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!
Tuesday, March 31
The Revolution Was Not Televised
Sunday, March 29
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!
Wednesday, March 18
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
Friday, March 13
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.
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!
Tuesday, March 3
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.
Sunday, March 1
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
Monday, February 23
Humpbacked Wales
This weekend we decided to get up and see some of the countryside. We knew we wanted to make a stop at Frasers of Turnastone to get, maybe, a Pig in a Box. They didn't have fresh pork available -- but they will for next weekend so I am on the list to get a box o' pork delivered directly to the Lilacs next Saturday. Surely, that experience will be bloggable.
On the approach to Frasers, we could see a large, green "hill" in the distance. After negotiations for the Pig in a Box concluded, I asked the lady at Frasers how far away that hill was and if we could go up it. Fifteen minutes later we had a map on the back of a paper bag, and wife, dog, and I were on our way to Wales.
First stop on the map was supposed to be Hay-On-Wye, a small town on the border between England and Wales but it I was easily distracted by sign-postings for Arthur's Stone -- an ancient tomb that has more recent connections to the legends of King Arthur. The stone wasn't too exciting unless you try to fathom how folks 5,000 years ago perched the big 25 ton rock on top of the little rocks.
After the Rock, we made our way into Hay-On-Wye, a very quaint little town just barely inside of Wales in the county of Powys. Hay-On-Wye is known nationwide -- some would argue internationally -- as a mecca for book-lovers of all kinds. The town has a population of less than 2000 and over 30 bookshops, many very specialized or dealing in rare books (Sci-fi Cookery?) The tourist appeal was immediately obvious: the car park in town was one of the largest I have seen in the UK.
The true highlight of our day was everything after we left Hay-On-Wye and headed into the hills of Brecon Beacons National Park. We spent the next 5 hours winding up and down a single-lane track (paved, for the most part) across a ridge of the Brecon Beacons, a mountain range so-named for the old practice of lighting signal fires ('beacons') on the top of hills to warn of things such as those nasty English attacking again. I marked our route on the Tatties map below.
View Larger Map
Near the end of the overland route, we arrived at Llanthony Priory. The Priory dates from around the year 1100 and has a colorful history. It was thought to have its beginnings from when William de Lacy, a Norman nobleman, found a ruined chapel of St. David at the Priory's current location. Now it conveniently hosts a trekking center for hiking and horseback riding and also a quaint pub serving up a pint and some pub food (fish and chips, of course.)
This was also the virgin outing for my new GPS camera gadget. Now, when I take photos, they get tagged with their location using GPS satellites. If you click on the slideshow, it will take you to my public album. On the right-hand side you will see a map of where the photos were taken. Never again will I have to wonder where I took that photo...
We soon hope to make our way back up the hills when we are more equipped for hiking to the top. Til then. Cheers!
“There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.” - Chinese Proverb
Monday, February 16
The Fish Is In The Chips
Walkers -- a crisp/chip brand that looks a lot likes Frito Lay because it is -- released six new flavors of crisps that consumers (even me!) can vote on to pick a favorite. I only saw four out of six flavors at the rest stop we were at so here are the prelims.
Crispy Duck and Hoisin: The wife says it was ok but wouldn't buy it. I was impressed at how closely it really did taste like duck from a cheap Chinese restaurant. Or maybe it just tasted that crap sauce in the little packets.
Next, the oddly named Cajun Squirrel. Pez and I made Squirrel Stew once from squirrels he terminated. We put a few too many chillies in it and it burned me twice. The crisps were like a mild BBQ with a bit of clove or something. Just ok.
They did a good job of making this next one taste like its name. And that's a bad thing. If you have ever had fries that were cooked in the oil used to cook a few dozen orders of frozen fish dinners, sprinkle on some vinegar and you have a good idea of what these mistakes taste like.
My favorite, by far. A bit of spice, a nice robust cocoa overtone -- well balanced and unique. Like a good molé.
Now I need to hunt down Onion Bajhi (sp?) and Builder's Breakfast -- the two flavors I somehow missed. Until then...
Cheers!
“Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn’t see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.” - Chuck Palahniuk (American freelance journalist)
Thursday, February 12
Winter Bewilderland
The blog has been a bit slow lately -- I'm going to go ahead and blame it on the weather. We had 4 days of snow in Hereford last week. It was a beautiful disaster. Most of the schools were closed, roads were impassible, and they ran out of salt. I heard on the telly that they were bringing in salt from France and Tunisia. I think there may have been five or six inches of snow.
We made a trip to London right in the middle of it and ended up backtracking a 100 miles or so because the only two bridges between south Wales and England were shut down (we found out later it was because of ice falling off the bridge towers.) The navigation system kept telling us to re-route but we always ignore it -- this time it had a pretty good reason to keep chirping at us. Live and learn.
Cheers!
“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending.” - J.R.R. Tolkien
Sunday, February 1
Dégustation Bohême Bourgeoise
On our trip to Prague, you might be surprised to find out that the highlight of our eating wasn't the giant pig knuckle. It was the meal we had at a restaurant called La Degustation. This place offers three tasting menus: a high-end meal that uses luxury items like truffles and foie gras, a menu featuring relatively lighter fare, and finally, a menu based on a Czech cookbook that is a couple of centuries old.
The wife had the lighter menu and I had last option, the Dégustation Bohême Bourgeoise (we share every course anyway!) And both were amazing. Every course (there were 7 on each menu) was preceeded with one or two small tastes of something: the amuse-bouche. We also super-sized the meal by getting the 7-course wine pairing to go with it.
We got a copy of the menu to take home so I could actually remember what I was eating. Here is the detail on my menu:
- entrée: poached Prague ham, mailner foam, apple sorbet, egg bread
- soupe: wild poultry soup, poached quail egg, poultry loaf
- poché: organic beef ouster blade, creamy sauce with fresh dill, barley dumpling
- fumé maison: freshly smoked beef tongue, chickpea purée, pickled shallot, roasted onion with marjoram
- braisé: rabbit livers, onion sauce, carrot purée, red beet, home made lard
- grillé: coated veal entrecôte, cucumber granité, braised potato
- sucré: apple gingerbread, vanilla foam with rum
- entrée: organic parsnip ravioli, saffron velouté, aceto balsamico extra aged
- soupe: soup of jerusalem artichoke, orange jelly, bell pepper preserve, olive oil la crianza
- poché: fiji egg, cauliflower velouté, caviar ossetra
- fumé maison: lightly smoked turbot, orange glacé, beluga lentils
- braisé: salsify, alba velouté, lamb lettuce
- homard: butter poached canadian lobster, creamy leek, cashew nuts, red beet essence
- sucré: macaroon of pistachios and black currant, caramel ganache, lime ice cream
Top to bottom, we really enjoyed this meal. There were a few courses where unless you tried every flavor on your plate together all at once, it was good but not great -- but once you combined the flavors as they were intended: taste bud fireworks. My favorite main dish (not a bouche) was probably the smoked beef tongue. Now there's a meat that just doesn't get enough respect in the USA.
Service was great -- most everyone spoke English very well, especially both of the sommeliers and the environment was classy but you would have felt comfortable wearing jeans (of course, that's how I think most of Europe works.) They even allowed dogs -- the entertainment for the night was a table near us with a dog sitting at the table, on a chair. No, I'm not kidding.
Alright, I'm gonna go eat some homemade pizza.
Cheers!
“"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best -- " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was.” - Winnie the Pooh
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