UKCruiseJeff

It will be my peasure, 🙂

Good Afternoon Coolers ….. 🙂 Today was another log delivery day. So The Boss was in charge of the wheelbarrow and transportation duties and I was in charge of stacking elegantly. This is our fifth load so far this year and anyone would think these logs grown on trees. Outrageous prices. As she was knackered I invited her to choose what she had for lunch and she asked for one of her favourite comforting dishes - Grostl and Wurstel + eggs for dippng. And “PEAS!” for Spins. Anaesthetics were house white. Have a great day all! Jeff

Welsh lamb is world class. We use to order a whole lamb and have it butchered and would bring it home for the freezer. Salt Marsh Lamb is divine. One thing we now order for delivery which you cannot seen to be able to buy from supermarkets or local butchers is lamb breast which I love to roll with Paxo stuffing in it and cook it slowly. A nice thick rich gravy and mint sauce and some colcannon. I think butchers now mostly mince it but it’s a shame. It is delicious peasant food and peasants eat the best of eatings. Jeff

Medieval when applied to cookery means that it use to be pretty evil but now it’s just “so. so”. 🙂 Think of it as a Melton Mowbray Pork pie which uses a hot water crust pastry, with a pork filling and gelatine between the pie and pastry. It also has an egg in it. We prefer it to a pork pie because simply the ratio of pie to meat is nicer. Jeff

Interesting variations. I do find that Provence Rose always tastes at it’s very best when drinking it in Provence. 🙂 Just on the off chance. You don’t have a deep’ish interest in Flemish art? Jeff

I love Deutz. Buying Deutz for my daughter’s wedding nearly bankrupted us … 🙂 I wonder whether you like Laurent Perrier Blancs de Blancs Nature? It’s back to the original process ie sans dosage. Oddly for me based on my previous postings - it’s chardonnay. 😱 Luckily this is where most of my roughly 1.6m BA miles went a few years back and we still have loads and loads. Do you also enjoy non-champagnes? If so what has been your proudest finds? EDITED: ps ….. who exactly drinks Blue Top Monopole …… 👿

Good Afternoon Coolers! I think at last a penny has dropped. We were finding that I was constantly preparing far too much eatings when our appetites have been reducing. And often it’s sort of habitual “set pieces” so the quantity and effort was disproportionate to the appetite. So for a while it’s going to be less of that and more simple easier stuff we fancy for taste with back up plans for munchy yearnings later. And bigger things when we fancy it. And there is always dozing dough in the fridge. We mustn’t fall into deep ruts. So today for lunch was Gala Pie with slaw and pickles and over-cold beer, and I’ve also made a couple of nights’ worth of baby sausage roll baby bites for the fridge which goes really well with some pickle and London Pride. We can’t find really nice sausage rolls - even at Greggs - so the effort is worth it and it is plate on the lap-eating in front of the TV late at night.

Wonderful. 🙂 Jeff

When a relatively important issue that is pretty inexpensive to resolve is left unresolved it either indicates a lack of love or a lack of money. Or both. Jeff

It seems to me that customers should move on from being bewildered and simply accept that the obvious must be confronted. Firstly these shortage issues should very obviously not occur in the first place. It really isn’t rocket science. Stores do not suddenly instantly and unexpectedly disappear. You get warnings that stock is low and you make plans to replenish them. This is a mechanical and automated and normally computerised process. Secondly, in the exceptional and unusual situation that shortages suddenly happen then there should and would be contingency plans to ensure that sudden or unexpected shortages are replenished as rapidly as possible either by delivery or collection at the next port. The fact that (a) shortages seem to regularly occur and (b) that nothing appears to be done to rapidly to mitigate the issues and it’s adverse effects on customers and (c) management would be fully aware that this simply indicate one of two things only It has to be either that “they” don’t care or that they do care but there is a widespread supplier account problem with respect to further credit AND there is no authority for cash to be released for the Chef and/or HD who are well aware of the growing shortages to get off the ships and replenish at the next port. I cannot think of an alternative explanation. Very sad. Jeff

When you do, please explain it to me! Jeff

Good Afternoon Coolers, from a warm and sunny England. Today we had Keralan lamb curry with a bhindi, aloo, gobi pilaf. But I think we were both out of salts today and was recovering from the shock of what has been a consistent regular annual seam of our lives which was our Eurovision. It has become so extremely poor, and also so unrepresentative of the majority’s normality. It has become a freak show of untalented performers with poorly written material derailed by angry ignorant minorities trying to ensure that the minorities control the quiet lives of the long-suffering majorities. One of the enriching new’ish and growing components of Eurovision is how it became a real annual adoption and focus for the gay community. I think they elevated and made the experience considerably more fun for those people that aren’t gay. But yesterday, most of the London pubs were cancelling the gay Eurovision events through fear from political violent Gaza protests. So we had already lost a Eurovision that we could make any sense of and lost the gay events that enjoyed it anyway and made up for it’s awfulness and took us along with them. I have no idea whether this makes any sense to non-Brits let alone fellow Brits but that is where I think a quiet but large number of Europeans felt. We feel, bewildered, bereaved and marginalised by loud groups that make no sense. Anyway ….. here is the plate! Jeff

I must admit that was the one thing I didn’t think of asking anybody. 🙂 This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but perhaps as an addition to the daily funnies Coolers might not have come across a lovely Youtube channel called Letters Live. The majority are extremely funny and tickle the cranial buds and this is a nice one from Miriam Margoylyes. I got her to do a Cameo for my wife acouuple of years back for our anniversary and she was lovely. These letters nearly always bring a smile.

It was all so utterly depressing, we spent most of the evening listening to live music stream of early music from Assisi and it was captivating. Jeff

I asked them but they wouldn’t answer me.

Excellent. It is once of our favourite vegetable dishes. Waxy reds diced largely and steamed until just under, fried slowly’ish in butter and olive oil with a sprinkle of ground nutmeg, pepper and sea salt and parsely. It is sweet and lovely. 🙂

Glad it was helpful. We’ve been talking about taking a few trips back. We are so fortunate that Paris is so close and so miss our stomping grounds of Coupole, Bofinger, Lipp etc and all those great value Michelin lunches. A bit surprised by the ptice of the laurent perrier grand siecle. Hope you get there. Jeff

I thought you would be interested in this story from The Times: The Paris restaurant where you choose your wine — and it chooses your food. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7bf5820e-648b-422f-b5a0-eef184b2c255?shareToken=6aab31af42c7cde24309336e91a371ce

Been watching the live Primavera streams over the last few days .. not sure how much is left …

Good Afternoon `Coolers, Today was a special request from The Boss. Salmon and my cheats sauce. And for Spins ….. PEAS!

Cassettes? 8-Track surely much better! And with it brings the opportunity to listen to two tracks at the same time plus a loud clunk in the middle when changing tracks. 🙂 Do I detect slightly less bounce in your step in the last post? Hope stuff isn’t exceeding the mid-niggle point. Keep your pecker up. Lie back and think of England. Jeff

I saw what you did there.

Take your wine with you so that you do not need to subsequently whine.

I appreciate wine. I like almost any wine. My preference is if someone else buys it and pours it in a mug for me. And when my mug is empty buys more. It has in fact never happened, I am the dribbling man in Dirty Rotten Rascals.

Lucky you … nothing this far south but watching it live on Youtube from an East Midlands back garden. You can run the feed back to see some earlier highlights. Hope the link works …