East Coast’s New Menu
On my trip to Leeds on Saturday, I was able to look at East Coast‘s new menu.
I didn’t actually eat anything on the train, except for an EatNakd bar I took with me, as I had good breakfast before I left and knew I was going to be having a sensible lunch before the football.
However, the menu now has a couple of gluten-free items marked as such. One was a lamb shank, which I do like although last time I tried it, my hand wasn’t up to eating it. It’s got better in the last few months, so I suspect, it might be better.
If I had wanted to have one on the way home, I wouldn’t have been able, as there was no chef on the train. Sadly none of the snacky offerings were gluten free, although there was a chicken korma, which probably was gluten-free, but wasn’t marked as such.
But Leeds is only a two and a half hour journey and as there are restaurants at both ends, it is not the most important route for catering, as far as I’m concerned.
Subway
I’ve never eaten in a subway, although I once ate a home-made gluten-free sandwich under an underpass on the way to football in the rain, as it was the only shelter I could find.
Apparently, they’ve just overtaken McDonalds in size. So who cares? I don’t, as I don’t usually eat in gluten-rich, American fast food joints. I might have the odd chip and orange juice in a McDonalds, as these are probably safe for me, but after reading Lisa Markwell‘s piece in yesterday’s Independent, I’ll give Subway a wide berth.
It ends with.
Subway has 1,400 branches across Britain. The experience reminds me of that old joke, “Waiter, waiter, this food is terrible … and there’s not enough of it’. To use the damning verdict of the critic: avoid.
I will bow to her better judgement as a respected food critic.
The Best £1.85 Capuccino in London!
Possibly! No! Probably! Today I was cold and as I walked through the Thames Barrier Park back from the Thames Barrier to Pontoon Dock station, I had one in the cafe in the park. It was in a china mug too!
The Cafe in the Thames Barrier Park
I’ve not had one better, since I had one for a Euro in the backstreets of Naples over three years ago.
Shopping on the Bus
I tend to do one big shop a week early on Tuesday or Wednesday morning, as that means I can enjoy Waitrose in Upper Street, without queuing too long and then walk to an empty 38 or 56 bus to get me home.
A Week's Shopping
The bags this week weighed 12.1 kilos between them, but as I only have to walk about 200 metres in total and then carry them upstairs, the exercise is probably good for me. I could order on line, but then I like to see what I buy first.
You’ll notice I use a Tesco long-life bag. It’s the easiest to carry, with large comfortable handles.
Getting Musks Sausages in London
I like my sausages and they have to be gluten-free. But finding my preferred brand of Musks in London is difficult. It used to be that you could buy them in some Waitrose shops and I definitely saw some in Canary Wharf. But after a trip on Friday especially to the shop, they were no longer there.
I could get them mail order, but really I only like to buy a pack occasionally and don’t want to buy a freezer full.
So does anybody know a shop that sells Musks gluten-free sausages in London.
I can get Black Farmer ones in Sainsburys at Upper Street, but although I like them, I prefer the Musks, as they are not so filling.
Update on the 10th March 2011 – I’ve found some in the Brunswick Branch. The only trouble is that that is an expensive Waitrose to visit, as I can’t resist buying a snack or even lunch in the Carluccio’s there.
Pork Chops with Cyder Apple Sauce
This yet another of Lindsey Bareham ‘s recipes that I’ve cooked in the past, but in the move the cutting seems to have disappeared. However, I did find it on the web.
The ingredients are as follows and the quantities serve four.
- 4 thick pork loin chops
- 1 tbsp groundnut or sunflower oil for the apple sauce:
- 2 Bramley cooking apples
- 1 medium wine glass of cider
- 25g butter
- 1 tbsp sugar
The method is as follows.
- Heat the oven to 400F/200C/gas mark 6.
- Begin with the apple sauce. Peel, core and quickly chop the apples. Place in a pan with the cider. Cover and boil hard for about 5 minutes until the apple is collapsed. Stir in the butter and sugar to make a fluffy sauce. Keep warm or allow to cool; I like hot chops and cold sauce.
- Prepare the chops by cutting down the rind in 3 or 4 places right to the meat, so that when the chops cook they don’t buckle. Season the chops with sea salt, rubbing salt into the rind. Heat the oil in an ovenproof frying pan and fry the chops for 2 minutes a side.
- Finish the cooking in the hot oven, leaving the chops for 5-10 minutes, depending on thickness, until cooked through and the rind crisp. Transfer to a warm plate and leave to rest for 10 minutes before serving with the apple sauce and mashed or new potatoes.
I’m afraid that I haven’t got an ovenproof frying pan, so I just fried the chops in a little olive oil in my non-stick one.
Junk Through the Letter Box
Every time I get letters out of my box, there are at least four copies of leaflets there, which have been left by restaurants that don’t do gluten-free, mini-cabs that I won’t use etc.
When are these people going to learn something about marketing and target their junk? At least it’s recyclable!
Google is as Useless as Oxford Street
My kitchen isn’t the best from a layout point of view.
A Useless Bin and Vegetable Rack
Note the bin, which deserves to be shot and the rather dainty vegetable rack, placed in the only space I have for them in my kitchen.
To show that I’m not being vindictive, I will start by detailing all of the faults.
- The bin doesn’t take standard plsstic bags from the major supermarkets.
- The lid doesn’t stay up, so when I fish a tea-bag out from a cup, I have to balance the bag all the way across the kitchen to dispose of it. Look at the tea stains on the floor in the picture.
- Every time I take one of the plastic inserts out of the bin, I catch my fingers. Ladies would break their nails regularly. I just trap fingers, which is not good if you’re on Warfarin.
- The vegetable rack has all the stability of a blancmange.
- The rack is too wide for the kitchen and effectively blocks the drawers. That’s my fault and I shouldn’t have bought it. But it was the only one I could find!
I’m working on the bin, but surely what is needed is a simple wall-mounted rack for the vegetables.
So yesterday, I started up one end of Oxford Street and walked to the other looking for a better rubbish bin and vegetable rack. It was just more of the same bad designs.
This morning I’ve typed “wall-mounted vegetable rack” into Google and the search finds lot of entries, but none are wall-mounted vegetable racks. Ty it, if you want a laugh! One entry from Trovit Homes, says that I can buy a wall-mounted vegetable rack from £229950. To put it mildly, the Internet is being ruined by charlatan companies, who get you high positions in the search results.
In fact, I did get one good idea. The shopping baskets in the food hall of John Lewis would make an ideal vegetable basket for my kitchen. I didn’t even bother to ask if I could buy them, as I suspect they have no mechanism to sell me one. I tried to buy one of IKEA’s in-house bins once and they said no.
Nicole Kidman and Infertility
On my travels yesterday, I caught a headline on somebody else’s Metro, detailing Nicole Kidman’s struggle with infertility. The full story is here.
I hope she’s had her B12 levels checked. I’ve met several female coeliacs, who had all sorts of problems with carrying a baby. You just need the B12 to create a hPregnancyealthy foetus. There’s a lot of stuff on the Internet and this post is quite detailed.
If I look at my family and particularly the male line, which probably carries my coeliac genes, instances of any women giving birth are rare.
Royal Wedding Sick Bag
It just had to happen.
I shan’t be watching and I can’t say I’ve ever watched a Royal Wedding or Funeral before.
I shall be doing something much more positive, like cooking or going to IKEA
The Anonymous Widower 