After seeing this for the first time tonight on River Cottage, I nashed out to the garden & picked a few big, red, ripe strawberries. Then sliced them thickly into a bowl. Sprinkled over some sugar, poured over some raspberry vinegar then sprinkled some white pepper. Then I fell in love with Macerated Strawberries! The taste of these strawberries in a sweet & sour syrup was intensely divine.
Hugh said that instead of the strawberries lasting the usual 24 hrs after picking to be good eating, these will last for up to a few days ( NOT IN MY KITCHEN !! ) JUST TOO DAMN GOOD TO KEEP. Hugh also suggested serving these for breakfast on top of eggy bread. This I have to try.
This is a fabulous place, situated in Abbeyhill is a gem of a place to have a slightly different dining experience in Edinburgh. When I first heard of this eatery, run single handedly by an Armenian monk, I had to try & book a table for a group of friends & myself to see what it was like.
Initially, I called to enquire about costs & how many were needed to make the evening worth wile for him. I called and left a message & got a reply about 3 weeks later. He was calling from a telephone box & said he only had 20p. I said to hang up & I would call back & he seemed very surprised at the technology of me being able to call back to a phone box!!!
He was delightful to talk to & we arranged an evening for me to take 9 quests. I think it was £20 a head & he would not disclose what would be served.
When we got there, ( on time, as we were warned that late commers were normally refused entry ) we were led through a dark & cluttered hallway, full of old bicycle parts, carpets & fishing nets, to the dining room with the most dusty, ecclectic collection of Armenian posters, more carpets, fishing nets & parts of bicycles.
Were served dish after dish after dish, each one fairly rustic, & very delicious.
Unfortunately I cannot find the photographs that I took that night, but that does give me more reason to book there again. For great food & unusal & brilliant service I give this quirky eatery 10/10. It was just like I had imagined except for the fact that the said monk was a total sweet gentleman & not the grumpy individual that we were expecting after seeing other reviews prior to our fantastic dinner date. I hope to add photos to this blog post later in the hopes that I can find them sometime.
Below is a review by one of our friends who was dining with us that night.
The Armenian Aghtmar Lake Van Monastry in Exile is a place, once eaten at, never forgotten.
: We were greeted by the proprietor and led through a candle-lit passageway to a cavernous room decorated with enormous flags, rusty bicycles, traffic cones, church pewes and a moose head staring down on our table. The room itself was quite cold but thankfully a candle was provided for us to sit round- when it got really cold, we lit it. The walls were festooned with various images/photos/ of Armenian culture ( sheet music, stern looking soviet faces, “Visit aRMENIA tURISTIC ADVERTS ETC). The toilets were very atmospheric, retaining a kind of ‘never been painted in 30yrs feel’, a tin of ‘VIM’ which had sort of morphed itself to the window sill, beneath the most cobwebbed net curtain this side of the iron curtain itself, completed the scene. Once seated our host appeared & disappeared over and over again, each time arriving with a different course of fayre ranging from traditional Armenian bread to stewd brussel sprouts, an amazing mixed sald, stuffed peppers, chicken risotto, and others before climaxing with a fresh summer fruit ( Armenian style) sorbet followed by (non) turkish coffee. Halfway through the meal our host asked if we would “like to listen to some music”? we agreed and were treated to a medley of traditional Armenian marching music from his impressive selection of old 78’s. Later one of our party asked our host if he would like to listen to some of our music? replying ‘yes’, my friend granted his wish by playing a medley of classic KISS songs on his “flying V” Ukelele! - I’m sure you will agree, a truly unforgettable experience! The possibly 10 course ( I lost count) banquet was washed down with a couple of bottles of Spanish laughing juice, making the whole affair most agreeable indeed. Recommended. PS be patient, it took us half a dozen phone calls to pin him down/agree a date & time, well worth the wait tho!
Last month I nipped down to London to see a gig. I had not been to London since I was a young child & as I have a healthy obsession for food my focus the next day was to seek out a good dining experience before getting the bus back to Scotland.
I headed for China Town & was delighted with the eatery that I came across and could not recommend the place higher for quality, taste, service & value.
The Young Cheng is a great refueling pit stop if you are ever in the vicinity.
The food certainly looked good from the other side of the window so I went in and got myself a plate.
The inside is very clean, with friendly staff. A bit bare & basic inside for decor, but it was the food I was there for and I rate this 10/10 for the food. Every single thing I tasted was fantastic. No thrills, no spills just good honest, well cooked chinese buffet experience.
I was also pleased with the ethics of this restaurant, as they displayed small notices requesting that people do not put more food on their plates than they could manage, but could go back to top up their plates as much as they wanted, but wasted food on the plates may incur extra charges. ( Great idea & very, very fair ).
They charge a bargain £5.90 per person, with a 10% service charge. So, £6.50 for a great meal & wonderful selection.
I gave a small tip on top of the service charge and I think the staff could see how happy I was with my luch. I still had several hours to waste so had a very thorough look around the Chinese supermarkets & checked out Soho & Carnaby Street ( now that was a disappointment ). I imagined Carnaby street to be buzzing with buskers & great retro clothes shopping, but I was bored of it within minutes & ended up having much more fun twisting round the side streets & ally ways & found myself being drawn back into China Town. And also visited for the second time that day, a fab Chinese patisserie & stocked up on munchies for the journey home.
I found myself almost on the point of drooling at Young Cheng’s window , when I saw a delicious looking, sticky crab dish. Unable to resist I popped in and asked how much I could pay them to just try a crab claw ( I had not tried crab for ages ). I was recognised from lunchtime from one of the girls and was promptly asked to sit down & she asked a colleague to dish me up some crab. It was a sizeable plateful !
It was absolutely delicious, in a sweet ginger & chilli sticky sauce. Messy to eat but so worth it.
I offered them a £10 note when I had finished, & was told I had to pay nothing & was welcome to try the crab.
WOW. What a great place. Any time I go back to London I will have to make re visiting this restaurant an absolute must. A wee gem of a place.
A few weeks ago, I started to collect milk bottles for growing a herb garden.
A friend looked at me curiously when she asked what all the bottles were for.
She is now collecting milk bottles & passing this easy recycling tip on.
If you get a plastic milk bottle, ( cut out as pictured below ) & put a few holes in the bottom by sticking a sharp knife into the base, you can get plant propagators with carry handles for free.
Also if you have the handles South facing, the plant can enjoy extra warmth from the sun shining through the plastic handle.
Another advantage of using these recycled milk bottle pots, is that you can easily see when the roots are well established enough to plant out.
With the left overs of the empty milk jug, you can cut strips for labelling your pots.
Today was the first time I ever tried blowing an egg. It was a fun & grubby experience.
Firstly, I gently stuck a pin in the top and bottom of a fresh egg.
Then I blew, and blew & blew
Until all the white & the yolk had come out of the egg.
I wanted to dye my egg naturally, so I chopped half a red cabbage & boiled, then drained off the liquid.
Then, I put a sticker onto the egg shell to identify where the dye had taken more easily. After trying this, it is obvious that this could work making any kind of pattern you wanted on your egg.
How to get the dye to cover all of the egg? :- Well, an empty egg shell floats doesn’t it.
So…….. I put the cooled down red cabbage water into an empty jam jar, filled to the very top, put the egg in and screwed the top on. This was left for a couple of hours.
When I took the egg out of the jar, I was happy to see how well the dye had taken. I peeled of the sticker to reveal the true colour of the egg in it’s original form , pre dye.
If you use a sticker to keep some of the egg undyed, you can write on the space that is not dyed & use these for place settings at a dinner party. If it is a drunken party, you can always have a fun food fight after by throwing these at each other!
All in all, I was happy with this experiment. And no explosions or accidents.
My blue eggs turned out o.k 1st attempt.
The red cabbage was not wasted either. Some was mixed into cous cous & the rest went on top of my compost bin.
On a recent journey, on a cold, cold day, I got off a bus after 13 hours travelling & entered a small cafe for a hot drink to warm me up.
When given the menu it took just a few seconds to decide what to order.
Hot milk, with honey & Cinamon.
The glass of hot milk with plenty of cinamon grated on the top of the froth was served with a small jar of honey on the saucer. I was delighted & it was just what I needed to start my day after such a long time sitting on a bus & a great way to start an adventure outdoors on a wintery day.
Hardly a day has passed since, when I have not prepared this drink at home.
It is the hot drink equivallent of shepherds pie.
I love it. And although it is now April, there has been snow & gale force winds to contend with over the last few days. Hence making this comfort drink my recipe of the week.
Nestlé is singled out for boycott action as monitoring shows it to be responsible for more violations of the requirements than any other company. ( Copied from Baby milk action.org )
Last night a friend had put a comment on facebook ” Why have a break with a Kit Kat, when you can have a break with a pint for 8 less calories”. Fair point. But I commented on liking his rationale, & that Nestle should be boycotted anyway & it is far better to support your local brewery.
My brother sent me a link today to a CNN report. “Greenpeace, Nestle battle in kit kat viral”.
(CNN) — A video clip which shows an office worker opening a Kit Kat chocolate bar and finding an orangutan’s finger has been re-posted on video-sharing Web site YouTube, a day after it was removed at the request of food giant Nestlé.
The viral campaign, which parodies a Kit Kat television commercial, was intended by Greenpeace to highlight how Nestlé buys palm oil — a key ingredient in many of its products — produced from the destroyed rainforest homes of the last orangutans in Indonesia.
Here is the video:
“The Greenpeace campaign will continue until Nestle has cut the Sinar Mas group from its supply chain. –John Sauven, Greenpeace UK
After watching this video & noticing that the Kit Kat on the video had a FAIR TRADE logo on the wrapper, I went to my nearest outlet for said confectionery, I found that YES INDEED, Kit Kat wrappers do display a FAIR TRADE LOGO. ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING!!!!!!!
I do of course intend to find out how & why they can get away with this. Perhaps Kit Kats are made using fair trade chocolate ( or some similar thing that would qualify them for the logo useage ),? but using palm oil from grossly deforested area’s is o.k. then?
I will do a seperate blog post on this when I have investigated this issue on what the rulings are for qualifying something to proudly boast an item as being fair trade.
You can’t really blame people for thinking that a Kit Kat, was perhaps an ethically o.k. chocolate snack to buy as bearing the fair trade logo, would OR SHOULD make you think that the ingredients were ethically sourced. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and people will consider the logo & probably see how many calories it contains to help them decide if that should be their snack of choice that they want to buy.
The 60-second clip ends with a play on Kit Kat’s famous slogan: “Have a break? Give orangutans a break.”
Give us a break as well. Give us decent laws on food labelling & advertising & let us then, be able to make an educated & informed choice on what we eat, what is in it & where it comes it come from.
I recently watched a BBC documentary called, Mischief: who made me fat?
Although this programme was excellently presented & well researched, it made me pretty angry ( especially the part about the olympic games, that I shall go into in a minute.
The programme was presented by Becca Wilcox & I have to admire her control during interviews & whilst being accosted by security guards.
One of the opening statements on the programme went something like this: fat people are a bigger threat to the economy than terrorism or global warming.
Well, The NHS spends 4.2 million on obesity & the ministry for health spends 75 million on tv & advertising campaigns such as their “change for life campaign”.
One example of the cost of tackling obesity was given about the fire brigade needing to get a fat man out of his house. They needed to build a ramp & close the road & the procedure took 5 hours to get him out.
Now to the bit that really annoyed me:
Olympic games:
Apparently, the only companies giving money to the 2012 London Olympic games are
Cadburys
McDonalds
& Coca-cola
Yep! healthy choices indeed. A diet consiting of that lot will surely turn you into a mean, lean olympic machiene!
Here are a couple of McDonalds olympic’s adverts:
The companies derive a “halo effect” by sponsoring such events ( not to mention making a huge amount of money & getting more kid’s hooked on the junk they call food ).
The ethos that has always been behind the olympic games since they begun is ” physical excellence “.
Becca Wilcox portrayed this well, with gathering a few less pysically excellent specimens and parading around the Olympic commitee offices as team GBB ( Great Big Britain ) and said ” Don’t take food from an athelete, they may be feeding you junk “.
Personally, I think that any athlete that helps these types of “junk food feeder” companies, should be disqualified for any olympic games.
Becca also sent a cracking letter to Lord Sebastian Coe about the sponsorship & in his reply he said that, The Olympic Commitee ” was proud to be associated with ” said companies. Well any respect I may have had for Sebastian Coe is gone.
Now, on the sponsorship front……………………….
Burger king sponsors NHS:
Yes, sad & hard to believe isn’t it. But enter your nearest NHS hospital and do not be too surprised if you see a Burger King in the foyer. I sadly have noticed this myself in the past, but apparently one of the best known hospitals in the UK, which is renown for it’s heart surgery ( I think it was Brookes Hopsital in Cambridge, but did not take enough notes at the time, probably due to shock! ) Has actually got printed in it’s directions on how to get to the heart surgery department ( I think it was ) turn left after the Burger King in the foyer. It was certainly something like that. The point is, how can they even consider printing such a thing, let alone allow a fast food chain within the hospital grounds.
Below is copied from a web page about the NHS Reading walk in centre, It doesn’t say much about Burger King but they do seem to like to name drop BK when they can.
Slough NHS walk in centre.
Reading Walk-in Health Centre is located on the first floor of the Broad Street Mall in Reading town centre and offers a wide range of GP-led services.
Reading Walk-in Health Centre is an 8am to 8pm service, open to registered and unregistered patients with or without an appointment, 365 days per year. Please note that after 5.00pm on Sundays when the Broad Street Mall is closed, entrance to the Centre is only possible using the door near to Burger King.
( I wonder how much longer it will be a walk- in centre rather than a roll- in centre , or being hoisted by a crane-in centre )
The NHS seem to be obsessed with promoting burgers.
And from the British Heart Foudations website:
12/02/2010
Responsible approach to portion size needed
In response to an enquiry regarding a new ‘double Angus three cheese burger’ being sold at Burger King restaurants Victoria Taylor, Senior Heart Health Dietitian at the British Heart Foundation (BHF) said:
“A responsible approach to portion size is vital to the promotion of healthier diets and never more so than in meals that are high in saturated fat.
“Although both the standard and double versions of this burger are high in saturated fat, going for the double Angus three cheese burger would provide an adult woman with her entire daily saturated fat allowance and half her daily calorie limit, and that’s without adding in chips and a sugary fizzy drink.
“Consumers need to use nutritional information available to them to help make healthier choices and be wary of going large – as they could get more than they bargained for.”
Is it just me, or is that an increadibly lame response. No mention of home cooked meals, eating fruit & vegetables & that junk food should not really be eaten at all.
No wonder, chairs are being made ( & there is demand for them ) to accomodate people of 70 stone!
A good friend who shares seeds with me & who turns the fruit from my trees at the end of the summer into fabulous chutneys, pickles & jams, sent this link to me earlier.
A whole host of pdf vegetable growing cards can be grabbed by clicking on this link
