Long weekend in Northern Ireland

Jo and I have spent the last three days in the always wonderful company of our very good friends Paul and Marie, as guests in their lovely home on the east coast of Northern Ireland.

The ancient province of Ulster is where you'll find of the most gloriously wild and unspoilt coastland in the UK. The more commonly tourist-trodden Giant's Causeway has been largely tamed, but is still quite literally breath-taking, particularly on a typically wind-swept spring day. Paul and Marie live a fair bit further south, where there are far fewer tourists, which means fewer cars, car-parks, visitor centres and litter-bins to mar the landscape.

They do get an awful lot of rain and wind though, and both Friday and Sunday were typical for the time of year: grey, lowering skies with squalls sweeping in from the Irish Sea and rattling the roof tiles. So we stayed in, enjoyed home-cooked chiken korma, chilli con carne and bacon & mushroom frittata, drank bottled Guinness and the Whitewater Brewery's Belfast Ale (thanks to Ed for the recommendation, Paul and I really enjoyed it), sipped snifters of Laphroig cask strength and played poker and Uno when we weren't whiling away the hours in conversation.

But on Saturday the weather lifted and the sun shone through, so we took the opportunity to go for a trek up along the coast for a couple of miles, following a short section of the Ulster Way. Here are a few snapshots I took with my old and un-fancy Fuji Finepix A203:

That water is a fair bit colder than it looks

They don't call it the Emerald Isle for nothing...

Quite lovely, no?

And of course, our destination was a fantastic country pub, where I enjoyed a remarkably fine sirloin steak (Jo had the lemon sole), washed down by a couple of delicious pints of Guinness. Have you noticed how they always taste better after a decent amount of exercise? Must be the lower guilt-content...

Ahhhh... Northern Ireland. Highly recommended.

March 5, 2007 | Filed Under Drink, Food, Life, Photography | 2 Comments

File under: Food, glorious Food!

EU expansion - great for the taste buds...

Bulgaria. A while ago. Two new countries joined the EU this week: Romania and Bulgaria. Quite apart from all the political debate and economic issues (haven't read up on them, not going to comment on them) there's something to be celebrated in the accession of these two former Eastern Bloc nations to our proud European Community.

As an enthusiastic - if strictly amateur - gourmand I'm more than a little intrigued by the culinary possibilities inherent in the expansion and extension of Europe's national family, as highlighted in this BBC news item.

You know, I reckon a dollop of Lyutenitsa on Mititei would go down a treat...

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Let ~~them~~ us eat cake!

I'm a bit of a failure in the 'living up to the British male stereotye ' stakes. Well, except for the whole 'thoroughly enjoying watching grown men run around a field kicking a spherical object' thing. But still.

The clincher is that I'm actually rather fond of my mother-in-law. It helps that she's probably one of the best proper cooks (in the traditional, stick-to-yer-ribs, 'here have a fifth helping you're looking skinny' sense) in Britain. Seriously, her roast beef dinners are the stuff of legend, I kid ye not.

And every Xmas, she bakes us a proper, traditional Xmas cake. It's dark, sweet, succulent, rich, packed with fruit and booze, reinforced with about a tonne and a half of marzipan and finished with crisp, sharp and pointy royal icing. And totally gluten-free (Jo and I both have a wheat-thing...)

Perfection:

Quick, wipe that drool off your chin before you short-circuit the keyboard...

January 2, 2007 | Filed Under Food | Leave a Comment

Still free on January 6th…

Looks like the cynical bastards at the F.A. were merely dangling the possibility of a reprieve for Bury FC in order to escape the pre-Xmas bad publicity after all.

Bury FC Ah, well. We made the blunder, now we've got to take it on the chin. Although it looks like if you do make an honest mistake, then doing the decent thing - 'fessing up and apologising - doesn't hold any water with the bureaucratic types. So let this be a lesson to everyone: next time you think you might get away with a mistake you've made, don't tell! Honesty is punishable! Lie, cheat and steal like everyone else, it's the only way forward... apparently.

What, bitter? Me?

In other news: have just about finished off the last of the Yuletide leftovers, so it's back on the health regime as of Monday. Luckily I already joined a gym last November and have been a few times since, so when I get back down there next week the staff might recognise me and not smirk quite so much.

Oh, and this year's Xmas dinner for two was a triumph, if I do say so myself. Thanks to a set of cooking instructions I found on a website somewhere, the turkey didn't come out dry as the Antarctic(*) and tasting like an old cardboard box, and the assorted roast veggies were done to a 't'.

The seasonal TV highlight for me was definitely the QI Xmas Special (and I also received a copy of QI: The Book of General Ignorance [Amazon] from Jo, which was most welcome, and most enlightening, too). Dracula kinda sucked (sorry, couldn't resist), but The Ruby in the Smoke was watchable, and The Hogfather was quite jolly.

I've solved my coffee-machine quandary - for the short-term at least - with the purchase of a Russell Hobbes filter machine for the not-so bank-breaking price of £17.49, from good old Sainsbury's. Oh, and a jar of Illy ground, just in case those beans turn out to have crumbled away to nothing or something...

Also managed to find a bit more reading time than usual; I finished the charmingly disgraceful Vesuvius Club [Amazon] and have now taken the plunge and started in on Before They Are Hanged [Amazon]; I'm about 55 pages in so far and loving it. I'll be writing a couple more book-ish entries this weekend with any luck, once I've put the finishing touches to the brand new Les Edwards and Edward Miller websites, which will be going live on Monday. Speaking of which, best get on, eh?

So, a Happy New Year to everyone, in case I don't post again before then.

(*) Driest place on Earth. No lie. It's in QI: The Book of General Ignorance and everything...

December 29, 2006 | Filed Under Books, Drink, Food, Life, Sport | 2 Comments