TAKE YOUR LOVE TO TOWN

I forgot to mention that the outing to Chilli Pickle in Brighton was part of our ongoing celebration of our ruby wedding year.  Going out for a ruby (Ruby Murray - geddit?!).

The actual day, a month or so back, was spent in an open air restaurant on the bridge over the Bosphorus.  Here's the waiter filleting a seabass.  Note I also got some chips as it was a special occasion.

 

We then had a family celebration, making our own sushi

 

and then eating the result with a good supply of Asahi and a nice bottle of sake.

 

What next?!  Lucky it only comes round 2 or 3 times in a lifetime.

THE JOY OF SUSSEX

What a fabulous day I had yesterday!

I had a bowl of Frosties, a slice of toast and half a cracker with some cream cheese for breakfast.  And a cup of tea of course.  Later I had another half a slice of toast and a piece of a nutty chocolatey thing (which was delicious, but which I later found out had been retrieved from down the back of the settee).  Then I went to Singalong at playgroup, where I ate 1 grape, a piece of cheese, the last inch of a bread stick and a slice of pear.  And a cup of coffee.

We then went to Kids Hour at the Lime Tree Cafe where I had another cup of coffee, some baked beans, another piece of bread stick, a bite of an apple (and I think that was a cheese string with it . . .), and 2 raisins.  Then to Waitrose for a free cup of coffee.  And, back home for tea, a chocolate marshmallow and a spoonful of rice pudding.

That must be all the nutrients I need for growing! (Do nutty chocolatey things count towards my five a day?).

Here is the Lime Tree Cafe.

  

I think I've posted a pic of it before, but it has a curious end wall.

 

That evening we went off to Brighton to visit Chilli Pepper, a restaurant that received an award last year for its cuisine, which they explained to me is based on them having a chef from each of the main areas of India and then producing some sort of synergy in the kitchen.  Must be an Indian thing; I thought chefs attacked each other with cleavers given half a chance.  Anyway, the food was stupendous!  They don't do this one chilli symbol means hot thing; nearly everything has one chilli and the Goan chicken wings go up to 4 chillis.  So you can imagine how spicy the food is.  We had kedgeree, deep fried potatoes stuffed with coconut and coriander with tamarind and mint sauces, ginger garlic chicken in fenugreek sauce and a whole plaice in ginger, chilli and chickpea batter with mango rice and tomato curry.  Mmmmmm.  And not a tikka masala in sight!

Interestingly, for me, the restaurant is in a street which I used to consider a bit of a slum in my childhood - terraces of tiny houses along a narrow, slightly scruffy street.  But it has been completely rebuilt and is now almost entirely restaurants.  I think the only three buildings not restaurants are a hairdressers, Tesco Express and the library.

This is the library that some of you might be interested to see.

 

This is the Pavilion that I posted about the other day.  Thought you might like to see a pic of it at night.  So many ideas here for converting my summer house.

This is the entrance to Chilli Pepper.

 

And this is one course of our dinner.  Excellent!  But somehow I still had this nagging nostalgia for cheese strings.

CONCERNS MOUNT

One thing that has struck me most about the horsemeat scandal is the convoluted route of the processed meat food chain.  I know that business has become increasingly global, but it takes an event like this to bring home just how international something we like to think of as 'fresh' in fact really is.  I know that in this case the food is frozen, but we have come to assume that it was frozen when fresh and that it will be not be more than a few months in storage before it is eaten.

Whilst I was down in the West Country over the weekend, I visited the new Morrisons store that has just opened on the outskirts of Bishopsteignton.  I can't now find the publicity photo I had of the inside of the store, but it shows a mind-boggling, and very colourful, array of fruit and veg.  I counted well over 50 different sorts of veg on one counter (there are several counters), including a couple I hadn't heard of.  But it was the countries of origin that were most revealing, bearing in mind that these are fresh veg - most of South and Central America and the West Indies were represented and several African and Asian countries too, as well as the usual Spain, France, Holland and E Europe.  This is all the result no doubt of our early history as world traders.  It is clear though that a good number of the flights filling UK airports each day are full of fresh fruit and veg of one sort or another.

But it is the supply route for frozen meals that is most indicative of the interlinked nature of today's global business.  I have mentioned before the case of peeled prawns.  This is of course a pure shipping cost over foreign wages issue, but it still shocks me.  Prawns are caught fresh off the coast of Scotland and landed at a Scottish or East coast fishing port in England.  There, some are frozen or chilled for immediate sale, but some are flown to Thailand where they are peeled before being flown back for sale here as peeled British prawns.  One day I guess employment conditions in Thailand will improve and we'll be able to stop this profligate waste of resources.  Until then, the prawns are delicious!

In the case of the original of the lasagne illustrated above, the final packaged meal is manufactured by Findus, a Swedish company with a processing factory in England.  The company used to be owned by Swiss company Nestle, who still own the Swiss Findus brand.  The meat for the product is purchased by a French company Poujol, who supply it for processing to a factory in Luxembourg owned by a company called Tavola, which is in turn owned by the French company Comigel.  Some meat seems also to have been supplied to the Luxembourg factory by another Italian-sounding firm Spanghero, which is also owned by Comigel.  Are you with me so far?  Both supplies of meat were arranged for Comigel by a contracting trading company, based in Cyprus, who bought the meat through a food trader based in the Netherlands.  And the Dutch company sourced the raw meat supply from two abattoirs in Romania. 

As if this isn't convoluted enough, it has now been suggested that organised crime syndicates in Romania, Poland and even Italy seem to have been involved in the supply.  One can only marvel that the cost of the meals - £1 in Aldi or a pony for a carton (geddit!?) - allows enough profit to be made by each company involved in the process.  And presumably enough profit to make it of interest to organised crime.  But then I guess that over each transaction along the way there must have been a lot of horse-trading.

CONSUMMATE EQUINIMITY

The horsemeat in beefburger scandal is growing.  I imagine there are many countries on mainland Europe who wonder what all the fuss is about.  It's only here that eating horse could cause this much fuss.  In much of Africa and the Far East, 'beef' is often a term used to mean ''meat'.  And if you eat things called, 'hamburgers', why should you suddenly be worried what's in them?

On the radio the other day, they were less scare-mongering and invited listeners, aware of the horsemeat issue, to request 'appropriate' tunes to be played on the programme.  One that amused me was the request for Paul Simon's 'The Boxer'.  Remember the line ' . . . just a come-one from the HORSE on Second Avenue'?!

There were several other suggestions - for songs from Foals, The Mane Attraction, etc.  But I was surprised that no one suggested 'GeeGee' by Maurice Cheval-ier.

LYTHE WAITERS

We went to visit a local farm today.  They have an interesting website - it said that there is a cafe, activities for kids and it's a farm.  With animals.  Just what we wanted for the grandkids - fun, educational and food to boot.  When we arrived, it was all rather quiet.  I rang the doorbell (marked reception) which connected by telephone with a lady somewhere who told me that the cafe and restaurant had closed a year ago and that there were no activities for kids.  Hmmm, seems like you can't believe anything you read on the net.

We drove around some country lanes for a while in an effort to make the outing worthwhile.  Then, on a whim, we stopped at the Lythe Hill Hotel for afternoon tea.  I think I've mentioned this hotel before.  It's just on the edge of rural Haslemere and the main building is 16th century.  Here it is in fact:

It is of course lovely inside.  But, as lunch was in progress, we went through to the modern part at the rear, where we sat in tranquillity, reading the day's newspapers and looking out onto the garden.  And the waiters?  we allowed them to scurry around and pamper and bring us sandwiches, scones and cakes, etc, when we wanted them.  Well, I reckon that made the outing worthwhile.  And the grandkids can always watch TV.

THE GORGE AT ALFRISTON

I met up with some schoolfriends on Monday for a pre-Christmas lunch.  This meeting had three objectives - 1) to meet my old friends again (we actually meet fairly regularly, so perhaps only 2 objectives), 2) to get into the festive spirit (this is the eighth Christmas celebration I have been to so far, so perhaps only 1 objective) and 3) to eat something other than sausage rolls and mince pies which I seem to have lived on for the last couple of weeks.  But actually I could have stayed at home to eat something other than party food.  OK, maybe this was just another excuse for a party.

Anyway, we met up at The George in Alfriston.  I have mentioned this village before; it has a population of less than 800, but boasts an almost unspoilt mediaeval High Street, including three pubs.  This is the 15th century post office.  The windows are a modern addition (18th century).



This is the oldest building, The Star, built in the 14th century, but not made an inn until the 16th century.



It used to be used by smugglers, hence the old ship's figurehead outside.  And below is The Smugglers, which I assume was so named to distract the authorities from The Star.  It was built 10 years later than The Star and, similarly, was not an inn for a 100 years or so.



I think the silly present name was added quite recently.  We went to the oldest pub in Alfriston, The George.  This was built as an inn in the 16th century.



This is the main bar.



We enjoyed all the usual festive stuff - pheasant, venison, linguine (can't remember why we had that now), fish and chips, etc.  A jolly good time was had by all and we all liked the figgy pudding.

IN THE SHPIRIT OF CHRISHMASH

I thought I would share with you this recipe for Vodka Christmas Cake that a friend just sent me.

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup water
1 tsp. salt
1 cup brown sugar
Lemon juice
4 large eggs
Nuts
1 bottle Vodka
2 cups dried fruit.

Instructions: Sample a cup of Vodka first to check the quality.  Then take a large bowl.  Just check the Vodka again to be absolutely sure.  Then repeat.  Turn on the electric mixer.  Beat one cup of butter in a large bowl until fluffy.  Add 1 teaspoon of sugar.  Beat again.  At this point, it is best to make sure the Vodka is still OK.  So try another cup just in case.  Turn off the mixerer thingy.  Break 2 eggs and add to the bowl.  Chuck in the cup of dried fruit.  Pick the fruit up off the floor, wash it and count it back into the bowl a piece at a time to make sure you didn't miss any.

Mix on the turner.  If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers, pry it loose with a drewscriver.  Shample the Vodka again here to tesht for tonsisticitity.  Next, sift 2 cupsh of salt, or something.  Check the Vodka again.  Now crap shift the lemon juicsh and strain your nutsh.  Add one table.  Add a shpoon of sugar, or anything you can find really.

Greash the oven.  Turn the cake tin 360 degreesh for shome reason.  Don't forget to beat off the turner.  Throw the bowl out the window.  Finish the Vodka and wipe the counter with the cat.

Happy Chrishimash!

COAST ACCOUNTING

We walked a fair bit along the Northumberland coast.  It is bleak, unspoilt and ruggedly beautiful.  This is the village of Caster, which still makes its income from smoking kippers.

 

Here is the coast we had just walked.  It was a real wild day.

 

And here is one of the smoking houses.

 

If you don't have a map, you can find Caster by smell.  If you don't like kippers on the other hand, give it a wide berth; even the fish cakes I had for lunch in Newton, a nearby village, were made with kippers.

Newton is no more than a collection of old fishermen's cottages and a pub. Indeed there is nothing else around for miles.  We had heard good things about The Ship, although they did rather let us down.  Here is the coastline.  You can just see the cottages in the distance.

 

And here they are, with The Ship in the corner.

The inside is pretty functional, but it was soon packed.  We had got there early to make sure we secured a seat inside. Despite the weather, the outside was soon packed too.

 

But when we realised others were being served before us, we queried our order and found that they had lost it.  These things can happen, especially when a kitchen is busy.  But they had insisted on prepayment (cash - no plastic acceptable around these parts!) and now told us they had sold out of what we had ordered.  I thought this was pretty poor (it might even be illegal) and it took the edge off our enjoyable day.  Moreover, I can't tell you whether the food is any good.

Near Newton is a famous iron church I also wanted to see.  It was built in prefabricated form in late Victorian times to serve the tiny community.  It is probably the smallest church in the county, but it is rather sweet.  It sits inland a little way, under the coast guard station, but otherwise in the middle of open countryside.

 

One of the things I intended to do whilst travelling here was to take a boat round the Farne Islands.  These are uninhabited islands a little way offshore, which are teeming with wild life.  You can get the boat captain to set you ashore for a an hour to wander amongst the flocks of seabirds and seals and take pics to your heart's content.  But only when the weather permits.  The boats go from the town of Seahouses, which consists almost entirely of enormous fish and chip restaurants.  I guess coach loads of visitors arrive during the season.  I was amused by the name of this boat.

 

Despite the claim, there were no boats going out in the distinctly unserene sea.  The tide was low most of the time we were around there, which mitigated against us too.  I was still prepared to go, but then found that there were no puffins on the islands at the moment.  I didn't realise that they migrated somewhere.  So that reduced my interest in pics of seabirds.  I'll have to do that trip another time.
 
We didn't visit Dunstanburgh Castle either.  I'd become a bit castled out by now and anyway Dunstanburgh is now a ruin and looks better from a distance.

 

Here's a slightly closer view from the headland.

 And you can just make it out here from the north across the bay.

GAMES AT THE TWENTY12 OLYMPICS

So, now we’ve started to win medals, the media mood has improved a little.  

 

There is still a tendency to look on the black side.  Commentator in interview with silver medal winners : ‘so you didn’t win.  How are feeling right now?’  I was amazed to hear also on the radio news this morning that retail shops and hotels in London are complaining that the expected crowds of tourists haven’t materialised.  I’m not surprised about the shops incidentally – most people are either in the Olympic Park or sitting in front of a television somewhere.  Did anyone really expect tourists to come here during the Olympics and to spend all their time in the shops?  But they interviewed a hotelier who complained that he had just had to reduce his tariff from £500 a night to around £100.  I wonder whether putting his prices up 500% in the first place might have discouraged one or two people.

It may be true that there are not so many people about, but I am pleased to see that venues are on the whole packed now and there are few empty seats.  I think that the Olympics just took a while to get properly underway.  Or maybe there weren’t so many people wanting to watch unheard-of athletes in preliminary competitions.  But I was certainly struck in my one foray so far (to the tennis) by the feeling of there being such an entity as an Olympic family.  It’s a horrible term maybe, but there was a friendship and a sense of something shared at the matches I watched, with jokey rival chanting for GB or another team.  And on the next court to ours there was a match between India and the Netherlands, where half the audience was Dutch and half Indian (no doubt from the Indian community in Britain), and the noise was extraordinary.  It struck me then how much this Olympics is more than just Team GB performing in Britain.

But the radio news went on unwisely to add that visitors have been put off coming to London by stories of security concerns, transport problems or weather.  Hang on a mo, I thought.  Where did these stories come from?  Exactly.  This is another case of the media creating self-fulfilling prophesies, talking up issues and fears when they have nothing else to write about and then claiming there actually is a disaster when that story has run long enough.  

The same applies to the question I heard on one of those awful radio chat shows the other day.  ‘Do you think the Olympics is going to help Britain out of the recession or will it add to our economic burden?’  I don’t think these are opposites exactly anyway, but still I don’t recall, when we won the lottery to host the Olympics, anyone predicting that all our economic problems would now be solved either.  Similarly, I don’t think anyone predicted a retail boom.  What was suggested though was that in London this summer (if you can call it that) there was to be one long festival of arts and culture.  There are in other words many other things going on apart from the Olympics and it is then, when the Games have ended, that perhaps people will be wandering the streets and popping into shops and restaurants.  Let’s see if that happens . . .

But there is another question here.  I do understand a little how sponsorship works and how it pays to have a few ‘official sponsors’ rather than lots of competing companies at an event like the Olympics.  But I just wonder whether we have thought this through fully.  There have been so many cases of shops having window displays removed (for displaying the wrong company names with Olympic logos) or athletes prevented from showing the names of their own sponsors (where not official sponsors) or rival company names being obscured, that it is clear that sponsorship agreements have become too draconian.  See here for more details.

Apparently, even using the incorrect terms to refer to the Olympics can mean that you are breaking the law (hence the (safe) title of this post).  But it is the width of the ‘exclusion zone’ that is so extraordinary.  I thought it just plain silly at Wimbledon that Pimms was not permitted to display its brand name and therefore called itself ‘No 1 Cup’, as though that made some sort of difference.  Nearly everyone knew what it was anyway and simply asked at the bar for Pimms.  I heard one foreign visitor ask what No 1 Cup was and the barman said, ‘oh, it’s Pimms’.  So what did hiding the brand name achieve?  

But it became perfectly clear what sponsors’ aims are, when, at Lords cricket ground this morning (where the archery is being held), a BBC commentator had his umbrella confiscated because it displayed a company name that wasn’t a sponsor.  Isn’t this ludicrous?!  The most important objective for sponsors therefore is not the Olympics, nor even advertising; it is restricting the activities of its rivals.  This apparently is a benefit big companies are willing to pay up to £100 million for.  The fact that rival companies are paying good money to sponsor athletes or that totally unrelated and non-rival companies, such as construction companies, have won contracts to supply products to the stadia, is beside the way; they must all be penalised to ensure a clear passage for the official sponsors.

So, I come back to the point about the absence of visitors.  If it really is a problem, don’t you think one of the things sponsors could usefully have done, in exchange for their sponsorship rights, is to promote the Olympics as an attraction and London as a place to visit?  Instead they seem to have operated the other way round – every view of the Olympics must have their companies’ names in sight, and athletes compete under the threat of punishment if they don’t comply, police must be taken from their usual tasks to penalise non-sponsoring companies on the sponsors’ behalfs, and whenever we wish to eat or drink, we must have sponsors’ logos flashed in front of our eyes, as if claiming credit for the meal, even if we actually eat and drink something else.  None of this seems to benefit the Games or even London.  It is no help to the authorities, athletes or spectators.  And apparently not to hotels and shops either.  In fact, since the sponsors have so little time left from their war on rivals to promote either London or the Olympics, the opposite seems to be true.

The Olympics is of course an international event, so sponsors don’t have to be strongly associated with the country hosting the Games, but, given that we are trying to present a welcoming image of London and UK, it does seem odd to me that we can’t sell bitter, or Pimms (except under a pseudonym), or sausage and mash, or Marmite on toast, etc at venues - all those things in fact that make Britain the desirable place to visit that it is.  Sponsoring companies paid tens of millions for the privilege of displaying their names; we possibly spent all of those receipts on policing the sponsorship terms, penalising innocent members of the public, and obliterating from view names that the sponsors didn’t like.  Can it be so much worse if we have lots of local sponsors paying smaller sums each for the benefit of providing food and drink that we actually want and sports equipment that we actually use and maybe some hotels and shops that we want visitors to patronise too?

A SPOT OF PORRIDGE

When I retired, I decided that the last thing I wanted to be was one of those old men who always seem to have blood on their collar from a shaving accident or a tuft of hair where they had missed shaving or spots of food down their front.  I don't really care about me, but I know that I find it a little unpleasant when I meet someone like that, so I didn't want to inflict my unkempt self on friends and relations.

But is there an etiquette for this?  I mean, if you come across someone who's a bit sloppy like that, should you tell them?  Because of my intentions, I always look in the mirror before I go out or visitors come into the house.  I don't examine myself minutely; I don't expect anyone meeting me to do so either, but I do check that I don't have blood visible on me, or a dirty shirt, or buttons in the wrong buttonholes, or zips undone, etc.  Apart from not wishng to upset people who see me, I'd be mortified afterwards if I discovered something had been amiss.

I saw a film recently, no idea what it was called, but in it a character said that he was able to resist a tongue-lashing from an authority figure because the man had a crumb stuck to his lip that made him in practice a figure of fun, of derision.  If being careless about one's appearance can have that much impact, I guess we should not let people blunder on unaware. 

On the other hand, there must be a time and a place to break the news.  I mean, what does the poor person do in public?  Wouldn't it more embarrassing to discover the offending item in front of several people?  And what if they could then do little about cleaning up the offending mess at that moment; wouldn't it be worse for them to continue showing themselves to people, once they knew how they looked?

I had to attend a meeting the other day at which one of the other participants had what looked like a whole spoonful of porridge down the front of his jumper.  It distracted me throughout the meeting.  I kept thinking, how does someone go out in the morning without noticing that his plain coloured sweater now has a pattern?  But I didn't tell him at the meeting.  I wasn't sure what he could have done about it there and then.  And anyway, how embarrassed would he have been?  But then I thought, well, if he hadn't noticed it up until that point, nor throughout the meeting, maybe he would put his sweater in the washing machine later and never see it.

What would you have done?

ANY PORT IN A STORM

First impressions - left the aircraft and walked into a building site.  I first came to Portugal 15 years ago and it was the same then.  When are they going to finish building this country?

Everywhere you look is cloudless sky.  Usual hanging around for slow passengers, bus driver, traffic, etc, so that it was dark by the time we hit the resort.  Glorious sunset though.  Palm trees, cactus, bougainvilea, villas with pillars, soft furnishings on terraces, etc give the lie to the climate.  There is apparently a drought here.  I shall be concerned about that when I get home.  I'm guessing I might be cold when I get home too (just seen it's minus 10 near where we live!).

So far, not only no rain, but only one cloud (might have been a vapour trail).  Have found fabulous walk over cliffs and rocks with 'secret' beaches to Albufeira, about 3 miles away.  Made it in under an hour today (despite having to fight through bamboo forest where beach was inexplicably closed, a climb over a fence and a walk through a hotel car park).  Quick beer and a bica at the fish market and then 40 mins back over the so-called cliff walk (it was a main road).

Also visited Sangres, Lagos, Cape St Vincent (most westerly point on European mainland), and somewhere else (sorry, forgotten the name for the moment).  Interesting historical insight (if a bit vague on the geography). 

Fado night last night, bit like chansons or enka - really enjoyable, but too much sangria (in Her humble opinion).  Probably off to a Japanese restaurant tonight (but no sake apparently).  As you can tell, appetite returned with a vengeance.  Not sure about some coffees yet, but bica is fabulous!  Found a rather good local wine too at less than 3 Euros, which just happens to be my sort of price.  All this talk of food and drink is making me peckish, so must go.  Have discovered white port too BTW and several other flavoured varieties - one of the benefits of visiting a vineyard . . . .  The drought doesn't seem to have affected the orange harvest incidentally, there are great bags of giant juicy fresh fruit hanging from every gate.  I expect they'll be giving them away by the end of the week.

Tomorrow I'm planning a more relaxed day, although I expect I'll manage to wander down the beach cafe and get Katherine to bring me a bica or two.  Then I might wander over to the bowling green and have another while I watch the bowling.  Then I suppose it'll be time to struggle along to the restaurant for a serrano sandwich and a beer.  Of course that's only if it doesn't rain . . .

I'M HAVING A P

I know - I’m supposed to be working.  Just going to start now.  Oh, it’s lunch time.  

 

I looked at myself in the mirror last night before going to bed and was shocked to see how much skin I had.  Reminded me of that baby pug that appears on cute birthday cards – all folds and no bulk.  Still, now the malarial hue has receded, I don’t look a survivor from Changi any more.  That's a lot of ribs though.

Thanks to my friend Gael, I’ve now overcome this lack of interest in food.  At least, I’ve found a solution.  It was enjoying those pies yesterday that pointed the way.  From now on, I shall only eat food beginning with ‘P’.  This means I only have to look in the refrigerator and think about how to spell the food and not whether I fancy it or not.  As I think I said, most things seem to taste OK, so eating is not a problem, if I remember to do it.  But now I have an incentive!  Of course, Pinot Grigio is still a bit of a problem – I have discovered I don’t like that any more, but I’ve found some Pinotage in the cellar, so that’s going to be my tipple tonight.  Fingers crossed.

I started my day with Puffs (Sugar) and then moved on to Pepper Houmous.  This is a delight of red peppers and chilli in a bed of humus.  I spread it thick on Poppyseed bread, which seemed to work.  I washed that down with Powdered coffee which I seem to like too.  So far, so good. 

I’ve just found some Port Salut and Plum and Port Jelly in the frig.  I think it must have been left over from Christmas.  Not sure about the jelly, but the cheese was fabulous.  Mmmm.  I had a Pear with another chunk of Port Salut to make sure I was getting my 5 a day.  That was rather nice too.

I'm now going to warm up a carton of Plum Tomato and Basil soup, because it’s got a little cold here.  Tonight we’re having another Pie (Cottage), so that’s appropriate.  I think we have some Peas (Sugar snap) in the cupboard too.  I shan’t bother to tell you about this any more; I expect you’re as bored with it as I am.  I'm eating now anyway, so that's all on that subject.  I’ll write about something else in future. 

I’ve seen many diets publicised in the papers from time to time.  They will all work, provided you get the exercise that goes with them.  Sitting in an armchair and stuffing yourself with fruit is no different, or better, than sitting there and stuffing yourself with carbs.  And Veggie diets are just twice as hard, since, as well as being hungry, you keep dreaming of sausages.  So, forget the Vegan diet, I think I can safely recommend the P-Gan diet. 

APPETITE FOR LIFE

Quite a lot has been written about acquired tastes.  I find it interesting that children don’t immediately like some foods, or love others, and then change.  Over Christmas, Isaac said quite clearly, ‘I love Cheddar cheese.  But I don’t like Caerphilly cheese.’  In fact he said it so often that we had to tell him to change the record.  Anyway, it turns out he’d never actually tried Caerphilly cheese and, when persuaded to try it, had to be stopped from eating the whole block.  Actually there is very little he doesn’t like eventually.  Meanwhile, Tom likes Philadelphia cheese sandwiches and Marmite rice cakes and pasta with pesto, but it’s the devil’s own job to get him to even try anything else.  And that’s usually accompanied by all sorts of ‘yuk!’ noises. 

 

And of course there’s the whole child/adult thing – kids tend not to like Cabernet Sauvignon or Brussels sprouts until patiently forced into them.  Later they come to love them both (or else).  Actually, now I’ve tried raw vitamin K as a sprout substitute, my mind is wavering a little and I keep thinking of that liquid stuff when I look at sprouts.  So ‘Yuk!’

In fact, I have to say, my taste has changed entirely.  It’s a very strange thing.  I still have no appetite at all.  At meal times, I try very hard to think of something I fancy, but the only thing I seem to come up with is sausage casserole, that dish that was the first I ate when I stopped being NBM.  Perhaps I have to re-eat everything I’ve ever eaten to get my taste buds and imagination working again?  There’s not too much wrong with my taste buds in fact; many things I’ve been given to eat have been quite tasty.  But some are still so-so.

I went into the café at the hospital the other day to wait for my old lady and ordered a flat white.  It wasn’t very nice.  This morning, as I usually do on a Saturday, I went to a café and tried a latte with a shot of vanilla.  That was OK.  But it didn’t make we want to go back anytime soon for another one.  What’s going on?  

Friday I had a glass of Pinot Grigio.  It didn’t really do much for me.  On our walk last week, I had a speculative half of HSB (the local brew), when I might perhaps have fancied a tomato juice (horror of horrors!), and it tasted so nice that I ordered the other half.  I also ordered the steak and ale pie and chips that the other two had ordered, because I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted to eat.  And that was delicious too.  So some things are working.  But ask me now what I’d like to eat and drink and I suspect steak and ale pie and HSB won’t be very high up the list.  But then nothing will be HIGH on any list.  Doesn’t it make you feel sad?!  On the other hand, I don’t think I really care very much.  But last night I tried a drop of Rioja and that was lovely!  I’m going to try another tonight if I can be bothered.

So maybe I've reverted to childhood.  Perhaps I should try Philladelphia cheese sandwiches?

Tonight, to celebrate Chinese New Year, we’re having spring rolls, sweet and sour something and black bean sauce or some such stuff like that.  I don’t know. 

Tags: food, illness

WE ALL LIKE FIGGY PUDDING

I'm afraid I've been hors de combat for a few days.  I think I ate something that wasn't quite cooked or fresh or something.  You remember Kane on that spaceship, just before the alien burst out of his body?  I have been feeling a bit like that.
 
It hasn't been a good time to attend two formal dinners and two more Christmas parties.  But I struggled through.  What's the good of entering the Christmas season if you have to cut down on things like pork pies and wine!!!  And if I see another cup of camomile tea, I might throw it through the window.

Anyway, things are still not quite right, but I think I might give up everything planned for this weekend and take it easy for a couple of days.  When here, it's been a hot infusion of some sort and off to bed.  There's worse ways to spend Christmas I suppose.

The weekend before last I was over in Kent.  Wonderful Japanese dinner (that's the second this Christmas.  I think it's the recession - everyone economising with fish).  Then I think I played bridge for 3 days.  Bit of a blur that part.  But here's me receiving my second prize during the event.  Two prizes!  You should see my face!!  Then I had to make a presentation to the Board at my local charity.  They accepted everything I said.  Hooray!  So more celebrating necessary now . . .  Probably more work too.  What have I let myself in for?

Last weekend I was up in Croydon.  I then had to catch a bus from there at some unearthly hour of the morning to take me to a conference in Cambridge.  The conference was great - 200 walkers sharing stories and advice ('don't forget your boots', 'keep away from the cliff edge', 'that wine's better than that one'.  You can see I learned well).  Anyway, only time to take one pic.  This is from my room at sunset.  Lovely, isn't it.

People round today which was nice, if time consuming.  Then tomorrow and Friday a couple more parties.  It must be nearing Christmas by now.  I don't really understand what's happening this year.  We might go away for next Christmas to get away from all this; it's far too festive for me.

Anyway, that's me up to date.  I'll try to get back online in a day or two.  As Sally Phillips would say on Miranda, 'Bear with, bear with.'

FLAGGING AT MEALTIMES

Grumpy Old Man Blog #31

Don't you just hate children. You look after them, you help them learn about life, you rescue them when they get it wrong, you forgive them, you pick up the pieces, you make food for them, you scrape it off the floor for them afterwards, and then, when you take them to a restaurant, how do they pay you back for all your sacrifices? they get given a unique menu with sausages or fish fingers and chips! And do you think I can join them? Oh no, no sausages or fish fingers for you, because 'they’re for children'! Isn't that ageism? Or parentism? Or grandparentism? It's discrimination anyway.

When I was in Japan, it was just the same. There, the kids also had a flag on a little cocktail stick stuck in their sausage. OK, I didn't mind not having the mini-hamburger and spoonful of spaghetti in tomato sauce, but would they let me have a sausage. No, they wouldn't. I couldn't even get a flag in my dinner. Not even a Zimbabwe flag!

I suppose it's not the children's fault. Maybe it's just the blatant discrimination I rail against. I don't have to have a tiny square plastic plate with a picture of Mr Greedy on it (although I wouldn't mind too much if they gave me one), but, if they have sausages on the menu and if they actually cook them and serve them to some customers, why can't they serve them to me?
 

Of course I don't overly object to eating confit of duck or seabass with lemongrass, but just occasionally a sausage would go down handsomely. And I wouldn't even think of sausages, once I've seen duck on the menu, but then I see 'Children's menu – sausages and chips'. And, now I come to think about it, maybe fish fingers and chips would satisfy my appetite better than seabass. But do you think I can have them? No, of course not; not even if I pay the same price as the seabass! Not even if I bring my own flag (I have a little collection of flags I borrowed from children's plates in Japan). But what sort of criminal, customer-unfriendly, non-service, age- intolerant bigotry is this?

All right, so I don't really hate children. But why do they have to be so smug when they order the fish fingers and then look at you and ask, 'what are you going to have?' Arrggghhhh! Not only that, I noticed a child ordering the duck confit the other day and the waitress said, 'of course, sir.' So they can have my food, but I can't have theirs. And 'sir' to boot!! Not 'little chap' or 'young man' or even 'selfishly usurping whipper-snapper'.

On the other hand, if kids can have the adult meals, who's to know if I order one adult's and one sausage and chips?! Now there's a project for me. I wonder how long it'll take to wean my grandkids onto confit of duck.