Motivation zero.....

The weekend has kind of left me with a lack of any get up and go today. I really didn't feel like getting out of bed this morning but that was partly to do with wanting to see Rory McIlroy claim the US Open gold title. What an amazing achievement for somebody so young and he handled the post tournament interviews like he'd been winning majors for years. I never thought that I'd see anybody as good as Tiger Woods again in my lifetime but this victory for Rory was the best golf I've ever seen, even eclipsing the great Woods' 13 shot victory of a few years ago.

One fellow player even commented that you couldn't have wished to play better golf on the Playstation let alone on a real course.





So back on blogging track (quite literally) and Fridays antics mainly involved comfort food, red wine and the afore mentioned Playstation. After a rather fast paced and speedy day at work I returned to my empty home (my girls were off camping in the new forest) via Waitrose to pick up some Chicken Kievs. These are my favourite home comfort food at the moment and they have been for a while. I actually ate around ten different supermarket Chicken Kievs in ten days once just so that I could compare them and find out which were the best. Waitrose won closely followed by Marks & Spencer. I'm talking the best quality own brand Kievs too and not the cheap kind that use reformed minced chicken.

Chicken Kievs generally come in packs of two and I just can't leave one Kiev on it's own so out of mercy (OK....greed) I have to eat both. I've also discovered the perfect accompaniment to these timeless family classics and that is chilli peas. I'd seriously recommend trying this combo. Adjust quantities to your taste but I just get some smoked streaky bacon and chop it up into small lardons and fry them in a little unsalted butter until they have a bit of colour, then add in some finely chopped red chilli before finally adding some frozen peas and cooking the through. Bit of cracked black pepper to taste and there you have the perfect match for chicken kievs. That is all you need, forget chips just chicken and peas.

This good feed I washed down with a rather yummy Rioja reserva which put me in firm mood to complete the next endurance race on Gran Turismo 5....a 1000km challenge around the Suzuka curcuit. I raced for a full 4 1/2 hours before having to put it on pause and heading to bed.

I woke on Saturday at around 7am then went straight back downstairs for a cup of tea and a further 2 hours of racing to complete the remainder of the 172 laps necessary to claim the 5 lap victory. In fairness I could have completed it about 45 minutes quicker had I chosen a faster car but I wanted to keep it fairly competitive so rather using my Pescarolo Le Mans series car I went for my GT2 Corvette.......Oh if only it were real life.























Saturday daytime was a food filled affair. I got myself over to Wargrave for their first ever taste festival. They'd arranged for a few demos to be done and first up was a master butcher from Jon Thorner's who are based in Shepton Mallet but have an outlet just down the road at the Sheeplands farm shop in Hare Hatch.

Their demo was to butcher a whole lamb and describing each cut and it's uses along the way. It's a rare glimpse at how this is done and the skill involved is incredible.

Following them was the Haweli Indian restaurant from Twyford. These guys are my locals so I was very much looking forward to seeing them on stage and they did a great job. I was very interested to know that they marinade their Lamb for over 24 hours before cooking and that they use only the leg meat from baby lambs which will explain why their meat dishes differ in texture so much from other restaurants. They did actually give me the marinade recipe but I've only gone and forgotten it! Looks like I'll be having curry at some point this week then......Oh well :-)

The restaurant does get very busy and I was eager to know just what goes on behind the scenes during these hectic weekend services. I was amazed when they said they have a minimum of 11 chefs cooking on 12 six burner ranges. Quite extraordinary when you consider the size of the place.

The last demo I stayed to see was from the irrepressible Paul Clerehugh (Crooked Billet, London Street Brasserie, Market Kitchen & BBC Berkshire). You can clearly see he loves doing these food festivals and most of all showing his passion and support for local and British produce. I knew what to expect as he'd bought with him all the props he'd used at the Eat Reading festival just a couple of weeks previously but he'd slightly adjusted the routine to fit the different audience leaving out the references to the "Porsche Cayenne driving hooray Henrys" which he'd used in the Reading show.

All in all it was a very nice little food festival, good first effort and I see no reason why it can't get bigger and better next year. The weather wasn't great but it was pretty much all contained under a huge marquee and it did brighten up throughout the day, so much so that instead of jumping on the train back to Twyford I decided to walk.

Saturday evening was always going to be a messy affair. Not only was I DJ'ing for one of the most recognisable brands in worldwide clubbing (Bora Bora) at my favourite place to DJ (Mango Garden) but it was also the first time in ages that I'd be catching up with a very good buddy who'd been off travelling the globe.

Everything went pretty much as expected which was bucketfuls of beer until well into the Sunday morning daylight followed by a slap up breakfast and a train home to bed.

Our normal brekky of choice is taken at the Ibis hotel on Friar Street but we were a bit too early for that so after a bit of a wait and some no doubt pointless banter it was over to McDonalds.

Now as gastronomic as I want to think I am I do concede that for all it's other failings Ronald and his team at McDonalds have really hit the nail on the head with their Sausage and Egg muffins. I can't say I'd honestly want one every morning but for times like these they are perfect. If the hash browns are piping hot too then hungover/still drunk satisfaction is guaranteed.

Sunday wasn't the complete write off I'd been expecting. I did manage to get myself up to the farm shop and back home to the sofa by about 1pm. After a couple of hours rest I made us a rather yummy and very vast roast dinner. I even attempted to make some Crème Caramel desserts.......would have been great too had I not turned the oven off !!! Still at least we'll have dessert tonight :-)

I'm thinking it might have to be Chicken Kievs and chilli peas again.

Toodlepip xxx

Cleaning up.....

A pretty good weekend really. Drinks on Friday evening were nice although I got squiffy quite quickly on white wine which made it pretty difficult to properly review LSQ2 so I'll save that for another day when I can make a fair comment rather than a slightly blurry one.

I'm not sure why it happens, sometimes I can drink for Britain and not get too wobbly then sometimes I have 3 glasses of vino and I'm all over the place.

Saturday morning was a struggle but Carley had the urge to get up and spring clean so I tried my best to help by doing a bit of hoovering but that to and fro motion just made me feel even worse so I thought it'd be best to get out of the way and head to Twyford beer festival.

The festival itself is not a major affair, certainly nothing along the lines of the Reading beer festival but Ian who organises it all puts it such a big effort to get it running and all the volunteers who help out over the 2 days earn a great deal of money for the Orchid male cancer charity so a big well done to each and every one of them.

I could only manage to stay for half of ale because the hair of the dog just wasn't working and the band that were playing were not helping at all....they were terrible. I thought that maybe my hungover state amplified their awfulness and perhaps I was being a tad harsh but no.......they really were terrible. I wanted to stay to see my buddies band "The Skangsters" perform, they really are excellent but alas I needed some sofa time before the 7pm table booking at the Haweli in Twyford.

I really wanted to go in there to enquire about a restaurant premises in the village that has recently been vacated. I know that the guys at the Haweli own it so I was after getting my interest know however I was informed that it already has plans to be a Mexican restaurant which is a shame because I think that "The Twyford Brasserie" would be a bit of a village sensation.

I know people have their own opinions about Indian restaurants, everybody has their favourites and they vociferously build them up as the best while condemning all others to the curry house pit of hell. Well I'm not one of those although I do love my local Indian not just for it's food but also for it's warm welcome which makes going there a real treat.

They know me. I'm Mr Ben and I like my curries hot, they know that. I also like to drink red wine with my curries and they know this too. Their food might not be as gastronomically diverse as The Royal Tandoori in Reading which is another of my favourites but the reception and hospitality I get at my local is what makes them special. the fact that they are consistently voted in the UK's top 100 Indian restaurants is a bonus too.

Before heading out to the beer festival I did promise Carley that I'd bring her back some lunch and while wandering around Waitrose I thought that just a sandwich was not enough and she deserved much more than that. The sun had gotten itself out for a brief spell so I went all Mediterranean. OK fair enough it might have been a tad too much for two people !!!!





Roasted peppers, chargrilled vegetables, a chorizo tortilla, pitta bread, spinach falafel and piri piri hoummas........yum yum!

The remainder of the evening, until around 3am, was spent glued to the TV's watching the coverage from the Le Mans 24hr race and playing Gran Turismo 5 on the Playstation. Yes we do have two TV's in our front room......not for long though Carley I promise :-)

Incidently I'm amazed at how Alan McNish and Mike Rockenfeller survived these two crashes. Such a testament to the safety aspect of these extreme race cars that other than some bruising the only injury suffered was a cut to the Rockenfeller's arm. I'm dumbfounded that they both walked away.......especially the 2nd one, there is literally nothing left of the car but a burning shell. For the full devastating impact check it out around 7:40.








Sunday started of miserably as the weather was awful and I knew it'd mean that my cricket match would be called off. In the end that proved to be quite handy because I had work to do which due to my work computer crashing mean't that I had to come into the office rather than work remotely.

So instead of whacking cricket balls around I was spending my Sunday morning with Harry Potter and Optimus Prime. I do love my job but I wish the studios wouldn't leave such hectic schedules for getting all the film elements together. With both Harry Potter 7 part 2 and Transformers 3 due to be released I'm thinking it might be a busy week ahead.

I only had to complete the processor intensive bits at work rather then the rest I could finish remotely so come 1pm I was ready to head back down to the beer festival this time getting to sample many more delightful ales, ciders........and awful bands.

More top sport followed this with the England U21 v Spain U21 footy match. A good 1-1 result for England who would have been expected to lose against such a strong Spanish side but they managed to get a goal right near the end then even pressed on and could have nicked it. Not a great match but a good result and I'm backing Daniel Sturridge to shine in the coming games.

Sporting highlight has to be Jenson Button's amazing win at the Canadian GP. Taking 6 pit stops and being in last place at one stage to then come through the field and win is something I've never seen before and never likely to see again in my life time. A truly awe inspiring victory.

Unfortunately I didn't get the time to perfect my Mackerel & gooseberry dish but given that the weather looks as miserable as it did yesterday I'm thinking that nets tonight are looking unlikely so perhaps I'll get the time to do it this evening.

Toodlepip xx

Gooseberries.......

I've been thinking about these little green orbs of fruitiness since yesterday evening when LSQ2 posed a question on Facebook asking what their followers think they should do with the big batch they've just picked. My mind started ticking right away.

Instantly I though of a classic gooseberry fool. Who can resist the swirled green, slightly sour gooseberry purée mixed up with a vanilla sweetened and chilled chantilly cream perhaps topped with some chopped toasted almonds? I'm not even a big dessert fan but that sounds devine !!

However............

Having ditched my recipe making plans yesterday for an evening of sport and beer at my cricket club followed by a curry from my buddies at the Haweli. I've been enlightened by the thought that gooseberries may very well be a perfect accompaniment for these little beauties...






Mackerel.






All fish like Mackerel need a bit of acidity to cut through their natural oiliness and I think that a couple of nicely cook mackerel fillets over a fennel salad could be brought to life with some lovely gooseberry flavour.

I was first thinking of just a basic gooseberry dressing but then I started imagining how it would feel to eat and how it could be made a little more complex in texture and taste.

You'd get a bit of crunch from the fennel salad but maybe adding some croutons would add another texture level. The dressing would add flavour but why stop there? I'm thinking that adding a bit of fresh mint to the dressing would really lift it all in terms of taste so now it's become a gooseberry and mint dressing....better still a gooseberry and mint jelly !!!!! Even betterrerrerrrerer both a dressing and a jelly !!!

Oh this is sounding good....I'm even going to give cricket practise a miss to make it. Actually I'm going to make both. Massive gooseberry off this evening :-)

Toodlepip xx

Early riser.....

Blimey I had a pretty awful nights sleep. Not sure if that was to do with my excitement about todays Eat Reading lunch or because of the curry I had from the Haweli in Twyford........twas a rather hot one !!!

Anyway it's left me a bit tired and I'm sure it's going to be a long day so the coffee machine is on and I'm keeping myself busy.

Only two more days to go until we find out whether our little Bumpski will be a girl or a boy. Carley is feeling lots of movements so whatever it is I think we'll have a little disco dancer on our hands.

I've decided that I'm going to take the rest of the day off work after the lunch and get myself into town as I really need a new pair of jeans. I go through them like crazy !! I blame the fact that my car is so low that it puts extra strain on the jeans getting in and out.

Back to Eat Reading Live and the first restaurant Tampopo whom I'll be introducing to the Town Hall stage at 11:30 on Saturday 5th.

Tampopo is a small chain of six restaurants dotted around the country. They have three in Manchester, one in Leeds and Bristol respectively and of course one in Reading on the Riverside at the Oracle.

They specialise in asian cuisine and the main focus is on the authentic style street food that you find all over this vast area. Tampopo actually means "Dandelion" in Japanese. I the cult classic film of the same name a lady goes off in search of the perfect bowl of noodles so it's a very fitting name.

At Tampopo you find dishes from Korea, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam which makes me wonder just how many people work in their kitchen! It must either be huge or they have some very well travelled cooks. Imagine travelling round all those places trying all the food to then come home and form a menu....now that sounds like fun.

It's situated towards the London Street end of the Riverside complex so it's quite separate from Wagamamas which would be it's main business rival in town. Both offer very good value for money and there is most definitely a place for both in town. This is going to be a great way to kick off the Town Hall stage given it's street food nature so I'm reckoning that there might a be a few bits getting passed around to the audience.

So signing off for now and I'll be back tomorrow with a review of the gala lunch and other little bits and bobs....toodlepip xxx