This is not a food blog...

... but this is worth a mention!

Buttered dish.
French bread, sliced.
100g of Gruyerre.
300ml of milk.
4 eggs.
Two or three first class sausages, I used Gloucester old spot for this one.
Salt n' pepper.

In a baking oven for half an hour.

Breakfast of champions!

Bloody marvellous!!

La mia vigna incredible

A misty autumn morning. Observe the vines at the back of our garden. These provide delicious shade during the warm weather. And yes, sometimes we spot tiny green grapes in amongst the foliage.

 Look, can they be grapes? Real grapes? Big , red , juicy ones?

 Large? Good enough to eat?

Surely not?

Absolutely! This year, out of nothing, we have a bumper crop of sweet and tender decent sized grapes!
They are good to eat and as yet we have experienced no ill effects.

Macca-pacca-stacca-beans!

You want to funk up your beans-on-toast? You want to add some jazz to your pauper meals? You want to revibe after yet another bloody day of all being in it together?

I think this may be what you have been looking for.

Heinz beans, simmered over a hob, with a good pinch of chilli powder for some extra soul.

White sliced is preferable, toasted, lashings of butter  and, this is the key, cut lengthways.

Then stacked, like a game of Jenga.

Pour the beans into the hole at the top.

Allow the beans to drain south for a moment or two. The hole in this stack was smaller than usual, See the second picture. This meant that the beans did not sink down as normal.

All being said, it brightens up those dull Tuesday evenings.

Lasagne!

Who the hell doesn't love lasagne?

Especially lasagne made by a drunk bloke?

Especially when it's then thrown in the freezer for a month or two to be baked and consumed amidst babies and nappies and stuff?

Please enjoy the very small photo essay about my Saturday night.

Domesticity

I've decided I don't like figs.
A kind neighbour cornered me with some the other day.

"Oh you must try them, they're delicious"

So I took a few and left them to ripen on the kitchen window sill.
Today, whilst emptying the kitchen in advance of next week's renovation I thought "better try one, can't live a life less travelled" and all that.

Not for me.

Another milestone

Ah, parenting.
Isn't it just a collection of milestones mingled in with a bunch of crazy scary stuff?

This morning (freezing cold, blazing blue skies) Henry and I went off to feed the ducks with all the leftover bread from Christmas. As we strolled back through Hometown we popped into see 'Uncle Merv' our friendly baker and sponsor of my teenage record buying habits. Then, with not much to do but drink a cup of milk and munch a snack it hit me.

Why not?

Sure we could?

Yeah!

While I ploughed my way through a mansize-mega-munch-olympic-London2012-we won the war-hero-1966-allyoucaneat-disco- HenryCooper-breakfast special, Henry drank his milk and munched on some white bread and butter.

All around us blokes ate their breakfast and read newspapers, the waitresses were jolly and the tea piping hot.

Our first solo outing to a proper British greasy spoon caff.

For the love of all things English

I have recently had the pleasure of teaching a certain 11 year old lad who is the very essence of all things English. He never gives up, is a fierce competitor, He likes going abroad but isn't completely sure about foreigners, He follows his footy with that bizarrely English passion, Is a great advocate of fairness and doing the right thing. He's a cheeky monkey but also worshipped by the younger kids and praised by adults. He's Bobby Moore lifting the Jules Rimet trophy on a humid summer afternoon, He's Terry Butcher's shirt covered in blood, He's John Terry's tears. This lad is all that and more and I really wish him all the best in his new school, He'll never do too well academically but I know that he'll shine in other ways.

There is, however, a slight problem.

He doesn't like pastry.

He admitted this to me the other day. We were chatting about lunch, what we would be eating that day. I told him of my admiration for a certain local baker who made the most delicious sausage rolls.

"I don't like sausage rolls, I like sausages but not the roll bit. I hate pastry".

"What? You don't like pastry?"

"I hate the stuff, Ever since I was little".

In my mind this is almost a disqualification to being English. I have a nightmarish vision of being hauled up before some shadowy Whitehall committee to explain and justify why this lad should be allowed to remain in the country, I'd have to reason with the pastry politburo, I'd have to beg them to allow him to stay.

This is like a Frenchman not liking cheese or wine.

This is like a German not liking meat or the ensuing fart based humour.

In order to illustrate my point I should like to offer the jury two pictures of my breakfast. I should like to add that the following images could cause offence and that they merely represent my occasional weekend breakfast. I use the images to show the creative genius the English employ when working in the media of pastry.


This breakfast roll contains sausage, bacon, egg and baked beans all rolled together in a tender, loving caress of shortcrust pastry. Fresh from the bakers for less than three quid.

The end view shows a bit more detail, including a bean, nestled next to the various pork products in the interior.

I simply have to ask, Why would anybody not love this delicious morsel?

High tea

While I'm on the subject of truly great reasons for Norfolk in the spring, here's an aerial picture of a stupendous afternoon tea that was recently served up to us by our dearest chums, the chesnuts of the shire.

We will shortly be hosting them and serving homemade burgers a'la 'Bonnies' of Fifth Avenue.

Peckish

Because 6am is the new 11am.

Because I was quite hungry when I arrived at work this morning.

Because there are many wonderful reasons to work in an elementary school.

Because one of them is a sometimes endless supply of corn muffins and cookies delivered by hand to your desk by small, smiling children.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday for so many reasons, the food, the football, the family dysfuntionality. One of the perks of being an elementary teacher is the inventive ways teachers and parents dream up to bring such celebrations into the classroom (and into my stomach)


Behold, the pot simmering away in a nearby First Grade classroom.


I was alerted by the smell, I was soon investigating, camera in hand.


Before you could say "Thank you Sarah" this delicious bowl of Stone Soup landed upon my busy desk.

There were many other splendid offerings throughout the building but this soup was my favourite.

Thank you First Grade Friends!