Getting the Hang of IKEA
I need to order a washer/dryer as the current setup is tedious, slow and a bit difficult with the clothes washer in the hall cupboard with the boiler and the dryer in the garage. Every time I transfer clothes in and out, I seem to bump my head somewhere or lose socks on the floor.
After my experiences with John Lewis and Dixons, I thought the best thing to do was go and see the various washer/dryers on offer at Currys at Tottenham Hale. Quite frankly I wasn’t impressed, as they are all large and I just want a smaller one, as anything other than my smalls and towels goes to the excellent laundry. I also wanted to get a prescription, so Tottenham Hale was a good cjoice as there is a Boots there. It’s also just a bus ride to Highbury Corner and then three stops on the Victoria line.
I did notice one disadvantage of not driving at Tottenham Hale.
Where's the crossing?
This was the drive-in lane to Burger King. So if you want to get fat, eat lots of gluten and die before your time, you might take a pedestrian with bad eyesight with you, if you drive to get your burgers.
From Tottenham Hale I took the 192 bus to IKEA, as I needed a couple of bits for the kitchen. I also bought an assortment of picture hooks in a box. But the surprise was lunch, which was a bottle of Belvoir ginger beer and some gravadlax. All gluten-free of course. So I’m now finding IKEA a lot more friendly.
It was then back on the 192 and then the Victoria line to Seven Sisters, where I took a bus to Stoke Newington to pick up some paintings I’ve had framed, including one of my mother, by her brother from A & B Framing.
A & B Framing, Stoke Newington
I’ll admit I did struggle home with the framing and the stuff from IKEA. But I did make it and my mother and her cousin and sister-in-law are now reunited on the wall in my living room.
Cousins Reunited
Judging by the date on the drawing, my mother, who is on the left, was around four at the time. The caption is explained by the fact that my uncle, Leslie, married his first cousin, Gladys.
Calorie Counts on Menus
The government has agreed with the Food Network, that calorie counts are to be included on menus.
Surely, it would be better to have a special scanner on the entrance to establishments, such as McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, which decide whether you are allowed in or not!
On the other hand, some are so obese that they can’t manage the walk from their obese 4×4 to the door of the establishment.
Return to The Talbot
I ate in The Talbot at 109 Mortimer Road in de Beauvoir Town, Hackney N1 4DY for the second time last night. They remembered from my first visit that I was a coeliac, although I had said when I booked earlier in the day. The waitress, who is Italian and has a pregnant coeliac friend back home, then checked the menu with the chef. She came back and told me that only one dish from about twenty or so contained gluten and that was the vegetarian option.
In the end, I had a polenta and potato cake with mushrooms, followed by baked hake on mashed potato and greens.
If you don’t know the area, it’s just a few minutes walk from the new Dalston Junction station. Parking is easy. It’s also on the 76 bus route out of the City.
If you are or are not a coeliac, it’s definitely worth a visit.
Carluccio’s Gluten-Free Pasta
Here it is in its packaging in Upper Street.
Carluccio's Gluten-Free Pasta
I don’t know whether this is the final packaging, but at least it stands out from the other pasta.
The Gluten-Free Championship
i have been perhaps a bit hard on Barnsley, but how do all the other towns with clubs in the Championship stack up?
Here’s a list based on the current clubs in the Championship.
- Barnsley – I’ll post after Saturday, Not heard from the club about their executive catering. I’ve since found they do.
- Bristol City – Judging by the map, it would appear that there are many restaurants, including a Carluccio’s, within walking distance of the station and the ground.
- Burnley – I’ll be going on the second of March, so will report later.
- Cardiff –
- Crystal Palace – Restaurants including Carluccio’s on the way down
- Coventry – Nothing I can find except Pizza Express in the city centre. I must admit last time I went, Coventry was shut.
- Derby –
- Doncaster –
- Hull –
- Ipswich – Pizza Express, Loch Fyne and a couple of good Indians. Gluten-Free Meals Available in stadium restaurants
- Leeds –
- Leicester –
- Middlesbrough – Nothing I saw, but I ate with friends
- Millwall – Restaurants including Carluccio’s on the way down
- Norwich –
- Nottingham – I have found an excellent French bistro in the city.
- Portsmouth – There appeared to be nothing around the football club.
- Preston –
- QPR – Restaurants including Carluccio’s on the way over
- Reading –
- Scunthorpe – A gluten-free-free town
- Sheffield United – I’ve had a gluten-free meal before the match in a Greek cafe.
- Swansea –
- Watford –
I could add a few notes.
- I have eaten in football club restaurants before and like racecourse catering, they are expensive for what they are. I had one good meal in the main restaurant at Ipswich Town, but that was not football-related. So on balance, I will avoid them, unless I’m entertaining a friend or client.
- I’ve never yet found anything gluten-free in the normal catering outlets at a football ground, except perhaps Coca-Cola and coffee. It should be stated here, that Wembley is particularly unfriendly, which is a complete disgrace for England’s premier stadium.
- Carluccio’s is expanding and provides a gluten-free menu in all of their outlets. There are places too, with Pizza Express, where a gluten-free salad can usually be obtained.
- I should also add that some stadia like, Ipswich, Norwich, Burnley, Crystal Palace and others, are close to open spaces, rivers or canals, where you can sit and have a proper picnic.
But as you can see, the standard in some places just about scores zero out of ten.
The Link Between Junk Food and IQ
A study from the University of Bristol appears to show that children, who eat a lot of junk food, have lower IQ levels at eight.
Who’d have thought that all those burgers, sandwiches and breaded chicken were not good for you? After all they must be as when you travel around like I do, it is all I can find for lunch. So I take my own gluten-free meals. Perhaps most places are not as bad as Scunthorpe, but there are a few horrors out there.
It will be interesting to see if there is a correlation between children’s IQ and the quality of the special diets on offer in the location.
Pan-Fried Fish with Lemon Hollandaise Sauce
This recipe is double-nicked, in that I got it from Fish Fanatics and they got it from the Seafish Industry. I’ve just cooked it with the disaster-prone flour and it was definitely worth stealing. But as the real beneficiaries are the fishermen and their industry made up the recipe, does anybody really care?
The ingredients are as follows and the quantities serve two.
- 2 sole or plaice fillets, defrosted and skinned. I actually used haddock, line-caught of course
- 30g (1oz) plain flour
- salt and freshly milled black pepper
- 1 15ml spoon (1 tbsp) olive oil
- 30g (1oz) butter
- 125ml hollandaise sauce
- 1 15ml spoon (1 tesp) lemon juice
- fresh chopped parsley, to garnish
The method is as follows.
- Dip the fish in seasoned flour. Shake off any excess.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the butter. Cook each fillet for 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden brown.
- Add the hollandaise sauce and lemon juice. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.
- Garnish and serve with potatoes and green vegetables.
Guilty About An Act of Kindness
In Waitrose I was looking for some lemon juice, when something fell over (Not my fault at all! It was only a bag of seeds, that had a mind of my own!) So I apologised to a woman of about twenty-five or so standing next to me and said I was looking for the lemon juice and couldn’t see too well because I’d had a stroke. So if she saw it, would she tell me! The next thing I saw was that she’d asked a member of staff and then she had retrieved the lemon juice for me from another aisle.
I felt rather guilty about it all and did at least thank her. But probably not profusely enough, as I now feel even more guilty about not doing my own searching.
A Near Shopping Disaster
As I come home on the bus after shopping, I am very careful with certain items.
For example, I haven’t bought any gluten-free flour until now, as I’m frightened it might break in my bag. But I did today and it leaked. But luckily, I only had a few items in a Waitrose plastic bag and the flour stayed there.
The Anonymous Widower 