FT
9 July 2010
So we get a winner, down on Brewer Street in Soho, the Glasshouse Stores was voted the number one pub of the noughties by those of us who voted. A nice pub sure, but so much better than the others? To find out why it scored so highly I thought I would canvas a number of opinions – feel free to add your own at the bottom.
Tom Says:
My memory may be cheating me but I think the first time we ended up in the Glasshouse Stores it was due to a power cut a pub or two along. Marvellous serendipity if so, and appropriate: an accidental pub becoming a shrine to the unintended social consequences of setting up an online community. This is the top pub of the 00s and is tied firmly to the 00s: I can quite imagine never visiting it again, which isn’t something I can say about several others. The regular ILX meet-ups we held there are mostly a thing of the past, for the happy reason that participants basically stopped being “message board posters” and started being simply ‘friends’. What that misses out is the random element, of course – the sense on entering a get-together that you never quite knew who would turn up. Sometimes new faces, occasionally unwelcome ones – the internet meet-up pitches itself halfway between the cosy drink with mates and the party. more »
Pete Baran in FT /Pumpkin Publog • 10 Comments
I didn't even have a knife for cutting the cheese - you don't expect me to have a PHOTOGRAPH of it for you, do you?
A hard unpasturised goat’s milk cheese, made in Somerset and bought from Neals Yard Dairy.
Kat joined me for an impromptu picnic lunch, and we bought a wedge of this. (Note to self: next time choose a SOFTER cheese if you have no knife!) It’s a very pale parchment-coloured cheese, hard and smooth and with a smattering of tiny gaps, covered in a crumbly wrinkled light grey rind. more »
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
2 July 2010
This cheese is an old friend and favourite of mine, and I’m not sure why it’s taken me this long to get around to mentioning it here. We snaffle a wedge of it for lunch. It’s pale and crumbly in the centre, chalkily opaque, and coloured a gentle primrose primrose-yellow. Under the rind the curd has broken down and formed a soft, slightly sticky, darker translucent layer. The rind itself is a mottled brownish grey, musty, dark and dusty. more »
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
29 June 2010
Dear internet. I am not being judgemental. But please explain this to me.
Pete Baran in Pumpkin Publog • 12 Comments
21 June 2010
Non-alcoholic drinks aren’t always a concern of Publog but there are perfectly good arguments for sitting in a pub and drinking them, not least because dammit some of them, namely the noble Slime, are pretty great.
I am from South Oxfordshire, which is something I generally manage to disguise by being militant about which bit of London it is best to live in. However, every now and then something will flag up my yokel origins, the most striking being the seemingly inexplicable tendency of barpeople to, when I ask for a soda and lime, hand me a mysterious pint of Strongbow which some fool has placed lime cordial into. In some situations, this is …well, not per se acceptable but something deeply British in me assumes it must be my fault somehow and drinks the pint before trying ‘diet coke’ as a phrase next time. There are, however, some situations where this is not a viable option, for instance when on prescription druqks that do not mix with lovely (or borderline-undrinkable) bouze or when handling heavy machinery, etc. which leads to me being in a permanent state of fear regarding what on earth the barperson is going to come up with. more »
Hazel in Pumpkin Publog • 5 Comments
11 June 2010
A pasturised goats cheese from Hertfordshire, bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy.
Childwickbury always makes me think of the moon; it’s a round of pure white, incredibly young cheese. It’s damp and crumbly, an adolescent creature existing in some hinterland between fresh curd and a grown-up cheese.
In the mouth it’s both creamy and acidic – first off, the sweet, milkiness appears, and then it opens out into a huge bright zesty lemonish explosion, reminding me of really tart lemon curd. It sparkles, almost fizzes, in my mouth. There’s a tiny, hidden sniff of grass and herbs somewhere in here as well, lurking deep below the lemon.
Cheese-eating chum says it has a wonderfully fresh mouthfeel. In a fit of hypocrisy, I laugh at his using the word mouthfeel. But he’s right! This cheese is like fresh green grass and bright warm sunshine after a spring shower. It’s delicious, and refreshing, and incredibly cheerful, and it always makes me grin when I eat it. I’m grinning now just thinking about it.
(We made a lovely cheesecake from this once; cornmeal and oregano base, covered with a mixture of childwicksbury, lemon juice and icing sugar, and topped with a slice of sugared lemon. And it’s my number one top cheese for eating with figs.)
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • 5 Comments
9 June 2010
There are a lot of stupid things that supermarkets do to food that upset me. Wrapping cucumbers is of course everyone’s least favourite example of stupidity at work and washing potatoes counts as a close second. Washing carrots unnecessarily, so that the natural stuff that was stopping them drying out is taken off and then putting them in bags wet, so that a vegetable once preservable in the bottom of your fridge for months becomes instantly slimy and moldy is another. Wet things in unventilated bags: they go off. This is not exactly nuclear science, it’s just trufac and also a brilliant way of making slightly fermenting cow feed for the winter. more »
Hazel in FT /Pumpkin Publog • 3 Comments
4 June 2010
A beer-washed, paprika-covered spiced cows milk cheese from France, bought from Une Normande a Londres.
Boulette d’Avesnes is also known as suppositoire du diable – you can translate that yourself. It’s a pointed, conical little round of cheese, and comes in its own little plastic dome. It’s a deep, fiery, damp powdery orange on the outside – a result of being rubbed down with hot paprika – and when I cut into it the paste is pale, soft and crumbly, and liberally speckled with herbs.
It tastes very interesting, but not very much like a cheese. My first impression is that it’s sausagey, and subsequent tastings do nothing to dispel this. It tastes hot and smoky – the paprika rind, especially, is really quite intense. It’s strongly flavoured, but not in any very cheesy way; it’s very peppery, salty, and meaty. Spread on crusty bread, it makes an excellent dairysausage sandwich.
I’d not list this in my Top 10 Cheeses – I’m not entirely convinced that it’s a cheese at all. But it’s interesting and fun, at least in moderation. I’m not sure I’d like to try eating an entire one. And as an example of a cheese-with-stuff-in, it’s definitely nicer than most. The internet suggests pairing it with beer and I think that it would go very well with something cold and hoppy.
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
3 June 2010
photo by Ewan-M
The Royal Oak is wonderful because it is such a perfect example of an ordinary pub. It does nothing extraordinary or alarming. It is a Proper Pub, with small rooms and nicely mismatched furniture, and random plates and pictures on the walls. Here are some of the reasons that I love it:
The beer: Harveys’ beer is delicious, and the Royal Oak has a full range of it on tap. It’s one of the few pubs in London where you’re pretty much guaranteed a pint of Mild. (I have seen them run out of the lovely dark brew, but I have usually contributed to its demise.) In winter, they do a good smooth sour Old, and there’s always delicious hoppy, happy Harveys’ Best. Tucked away behind the bar are tiny bottles of Imperial Stout, and the Christmas ale – appearing on tap every December – is nearly as lethal. May is Camra-approved Mild month, with bonus extra milds to quaff. February features the seasonal ale ‘Kiss’ (and I’m certain that the bar staff never tire of the utterly hilarious variations on ‘Give us a Kiss please’). This seasonal run of beers is very comforting to a creature of habit like me.
It’s not such a great pub for those fools who spurn the warm, flat goodness of real ale; provision for the keg-drinkers is very limited. As is my sympathy. Drink some ALE instead! It is much, much tastier. more »
marna in FT /Pumpkin Publog • 5 Comments
28 May 2010
Sleightlett
A small raw goat’s milk cheese from Somerset, bought from Neals Yard Dairy
This little squat, disc-like little round of cheese is covered in a bloomy grey and white mould. The centre’s bright white. It’s soft and creamy, slightly fluffy, wth a grainy fine-sand texture.
It’s an intensely creamy cheese, with a subtle fresh fruityness, fragrant and citrussy – lemon zest and orange flowers, I think. The bright fresh milkiness makes it feels like a very clean, clear cheese; it makes me think of tall glasses of fresh, cool milk. A touck of acididty gives a very slight hint of yoghurtiness. The rind is soft and sweet, with a touch of dry dustyness; henna powder, or dried, sun-warmed straw.
more »
marna in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
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