Sourdough Bread

We have a very nice bakery in our area



and they seem to do all their baking on site. And you can get a nice cup of coffee. All jolly good stuff. Highly recommended. If you go there on a saturday at 8.00am and it's full of nice blokes, guardian under their arm, stocking up on almond croissants.

They also make a particularly nice sourdough loaf.

APPARENTLY

Went in there at 3.00pm last Monday to get said sourdough loaf.

"Ooh no, we don't make sourdough on Monday anymore: no call for it"

"Really? Well, here I am, calling for it"

"Er..haha. We'll have it tuesday"

Haha my arse.

Next day I go in at 3.00pm, quivering with excitement



Sourdough bread, here we come!!

"No, sold out."

"What? What do you mean sold out? You said you'd have it tuesday"

"We did. We had it earlier, but it sold out."

"Well what time do I have to get here?"

"Best to come first thing"

"But...but you're open all day!"

"Well most people get it as they go to work. Before it runs out"

"But I don't go to work. I've retired!"


C'mon boy: walkies!!

"All I can tell you is we usually run out really quickly, especially as we don't make them on Monday any more."

"Well why don't you make more loaves if it gets sold out so early?"

"There's no call for it. You're about the tenth person I've told today"

A BADUM  TISHHHHH

She didn't actually say that, but she might as well have. 

Looks like I'll have to mix with...ugh...commuters to avoid disappointment.

Arse.



Oh Laura, I've been such a fool. Can you ever forgive me? I...I've missed out on the sourdough again. 

Gilbert Scott v Roti King

Question:

Would you rather go here


or here



for the evening.

WRONNGGG!!!!

In fact, we went to both.

The Gilbert Scott Bar is at the front of the stonkingly impressive Renaissance Hotel, part of the St Pancras Station complex next to Kings Cross






Arrived just before 6.30 and managed to nab a table


on that couch on the right. I ordered a small lager (from a choice of...er...ONE) from the beautiful waitress to keep me going until my other companions arrived, which they did about 20 minutes later and we all ordered cocktails.

Lovely place, but you pay for it.

Drinks for four came to £65


HOW MUCH???

Man Alive, that maraschino cherry in my whisky sour was expensive

This was pre-dinner drinks, before going, on the advice of one of my companions having read a writeup in the Guardian (where else?), to the Roti King



situated round the back of Euston Station



just a few easy steps from Secrets Lapdancing Club



Ummm...OK.

So a 10 minute walk later and the commissionaire greets us



The Maitre D' seats us at a table by the band



and we see the Roti King himself




Making the paper thin Rotis, which, I have to say, were incredibly delicious, light, flaky, mouthwateringly good, especially served with the fiery, gutsy lamb curry.



We also had a cheese & spinach, and an egg roti which were served with the most delicious dhal I have ever had, and I've had a few I can tell you.

The sommelier suggested an accompaniment of cans of tepid Carling bought from the nearby wine emporium



Shot of Lenin walking past the offie

The other diners were not, as would have befitted the decor, a selection of



but I am ashamed to say, mostly a bunch of media types who had clearly read the same review as us.


Who's up for the lapdancing club afterwards?

However, despite the company, it was genuinely one of the best meals we've had for some time. And we were stuffed

The cost?  £28 for 4, or about half a Gilbert Scott Cocktail



I shall return, but I might give the warm Carling a miss next time

Barbecues: do's & don'ts

Blimey. A heat wave.

I see that the NHS has issued a helpful leaflet about what to do in a heatwave.

Here are a few helpful highlights (and I quote):

KEEP OUT OF THE HEAT. Really? Why?

STAY COOL. I could write this. Gissa job


So in the same public spirited effort to be helpful, here are a few do's and don'ts if you somehow find yourself stupid enough to be tricked into inviting the neighbours round for a barbecue.

Incidentally, I have never understood the logic of having a barbecue in the summer.

It's hot. The sun is baking down. NHS advises you to keep cool, and keep out of the sun. So what do you do? You start a blisteringly hot charcoal brazier that has to be tended to outside, and once it has approached the temperature of the surface of the sun, you have to lean over it in order to produce billows of noxious fumes from charred meat falling into the coals.


Leave me! Save the bluefin tuna steaks before they overcook!!

Surely the time to have a barbecue is the middle of winter? It'll warm you up, and there's no chance of sunburn


I don't care what the room mate agreement says Sheldon, I think we should turn up the thermostat

OK, we'll assume you have lost your mind and intend to go ahead with the barbecue party.


 

Moroccan spiced lamb and chargrilled aubergine kebabs are ready!!


DO make sure you have a new bottle of that great squirty barbecue fluid handy, so you can squirt it into the glowing coals under the pretence of “just getting an even heat”, thus producing that satisfying WWHUMMMPHHHH noise and setting fire to the neighbour’s overhanging ornamental fig tree, the big poof.


Stand back Jocasta. Mummie's just going to get the briquettes started

DO make sure you deliberately drip steak juices onto the beige dog turd masquerading as a veggie sausage sulking in the corner of the barbecue that your daughter insisted you cook for her new goateed self righteous smug wet lettuce of a vegetarian boyfriend holding forth on the attractions of aduki beanburgers

DO make sure the bottle of Bicks Corn Relish that you use once a year for barbecues has the gunk from last year removed from the top. You don’t want to have to buy a new one you know. Remember for all bottled barbecue relishes, the use by dates are only accurate to +/- 20 years.

 DON’T forget to put out the set of five mini assorted granary mustards some mean lazy oaf gave you for last Christmas. Why didn't they just have the courage to not get you anything at all, which would have been immeasurably preferable, and would have saved you the torment of coming across the pack twenty five years later mouldering away at the back of the cupboard and like a fool you opened one and dipped the end of a bit of cheese in it, and it tasted of carpet tiles. In fact they all tasted of carpet tiles the day you were given them. You knew it was going to taste of carpet tiles. That was why you put them at the back of the cupboard. Why didn't you just throw them away when you got them?

Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes:

And finally and most importantly, DO remember to leave the middle of the chicken legs nice ‘n’ raw. Warm, but nice ‘n’ raw. That way when the invites go out next year for your annual street barbecue, with any luck everyone will politely decline, remembering their night of horror shouting into the Great White Telephone,



and you can have a lovely steak under the grill. Just you, the missus, and a nice bottle of Rioja.

Sock and Carrot

It's very difficult to get a straight answer out of medical professionals


note bow tie = he knows what he's doing

or amateurs, keen to impart anecdotal evidence


well my Albert's cousin Ethel came over very queer for several months


about how long it is supposed to take before I can get my sock on again.

Although my hip's recovering OK, I still cannot reach my foot, despite Herculean efforts. I am still some way off reliving my professional days as a contortionist


Marjorie! Where the devil did I put my driving gloves?

At the moment my most prized possession (my foot) is just a dream. So close and yet so far


Smug git

So the upshot of this is that I am still subject to the daily humiliation of having the missus putting on my left sock, before she goes off to work.

Conversation usually goes something like this

"Can you reach your foot yet?"

"I couldn't yesterday could I ?"

"Well has it improved at all?"

"I don't think so"

"Are you trying?"

"What do you mean, am I trying ?"

"Are you making any progress ?"

"In what way ?"

"are you making any progress ??"



I instantly feel guilty, and so overreact. "Oh, what, so you think I just lie here all day watching cash in the attic and eating milk chocolate digestives do you?"

"You said that with rather too much conviction"

"Look, just put the damn sock on will you. I am trying. It's not easy. I've had a major operation you know"



"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll put it over the toes and up to the heel. Can you reach that?"

I stretch. I wince.



I'm almost there.

"Oooh you're almost there. That's a good stretching exercise for the day. See you later"

Breakfast in Bread

Yesterday, Saturday, was a day crowded with incident.

8.30am went to Morrisons in Palmers Green for shopping with the missus. Dressed like this



because the fruit & veg section is so fecking COLD. They must lose masses of money because everyone is rushing through as fast as poss grabbing stuff before they look like this



However, they do have this rather fancy way of presenting herbs. Gone are the ridiculously tiny packets of herbs, each with one frond of something in for £3.50, and now they have this



which is big bunches of herbs all covered in a misty spray. SUCKERS I hear you say. OK, guilty as charged, but you get a big bunch and they look really nice. Admittedly, they don't look so nice when you find twelve bunches of oregano rotting in the crisper next saturday


I had such plans!

Back home and then off to Islington with the missus and a friend for a viewing of some pictures by Bobby Russon, such as



and



and



They creep the bejesus out of most people, but I love them. I think they are actually quite funny. Tempted to get one, but at about £3000+ a pop, too rich for my blood.

Weather lovely, so we go for a walk along the Regents Canal



to exercise the leg. Been seizing up a bit lately. I think I abandonned the stick too early, so have it with me today.  We meet many cyclists who cheerily ring their bell as they come up behind us. I raise my stick and give them the usual greeting


Then we come across this



Which turns out to be a rather lovely cafe. It's called Ribeira. All seats by canal taken so we go inside



for a coffee, but the enthusiastic and friendly chef suggests Breakfast in Bread, which looks a bit like this



OK we say, and the three of us sit down with a cold beer and wait. Presently, two plates arrive and go straight to the couple on the table next to ours, who had come in AFTER us. 10 seconds later I hear frantic whispering by the waiter and chef ..."wrong table...well give them this one to be getting on with..." and one B in B arrives.

"Er...here's the first one..."

"You've given the other two to the wrong table haven't you?"

"Ummm...be right back"

I look over to the chef who is going batshit, but to his credit, the other two B in B's arrive within a minute, and was FANTASTIC:

A hollowed out, baked round loaf filled with spinach, mushrooms, baked tomatoes, leeks, fresh thyme, sausage, bacon, and topped with just the molten yolk of an egg.


Sorry: didn't think of taking a picture until now


I ate the whole damn thing, loaf and all which was crispy and delicious.



I suggested to the waitress that the addition of black pudding would be good. The Chef came over and enthusiastically agreed. Tells us the place is under new management and will be called The Bargehouse from now on. Then he showed me what he was going to cook tonight. Marinated pig cheeks. Looked great: I saw peppercorns, star anise, tarragon, leeks, bay leaves I think, and a few other things: smelt fantastic.

Oh the horror

Have started to venture out without my stick for short walks, but am avoiding rough ground at the moment.   I have to really concentrate on not limping, which is hard, and means that I am not always completely concentrating on where I am going. So I think I can be forgiven when I should have seen this horror show approaching, and crossed the road to avoid feelings of disgust, nervous hysteria, projectile vomiting, catatonia, dementia, and eventually a lingering and painful death. WARNING those of a nervous disposition may want to stop reading. Others should wear old cloths and cover their viewing screen with a vomit-proof membrane. Apart from animals dressed as humans,  I think this is the most sick and perverted thing I have ever seen: Walking with maximum concentration towards Bounds Green , I noticed  (TOO LATE) two ladies, arm in arm, walking along the pavement towards me. Clad in rough demin, chains, and cropped hair, with their hands seemingly down the back of each others' torn jeans, I suspected they may favour the Isle of Lesbos as their holiday destination. As they approached, I noticed something dangling from the chin of the shorter and chunkier of the two ladies. As they passed, my eyes were transfixed on her face. She had a huge wart on the side of her chin, out of which were growing thick black coarse hairs, about three inches long, platted together, and tied in a tiny. Pink. Bow. The Horror.