The Revolution Was Not Televised

Mon frere and I took a day trip up north towards Shropshire -- about a 2 hour drive -- passed by Ludlow and ended up at the Iron Bridge. It's at a scenic spot with a quaint town along side the River Severn. The highlight of the town, and part of the reason its one of less than a thousand World Heritage sites worldwide, is the Iron Bridge.



The bridge was opened in 1781 as the very first iron-wrought bridge in history and is considered by many to be the symbol of the Industrial Revolution. It was near this site in 1709 that Abraham Darby I pioneered a process for producing coke from coal. Darby's grandson, Abraham Darby III, later built the bridge. The whole process meant that iron could be produced much more cheaply than before -- the process spread and brought significant change to human development and is now known as the Industrial Revolution.


View Larger Map

Since it had never been done before, the iron-wrought bridge was built using techniques from wood carpentry and used things like dove-tail joints. It was also a bit over built and later bridges covered longer spans using less than half the iron of this one. The bridge is now closed for all but pedestrian traffic.



A striking contrast to the Bridge and its surroundings, straight up the River Severn loom towers from what looks like a huge nuclear facility -- we were surprised to see it at a World Heritage Site. But we were mistaken: true to the coal heritage of the site, it is a coal "super station" that began construction in 1929.

Cheers!

Oh Brother

My brother Mike came to England. Cheap tickets and extra unpaid vacation (courtesy of the economic slowdown) made a spontaneous trip materialize out of nowhere. I had to find stuff for us to do for 10 days. We covered a lot of ground: most of Herefordshire, a big chunk of Wales, and even a journey into Ireland. Nearly 3 tanks of gas in the Volvo -- at a range of over 400 miles each, about 10 trains, a tram, and two ferries, and a handful of buses were used in the making of this trip.

I've been promising Mum some photos so this is part 1 of several covering the past two weeks adventures.

The Weir Garden is a site just outside of Hereford city in Swainshill. Rach and I had driven by it often enough on our way out to Oak Church, a relatively upscale food store and the first place we found Frank's Redhot for sale. We had never went in to the Garden.

The Garden is managed by the National Trust, an extensive charity that preserves hundreds of sites in the UK and makes them available to folks everywhere. The garden was built back in the 1920's by a guy by the name of Roger Parr. No idea who he was -- but he picked quite a spot. A steep and terraced hillside with tall trees sits on the edge of winding spot of the River Wye. Each season brings out a different set of flowers. The pictures say it best:




Cheers!

Sheep Stuffed Sheep

If food-borne illness would have had its way, I might not have been able to deliver this blog.

January 25th is the birthday of Robert Burns, a Scottish poet that is a hero and revered figure in that country. The typical celebration of his birthday is a Burns Night, a simple affair involving poetry and a meal consisting of haggis and its sidekicks: tatties, neeps, and a dram. In other parts of the world, that simply means mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, and a shot or ten of Scottish whiskey. Oh, and haggis is, according to Wikipedia "[a] sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours." Yummy.

This past January 25th, I realized it was Burn's birthday. I frantically called the wife at work and told her she had to stop at the Super Shell Station. Yep, the super-Shell has that, too. Always a sport, she came home with not one, but two haggi (plural for haggis, I think.) One was a normal haggis, the other was one of these new fangled vegetarian haggi -- a concept which only barely makes sense.

Unfortunately, one thing led to another and we never got a chance to eat the haggis. Trips to Denmark and a later revelation by the wife that she wouldn't eat the haggis with me led to one delay after another. Until this past Friday, March 13. Friday, the 13th. Over 30 days past its expiration date, and the time was finally right for haggis-eating.



The haggis was much better than I expected. I've had it once before, and this one was the better of the two experiences. It was lighter (it's all relative when you are eating organs blended with fat), more flavorful -- I would even say just a bit spicy. Worth doing again at the very least! Cheers!








Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckles as wither'd rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro' blody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned,
Like taps o' trissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis!
Robert Burns, Address to a Haggis, 1978

Building A British Hot Sauce

Boring. That could sum up the last two weeks in England. The wife has been out and about all over the world and I have been holding down the fort. The weather here has finally started to come around and its already time to start mowing the lawn.

Left to my own devices, I was craving spicy food. No sense trying to go out and find spicy food here, I had to make my own.

Here is my recipe for British-inspired hot sauce/marinade:

• About 100 chile de arbol peppers, stems removed.
  
• 3 Scotch Bonnet peppers (or more, I should have had more!)
• 4 cloves garlic
  
• Lots of Marmite. Seriously, lots. A whole jar might be about right.
  
• 1/4 c. dry Coleman English mustard
  
• 1/2 c. raisins
• 1/2 c. vinegar
• Mix and match chile pepper from the Turkish bazaar.
• Allspice, whole, maybe a tablespoon.
  
• A good splash of good, smoky grappa from Rome. Trust me, this was perfect.

Steep chile de arbol peppers in hot water for about an hour. Remove stems from Scotch bonnets. Mix Coleman's with cold water to make a paste and let it sit for about 15 minutes. Put the allspice in a dry pan and toast over medium-low heat until fragrant, then crush in a mortar and pestle. Throw everything in a good blender and blend for a while. Season to taste with salt and Marmite. Pack in old bottle. Slather on Pig-in-a-Box pork shoulder chunks, broil until brown and your eyes burn. Serve with dairy products and more grappa!

The end results were excellent and the hot sauce has proved to be good on most everything with meat in it. Good just as salsa for chips, too.

Cheers!

85 Million Bites

Ok, if you haven't watched Charlie biting his brother's finger, than you might be the last one on earth. When I first posted the link in my "Worth Watching?" box over on the right there, Charlie had 35 million views. That was about 4 days ago. Charlie now has 85 million views. Sure... it's cute. Sure... they have funny little English accents. And no question Charlie is a large baby in an oddly humourous way. But 85 million?

See Charlie here.

It's My Pig In A Box

To recap, last weekend we stopped in to Frasers of Turnastone on our way into the Welsh hills. That set in motion the delivery of a Pig in the Box: a delivered box of fresh pork. After an email and a phone call with Chrissy - the most enthusiastic meat-representative I have ever met - we switched up our pig in the box for the Turnastone Taster. The Taster was a bit cheaper and allowed us to mix in some other cuts. We also could select from a list of other meats and charcuterie.

Saturday morning while we were out running errands, the box was delivered. Keep in mind, Frasers had no payment information from us, no credit card, no check. They didn't leave an invoice. We'll just settle up later.

We picked the pork belly for dinner. The meat slideshow tells the rest.

Cheers!








"1: Cut a hole in a box
2: Put your junk in that box
3: Make her open the box
And that's the way you do it"
-Saturday Night Live, 2006