Dr. Rosemary Gets It Right
Dr. Rosemary Leonard complained about giving cheap chocolate bars with newspapers on BBC Breakfast today.
The process annoys me, especially as the bars are always gluten-rich. In fact, I no longer use W H Smith because of their practices, unless I don’t have a choice and then I just leave the vouchers on the counter.
Exquisite Liver
I was in Carluccio’s in Upper Street yesterday and had the most exquisite liver with onion jam and polenta. It is a special this week and I’ll be going back to get another dose of B12.
Do Sickly Children Make Successful Adults?
I ask this question because of a post on the UK-Coeliac list from a mother, who was worried that her coeliac child might have problems because of days off sick during his GCSEs.
I was always off sick at school, but I got to Grammar School and obtained good O and A levels, went to a good university and by all accounts I have been very successful since. I often wish that I’d been diagnosed with coeliac disease, when my parents and GP, were looking into my childhood health problems, but you can’t change the past.
Was it because of my many days off school, that my father took me to his printing works so often and my mother taught me household skills from cooking to making clothes? Or was it because I was the boy and was favoured by my parents and especially my grandmother, who lived with us?
I also became very reliant on my own company and this served me well, when I was programming, as that can be a very lonely experience.
Now is that self-reliance is my strongest defence against the trials of my life?
A Restaurant Called Bad Taste
Over the years, after eating in many restaurants that just didn’t cut or even in some cases, have the mustard, C and I used to muse about the ideal restaurant.
As we both had a Brooksian sense of humour and were a great fan of his films, there is a lot of scope for an establishment, which is a complete send up of some of the pompous places you find in cities like London. And not just London! One of the funniest meals we ever had was at a two-Michelin star restaurant called La Bonne Auberge in Antibes. The story is here.
Any restaurant must have good food and because I’m a coeliac, it would also be gluten-free as well. This could actually be an advantage as some odd creations, like Dundee Lamb Chops are gluten-free. As is spam! In fact, to create a menu that is probably gluten, lactose and nut free with good vegetarian options would not be too difficult.
The waiting staff would be the easy part, as any large city has large numbers of wannabee actors and others who want to make their name in show-business. How they would dress would be a matter of personal taste, but head waiters like that dreadful tenor in the insurance ads would not be out of place, especially, if his suit was artistically soup and sauce stained.
The possibilities are endless.
But like Mel Brooks has shown, you have to be very professional to get something that is truly awful.
Incidentally, I’ve searched the Internet and can’t find a restaurant with the name of Bad Taste.
Leon Restaurants
I had lunch in the Leon restaurant in Spitalfields today.
I had a mackerel and beetroot salad with a home-made lemonade.
The restaurant is definitely worth a return visit.
A Fast Ferry Home
It may have been run by a company called Fast Ferries, but it still took four hours to get me from Tinos to Rafina on the Greek mainland.
A Fast Ferry
I hadn’t eaten any food since a very good moussaka on the Sunday at lunch time and as I left early for the ferry, I didn’t get any breakfast. At least a supermarket was open on Tinos, at which I was able to purchase a couple of bananas. Where would coeliacs be without them?
On the ferry it was just coffee and chocolate and there weren’t even any Greek salads.
It didn’t get any better at the airport either, as there wasn’t anything in the cafes which didn’t have a large slug of gluten. No Greek salads and not even any of those sesame snacks you usually find in Greece.
So I had a choice of either getting the midday easyJet flight or retreating to Athens and getting a flight on the next day.
I chose the flight, as it appeared there were quite a few seats and as it turned out, two of us had three seats for the journey to Gatwick.
So the flight was good value because of the extra room.
I was also back home in good time.
The Maiden Voyage
If you’ve ever read that short story, by Gerald Durrell, you’ll know a little bit of what the journey to Syros was yesterday.
I had intended to catch the 12:00 ferry from Piraeus, but it was cancelled because of winds. However with the help of a Greek called Christos, who I’d met on the train going to the port, I was able to get myself a ticket on the 17:00 boat to the island.
Ferry to Syros at Piraeus
As the boat was there, we were urged to get on and this was a mistake. I should have gone and have lunch in Piraeus first, but I didn’t.
I was in what they called Business Class, but it only seemed that the seats were slightly less crowded.
There was no food on the boat for me, as the Greek salad was off and everything else was gluten-rich. to make matters worse the shop only sold souvenirs, tobacco and drink, so I couldn’t even have any chocolate. The only crisps stated they contained traces of cereal, so I was left with ice cream and coffee with three portions of sugar in it.
I did meet a Greek married to an Aussie coeliac and he said most restaurants in the islands understood gluten-free.
But can I really complain, as most ferries across the English Channel are not much better for gluten-free food.
Hope Street
When I was in Liverpool in the sixties, there was much more religious tension than there is today.
Part of the reason, was the leadership of the two great churchmen; David Sheppard and Derek Worlock. They are commemorated in this joint statue in Hope Street.
The Sheppard-Worlock Statue
Note how you can see the Anglian Cathedral in the picture. From behind, you can see the Roman Catholic one at other end of Hope Street.
The Sheppard-Worlock Statue from Behind
Incidentally, Derek Worlock was a coeliac. I have a feeling that rulings by the current Pope would mean that he couldn’t be ordained as a Catholic priest today. Religion should be about inclusion and tolerance and not the reverse.
East Coast’s New Menu
On my trip to Leeds on Saturday, I was able to look at East Coast‘s new menu.
I didn’t actually eat anything on the train, except for an EatNakd bar I took with me, as I had good breakfast before I left and knew I was going to be having a sensible lunch before the football.
However, the menu now has a couple of gluten-free items marked as such. One was a lamb shank, which I do like although last time I tried it, my hand wasn’t up to eating it. It’s got better in the last few months, so I suspect, it might be better.
If I had wanted to have one on the way home, I wouldn’t have been able, as there was no chef on the train. Sadly none of the snacky offerings were gluten free, although there was a chicken korma, which probably was gluten-free, but wasn’t marked as such.
But Leeds is only a two and a half hour journey and as there are restaurants at both ends, it is not the most important route for catering, as far as I’m concerned.
The Anonymous Widower 