To Norbiton For A Plate Of Lovely Liver
I seem to need a lot of Vitamin B12.
- I am coeliac, which probably means I don’t absorb enough out of my food.
- Although, when my gallstones were removed, the surgeon had a look and said everything was good.
- When Homerton Hospital found my Uncomplicated Pancolonic Diverticular Disease, that I talked about in I’ve Got Uncomplicated Pancolonic Diverticular Disease, they also said everything else was good.
- In the United States, Vitamin B12 is given to stroke patients to help recovery.
- I’ve had Vitamin B12 injections for nearly thirty years, since they were prescribed by Addenbrooke’s hospital.
Certainly, I find that a Vitamin B12 injection doesn’t seem to have the same effect, it had twenty years ago. So, is my brain saying, I’ll have that, when I have an injection?
When I lived in Suffolk and I felt my Vitamin B12 was low, I’d go down the pub or carluccio’s in Cambridge or Bury and have a plate of liver.
But liver is rare in London restaurants and Carluccio’s don’t serve it any more.
A guy in the reader’s comments in The Times told me of a restaurant called the Trattoria Calabrese, that sold liver in sage butter yesterday. So today, I took a train to Norbiton to get myself some extra Vitamin B12.
These pictures describe my first visit to Norbiton.
The short walk to the restaurant from Norbiton station was very much worth it. I shall go back!
I’m Getting Fed Up Being Coeliac
I’m not getting fed up with the benefits.
- The inability to get serious doses of the covids, as was shown by the University of Padua and I documented in Risk Of COVID-19 In Celiac Disease Patients.
- The lower rate of cancer, compared to the general population as has been shown by Nottingham University.
- Coeliac diease and the B12 injections I take, indirectly helped my recovery from the stroke I had. But that was just luck!
I haven’t had a dose of the covids, but I have had all my vaccinations.
But increasingly, restaurant chains like Carluccio’s and Le Pain Quoitidien are closing only to be replaced by chains that don’t even pay lip-service to coeliacs.
Some chains, even treat being gluten-free as a fad. That is an insult to people like me and the doctors and other medical staff, who diagnosed us.
I’m getting feed up as more and more vcoeliac-friendly cafes and restaurants close.
Coeliac disease indirectly killed my son and probably my paternal grandfather and is present in at least 1-in-100 of the UK population.
We should identify all of those, who have the genes, using the genetic test, which is only a simple blood test costing a few pounds.
Am I Sleeping Better Because Of Ocado?
A couple of months ago, I switched to shopping for food on-line at Ocado, and I am certainly sleeping better.
The only big change in my eating habits, is that I am now having a Marks & Spencer’s Lamb’s Liver and Bacon ready meal once a week.
Is that Vitamin B12 making a difference?
I do wish, that someone would do a proper Italian fegato, like Carluccio’s used to do. It’s virtually unobtainable in London.
After they stopped selling it, I used to have lunch with a friend in a pub in Oxfordshire. But sadly they died a couple of years ago.
If anybody knows of a decent country pub, by a station, that services excellent liver please let me know.
I Need To Regularly Eat A Large Plate Of Calves’ Liver
I’ve always liked liver, as did my father and we would eat it regularly at home. We were the two coeliacs in the family, although neither of us had been diagnosed at the time.
My late wife never ever cooked me liver, but would always be happy to go with me, when I ate it. I remember once in Berlin, she found a wonderful restaurant that served liver, on the other side of the city to where we were staying.
I also used to eat it regularly in restaurants when I moved to London, especially in Carluccio’s. The one round the corner from me in Islington is long gone and I used to eat liver there often.
But now finding a restaurant that serves calve’s liver in London is extremely difficult. Marks and Spencer also used to sell it, as I wrote in Lovely Liver. They still sell lamb’s liver but it’s not the same.
I’m certain, if I don’t supplement my B12 injections with a nice plate of liver, I get medical problems.
I suspect that my stroke-damaged brain, may well snaffle a lot of the B12 injection, thus leaving the rest of my body with just a few dregs.
So does anybody know of a quality pub or restaurant within easy reach of public transport from London, that sells liver?
Or failing that a proper butchers, that can prepare it for me to cook.
It should be noted, that I’m not good at cutting up meat, as my left arm is damaged. Not by the stroke, but by the school bully, who broke my arm, when I was fourteen.
Street Burger – Islington
Regularly in pre-pandemic times, I would go to Carluccio’s at The Angel in Islington for a quick lunch after doing my shopping on a Saturday.
But unfortunately, Carluccio’s is no more!
Now there is a Street Burger by Gordon Ramsay between Marks and Spencer and one of the bus stops, from where I can get a bus home.
Before I continue, I should say I have form with Gordon Ramsay, as I once talked to him on Radio 5 about gluten-free food in a restaurant.
He said that if you book at least 24 hours before and say you want a gluten-free meal, the restaurant has no excuse for not giving you what you need.
He also said that if they think they’re a good restaurant and can’t offer gluten-free food, then they’re not a good restaurant.
Since then, I’ve eaten a couple of times in his upmarket restaurants and he’s not broken his own rules.
Today, I broke his rule, by just turning up. But I did know, they did gluten-free options.
Note.
- I forgot to take a picture of the burger before I started to eat it.
- The decor is simple and practical.
- What car did the seats come from?
- You can have as much soft drink as you like.
The pictures don’t do the meal justice, which was upmarket for a burger.
I shall use the restaurant more often, as it’s so conveniently placed, close to Angel tube station, which is one of my routes home.
Could I Survive Four Months Self-Isolation?
As I am over seventy, it is quite likely that if newspaper reports like this one in The Times, which is entitled Coronavirus: Millions Of Over-70s Will Be Told To Stay At Home For Four Months, prove to be true, I shall be spending at least four months, alone with my television, my books and the Internet.
These are a few thoughts.
How Does My House Get Cleaned?
When I moved into this house, I decided that I didn’t want to have anything to do with cleaning the house, so I hired a contract cleaning company, who come every Monday.
I also reduced my cleaning utensils to those that I would to clean up a spill.
- A dustpan and brush
- Kitchen roll
- Washing-up liquid.
- A portable Dyson vacuum cleaner.
- A few sponges.
At least I don’t spill much.
How Do I Get My Clothes Washed?
My clothes washing arrangements may seem strange to some.
- The cleaning company also looks after my bed-linen and changes it on Mondays.
- Most of my clothes like underwear, shirts and jumpers are washed by a lady, who collects them from my door and brings them back a few days later.
- I take trousers, jackets and suits to the dry cleaners.
Since my washing machine packed up about three months ago, I haven’t replaced it and I use a pair of new socks every three or four days. It’s cheaper than buying a new machine.
I can see problems arising, as my lady, who does the washing, is not in the first flush of youth or good health and may be told to self-isolate.
But I can afford to get more clothes delivered.
How Am I Placed For Home Deliveries?
Despite my front door virtually opening onto the street, I have problems with home deliveries.
- Inevitably, they come when I’m out! But that won’t happen, if I’m confined to barracks!
- But the major problem is that I share a post-code with the mews that runs down the back of my house and drivers relying on sat-navs inevitably end up in the mews. It happened last week and only because I’d given the company my home phone number, which the driver rang, did I get the parcel.
I should say, that most things that I need I collect from shops, because of the delivery problem, which inevitably means I have to collect it from a Post Office or depot a short or sometimes long distance away.
I Like A Daily Paper
I buy The Times most days and I also have an on-line subscription.
Being brought up in a print works, I like the feel of papers and as I do most of the puzzles in The Times every day, I don’t have to print them out. Not that I can print them out at the moment, as no-one can work out how to drive my printer from this terrible Microsoft Surface Pro Studio computer.
If anybody knows how to drive a HP LaserJet P1102w from one of these awful computers please get in touch. And if you are anywhere near London N1, there will be a beer waiting if the fridge or a boiling kettle, if you turn up.
I buy the paper from the shop round the corner, but I can’t find anybody to deliver one!
It sounds like there’s a business there to deliver papers to those, who the government insist are isolated in their own homes.
What About My Food?
At the present time, I shop most days and generally keep the following in the fridge.
- Two bottles of milk; one in use and one full.
- Some fish pate or M & S salmon parcels.
- Several small pots of M & S Luxury Honey & Ginger yoghurt.
- Three pots of cut fruit from M & S, which I usually eat at a rate of one a day. Sometimes with the yoghurt.
- Benecol spread instead of butter.
- Two or three ready meals.
- Two packs of M & S gluten-free pasta, which has a two months life. I cook it with peas in a yoghurt sauce, with each pack giving two meals.
- Three bottles of Adnams 0.5% beer from M & S. I’ve also got plenty of this in store.
- Some eggs and cheese.
In various store cupboards, storage jars and bowls I also have the following.
- Several bananas.
- Lots of dried apricots
- M & S gluten-free bread.
- M & S gluten-free ginger snaps.
- Plenty of tea bags.
- Tins of sardines
- Tins of baked beans,
- M & S gluten-free granola, which I eat with yoghurt and apricots
- M & S gluten-free porridge pots, which I eat with honey or strawberry jam.
I should say, that most days, I eat breakfast out either in Carluccio’s or Leon.
You will notice that I shop extensively in Marks and Spencer. But I have one only about five hundred metres away in Dalston and in Central London, you pass one of their food stores very regularly.
I can also go to their two larger stores at Finsbury Pavement or The Angel, if I am able to risk the bus.
- It should be noted that I have strong connections to M & S at The Angel.
- My paternal grandmother used to shop there before the First World War.
- C and myself used to shop there in the early 1970s, when we lived in the Barbican.
There is also a Boots next door, where I get my prescription drugs, which was also used by my grandmother over a hundred years ago.
How Will I Get To The Doctors?
It’s walkable!
Conclusion
I think, that I’ll survive.
Another Carluccio’s Goes
C and myself used the Carluccio’s in Oxford Market many times. But now it has gone!
To add insult to injury, it is now a restaurant called Sweet Chick, which describes itself as Chicken and Waffles.
Doesn’t sound very healthy to me!
The London Cablet
I took these pictures outside Carluccio’s in Smithfield.
It is called the London Cablet.
A Plaintiff Plea On Wake Up To Money
I regularly listen to Wake Up to Money on BBC Radio 5 Live.
One morning, they were talking to Kentucky Fried Chicken about their new vegan burgers. As a coeliac, I say Yuck! to that!
Somebody else texted the program and said something like.
I’m a coeliac, how about more gluten-free food.
In fact it was a bad week for me as a coeliac last week.
- I found Beyond Bread had closed on Upper Street.
- Le Petite Bretagne closed in Dalston.
- I spent about twenty minutes looking for a coffee and a gluten-free cake in Liverpool Street.
All this passion for vegan and vegetarian food, is marginalising those like me, who have to avoid gluten.
I’ve still got a couple of cafes in Dalston, where this is possible and I could always go to M & S and take a cake home.
But I refuse to buy an expensive coffee maker.
After Liverpool Street, I ended up in Leon in Moorgate.
Note the excellent gluten-free cake and the posh cup and saucer.
Note, that because of my stroke, I like a proper china cup or mug
I tend to avoid American-owned chains like Costa and Starbucks, as some American gluten-free practices are suspect to say the least. I used to like Cadbury’s Bournville chocolate, but now I believe it uses addictive wheat-derived glucose, I wouldn’t dare touch it.
As I said finding good cafes and restaurants that do gluten free well is becoming more difficult.
- Carluccio’s is creaking and many that I used regularly like Glasgow, Islington, Liverpool and Westfield have closed.
- Pattiserie Valerie is struggling and has closed a lot of outlets.
- Jamie’s Italian has gone bust.
- If I go a bit upmarket, there is Bill’s and Cote, but they are not ideal for a fast pit-stop.
As last week, I suspect that most coeliacs hope that Leon or others following their relaxed, quirky and customer and diet-friendly model, prosper.
Freedoming
These days many pensioners like me, get free public transport in their local area.
Londoners like me, get a Freedom Pass, which gives free buses, Underground, Overground, trams and trains, within the M25.
I will often get up, look at the BBC London News, the weather and other sources. I may then decide to go to Canary Wharf, Richmond ir wherever to have a walk, see an exhibition or whatever.
London is an amazing cornucopia of delights, which is a sentiment echoed by others who live close to our other great cities.
Free public transport enables this lifestyle.
I think the various cafe and restaurant chains can tap into this lifestyle, as often one of the reason to go to a place is to have a good meal or a drinki.
If like me, you like particular chains, I believe that their web sites could be an important part in planning how to waste a few hours.
Suppose, their web site had the following features.
- A simple list of all their cafes and restaurant, with st most a short description like “Close to Pierhead”
- The ability to sign up to a simple e-mail alert of new openings and closures. Note the word simple!
I believe that if I got a message saying a chain had opened in say Kingston, it might prompt me to go and have a walk and perhaps lunch, with a friend I haven’t seen for years.
Note.
- Lists are much better than maps, if you don’t know the area.
- Companies are relying too much on apps, which are OK for finding places near where you are, but are useless, if you are using the cafe or restaurant, as the resewn to go or the starting point for an explore.
- I believe Carluccio’s troubles started, when they abandoned their list on their web site. I told them so in strong terms.
Patteriserie Valerie has an excellent list.
The Orchestra Pit At Waterloo Station – 14th March 2019
These pictures show the area nicknamed the orchestra pit at Waterloo station.
It looks like it could be open soon!
Although Network Rail and their pandering to the terrible tastes of the average rail traveller, this are will probably filled with gluten-rich junk food.
I’d like to see a Leon added to Waterloo, as they already have two Marks and Spencers and a Carluccio’s.
The Anonymous Widower 