Monday 31 May 2010

Walking The Ridgeway



It is a while since I've done a long walk, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy exploring England by foot. It is the only way to really get to see all the hidden away special places that are so easily missed.
A few years ago I was invited on a walk by a friend who was meeting up with her old university friends. We were to walk the Coleridge way in the Quantock Hills and the walk was partly a reunion, so turned out to be a bit of a party. I assumed this was a one-off, but the following year when the walk moved to
North Devon, the partying continued. So now I try to join them every year - it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'a walking party'!
This year we walked the northern end of The Ridgeway, about the last 25 miles of it, starting just outside of West Wickham and joining the path by Princes Risborough. The only unfortunate side to this day was the constant rain, but luckily most of the walk is wooded so prevented us from getting totally soaked through. It also gave a good excuse for the 'party' of walkers to stop and take regular breaks, with quick nips of tequila to keep their spirits up!
Navigation also became a bit of a game, with Simone, one of the walkers, trying out her new toy - a GPS, against Tim, our organiser, with map. I was totally against the whole idea of the GPS, being a lover of maps, but when at one point we appeared to be lost in a very large wood, the GPS saved the day, and possibly a few miles walked in the wrong direction, by pointing us in the correct direction.
The other important part of great walks is of course great food along the way. Lunch on the first day was at the Red Lion in Great Hampden, a cosy traditional little pub, with very friendly owners who even took pity on the soggy looking dogs and let them sneak inside to dry out for a
while. Great sandwiches were served, with rare roast beef or tasty Cheddar and pickle. But it has to be said that the bread and butter pudding was possibly the worst I have ever tasted - layers of 'pappy' white bread with either lard or margarine used to glue it together, with the odd sultana showing it's face. This was served with a jug of custard to pour over the top. This was not bread and butter pudding - what a disappointment.
Saturday night in Wendover was also interesting - another Red Lion, but this one is an old coaching Inn in the centre of town, and buzzing on a Saturday night (there is possibly nowhere else to go?). Food as you would expect - disappointing.
Sunday turned out to be sunny which was a great relief to all - the thought of being damp for another eight hours of walking was not a good prospect.
The Ridgeway lived up to be everything I had hope for, with changing scenery, quaint churches, stunning country houses (including a view of Chequers), and the perfect amount of small hills to climb.
Our final lunch at The Greyhound in Wiggington was also pretty good, and gave us energy for the final push to Ivinghoe Beacon, with the most amazing views for miles.

Thursday 20 May 2010

Best Rowing Coach on the Thames?


Getting back to training after a weekend end away certainly feels better when the sun is shining, the water is beautifully flat, the first baby goslings are bobbing around and.................our coach cooked us all breakfast!
And not just any old breakfast either - sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, black pudding, grilled tomatoes and, after a special request from me - smoked salmon!!! How amazing is he?! No wonder our membership is growing (just a shame most of the girls are training to race as lightweights!).
Interesting too so see what others brought to the table - home-made rye bread from one, Nutella from another (has she not been listening to a word I say??!!) and obviously from me it had to be something to add a touch of health to the proceedings - a shot of Cherry Active drink to top
up their antioxidant levels after a hard workout!
Cheers George, you're a star!

When in Rome.......


Another trip to the beautiful city, but this time it was slightly different and much more like home - it rained constantly for four days - thunder, lightening and the most water I have seen running down cobbled streets in a long time!
But less like home was the great food available, as always in Italy. I arrived on Friday and was told that we would be having dinner that night with friends at around 10pm, with 'Happy Hour' aperitifs starting at around 9pm - a little later than we would normally start at home, but when in Rome...
After a large dinner another surprise - would I like to go for cornetti? Having just learnt in my Italian class that cornetti was croissant I was a little confused but agreed anyway as it seemed the thing to do. So, at around 12.30am we drive for around twenty minutes to the Africa District to a little cafe that is positively bulging with people eating croissants!! They are coming straight out of the oven and served hot, filled with custard or topped with icing sugar, some with chocolate and others filled with cheese. Even though my stomach was fighting against the idea, I could not resist - they were divine. And obviously the whole point is that you buy some for breakfast so the next morning began with a treat too!
After that the weekend was a whirl of driving to different areas outside of Rome, starting with attending Mama's birthday party in Bracciano where more great food was served, including panzanella, a wonderful country summer bread and tomato salad which includes the simplest of ingredients but as is typically Italian, those ingredients are the best that can be found; country style bread with a great crust, fresh tomatoes, garlic, basil leaves, virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar and olives.
The recipe is simple - just soak the bread in a little cold water then mix with all the remaining ingredients, season and mix well. Do not attempt this with pappy supermarket bread and unripe tomatoes - you will be missing the point!
Driving around Italy is amazing - not more than forty-five minutes out of Rome are some of the most beautiful villages, some built on cliff-tops, others surrounded by olive groves, or the another alternative is to head for the beach. Either way wherever you stop you are likely to find great food, even in the smallest towns and villages where there is one lonesome cafe - a plate of pasta with a rocket and Parmesan salad, or a beautifully thin pizza topped with tomato sauce and artichokes - I found it impossible to have a bad meal!

Monday 10 May 2010

A Taste of Honey


I wouldn't normally attend work related things at the weekend, but the chance to learn about and taste gorgeous honey was too tempting to resist! So after a quick training session on the river, I scurried down along the Thames in the pouring rain, to Petersham Nurseries.
Now this is a place I would not normally rush too either, despite it being a beautiful location and despite the fact that the food is pretty good. My main problem with it is the outrageous prices, mainly I assume because it is the wonderful
borough of Richmond (who now have a millionaire MP which just says it all!), so they feel justified in charging rather over-flated prices to sit and have lunch in a greenhouse!
Anyway, back to the purpose of my visit, which was to attend a Guild of Food Writers talk, which are always very informative, and this one was certainly no exception.
We started with a brief talk by Skye Gyngell, who is the chef at Petersham, and who is very passionate about combining natural flavours of foods together, which she did brilliantly in serving a plate of cheeses matched with subtle cheeses - Creamy St Tola goats cheese with rhodedendron honey, and toma (Piedmont) cheese with herb honey - the combinations were divine. To finish we were served vanilla ice cream with chestnut honey and turron....despite it being a cold and rainy day I couldn't resist eating the bowl clean!
After that we were given a great talk by Hattie Ellis, who appears to have spend a large amount of her life travelling the world to learn about honey and bees. It certainly was not time wasted as she made everything sound such fun and so interesting. I have always wanted to keep bees and she made it seem such an easy thing to do, especially as she mentioned that local bee keepers may even be happy to 'borrow' your garden for one of their hives - thus giving you the pleasure of sharing them and sampling their honey, but none of the work!! And a great chance to learn more about it before you take the plunge and get your own colony. One great thing I did learn was that bees are banned in New York, in that you are not allowed to keep them there. But....there is an overground underground of bee keepers who keep them on their roof! Only in America!
My stroll back home after all that sweetness was made even sweeter by the discovery of Greedies on the river. Greedies is a cafe in Isleworth that is frequented by myself and a large number of rowers who need a good breakfast or brunch after a heavy morning's training. Over the years we had explored a number of local workman's caffs, where you can get a good fry-up and sit and recover from the mornings exercise in a nice surrounding. We were never quite satisfied until I came upon Greedies. They do one of the best breakfasts in West London - and not only a World Cup fry-up either. If you want something a little more up-market there is eggs benedict or smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, along with lots of other goodies. For a Sunday brunch with the morning papers it takes a lot of beating.

Sunday 9 May 2010

Bank Holidays were made for this.


What a life-safer my friend Guinevere is.....whenever I need to get away from it all and chill out for a few days, she insists I get myself down to Wales, to stay in her beautiful little converted chapel in Llangennith on the Gower Penninsula.
Forget all that flying abroad stuff (especially when there is volcanic ash floating around!), Wales can be absolutely stunning and luckily for myself and a couple of girlfriends, this weekend was exceptional. The sun shone for the whole weekend, so the surfers were out in force (giving us a little eye-candy for amusement), and we spent our days walking the beach, or over the hills, with pub lunches and the odd Welsh cake here and there! Unfortunately the local pub The Kings Head was very disappointing on the food front, with a very big menu, including lots of curries and the usual pub grub type food, but not very well done. Which meant we had to extend our search a little further, ruining our plan of spending the whole weekend not using a car.
Luckily after a trip to the local flea market on Monday morning we drove past the King Arthur Hotel, which was a different standard and served great food. Again there were lots of curries (is curry eating some old Welsh tradition that I've not heard of?), but these were much more imaginative and certainly more tasty - I had chickpea and vegetable Thai curry which was great and only let down by the addition of microwaveable rice!
But if cakes is what you like (and I do), then homemade Welsh cakes are a must. There is debate about whether you eat them with butter or jam, or just plain (I go for the plain option), either way they are one of the easiest cakes to make especially as they don't even require an oven. I have memories of making them for my father when he was living abroad and had no oven but was craving homemade cakes - I cooked them in a wok!

This recipe uses a griddle pan, but if a wok is all you have then get cooking anyway!

225g self-raising flour
110g butter
85g caster sugar
75g mixed dried fruit
1 egg
a little milk

1. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
2. Stir in the sugar and mixed dried fruit then pour in the egg and mix to a dough, using a little milk if needed.
3. Turn out onto a floured surface and roll the dough to a thickness of about 8-9mm. cut rounds with a biscuit cutter.
4. Heat a griddle and wipe with a little oil. Cook the cakes over a low heat until golden on both sides and cooked through the middle. Serve warm or cold.