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
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 Anonymous Widower 