They’ve Got Blue Honey In France
This sounds a rather weird story and it’s all here on the BBC web site.
Perhaps the French bees have got the blues over Francois Hollande!
Hospital Food
I’ve had a bit of that in the last few years and as a coeliac, it’s general been rather poor.
But perhaps I was lucky compared to the lady with coeliac disease in this story. This is an extract.
When she was in hospital a few years ago, she was shocked by the food she was served.
“I was offered toast, but I can’t eat that. I need gluten-free bread. They didn’t have the porridge oats which I can eat, so I ended up with a boiled egg.”
And the subsequent meals did not improve either, despite the fact Kathleen had confirmed she was coeliac when she was first admitted.
“Lunch was fish fingers, which I couldn’t eat because of the breadcrumbs. They asked me why I couldn’t just pick them off.
“At dinner time they put gravy on my dinner and a Yorkshire pudding on the plate too. Because of the contamination risk, I couldn’t eat any of it.”
A friend, who used to work in a hospital always said that the most likely place to get ill, is a hospital.
Instructions For The Stupid
I made my fish supper last night and used these beans.
Instructions For The Stupid
Note on the packet it says when you boil them, that you should remove them from the packaging.
Carluccio’s Winter Warmer
It was a bit damp and cold in Brighton yesterday and it made me get back on the soup.
Carluccio’s Winter Warmer
Their minestrone soup is gluten-free, if you have oatcakes instead of bread and really warms you up.
It’s almost a complete lunch in itself.
Paying Small Amounts In Restaurants
Yesterday, I was in Carluccio’s in St. Pancras waiting for my train north, when I realised I was running things a bit close.
I had only had a coffee, so I knew it would only be a couple of quid, but I hadn’t had the bill yet.
I was tempted to leave a tenner, with my business card on top and leave, returning when I got back from the north.
But I didn’t as the bill arrived and I paid it in the normal manner.
In some European countries, the bill is always left, so that if you have to go and are paying cash, you can just leave the money and go.
Certainly in some restaurants and cafes, where people might have to leave quickly, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
What Food Lover Would Smuggle American Cheese?
I like cheese and especially a nice good blue one, but why anybody would want to smuggle American cheese, I really don’t know? I suppose it could be a taste crime, like the sort of clothes beloved of golfers.
One question the article provokes in my mind, is does North America have designer cheese-makers? After all why not, as we had none thirty years ago and now they are everywhere.
A Real Station With A Real Cafe – On The Overground!
I’d heard that London Overground had done something special at Crystal Palace. So I went and had a look.
It’s not finished yet and it can only get better and better, as lifts and other features are added.
So is it special? I think so, but I’m a grumpy old pensioner, who gets to the station free. The food was good too!
Take the kids and go there and have a walk in one of London’s most unusual parks and then have a snack or more in the Brown and Green Cafe.
They’ve even got a children’s menu without chips!
The one thing I didn’t like was the orange roundel on the station building. Surely, a Grade II Listed building deserves better!
It will also be interesting to see how use of the booking hall develops. It is a display space, that cries out for something better than run of the mill retail. As the current architectural display shows, it could be used for exhibitions.
But of course don’t go to Crystal Palace station, expecting a short walk to Crystal Palace Football Club. For them, you take the train to Norwood Junction station.
Thinking about Crystal Palace station, London Overground has now created its first true destination station. By that, I mean one where you go because of what is in the station itself, to perhaps meet someone for business or pleasure. St. Pancras is perhaps the best example, but others like Waterloo, Liverpool Lime Street, Liverpool Street and perhaps Norwich Thorpe are getting that way.
A Thought About Coeliac Disease
After reading yet again, about a coeliac in hospital, where they really weren’t too professional about what he could eat, I’ve had this thought.
Is coeliac disease the most common disease, that can be cured by diet alone?
To take this further, am I right to think, that this fact gets up the average medic’s craw, as it means the disease can’t be cured by the two most common treatment methods; drugs or surgery?
Does A Gluten-Free Diet Help Your Hair?
My last hairdresser always said that my hair grew very fast and in fact for a sixty-five-year-old man, I have a pretty good head of hair.
But what got me thinking was that yesterday The Times showed a list of the best dressed older people. What stood out was their compliments for Katherine, the Duchess of Kent. They said of her that potentially she has the best hair in the Royal Family (including Kate Middleton’s, yes).
And she is 79! It is well-known that she is a coeliac, so it can be assumed that like me she sticks to her gluten-free diet.
I posted this on a coeliac list on the Internet and others said that there could be a connection from personal experience.
Over the past forty years, I’ve had a lot to do with flat race jockeys.
Obviously, to keep their weight down, they eat frugally and the typical gluten-rich snacks, beloved of the general population, are probably never eaten. I remember one meal with Michael Roberts, where he ate baked salmon and peas, followed by some fruit.
But you’ll rarely find a flat race jockey, without a full head of hair! And many are riding well into their forties. The best hair on the current crop of top jockeys must be on Hayley Turner. But then she’s a woman. And a coeliac!
And then we could look at people like Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and others, whose diet is mainly rice-based. They generally seem to my untrained eye to have better hair as they get older, than the average Caucasian.
I do wonder if there is a serious link here. It probably isn’t to coeliac disease, but the diet may be the key. After all, Nottingham University have shown that coeliacs, who stick to the gluten-free diet, have a twenty-five percent less chance of getting cancer. Why this is, no-one knows, but it could just be that a healthy diet, which looks after your gut, gets the maximum amount of good vitamins and minerals into your body.
The Anonymous Widower 