Bad Tony Benn
We knew he shut down Radio Caroline but well will history judge him now we know he was key to stopping nationalisation of the breweries in the 1970s? Bloody left methodist fun hating tradition bah humbug.
Pumpkin Publog
30 December 2005
27 December 2005
Christmas Shepherd’s Pie
aka What I Made For The In-Laws On Christmas Eve
1. Boil and mash some potatoes.
2. Brown some beef mince. Add a little cooking wine and some beef bouillon to make it juicier. I’d meant to do some onion with this but I forgot it.
3. Add raisins and chopped chestnuts and pine nuts to the mince (as much as you fancy).
4. Add ground cinnamon and clove (as much as yr liking for these spices dictates).
5. Cover with mashed potatoes. Cook for a bit in the oven.
6. 5 minutes before the end, put on some peas and switch the oven to grill and put some grated lancashire cheese on top of the mash.
7. Serve resulting shepherd’s pie with the peas.
I put in a little too much bouillon and not enough cinnamon (& forgot the onion) but even so this recipe went down very well indeed, many second helpings asked for which is always the mark of a good dish. It’s quite rich, but then it is Christmas.
(Also this may be cottage pie not shepherd’s, being as it hasn’t got any veg in it. I forget which is which.)
Tom in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
19 December 2005
Wot I Ate and Drank This Weekend
On Saturday I ate:
Bacon Sandwich
A pint of Young’s Winter Warmer
Venison, walnut and beetroot salad*
Game pie (with veggies and tatties)*
A glass of champagne*
Wine to the max*
Water sucked through a marrowbone*
Eccles Cake and Lancashire crumbly cheese*
Port*
Emmanuelle’s cornbread and guacamole (spicy as…)
A pint ov Landlord
Lots of wine
Two shots of not num num aquavit and one shot of really horrible Cyanar (the cyanide artichoke liqueur)
On Sunday I also ate
Lentil, pea and lime salad**
Spanish tortilla**
Chorizo in red wine**
Spanish rice with morcilla and ham**
Beans, ham & sherry stew**
Patas Bravas**
A few different Serrano hams**
Pickled Garlic
Capers as big as yer eye
A cheeseboard of some wonderfully ripe Manchego and others
Rioja
Amontillado Sherry to the max
Requisite amount of bread
Mulled wine
Tracer Hands Bourbon Balls
Emma’s lovely chicken live pate on inappropriate walnut biscuits
Too much mulled wine
And Marks grebt ginger cake
*Nice St John’s people
**Cooked by me. I think I am missing somthing here as well.
17 December 2005
cooking dos and don’t w.r.t. the HOTNESS of HEAT!
even if you have probs in the past w.it bein gloopy and more liquid than firm – requirin more time in the oven to sort – DO NOT poke the top of yr gingerbread as it emerges after 50s mins
not only is it PIPING HOT it is also PIPING STICKY and will adhere to yr PIPING FINGER ow ow ow ow
16 December 2005
The Beauchamp Tavern, Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge may not strike you as the happiest hunting grounds for a good boozer and in the case of the Beauchamp Tavern you’d be right. Why mention it at all? Because it’s such an object lesson in how not to do a hybrid bar/pub. Its hybridity was why my colleague picked it – something to satisfy the bar types and the pub types, right? Wrong. The Tavern is pub-shaped and has a (meagre) selection of beers on tap and recognisably pubbish tables but the bar-style decisions it has made show no understanding of how pubs – or bars for that matter – work.
The interior of the Tavern is a big square space dotted with large pillars but with no dividing walls or partitions to create booths or nooks or subdivide the drinking area. This makes it seem bigger than it is, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Cavernous pub spaces are often said to ‘lack atmosphere’ which means both that they’re not particularly cosy but it also means that it’s hard to create atmosphere – such places tend to have pretty bad acoustics. Without subdivisions and partitions everybody’s noise tends to mingle and it’s hard to have any kind of non-shouted conversation: loud music obviously adds to this. This puts a strain on the kind of group conviviality one associates with the pub: you have to lean in close and shout to be heard.
In a bar there are generally good reasons to make the space noisy and demand this kind of intimacy – bars are often designed as places to meet strangers (& cop off with them) whereas pubs are mostly not. So the open space and close contact works in a bar. The Tavern makes a second big mistake with its choice of furnishing – very large chairs which each take up a lot of space. So a table of seven or eight people occupies a huge chunk of the pub floor. In itself this isn’t a bad thing, the chairs are actually very comfy. But the extra length of each chair – opposed to a normal pub chair or a stool – makes moving around the Tavern between tables quite difficult. Which wouldn’t be all that much of a problem, except the Tavern has table service – another bar import – and so is employing people to move around in exactly this way all the time.
None of the decisions the place has taken is a bad one in and of itself, but together they make for a stressy, irritable drinking experience. Though some would say that if you insist on going for a drink in Knightsbridge you can’t expect much better.
Tom in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
ALPINE? LAGER??? ALPINE LAGER?????
ALPINE BLOODY LAGER????? i mean , i’m not a lager drinker by any stretch of the imagination, but Sam Smiths have now finally lost any sembalence of the plot. the MAN is still there, though, of course, no longer in his box, but where it used to say AYINGERBRAU, it now says (in case you hadn’t guessed) ALPINE LAGER????
also, it’s not this, so they could be in trouble anyway…
clearly SOME ACTION needs to be taken, and just ordering AYINGERBRAU will only wind up the long-suffering SS barstaff. where is the all-party parlimentary beer group when you need them??? i DEMAND questions in the house!!!!
15 December 2005
Blak Out
Brand Republic brings news of 2006′s first big brand extension clash: both Coke and Pepsi are bringing out coffee-flavoured fizzy drinks at the start of next year.
Coke’s offering is Coca Cola Blak, as seen in this picture – but only available in France initially, whereas Pepsi’s new drink Cino – no pic available – will be handed out free at railway stations across the UK. Both companies clearly see coffee fizzies as a goer, though it’s hard to see why. “Coffee. Coke. They’ve both got caffeine in, right?” is the only logic I can think of, and the morning coffee market is a seriously tough nut to crack (crak?). Speaking of which, Coke’s new slogan is “Welcome to the Coke side of life”. Edgy.
Tom in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
12 December 2005
Orange and Morcillo Risotto
Minor food experiment. One of my favourite risottos is mainly flavoured by lemon. Lemon, watercress and the usual handfuls of onion, garlic and parmesan. Also about a month ago I had a really nice black pudding with an orange sauce (it might have been an orange jus – but that just makes me thing of Edwyn Collins and does not seem right). Anyway, Saturday night food collision: I had some really nice morcillo, and some oranges – would an orange and morcillo risotto work?
It was interesting, though it did not quite work. Admittedly I was making it quite late, and my handfuls were a bit inconsistent – and perhaps I was a bit over zesty in producing my zest. Whatever, the final result was passable, interesting but a bit sweet for a main meal. There weren’t a lot of vegetables, so there was little to counter the sweetness of the very juicy orange used. Perhaps I squeezed too much juice, and also it occurred to me that the morcillo was not as strong flavoured as the British black pudding used by Savoir Faire. Nevertheless the morcillo mouthfuls were really nice, so I don’t think the experiment was in vain. And indeed replacing the morcillo and parmesan with a bit of cream and sugar, it would be a wonderful rice pudding.
So what went wrong? The lemon risotto works because of the sharpness of the lemon. Orange just is not that sharp. The black pudding/orange combo works as a starter as it is sweet and meaty. But the rice – being creamy – does not work all that well with sweetness. Well, not as a main course. But the progress of food science cannot always be non-stop success.
Indie Chicken Watchdog
A dinner-free trip to the pub, last week, inevitably led to a trip to the nearest tasty poultry shop. Feeling boozy and ravenous, Marianna and I ordered the value meal of chixor, spicy wings, chips and drink. While fryers fried and boxes were stacked, we made the mistake of chatting and, crucially, NOT PAYING ATTENTION to the action behind the counter. Before we knew it, the bags of filth were handed over and we merrily bimbled home. Once collapsed on the couch I opened the box and a thought suddenly occurred to me:
WHERE’RE MY BLOODY CHIPS?
A text from Miss M. contained the same tale of woe and absent carbs. Moral: always check your purchase, especially during the busy holiday season. I’ll consider this a one-off oversight for now, Archway Perfect Chicken, but you have been WARNED.
