Road Trip, November 2021

All over the place. November-2021

Straight after Winter Droving we set off on a road trip. It was only supposed to be a simple triangular trip: down to Axminster for a cookery course, up to London for an Elton John concert and home. Then Elton John went and broke his hip, our friend Alan announced his 70th birthday party and we realised that our friends John and Andrea were a minor detour off our route. So this is what we did.

Sunday 31-October-2021. Cranham, Gloucester. We called in for a meal with our old friends John and Andrea who we have not seen for ages along with their son, my godson, Julian. We ate, we drank, we chatted. So that was nice.

Monday 01-October-2021. Gardener's cottage, near Axminster. We booked ourselves two nights self catering accommodation in the gardener's cottage at River cottage HQ. It had two double bedrooms and as we had paid for the whole place we invited our friends Tim and Sarah to join us as our guests. They arrived from the Isle of Wight and we went to the local pub for supper.

Tuesday 02-November-2021. River cottage HQ. Much More Veg cookery course. The day was spent most enjoyably with a hands-on cookery course learning about new recipes, techniques, vegetables. It turned out to be vegan not just vegetarian, which suited Mary (being intolerant to lactose) and the vegan attendee very well - possibly why they did it. Apparently they do not advertise it as vegan because they fear that may put put some people off. We started off with the basics: a vegetable stock into which you chuck just about everything including onions skin and all. 

We picked a number of herbs and vegetables for the stock and other recipes:

• Split pea hummus
• River Cottage Green Herb Sauce (Salsa Verde)
• Flat breads
• Vegetable curry
• Spiced Emmer
• Roasted Apple, Daikon, Celeriac and Sage
• Garden Bhajis
• Oaty Nutty Chocolate ‘Tiffin’

Tim and Sarah had brought along ingredients for a self catering meal that evening but as it turned out there was so much left from the day's course that all four of us dined on that alone and there was still some left over for a doggy bag the next day.

Wednesday 03-November-2021. Denbies vineyard, Dorking. We had a couple of days to while away until Alan‘s birthday do on the Saturday. Mary found a mid week deal from Denbies hotel so we signed up for that: two nights dinner, bed and breakfast plus a cream tea and a tasting of their own sparkling wines.

We drove from Axminster to Ringwood and had lunch at one of our old locals, The Alice Lisle, Then on to Dorking arriving in time for the cream tea.

The cream tea was delicious but the wines were all a little tart for my palette.

Thursday 04-November-2021. Polesden Lacey. We have not had enough opportunity to use our NT membership of late but here we were able to fit in a good long walk round the grounds of Polesden Lacey.

Lots of woodland and mushrooms everywhere. 

We needed somewhere to stay on Friday so we made another booking in Denbies for that night. Part of the reason is that there is a parkrun round the vineyard on Saturday morning. 

Friday 05-November-2021. Speaker audition. Our current speakers are a little large for our new living room so we went up to Graham's Hi-Fi in north London to listen to some smaller speakers. We tried listening to the same speakers as we have in Italy but they were disappointing in a smaller room so we went upmarket. We have now opted for some niche Australian speakers (Serhan Swift Mu2. Mark II). On the way back we stopped for a lovely lunch at Unwined at Waterloo.

Saturday 06-November-2021, part 1. Parkrun tourism. After breakfast we just had to walk out the front door to get to the start line. For me it was my 29th different venue and my 103rd Parkrun. It sounds lovely running round the vineyards but vineyards like slopes and the first part of the course is a long, steady uphill; I was reduced to something very close to walking. The second half is downhill, I picked up a bit of speed and came in under 30 minutes.

Saturday 06-November-2021, part 2. Scattering my parents ashes. After my father died my mother never could bring herself to answer the question of disposal of my father’s ashes. Nor would she ever express a preference regarding her own arrangements. So his ashes have been sitting at the undertakers for several years until Mum died. They had no special places we could go for. In the end we decided the Thames was an appropriate location. My father was a Londoner, my parents met and married in London, their first home together was in London and us three children were all born there. 

We chose a spot between the Globe Theatre and Tate Modern as my father particularly was fond of Shakespeare and the arts. Appropriately with St Paul's behind us which contains the Chapel of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Dad was awarded the MBE for services to architecture which allowed Mary and I to get married there.

We went in order of seniority, me first, then Ian.

And finally Jane who also read a short poem.

The flowers went downstream as the tide turned.

The tide was high so we were unable to get right down to the strand. On the other hand it meant the tide turned and their ashes were swept down the river to the sea. We all three agreed that it was a job well done and a lovely send off.

PS. The Port of London authority website said that it’s okay to scatter ashes in the Thames with certain provisos like ‘not off a bridge’ and ‘don’t chuck the urn in afterwards'!

Saturday 06-November-2021, part 3. Alan‘s 70th birthday party. We switched from Denbies to a local B&B so that we would have a very short stagger home after the party. A wise choice. It turned out that our hostess at the B&B was one of the volunteers at that morning's parkrun so I was glad that I had given her a cheery "Thank you marshal" as I passed.

The party itself was a great success and it was lovely to meet up with many old friends who I haven’t seen in real life for a while. Let's hope it won't be too long till we meet again.

There will be wine (and beer and more wine)

Champagne and Sparkling Wine.

Philglas and Swiggot. Battersea. Thursday, 31-October-2019.

A walk around tasting of champagnes and sparkling wines and from around the world. Some very knowledgeable presenters made it an informative evening. In particular, for me, it highlighted the huge variety of grape varieties used to make sparkling wines. Champagne may use pinot noir, chardonnay and a little pinot meunier but producers of presecco, cava and Tasmanian sparkling have others grapes at their disposal. Our three favourites bottles were:

• Antonij Rupert L'Ormarins MCC Brut NV
• LLopart Brut Reserva Cava 2016
• House of Arras Tasmania 'Grand Vintage' 2008

11th Wandsworth Beer Festival.

Royal Victoria Patriotic Building, Wandsworth. Saturday , 02-November-2019.

Our third WBF at the wonderful gothic pile that is Royal Victoria Patriotic Building. It was the last night of the festival and beers were running low. Our friends who arrived half an hour after us got in for free because so many barrels had run out!

I focussed on porter and stout as I dislike this current fad for overly sharp pale ales. I started at the back of the catalogue hoping to catch some beers still on offer as I am sure many start on page 1. Even so only half the dark beers were still showing. I had enough to provide a satisfactory tasting but might think about an earlier start next year.

Afterwards we went with our friends for a lovely Italian meal at the family run Dan and Angel, named after the owners two children.

Wine Society Dining Club 277th dinner.

Drapers Hall, London. Tuesday, 05-November-2019.

At the other end of the spectrum from the beer festival is fine claret at a black tie dinner in the elegant surroundings of the Drapers' Hall.

The WSDC proposition is that the members of the main Wine Society buy wines for laying down and some years later consume them when they are ready for drinking.

The theme was "The Three Leovilles". We had an informative introduction to the wines, a lovely meal with superb wines and talked to charming strangers.

Hic!

Battersea Foodies' Festival 2014

Battersea Park, London. Sunday 17-August-2014.

What better way to recover from our annual BBQ the day before than a wander round the Battersea Foodies Festival in the sunshine thanks to a complementary tickets from those nice people at South West London TV.

Lots of food stalls, obviously, featuring everything from one person entrepreneurs to large corporations and all manner of food and drinks.

One woman tied to tempt us to into buying extra virgin olive oil by declaring that it was organic and that they pick and press the olives themselves - "So do we!" rejoined Mary.

Live music...

... and a novel mobile bar.

South West London TV is an internet only TV channel and here is their report on the day:

Definitely worth a repeat visit next year.

Italian Regional Cooking and Matching Wine

Sunday 06-April-2014

Demonstration Class with Valentina Harris

I must confess I had not heard of Valentina Harris but she is a prolific writer of cookbooks with over 40 titles to her name. Mary signed us up for this class held at Divertimenti in Marylebone High Street.

It was demonstration rather than hands-on so we watched while Valentina prepared and chatted. She gave us an insight into her background (Italian mother, English father), her introduction to Risotto (her signature dish), and about each of the dishes and wines.

The theme being regional cooking every dish and every wine was from a different area. Not a dish and a wine from the same area but wherever produced a wine that would suit.

We were pleased to see a couple of our favourite wines on the list: Greco di Tufo and Salice Salentino.

It started at 12:30 and, given the lead time for preparation and cooking of several of the dishes, it was gone 14:00 by the time we were served the starter and I was starving.

~~~~~

Bocconcini di Sogliola
Parcels of Sole and Rocket
Greco di Tufo, Vesevo, Campania 2013

The parcels were wrapped in speck and were light and delicate as was the wine. I normally think of Greco di Tufo as being a little more full bodied and unctuous but maybe they chose a lighter one deliberately.

~~~~~

Risotto con le Cipolline e la Lattuga
Risotto with Lettuce and Spring Onion
Morellino di Scansano, Le Pupille, Tuscany 2012

I wouldn't normally have thought of cooking lettuce but why not, you cook other green leaves. Since Valentina is nicknamed "The Queen of Risotto" you would expect this to be good and it was very tasty.

~~~~~

Coniglio ai Pepperoni alia Calabrese
Calabrian Rabbit with Red Peppers

Served with

Polenta con Pomodori alia Friulana
Baked Polenta with Tomatoes

Fagiolini alia Fiorentina
Florentine Green Beans

'I Muri' Salice Salentino, Vigneti del Salento, Puglia 2012

This dish may be Calabrian but is also very Pugliese-like as it comes from just around the corner, Puglia is the heel of Italy and Calabria is the toe, and you would expect them to have a lot in common culinary-wise. It would be the perfect dish to prepare in our big terracotta casserole dish. Valentina was very unkind about the "boring" green bean and was of the opinion they needed jazzing up. The stew itself was excellent, very tender rabbit.

~~~~~

Torta di Paparele alia Veronese
Veronese Chocolate Pasta Cake
Moscato d'Asti di Strevi DOCG, Contero, Piemonte 2013

It is a good job this wasn't a TV cookery competition. She, or her assistant, took their eye off the ball and the pasta stuck together - the torta was assembled in clumps rather than layers. Then, when baked, one of the cakes stuck to the tin and came out in several pieces. So she did what sensible cooks do, she reassembled it on the serving dish and covered it in chocolate so you couldn't see the disaster! And it tastes just the same.

Of course we had to buy a cook book so we bought "The Food and Cooking of Sicily: 65 Classic Dishes from Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata and Puglia" (available on Amazon) signed by the lady herself.

~~~~~

An excellent Sunday lunch and some recipes to try when we are next out in Puglia.

Trullo Azzurro: beautifully restored trullo in delightful, secluded valley near Locorotondo, Puglia, Italy. Available to rent on a per week basis, sleeps 8-10. For more information visit http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/trulloazzurro

The Goose is Getting Fat

Our 4.5 kilo goose generated a whole litre of fat. Goose fat is recommended for roasting potatoes so we wanted to keep it but not as one great lump. We hit upon the cunning wheeze of freezing it in cup-cake cases then bagging up ready to dispense in handy sized portions throughout the year.

We used the first block on New Year's Eve to create some very tasty roasties :-)

Everyday Differences in Puglia: The Pasta Aisle

It does not matter how small or large the supermarket there is always a complete aisle devoted to dried pasta in all it myriad forms. For a hypermarket that is some serious quantities of pasta.

It is so much an integral part of the Italian psyche that it acts as an emotional shorthand. We first noticed it house hunting when we bought Trullo Azzurro back in 2003. Every house we viewed had a bag of pasta placed prominently on the table or kitchen worktop as a piece of set dressing. The same was true in all the furniture shops and kitchen showrooms - there was that bag of pasta whispering "food, home, family".

Rather like the UK house sellers' trick of grilling a coffee bean or baking a loaf of bread to create an enticing aroma but even more universal in application. The central role of pasta in Italian life and soul cannot be disputed.

19th Wedding Anniversary - Padstow Seafood School

We have decided to re-institute the habit of alternately organising mystery weekends away to celebrate our wedding anniversary. When we married we had all the toys we needed which makes for a challenge when present buying. Instead we took it in turns to organise a surprise weekends away.

That worked well until the 10th when we went back to Egypt for another Nile cruise and the sights we didn't visit on our honeymoon - Cairo, the pyramids, sphinx and Abu Simbel. The next year we bought Trullo Azzurro so we started combining anniversary with olive harvesting and close down for the winter.

But now we are resurrecting the original plan apart from next year's 20th which will be a joint planning exercise.

Mary got the ball rolling by organising this weekend. I knew nothing and it was a piecemeal reveal. First to Paddington where my ticket told me I was going to Bodmin Parkway. On arrival, getting into the taxi which told me I was going to Padstow. Which obviously meant dining in Rick Stein's posh restaurant and staying in the hotel above (or nearby). So far so good and a very fine meal it was.

Then I was told that I had to be breakfasted and ready to go by 9:15 the next morning. Oh, there's more!

Walking along South Quay Mary suddenly turned left into a door labelled cookery school. We were going to spend the day at the Padstow Seafood School learning how to prepare and cook a number of fish dishes:

• Prawn and squid caldine
• Ceviche of monkfish with avocado
• Fricassee of turbot with button mushrooms and salad onions
• Bream baked in a salt crust
• Lobster with ginger, spring onion and soft egg noodles

It was great fun and the food delicious if we say it ourselves. I learned loads including how to prepare a squid. Potentially very useful in Puglia as they are usually present on the fish counter.



That evening we decided to take pot luck on eating. We were on the wait list for one restaurant but no one cancelled so we ended up having fish and chips and a pint of Doom Bar in The Golden Lion Hotel (really a pub). Then on to The London Inn for a nightcap of a pint of Proper Job.

Next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we took a stroll down the estuary and back getting to the hotel just as it stated to rain. Check out and the homeward taxi and train - first class naturally.



Well done to Mary for organising that. I now have two years to plan our 21st.

Full set of pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markmclellan/sets/72157631898170859/

60th birthday meal - Puglian meal

Trito, Puglia, Italy. Sunday 23-September-12.

This is the excellent menu that Mino put together for my 60th birthday party at Truddhi.

01 deep fried sweet olives, cheese and tomato, and burattina


02 skewer of octopus, new potatoes and slighly smoked pancetta with a pan fried king prawn, drizzled with a citronette sauce


03 cream of fava beans and cavatelli with seafood and zucchini sauce


04 stuffed aubergine


05 tenderloin of pork on a roast potato medallion finished with a salad of tossed red onion and yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes, grapes, extra virgin olive oil and vin cotto


06 fresh fruit


07 cake


20120923-puglia-60th-meal, a set on Flickr.

Everyday differences in Puglia: Tomato Bottling

We have been out for the olive harvest and the grape harvest but not, that I recall, for the tomato harvest. That is because we rarely come out during school holidays.

I had read about the frenzy of passata making in Annie Hawes' Ligurian trilogy and it should not surprise me that it is an Italy-wide phenomenon. The glut of tomatoes at this time of year and their prevalence as a basic ingredient in Italian cooking make this inevitable.

The evidence of all this activity is there in the supermarkets:


Big pans for boiling the jars in the Fasano hypermarket


A tomato press in a local furniture store


Tomato buckets and burners for the pots in a Locorotondo supermarket

And what should I find on YouTube but our neighbours Mino Maggi, with sister Zia and wife Carole, demonstrating the bottling and boiling of tomatoes.




How different from rain-soaked England!

Charity Dinner in aid of The Stroke Association

New local restaurant Perché has kindly agreed to host a special charity dinner for us on Thursday 18th September 2008. It is a win-win-win situation - people get a chance to try lots of their lovely food at a special price, we raise some money for the Stroke Association and Giovanni from Perché gets free advertising. Tonight we posted around 450 flyers into the houses all around the area - avoiding those with the "no junk mail" notices. Those poor people will miss out!

Charity Dinner in aid of The Stroke Association.

Thursday 18 September 2008 at 8 pm.

Local Wandsworth couple Mark and Mary are cycling London to Paris in aid of The Stroke Association. Support their efforts and enjoy a chance to try some of Perché's fantastic dishes with a specially designed tasting menu.

Antipasti, trio of pasta, choice of lamb or sea bass (please specify when booking), dessert, coffee. £35 per person* including a £5 donation to The Stoke Association.
* does not include drinks or service.

Perché Restaurante Italiano, 3 Dolphin House, Smugglers Way, Wandsworth, SW18 1DE. Reservations required Tel: 020 8704 0888.

Italian Themed Dinner Party

Our thanks to Mino and Zia at the Truddhi cookery school for teaching us what we needed to give a most successful dinner party on Saturday. The plan had always been to host a evening based on what we learned there. So on Saturday we persuaded usual suspects Bob&Lynn and John&Andrea to be our guinea pigs - not that they took too much persuading :-)

Antipasta mista con focaccia

We bought a variety of meats in the local market* sliced using our deli-style meat slicer bought following an earlier trip. The focaccia worked much better than an earlier trial bake though whether it was the yeast, the time to rise or the ambient temprature we are still working on.

Orecchiette con cime de rape

Home made from flour and water, every ear individually hand rolled; time consuming or what! The recipe was pretty much the one Mino demonstrated on Rick Stein's programme and was a great success.

Coniglio ripieno al forno

We bought the rabbit from Randalls Butchers in Wandsworth Bridge Road and Mary very patiently filleted it. She stuffed it with a mixture of fried giblets, breadcrumbs and egg** then tied it with string into two neat parcels. Baked with potatoes and lashing of olive oil.

Torta limone con lamponi

I was pastry chef and made a tart filled with lemon flavoured Confectioner's custard (creme patissiere) set wih gelatine and decorated with rasberries.

And of course plenty of wine. Even though I say it myself the evening went very well. Mind you with the right company that is pretty much guaranteed. A bonus was that most of the preparation was done in advance; the absence of last minute cooking meant we too could relax and enjoy.

* Origin within the EU for personal consumption so legal! [1] [2] [3]
** [11-Nov-07] Mary has asked me to add that the stuffing also included parmigiano, pecorino, parsley and garlic.

Monday, September 24, 2007: Cookery School Day 2

Mino returns and Day 2 sets the pattern for the rest of the week: a excursion in the morning, lunch, class from 4 till 7:30, dinner at 8 for whoever was about. Usually us two, Carole and Mino, their friend Mair from Wales, Zia, and a couple of paying guests from the Truddhi holiday apartments where the lessons are held.


Truddhi Cookery School

We visited a diary where they made mozzerella, all by hand from local milk. What amazed me was that all the mozzarella, even the little ones are all knotted by hand - you couldn't make it up!


[Hover for title, click for larger version]

Then we made fava bean and chicory, orecchietti, stuffed rabbit and Mino's version of bread and butter pudding. This day we mostly watched and helped a little. As the week progressed we got more and more hands-on which was better. Partly at our insistence and partly (I am guessing) that Mino realised we were able cooks.

A fuller set of Day 2 photos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8179454@N02/sets/72157602209424622/

Sunday, September 23, 2007: Cookery School Starts

Sunday was the start of the cookery school. Mino was in Wales at a food expo promoting Puglian food so we had Sunday lunch at his sister Zia's house. She fired up the pizza oven and we did a number of flour based dishes: focaccia, orecchietti, something else and then a tiedda (hotpot) of chicken and potatoes.

Zia and a forno a legno (wood burning oven)

It was all conducted in Italian as Zia has very little English which was good fun. Then we sat down with her family for Sunday lunch - it was a privilege to be invited into her home and family.

Zia and Mino also appeared on the BBC series "Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escape" in the same Puglian episode as Rosa:

Zia, Rick Stein and Mino Maggi *

This was where the rest of the course was held. More tomorrow...

* Buy the book from Amazon

Birthday cake 2007

We flew out to Italy on my birthday (55 if you really want to know). My mother had given me this cake on the Sunday before we left. Very delicious but not enough time to eat it all so my colleagues at work rallied round and helped polish it off.



We went out for a birthday meal in "U'curdunn", the best restaurant in the locality along with (Italian) neighbours Chris and John and a couple of their friends

What was even better was that we have discovered a local taxi firm i.e. Francesco, so I was able to drink as well as eat :-)