Genius at the Angel, Islington
It has been increasingly difficult to buy Genius bread in Suffolk lately. But there was plenty in the small gluten-free section at Waitrose at the Angel. So I brought one back for my breakfast.
An Objective in Life!
Last night, I was writing to a friend about the pubs near to my new house. I said the following.
My local is just four doors away, but it needs educating. All it serves is crap upside-down lager and chemical cider. But there are a few Adnams pubs within a few minutes walk. And most Adnams pubs serve the best cider in the world, Aspall, which has been crafted in Suffolk since 1728.
Perhaps my first objective in life is to celebrate their tri-centenary. I’ll only be 81!
I used to worry that because my father and his father died so young, that I might suffer the same fate. But now I’m more optimistic, especially as I’e found out that most of my grandfather’s brothers and my mother and both grandmothers, lived either well into their eighth decade or even into their ninth.
So perhaps, it’s an objective I stand a chance of fulfilling. I’m certainly going to give it a good shot!
Is it Me or My Cooking Skills?
I sometimes blame the stroke for my clumsiness, but I’m not sure it’s always to blame.
Take lunch today, when I thought I’d have some smoked salmon with scrambled egg. You’d think that the most difficult job would be cracking the eggs without getting any shell into the basin to mix them all up with a bit of milk and some salt and pepper. But no, it was separating the smoked salmon from it’s packaging. I had to pull it to open the outside packaging, which actually wasn’t too difficult, but I couldn’t get the slices apart without ending up with effectively minced salmon on the plate.
Now my mother taught me how to crack eggs and always said you should crack them into a cup first. But remember in those far off days of the 1950s, you occasionally got an egg with a chick inside it. They smelt something rotten too! So I often still crack them into a cup first, so that if I make a hash of it and get half the shell in it, I can get another cup and start again. But of the perhaps several dozen eggs I’ve cracked since the stroke, I’ve only had to go fishing for bits of shell in perhaps one or two. That would have been about the same number as before.
On the other hand, no-one has ever taught me how to disentangle smoked salmon from its tight packaging. So I’ve just learned badly on the job.
Now when it comes to cooking one of my fish pies, they seem very little different than before, except that I do have problems mashing the potatoes, which might be understandable. Or it might be that I just have very bad basic cooking skills! On the other hand I don’t have any problems peeling potatoes, but I think it was something my mother taught me when I was quite young.
So could it be that things taught to you as a small child, stay with you no matter what happens?
All comments are welcome!
Recession! What Recession?
Or is it just that some people have more money than sense!
But why are people paying £129 for one of Heston Blumental’s christmas puddings, that he created for Waitrose? The story is here in the Daily Mail.
I don’t care and I suspect it’s not gluten free!
My Gluten-Free Diet
I think it is true to say that as time has gone on, I’ve cut out more and more manufactured gluten-free foods.
Take tonight after a trip to London to look over my new house, I needed a quick supper, so I warmed through a Moroccan chicken casserole and cooked some rice. None of the ingredients are specifically processed to be gluten-free and most of the basic ingredients can be obtained in most good food stores. So I did use rice. chicken and apricots that were organic from Waitrose, but that has nothing to do with being a coeliac.
I got to thinking today, about obtaining my gluten-free supplies, when I move. The nearest shops to where I will be living are in Kingsland Road in Dalston.
So what specific gluten-free food do I buy?
- Genius bread
- Greens gluten-free beer.
- Doves farm pasta and flour.
- Waitrose gluten-free cakes and biscuits.
- Life free-from Worcester sauce.
I suppose you can include St. Helen’s Farm goats milk and yoghurt, Wilkins jams, marmalades and tomato sauce, and Aspall cyder, but these are a matter of personal taste rather than a strict diet.
In a quick recce of Sainsburys in the Kingsland Road, I found that they had a free-from section, that was even selling the Greens beer, which is something my local one in Haverhill doesn’t. So for some products, I may need to go on an expedition to Waitrose in the Holloway Road or at the Angel, but it will be nice to have some basic products within ten minutes walk. I haven’t lived close to a supermarket, since we lived in St. John’s Wood in the early 1970s. Although we were close to Whitecross Street Market when we lived in the Barbican.
Farewell Bernard Matthews
It has been announced today that Bernard Matthews has died at the age of 80 on Thanksgiving Day. Rather appropriate in that his company is one of the largest producers of turkeys in Europe. I think it is true to say, that we’ll never see another like him, which is a pity! His company may have sold the infamous turkey twizzlers, but that is more than offset many times by his charity work.
A Solution to Binge Drinking?
Nick Sheron is a doctor, who specialises in liver disease. So when he makes a proposal about how alcohol should be taxed, we should take notice.
Read what he says in the Daily Telegraph. As a control engineer by training, I like his solution which optimses the reduction of alcohol intake against the Government tax take.
Let’s hope the Government listens, as his proposal might cut problem drinking and help to save pubs with landlords who want to provide customers with good beer and cider and a relaxed atmosphere.
.
An Edinburgher Makes Peace with Glasgow
Gavin Mackay successfully makes sausages in South Korea. He had a bit of a problem with the seasoning and eventually found one in Glasgow. This he admitted is very unusual for a man from Edinburgh, as ne’er the twain shall agree!
Designer Spirits from Suffolk
I suppose if you’re going to launch a new product in the midst of a recession, gin, vodka and whiskey might be a place to start.
But these are not cheap products, but top of the range ones from Adnams.
When I started drinking in the 1960s. the brewery from Southwold had only a dozen or so pubs. Now over forty years later, Adnams has cemented its place in drinking fokelore as probably the best pint in the civilised world. I just hope that in the next few years, they try to create the first gluten-free real ale. If anybody could do it, then they probably can, as they are a company that when it has an idea, does it in style with the best technology available.
Carliuccio’s Gluten-Free Offering Gets Wider
I had to go to Addenbrooke’s today and as no-one could bring me home as it was a late appointment, I decided to go to Carluccio’s in Cambridge before and have a decent lunch.
They have added some good soups to the menu, by making the standard ones gluten-free and deleting the bread. In other words they hit both markets. I followed it with veal with a caper and tuna mayonnaise. It wasn’t on the gluten-free menu but it was on the specials and gluten-free. Veal may not be to everyone’s taste, but it was very good.
So they seem to be making a statement about how to serve coeliacs.
The Anonymous Widower 