As he noted on
his blog, myself and Phil left work at a reasonable hour yesterday to head off on another bike ride. Basically we cycled out of work and kept going until we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere. Then we kept going. After about 8 miles of cycling, and a 100 metre climb, we found the Three Merry Lads pub. It was curry night. I had a curry and a pint. Well done me. By the time I got home, I'd done around 12 miles I guess, and felt a little tired, but in a good state of repair.
Both myself and Phil have this Friday off, so we're going to try and go on a long bike ride, perhaps 20-30 miles, to see what we can manage. The thing is it's not an exact comparison, Sheffield is hilly terrain, where as Lincolnshire is as flat as a pancake. No wait, it's
flatter than a pancake. Imagine that! So hopefully training in the hills like this means that cycling on the flat will be a joy. The downside is that Sheffield's countryside is glorious, Linconshire's is pretty bloody dull.
All quite exciting.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 6:22 PM
Myself, Phil & Jane went over to Derwent Reservoir on Sunday for a bike ride, a sort of test run to see how we'd get on. It went really well and we identified a number of issues, most of which are resolved.
1) Issue resolved: we
can get three bikes on Phil & Jane's bike rack. The journey will begin in Lincoln, and so it is nice to know that we can actually get the bikes there. It was a bit of a struggle, it's a bit like a puzzle; the bikes have to go on in a specific order each in a specific position. Once on, they seem quite secure, and we took a picture so that we remember how to put them on next time.
2) Issue identified: some sort of intercom system would be nice. Yesterday Phil & Jane stopped to adjust Jane's handlebars, I didn't notice for a quarter or a mile and had to cycle back to find them.
3) My panier rack is useless: I need to buy a better one from Halfords. It was disconcerting when I was flying along at 25mph (listen - that's fast when you are on a new bike!) to hear my bag catching in my spokes. It sounds like I'd driven into a shredder or something. Still, it was a good opportunity to try an emergency brake!
Various other niggles were ironed out, such as things like saddle positions. Plus, the trip highlighted a few things that we still needed to buy, so we went to Decathlon afterwards, and I somehow spent another £100 on general stuff (cycling shoes, cycling shorts, a camel pack etc).
Best of all, we all had a really good time. We cycled over ten miles without really trying very hard, over a route that is considerably hillier than the one to Cromer. I'm now really looking forward to the trip.
Labels: cromer, cycling
Monday, March 26, 2007 4:49 PM
We've had another Cromer Bike Ride planning meeting. Everything is pretty much sorted now. We've got bikes, accomodation, cycling insurance, yadda yadda yadda. We've also nailed down the route, which I've plotted it in
Google Earth. If you don't have Google Earth,
here's the route in Google Maps.
Labels: cromer, cycling, Google Earth
Saturday, March 24, 2007 1:46 PM
Christ, what a day. Half the people at "Head Office" seems to have been drinking Idiot Juice today and I've got bugger all done as a result. But, I don't talk about work on this blog, so you won't get to hear all about it.
Anyway, I bought a bike on Sunday which I'm very pleased with. Today I cycled to work for this first time. Here's an interesting fact that I was previuosly unaware of: the moment you sit on a bike, you become invisible to every other human being. Whether they are crossing the road or driving a car, they simply can't see you. I assume that's what it is at any rate. Maybe there are just motorists that actually wish you were dead, and pedestrians that actually wish to be hit by a bike. Either way, they're all tossers.
Still, it's all very exciting to be on my bike again.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 4:11 PM
In a three weeks time, I will be cycling from Lincoln to Cromer, with Phil & Jane. Yesterday lunch time myself and Phil had a planning meeting where we identified some key items that have as yet been overlooked.
1) I don't have a bike. This was identified as a Level 1 issue.
2) I've barely done any cycling in the last 15 years. This was identified as a Level 1 issue.
3) Cromer is actually a fucking long way away. This was identified as a Level 1 issue.
4) We haven't booked anywhere to stay en route and it is the busy Easter weekend. This was identified as a Level 1 issue.
5) I don't have any lycra cycling trousers, like Phil does. This was identified as a Level 3 issue.
Desipte those issues, I'm actually looking forward to it.
Labels: cromer, cycling, holiday
Thursday, March 15, 2007 12:02 PM
Back when I was a poor shelf-stacker in Southampton, when I had virtually money, and when I had absolutely no culinary skills whatsoever, I used to prepare a dish which was christened "Shite", or "Chris Shite" to give it its full title. It was named as such because when I was cooking it, my housemate Dave Nichols would wander into the kitchen and say "Cooking
shite again, Chris?"
"Shite" was really a dish born out of my precarious financial situation and had just two ingredients:
- 1 tin of Safeway Savers tomatoes.
- 75g Safeway Savers dried pasta.
Method:
- Put ingredients in the dish and warm up a bit.
- Serve.
If I was feeling particularly rich, I would add dried oregano.
It wasn't just called
Shite, it tasted like shite too and was soul destroying to eat. I survived on it on and off for a good few few years. At times I would even augment the dish with the addition of Safeways Savers Sausages.
The reason this comes to mind is that I've just realised that last night, I essentially prepared
Shite for the first time in years, and am having it again tonight, too. This is not because I've fallen on hard times, but for the simple reason that I happen to have some ingredients that need eating up.
Firstly: pizza sauce; I made pizza last week, and for the topping I tried a new recipe (one jar of passata reduced by half with a couple of cloves of garlic and seasoned).
Secondly: Roasted squash. On Sunday night I made Squash, Sage and Hazelnut risotto (stealing Ooze's recipe essentially).
So, we decided to buy some nice pasta and a bell pepper and make a tomato pasta dish. Which I've just realised is actually Shite. Tonight I have some pizza toppings (mushrooms) and Beanies food (red onion) to use up, so more shite it is!
It's strange though to think that the general principal of this dish is the same as that which I was forced to prepare ten years ago in Southampton, but with better quality ingredients and ten years of practise in the kitchen, Shite 2007 is actually quite a pleasant dish.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007 5:13 PM
If you're in Covent Garden, and fancy something nice to eat and drink, I recommend you give Lowlander on Drury Lane a go. The food is your typical pub fayre done well - dishes like
Moulles Frites for example. The drink is what this place is really about. They specialize in Dutch & Belgian beer, and have a bewildering menu to choose from; wheaty beer, hoppy beer, fruity beer, monkey beer (or "Trapist" beer as some people wrongly call it). With all this choice, it was cool to see that certain beers were available in 1/3 pint taster glasses to allow you to sample a broader range without getting completely shit-faced. Some of the beers are seriously strong, so I would imagine that if you went there drinking for the evening, a hangover is pretty much guaranteed. For a few mid afternoon ales though, it's great.
Labels: beer, drink, food, london
Monday, March 12, 2007 3:08 PM
I like risotto, a fact that should be completely bloody obvious to anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis. I'm fussy about risotto, and it annoys me when I'm served bad risotto in a restaurant, because it is a bloody simple dish to prepare; all that's needed is care and attention. I guess to some extent choosing risotto in a restaurant is a good way of judging their food. If the risotto is poor, then it is a good indication that they don't care about what they serve up, and so aren't worth the bother in future.
I once joked about opening a risotto restaurant in Sheffield. I even mentally devised a three course risotto menu - e.g. risotto cakes for a starter, risotto for the main course, and then a chocolate desert risotto for pudding. It would be genius.
The same month I came up with the idea, I read about a new risotto bar in London called
Ooze. Thus the decision about where to eat on my short break to London last week was made for me.
Ooze is on Goodge Street, just off Tottenham Court Road. The interior is rather unassuming, with no soft furninshings in sight. For the main course there are basically 12 different types of risotto to choose from; four fish, four veg, and four meat (there's also salad if you don't fancy risotto). According to the website, all the dishes come from the same basic risotto, and the modifying ingredients added towards the end of cooking. Not the best way to prepare risotto, but perfectly understandable. Risotto does take time, and there's a lot of competition in London, so they need to keep costs down. As it turns out, this method seems to work out OK. Though my own choice of Porcini and Cherry Tomato could have been improved by adding the mushrooms at the start (and perhaps a bit more salt) for most dishes this wouldn't matter and that was certainly the case with Liv's Butternut Squash and Hazelnut risotto which was delicious. I'd never have thought of putting hazelnut in risotto, but it really works.
They also say that the dishes can be adjusted to taste; you can have more or less butter and more or less Parmesan (more of both please!). They got the richness pretty much right. I make my risotto really rich, but the truth is most people would struggle to finish it and would prefer something lighter, which is just how Ooze make theirs.
Food aside, the service was really excellent. Friendly without being casual, attentive without being overbearing, and best of all they seemed to be genuinely happy to be serving you a dish they cared about. I was chatting to who I assume was the restaurant manager just before leaving and she had taken an interest in what had brought us there. "Trust me" she said, "if you like risotto, don't open a risotto restaurant. You'll be sick of the stuff." That's that idea out of the window then!
Labels: food, london, risotto
Wednesday, March 07, 2007 11:15 AM
As I mentioned a few posts ago, the weekend before last I went with my family to Marseille to mark my parents' 60th birthdays.
Here are the photosLabels: france, holiday, marseille, photo
Tuesday, March 06, 2007 4:41 PM
"Oh, is this the ladies'?"
"That's right."
"Oh, it must be this door then..."
"No, that's the kitchen."
"Where's the gents then? The waitress said it was over here..."
"It's through this wall."
The woman started pressing her hands against the wall. I regarded her with suspicion, thinking that she was perhaps taking the piss. Suddenly, the wall gave way and I walked through.
"Thanks!" I said
I walked into what was basically a large mirrored box, which is no place for someone who has been drinking all evening, let me tell you. No matter which direction I looked, all I could see was me standing there, looking bewildered. Water started cascading down one of the walls. I had found the urinals. After relieving myself against the mirrored waterfall, I stuck my hands through a large hole in the wall on the other side of the room. More water appeared from above. I washed my hands, somehow found the exit, and left.
"Liv! You have to go to the gents here! They're fucking crazy!"Labels: bar, london, toilet, weird
Monday, March 05, 2007 11:00 AM
Yesterday,
Tony moved to a different office to be nearer his Clickettes. This means that my office now has a spare desk, which has obviously meant some discussion over what to use it for. We could use it for table tennis, we already have the bats and balls from years ago when somebody else left the company leaving two empty desks behind. But these days, management don't take kindly to ball games in the office (the mad pricks) so a more discreet game is required.
I came in this morning and
Coco Riley was busy explaining the rules of table coin football to Matt. I pointed out that because I went to a Grammar School, the only table coin game I know is "Table Rugby", a sport which like the actual game itself is a lot more manly because it may result is a serious eye injury, as Riley found out when I converted a try in the direction of his face.
Anyway, if you want to play yourself, the instructions are
here
Friday, March 02, 2007 11:38 AM
I thought I'd add an update to yesterday's post where I talked about Bouillabaisse. Ever since coming back from Marseille, I've been thinking through a recipe for Bouillabaisse, and as it happens I was flicking through Dawn's "Good Food" magazine earlier and there was a Gordon Ramsay recipe.
That has prompted me to make the following corrections - where I said crostini was used, this was incorrect. I actually knew yesterday that it wasn't crostini, it was sort of croutons made from french bread, but I didn't know the word and saying croutons would probably give the wrong idea, and crostini seemed to be the closest. Ramsay referred to them simply as "
croûte" (meaning "crust"). The sauce is apparantly
Rouille, not aoli. Again, I kind of knew that it probably wasn't aoli, as it it was why would we also have to rub garlic into the croûte, but I was too lazy too look up what the actual sauce was yesterday.
So there you go. You know, I should start calling this a Food Blog instead of Photo blog. When was the last time I posted a photo. On the other hand, I could just call it a "blog". You know, don't put myself in a box.
Labels: bouillabaisse, food, marseille
Thursday, March 01, 2007 2:26 PM
