Feeling a little better
i’m actually writing this on the computer attsched to the hospital bed. So if it’s crap I apologise.
The care is excellent and I’ve had umpteen CT scsns. Chinese food makes excellent hospital, but then I knew that because when C. had our first child in the middlesex in London, there was a lady from the chinese legation in London who had her baby at the same time and she had her food brought in and shared it with everyone else.
The food is all gluten free.
Cynicism About Organic Foods
I should say before I continue, that I do buy organic foods.
But!
I am always suspicious that they don’t live up to the hype.
Take my supper yesterday. I ate several Jersey Royal potatoes, which were not organic. But they are produced by farmers who care about the quality of their product. They were exquisite.
Take just before Christmas. A farmer brought me some washed supermarket parsnips round, as a favour for his wife using a stable for a pony. They were much better than those you get from Waitrose or Sainbury’s, but that is where they would have ended up. However, that takes a couple of days, whereas they arrived from his field in a couple of hours.
So it seems that how the product is handled after picking is perhaps as important than what goes on before.
I suspect that it is more true with something like meat. After all I’ve kept animals for years and know that the better you treat them the better they perform. Or in the case of food animals, does that mean taste?
So where you know about the provenance of the animal and can trust the farmer are you getting a better and perhaps a more humanely kept product. After all organic means that some drugs used for medicinal purposes are banned. Is that humane?
So when I read this report in The Times yesterday, my cynicism was increased.
This says that a study by Professor Benton of Leeds University has shown that organic farms are not necessarily the best for wildlife.
The research found that organic farms had, on average, 12 per cent more biodiversity in terms of the number and variety of plants, birds, earthworms and insects. But the yield from organic fields was 55 per cent lower than from conventional fields growing similar crops in the same areas. While there were more plants and butterflies on organic farms, there was no difference in the number of bees and there were 30 per cent more hoverflies on conventional farms.
Organic fields contained more magpies and jays but 10 per cent fewer small birds such as yellowhammers, corn buntings, linnets, skylarks and lapwings. The researchers found that the larger birds, which were attracted to organic farms by their denser patches of woodland, were scaring away the smaller birds and preying on their nests.
It is all very interesting.
One point Professor Benton said was that greater benefits were detected where there were clusters of organic farms. That I would understand as in the studlands of Newmarket, there appears to be a much greater diversity than on ordinary agricultural land. That is also because horses are such inefficient grazers and leave lots for hares and deer.
Aux Armes de Bruxelles
It was very cold in Brussels, so I decided that it would not be a bad idea to have a good lunch in a warm restaurant.
I chose Aux Armes de Bruxelles.
Aux Armes de Bruxelles
It is quite an expensive restaurant, as one would expect if a past Kings of Belgium is amongst its former clients, but I chose the set lunch and a decent small carafe of white wine. There was a good choice and I had Ardennes ham followed by grilled salmon in a béarnaise sauce with boiled potatoes, and then ice cream. I followed it with coffee.
I thought it was reasonable at just under 28 euros.
As to being gluten-free, the waiter understood and I had no reaction at all.
Around Newcastle City Centre
I walked down from St. James’ Park to the centre of Newcastle.
These days city centres look very much the same with steel and glass shopping centres, although Newcastle does have quite a lot of grand stone buildings in an area called Grainger Town.
Stone Buildings in Newcastle City Centre
This is just a side street and there are a lot of grand building still left in the area, although T. Dan Smith and John Poulson would have probably knocked the lot down if they hadn’t got charged with corruption.
Luckily sense was seen and the area is now being restored.
But that didn’t stop this hideous edifice being erected by the Co-Op.
A Hideous Edifice
Can a building like this have ever looked good? Even as a set of drawings!
Do I have one abiding memory of Newmarket City Centre?
Yes! I’ve never been to a place with so much smell of chips and burgers.
Wonderful Building – Shame About the Contents
One of the places I wanted to see in Newcastle was the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.
It certainly is a magnificent building.
The trouble is the contents. And judging by the lack of visitors in the various galleries, the good people of Tyneside don’t think much of them either.
However the restaurant was good. Or certainly my venison was excellent. And it was gluten-free, of course!
I ate early, but by the time I left, the restaurant was full.
So perhaps if you give people what they want you attract the punters.
The Missing Sock
The Missing Sock is a strange name for a pub and it the new name of the old Prince Albert at Quy.
The Missing Sock
I did pop in after a game of tennis to enquire if they could do gluten-free food. Not sure if they are clued up or not!
But I’ll give them a try.
I do wonder though, if the amount of money they have spent on the pub might be wasted, as after all it is a pub you drive to and it may just be too remote. But they know about pubs and I don’t.
A Use for Muntjac
These imported deer are not the cuddly Bambis that some think they are. For a start, they are quite vicious and would give anything that tackled them a good mauling.
But the real reasons I don’t like them is the damage they do to trees is immense and round here in Suffolk, they cause no end of car accidents.
So when Alex James in the Independent says that they are nice to eat, I give a couple of cheers.
Heroic Stories?
Someone had an e-mail read out on BBC Radio 5 because they were having to take a train from Edinburgh to Nice. I’ve done most of that journey.
Here’s my reply.
A few weeks ago I had a small stroke and was banned from flying.
I went from Cambridge to Nice for a holiday and back by Eurostar and TGV. It wasn’t too bad, but TGV food is rubbish compared to Eurostar. Especially, if you’re a coeliac like me and need a gluten-free meal.
I’m off to Holland at the May Bank Holiday and booked the train, as I find short haul airlines not worth the hassle and I’m smuggling gluten-free bread mix back into the UK.
They didn’t read it out.
You may ask why I’m smuggling gluten-free bread mix into the UK. My prefered mix, Dr. Schar, is now no longer available in the UK.
Tuna Steak with Tomatoes and Mushrooms
I found this recipe in a blog called Dining Alone. I know the feeling!
She got it from a book by Robin Miller, so to put it up again may be a bit like overkill. As it is an American recipe it’s all cups and ounces. And you know how I feel about non-Metric units! But Robin does have several recipes for people like me; impatient, bad cooks who like good food.
So I used the basis of the recipe to create a sauce for my tuna steak. It was good.
First I pan-fried the seasoned tuna steak for a couple of minutes either side in a small amount of olive oil and then put it aside.
Then in the same frying pan, I took some very nice chestnut mushrooms that I’d bought in the Farmer’s Market at Wickhambrook and sliced and fried them in the pan with a few chopped shalots. Note that I have one of Delia’s little choppers, which I used for the shalots.
Some dried thyme was then added and stirred in. FinallyI put a small tin of chopped tomatoes, a couple of slurps of white wine and the tuna in the pan and simmered it for five minutes.
It was delicious and to make matters better, all I had to wash up was one small frying pan.
A Gluten-Free Lunch at Newmarket
I went to Newmarket races this afternoon. Judging by the number of cars in the car park, a lot of other people had the same idea. I blame the sunshine! It was cold though, but people were wrapped up well, as this photo shows.
Newmarket Races
Note the large number of cars in the background.
I needed lunch and went to the Bistro. If I’d done this some years ago and asked if the liver was gluten-free, I’d have got a blank look. But for the last couple of years, they’ve known what was in any of the meals.
The liver was excellent and as I was driving I washed it down with a pint of Diet Coke. The cost was even reasonable for a racecourse, or even any sit-down meal with service, at twenty pounds. That service was very much on the good side of four out of five.
They only charged two pounds for the Coke, which is about the same you’ll pay for it in a motorway service station. And in that case you don’t get a glass and you have to pour it yourself.
The Anonymous Widower 