Christmas Cake

I woke up about 5 o’clock this morning with a sore neck. I couldn’t think why though – what had I been doing? Then I remembered. I’d made Christmas cake yesterday.

Because of my advancing dotage, I could not remember the last time I’d baked a Christmas cake (I used to make them all the time). Furthermore, I’d forgotten that I had a recipe for a perfectly straightforward and acceptable fruit cake – so easy, as it only has four ingredients (see my other blog).

Nevertheless, I set about searching for an easy recipe and came up with this from the BBC: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/you-it-christmas-cake

You’ll see that Step 3 suggests that the butter, sugar and vanilla are ‘beaten’ until light and fluffy. Well, I’m too old for all that beating malarkey so I got my trusty (rusty in parts) Kenwood Major (Model #A907D) down out of the attic, so it could do all the hard work. I knew it was well used when I took possession of in in the late 80’s, but according to the Kenwood site, it could have been built in the late 70’s. So, I let it acclimatise overnight before starting work on the cake.

Everything weighed out and ready (butter softened as required), I set about beating the sugar and butter in the ‘Major’. I then left the room to pick up some mail and when I returned the kitchen was full of smoke and there was a ‘Major’ meltdown. It was unplugged as quickly as it could be (… the precious butter-sugar-vanilla mix rescued) and thrown out the back door as rapidly as possible. Luckily the extractor fan did a brilliant job of clearing the smoke and it wasn’t long therefore, before I was faced with the prospect of ‘beating’ the sugar and butter ‘until light and fluffy’.

That’s hard work I’ll tell you! 

But two paracetamols and another couple of hours sleep made it all worthwhile. I can’t wait for my first slice of cake, with a nice piece of cheese and (possibly) a brandy.

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What shall we do today?

What shall we do today?

I asked that this morning, with my tongue firmly in my cheek. We’re into the second week of what is my second and Sharon’s first quarantine – as required by the UK Government following our return from Spain.

My first solo quarantine passed by quite easily, without too much pain or boredom. Because it was late September, the Covid-19 infections had not started to rise as much as they eventually did and the country was not in such a state of fear. I was able to pop out for a isolated walk each day and provided I picked my time, to go to the shop.  This time however, the country is just coming out of a national lockdown and the region I live in has gone straight in to tier 3.

We are therefore adhering to the quarantine rules as closely as we can, mainly because of what everyone else (locals, friends, relatives) might think of us breaking the rules. Today is Day #10, we know with almost 100% certainty that we do not have Covid-19 and that we are not infectious. However, we are still required to stay in for another four days. Hey ho.

Our first week was straight forward enough. Only a couple of days were bright and inviting, so the rest of the time was spent beginning the organisation of my mother’s affairs (she died on 26^th November – our reason for coming back from Spain before Christmas), playing games on my iPad, continuing Duolingo Spanish lessons, reading on my Kindle, blogging and cooking.

There was bread to be baked (one artisan loaf, one normal), 500g of mince (thank you Asda – the only supermarket with a delivery slot available for the day we got back) to turn into savoury mince and chilli con carne; fish to be prepared, 800g of chicken thighs to be trimmed and turned into chicken curry and also to be frozen raw for paella, vegetables to be turned into soup, and so on. Each day, although similar was slightly different. I was also a bit naughty. Every day I donned my heavy-duty mask (home-made by Sharon and ideal for a: the weather and b: disguise), my rain coat and hat, and, as the darkness came down, I would go for a brisk walk around the village. Sitting all day would make my back hurt more than it does normally, so this small amount of exercise has been essential for my physical and mental health. I spoke to no one and passed very few people.

This second week has been more eventful and is probably why I had to ask ‘what shall we do today?’

It was my birthday on Day #8.

Each year we try to do something different for my birthday. The links here show just some of the things we’ve done in the past:

https://dsugdenholidays.wordpress.com/2018/12/24/birthday-surprise/

https://dsugdenholidays.wordpress.com/2017/12/16/ending-2017/

https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/the-old-telephone-exchange/ (+1)

https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/pensioner/ (+1)

https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/hellifield-peel-castle/ (+3)

https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/the-queens/

Where something special has not been possible or planned, Sharon has always cooked. Sometimes we’ve had friends around and sometimes (like this year when we are not allowed to feed friends or talk to them over the garden wall) we’ve been alone. For brunch this year, Sharon recreated something we’d seen on a Professional MasterChef ‘skill test’. Crispy Bacon, butter fried Rosti, roast tomatoes and poached egg. It was really tasty.

Just before dinner was served, Sharon had organised a Zoom meeting with those friends we would normally share a Christmas dinner dance with. That was a nice surprise.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Then for dinner she prepared Arancini with smoky tomato sauce, followed by Roast Lamb (with a Cottage Kitchen inspired spicy rub), crispy Roast Potatoes, blanched Sweetheart Cabbage, Butternut Squash baked with chilli and cheese – all followed by a tangy Lemon Possett. We finished a bottle of Freixenet Cava and did serious damage to a bottle of Rioja.

So those of you still with me might see that Day #9 might have been something of an anti-climax. So what ARE we doing today? (More like what have we done? – er, nothing!)

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A bijou restaurant in Slawit

This lockdown is certainly stifling the more usual good life. It causes problems, but then it also offers opportunities.

This week, Sharon cut my hair for the second time in six weeks.  She went much deeper and shorter this time, and it looks fine. Good work for a non-hairdresser. Had this occurred pre-Covid*, I may have shown my appreciation by booking a meal in a restaurant somewhere. I may even have asked a couple of friends to join us. However, all restaurants are shut tight and we have to stay away from friends. Quite rightly, given the seriousness of the virus.

So, tonight Sharon has been invited to a special little restaurant in Slaithwaite, just two covers, but with all the care and attention I expect from exceptional restaurateurs. We will be opening her favourite white wine, the last of our Vouvray collection bought when we were last in Vouvray itself.

A selection of Euro-themed hors o’euvres will be followed by chicken and ham tagliatelle, all home-made, including the basil infused pasta. Pudding has yet to be decided as the chef is a bit slack when it comes to puddings, but there will be pudding! The two cheeses offered at the outset are from Spain (actually from the Basque region of Spain, so the producers probably don’t see it as Spanish) and Italy – a delightful blue cheese. They may also be served post postres. The tomatoes are infused with basil, olive oil and garlic.

We may have a ‘proper’ version of Carmen playing on the T.V. at the same time – the last Carmen we attempted to watch on YouTube was awful – far too much thought had gone into making it awful too. Fancy going all the way to the Opera House in Madrid and being faced with interpretive dancing!!!

That’s it. Need to lay the table 😉

*This would never have occurred pre-Covid, my hair hasn’t been subject to wifely attentions in almost 40 years.

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Shoddy Service

Once again, I need to have another moan about my experience of customer service in this country.

Friends and family often don’t notice the same issues as me and that itself is indicative of what has become accepted here as customer service.  Being served in this sense, comes in many guises:

• we queue to pay for groceries and the like at supermarkets,
• we ask to be served in a wide variety of other shops (grocers, butchers, car parts etc.)
• we stand at bars and coffee shops asking to be served drink or to order food,
• we queue to buy take away food,
• we sit at restaurant tables and wait to be served with all manner of comestibles.

These are just a few examples of what calls itself a service industry.

In many ways, I accept the dour faces and lack of communication from folks who have to sit by a cash register all day, monotonously scanning goods and asking if you’re paying by card or cash. I know that there are many examples of cheerier till operatives, but they are not the norm.

What does grip my gall are the girls and boys who decide that working in a bar or pretending to be a waiter/waitress is the easiest way of earning a few extra pounds. They don’t want to be there, the just want the money that comes their way after completing their shift.

There are very few places in this country where we find food/drink service personnel who see their work as a career.  In other countries, being a camarero, serveur or Cameriere is seen as a career and something one needs to work at. I’ve mostly found food/drink service to be unobtrusive and polite (if not always prompt) in other European countries but not here.  Furthermore, where I have found good food/drink service in the UK it has been invariably presented by people from elsewhere in Europe, often Eastern Europe.

My current gripe was with being served gin and tonic the other night.  My simple request for a “Strawberry Gin and slimline tonic please, without ice” was not simple enough:

“which gin is it?” [server]

“I don’t know – the last one I ordered was simply served to me, I wasn’t aware you had more than one.” [me]

“it’s usually Gordon’s” [manager – who happened to be passing – to server]

“ok, single or double?” [server]

“single, please.” [me]

And off the server went.

She returned from the other end of the bar with a goldfish bowl (i.e. large bulbous drinking glass) full of ice with a strawberry gin in it.

“did you say slimline tonic?” [server]

“yes, I also said ‘no ice’!” [me]

At this the server looked completely blank; first of all at me, and then her manager, who simply walked away without offering a solution other than “use the tongs”.  I was then stunned to see the server walk to a sink and lift out all of the ice with tongs.  When she returned her face was like thunder.  She completed pulling the pint we’d also ordered and plonked that down with such force that I thought the base might crack.  She turned her sour face to me and said what it all came to (££) …

“can I now have that extra shot in there please?” [me]

“you can if you pay for it!” [server]

“I have no objection to paying, but as you’ve now thrown half the gin down the sink, I’d better take it back to the table with SOME flavour in it” [me – now not being as pleasant as I prefer to be]

And again, she stormed off with the glass and when she returned, she banged that down too.

I found her attitude completely irrational as she’d made the mistake in the first place.

The manager should have stepped in at the outset, but she too would probably not have been trained properly either.

Some previous grumps:

https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/margate/

https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/city-centre-food/

https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/city-centre-food-cont/

https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/wetherspoons/

https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2018/04/01/curmudgeon/

Image Credits:

http://www.thebluediamondgallery.com/handwriting/c/customer-service.html

https://www.flickr.com/photos/96223380@N02/

https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=15694&picture=ice-cubes

 

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Free food

Sadly, I forgot to take photographs of all the ‘free’ food we were presented with in Spain this year.  Furthermore, I only remembered to photograph some of the food we ‘paid’ for.

However, all of the food was delicious.

Sharon’s tuna steak

Whilst holidaying on the Costa Tropical, in the Granada region of Andalucía, we encountered much in the way of free food; we’d buy a drink … and we’d get a free tapa! This doesn’t happen everywhere in Spain, but where it does happen, you feel welcomed and that your custom is valued.

We’ve had such tapas before further inland, and there the price of drinks compares well (often cheaper) with those prices charged on the big ‘no-tapas’ Costas.  In Salobreña and thereabouts, the prices for beer and wine were ever so slightly dearer (perhaps €1.70 – €2.00 each as opposed to €1.40 – €1.70), but every drink came with food.

Your first drink would come along and be accompanied by a particular tapa, e.g. Spanish cheese and olives. Then the subsequent order(s) would each be accompanied by different tapa, e.g. Croquetta with salad leaves or a small plate of jamón.  Even when we went somewhere for a meal, some small thing would be presented to us with our first drink.

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There are a couple of places too in Los Boliches (near Fuengirola), where such treats can be had – the difference here being that the drink doesn’t always come with a tapa. But, there are deals to be had.  A caña (small beer 15cl, 20cl, 25cl) can be had without food, but you can also order a tapa (of your own choice, not just presented to you) to accompany the drink for a combined price of (e.g.) €1.40 or €1.60. 

Often, this will be for the smaller beer, but not always.

Caña (or wine) + tapa €1.40

Caña (or wine) + tapa €1.60

Other cafes locally (Los Boliches) sell tapa separately for anything from €2.00 (these are usually slightly larger portions and – for me – often big enough to be called lunch) and in the main they are home-cooked and delicious. So far, our favourite is Bar Pepe in the Plaza Carmen.

We’re learning to avoid the places where cheap frozen ‘stuff’ is served.

I guess that all of this illustrates some of the differences between the Spanish and UK drinking cultures. In Spain, food and drink are inextricably bound together, whereas we see them as two different entities. In Spain, a workman will finish his day (or begin his midday break) with a beer and a tapa, whereas here in the UK I see all the local bars full of workmen finishing their day by quaffing pints and eating nothing more than a packet of crisps.

A simple ‘starter’ of tomato, oil and garlic.

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Malaga Food Tour

As I said in a previous post, this is my birthday month.

Sharon’s ‘surprise’ gift to me was a Food, wine and history walking tour of Malaga (seeing as we’re down here for Christmas anyway). It was a surprise inasmuch as I only knew that on a particular day we had to catch a particular train from Torreblanca, to be able to present ourselves in the Plaza de la Constitución at 10:30am prompt. 

We were met by Susanne, our guide and were joined by Mike from Manchester.

So just the three of us on the tour – which made it so much better than it might have been with lots more people. Sharon had booked with a company called Devour Spain – they also do tours of Madrid, Seville and Barcelona.

The trip starts with a short history of Malaga’s varying population from the ancient Phoenicians through Romans, Moors and the current Christian occupation. This was then used to pin the different dishes and tastes we went through during our 3½ – 4-hour tour.

We started with (slightly late for me) breakfast at Café Central, just on the corner of the square.

We were told about the owner’s history and how he came to serve 10 (ten!) different sizes and styles of coffee. We had Pitufo con tomate and churros with our coffee. I had largo. All the coffees come in cups or glasses marked with a percentage – to show that you have been served exactly what you ordered.

Following breakfast we took a stroll to Malaga’s main market: Mercado de Atarazanas where we visited two stalls for extended tastings and more history. Our first tasting stop was the Cristóbal Rios olive stall (stand 241-248).  We tasted three types of olive (but I cannot remember their names – sorry), all varying in strength and taste, along with fried  marcona almonds and locally dried moscatel raisins. These were all delicious.

Our next stop was at El Niño, still inside the market (stand 187-189). Here we were given a taste of sweet Malaga muscatel wine and a plate of cold cutsJ  There was a tasty, hard goats cheese, Iberian ham, Serrano ham, chorizo and salchichón. It was great to actually have both hams on the same plate, so I could see and taste the difference – and THERE IS a difference! Serrano ham is a much milder flavour and has much less fat than the prized Iberian product. Iberian ham is much fattier, tastier and deeper in flavour – as it should be given the way the pigs are bred. Often known as pata negra, these hams can be seen as different from serrano simply by having black feet. The two sausages were ok, but tend to be much nicer  when cooked.

Having had our fill of market produce we took a fairly good stroll to the other side of town to Mainake, a specialist wine merchant. Here we tasted three local Andalusian wines that were unusually dry (rather than the more normal sweet Malaga wines). One white was to Sharon’s taste but too Retsina-ish for me, and then two very young red wines which were, once again, not to my taste.

Lunch was taken at Mesón Mariano in the city centre. We were presented with an amuse bouche of sorts, which was then followed by four entirely different tapas and a single sweet. The restaurant specialises in artichoke dishes and so we started with an artichoke dish: Alcachofas en salsa (it actually had a different name, but looked like this), then we had Boquerones simply coated in seasoned flour and fried. Boquerones are a small white anchovy local to Malaga. Someone from Malaga might be known as a Boquerón.

We then had a tuna dish that was delicious, but what it was called and what the sauce was made of is now beyond me as I was too engrossed with the previous two dishes. Our final tapa was a plate of Albondigas in a local almond sauce.  I like the sauce, but the meatballs were too big and the texture too doughy for my taste.  Our postres (dessert) was a local speciality: Leche frito. This is condensed milk that is friend and topped with a nougat (turrón) ice cream. That was DIFFERENT.

That was it – our tour was over, but it had been a delight. Excellently led by Susanne.

We stayed over in Malaga and had breakfast once again at Café Central. This time we were able to order our own food and coffee (and agua del grifo – tap water J)

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Pensioner

I was sixty-five this month.

To celebrate a lifetime of learning and working, I invited six of my closest chums to join Sharon and me for dinner at The Watermill in Slaithwaite. John R, I met during my first week at secondary school (I met his wife Sandy, when they married). John T, I met when playing rugby and after my family had moved from Sheepridge to Deighton. I met Carol later in life when we all met up again a few years later. Tony and I met in mid-life, when we attended teacher training college. We followed that up by working together in a catering business/franchise, which is when I met Gill, his wife.  We have all done all sorts of things, together and apart.  We had a great meal, followed by dessert at home (Sharon had made cake and Carol had made us tub of her bombe 🙂 ).

Prior to this, we held open house on the Saturday before my birthday.  Almost forty friends from various parts of my life (and life line) came along to this and we all had a great time chatting and reminiscing.

I had decided to provide a selection of Spanish dishes, tapas size, with beer and cava brought back from Spain in October. Sharon decorated the house in a pseudo Spanish style with a big flag, an inflatable beer island, an inflatable cactus and lots of streamers.

I prepared:

• EMPANADILLAs, made from potatoes, swede, cheese and onion (baked not fried).
• I sliced some Spanish Sheep (oveja) cheese. We’d probably call it MANCHEGO.
• I cooked TORTILLA. Each filled with six eggs, potato and onion. 12 portions each.
• PATATAS BRAVAS – roast potatoes with spicy tomato sauce.
• ALBONDIGAS – mixed pork and beef meatballs in a tomato sauce.
• I also made my version of the Spanish SALAD RUSSE with lots of potato and vegetables (and a little tuna in some).
• and .. Sharon made a wonderful BEETROOT HUMOUS

I had also made my own focaccia bread to go with all this. As it didn’t turn out quite right, I toasted small pieces of this in the oven – which made it perfect. People pretty much helped themselves while I sliced the main act, SERRANO HAM, off the bone as required.  Thank you for this Aldi!

Emma and family had not been able to make the open house as it was Amy’s birthday, but they came around the following week for a meal. I invited my mum and dad to this too as I wouldn’t see them for the best part of two months afterwards.

So, I’ve had a great birthday month. I’m in Spain now and will receive my birthday gift from Sharon on Tuesday when she takes me on a surprise ‘something’ in Malaga. I’m looking forward to that.

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Last few days

Work

The last few days have been frustrating. For our training we are housed in a tiny room with intermittent internet connection, aging computers and a break out room (even smaller) that we cannot use if the ‘Director’ decides to come in to work. Even so, had the website we were here to train the folks on, have worked properly, even those “Indian” problems would have been easy enough to overcome. So frustrating.

Our team

Still, we managed: Just.

Sadly tonight is our last night with the delegates. Tomorrow (after 24 hours) we have some mopping up work to do and some shopping will be required before we get to that. We leave the hotel at 4:00am Wednesday morning.

Food

Our hotel provides a good selection of dishes from around the world. I wrote about the breakfasts in an earlier post but the lunches and evening meals are no less extensive. Like breakfast, the lunch menu has a wide array of buffet dishes from (mainly) across India. There are also special menu meals, only one of which we had because – quite simply – there is TOO MUCH to eat. Mostly, when we’ve eaten in the hotel of an evening, we have just had snacks, because the main dishes are huge.

Restaurant food

Lunch at the Biere Club

That doesn’t mean that the hotel is the only place to eat. We’ve eaten in several other places, sometimes more than once because a) the food is OK and b) the portions are not too large (and if they are the food is cheap enough to not worry about leaving any). Neither of us have overdone the Indian food, but what we have had has been delicious. However, many of our meals have been non-Indian (with maybe just a touch of Indian influence) 🙂

We’re frequented a place called The Biere Club  several times. They make a tasty really crispy based pizza and their ‘assorted’ fries are gorgeous. We must have sampled about a third of their menu on his trip and can honestly say that if you want a non-Indian snack or meal – this is the place to come. They even brew their own beer, which at lunchtimes, we’ve avoided (we have to work you know).

Another place I would never have a) found or b) gone into without Alison’s recommendation was The Only Place. Here, I had what was the best steak I’ve eaten in many a year. I can’t honestly remember one as nice in the last twenty years, unless it was one I had in Australia in 1996. It was simply delicious. It had real flavour, something we don’t often get back home, and was cooked to perfection. The restaurant itself is BYO (as long as it’s wine the can serve you with disguised as coke, or tonic) and very Indian. Hat’s off to you guys – keep up the good work.

Last night we went to a place we’d never been before. The Glasshouse looks  a bit posh and to be fair they did their best to provide a friendly, open air, Mediterranean atmosphere. The food was really good: We both had Caramelized Goat’s Cheese as a delicious starter and followed that up with chicken dishes which were perfectly cooked but nothing to write home about.

Street food

Fruit sales

I really wish I dared to try the street food that we see everywhere. There are folks selling coconuts; they cut the copra away and allow the purchaser to drink the water inside (straws are optional) and then, the cut it open properly and scoop out the inside with a leaf. There are folks selling cut fruit: my problem is the amount of flies we often see around such stalls and the water the fruit may have been ashed in. There are folks selling, peanuts (freshly cooked and de-husked), folks selling sweet tea, folks selling all types of meals to eat standing on the corner of the road (which is invariably bedlam) and all kinds of other folks selling – stuff 🙂

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Hummus

I’ve eaten out several times since my birthday last week; its that time for year. My experiences have ranged from the sublime to the downright careless.

I mentioned The Crown at Roecliffe in my previous post and the food there was delicious. The customer service was careful and attentive without being overbearing and the whole evening was faultless. Yet, locally, I joined three ex-colleagues for lunch the other day in a well respected eatery and it verged on being uneatable.

Because I have dined well here before, I won’t mention the venue but, as I also ate here again a few days later (see below) with just as little care in some of the food preparation, I will blog about it and only re-visit when some time has passed and I fancy risking it again.

Sausages
Us four ex-colleagues were there to chat and catch up, so the food was only of secondary concern – I had a Sausage Sandwich (with caramelised onion and apple sauce). What can go wrong with a sausage sandwich? Well first of all, I was offered ciabatta or baguette – neither of which would be my preferred choice of bread for a sausage sarnie. Nevertheless, I chose the former based on my knowledge of the sort of baguette bought and served in pubs up and down the country: tasteless lumps of microwaved-from-frozen cooked dough – unlike their crunchy French namesake.

Old grumps

Sadly, the ciabatta was a bad choice too because it lacked any substance that allowed me to pick it up and eat it like a sandwich. I had to use a knife and fork (God forbid!). As the rectangular plate contained a smidgeon of salad and half a bag of sliced, raw, red onions, and as the sausages themselves (I’m coming to them) were blobbed with tinned/bottled apple sauce, the whole thing was pretty unmanageable.  The onions were a surprise inasmuch as the menu suggested they’d be there, it just didn’t say they would be raw – why would they be? The sausages themselves, particularly knowing their provenance and the competition this well renowned butcher has locally, were sadly lacking in flavour. Just thin grey fingers of ‘something’ to hold the name ‘sandwich’ together.

They were busy though, I’ll give them that and for that reason I’m forgiving the barely cooked and lightly coloured chips and I’m forgiving the time it took to serve three sandwiches and a steak pie – but I cannot forgive the poorly kept beer. Watery Hobgoblin! I can’t re-live that.

Mum’s Birthday
My mum was 85 last weekend, she won’t mind me saying because she keeps forgetting 🙂  However, as I say, we’ve had some good meals here before and had booked a Sunday lunchtime table to celebrate. Remember, this is the same pub/restaurant as mentioned above.

I avoided the Hobgoblin.

The service on each occasion was good. Better on Sunday than Thursday but on each occasion the service and attention to orders etc. was good.  My starter was OK: A small piece of Halibut with sweet and sour sauce. I didn’t expect any more than I got, a few bones still in it and commercially tinned/bottled sweet and sour sauce. I still ask myself “why?” but can’t really say. Anyway, my main course was better: Roasted belly port with prawns and saute (ish) potatoes. It was good, the only thing letting it down was the prawns served on top – which prevented the skin from properly crisping up. But it was tasty.

Goat’s cheese tarte tatin

Hummus
However, Sharon’s choices were badly made (in both the sense that she made a bed choice and the sense that the dishes were in fact badly made). How can you ruin hummus? This is one product the chef should have bought in! It was lacking any real flavour, was watery and under seasoned. I know there are different ways of combining the chickpeas, the tahini (if used) the garlic, the olive oil and the seasoning but this, served to Sharon, was just home-cooked chickpeas (drain these well Chefs, drain them well), food processed to within an inch of their lives and lightly seasoned. And to dip in it? Griddled Asparagus (the menu said that) and boiled Chantenay carrots. Boiled!! Sharon had misunderstood the menu – it said griddled asparagus and carrots – she’d expected raw carrot. But boiled! ffs.

Her main course was less of a disappointment but still not what it should have been. A goat’s cheese tarte tatin. The picture here is what she expected (from elsewhere), what she got was something a whole lot smaller.

Rant over.

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Birthday Weekend

As anyone who read my previous post – https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/the-old-telephone-exchange/ – will know, this (long) weekend has been spent in North Yorkshire, celebrating my birthday.

Sharon had planned a fabulous weekend of good food and time to relax, so after our trip to Ripon, on my actual birthday, I relaxed. Sharon had tea to cook after all – from scratch and from goods she’d brought along with us. We had Butternut Squash Ravioli for starters, with a spicy tomato garnish and spinach. this was followed by a Griddled Rump Steak, battered onion rings (remember – all from scratch and there was no fryer), mushrooms in a cream sauce, Roasted Sweet Potato and some delicious potato skins. Yummy. This was followed by Tarte Tatin. There would have been cheese – but we were too full.

The following day, breakfast was scrambled eggs and smoked salmon (how lucky am I?) and then although Sharon had researched some walks around the area, and because it was cold, we decided that following our breakfast we would set out and take a look at Thirsk and Northallerton. There was a nowtish market on in Thirsk and I found it disappointingly depressing, whereas Northallerton on the other hand was a whole lot better. So, anyway, we ‘did’ the charity shops, bought a Christmas special Fat Rascal from Betty’s and came home to light a fire and relax before popping out for a splendid meal at a pub five miles away.

The Crown Inn at Roecliffe

is a 16th century coaching inn that retains the inn’s historic features, such as stone flag floors, crackling open log fires and oak beams

and has a fabulous reputation for food and for service. Both of which, following our meal last night, I’m happy to say were richly deserved. We were made to feel welcome throughout our evening, service was attentive without being ‘in your face’ and the food was delicious. I had a pressed belly pork starter and Sharon had ox-tail tortellini. Both were home made and fully flavoured. Mine came with spicy noodles, most of which i had to leave for fear of over-facing myself.

Next, our mains arrived: Sharon had a Venison dish that was just right; whilst I had the Yorkshire Lamb. Two cutlets, perfectly seasoned and a small side dish of shepherd’s pie. We managed to finished a bottle of Malbec too – so a good time was had by all.  Home now and eating left overs 🙂

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