I still don’t have one…
Jan 29, 2010 Uncategorized
I love Ponies, but I hate Horsies
OK, so that might not make a lot of sense, but visit those two links for great cartoon strips by The Oatmeal. He has a superb style and could probably survive for over a minute chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor. He also has some good advice like “5 very good reasons to punch a dolphin in the mouth” and “I believe printers were sent from hell to make us miserable“.
Her Fearful Symmetry
Jan 27, 2010 Uncategorized
Remember how awesome The Time Travellers Wife was? Well this book is by the same author and it’s not quite as good… but still a gorgeous story. Two identical twins in their early twenties from USA come to live next to Highgate Cemetery and get haunted and can’t break away from their past to live in their future. Hmm, well actually that covers the story pretty much, but what the author manages to do so perfectly is develop such “wonderful but damaged” characters. My favourite has the be Martin, a man who has severe a severe case of OCD but is still such a rich and adorable guy – I was so pleased how his separate story developed as he tried to master his obsessions.
As the story develops you can see that so many of the main characters are looking both forwards and backwards and loving people in their past and future and you can’t see how any of the issues will ever resolve themselves. In the end the issues sort of do get sorted out – and in the last lines of the book one of the characters makes a decision that I’m so glad they did otherwise I might have hate the book (I won’t give it away but he did the right thing!).
The end of The Time Travellers Wife was truly beautiful, but one of the characters in Her Fearful Symmetry has quite a sad ending… and I can’t work out if that gets resolved by the last few lines of the book. Sigh, it’s impossible to explain any of this without giving the story away so I’ll shutup. I’m off to London soon and am definitely going to visit Highgate Cemetery and look out for the ghosts riding on the crows. Oh and I absolutely need a Little Kitten Of Death!!!
When I die…
Jan 23, 2010 Uncategorized
Well, when I die I know that’s it, I’m gone. However if an afterlife did exist I hope none of them are like any of the fantastic stories in Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
It’s a really beautiful book. As the title says, it’s forty very short stories about what might happen when you die. Each one of the tales are unique, from being given the option of what you’d like to come back as next time, being taken to a heaven where god has gone missing, to finding out that your life was simply an act, and many others.
I found that practically every story was somewhat sad. The afterlife never really lives up to what you’d imagine it to be in any of them. I guess that makes sense as the traditional idea of heaven is pretty depressing – full of nothing but do-gooders and with no sinners, maybe even not any cats! Maybe the stories are unfulfilling because the author David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and believes deep down that the entire sum of our lives is really in our mind and dies when we die.
Shesh, OK, that was a depressing conclusion. However, the stories are really beautiful, my favourite was the one with the horsey. Read it and see which one you love the most.
Jamie’s Italian (Brighton)
Jan 15, 2010 Uncategorized
Jamie Olivers “TV persona” makes me want to strangle every last mockney breath out of him. So, it’s safe to say I wasn’t expecting much when I visited his Italian restaurant in Brighton. But wow was I pleasently surprised. The staff were really great, I liked how you could see into the kitchen and they were preparing food inside the restaurant itself, the decor was cool and best of all the bread was gorgeous. Yes, the bread. I’m getting to the point where the part I remember about restaurants is the bread not the food! I had a burger (10quid) and it was probably the second nicest I’ve ever eaten (nothing can beat the one served in the hotel overlooking the Grand Canyon of course). For 30quid for enough food to make you feel full you can’t go wrong. You have to be careful what time you get there as I went at 11:45 and there was no queue (it opened at 12) and when I went back at 12 there was a big queue. But the food service was very fast so no complaints really. Along with Raymond Blanc’s great Brasserie Blanc you really do have to wonder why it’s worth spending more for food.
Pukka! Arghghghghghghghhh *strangle*
Gordon Ramsay at Claridges
Jan 15, 2010 Uncategorized
As part of my great birthday treat (thanks to nearly everyone for their cards) Jen took me to Claridges for lunch. Well, lunch is a bit of an understatement when you’re eating six courses of nom from the “prestige menu”, but that’s what they call it. Here was our menu…
- Butternut squash soup with parmesan
- Casterbridge beef carpaccio with confit foie gras and beetroot salad (Salad of chargrilled courgettes, creamed ricotta and pine nuts, rocket pesto)
- Native lobster and salmon ravioli, lemongrass and coconut bisque (Black pepper gnocchi, sweetcorn velouté, fricassée of wild mushrooms, savory and broccoli )
- Crispy Suffolk pork belly and braised cheek, sautéed scallop, apple fondant and rocket pesto (Braised mixed English carrots, grelotte onions, dauphinois potatoes, morel sauce
- French and British cheeses (supplement)
- Cold malt chocolate fondant, mandarin ice cream
The food was fantastic, really well presented and the staff were very friendly. The highlight to me was the plainly stated “beetroot salad” which actually included the most amazing beetroot and horseradish ice-cream, wow!
As for Claridges itself, I wasn’t sure what to expect but it didn’t quite live up to the name it has. Hmm I’m finding it hard to explain why. Ah, I’ve got it… it felt like you were in a hotel rather than a restaurant. That’s exactly it! It’s quite a big thing actually and it knocked a few points off compared to Le Manoir which always felt like it was all about the food. The watermellini in the bar before the meal was gorgeous… in fact if anyone does go then it’s worth going to the bar and paying £15 for a cocktail because you get a gorgeous selection of snacks included crispy thin cheeeeese!
We’ve decided to cut back on swanky food for a while now, for the cost of the last two big meals we could have gone to Jamie’s Italian in Brighton 27 times. Yeh, exactly.
Le Manoir Aux Quat Saisons
Jan 1, 2010 Uncategorized
The thing about being away from home for Christmas is that it is such a risk, you could completely ruin the one chance at Xmas you have for that year. So if you’re going to do it then you gotta do it properly right? So we decided on Raymond Blanc’s 2 michelin starred flagship hotel “Le Manoir Aux Quat Saisons”. Sounds tasty already doesn’t it!
However, Raymond did his utmost to spoil the event by the incredibly bad result of “The Restaurant” TV programme where the two winners couldn’t cook and only seemed to have one discernible talent which was being able to high five each other every 5minutes. Tits!
So, Xmas eve and we arrive at the incredibly beautiful restaurant, me in a scruffy top and ripped jeans. Yes, I know, a lout. We asked if it was possible to have lunch – expecting this to be a snack in a bar or something…. unfortunately it meant being shown through to a posh lounge and plied with free champagne whilst the staff tried to fit us in to the restaurant. So there is me in my ripped jeans surrounded by people in suits, diamonds and posh frocks. doh! They managed to find a table and I just hid myself under the table cloth (-:
The lunch was superb, three delicious courses with wine. This was followed soon after by a three course cookery demonstration with more wine (the cookery was wasted on me but the experience was great, imagine being able to cook all those different things at the same time!). We checked into our amazing room – we had our own two story dovecote and just collapsed feeling very fat and kind of dreading dinner, which is a strange thing to say at Raymond Blanc’s place!
Dinner involved more free champagne (in fact it was free all over the time we were there) followed by amuse bouche… followed by 5 courses of amazing food… followed by chocolates.
The courses were as follows…
- Spiced velouté of cauliflower, plancha-seared scallop
- Confit of ‘Landais’ foié gras, vanilla, quince, aged balsamic vinegar, toasted sour dough
- Agnolotti of pumpkin and Roquefort, sage, toasted walnuts (that’s a sort of ravioli thingie)
- Pan-seared red mullet, salt cod brandade, artichoke, bouillabaisse jus
- Chestnut Brittany shortbread like a ‘Mont Blanc’ with passion fruit and old rum from La Martinique
So you can imagine how I felt after 12 courses of food at 11pm! Yep, peckish hehe.
Oooh, I forgot to mention the bread. Now I’m sure you know that bread in restaurants is the curse of all weak willed people. You try all day to keep your appetite by starving yourself silly, then before you’ve eaten any of the meal they ply you with bread and you get stuffed! This was a million times worse at Le Manoir as the breads were ridiculously nice…. they had mashed potato and beer bread!!!! And bacon bread!!! OMG.
So Xmas day started with a beautiful blue sky and a gorgeous breakfast of Eggs Benedict, of course I shouldn’t have eaten anything because at 1pm (I was smart this time) we sat down to the most amazing meal. It took 4hours to eat! Here is the menu for you foody types…
- Warm blinis of oak-smoked salmon, créme fraíche, osietra caviar
- Terrine of winter game, salad of baby beetroot (god this was gorgeous, instead of paté it was a jelly that tasted of gravy)
- Ravioli of lobster and pan-seared scallops, cumin and ginger scented jus
- Poached fillet of brill, cancale oyster, cucumber and wasabi (oysters still suck, they really do)
- Little pallet cleansing thingie
- Traditional roasted bronze turkey, braised chestnuts, cranberry sauce (trust me there was nothing traditional about this)
- (The alternative to this course was… wait for it…. piglet!!! OMG, Piglet?!?! From winnie the pooh?!?!!?!?
- Vacharin Mont D’Or heather honeycomb winter truffle
- Grand Marnier soufflé with an orange salad and warm ‘Madeline’ (I have no idea who she was but she never turned up)
- More chocolates
So you can see how this took four hours to eat right? I think the most perfect summary of the food I can provide is that it’s just like the name says… seasonal. Everything on your plate had its own individual flavour and tasted wintery, you never wanted to put more than one thing on your fork as each taste was just so nice. Of course that didn’t stop me from making a sammich out of stuff on my plate and some bacon bread hehe.
I managed to pinch one of Raymond’s business cards – oooh and we got a hand written Christmas card from him along with a huge hamper full of gifts. But my god was it expensive, but, worth every penny and will be impossible to top.
You’ll be pleased to know though that it’s New Years Day today and I went for a 4mile run at 10am.
Oooo, I forgot to mention another thing about the food… some of the puddings and chocolates had real gold leaf on them! How decadent
Tags: le manoir