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.
Computers Beat Doctors at Diagnosing Child Illnesses
This was a headline in The Independent.
A computer has proved more accurate in diagnosing severe fever in children than doctors using their clinical judgement, researchers have found.
Is it the way medicine is going, as it looks like the computer system is better in this case? There’s no reason to believe that in certain areas, this may well be possible.
As a coeliac and a computer person, I’ve always felt that the diagnosis of coeliac disease could be done by means of a simple on-line system, that gave an indication that could be confirmed by proper tests. This is because coeliac disease shows itself in many and diverse ways. I had chronic dandruff for a start and would you see a gastroenterologist for that?
I think too, you have to look at the statistics of medicine and especially GPs. My granddaughter was born with a congenital hernia of the diaphragm. She’s fine now and just like any other eight-year-old. Now this problem occurs in about one in 3,000 babies. When I told my GP about my granddaughter, she said she’d never come across one in general practice.
So perhaps the computer can be much better with rare complaints.
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.
Head and Shoulders Shampoo
I’ve just seen an advert on Sky for this.
I tried it along with many other anti-dandruff shampoos over the years before I was diagnosed as a coeliac. None worked very well at all.
But after being diagnosed as a coeliac and going on a gluten-free diet, the dandruff went within two weeks.
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.
A First Risotto
I like risotto, but I’d never made it until last night.
The problem started because, I only had limited fresh food in the fridge and I needed to conjure together something from a pack of smoked haddock, asparagus, sprouts, tomatoes and spring onions. I found this recipe for spring onion and smoked fish risotto on the BBC Good Food site.
The ingredients I used were.
- 500g smoked haddock, cod or trout
- chicken stock, fresh, cube or concentrate, made up to 1.5 litres
- 2 onions, finely chopped
- unsalted butter
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 450g risotto rice
- 1 bunch spring onions, finely sliced diagonally (green included)
- 150g mature cheddar, grated
These quantities make enough for six, but as I’m only one, I made half and froze the other two packs. Will they be OK? Only time will tell.
I should say that the Waitrose risotto rice was a month past its sell-by date and I had to cut the mould off the chess. But then if you are a non-driver in the middle of nowhere, you have to be thankful for small mercies.
The method was as follows.
- Put the fish in a large frying pan. Pour over enough chicken stock to cover, bring to a simmer and cook for 4 minutes. Allow the fish to cool a little in the stock, then skin and flake it. Add any leftover chicken stock to the poaching liquid and keep hot. (If you’re using trout, just skin and flake it and heat the stock).
- To make the risotto, cook the onions in a little butter then add the garlic and risotto rice, stirring well to coat in the butter. Add the hot stock a ladle at a time, stirring each time to bring the starch out of the rice and give the risotto a creamy effect. When the rice is almost cooked, stir in the fish and spring onions. Stir in an extra knob of butter and the cheddar and serve.
The rice took 20-25 minutes to cook, but it was worth it. It wasn’t very difficult to get right either and it used just one frying pan. The latter is always welcomed.
The out-of-date food had no effect either.
Whether the frozen risottos are any good, I do not know.
A Quick Caserrole
On Saturday night, a quick meal was in order, so we took a tray of vegetables to be baked in the oven from Waitrose and put two small lamb steaks in it and then livened it up with a slurp of red wine. It took forty minutes in the AGA and was delicious.
The Anonymous Widower 