Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Troughing it

I had a few foody treats today … for anyone trying to lose weight, or
trying to lower their cholesterol levels, please stop reading this now.

To celebrate one of our family members’ birthdays today, we started off
with a cooked breakfast … a poached egg on 1-2 Birds Eye waffles, plus
some lean organic bacon - - not that I usually eat meat, but if anyone
is cooking some bacon, I will eat it.

The delicious smell of frying / grilling bacon takes me straight back
in time to my mum cooking it when we went away on holiday to the
Yorkshire moorlands … she would do a fry-up of fresh farm eggs,
mushrooms, bacon and fried bread over a paraffin stove / heater, that
we took with us on holiday … a bit like a camp-side breakfast, but
these breakfasts were indoors in very primitive accommodation.


Later on today, we had a light snack of oatcakes with a generous
topping of smoked trout, mashed up with fromage frais and a little
lemon juice. Amazingly tasty.

This snack was to keep us going up to a mid-afternoon visit to
Nottingham’s Pizza Express on King Street. We hadn’t been there for
years, and I was surprised how spacious and well lit it was inside,
and how well staffed it was. Our party included Mrs C and myself,
two of our daughters and our two granddaughters … most of our time
and conversation was centred on these two little tots.

Anyway, to return to the food, I had my favourite Pizza Express
pizza which is the Fiorentina … this was the best one I’ve had
the pleasure of eating … a gorgeous garlicky tomato sauce on a
brilliantly baked thin pizza base, generous amounts of spinach
on top, and a beautifully cooked egg in the centre of it.

Perfection.

I had a similar pizza just over a week ago in Wimbledon, which
was dismal in comparison: an undercooked base, minimal spinach
and a hard rubbery egg on the top … not so nice, but I managed to
eat it all, nevertheless.

Today, we shared a bottle of a medium priced Sicilian Shiraz
wine, which was excellent too. The best bottle of red wine I’ve
tasted in a restaurant at the price. I’ve often felt we’ve been
overcharged in the past at many restaurants, for a bottle of
inferior red wine, which could have been used as a
paint-stripper instead.

When we got back home at about 5pm, Mrs C put the finishing
touches to a fabulous chocolate cake … Gordon Ramsay’s Gooey
chocolate cake
. She used less cream + crème fraiche filling than
GR recommends, and less dark chocolate on the top. But the
overall texture and taste was out of this world … far less
sweet and less sickly than a lot of chocolate cake recipes
I think. The grated lime rind gave it a slightly offbeat
flavour too.



After watching an episode of the brilliant crime drama, Waking
The Dead,
this evening, I have to admit that I felt hungry
yet again, and scoffed two slices of home-made brown bread,
spread with Pure marge and Frank Cooper’s fine cut marmalade.

I’m looking around now, thinking about what next I could
nibble. I’ve missed out on our usual huge quantities of veg
today, which would have filled me up.

And the strange thing is … I find it hard to put on any extra
weight. :)

..............................................................

I've just edited my blog roll, removing some inactive sites. If
anyone would like to be re-instated, please would they email me?
My email address is at the bottom of this page, in the footnotes.

2 Comments:

Blogger AngelConradie said...

wow... now i'm hungry, it all sounds incredible!!!

5:57 am  
Blogger justin said...

Thanks, Angel. Yes, the food was superb. We've still not quite finished the chocolate cake, despite giving some to another one of our daughters.

9:53 pm  

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