Recent eats: a Diana Henry week

July’s themed week was an homage to the wonderful food writer, Diana Henry.

I vaguely recall that she appeared on some daily programme on the food channel years ago - Market Kitchen? Good Food Bites? - and she has the kind of cosy screen presence, and, indeed, writing voice which makes you inherently trust everything she says. I hope that she wouldn’t be insulted to be described as more of a home cook but, like Nigella, a home cook with an encyclopaedic knowledge of food and cooking techniques, who draws on multiple traditions and cultures like a foodie magpie to create interesting dishes that you really want to eat.

We own a number of her books and such is my admiration for her that I even have my mother saving Stellas (the Sunday Telegraph magazine) for me so that I can tear out her weekly recipe columns. There is currently a teetering pile of these on our dining room table, alongside the teetering pile of food magazines and shelves crammed with books - more dishes than could ever be cooked in a lifetime.

For our meal plan, we drew mainly on two books - “A Change of Appetite” and “Simple”. The former appealed because, divided as it is into seasons, it was easy to pick dishes that were appropriate for the current weather and available produce. The latter - well, the clue is in the title. What with the recent heat and the ennui that it occasioned, simple cooking is definitely the way forward.

As usual, we had two fast days in the mix, so five meals by the divine Ms Henry.

Monday - Linguine all’Amalfitana. Monday is nearly ALWAYS simple pasta supper night here and this was a great one to add to the repertoire. Garlic and anchovy are cooked slowly in olive oil to create a savoury backbone but the twist comes in the form of chopped walnuts which add not only texture but a welcome bitter note. Lovely.

Wednesday - Teryaki salmon with quick pickled vegetables. Served with sushi rice this was the perfect summer supper. I love this style of food and teryaki is so quick and simple to do. The addition of the pickled veg brought a perfect balance of sour and sweet and a pleasing crunch to the dish.

Friday - Seared tuna with preserved lemon, olives and avocado. What a flavour bomb this was! It sounds a bit unusual on paper, almost discordant, but here is where the trust comes in and I am so glad we did. Everything harmonised (to continue with my music metaphor) absolutely beautifully. Not to mention it couldn’t be quicker or easier to do but tastes far more special than the lack of effort would suggest. Perfect Friday night fare.

Saturday - Poulet au Comté. Some people might think that chicken baked in a rich cheese sauce, traditionally served after Alpine sports, is not really the thing for a blisteringly hot July evening. To them I say - you’re probably right. But this was one of those recipes torn from a magazine that I’d positively drooled over, so I pressed ahead. You’re either the type of person who is going to adore chicken baked in a rich cheese sauce or you aren’t - I most definitely am and can’t wait to cook it again when the nights draw in. I served it with a lemony orzo here, which helped cut the richness a bit, but come the winter all bets are off and this is going to be accompanied by a Matterhorn of mash.

Sunday: Yoghurt marinated spatchcock chicken with herbs and pomegranates. No one knows their way around a roast chicken like Diana Henry, and I think I have probably raved about her book “A Bird in Hand” on here before. This was a great summer roast with lots of zing and vim and an extremely tender, delicately spiced bird.

Elsewhere in the week, we enjoyed a delicious chocolate olive oil cake - this recipe is available online and would be a great dessert to make if you need to cater for gluten and dairy intolerances. Rich, decadent and fruity, we garnished with creme fraiche, berries, and a flurry of sea salt flakes.

So another successful theme week, and a few dishes already added to “regular” (if there is such a thing in this house) rotation. Some of Diana Henry’s recipes are freely available on t’internet (while the ones on the Telegraph site are mainly behind a paywall) so if you do come across any then do give them a whirl. She’s an absolute treasure whose food writing is up there with some of the best this country has to offer at the moment.

Foodie abroad: a return to Lake Road Kitchen

I have a quote on the tip of my tongue about never going back but I’ve Googled it and apparently Never Go Back is the name of a Jack Reacher film. I don’t think I’ve seen it and it certainly doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d usually quote. Anyway. I’ve been musing a bit about nostalgia versus novelty recently. I often wonder if I’m too much governed by the former (familiarity, safety) versus the latter (the new, the unknown) and whether that is a good or bad thing. It’s especially pertinent at the moment; like many of us, I find myself still living in a state of heightened anxiety after the events of the past year and my instinct is to grope for comfort blankets when perhaps what I need is a hefty kick up the arse.

A long winded (and navel gazing) way of saying we found ourselves in the Lakes for a few days as my parents invited us to share their holiday apartment and , to say thank you, we wanted to take them out for dinner. Should we revisit an old favourite or go somewhere new? We opted to return to Lake Road Kitchen, a restaurant we visited and loved back in (shockingly) 2017. We felt fairly certain that we would have a good meal - the lamb that we had five years ago remains, probably, the best I have ever eaten - but there was a slight sense of trepidation that it wouldn’t quite live up to our memories.

Reader, if we loved it in 2017 we were blown away by it in 2021 and we are already plotting when we can return (it will not be another five years). What an absolute gem of a place. We had a twelve course tasting menu and not a dud note - although the rest of the party felt a beef and onion broth was not quite up to the standard of the rest (I rather enjoyed it). While the focus remains on local Cumbrian produce, I definitely felt that the chef’s sphere of influences had widened which made for some seriously impressive, and sometimes surprising, taste combinations. Alongside an absolutely flawless handling of ingredients, there was so much to love that I don’t know what to highlight.

I could wax lyrical about pretty much every course and, interestingly, I think that all four of us had a different favourite. For me, ever a sweet tooth, I adored the dessert end of the menu and am tempted to say that a Brillat-Savarin baked cheesecake with raspberry and liquorice jam and raspberry sorbet was the pinnacle. The cheesecake was so light in texture, not claggy as baked cheesecakes have a tendency to be, and it was almost savoury to taste which worked incredibly well with the sour sweet fruit. Even though I was reaching capacity by the time it was served, the moment it was finished I wanted to eat it again. 

But if the menu ended with a bang, then it has to be said it started on one too with a number of “snack” courses including the crunchiest fried chicken in the history of the world and D’s personal favourite - a deep fried prawn toast with king prawn, prawn mousse and garlic butter. This occupied the space somewhere between a prawn toast and a Kiev, which might sound odd but totally worked. D spent most of the remainder of the evening trying (unsuccessfully) to persuade the waitress to bring him another one.

Also, it would be remiss of me not to mention the main course pork - slow cooked then finished on the barbecue and served with the most amazing wild garlic and caper sauce. Plates may have been licked and bones were certainly gnawed by the gentleman in the party. This is a kitchen that knows how to handle meat.

When you pick an old favourite over something new, there is always a risk of missing out but, to be honest, I can’t envisage any scenario where we missed out here. I cannot praise Lake Road Kitchen enough, and my sentiments were echoed by the whole party. We will be back there soon and if ever you, gentle Reader, should find yourself in the vicinity of Ambleside then I urge you to try and nab a table. 

Lake Road Kitchen

Lake Road

Ambleside 

Cumbria 

LA22 0AD

Coming out

Two momentous happenings last week: I got a haircut (much, much needed) and we went out for lunch. Yes, the world is opening up again and I am taking baby steps out into it. It doesn’t feel comfortable yet; I’ve said all along that, as a natural hibernator, lockdown was not particularly difficult for me, but coming out of it is slightly painful. Still, a lot of my feelings of unease dissipated, or perhaps were squished down, by a vast quantity of delicious food.

I’ve written about The Reliance before, and really am posting again for no other reason than to try and get back in the habit of blogging. I have nothing more intelligent to say other than yum. And, oof. Overcome by the novelty of eating out (someone else cooking! And bringing food! And doing all the washing up!) we vastly over ordered and did not so much walk as waddle out at the end.

Behold:

Snacks and ciccheti to start: deep fried aubergine with honey and ricotta, breakfast radishes with aioli and garlic crumb, jagerwurst, hummus and bread.

Courgette three ways (purée, roast, spiralised) all zingy with lemon and dill and garnished with feta and seeds.

Spiced lambs liver with labneh. Offal and yoghurt might not sound like an obvious match but this was surprisingly lovely.

Sea bass, asparagus and a golden pool of buttery tarragon sauce.

Pork T-bone and potato terrine drenched in a richly sweet and sticky cider jus.

Chocolate and malt parfait - a cool, velvety dream of a Malteser.

Streusel topped apple pie with creme fraiche to cut through the sweetness.

What a lunch! Unsurprisingly, the scales crept up this week for the first time in a while but every single ounce was worth it. Not just for the lovely food but for the fact that things felt almost (almost) back to normal for a couple of hours.

A further note - of dumplings

 I mentioned our Fuchsia Dunlop themed week in my last post and referred briefly to Chinese supermarkets.

We are lucky enough to have several wonderful Chinese supermarkets relatively nearby. You could easily lose half a day in there, wandering up and down the aisles. Well, I could. In a world when I'm not trying to avoid steamed-up glasses and, well, people (also known as potential virus carriers). 

To the point of this post. The restaurant critic, Marina O'Loughlin, recently thanked Ms Dunlop in an Instagram post for getting her on to Freshasia dumplings. So, naturally, in a week when we were paying homage to her food writing and we were planning a trip to the local Chinese superstore, it seemed foolhardy not to see if we could acquire some to try. 

Reader, I can confirm that the dumplings that we tried were DEE-LICIOUS. We don't have any decent dim sum restaurants nearby (that I know of - note to self, must research further) so it was a real delight to find out that these can be sourced locally, and there is a massive range of fillings - through which we plan to work our giddy way. They can be steamed or fried, but we opted to boil - seven minutes from frozen and they were perfect.

Too lazy to make a dipping sauce, so we drizzled over some crispy chilli in oil instead (and this should be a store cupboard staple as it is a really quick and easy way to add texture and heat to any sort of dish from stir fry to scrambled egg).

Can see this being a freezer stalwart around Christmas time as it would make a great addition to any party food line up. Highly recommended. 

Recent eats: a Fuchsia Dunlop week

The recipes that we possess on paper alone, across myriad books and magazine back copies, would constitute more dishes than one could ever cook in a lifetime. And yet still we continue to acquire them until the array of possible answers to the question “What shall we have for dinner?” is so huge that one is rendered mute in the face of it. And thus it is that quite frequently, when meal planning, I will stare at a blank screen for ages before tentatively typing in “Beans on toast?”

One solution - streamlining. Have a cull. Stop acquiring new stuff. But then, you see, you might miss out. You might miss out on a recipe or a food writer who opens your eyes to something new that almost instantaneously absorbs into your repertoire as if it had always been there.  Something new that surprises or delights or challenges or all three at once (yes, food can do this). Discovering the work of Fuchsia Dunlop did this for us, bringing the food and flavours of China (particularly Sichuan) into our home after years of vaguely disappointing takeaway and restaurant experiences.

So then second solution - struggling to meal plan? Theme weeks! Concentrates the mind wonderfully, plus allows you to mix old favourites with new discoveries. And thus our household decided to embark upon a Fuchsia Dunlop Theme Week.

Incidentally, I would direct you to her website but it doesn’t look like it’s been updated for a while. Instead, I’d suggest a quick Google if you’re interested - not just to learn about her background (she was the first ever Westerner to do chef training at the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine) but, also, a good few of her recipes are published online on sites such as The Guardian. Her Instagram feed is gorgeous too - and the fact that she once responded to a fan-girl comment of mine in the nicest and most gracious way only makes me slightly biased.

So, to the food (five dishes since we fast twice a week which means dust for dinner).

Monday - Dan Dan noodles. I was DETERMINED to have at least one noodle dish on there and this seems to be a classic. D is less enamoured of noodles than I, but he really enjoyed it. It’s sort of reminiscent of a Spag Bol that has wandered off on holiday. Incidentally, I sometimes find noodles to be slightly claggy - if you’re bothered by this, try cooking them in advance, plunging them straight from the pan into cold water and then lying them out flat in a single layer to cook and dry mitigates this a lot. You will need to reheat before serving - either in the pan of whatever else you’re cooking or a quick blast in the microwave,  (bowl, splash of water, cover with cling film, pierce, blast).

Wednesday - Mapo Tofu, smacked cucumber with garlicky sauce. One of the most intensely flavoured dishes of the week without a doubt. I just can’t get on with tofu when it is designed to be slippery in texture, which it is here. Firm, crisp - fine. Wobbly, verging on the gelatinous - not so fine. It speaks volumes for the delicious sauce that I still scoffed the lot but I think I need to tweak this slightly to make it more appealing to me (which would mean that it was no longer Mapo Tofu but that’s ok).

Smacked cucumber by the way - fabulous. And satisfying if you’ve had a particularly bad day at work (you do, literally, smack the thing). I sprinkled a few salted cashews over the top to add additional texture to the dish (see notes re wobbliness of tofu above).

Friday - oil exploded prawns, noodles with dried shrimp and spring onion oil. SO much flavour from so few ingredients - the noodles are the most ridiculously easy thing ever involving just oil, dried shrimp, spring onions and a splash of soy. The prawns were sweet and sticky and messy and deeply satisfying. This was like the best seafood pasta you’ve never had.

Saturday - fish fragrant chicken with egg fried rice. Back in slightly more familiar territory on Saturday night. All I will say about this is - if once you were to cook it, you would never order a Chinese takeaway EVER again.

Sunday - Nanjing saltwater duck, dry fried green beans. We pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone a little here. The picture of the duck, which is braised in a fragrant broth, was a little...pallid. Beige, even. A far cry from the crispy, gleaming specimens one associates with Chinese cookery. We were not sure how this would work texturally without any rendering of the fat. But no cause for alarm - this was tender without being in any way chewy or or wobbly, and the flavour infused into the meat was sublime. Actually, I think the wonderful taste of the duck itself was allowed to shine through a little more without the usual salty distraction of the fatty, delicious skin. The beans - well, D usually can’t stand green beans but these were excellent - the pork and preserved veg adding a deep savouriness to the appealingly crunchsome veg. As D observed, "Who knew that deep frying them and adding meat would make them nice?" NB: This is probably an edict that can be applied to many a thing.

In conclusion - a roaring success and plenty of dishes to make the regular rotation - along with at least one to play with. If you have never liked Chinese food - or even if you THINK you like the Chinese food that you’ve had so far, I would urge you wholeheartedly to give Fuchsia’s books a try. The majority of the ingredients are easily available now - online if you don’t have a handy Chinese supermarket nearby. Everything we have cooked so far has been quick and easy to do. There is nothing not to like!

As for me, back to non themed meal planning this week. Beans on toast, anyone?

Recent eats: a vegetarian week

We've always been keen meal planners but lockdown has made us...well, bordering on the obsessive. We both pore over the spreadsheet which meticulously lists out what we will be eating for weeks in advance. We have a colour coding system. We have multiple tabs - for the current meal plan, the future meal plan, the archive meal plan, the freezer inventory and the shopping list - it's becoming ridiculous. But perhaps all of us have sought order and structure in strange places through this strangest of years. And budget wise, it really is astounding what a difference it makes.

Anyway, this is not a post in praise of meal planning per se, but it is a record of the week just gone which we decreed "Veggie week". Because sometimes, to shake things up a bit, a themed week is just the ticket.

We've done veggie weeks before, and always end up eating incredibly well although I do find that I have to try and avoid my natural compulsion to cover everything in cheese! 

Saturday - shallot Tarte Tatin. I came across this while browsing through an old blog that I used to follow, but the recipe is originally Gordon Ramsay's. I tweaked it ever so slightly by adding the tomatoes and goats' cheese to the top (or bottom) of the shallot layer before covering with pastry. I didn't quite understand the point of just dumping them on top at the end. 

It was something of a labour of love this, but I made things more difficult for myself by making my own rough puff pastry - using shop bought would have been more straightforward. Regardless, it was a delicious and beautiful thing and well worth the effort. Equally good warm from the oven and cold for lunch the next day. 

Sunday - shepherdess pie. I was so proud of this one! The lentil mix which formed the base was actually entirely vegan but still had a fantastic richness to it. To make: blitz or very finely chop one onion, two sticks of celery and four chestnut mushrooms. Put into the slow cooker alongside a small handful of soaked porcini mushrooms (along with the soaking liquid), four roughly chopped sundried tomatoes in oil, an undrained can of kidney beans, 80g of Puy lentils, a bay leaf and a decent sprig of rosemary. Then, whisk together 1.5 tablespoons of brown miso, a tablespoon of tomato ketchup and 240ml of boiling water, and pour over the pulse mix. Season, and cook on low for six and a half hours. 

At this point, if you choose to smother it with buttery, cheesy mashed potato and bake in the oven...obviously it was cease to be vegan. But it will be very tasty nonetheless (and am sure a non dairy mash would be almost as good).

Monday - refried bean and avocado quesadillas. I bloody love refried beans! I am also slightly obsessed with the TikTok quadrant wrap technique being someone who loves wraps but is incapable of eating one without tipping half the contents down her front. I do not have TikTok (I am not really sure what it is) but an explanation of the wrap "hack" can be found here, and it is very clever. And I can tell you that if your quadrants contain beans, cheese and avocado you will produce a delicious and very filling meal. 

Wednesday - ooh, now this was nice although written down it will sound a bit random and, indeed, the main point of it was to use up some bits and pieces that had been hanging around for a while. So, we had Gochujang noodles (using the dressing found in this recipe), kale stir fried with tahini, chilli and soy and boiled eggs. I ate the leftovers cold for lunch and found them to be even more delicious for a couple of days ruminating in the fridge. 

Friday - to finish the week, mushroom and halloumi "burgers". I have to put burgers in quotation marks because I object to the use of the word in this context and yet can't think of an alternative. Anyway, Portobella mushrooms were topped with a garlicky mushroom farce (just blitzed chestnut mushrooms and trimmings cooked down with garlic and a little thyme before being finished with a tablespoon of cream cheese to create a pate like texture) and baked before being served in buns with slices of fried halloumi and a caper mayonnaise garnish. Indulgent fare for Friday night, especially with a heap of homemade slaw on the side.

So, veggie week - done, with some very pleasing new recipes added to the repertoire. Even a committed carnivore like D had no cause for complaint - although he did proceed to cook pork chops for tea on Saturday...

Waiting for Jab-ot

And the prize for most ridiculous, pretentious, doesn't-really-work-anyway blog post title goes to...

The UK is beginning to open up again which is fantastic news and I'm sure all of us are hoping and praying that all those businesses who have been so badly affected by the past year will be able to get back on track. 

Mind, I'm slightly hypocritical to say that given that I have not yet ventured out to sit in a pub garden (or, more importantly, to get my ridiculous hair sorted out) and have no intention of doing so until I have had my first jab. I am perfectly well aware that transmission rates outside are low, and am also aware of the fact that the chance of me having complications if I did catch COVID are also low. That's why I am still waiting for my first vaccination. But, but, but. I just sort of feel that, having got through this year physically unscathed I don't want to rush into anything now and blow it. Probably being overcautious. But one of the very few advantages of turning 40 is that I should be in the next tranche at which point, I'm good to go.

So what will be (or, indeed, what was) your first post-lockdown meal out or drink out or experience? What's the thing you've been missing above all else? We have a few treats booked in for the rest of the year and am getting slightly giddy at the prospect of some fayne dayning. D and I are decent enough cooks, and I flatter myself that we've eaten pretty well throughout lockdown, but we are domestic cooks rather than restaurant chefs and I can't WAIT to eat something beautiful and delicious and unsubstantial and frivolous. 

Notes on intermittent fasting, general ramblings

Poor little blog, it’s all been very quiet recently. And I do want to write here more regularly - it’s pretty much the only writing I do nowadays that isn’t responding to an email about something dull.

Like many people, I want to get away from screens at the end of the working day, especially when there is no clear delineation between work and home - I never appreciated the fact that my commute, tedious as it was, gave valuable space and time for decompression. But it doesn’t take much time or effort to share a quick account of a nice recipe and having some sort of creative outlet is important. Even if many people might feel that wittering about dinner is playing slightly fast and loose with the notion of creativity.

I said in my last post that I didn’t want to talk much about our current eating regime and I stick by that for the most part, but think it worth noting for posterity that last week I hit a stone loss since we started doing two types of intermittent fasting concurrently, which was late October last year. Now that’s pretty slow - although I note from my records that it’s been a general downwards drift throughout apart from a blip over Christmas. But slow is fine with me - I don’t mind slow as long as it arrives with its close friend sustainable and, all things considered, I think this is very much a sustainable way of doing things for us.

We only eat between the hours of noon and eight in the evening. It’s not a completely clean fast, as we allow ourselves two cups of tea with skimmed milk over the course of a morning, but as long as you keep calorie intake to less than 50, that’s still ok. This is easy to stick to when you’re not going out and doing anything. Eating out might be the spanner in the works as I don’t particularly want to only ever go to Early Bird specials - but assuming we don’t go mad when we can go out and about again, this shouldn’t be a massive issue.

Two days a week, generally Tuesday and Thursday although this is flexible, we only eat 500-600 calories in our eight hour window. This usually means a light lunch at noon (crackers, fruit) and soup for an early supper at six, with a couple of squares of chocolate afterwards (nice to have something to look forward to throughout the day). Some fast days are harder than others. I don’t relish the thought of having to be out and about and relatively active when only subsisting on 500 calories but when you’re working from your dining table it’s definitely doable. 

The real win here is that on non fast days, we are eating really well - albeit not in the mornings - and, for the first time in possibly my entire adult life, I feel like I’m getting the hang of eating intuitively. That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But I think so many people, especially women, have been programmed from a very early age to think of some foods as good and some as bad, to always go for low fat or low sugar or low carb options, to ignore (or, at least, try to ignore) our natural hunger signals. We eat when we are happy or sad or bored or tired and then we feel guilty for doing so. We get ourselves into odd patterns of thought - “I’ve already blown it today so I might as well eat an entire packet of biscuits and “start again” tomorrow.” We avoid certain food groups only to end up having mini binges. 

While it could be argued that there is nothing “normal” or intuitive about deliberately restricting the hours during which you can eat, and deliberately setting out to eat a pitiful number of calories a couple of times a week, for me, it feels like a worthwhile bargain to make with my body. 

I’ve got an exercise bike set up in the spare bedroom so the missing piece of the puzzle - which for me is always the physical movement side of things, I genuinely am part woman part sloth - is being addressed - albeit slowly and sporadically. Once the world is more open I’d love to explore some different options here - maybe swimming occasionally, or a yoga class. And that might boost my rate of loss slightly - or it might not, but that’s ok. 

More importantly (as far as I’m concerned) is the fact that I genuinely think this way of eating is good for my health. My recent you’ve-turned-40-time-for-an-MOT blood tests came back showing my blood sugar and cholesterol levels are both entirely normal. Considering my history, and the fact that there is type 2 diabetes in the family, that’s pretty astounding and I do wonder if IF has played a part in that.

I don’t intend to bore on about the subject, but thought it worth getting some thoughts down for my own future reference. Normal service, including awful pictures of dinner, will resume with my next post.

Recent eats: the interminable winter edition

I find myself so intensely boring at the moment that I haven't wanted to inflict any blogging on the world. Lockdown has not been good for me. I have basically turned even more sloth like in my habits and my hair is, frankly, ridiculous. Funky, asymmetric styles are all very well until they start growing out and then they just look like someone can't cut straight.

So we've been cooking and eating, which is fine. What can I tell you about? We brined a roast chicken the other week - or, to be strictly accurate, we brined a chicken for 48 hours prior to roasting it which was delicious. It would have been better, however, if I hadn't managed to roast it upside-down. Which meant that the underside was golden and crispy and buttery and the breast was...a wee bit pale and flabby looking. D removed the breast skin and crisped it up under the grill, while I languished on the sofa wondering how on Earth I have reached the age of 40 without knowing which way up a chicken should go. 

I made pizza last week, and remain very impressed with Dan Lepard's dough recipe, so that was good. We cooked a smoked haddock and kale hash from one of the new Christmas cookbooks which was DELICIOUS. It is actually online, here, if you're interested. It is one of those dishes that somehow manages to be significantly more than the sum of its parts. Highly recommended.

Oh, and D splashed out and treated us both to a Dishoom bacon naan takeaway kit thingy. Good, but we think we can tweak it to make it even better (it will probably include a liberal drizzle of our beloved coriander and chilli chutney, aka "green stuff").

In the background, we've both been trying to shift a bit of weight which I am loathe to talk about really because - see first paragraph it is SO BORING. And I'm conscious that this blog is like bloody Groundhog Day for Diets - except that it's not, not Bill Murray actually learns and grows during Groundhog Day and me...not so much. But I will say that a few months ago - mid-October time - we introduced low calorie days back into our week, so we now follow a programme of intermittent fasting which involves only eating for 8 hours a day and, on two of those days, only eating 500 calories. A mash-up of 16/8 and 5/2. And it does work, albeit slowly, and it is a hell of a lot easier to manage low calorie days when we're at home not really doing everything. Whether it will be sustainable when the world goes back to normal...not so sure. But since that shows no sign of happening for a while, we'll keep going for now! 

Happy New Lockdown

We watched that all time classic film Groundhog Day on NYE; it seemed peculiarly appropriate as we prepared to say farewell to 2021. And, turns out, peculiarly prescient too, as last night England was plunged back into the lockdown that everyone (apart, perhaps, from the actual government) knew was coming. And even though it won't make an awful lot of difference to my life in the immediate future (we had more or less decided to hunker down for the next few months anyway - and are blessed enough that we can do so) still, I lay awake for hours last night feeling sad and anxious.

I am worried for the health of my friends and family. I am worried for the sanity of those of them who have to go back to trying to home school their children alongside everything else. I am worried for all those businesses, particularly those in the hospitality trade, who must be limping along in hope of a miracle: what will survive when we finally make it out? I also realised, extremely selfishly, that I am worried about the food shortages that happened last time (who could forget that dreadful few days where I COULDN'T BUY EGGS*) and then started worrying about the fact that it is somewhat morally dubious to have such concerns in the face of all the others. 

*(And we get eggs delivered every week now, by our friendly local milkman, so we are usually overrun with them).

Let's talk of happier things, shall we? Did everyone manage to have some sort of Christmas? We were lucky enough to see my parents briefly on Christmas Day - I don't know how lucky they felt given that I wept all over them - which was gorgeous. I baked Gougeres for the first time in ages which almost made me feel like a hostess again. Christmas Dinner was our standard fare - confit duck leg, duck and black pudding bonbon, mash, red cabbage, creamy mustard sprouts - which, as ever, was sublime. And, for the first time ever I made a Yule log! I'd share a picture but, dear Teapot, my food photography skills, lacking at the best of times, have not been kind to the poor beast and I wouldn't want to put anyone in mind of...well, you know. Suffice to say, the sponge was light, the filling flavoured with cherries and Kirsch was airy and boozy and the chocolate ganache was dark and slightly bitter to balance everything out. I declare it a positive triumph.

Amazingly, our waist lines escaped the whole festive period relatively unscathed. We'd already been making efforts in that direction before Christmas (of which maybe more in a future post) and I think we naturally managed to balance the more indulgent days with lighter ones. My last hurrah meal before work re-started yesterday? A poached egg on toast. And very nice it was too.

A couple of recipes to share with you (I'll add the links to the relevant page). I used several different recipes for the Yule log, but the basic chocolate Swiss roll was from the GBBO site and I was extremely pleased with the way in which it turned out. Some recipes call for beating the eggs and sugar up over a pan of warm water, but warming the eggs slightly first is so much easier! My sponge was perfect after 8 minutes of cooking, but my oven is a beast so the 10 minutes specified in the recipe is probably fine for most. 

And this carrot and sesame seed bread by Dan Lepard (I'm getting slightly obsessed with the man) was divine - although I found that my mixture needed a splash more liquid than specified to completely come together. Marvellous flavour and texture in the finished loaf though - and a crisp crust that particularly suits it for toasting.

2021 may not have got off to the greatest of starts, but I hope everyone out there is bearing up. (Sort of ) happy new year all!

Recipe corner: Mussel and bacon pizza (jingle all the way!)

The thing about authentic Italian pizza is that tends to be pretty simple. Tomato, cheese and then a few, carefully chosen, toppings. Not enough of anything to create sloppiness: a crisp base and the structural integrity of the whole is important. No weird combos. No doughiness, no ten tonnes of cheese (that is the province of Domino's and their ilk). I get all that and I appreciate it. But SOMETIMES it is fun to play a little bit and end up with something which is somewhere between what an Italian Nonna would appreciate and what drunk people order at eleven pm with a side of chicken wings.

When I wrote this up in my notebook I called it "Pizza Bianca del mare e dell'odore" which means "A white pizza of the sea and the sty". And I like that title very much. It sounds so much more elegant than mussel and bacon pizza. But I've stuck with the English for the blog title because it's probably a bit more useful. 

This is a pizza that combines seafood and cheese, that is a little bit on the sloppy side and, to be honest, is a bit of a bloody faff if you're making it because it involves numerous processes. None of them difficult but it's not easy home cooking. Jamie couldn't squish it into a 30 minute meal. So I probably haven't sold it to 99.99% of the people who will come across this blog post. But for the rest of you, who are intrigued, you are in for a tremendous treat. I think this is the most delicious pizza that I've ever made.

When I wrote pizza 101 back in July 2016 (!) I was using Paul Hollywood's dough recipe, but I've fallen out of love with that recently after a couple of issues with the dough being just too sticky to practically use. So I turned to Dan Lepard and, sure enough, his recipe and method worked perfectly. I won't repeat it here but if you DO pop over to have a look I would note:

I used a tablespoon of malt extract and all water, rather than open some of D's precious beer

I went up to 200ml of water - 50ml fresh boiled and 150ml cold from the tap to get it luke(ish) warm.

I initially made the dough the night before using and left it in the fridge overnight before moving on to the stretching and folding stage. This has the benefit of spreading the effort a bit as well.

I was making personal sized pizzas, so divided this recipe into 6 (actually, I made a half batch and divided it into 3). This was a generous portion. If you're not greedy, you could reduce the portion size further.

And for the topping...

Ingredients

1/2 kilo mussels

Splash of white wine or Vermouth

150ml milk

3-4 garlic cloves, peeled and bruised

Large sprig of thyme

15g Parmesan

10g butter

10g flour

75g pancetta (or diced bacon)

Small onion, thinly sliced

100g firm mozzarella, grated

75g smoked cheese, grated

Makes 2 generous individual pizzas

OK, so firstly we want to cook the mussels with no more flavourings added than a splash of white wine. Clean and de-beard the crustacea then heat the wine in a large, lidded pan until it simmers madly, and tip them in. Cover the pan and cook for around 5 mins, shaking gently every so often. They'll be ready when the majority of the shells are yawning open. Incidentally: we tend to buy up bags of mussels whenever we make it the fishmonger, cook and freeze them for future use. But if you do this be sure to freeze them alongside their delicious liquor.

Make the white sauce by first infusing the milk with the garlic and the thyme. Place all together in a small pan, scald the milk (which means heating it until the edges are beginning to bubble) then turn off the heat, cover and leave alone for at least a couple of hours.

Then we make a roux - melt the butter, add the flour and stir briskly to make a paste. Pour in the infused milk, bit by bit, stirring vigorously every time to eliminate lumps. When you've added all the milk, add the mussel liquor - again, bit by bit. Gently bubble the sauce for a few minutes to ensure that all the flour is cooked out (the easiest way to check this is by tasting it - if you can taste even a hint of flour, cook for a bit longer) then season with the grated Parmesan, a tiny pinch of salt and a little pepper. This is the base of your pizza.

Fry off the pancetta until crispy and then remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Then, turn the heat right down and soften the onion in the bacon fat.

Finally, assemble your pizza. Take your rolled out bases and spread across the white sauce. Top with the cooked mussels, bacon and onion and finish off with the mozzarella and smoked cheese. If you have any spare, sprinkle a few fresh thyme leaves over to finish. Bake in a very hot oven for about 12 minutes until everything is bubbling and beginning to brown. 

If you have any sense at all, you'll allow it to cool slightly (and, in doing so, begin to solidify) before eating.

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

We bought a turkey this year. We never usually buy a whole turkey - just a crown or a breast joint. Regular readers may remember (indeed, why wouldn't you) that chez Seren, we do not eat turkey on Christmas day, but enjoy a traditional Turkey Curry on Boxing Day, for which a small crown is perfectly adequate. But this year we found ourselves (suitably be-masked and socially distanced) in Kirkgate Market and we saw what looked like a fairly modest bird for a definitely modest price. 

Well, apparently even modest birds produce great big piles of meat - we have OODLES (a technical term). But, perhaps even more pleasingly, we also ended up with a slow cooker full of delicious overnight turkey stock. Which is what got me to thinking about Christmas smells. For 12 hours, our home was filled with a mild turkey fug which scent, weirdly, took me straight back to childhood - Christmas Day, watching Top of the Pops and waiting for the grandparents to arrive for lunch. 

I also baked a banana and mincemeat loaf earlier this month (recipe in this month's Good Food magazine - providential indeed since I had a couple of bananas that were preventing the freezer door from closing properly and a rogue jar of mincemeat that appeared in a store cupboard audit and needed using before the 2020 batch arrives). And, again, the smell was incredible - that combination of spice and sweetness that just screams Christmas, even though I don't recall my mother ever baking mince pies when we were young. (She may well have done, in which case I am an ungrateful creature because my abiding memory is of puff pastry mince pies from the bakery, served warm with cream for lunch on Christmas Eve. We also used to have sausage rolls for lunch on Christmas Eve - it was a total pastry fest which was quite unusual for our household and regarded as a huge treat.)

I feel terribly nostalgic at the moment. It's probably to be expected, what with most of us having been shut away from family and friends for nearly nine months. And our family, like many others, has experienced loss this year that means that, even on those precious few days when we come together, there will be an empty chair in the corner.

But if there is one time of the year when nostalgia is OK, it is Christmas. And the smells and tastes of all those beloved Christmas foods, some traditions that span decades, and others more recent but no less precious, have been wonderful prompts. 

I hope to write again before the big day - I have an exciting pizza to share and I'd love to record the recipe for the aforementioned banana loaf - but, since promises are like (mince) pie crusts, I will avoid any guarantee. So I'll take the opportunity now to say to anyone reading - MERRY CHRISTMAS. I hope you all find some joy in this most joyful time of year, even if things are a little bit strange. Next year will be better. And, in the meantime, may all your beloved Christmas treats bring you comfort and remind you that there is always light in the dark. 

Recipe corner: garlic butter naan breads

As mentioned in my previous post, I've been turning to Dan Lepard a lot lately for baking recipes. This one is an adaptation of a recipe for coconut garlic naan that can be found here. Although the original works perfectly well, I did not find that you got much of a taste of coconut from the coconut milk, so tried it out with plain yoghurt (which we more usually tend to have knocking around the kitchen) and was pleased with the resulting soft texture. I also advocate garlic butter rather than garlic oil for the dabbing-while-cooking but you need to be careful not to allow it [the butter] to burn.

Dan Lepard has a slightly different approach to bread making which generally means much less hands on time, and although it feels counterintuitive, it does actually work really well. You just need to make sure you're keeping track of where you are in the instructions!

I think that these, as with most flatbreads, are best straight out of the pan but the good news is that can you make the dough up in advance, divide it up into balls and then leave them, covered in the fridge for a good few hours with no ill effect. I finished the dough at 6pm on Saturday and cooked up the last naan bread at 12pm for lunch on Sunday and it still worked like a charm, if, perhaps, it puffed up ever so slightly less. However, since I was using it as a wrap, this wasn't an issue.

Ingredients

25g boiling water

75g cold tap water

4g fast-action yeast

185g plain, full fat yoghurt

275g strong white bread flour

Tsp salt

Oil, for the worktop

Additional flour, for shaping

25g butter

2 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely grated

A sprinkle of nigella seeds

Makes 3 large or 4 medium naan

Measure out the water into a large bowl (I've given weight rather than volume as I think this makes life a bit easier). Test it when the two waters are combined - it should be warm but not hot. Whisk in the yeast until dissolved and then whisk in the yoghurt.

Shower in the flour, add the salt and, using your hand shaped like a claw, bring the dough together - it will be soft and not too sticky. Cover the bowl and leave for 10 minutes.

Oil the worktop, tip out the dough and knead gently for 10 seconds. Return to the bowl, cover again and leave for 1 hour. Wipe up any remaining oil while you remember.

When you return to the dough, lightly flour the worktop then tip it out and divide into 3-4 pieces. Shape these into rough balls, cover, and leave these again for 30 minutes (at this point, you can transfer the dough to the fridge until you need it. Just be sure to bring up to room temperature before using).

Roll the dough out - the teardrop shape is traditional for naan, but round will work just as well here. 

Put a frying pan over a medium heat. Crush or grate the garlic over the butter and then melt (I use a microwave but a small pan and a low heat will do just as well).

Fry the breads for about a minute and a half, dabbing the melted butter onto the surface with a silicon brush, and finish with a sprinkle of the nigella seeds.

Recent Eats - the lockdown 2.0 edition

This post has been sitting in my drafts for a while. I started on it a couple of weeks ago, but kept losing heart. I would start a sentence and then drift off, only to find myself staring blankly at the screen.

It's been so long that the title now only just applies. We are, apparently, approaching the end of Lockdown 2.0 in England, although given that my area (along with many others) lurches straight into Tier 3, we probably won't really notice. 

Gah, I don't want to moan. I really don't want to moan when I am safe, my family are safe, I am gainfully employed, able to work from home and, delighted that someone (either the supermarket supply chain managers or the Great British Public, who knows?) seem to have learned the lessons of Lockdown 1. We have been able to get supermarket delivery slots throughout and last week, the shopping contained flour! Two types! So, you know, what's to complain about?

Still, (because it is my blog and if I can't be self indulgent here...) my mood has really plummeted this week. One of the first signs is when I struggle to read and I haven't (until last night) managed to pick up a book in days. I've watched quite a lot of Christmas films - and even a Christmas sitcom - on Netflix, which has been nice. But I've still found myself sitting in floods of tears for no reason whatsoever. It feels terribly selfish and not a little pathetic when so many people are experiencing real problems and real heartache but I think all of us have taken a bit of an emotional bashing recently. I'm missing my family and my friends terribly - I've seen my Mum and Dad once since March and my father in law once and, other than that, it's been D and the cat. 

Sorry - this all turned into a bit of a pity party. It was my original intention to write about what we've been cooking lately, not snivel into the ether. When I flicked back through my most recent photos, all I managed to find were pita breads and stew and dumplings, which makes for rather beige pictures (not that anyone is here for the food photography!)

Pita or pitta?

The pita breads are by Dan Lepard, and the recipe can be found online here as well as in his book "Short and Sweet". I am finding, more and more, that I turn to Lepard for baking queries and this book is an absolute godsend. His brief-knead-and-leave method of bread making is unconventional but works very well - I would certainly urge you to forever eschew the store bought pita and go for these instead. They are a leetle labour intensive, but well worth it (and, I can confirm, they freeze beautifully).

Stew and, more importantly, dumplings

The stew in question is my late mother in law's panacalty. Or, rather, our take on it. Corned beef, and chunks of root veg in oxtail soup (!) with suet dumplings on top. I make it slightly faffier than just bunging everything in a single pan - roasting off the veg for a bit of extra flavour, caramelising onions for sweetness, finishing with a little mustard. We also use D's homemade corned beef rather than the tinned stuff...altogether, it's a lovely, lovely thing. And very much of the North East. 

I'm sure that there are more things to share but I have bored on quite enough for one Friday afternoon. Sending huge love and virtual hugs out into Tinternet to everyone out there who is struggling, be it a little bit or a whole lot. I wish you all a weekend of good food, cat cuddles and Strictly (or whatever it is that makes your world feel a little less crap). 

Recipe corner: Carrot, apple and date muffins

Back when I used to work in an office (remember that time?) we had a Starbucks open just thirty seconds from the front door and, I must admit, initially the novelty factor was such that I was in there most mornings. And what better way to start the day with a milky coffee big enough to bath a kitten in, and a nice chunk of cake. For, let us be clear, we all know that the word muffin (in the non-English sense) is just a sneaky way to legitimise cake for breakfast.

I eventually managed to (more or less) ditch the Starbucks habit (although consumption used to creep up again around this time of year when the gingerbread lattes hit the store. I love a gingerbread latte, sickly as it is, and I love the announcement that the red cups are coming because - Christmas. But we won't go there yet). 

To return to the original thought - I eventually stopped the daily detour. And one of the things that helped break the habit is that they stopped doing two of the best muffins - apple and cinnamon and, for high days and holidays, "breakfast" muffins. I have only a limited idea what was in these latter but they were good - fruity and spicy with a sprinkle of seeds on top to indicate virtue.

I don't think these are quite the same, but they come pretty close. I don't generally eat breakfast much now - most of the time we do intermittent fasting to only eat between the hours of 12 and 8. (And yes, I realise that the first meal of the day is breakfast whatever time you choose to consume it, but I mean to say that I don't often eat breakfast type foods at noon.) However, a nice muffin is perfect with a cup of tea mid afternoon to get you through a sugar slump. This makes six decent sized muffins, but there is no reason why you could not miniaturise them if you felt so inclined. They contain some fruit and veg not to mention are partially made with wholemeal flour, so you can almost convince yourself that they're a health food - again, if you feel so inclined.

Ingredients

70g wholemeal flour

90g plain flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

Tsp mixed spice

50g soft brown sugar

Eating apple, peeled, cored and chopped into small chunks

Carrot, peeled and coarsely grated

50g chopped dates

150ml milk (I always use skimmed which works fine)

1 egg

55g butter

3 tsp demerara sugar

3 tsp pumpkin seeds (or similar)

Makes 6 muffins

Preheat your oven to 200 (180) fan and prep a tray - I use a silicon muffin tray which I brush very lightly with vegetable oil, but you could use a metal tray with paper liners,

Combine all the dried ingredients (flours, baking powder, spices, sugar) in a large bowl. Add in the apple, carrot and dates and mix well so they are thoroughly coated.

In a small jug or similar, melt the butter (I do this in the microwave for ease). Whisk in the milk (which will immediately cool the butter) and then the egg.  Pour this into the dried ingredients and stir to combine.

Seasoned bakers will know - you want the ingredients to be only just mixed - don't overwork. I tend to use a spatula to fold the wet ingredients in, rather than stirring with a spoon, and I find this helps. Fold through four or five times until you can't see much by way of dried flour anymore.

Put the mixture in the cases (it will fit although they will be full) and sprinkle over the demerara sugar and the seeds. Bake in the oven for around 35 minutes until a skewer comes out clean (it may take slightly longer - my oven is a beast).

Serve for breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks. Cake is good at all times of the day.

Restaurant Inver, Strathlachlan

Before moving on to discuss our recent meal at Inver I first just have to say PARKIN. I currently have parkin in the oven, in readiness for Bonfire Night and have decided that it is officially the Best Smell in the World. Forget about baking bread or roasting chickens, this is what you want wafting from your kitchen when you invite people round. Of course, if I was an organised housefrau, I would have baked it at least a week ago so it had time to mature a little bit, but heigh ho. I am sure it will still be delicious.

Now, talking of lack of organisation, I am very annoyed at myself for not writing about Inver when we went in March of last year. It's an absolute little gem of a place which deserves to be better known (AND they served us a potato ice cream which was exciting enough to justify a post just by itself). Anyway. Better late than never, let me introduce you to a small but perfectly formed monument to modern Scottish cuisine.

The restaurant itself is situated on the shores of Loch Fyne and feels incredibly isolated, although if the roads are clear you are only an hour or so outside of Glasgow, and the town of Inveraray is not too far over the lway. But when you stand and look out over the waters, you could be a million miles from civilisation which is just how we, increasingly misanthropic as we age, like it.

Next door to the dining room, the owners have put up four shepherd bothies to allow guests to sleep over. We've stayed in two of the four and can report that they are extremely cosy and comfortable, with a slight Scandi feel to the decor, and floor to ceiling windows to allow dwellers to fully immerse themselves in the view.

The Scandi feel extends into the food served as well, and it did not come as a particular surprise to me to learn that the chef spent some time at Noma. That particular style of food - elegant, sparse, inextricably tied to the surrounding landscape - is becoming, if not ubiquitous, then certainly very prevalent in a lot of modern restaurants but when the cooking is on point, that is no bad thing. There's a lovely article on Great British Chefs that talks a little more about chef Pam Brunton's approach to food and her involvement with local suppliers and local produce. Certainly, the care she takes in sourcing her ingredients is repaid a thousand times over when you come to eat.

The highlight this time around was pheasant with apple and pear, which was an absolute masterclass in balancing sweet and savoury elements in a single dish. The breast was served with the veriest hint of blush, the leg was wrapped around sausage-meat with a little pheasant heart perched on top to add a kick of iron. Meanwhile, the buttery sourness of the apple and pear, alongside a crisp pastry, added both texture and the distinctively bittersweet notes of autumn. I must admit, I am not always a fan of fruit with meat but I couldn't get enough of it here. And, actually, one of the other showstopper moments was an amuse-bouche of duck with plum on a speculoos biscuit which, again, showed a flawless touch in harmonising ingredients of this sort.

Guests in the evening are served the tasting menu, which at £65 a head is pretty stupendous in terms of value. When we were staying, lockdown restrictions in Scotland meant that we were unable to drink wine with the meal but they did offer a juice accompaniment which D sampled and seemed to enjoy - particularly a coffee kombucha which came with the peppered doughnut dessert (and, fear not dear reader, we did manage to have some wine in the bothy before dinner).

The first time we went to Inver, I remember that as we drove away I told D that I had found my happy place, and I had a similar sense when we returned. It is not just the stunning landscape that surrounds it, or the quality of the food, but the ambience is absolutely second to none - warm and welcoming, a true haven. This year has been a particularly tough one for the hospitality industry, but I do hope that Inver weathers the storm and that we find ourselves there again soon. The world needs more Happy Places in it.

Inver

Strathlachlan

Strachur

Argyll & Bute

PA27 8BU

01369 860537

A brief escape

Usually, D and I manage to mistime everything but the gods were obviously smiling on us last week as we sneaked in a few glorious days in Scotland before the country heads back into lockdown. 

We've really toed the line this year, and have barely left the house, let alone ventured abroad. We had one night in Whitby back in September, and one lunch at our beloved Reliance a few weeks ago, and that's been pretty much it. Both of us are cautious by nature anyway, and given that we've been able to work fulltime from home, it seemed foolish to tempt fate in other ways. But, increasingly, we were getting cabin fever, and the opportunity to escape for a few days, in celebration of D's birthday, was just too good to pass up.

On Friday night, we dined at the wonderful restaurant, Inver. We first went last year and I can't see that I ever blogged about it - so I think it only fair to let it have its own post.

For the rest of the time, we mainly contented ourselves with eating glorious seafood. We were staying in a cottage on the shores of Loch Fyne, which is a name that may well be familiar to you from the restaurant chain. We went to the original Loch Fyne oyster bar and, well, you see for yourselves...

D loves a seafood platter and this one was incredibly good value, featuring a vast array of mussels, clams, langoustine, oysters, crab and lobster for £60. Me, I don't tend to go in for platters so much, but I couldn't resist sampling some oysters and it turns out that if you add a bit of smoked cheese and chilli sauce and whack them under the grill they are just as delicious, in their own way, as if you go for the naked-but-for-a-slick-of-shallot-vinaigrette version.

We spent a good few hours mooching round the little town on Inveraray which boasts not only a castle but an extremely interesting and well preserved jail and courtroom experience as well. In between learning about prisoners, and buying old fashioned sweets on the tiny high street, we repaired to the Brambles Cafe & Bistro, which did an excellent line in breakfasts and cake. In fact, D celebrated the day of his birth with a vast slab of apple and bramble pie, and wore an expression of unashamed glee throughout the consumption of the same.

It rained pretty much continuously, which, given the unremittingly gloomy news coming through, began to feel like pathetic fallacy. But then, on our last day there, the sun fought back and the most glorious rainbow appeared in the sky, soaring up over the grey expanse of loch. Which I take as a timely reminder of the Dolly Parton quotation - if you want that rainbow, you do have to put up with the rain. My goodness, but we've had some rain this year, haven't we? But there is still loveliness and beauty out there and I hope that all of us can hold onto that as we move into the darkest days of winter. 

Sad Times

This blog is packed full of accounts of many wonderful meals that I have had over the years, at establishments both in the UK and abroad. The hospitality industry has been devastated by the impact of the current global pandemic and, if news reports are to be believed, its tribulations are very far from over.

From a bystander's point of view it is heart breaking, so I can only imagine how those restaurant and bar owners, chefs and front of house staff are feeling at the moment. And it is frustrating as well, since a lot of these places have introduced measures since the UK's first lockdown has eased, to try and ensure the safety of their customers at the cost of revenue. 

We haven't been out all that much, but those places we have visited, we both agreed that, despite us being on the nervous end of the spectrum, we felt pretty safe and were able to relax and enjoy good food that we hadn't cooked and good wine that we hadn't poured. Last Friday particularly stands out as we went to The Reliance, pretty much our favourite place to eat and drink out in Leeds, for the first time since March.  We ate well (the poached pear with chocolate ganache pictured below was a particular highlight,) and drank a bit too much wine sitting at a familiar window seat watching the (somewhat diminished) hustle and bustle of North Street outside and pretending it was 2019 again.  Which, at the time, certainly didn't feel like a particularly stellar year but now is bloody Shangri La.

My understanding (and I hold my hands up that I deliberately try not to pay any more than cursory attention to the news these days) is that there appears to be quite limited evidence that any rise in cases is being caused, specifically, by people eating out and that transmission is unlikely to occur in a restaurant setting. Whether that is right or wrong, it feels harsh that certain industries such as hospitality are bearing a rather large brunt at the moment. Especially when you see people flout basic rules like wearing a face mask (properly! Over you nose and your mouth, twatbadger, not just scraping your chin!) or, in some areas like our particular Northern city, not mixing households. I get that everybody is frustrated or bored or fed up, but if we all stepped up a bit day to day, then maybe all these businesses could be saved. 

I don't even know that this post has a point beyond to just...be quite sad. And also, to acknowledge the very great debt that I personally owe to so many people in the hospitality industry, who have supplied me and D with some of our very favourite memories. I have fingers, toes, eyes and whiskers crossed that things start looking up soon.