct in the garden. And a number of them are repurposed into gyms. And sometimes these gyms have polite little barbells in them. And sometimes they have a bench with a barbell. It is at this point S and I have an agreement that I will just move on. I do not ask them how they think their wimpy wooden floored (they are rarely cement) gym is going to handle someone (me) dropping a 100kg barbell on it? Eh? And for those of you who don’t lift weights – you will drop them, you have to. When I started lifting I hated the noise of barbells dropping and now like blistered hands, protein drinks and the ensuing mild flatulence, it’s a part of my life.
And finally whilst I found some of the stalls a bit disappointing, there is one group of people from whom I must stand back in awe. I lack much enthusiasm at the best of times. I find it hard to take a compliment. I didn’t progress in my acting course because I just can’t fake any happy emotion. I can play a drunk grumpy Welsh ticket inspector with real gusto, but ask me to be chirpy and I look like I just had an embarrassing accident related to an out of season Oyster. This group of people whom I applaud are product demonstrators. Their enthusiasm, their patter and their cheerfulness is lovely to see. I live in terror they might ask me a question at which point I run away and they usually fall upon S whom I ruthlessly abandon. S of course very politely extricates himself and catches up with me where I am pretending to be part of a wall.
And in a catering related gripe. Saying you don’t have any non-dairy milk when you are a high volume coffee and tea place in a physical concession, and not a mobile van, ain’t that great. I don’t mind being re-directed to Starbucks but the non-dairy milk drinkers are increasing in numbers so it’s something to consider.
So now to close, and in the interests of transparency I have not been paid for this post. However we do own some Magic Knives – they are fab and they still bifurcate a tomato like the demonstrator showed us four years ago. The weird whisk thing we bought broke after two years and as its final act dribbled mechanical oil in a meringue when an important seal departed – we did not replace it.
foodandsnark 