The ultimate question: Which side are you on?

So what's it to be Egg or Pineapple?

meat balls like ma... well actually

meat balls like ma... well actually
Originally uploaded by bltphoto

We use have them out of a tin!
I was inspired by the recipe in the paper today.  I have made meatballs before and  I had most of the ingredients in so it seemed a nice idea . I didn't soak the bread just loosed the mixture with some of the pasta sauce (a tip I read about in a Scorsese's interview!) oh and I included some smoked bacon in the meatball mix which I cooked with the onions. It's a good   little recipe.
ps. Didn't have any Parmesan and I rather like cheddar.

In a Pickle

In a Pickle
Originally uploaded by bltphoto

Here's my first go at pickling my own. I salted them first to crisp them up, made sure to use cool liquid through out (keeps the crunch better)I did try boiling my own vinegar but it fills the flat with the worst fumes!
So use the ready made sarsons stuff. Oh and get a good film to watch while you peel the tiny onions.

Now I only need to make a loaf churn some butter and curdle some cheddar and I'll have urban(e) ploughmans (i've got some decent apples)

Not waving but frowning

Way over yonder that's where I'm found..

God it's a lovely evening,

I'm sat here squinting as the low sun is burning at last through my main window.

On the window sill my potted up herbs are surging up to meet the light even the lavender seems to be growing cms by the day, the parsley is almost big enough to regreen the hacked up trees the other side of the pane.

In the kitchen my first rhubarb of the year is bubbling away on the stove top, (the bloke in green grocers looked at me funny when I asked where it was from but he showed me the box any way and pleasingly it's from the right place) . So the whiff stewed fruit is mixing with the smell of roasting fennel. All this to the tune of this rather famous selection which I realised I hadn't heard all the way through. Then I heard Ms King talking about it last week on the radio and would you know there it was this morning, nestling (hardly unplayed) amongst the knock off long life lamps and playstation ones.

Out past my stereo the suns silhouetting the faux cupola of the school across the way. Which for a while now looks like it's become the home to some trapped south london damsel. As in louvres under the dome there's a piece of cloth trapped in slats. As the cloth flaps in the wind its like a plaintive cry for help.

The only thing to spoil this pleasant scene is the continuing boycott of my bird feeder by Deptford's avians. A rather thoughtfully sent it me and it's brimming with the finest birdseed that I schlepped all the way from Holborn but as yet no luck. I've spread some kernels on the ledge to tempt them in but as yet not peck, hang on there's some movement, oh no just a starling flying past.

So the big question for this evening hot or cold rhubarb with custard , cream or yoghurt?

Just POP(ping) ART for some evap luv........

Tip top tins?

Distinctive retro stylings but a whole can of worms (sorry) when it comes to the cultural resonance of these near opposite of Robinson jams dodgy icons.

Bet you don't get world geopolitics & Art & Design 101 in Tesco Metro!

Also has anyone ever made up normal milk from evap?

See also

So Red or Brown Sauce?

Load of old Flaneur
aka BLTP's Excellent A-Z adventures:
Volume 12 (probably).

I spent Saturday doing weekend stuff; washing things, buying things, watching “a kid for 2 farthings”. It’s a good film spoilt only by Carol Reeds insistence of choosing the posh kid ever to play a cockney urchin.

Anyway maybe this film (based if not shot in Petticoat lane) or a photo I saw somewhere reminded me that there’s a Bacon street in the East End. With the way that my mind works I thought that it would be good if there was a Sandwich Street near by and after a quick look at the A-Z it showed there was one in Holborn. So I decided to walk between to the two.

Beigels, bacon and bhajis
So this morning in the increasingly heavy rain I “bussed" it round to Brick lane.
There’s no place in London like Brick lane, where the ineffably cool and the ineffably down at heel rub shoulder. In the space of a few yards you’ll see highly excited modishly attired Japanese art students (madly tall fake fur cossacks hats) fighting over off cuts of leather in a skip, just down from an elderly Asian man hawking his wares in the rain. The man’s cheap anorak was sodden and he had a light orange hat fashioned from a Sainsbury bag on his head. He was morosely stood in front of a meagre square of things for sale; the most saleable being a chipped Whitbread pub ash tray. He may have other sources of income but none of them looked good.

Elsewhere in the market you can buy more fruit and veg in scoops than even Jamie could swallow or maybe 30 spanners for 3 quid.

Funnily enough Bacon (the street crosses Brick lane) is probably the hardest thing to find in the lane what with the curry houses and beigel shops. The beigels always seem ridiculous good value at £1.20 for salmon and cream cheese and not much more for salt beef (they are also bloody lovely).

Why don’t you just foccacia somewhere else then….

Anyway after a “light” bite and a mooch I headed off for Sandwich street. The rain however was quite heavy so I only got as far as Old Street and then got buses the rest of the way.

Sandwich Street I only realised, when I got there was close to one of my old flats, round the corner from the Brunswick centre (in Holborn).
The area around there has been gentrified since my time or should that be re-gentrified as in Victorian times it was quite “well to do”, the recent influx of money is just the cycle coming round again.

Complaining about gentrification in London is rather futile; after a while it’s really a case of choosing which sort of middle class person you like. The type in Brunswick centre with its Waitrose, Giraffe, and branch of Office do seem to leave a bland trail behind them though. The busy shopping parade that replaced the threadbare charity shops and retro cafes in the Brunswick centre is just so dull. The fact that the shops are packed doesn’t excuse their dullness.

Good luck to the families eating in Giraffe it’s just that the orange café that was in the parade before Giraffe came along still sold fish finger sandwiches except the ketchup wasn’t organic and they were half the price.

The whole place was quite strange almost like a parallel world, the Renoir cinema was still there but the good cheap Chinese café was missing and the book shops have been shuffled round the corner. The planners and councillors will point to the 3 wheel prams and expensive overcoats as proof that they’ve done their job, it’s just, it’s just well you know, you sometimes just want a chemist that sells night nurse and plasters not face cream at £40 a pot, Waitrose is nice but it’s not cheap.

Oh, I don’t know good luck to them all.
I was glad to see the Valencia café was still going round the corner. Its’ staff were always pleasingly gruff, the coffee was good and the food was fine if not quite what the American students from the halls of residence round the corner were was use to. I was never sure if it was trick or not but they use to put the salt in a sugar shaker which wasn’t good when you had a hangover.

Anyway it was interesting visit I may not be back soon

Oh and I still haven't answered the ultimate question, so on a breakfast butty is it "Red" or "Brown" sauce?

Yolk of the Day!

It's Twins!

Go to my flickr site to see much more dragon and egg related fun!

Oh and if it works out I should have a short film of it here by tonight! Inevitably Kinder have a website!

Suprise!

Come back tomorrow to see what's inside!

Going to hell in a sweet bag

Sugar coating bitter lessons

I saw these treats in Smith’s today, I can’t but help but think they highlight a moral weakness at the heart of British society. In the olden days Rowntree’s fruit pastilles were randomly packed pot luck thing, you had to take your chances and eat the next one in the tube as it was revealed; be it red, black, green or even yellow.

Of course you only wanted the red and black ones but had to learn to accept the yellow and green as they gave moral balance and structure to life. Fruit pastilles were a small philosophical lesson in a paper wrapper that life isn’t easy that you have to take the rough with the smooth.

But no in this New Labour world of all shall have prizes no one needs to suffer to attain anything quick fix hoody wearing mobile phone ringtone blaring alcopop sodden xbox playing tattooed touchy feely world you can have just the red and black ones or worse still just black!

God help us if there’s ever another war

Pie chart

It’s pie week.


So let’s answer some important crusty old questions.


In pork pies Pink (northern) or Grey (them there southerners) meat?


Potato and or butter pies are these just evidence that Lancastrians are tight?


When you have pie and mash with your lady friend liquor?


Mint sauce on mushy peas yes or no?


In a pasty are carrot and peas kosher?


Are there any kosher pies?


Pasties again: traditional or flaky?


Has anyone ever eaten a ginsters hot?


All these weird stilton and banana fancy dan pies aren’t they just wrong?

Does a Gregg’s veggie slice count towards your five a day?


Has anyone had a pie from abroad that was worthy of the name?


Brown or red sauce?


Has anyone had any Denby dale pie?


Is apple and bramble pie the best sweet pie?


Is it immoral to eat tinned custard?


Does the Mitre pub in Holborn Circus have the most blokey lunch menu ever i.e. cut up pork pies, sausage and toasties?


What about those pork pies with pickle already in them aren’t they just weird?


Does anyone care what the people of Bakewell Derbyshire think what a real Bakewell tart should be?

loads of lovely pictures of crusty treats over at flickr


Finally what’s the best pie you’ve ever had?

News Round up!

Booze Britain: According to one paper today "Britian is being destroyed from within by drunken teenagers" and I thought it was Al-Quaida and single mums.

The Olympics: The Chinese are whingeing that people are making the games political; they always where! For some reason the Olympics is the most political sporting event going, more so than even the World cup. If it wasn't a huge polictical event the Chinese Government wouldn't be spending billions supporting it. It's shameful of us all that so much support is being given to such corrupt totalitarian government.

Consumer update: Tescos et al aren't cheaper because you always buy more than you went for, they are really slow at serving you, horrible places to be and if you don't have a car they couldn't give fig for your custom.

Transport news: Still no improvement to my morning train; overcrowded and stopping randomly (slow) the same goes for every other one in Britain.

My 365th post!

Just been down the market for some bits.

In the bakers they had real car crash sarnie chicken fajitas foccacia ! Less a meal rather a global culinary skip.

It’s strange because the rest of the stuff is normal honest cake shop fare. The baked goods were cheerily rated by an excited, tiny but precocious black girl (with the neatest corn rows) she ran in pointed and counted at all the cakes; apparently only iced doughnuts and éclairs are any “good” everything else including the Eccles cake are “bad”. The Observer food monthly should sign her up.

Sad news for bacon lovers:
Kennedy’s sausages has close
It’s not entirely surprising as all the time I’ve lived in south London they have never been a go ahead firm. Whenever I’ve tried to buy their stuff they seem to be closing. That being said their bacon was good and the pies were tasty if idiosyncratic.

All's not lost as I noticed a shop stocking “head cheese” sausage (Polish?) so although Kennedys won’t be selling brawn any more we can still get it. Now is there anywhere to get Pease pudding?

Lastly ideas for broccoli as the guy wouldn’t sell me one head of so I’ve enough for the Green party annual!
Now where did I put those singles… rustling in bags (I know I know I should get a fabric one)!

An excellent tribute to kennedy’s

Quick, quick wake up it's our stop

Can you move down abit?

Last week I dug up quite a lot of new (“old”) singles and got round to ripping them. Here’s one I hadn’t heard before. It’s by Bad Manners who I think got unfairly tainted with being a novelty band. It’s from the B side of “Lip up fatty” and it’s “Night bus to Dalston” which is a very good joke and a nice friendly pop at Madness too boot.





Is this the only song about night buses? Tom Waits and the Blue Nile have written about late night trains any tunes about N453?

I know the night buses don’t have the greatest reputation, although other than a bit of wait now and then, I’ve never had any problem on them. The worse that can happen is some loud lass tries to force a bit of kebab on you or the time I was a bit worse for wear and missed my stop on the outward journey and on the way back and went to Morden and back twice!



Anyway here’s some stuff about night buses

A delightful bus spotting page.
The start for this ad for Edinburgh night buses completely contradicts the message that they are safe by a dodgy tie in to a local attraction.
Of course you often do have kebab yourself on the night bus these chaps are having it large





So may be you want to make your own well go here or here for the most pointless food gadget ever.
I’ve not seen this but here’s an excellent film of Delia making a Doner.



ps don't read too much of the paper you'll have none left for the mornning!

The Cornershop cook

Gnocchi A la Deptford (via Austria).

Thought I'd share me tea with you!
One good blog I found lately is "Dinner for One" which is written by Gerda (?) who lives in Austria (but posts in excellent English). It's a good food blog chatty with excellent pictures, anyway she made some gnocchi and they looked good, so here's my attempt.

They are not as pretty as her's they should be finger sized and Gerda has finer fingers than me! I won't repeat the recipe here as her's works fine, mine where lovely and fluffy and I had them with some tomato and basil sauce, the basil a frozen remnant of last summer's crop!

One trick when making the gnocchi add the egg before any water to stop them getting too sloppy and you then having to add any more flour. The recipe makes stacks so I froze them on a baking sheet and then bagged them up for later (oh get me domestic Goddess sorry God!).

Anyway give them a go!

Fighting with axes like few months ago with dani and tony

Web poem number 12
Fighting with axes
like few months ago with dani and tony
the man inside listen to me carefully
Alcopops that are gluten free
the man inside listen to me carefully
amplifier pink noise
burn-in download
red adair porn

This is the new name for my unconnected random tat posts, inspired by the searches that lead to my site.
I don‘t know whats more scary that someone who will one day vote is looking for gluten free alcopops or tht thankfully in austrailia someone is looking for porn films containg famous oil well fire fighter Red Adair.

Anyway
Here’s some free stuff
I liked these tunes I heard about them from How does it feel to be loved? An excellent club night if you like indie and soul (who doesn’t) it’s the only place other than my flat I’ve ever heard the Supremes followed by Canada by Low.

I also heard these songs by Dawn landes who sound great, she’s worked with Hem and the Earlies so is on the side of the angels . Let's hope the phone company ad men don't get to them too soon.






London Pics :Upper Crust fayre.
Britain’s Leading Beer Writer sent me this pic today, as he rightly points out it contains two of the best words in English language :

Gala & Pie.

He didn’t have time to check if they had any Gala Pie (how do they get the egg…) for sale as that would be a gala pie pie gala……






Things you see on public transport:
A posh city type (woman) was the first to board our carriage at Cannon st, trying to hide it from 2-3 others of us, she pressed the train door button but had a tissue over her finger so she didn’t touch the button.

A guy in his city suit stood sucking his ipod nano and then replaced it with 8 pieces of gum all at once.

A whole family mum , dad, boy (11ish) and girl (8ish) all reading books on angling or fish.

Cookie Crew...

Day 2:

Scary Santa Biscuits

Headrow Leeds DEC 2007

Top Town Action

Spent a few days up in Yorkshire what follows isn’t post ironic or gosh look culture beyond the north circular just a list of good things to do if you are in God’s own county. Some are worth making a longish detour for:

Go to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park:
Set in a dramatic and striking valley a couple of miles from my old school, the YSP was set up to provide a setting for the work by local “boy and girl” Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth (amongst others).





A few years ago it got a pep up with lottery money for a new visitors Centre (it got the obligatory fancy café and shop but also some excellent gallery space too.

At the moment the YSP is hosting a retrospective of the work of Andy Goldsworthy work. See my little film (for some pics I took when they weren’t looking fight the power).

I must admit I’m not totally taken with Goldsworthy’s work. It’s obviously very popular and the exhibition is thorough and the park is the perfect setting for his “environmental” art. I just find him a bit of a one trick pony and outside the nice patterns with natural elements (twigs, stone, sheep shit and snow) I can’t find much else in it. If it forces people to look at nature a new so be it but it leaves me cold. I fear one of his chief appeals for the British public is the old "he is a very clever man it must have taken him a long time" school of art appreciation. This shouldn’t stop anyone going along to the YSP and deciding for your self.

The art work I did like was by James Turrel an American who works with light. I tried to write about his work but this piece from the paper says it really well. His work is beguiling and incredibly beautiful and for much more engaging and emotionally fulfilling than Goldsworthy’s work but well that’s art for you.

Go to the Theatre:
After the plastic arts we took in some of the performing variety at Barnsley's Lamplight theatre. The Lamplight is set in a converted youth club behind the town hall and is a surprisingly well run little theatre. A very comfortable studio auditorium of about 60-70 seats, hosting productions by mainly amateur local actors. We saw "Up and Under 2" by John Godber. A seemingly stereotypical choice for Barnsley, a play about Rugby league (except it is a mainly “football” town) the non-professional cast carried it off really well especially in the second half. I just felt the whole thing was under written with some strange changes in tone almost mid sentence in some cases.
The lamplight puts on a range of mainly mainstream work but its audience obviously loves the place so long may they prosper.

Go to Barnsley market:
If you ever gone out of your way to go to a French or Italian food market you should do your self a favour and visit T’ market. It looks a bit grim (that’s 60’s brutalism for you) but if you are after northern fare this is the place: a cornucopia of pies, black pudding, excellent meat and superb fish. There's tripe (brown and white) complicatedly named bread rolls, marvellous cabbages, a home brew store and some stupendous crabs. A must.
Sorry no pictures I rather shot myself in the foot with this rant on this one doh!


Go to see the mighty reds:
Sub titled “ all quiet on the Preston front”
lower league football isn’t unfortunately about "glory"as ex Tyke Danny Blanchflower once said it’s a more a life long meditation on the vale of tears in which we all live, leavened from time to time with the occasionally victory (Barnsley 1 Preston North End 0).


Barnsley try to play attractive football with only their lack of skill getting in the way and were saved by our marvellous goalie Heinz Muller (the only non porn star German I’ve ever cheered for!). Other highlights are our mascot Toby Tyke and the pies (which were bloody lovely)

hmmmm that's tasty for you

When did everything get so expensive? Pt12.
How one west end cafe managed to charge almost six quid for a cheese and ham toastie, some crisps, a small pile of bean salad and some spikes! Can we stop this madness now oh and pannini are football stickers not lunch.....

At last a cure for boil(s)

Take 2 lumps twice a day:
Bought some Turkish Delight last night (called Bodrum a bit bland not very perfumed, nice texture though)

It does have an excellent bit of blurb though:

"Nutritional & health benefits Of Turkish Delights
Turkish Delight is both a natural and healthy source of nutrition, and is know to have health benefits. One of the key benefits of Turkish delight is its carbohydrate (it's virtually all that's in it recipe ed) content. Especially patients suffering from Kidney disorders are recommended to regularly consume Turkish Delight to dispose uric acid and excess Keratin that builds up in foods high in protein and are taken into the system. Turkish delight is also widely known to be one of the most powerful cures of boil (sic)"

So there you have it when did you last see kit kat claiming to cure gout and clear up your skin!

Christmas is cancelled is early this year:

Normally the annual snow storm of "loony pc gone mad local council bans christmas" stories don't start until 6th Nov (it's traditional!) but the Times has brought even this aspect of the Yule build up forward this year.

Stick ‘em up your ar….

Sweet of the week

Trebor Extra Strong Mints 45p:
Bought a packet today, they are really nice. When I was a kid they where almost too scary, no one dared eat them. Now they seem sharply minty but not over the top, in fact they are rather moreish. The texture is similar to Edinburgh rock but harder, the large round shape has nice mouth feel and the mint oil is fantastic, it’s like mouthwash without the slapping the back of your neck freshness.

Lastly there is the song "trebor mints are a little bit stronger stick'em up your bum and they last a bit longer"

I might have to test them against polos and tic tacs*, what other mints are good?

Ps. It was ages before my Bro A pointed out that “moreish” didn’t refer to the addictive produce of the mystical east (made by the Moors) but just means you want more of something, doh!

Family story number 57:
When we were little, one of the minor pleasures of childhood was a packet of tictacs. When they were finished we would fill the plastic pot with water from the tap and then drink the water which had a delish hint of mint, lime or tangerine about it. Because the packet was re-sealable you could carry supplies of water around with you like a commando, ace!

I’m only telling this story because when I’ve mentioned it in passing to people recently, they have looked at me strangely. Surely other kids enjoyed this simple pleasure? You’ll be telling me next you’ve never drunk from a water pistol?

What’s your family quirk which isn’t as universal as you’d thought it was?