tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90036718963168163872024-03-12T17:45:39.945-07:00Well fed & Well readThis blog is written in correlation with my PhD project 'The Technical Recipe: A Formal Analysis of 19th Century Food Writing.'
As a lover of food and literature, particularly when combined, I will discuss recipes and writing from the nineteenth century. Join me as I muddle through the best - and worst - of Victorian food writing.Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-43619212976833982572022-04-17T09:53:00.002-07:002022-04-17T09:53:31.893-07:00Ode to a Roast Chicken<p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7S0DSHlHhuXc5nYzlQJsQnMo5Uz7N79z3Ek7iE_oqL8wph63T4JYtBZVCEkwcK-xqW-AQMPzEMRetczvXyBrhz0f_Y5qhcSJ8hs7AAuNIUPZunhbSUQoA_u5i_7bbyo_f8rE5-Q-w5NTFFwd3nd9GzFXBYK4MV5WBJ5bttx9QjYV3bFJFZcodb76tg/s1322/Screenshot_20220417-172551.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1322" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7S0DSHlHhuXc5nYzlQJsQnMo5Uz7N79z3Ek7iE_oqL8wph63T4JYtBZVCEkwcK-xqW-AQMPzEMRetczvXyBrhz0f_Y5qhcSJ8hs7AAuNIUPZunhbSUQoA_u5i_7bbyo_f8rE5-Q-w5NTFFwd3nd9GzFXBYK4MV5WBJ5bttx9QjYV3bFJFZcodb76tg/w522-h640/Screenshot_20220417-172551.jpg" width="522" /></a></div><span><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the weekend of my twenty-fifth birthday, I roasted my first ever chicken. It was October 2020 and Glasgow was in an ongoing lockdown. As someone who likes life to be a pattern of overlapping routines and rituals, I couldn’t overindulge in my typical birthday habits: at least a week filled with friends, family, spontaneous purchases and even more food and wine than usual. I normally spend the day baking my own cake, which I then share over the next week with colleagues and friends to draw the festivities out further. In the absence of these beloved habits (though I still made a cake – chocolate olive oil), it felt like the perfect time to begin a new one. I had been rereading Nigella Lawson’s</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span> </span><i>How to Eat, </i><span>and the first recipe in it is for ‘Basic Roast Chicken’. She opens with a question: ‘You could probably get through life without knowing how to roast a chicken, but the question is, would you want to?’ (2018: 6). As I hit a quarter of a century – a birthday that doesn’t really signify anything, but still seems significant somehow – I realised that no, I did not want to live without knowing how to roast a chicken. Given that I like to think I know how to cook and eat</span><span> </span><i>well,</i><span> </span><span>I was ashamed to have stumbled within the first 6 pages. My mind was made up. Roasting a chicken, an act inextricable from love, tradition, and care, was the perfect choice for the new ritual that would open my next twenty-five years.</span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTSOumhyNpRpA1Ye3FyDd-97siaVZn3PzR_-mtFuyDKXEQWx-HnTxMA5YdJf3RuK8GC9FL7lthIBopqUM4B3j0ad9P3qphsNSkMbqj0gSRP96cNx24zR8lmfF-efIg-qmZdBpleZ0NMRN_2c2ejKfGuPgoRDy7FjULTrIzNHE0CsoVdecLWn3_36mD3g/s1284/Screenshot_20220417-172502__01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1284" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTSOumhyNpRpA1Ye3FyDd-97siaVZn3PzR_-mtFuyDKXEQWx-HnTxMA5YdJf3RuK8GC9FL7lthIBopqUM4B3j0ad9P3qphsNSkMbqj0gSRP96cNx24zR8lmfF-efIg-qmZdBpleZ0NMRN_2c2ejKfGuPgoRDy7FjULTrIzNHE0CsoVdecLWn3_36mD3g/w336-h400/Screenshot_20220417-172502__01.jpg" width="336" /></a></div><o:p> <br /></o:p>Before this I had eaten many, many roast chickens, and loved them all. At Christmas my family often has chicken instead of its dryer, blander cousin. In autumn it comes with honeyed carrots and parsnips, and in spring with lettuce, freshly podded peas and tender, pale-green broad beans. I even loved the roast (or perhaps poached? It was always pale and unusually soft) chicken that occasionally appeared underneath the lukewarm lights of the school-dinner counter, served with a thin beige sauce and gritty Aberdonian skirlie. The first meat I ever tasted was roast chicken – the cold, rotisserie type with puckered skin from Marks & Spencer that was a staple in the house of my Granny, who wasn’t much of a cook. I’ve been told how she looked on in triumph as I grabbed a drumstick with tiny greedy hands as my (then vegetarian) parents looked on in shock. <br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>My Mum makes a wonderful roast chicken, with a simple tangy white wine gravy cooked in the roasting tin that I am always trying to emulate. There’s no recipe, of course. I’ve asked. It’s just done by feel. All the chickens my Mum has cooked throughout my life remind me of home. The smell of a roasting chicken wafted through the house I grew up in all through the year. If you were outside in the garden it was somehow more potent, made extra buttery by summer warmth or sharp and significant in the cold winter air. It smells like warm gold and wine and a goodness that is hard to put into words. As Nigella writes when recalling the roast chickens of her childhood, ‘it’s partly for that reason that a roast chicken, to me, smells of home, of family, of food that carries some important, extra culinary weight’ (2018: 7). That concept, of ‘extra culinary weight’, captures the significance of roast chicken perfectly. It is not just a meal, but a process layered with emotional meaning. Every time I smell a chicken roasting, I am smelling all the chickens I have eaten in the past. <br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>But despite this formative love of the roast chickens which have fed my body, mind, and heart, I had never cooked one myself. Something about roasting an entire bird felt daunting, particularly as when I moved away from home I was cooking for myself and perhaps a partner, rather than my whole family. The idea of salmonella hiding somewhere I couldn’t check in the entirety of a whole animal was oddly frightening given that I’m a competent, comfortable cook. But on my twenty-fifth birthday I craved that wine-gold smell and its connotations of comfort and love almost more than I wanted to eat the chicken itself. I took myself off to the supermarket, bought the highest-quality bird I could find, and began. <br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>For that first chicken I cooked Nigella’s recipe, with a healthy sprinkle of advice given over WhatsApp by my Mum. It would have felt rude not to, and Basic Roast Chicken was what I was aiming for. Half a lemon in the cavity, breast coated in a generous layer of butter, salt and pepper, and in the oven at 180° for around an hour and a half. As my flat began to fill with that promisingly familiar smell, I was full of anticipation. I still remember bringing it out when it was done. It was perfect. Gilded, it almost glowed with crispy, salty skin that my Mum eats as she lets her chickens rest and finishes the rest of the cooking: a ‘chef’s treat’. My years of hovering in the kitchen were always rewarded though, and she still lets me have some too. To this day I think that the skin, stripped straight off the piping-hot bird and eaten with a clandestine, conspiratorial air, is the best bit. But this time it really was <i>my</i> chef’s treat, and in my excitement I generously and triumphantly gave some to my boyfriend, wanting him to bask in the golden glow of my success too. <p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwR28n89ZfXlZoJUZ75tKBfpUWDQIsN0QzEoF_DYW1QCMVjWnUfo50A_hxFpiC3aB19u7OpuZzlUGLYzXtOjMfxwjcJ7_c4Q_lMLnC6sMvJzR4RdnkBRRZXbIhliFIgUwiXN8hqYs4uLMDBWXAEIzPLvXqaiyKZC7c_wm9G4fT23qdyzVgByulkYbzgA/s1800/IMG_20201013_142842_404.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwR28n89ZfXlZoJUZ75tKBfpUWDQIsN0QzEoF_DYW1QCMVjWnUfo50A_hxFpiC3aB19u7OpuZzlUGLYzXtOjMfxwjcJ7_c4Q_lMLnC6sMvJzR4RdnkBRRZXbIhliFIgUwiXN8hqYs4uLMDBWXAEIzPLvXqaiyKZC7c_wm9G4fT23qdyzVgByulkYbzgA/w512-h640/IMG_20201013_142842_404.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My first roast chicken</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><o:p> </o:p>I’m twenty-six (and a half) now, and since my first I have roasted dozens of chickens. Not every weekend, but in the winter it certainly gets close. I feel I must make up for lost time. I’ve tried lots of different recipes – Ottolenghi’s preserved lemon spring chicken is a favourite. I’ve blitzed wild garlic into the butter I rub under the skin, or used a dry rub of cumin and smoked paprika. Sometimes I opt for pomegranate molasses to make the golden skin rich and sweet, and sometimes I half roast, half poach the chicken in a bed of orzo, stock, parmesan and vegetables (another Nigella recipe). I almost always tip the chicken’s juices into a pan and combine with a sharp white wine to make my Mum’s gravy, sometimes with a sprinkle of flour or added shallots, lemon juice or butter. I don’t tend to skim the fat, partly because I can’t be bothered and partly because I like that it turns any leftover gravy into a punchy jellified stock that improves any dish. Honestly, I’d spread it on bread. Without fail, the way the wine emulsifies with the fat and juices to form a creamy, opaque gravy always seems like some kind of alchemy. It’s a dependable process but is different enough each time based on the size of bird or the fattiness of the meat that it’s exciting – it feels like magic when it works out. <br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>I think that’s what I adore about roasting chickens. It’s a process that very quickly becomes familiar – I no longer need a recipe and rarely use my meat thermometer, trusting my judgement instead. But it still has an undeniable air of magic about it. The pale, pasty body gets transformed into a gleaming, golden centrepiece in a flourish that is reminiscent of Cinderella’s fairy godmother turning the pumpkin into a glimmering carriage with a wave of her wand. The burnished smell which accompanies the cooking adds to the sense of wonder, and no matter what kind of day I’ve had roasting a chicken is guaranteed to soothe and warm me. <br /><o:p> <br /></o:p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbzvmJ3Gcb4bqGbma48J5Tna7JZylp1VNl9vV3whm-6JjhYp5Gh-jQKUS38k7vXkNgI1dFvb7dvzEQhVkvJqaadqYvcvDjcVzggRdV8d6hBfR7afqWTc0d5p3PsFvYwTOR1p54hqATsfGNBkq6VQAmhvrLD0rRS_5zWYHu2jhDnU9--iHwOEcfNwpSuw/s2304/IMG_20220404_213016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="1728" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbzvmJ3Gcb4bqGbma48J5Tna7JZylp1VNl9vV3whm-6JjhYp5Gh-jQKUS38k7vXkNgI1dFvb7dvzEQhVkvJqaadqYvcvDjcVzggRdV8d6hBfR7afqWTc0d5p3PsFvYwTOR1p54hqATsfGNBkq6VQAmhvrLD0rRS_5zWYHu2jhDnU9--iHwOEcfNwpSuw/s320/IMG_20220404_213016.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Once the chicken is roasted, I relish its afterlife. When the dinner is eaten and dishes are washed, I tend to put on music and pour another glass of wine before attending to the carcass. I meticulously separate the leftover meat from the bones, taking my time over each one and relishing the oddly visceral way the fat coats your skin. Then at some point in the next couple of days I make stock, which once more fills the flat with a delicious savoury steam – slightly different from the smell of the chicken roasting, but just as nourishing. In a world when the gap between the food we eat and where it is produced is often disconcertingly large, I love being able to fully pay my respect to the animal I’m eating by making sure I get every last scrap of goodness from it. The stock and leftover meat go in the freezer, marked as the base for a soup or risotto, and the act of roasting a chicken on a Sunday is extended so it feeds me for several more days or weeks until my reserves are depleted, and then I begin again. <p></p><br /><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptj6vNTQLoIQiXWD4Q-ngzTkdwjBJFUgaY_FaFOh-5MGgEdT0GzhfBLqy3p_i5Xya-1WhDStLuiu9hYD_ZEcWrK83aajfpA4lNGhE-j8G_IfIO0uneiYayrDxix22L4ew44r5acQyhKFjmuTuJVnIZTucTlCbh9JXhFqif43wBzuZ-qrMWL2gfQxuAQ/s2304/IMG_20220406_154834__01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="1728" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptj6vNTQLoIQiXWD4Q-ngzTkdwjBJFUgaY_FaFOh-5MGgEdT0GzhfBLqy3p_i5Xya-1WhDStLuiu9hYD_ZEcWrK83aajfpA4lNGhE-j8G_IfIO0uneiYayrDxix22L4ew44r5acQyhKFjmuTuJVnIZTucTlCbh9JXhFqif43wBzuZ-qrMWL2gfQxuAQ/w300-h400/IMG_20220406_154834__01.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>These repeated motions – preparing, cooking, basting, carving, eating, pulling-apart of flesh, boiling of bones, freezing, reheating and eating once more – soothe me in a way that little else does. I’ve written before about how I cook risotto when I have writer’s block, as the rhythmic stirring loosens the knot in my brain and gets the words flowing again. Roasting a chicken has a similar effect. Because it takes a couple of hours all in, it forces you to slow down and set your mental clock to a different culinary time zone. I love preparing the sides for a roast dinner between bastings, but that’s almost another piece of writing in itself. It’s the perfect Sunday activity, but sometimes I seek the same furtive, decadent pleasure I get from having a bath in the middle of the day and roast a chicken during the week. It’s such a versatile food that it suits any season or notion, and even though buying a good-quality chicken is an expensive luxury I get so much from it in terms of future meals and emotional satisfaction that it still feels (almost) economic. <br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>More than its deliciousness, it is this process of roasting a chicken which I have come to unabashedly love. It grounds me in memories, emotions, and traditions which somehow feel larger than my own. I know friends and family who love roasting a chicken as much as I do, and though we don’t speak about it I feel certain it carries a similar kind of significance for them. That wine-gold smell surrounds people in comfort and warmth, and for me, roasting a chicken is a unifying expression of love. Now that I’ve started, there’s no going back. Because really, why would you want to go through life without knowing how to roast a chicken? <div><br /></div><div>Lindsay</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg954CEu-SmvGbToXBJV1EV0IyuhNyoEaEIiSKmv1xYg4kImPvHspthkk88b0eqzSZTcVXZTcL9XnjRtMcEgjH58YsSlpQ1SyKPhgtWGT0MbT7Ea0DJHP7ZbgvhX3VHRmk2z6dJZrC2B-ffJ_Aa5lpiIJX8i2gGZ97OKHR4Vu2eH_fqV8w8ox2wm5r6oQ/s1290/Screenshot_20220417-172443__01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1290" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg954CEu-SmvGbToXBJV1EV0IyuhNyoEaEIiSKmv1xYg4kImPvHspthkk88b0eqzSZTcVXZTcL9XnjRtMcEgjH58YsSlpQ1SyKPhgtWGT0MbT7Ea0DJHP7ZbgvhX3VHRmk2z6dJZrC2B-ffJ_Aa5lpiIJX8i2gGZ97OKHR4Vu2eH_fqV8w8ox2wm5r6oQ/s320/Screenshot_20220417-172443__01.jpg" width="268" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO1m8yPxzz6JiFRO079Ci8xCXL2KdiqAkZSR01ltUB_cbJDTMQ8lzwroZBNAsnVnaWqZvj_zbY86LIsICSvGxPR664oCL0BbwP5z4x2lS7b-DlHIrIYesQTC271Pj0Mz-Qjpa9-OIC0ySMSR3ycGBD7Bhi2kuFTAQXQSZ8jMqtvAL3Z2hoiAn6CwWfxA/s1277/Screenshot_20220417-172530__01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1277" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO1m8yPxzz6JiFRO079Ci8xCXL2KdiqAkZSR01ltUB_cbJDTMQ8lzwroZBNAsnVnaWqZvj_zbY86LIsICSvGxPR664oCL0BbwP5z4x2lS7b-DlHIrIYesQTC271Pj0Mz-Qjpa9-OIC0ySMSR3ycGBD7Bhi2kuFTAQXQSZ8jMqtvAL3Z2hoiAn6CwWfxA/s320/Screenshot_20220417-172530__01.jpg" width="271" /></a></div><br /></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p></div>Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-59936809722232685802020-12-29T05:19:00.002-08:002020-12-29T05:39:05.021-08:00Festive Musings: The Leftover Sandwich<p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcHKyQjDLvN7xRK4cZy5Qc635OhkFmlBrMoN6ktto1OKP6JAoyg4k_FdOW32EGVJcr5mnsC0cqekVtdG_P8QluR9Yiq1y_mn6waatgvA2oQZPt996E6ArHudrqw54hak1TO1s56o_SMC9/s1106/Screenshot+2020-12-29+at+13.08.59.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1106" data-original-width="738" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcHKyQjDLvN7xRK4cZy5Qc635OhkFmlBrMoN6ktto1OKP6JAoyg4k_FdOW32EGVJcr5mnsC0cqekVtdG_P8QluR9Yiq1y_mn6waatgvA2oQZPt996E6ArHudrqw54hak1TO1s56o_SMC9/w429-h640/Screenshot+2020-12-29+at+13.08.59.png" width="429" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The time between Christmas and New Year: limbo, no-man’s land, the in-between… we have heard all of these – honestly, contrite – names before. It is not unusual to feel confused, adrift, or at a loss in the days starting the 26</span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">of December and ending the 1</span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">of January. And the media encourages it. Watching another film? Shame on you. NOT watched this film?! You’ve been on your phone for a year and you</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">missed </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">this? Never has that paradox been truer than in 2020. This topsy-turvy, upside down and frankly fucked-up year cannot close soon enough. Personally, it has been a strange end to the year: for the first time in my life I have not seen my family for Christmas, and never mind that, have not seen them in the same room for months. And I have</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">feelings </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">about it. Feelings of bitterness, anger, and even a touch of jealousy – the four of them saw the change of seasons together, and suddenly my decision to choose a life further away from the family home seems costly. But I am under no illusion that these problems are but a shallow scrape on the deeply frozen pond that has been the hurt of 2020. I have been very lucky, so far. My family and friends are healthy, and I could not ask for more than that. Like everyone, Covid has touched the people I love with a worrying intimacy. But so far, no casualties (touch wood). As the winter unfolds and the situation worsens I thank all of my blessings, every day, that this is the case. And I do not take it for granted.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">What these reflections are concerned with, however, is not the horror we have all gone through this year. God knows we consume enough about that every day. I am instead reading far too much into an old and steadfast friend who I feel can offer us a lot of comfort right now. After all, this has been a year of Christmas Dinners like no other. Dinners snatched with loved ones at opposite ends of the normally crowded table, eaten in freezing-cold gardens, cooked with partners for the first time (to varying success – who forgot to turn the oven on?), eaten with friends, savoured alone, ignored in sadness. Regardless of plans that were influenced by families/government/work/scheduling/Brexit/Covid… the pressures of Christmas Dinner have in many ways been amplified this year. If we couldn’t be with our mums, how could we compete? If we didn’t want to be with our family, how did we make it clear why? A million difficult questions normally govern this most holy time of year, and 2020 added an unwanted layer of pressure to the already over-burdened trifle of the holiday, in spite of the additional care we all needed to take. But there is one idea we can all relate to in some way at this time of year: the leftover sandwich.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">This has been the first year I’ve really been aware of the surprisingly lengthy number of nights that stretch between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, and the juggling of foods that happens between them. The duck is out of date on this day, but you made the bread sauce two days ahead. The gravy is finished so you can’t make that dish, but there is still an ice-cream tub of red cabbage lingering in the fridge without a use… It goes on, and a culinary calendar maps its way onto your brain.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">It is an alchemical kind of wisdom that subliminally navigates these things, knowing what to use when, earmarking that cheese for that dish, and so on. I learned it from my Mum, though I am fully aware I still regularly annoy her on WhatsApp with inane questions about temperatures and textures and timings. And everything goes to hell if an unwitting brother eats the cold ham that was singled out for the soup, unbeknownst to him of course.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;">There are few, if any, rules to govern a sandwich though. First of all, you can make the periphery of it with whatever you have. Stale bread, sourdough, a bap, a bagel, a wrap, genuinely… whatever. You need something to create a staunch, carbohydrate-thick border. The next thing of importance is the protein, but again, the laws that govern this are loose. Traditionally, you’d think turkey – cold slices, thickly cut. But in this day and age we eat everything at Christmas: beef, goose, duck, pigs in blankets, chicken, ham. It clucks, it sings, it dances? Put it in a sandwich. And of course, for the non-meat eaters, there are frankly the best bits. Cheese, nut roast, parsnips soaked in gravy, vegetarian sausages…</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;">A hard-boiled egg is a vessel for greatness! When you’re not standing in for protein you have the roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, sprouts, and bread sauce. All excellent things. And the condiments are equally as flexible: sinus-tingling mustard, cranberry sauce, mayonnaise, butter, that weird chutney that has been on the top shelf of the fridge for three years, even (though I shudder to write it) ketchup. These are all acceptable in whatever iteration comes to hand.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;">The best thing about the leftover sandwich though, it that is a leveller. You put anything between two slices of carbohydrate? It looks roughly the same: chips, chicken, cheese. Of course, there will always be people on Instagram who create sandwiches that are things of beauty, with butter-fried fresh bread and fillings that look better than your</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;">actual </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;">Christmas dinner. But at this particular time of year the leftover sandwich offers us a certain type and time of freedom. All of the scheduling, preparation, and frantic shopping that must happen to get Christmas dinner on the table (not to mention the cooking, which can be equal parts fun and incredibly stressful) fall away when you’re consulting the possibilities of leftovers. Making a leftover sandwich isn’t cooking, it’s rearranging. There is an innate satisfaction that comes from peacefully turning the spoils of your previous hard work into something that is just for you to enjoy. Is it too much to say a sandwich can be redeeming? Perhaps, but eating it alone in the kitchen certainly has that air about it. In this sandwich format, we can combine anything we want without questioning, criticism or judgment. It doesn’t matter if it’s boxing day or the 31</span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;">st</sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;">of December. The leftover sandwich can be a fresh reimagining of Christmas dinner, or it can be a vessel for the dregs of the fridge, five days on. Either way, encased in a fresh baguette, soaked in gravy-drenched stale white bread or consisting of fridge-raided oddities stuffed into the last roll in the house, the leftover sandwich is a brilliant reminder to all of us that as 2020 comes to a close, we can all reimagine and repurpose happiness in simple, enduring, and hopefully tasty ways.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><o:p>Lindsay</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-59989937891402060322019-04-29T07:09:00.002-07:002019-04-29T07:38:34.653-07:00Cookbook Tour #1: The Experienced English Housekeeper (1806)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last week, I submitted material for the Annual Project Review which constitutes the assessment part of each year of my PhD. This hurdle (partially) overcome, I can now begin the next phase of my research: the fun part. It’s time to turn to recipes themselves. Given my intertwining focus on nineteenth-century recipes and on material technology, I am tracing recipes through time, focusing in particular on those instances in which recipe changes correspond with innovations in food and print technology. To that end, I am embarking on a number of case studies as my inroad into food in the nineteenth century. Beginning is always the hardest part, however.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So to start with - for the appetiser, if you will - I thought I would begin at home and turn to the small number of historical cookbooks that I own. I have five in total that I’ve stumbled upon in second hand bookshops or been given by kind friends (a shout-out here to Georgina Gale: the supplier to my Victorian cookbook habit) that range in date from 1806 to 1900-ish. I will admit that, so far, I have only cooked one recipe from one of these books: the meatless mince pie recipe from the 1806 book which I posted here around Christmas. What interests me as a budding book historian and lover of Victorian domestic culture, however, is the characteristics of these books as material objects. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As my last post touched upon, the cookbook as a physical object reveals much about how it has been used and by whom, through the smudges of flour on a favourite recipe or the scribbled notes in the margin. A cookbook actively embodies its purpose when it crosses the boundary between body and text in this way, both facilitating the consumption of food and bearing that food on its pages. This tangible reception history is surely only magnified when that cookbook has been around for nearly two centuries, then. So for this next sequence of blogs, which will be posted when I have the time and inclination, I will be taking you on a chronological tour of my nineteenth-century cookbook collection. I will endeavour to keep these posts short and sweet, but apologies if I get caught up in the discovery of a hidden jam recipe… <o:p></o:p></div>
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While my expertise does not yet extend to being able to date book spines or glean insights from the paper used, the aim of these posts is to whet my appetite for further research and highlight the interesting things that can be discovered through a look at these cookbooks as material objects. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Cookbook Tour #1:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Experienced English Housekeeper</i>, by Elizabeth Raffald<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I happened upon this book before I had begun my PhD, at one of my favourite second-hand bookshops: <a href="https://www.logie.co.uk/steading/bookshop/" target="_blank">Logie Steading Bookshop</a>. Visiting on the first day of a holiday, I found the book and noted the 1806 label with interest. After flicking through I put it back on the shelf, however, as the cost (a pretty reasonable £25) put me off. A few days later I was back on the pretence of a walk - although I think my subconscious curiosity about the cookbook may have influenced that decision - and the next thing I knew, <i>The Experienced English Housekeeper </i>was being cautiously wrapped in bubble wrap for me with a couple of quid knocked off in deference to the detached cover. Bargain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Elizabeth Raffald<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Upon buying the cookbook I had never heard of the author, Elizabeth Raffald, or the book itself. Having done some research, however, I’ve found that Raffald is a prominent enough figure to have her own Wikipedia page. Indeed, it seems that Raffald was an entrepreneur long before it was the norm for women to have prominent business undertakings. So much so, that in 2015 she was shortlisted as one of six women who the public would vote on to be commemorated by Manchester’s first female statue in 100 years, though she lost out to Emmeline Pankhurst. What did Raffald do to leave such a legacy, then? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The first hint can be found on the title page of my copy of her cookbook, in the note that proclaims it ‘The Thirteenth Edition’. In the preface to the first edition, which is included in the book, Raffald notes that she ‘cannot but be apprehensive’ that her book will be met with the ‘contempt’ that cookbooks of that period often were (Raffald 1806: i). Raffald’s initial worries were obviously unfounded, however, as her book was so successful that it went on to have thirteen official editions and apparently 23 pirated editions. In 1773 she sold the book’s copywrite for a very pretty £1,400 – which in today’s money would have been around £175,000. Raffald wasn’t just an incredibly successful, wealthy cookbook writer, however. Gleaning information from some internet sources (not Wiki – the ultimate academic sin) I’ve discovered that she apparently opened the first registry office in Manchester which allowed servants to get married, and ran two coffee shops, an indoor and outdoor catering business and a school which taught domestic servants and supplied wealthy families with staff. Long before the time when female cookbook writers became brands in themselves (it’s a little-known fact that Isabella Beeton died when she was 29, as publishers kept on using her name to sell cookbooks), Elizabeth Raffald was creating a successful name and business for herself, founded upon her domestic experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The Cookbook <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This sense of success and authority is tangible throughout the pages of the cookbook itself. A frontispiece shows a portrait of Raffald, and the fine clothing and assured facial expression that she wears pair with the fact that she is holding a book (often used as a prop in portraits to indicate the subject was a person of letters) to convey that she was someone whose advice could be trusted. Indeed, this notion of reliable authority is a theme that runs through the text. Opposite Raffald’s portrait is a subtitle, which declares that the book is ‘dedicated to the Hon. Lady Elizabeth Warburton, Whom the Author lately served as Housekeeper’ (Raffald 1806: title page). During this time, and indeed into the nineteenth-century, it was common for the female authors of domestic advice guides or cookbooks to credit their experience to their time serving as a housekeeper. If, like Raffald, you had served a Lady in an important, titled family, then your recipes and advice would be viewed as reliable. Just like a book review from a reputable newspaper or a famous author on the cover of a bestseller makes us buy books </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">today, this name-dropping was an act of advertisement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Indeed, in addition to the preface there is a dedication to Lady Warburton in which Raffald humbly begs Warburton to allow Raffald to share her domestic knowledge with ‘a great number of my friends’ (Raffald 1806: dedication). In this dedication, Raffald says her book was written to aid people in improving themselves, noting she has written the recipes in plain language so they may be understood by people of ‘the meanest capacity’ (Raffald 1806: dedication). Here, Raffald was ahead of the curve. Way before the influx of books in the mid-nineteenth century that were targeted at the expanding and upwardly mobile middle-classes, Raffald is hinting that her book may facilitate social climbing: an idea that would have been slightly controversial in the late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth century. Given that she opened a registry office that allowed servants to marry, however, we can assume that Raffald was something of a humanitarian, and her cookbook consolidates this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In terms of the book’s contents, there are several interesting things to note. The cookbook doesn’t have a contents page beyond the paragraphs on the title page that summarise the chapters’ contents. These lack page numbers, and I was unsurprised that Raffald’s cookbook might be a little hard to navigate. Having read a world of criticism on Victorian cookbooks that lauds Isabella Beeton for her ordering skills and indexing in <i>The Book of Household Management </i>(1861) I was, however, surprised that this much earlier cookbook does have an index. I assumed that the organisation of cookbooks in this manner was a later, Beeton-esque innovation. On the contrary, Raffald’s index is alphabetical, organised via helpful headings and subheadings, and clearly indicates the page numbers on which recipes can be found - making the whole text easy and efficient to use. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNggbhLx2IsejRXVQj76bq6f2Tv51J5xWVgQm-Tb7myiSlTXOlxKyc6inxbRhBNZFAchKAQAcRh1W8rdVJ23SAk2JvRA6IuAiyc-JcANB-7KHa0YoIhyphenhyphen-VuCBCPUA-Up_5hCLT9ba2n2t8/s1600/fullsizeoutput_f02.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNggbhLx2IsejRXVQj76bq6f2Tv51J5xWVgQm-Tb7myiSlTXOlxKyc6inxbRhBNZFAchKAQAcRh1W8rdVJ23SAk2JvRA6IuAiyc-JcANB-7KHa0YoIhyphenhyphen-VuCBCPUA-Up_5hCLT9ba2n2t8/s400/fullsizeoutput_f02.jpeg" width="300" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">There are no advertisements per se in this cookbook, but there is a fascinating plate which depicts ‘A curious new invented FIRE STOVE, wherein any common Fuel may be burnt instead of Charcoal’ (Raffald 1806: title page). While the plate doesn’t indicate where readers may buy such a stove, its inclusion is an advertisement in itself and I was shocked to find such a detailed representation of a new cooking technology in such an early cookbook. I will definitely be pursuing this stove further in my archival research… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In addition to this plate there is a beautiful meal plan, illustrating how readers should arrange the dishes on their table for the first course of the meal. This extravagant, inconvenient trend for serving dishes at the same time was the service <i>á la française </i>that dominated British dining rooms until it was replaced by dinner <i>á la russe </i>in the mid-nineteenth century. At this point, new cooking technologies meant that middle-class families could afford to keep food warm in the kitchen and serve it on a course-by-course basis, instead of all at once. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXuc9hcOHlq8tZA6Jp4w5A3IlbOojMuQshcxvc7DBoFmMgubitcp45ljDQt2AQeDsJwzVR_TLYjHF5ben8i9tAgmhyphenhypheno00JKwiGnpxEMQjWB7RUYRN7zn7rw9PLmRmo6YIE8gUuusFBOKri/s1600/IMG_8892.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXuc9hcOHlq8tZA6Jp4w5A3IlbOojMuQshcxvc7DBoFmMgubitcp45ljDQt2AQeDsJwzVR_TLYjHF5ben8i9tAgmhyphenhypheno00JKwiGnpxEMQjWB7RUYRN7zn7rw9PLmRmo6YIE8gUuusFBOKri/s400/IMG_8892.JPG" width="300" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Raffald’s recipes themselves are typical of those I have seen from this period. They are formed of one or more paragraphs and lack ingredients lists or timings, meaning that readers would have to read the whole thing before they began cooking to ascertain what they needed, and how it was prepared. There is a predictable emphasis on meat, soup and gelatine in the cookbook, though I was surprised by some of the exotic ingredients it mentions, including cayenne pepper and parmesan cheese. Another striking trend shown through these recipes is the preoccupation with appearance. Raffald’s recipe for mock turtle is painstakingly labour intensive, and other recipes include ‘To boil Brocoli in Imitation of Asparagus’, ‘A pickle in Imitation of Indian Bamboe’, and one for something called ‘A Fish Pond’ - which seems to be a clear jelly in which fish are suspended as immortalised if in water. Delicious. These recipes are all clearly invested in the appearance of food - what you served on your table was a clear social marker to the people you entertained. But to return to her democratic plain language, Raffald is once more giving her readers the secret to creating the impression of taste and wealth. If you don’t have asparagus, she will show you how to make your broccoli <i>look </i>like asparagus, and maybe no one will notice.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> In fact, you'd hope they were so dazzled by your fish pond that they wouldn't care...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Aside from the written contents of the book, there are some treasures to be found in the marginalia. A signature written in elegant, cursive script tells me that at one point this book belonged to a Mrs L Swan, from Beccles. Within the cookbook I found a tantalising scrap of paper, also written in a faded, cursive hand. The scrap is too small to be legible, but it leads to an endless number of questions. Was it written by Mrs L Swan? Who was Mrs Swan, and when did she own this book during its 200+ year history? Did the scrap contain a recipe, changed by the cookbook’s reader? Or was it something totally different, a love letter, a gift note, and where does the rest of it now reside? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQr-FDBDaLDbRDu_6g11eVeqAEDPHAUo-57HxeW4wOY3WV0xHC9xQEVyr2eBegWQ25aKpwNq4uUl8CKUckN0clplSG-OEJ0pOoL3ULP3WXeb5swf4vsy5ZcQbmVtkEc-BE_jVwncfxjNzz/s1600/IMG_8978.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQr-FDBDaLDbRDu_6g11eVeqAEDPHAUo-57HxeW4wOY3WV0xHC9xQEVyr2eBegWQ25aKpwNq4uUl8CKUckN0clplSG-OEJ0pOoL3ULP3WXeb5swf4vsy5ZcQbmVtkEc-BE_jVwncfxjNzz/s640/IMG_8978.JPG" width="480" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">While I could go on and investigate <i>The Experienced English Housekeeper’s </i>recipes, pages and materiality in more detail (even the masking tape that now holds the cover to the pages is itself a fascinating piece of the book’s history), this blog post has already been meandering enough. The cookbook’s existence as an object that transcends time, classes, readers and even the recipes contained within its pages, makes it a fascinating object for cultural study. And all this before we even get around to cooking the recipes Raffald wrote and embodying her history and the history of all her readers in that way. One thing remains prominent as I embark on these individual case-studies and my wider research, however. As I sit with this book on my lap, I am just one of many people that have owned or read this particular cookbook. Considering all those before me who perused, cooked from, cherished or simply picked up this book before putting it back on a bookshop shelf, highlights a poignant notion that if household objects are properly used, loved, looked after and passed on, then we become part of their lives rather than the other way around. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Lindsay </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Raffald, Elizabeth. 1806. <i>The Experienced English Housekeeper, </i>13th ed (London: R Baldwin)</span></div>
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6 April 2013. 'Georgian chef Elizabeth Raffald's recipes return to Arley Hall menu, BBC News <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22048430> [accessed 27.4.19]</div>
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Williams, Jennifer. 20 October 2015. 'Shortlist of six iconic women revealed for Manchester's first female statue for 100 years', <i>Manchester Evening News <</i>https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/shortlist-six-iconic-women-revealed-10296652> [accessed 27.4.19]</div>
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<o:p></o:p>Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-58337436022215511312019-03-08T05:49:00.000-08:002019-03-08T05:57:57.675-08:00An Ode to the Cookbook: Past, Present and Future <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">To begin this post, I can do no better than to thank Twitter. Well, not Twitter per se (I lose too many hours procrastinating on it to be fully indebted) but the many lovely people I engage with there, who share my interests in food and food history. For if it weren’t for two Twitter-pals tagging me in a call for papers, I may never have come across the symposium at the University of Portsmouth: ‘Cookbooks: Past, Present and Future’ - <a href="http://creativespace.cci.port.ac.uk/event/cookbooks-past-present-and-future/">http://creativespace.cci.port.ac.uk/event/cookbooks-past-present-and-future/</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">As most people who know me know, my PhD project means I am lucky enough to spend my time perusing recipes, cookbooks and food writing. For research purposes, I focus on texts from across the nineteenth century, considering everything from early manuscript recipe collections to recipes in the domestic columns of periodicals, and cookbooks from Beeton’s canonical <i>Book of Household Management </i>(1861) to the lesser-known <i>How I Managed My House on Two Hundred Pound a Year, </i>by Eliza Warren Francis (1864).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My interest in cookbooks and recipes, however, was not born with the start of my PhD. In my parent’s home, we are lucky enough to have at least three bookshelves and numerous stacks dedicated solely to cookbooks. Well I say lucky, but my Dad has bemoaned their presence more than a few times due to dust and stubbed toes… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I have those books, the ideas they sparked and my Mum’s deft and imaginative adaptation and creation of recipes to thank for my talent in the kitchen, and the shape of my academic career thus far.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir3y6zaiRFE66K114AXNgAx1Q_Vhki9_VLMbTYKOviyMOWM6wD3NzunWq6307irhpFxHVICnRaHgWmsvITdgktoPr3jz6-gp7cqY9TKOH7Q_jYVL8EyNyouBD-IA44nZ9BJOe0LYhdzEoN/s1600/fullsizeoutput_e8a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1211" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir3y6zaiRFE66K114AXNgAx1Q_Vhki9_VLMbTYKOviyMOWM6wD3NzunWq6307irhpFxHVICnRaHgWmsvITdgktoPr3jz6-gp7cqY9TKOH7Q_jYVL8EyNyouBD-IA44nZ9BJOe0LYhdzEoN/s400/fullsizeoutput_e8a.jpeg" width="301" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In my flat I am also lucky to own a bookshelf that is home to nothing but cookbooks. At last count I have 68, including a small number of nineteenth-century texts – and collecting them is a habit that shows no signs of slowing. When I have the cash and inclination to treat myself to a new book, 9 times out of 10 I opt for a cookbook over a novel these days. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I justify it to myself because they’re beautiful, enjoyable to read <i>and </i>useful. Pouring over the glossy pictures and mouth-watering descriptions of food and cooking processes is <i>almost </i>as much of a joy as eating. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Again, this is not an argument that always sways my wannabe-minimalist boyfriend.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Sorry (not sorry), but my cookbooks will never be Kondoed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">So when the cfp for the ‘Cookbooks: Past, Present and Future’ symposium was brought to my attention, it was as if someone had trawled the inside of my mind – or indeed, my twitter feed – and designed the perfect academic conference. A day of intellectual debate about all aspects of the cookbook: their past, use of gender and other ideologies, design, and future in an increasingly digital world, etc. I couldn’t imagine anything more delicious. I sent off an abstract which was accepted and was fortunate to secure funding from the University of Glasgow to cover the cost of attendance, travel and accommodation. I was off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuiWDNlLDGXI2yC44HhLxlNPcHPn2suI-hQV8LYpVf9lAFZ4d5iHLKtGcMHKZKYWS0ZplhoFV6qzy-o4P1mG2cv4IeU_wXjZa3kpikRAak_snpOhNi6NPUKcKR0fnmXDlriu1IddHpMqQ-/s1600/Screenshot+2019-03-08+at+11.25.46.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1341" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuiWDNlLDGXI2yC44HhLxlNPcHPn2suI-hQV8LYpVf9lAFZ4d5iHLKtGcMHKZKYWS0ZplhoFV6qzy-o4P1mG2cv4IeU_wXjZa3kpikRAak_snpOhNi6NPUKcKR0fnmXDlriu1IddHpMqQ-/s400/Screenshot+2019-03-08+at+11.25.46.png" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I won’t spend too much of this post going over the details of my paper but I will briefly summarise it here. Titled ‘Characters in Cookbooks: The Victorian Trend of the Fictional Housewife,’ my discussion centred on two Victorian cookbook authors: Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) and Eliza Warren Francis (1810-1890). Taking a cookbook from each, Soyer’s <i>Modern Housewife, or Ménagère </i>(1849) and Warren Francis’s <i>How I Managed my House on two hundred pounds a Year </i>(1864), I investigated the way these cookbooks differed from typical Victorian cookbooks. Rather than practical collections of impersonal, ordered recipes, both of these books were unusually written from the perspective of fictional housewives. Milly Allison’s memoir in <i>My House, </i>and the epistolary exchange between Hortense and Eloise in <i>Modern Housewife, </i>frame recipes with intimate information about the narrators and personable characterisation that is friendly and entertaining. Both authors use relationships between women to present Victorian cooking as a dialogic exchange that is dependent on and bolstered by female relationships, and the use of characterisation invites the reader into the text as a friend. As part of the panel ‘Gender, Identity and the Cookbook,’ I investigated the way that the authors’ gender influenced how they wrote their fictional housewives, demonstrating that gender and characterisation were publishing strategies in these Victorian cookbooks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">While I could go on and on about my topic (if you want to hear the full 15-minute talk, just stop me in the street) the purpose of this post is to give credit to the wider symposium and what it embodied. Organised by <a href="http://www2.port.ac.uk/school-of-media-and-performing-arts/staff/laurel-forster.html" target="_blank">Dr Laurel Forster</a> from the University of Portsmouth, the event was attended by people from all over the world. Speakers came from the UK and as far as the USA and Israel. We spoke about everything from the Clean Eating fad and orthorexia nervosa to the graphic design of Israeli cookbooks, the technological kitchens of the future, and Fanny Cradock. One brilliant paper from Malcolm Thick compared an eighteenth-century printed cookbook to the manuscript it was based on, which he owned and showed to us all. The day ended with a talk from the lovely bestselling author Jack Monroe, and a panel with her, Lulu Grimes (BBC Good Food editor) and food vlogger Katie Quinn. It was a day of variety, as people from different backgrounds, disciplines and communities came together to discuss what cookbooks meant to them. A selection of different ingredients that combined to create a delicious meal, perfect for sharing - if you will. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">What the symposium, the people I met there, and the papers I listened to have highlighted is that cookbooks are makers and markers of community and culture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It can be easy to get lost in my nineteenth-century world of Bovril and suet puddings, but cookbooks and recipes throughout history and from the world over have always encompassed and recorded human relationships, and I believe they will continue to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">All in all, I am thankful to Laurel Forster for organising and convening such a wonderful event. Bringing people from across the world to have these discussion opens many exiting doors for future discussions, thoughts and projects. Moreover, I now have <i>another </i>excuse to expand my cookbook collection. Victorian or otherwise, they all count as research, right? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ycD3KQJUDV9rpQ9oByYm4pfKC5ytoYyOnAnz53p8XjhVkxl0IEmuTpoUTfxspml088r0bOuM5s7sdrGVDCDtbNXxVtKNfyktHkAq-fRZJd1Lg8wKe1nT7r-2CWPf3NWJ9WMOdOUVSjJq/s1600/fullsizeoutput_e8c.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ycD3KQJUDV9rpQ9oByYm4pfKC5ytoYyOnAnz53p8XjhVkxl0IEmuTpoUTfxspml088r0bOuM5s7sdrGVDCDtbNXxVtKNfyktHkAq-fRZJd1Lg8wKe1nT7r-2CWPf3NWJ9WMOdOUVSjJq/s400/fullsizeoutput_e8c.jpeg" width="305" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Whether the issues captured in cookbook pages are political and ideological - like the colonisation of India, embodied in the sandwiching of a mulligatawny soup recipe between different English broths in Victorian cookbooks – or utterly personal and small-scale, like the handing down of handwritten scraps, cuttings and recipes in the ring-bound <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">family recipe notebook, cookbooks are a resource that should not be overlooked for being domestic or unliterary. They can record pleasure, pain, grief, love, community, isolation, hunger and satisfaction. Sometimes our relationships with cookbooks might be troubled and unpleasant, at other times cherished and positive. Whether we cook from them, as they open naturally to the grease-spattered pages of a much-loved dish, curl up in bed to read them for comfort, or simply keep them on bookshelves to remind us of people and places and purposes, cookbooks are important. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">If food is what sustains us, then cookbooks are the texts that record our life’s blood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Lindsay </span></div>
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Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-38867218794095972292018-12-12T07:40:00.000-08:002018-12-12T08:04:43.958-08:00'A Mince Pye without Meat': Festive Tidings from 1806!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It is that time of year again, it seems. Christmas adverts have been on the television for approximately five months and I think it's finally an acceptable time to allow myself to feel festive. There is a limited window to appreciate mulled wine, cheese plates and putting cinnamon on everything I eat, after all.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The finished mincemeat.</td></tr>
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As I have been continuing to research Victorian cuisines, recipes and foodways I thought I would turn my attention to the Victorian Christmas, and as it turns out, Christmas is one holiday (unlike Halloween, as my previous post showed) that Victorians did with aplomb. I'm sure everyone reading this is familiar with Dickens's canonical <i>A Christmas Carol </i>in one or another of its iterations; whether you read your well-thumbed copy every year on Christmas Eve, or are a huge fan of the Muppet's film version - it all counts. Published in 1843, <i>A Christmas Carol</i> was one of Dickens's most popular works (six thousand copies were printed on its first run and it soon needed to reprint, its popularity surprising Dickens himself) and it went far to establish the tradition of buying books as Christmas gifts, as well as the Christmas book genre - both of which continue to this day. An excellent overview of how <i>A Christmas Carol </i>began this festive publishing phenomenon, and how print culture in the nineteenth century established a British Christmas identity, can be read in Tara Moore's <i>Victorian Christmas in Print </i>(2009), which I would recommend to anyone interested in Christmas books, traditions, and Victorians. Indeed, at a recent reading <br />
group I hosted we discussed Moore's book and how much the idea of the British Victorian Christmas is still embedded in our culture. Be it romanticised ideas of snowy walks through a foggy London, or John Lewis adverts that evoke ideas of charity and kindness through a Victorian lens, we seem very apt at forgetting that in reality Victorian life was difficult. Not every family had a benevolent employer who had been forced by ghosts to buy them dinner...<br />
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What I am interested in, of course, is how food plays in to all of this. After all, <i>A Christmas Carol </i>revolves around the concept of a traditional British Christmas dinner. The novel begins with Scrooge rejecting Fred's invitation to dinner and ends with him buying the Cratchits a glorious turkey, before he rejoins his family for celebrations over a laden table. So, if Dickens's novel began to define our ideas of what Christmas should look like, and a Christmas identity began to be really cultivated in the nineteenth century, it makes sense that the Victorians would have had a lasting influence on British Christmas cuisine.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal)</td></tr>
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As the Cratchit's traditional turkey suggests, many of our favourite Christmas foods were also eaten by the Victorians. Mince pies, plum (Christmas) pudding and sprouts all feature regularly in Victorian newspapers and periodicals as part of articles that outline Christmas menus. That isn't to say that all traditions caught on, however. As Moore points out, in Hereford there was a festive tradition that involved 'celebrants impal[ing] a plum cake on a cow horn, then dash[ing] cider in the cow's face' before watching where the cake fell 'as a way of forecasting the next harvest' (Moore 2009: 2). While there are cows-a-plenty in the fields next to my parents' house, I think that's one tradition I will be leaving in 1830.<br />
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So I thought I would turn to one Christmas staple that is as popular now as it was in the nineteenth century: the humble mince pie. In origin, the mince pie is not Victorian and even precedes the long nineteenth century. This article explains in more detail that pies with mince in them, or mince pies, can be traced back to far earlier in British cuisine - <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171208-the-strange-and-twisted-history-of-mince-pies">http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171208-the-strange-and-twisted-history-of-mince-pies</a> - but I wanted to see what a nineteenth-century take on the mince pie was, thinking that I would bake some authentic festive treats for the aforementioned reading group.<br />
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I hit a stumbling point, however, when it came to the main ingredient. The mince. Given that more and more people are (quite rightly) trying to eat less meat due to reasons that range from concern about the environment to moral issues, myself included, I knew that a good few of the people coming to my reading group would be vegetarian. All of the mince pie recipes I found in Victorian cookbooks and periodicals had, unsurprisingly, mince and beef suet in them, and so I was faced with a decision. I could either attempt to make the pies with a meat substitute, knowing that a lot of the original flavour of the pie would likely be lost, or I could alienate my friends and colleagues who aren't meat eaters. Before I abandoned the idea completely I had one last look at my collection of old cookbooks, and when I looked beyond the Victorian period and to the long nineteenth century I struck gold. A recipe in my copy of <i>The Experienced English Housekeeper </i>(1806) (which I picked up in a second-hand bookshop for just over £20): 'To make a Mince Pye without Meat.' Excellent. I could forgo the recipe with the tongue and look to the vegetarian alternative. This book from the very beginning of the nineteenth century had answered my prayers. It was nothing short of a Christmas miracle.<br />
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The cookbook itself is fascinating to me. Written by Elizabeth Raffald, and dedicated 'to the Hon. Lady Elizabeth Warburton, Whom the Author lately served as Housekeeper' it exemplifies a common trend in cookbooks of this era and before, that were written by ex-servants and dedicated to their Mistress or Master. Indeed, having a member of the gentry named on the title page would speak to the quality of the book's contents, as readers would know the recipes within were fitting for notable people. On the frontispiece it says 'Published as the 1st directs, by R. Baldwin, 31 July. 1782' which suggests the 1806 edition may be a reprint, but I am not completely sure. Other than what can be gleaned from the title page and the wonderfully detailed frontispiece of Mrs Raffald, however, I don't know much about the cookbook, but I will certainly look into it more detail. I was just blown away that the one 'vegetarian' mince pie recipe I could find was from such an early text.<br />
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The recipe itself took a bit of parsing. Despite the title it wasn't actually for a pie, but just the filling. It also seemed to make a huge amount of mincemeat, calling for three pounds of suet (which would have been beef suet historically, but I opted for a vegetable equivalent) and three pounds of apples, let alone the other fruits. I haven't quite worked out how different nineteenth century measurements are compared to ours today, but I do know that I didn't want to make <i>that </i>much mincemeat. So after some conversions and significant reductions to the amount of ingredients I ended up using the amounts that follow:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mince pies, before baking</td></tr>
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<ul>
<li>200g of apples, peeled and sliced</li>
<li>175g of currants</li>
<li>150g of raisins</li>
<li>175g of mixed peel (the best alternative I could find to 'candied orange peel' and 'citron' the recipe asked for)</li>
<li>200g sugar</li>
<li>175g of vegetable suet </li>
<li>1tsp (around 3 to 4) crushed cloves</li>
<li>1 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg</li>
<li>2tsp ground cinnamon </li>
<li>200ml of brandy </li>
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Once I had converted the ingredients, I just mixed them together as per the recipe and let it all steep for a bit. It smelled amazing: boozey, spicy - the epitome of festive. The quantities I used made enough for 12 pies plus a spare jar to use later. I would have liked to let it marinade and mingle for a good while, but due to time constraints I only had a few hours before I had to make the pies.<br />
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This is where I have to make a confession. I did not attempt to make pastry from a nineteenth-century recipe, mainly because making pastry from a recipe from any time period is time consuming. So I bought a ready-made sheet of puff pastry and got on with it. Using a mug to cut out the bottoms, I employed my muffin tin to fit the pastry bases, filled them with mincemeat and then cut out little stars to top them off. After glazing with an egg wash, the pies were baked at 180 fan for 20 minutes - or until golden - and they were done.<br />
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They were delicious. Not at all unlike the mince pies we know and love today in their fruity spiciness. Infinitely better just by virtue of being homemade, I think. So, if you feel like being historical this Christmas, or bringing a bit of (vaguely) Dickensian cheer to your Christmas table, I would recommend knocking these up, or gifting a jar of mincemeat to someone to accompany a gifted copy of <i>A Christmas Carol. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Lindsay<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The finished article!</td></tr>
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Sources:<br />
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(1833) 'Hereford", <i>The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal </i>(London: Henry Colburn), p. 263<br />
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Dickens, Charles. [1843] 2009. <i>A Christmas Carol </i>(New York: Random House)<br />
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Greenwood, Victoria. 8 December 2017. 'The Strange and Twisted History of Mince Pies', online article, BBC, <http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171208-the-strange-and-twisted-history-of-mince-pies> [accessed 10th Dec 2018]<br />
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Moore, Tara. 2009. <i>Victorian Christmas in Print </i>(New York: Palgrave Macmillan)<br />
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Raffald, Elizabeth. 1806. <i>The Experienced English Housekeeper </i>(London: R. Baldwin)<br />
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<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-13349507402892345952018-10-28T10:30:00.000-07:002018-10-28T13:53:30.463-07:00Halloween Recipes for Spooky Singletons. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have always loved Halloween. My birthday is in October, and the whole season that surrounds Halloween is my favourite time of the year; peppered with autumnal colours, scarves, changing leaves and the foods that mark the progression from Summer into Autumn, and Autumn into Winter. All of a sudden, my Instagram feed becomes predominantly beige and orange - just like the leaves on the trees - as I find myself cooking butternut squash soup, fruit crumbles, stews and a <i>lot</i> of pies. As such, I couldn't resist having a look through some cook books and databases of nineteenth-century newspapers and periodicals in the hope that I would find some entertaining Victorian Halloween recipes to cook.<br />
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While I wasn't exactly expecting to find cakes in the shape of skulls, or cupcakes covered in candy corn, I have to say I was disappointed. No ghoulish desserts or gimmicky appetisers to be found. It seems, albeit from a quick overview, that the Victorians weren't that into Halloween - not enough, at least, to write recipes for it in the way we decorate cookies like ghosts or go mad for pumpkin spice. That being said, I did find a few entertaining Halloween-themed recipes in the Victorian press which I thought were worth sharing.<br />
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The 'recipes' I found came from an 1895 article by 'C. H.' in <i>Bow Bell's, </i>an attractive weekly magazine which was published in London between 1883 and 1895 by John Dicks. It called itself 'a magazine of general literature and art, for family reading, illustrated with numerous engravings' and judging from the general content - musings on fashion and society, short stories and advice columns - it would predominantly have been read by middle/upper-middle class women. Indeed, the Halloween recipes within are obviously targeted at young women.<br />
Instead of food recipes they are, bizarrely, love recipes!<br />
So, if there are any spooky singletons out there looking for a halloween beau, these recipes could very well be for you.<br />
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What is instantly intriguing about this article is the way that Halloween is aligned with love and courting. I adore the fact that 'matrimonial future' is seen as a 'veil' which can be lifted on Halloween, because the distance between the mortal and spiritual world is narrowed on the 31st of October (C H 1895: 521). It reminds me of ghost stories, or Victorian sensation fiction - after all, what could be scarier to the Victorian woman than the prospect of not marrying someone worthy?! </div>
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The recipes that follow detail ways in which a young woman can determine the future of her love-life. My favourite - and of particular significance to any readers or friends in Scotland - are the instructions for 'Pulling kale stalks' (C H 1895: 521). Apparently, on Halloween night, one should go into a kale field, blindfolded, and the stalk they pull up would represent their future lover... </div>
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...Or if stomping around fields at midnight isn't your jam, you could try a couple of the recipes which the author found in <i>The True Fortune Teller</i>: </div>
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To learn if you will secure the man you wish, wear two lemon peels, one in either pocket all day. At night rub the four posts of the bedstead carefully with the same before retiring. If happiness is in store for you, the apparition of your husband-to-be will appear in a dream and present you with a couple of lemons. (C H 1895: 521)</div>
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If you like your love potions to also yield something edible, you could try your hand at Dumb Cake - a combination of flour, salt and pure spring water which you are meant to trace your initials in and then bake before the fire. Turn the cake once before midnight, and hey-presto! Your future husband will miraculously 'enter the room (preferably in some mysterious manner)' (C H 1895: 522). Admittedly, Dumb Cake doesn't sound that appetising. Having a future husband charge through your door summoned by baking, however, would make for an entertaining - if alarming - evening.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdf2pwMErDquPhZy2XESbSRD72qKyC9jn0tjkrhcFSeXGJffbI2wmOhharRiHAOJnOkOhKKyhVq_j10o8a0yDQhY-1apkG8aLnOoUpiDM_mYt6qR8btYEN_PVwu6YqBjUo3uqaWpWsuUlN/s1600/fullsizeoutput_719.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="756" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdf2pwMErDquPhZy2XESbSRD72qKyC9jn0tjkrhcFSeXGJffbI2wmOhharRiHAOJnOkOhKKyhVq_j10o8a0yDQhY-1apkG8aLnOoUpiDM_mYt6qR8btYEN_PVwu6YqBjUo3uqaWpWsuUlN/s640/fullsizeoutput_719.jpeg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBBwvXO2d37YkelfH4x8qQk4YeEAGNiSIW__PWOP4B0gthMf5glgv64rU0adQWsUpMF05ybvaCCS4tum85q6IBTPh1cZpK2mhsHpvz2AQAvO9mO5VI28dP0VXbN6O8JuJFzWEvVW5Szaj3/s1600/fullsizeoutput_712.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="996" data-original-width="620" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBBwvXO2d37YkelfH4x8qQk4YeEAGNiSIW__PWOP4B0gthMf5glgv64rU0adQWsUpMF05ybvaCCS4tum85q6IBTPh1cZpK2mhsHpvz2AQAvO9mO5VI28dP0VXbN6O8JuJFzWEvVW5Szaj3/s640/fullsizeoutput_712.jpeg" width="396" /></a><br />
So, while these recipes may not involve garish Halloween candy or be for a tasty snack you can eat while watching the Sabrina remake on Netflix, they might succeed in summoning someone to cosy up with this Halloween. Or, you might end up on your own, in a kale field, trying to figure out how wealthy your future partner will be based on how much earth is clumped on the roots you've just pulled up... I take no responsibility for a disappointing kale stalk.<br />
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Happy Halloween!<br />
<br />
Lindsay<br />
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Sources:<br />
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C. H. 1895. 'Halloween Customs', <i>Bow Bells: A Magazine of General Literature and Art for Family Reading, </i>32.412: 521-522 <https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/britishperiodicals/docview/3187589/8DB0C80E05414D9CPQ/1?accountid=14540> [accessed 27/10/2018]Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-45150829843981870592018-10-19T03:34:00.001-07:002018-10-19T03:34:07.721-07:00Beginnings: An Apple a Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxFfGt9fVZlmMncdpnRW_gohUny00ioPJwsdepTnwfuMLc3Qfbu2szbKxc7tPrmX934Z-JnbaqeVaI6vFp8DzjvbYz2hjO5OFDY20kAyQ5k7NvNqsJ5TV810miOiHV1bVar_xzw-9mBISv/s1600/IMG_5976.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="701" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxFfGt9fVZlmMncdpnRW_gohUny00ioPJwsdepTnwfuMLc3Qfbu2szbKxc7tPrmX934Z-JnbaqeVaI6vFp8DzjvbYz2hjO5OFDY20kAyQ5k7NvNqsJ5TV810miOiHV1bVar_xzw-9mBISv/s640/IMG_5976.jpg" width="584" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">While it
has taken all my self-control not to open this post with some kind of joke
about apples and doctors and doctorate students, something along those lines
would be a fitting way to reintroduce my revamped, repurposed blog. For those
of you who read my musings about food and eating from a couple of years ago, I
hope you will still find something of interest here as I reopen ‘Well Fed and
Well Read’ in keeping with the new, exciting chapter of my life: my PhD.
Indeed, as those previous posts show, my fascination with food, eating and
literature is longstanding – something that has grown in the last year as I
undertook an MLitt in Victorian literature and applied for my PhD project: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">‘The Technical Recipe: A Formal Analysis of
19<sup>th</sup> Century Food Writing.’ </b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">To correspond </span>with this new degree, and
all I hope to achieve in the next few years, I am relaunching my blog as a
means of communicating my research, getting my thoughts out of my head and into
the ether (what is a blog after all, other than void screaming?), and hopefully
providing those of you interested in food, literature and history with some
entertaining reading!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">So, first
of all, some introductions (I would like to note that not all posts will be
this long, as my first consists of an introduction to my research as well as a Victorian
recipe). My PhD project, which I am undertaking over the next three years
between the University of Glasgow and the University of Aberdeen thanks to
funding from the SGSAH, will be – I hope – the perfect marriage of my research
interests in Victorian literature and my passion for food and cooking. Lying
between the disciplines of English Literature and the History of Science and
Technology, I plan on investigating nineteenth-century food recipes as what I
believe recipes are: a valuable and underappreciated form of literature,
culture and historical insight. Having only started in October, my project is
still very much in formation as I investigate the current critical field and
try and decide how to structure my investigation in the most imaginative and
effective way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">One thing
I do know, however, is this: recipes are interesting, fascinating, fun and
collaborative forms of writing from which all sorts can be gleaned about the
reader, the writer, the culture they lived in, the technology they were using,
and the social significance food carries at different points throughout
history. Most importantly, a recipe is a form in which all this can be
understood not only through analysing the words on the page and the culture they
invoke, but also by using a recipe as the writer intended – by cooking! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">After all,
a recipe is not a static form, and that is perhaps its most interesting quality.
Recipes are written to instruct a reader how to make something that will change
the world around them. It may allow them to produce food to consume, serve to a
loved one or an employer, sell, impress important people, ascend social circles
or even poison someone. Recipes open the door to nostalgia, allowing us to
recapture our memories through the process of cooking and eating something that
brings us back to the past, be this in a positive or negative way. They are
passed down between generations, handwritten in notebooks, read in magazines
and instantly thrown away, succeeded or failed at, and I believe are one of the
only forms of writing with the potential to carry such cultural importance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The potential facing a reader when they select and use a recipe is vast and my research
is intrinsically interested in all the possibilities that extend, like curls of
steam from a bubbling pan, outwards from interacting with and enacting recipes.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">As such, I
will use this blog to reach out to other readers and cooks via the recipes I
study and reproduce as part of my research. I would love to hear from anyone
interested in my work, should you have a favourite recipe to share or a nineteenth-century
resource you think I should peruse. I believe collaboration is intrinsic in both
cooking and research - hence my writing this blog once more. I aim to post fairly regularly, sometimes including interesting recipes I find, sometimes musings on other forms of food writing and sometimes, I'm sure, just some rambling thoughts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Now, the
rest of this blog is dedicated to my first attempt at cooking a
nineteenth-century recipe, and who better to start with than the iconic,
canonical Mrs Beeton? <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In the
name of full disclosure I should say I am actually cooking two recipes here. First
of all, I turned to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Englishwoman’s
Domestic Magazine, </i>which was published between 1852 and 1879 predominantly
by Samuel Orchart Beeton (editor), who married Isabella Beeton in 1856. Shortly
after this, she took over the cooking column in the magazine. Her increasing
control over this column provided her with an extensive resource of material
for her canonical text <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mrs Beeton’s Book
of Household Management, </i>which was published in 1861 and contained a vast
array of recipes and household advice, from various (often uncredited) sources.
If anyone is interested in Isabella’s life in more detail, I would highly
recommend Kathryn Hughes’s 2005 biography <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton, </i>which gives far more detail about
her than I could ever hope to include in a blog post! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPoZnJrrIn7CcA81rnTZ-dACifl5Gf8TN2MBb4fHr3hgCywPdwQPBz7SvxtWiJAQZoKKFDiiJSWdBj-Xj1L4bjMlqep_XS59eqd548serRsttR0CCmyui8vRfQ4AHkWkKzF-M5O7PkJZT7/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-10-16+at+20.05.54.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1486" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPoZnJrrIn7CcA81rnTZ-dACifl5Gf8TN2MBb4fHr3hgCywPdwQPBz7SvxtWiJAQZoKKFDiiJSWdBj-Xj1L4bjMlqep_XS59eqd548serRsttR0CCmyui8vRfQ4AHkWkKzF-M5O7PkJZT7/s400/Screen+Shot+2018-10-16+at+20.05.54.png" width="342" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwPfI1w4bXVFMxTL0hyphenhyphenbM19mWmzn9JCovKqDMaXU9IrS3jSNLk8Bp3xQZbl10nBxAJjdVgXvr9ObmdEgpxnQfOsynyVK3H4XdkqDXaoMQAJeSb9rYUGz06LfZ94EQvX873-54dPvaf0VJ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-10-18+at+21.19.32.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="712" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwPfI1w4bXVFMxTL0hyphenhyphenbM19mWmzn9JCovKqDMaXU9IrS3jSNLk8Bp3xQZbl10nBxAJjdVgXvr9ObmdEgpxnQfOsynyVK3H4XdkqDXaoMQAJeSb9rYUGz06LfZ94EQvX873-54dPvaf0VJ/s400/Screen+Shot+2018-10-18+at+21.19.32.png" width="388" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">But I
digress – as I say I turned to the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">EDM </i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">for
a simple recipe to try my hand at, and since I was visiting home at the time
and my Dad’s garden was yielding a glut of apples, I used the British
Newspapers 1600-1900 Gale Primary Resources database (accessed via the GU library website)
to search for an ‘apple recipe.’ Several came up - including many for jelly,
tarts and some interesting-sounding stuffings – but I opted for something
simple: Stewed Apples with Custard, delightfully captioned 'a pretty dish for a juvenile supper' (Beeton 1861b: 48). Now, this is where the Beetons’s
master-minded advertising came into play, as lo and behold the custard portion
of the recipe was not included in the periodical at all but instead readers
were instructed to ‘have ready quite ½ pint of custard made by recipe No. 1423,
in Mrs. Beeton’s “Book of Household Management”' </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">(Beeton 1861b: 48)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">. Ingenious! Now the Victorian
reader has to go and buy the Beetons’ book if they want their apples, which
tells you something of the way that print culture worked at the time of the
Beetons’ heyday. Already, this short recipe tells the reader something about print technology, culture and the way that even simple recipes in periodicals were intrinsically involved in the hard sell.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Luckily
for me, an 1861 copy of Beeton’s famous cookbook is available - free of charge - on the Wellcome Library website, and so I set off picking apples
and cooking. While the recipe in the <i>EDM </i>is not credited to an author, in all likelihood Isabella Beeton would have been responsible for sourcing or writing it at this time. Ironically, by 1861 it would likely have been unusual for Beeton’s
reader to be able to go and pick their own apples as the majority of Victorians
lived in increasingly urban settings mid-century, and so my quaint fruit
collection might even have been a nostalgic wish for a reader back them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUzXW9Gd7h-UdjS4OhUw7fRUt_MwQRCOOE4beUTXLcRBSxksjhXdy93mLbuLsOKVe6-XGG33v-2TNCuCek6-KrtOduYinsXnTUtD2gEVpF1i-xqfVHGMsRq14pwY1-E_wwemqm7V_O5H7y/s1600/IMG_5978.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUzXW9Gd7h-UdjS4OhUw7fRUt_MwQRCOOE4beUTXLcRBSxksjhXdy93mLbuLsOKVe6-XGG33v-2TNCuCek6-KrtOduYinsXnTUtD2gEVpF1i-xqfVHGMsRq14pwY1-E_wwemqm7V_O5H7y/s400/IMG_5978.jpg" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stewing apples.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ5HjeG1AiiZ_uGqr9z04FXT4fr0zhx5S-iv7STyiswMJgU3Hsj33EjLrauOPk0iPp9aC6TEdmh43MbL6Mk96ikPfe8QD5Y8_Y9kF0N1LZ7f4a1CAr__D2JTj43mMKpzAgfDFimAb6qW05/s1600/IMG_5979.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="784" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ5HjeG1AiiZ_uGqr9z04FXT4fr0zhx5S-iv7STyiswMJgU3Hsj33EjLrauOPk0iPp9aC6TEdmh43MbL6Mk96ikPfe8QD5Y8_Y9kF0N1LZ7f4a1CAr__D2JTj43mMKpzAgfDFimAb6qW05/s400/IMG_5979.jpg" width="325" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Milk, sugar and lemon steeping by the fire.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The recipes themselves (pictured above) were easy to follow, and I think this would be true regardless of your cooking talents. The apples were simply peeled, cored and then boiled in a syrup-like water. The custard was more
technical, and involved steeping milk by the fire (I again managed to do this
at home, but in my flat it would have been a half-hearted turn to the radiator)
as well as a LOT of stirring. Thankfully my Mum was on hand to help out when my
arm began to ache, though at one point I turned around to find her using a
temperature probe to make sure the milk didn’t boil –<i> not</i> very Victorian indeed. Her suggestion that we try microwaving
it was swiftly rejected.</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">By the end
of a process that was pretty lengthy for a simple dessert, the result was
admittedly delicious. I tried to follow the recipes as closely as possible, presenting the apples 'in a glass dish' </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">(Beeton 1861b: 48)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> and indeed steeping the milk by the fire, but I will admit we ate the apples warm rather than cold.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOTFx_kedNw_5wo-gLpswOBwaxmCY1FKz6CHThdFrwKHAJdqYP8nnxdtH02Cs1T8d3J0nAlJzCbmNB0Wo5lQSfOm7zFoRGJJjjUbYHsY4FoG4tXU6WLZpErhAMMmeIkjkXI868wcvDkd2a/s1600/IMG_5977.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOTFx_kedNw_5wo-gLpswOBwaxmCY1FKz6CHThdFrwKHAJdqYP8nnxdtH02Cs1T8d3J0nAlJzCbmNB0Wo5lQSfOm7zFoRGJJjjUbYHsY4FoG4tXU6WLZpErhAMMmeIkjkXI868wcvDkd2a/s640/IMG_5977.jpg" width="505" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The finished article!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The custard was rich and lemony, and the apples sweet,
but spiced delicately with cloves so the dish was not overpowering. Both recipes
are attached and referenced, in case any readers fancy trying out some
Victorian apples for themselves, but my overall advice would be this – Beeton’s
apples are delicious, and if you have the time the lemony custard is definitely
worth the arm ache. Bird’s Custard powder, however, was created by Alfred Bird
in 1837 – so if you were to grate some lemon zest into it you would not be
being anti-Victorian whatsoever, and you might finish the dish in time to watch
Bake Off.<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -18pt;">Lindsay</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -24px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; text-indent: -24px;"><u>Sources:</u> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> Beeton, Isabella. 1861a. </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management </i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">(London: S.O. Beeton) <https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b21527799#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&z=-0.3981%2C0.3758%2C1.6748%2C0.9> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> Beeton, Isabella. 1 February 1861b. 'Recipes: Stewed Apples and Custard', <i>Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, </i>p. 48 </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> Hughes, Kathryn. 2005. <i>The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton </i>(London: Fourth Estate)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-68728105841600666392016-08-13T10:15:00.000-07:002016-08-13T10:19:01.101-07:00Dinner for One: Cooking for Yourself as an Act of Self-Love. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UdSNsiUJd4fC1CsqZxKYQrFxkqFEXz5r-_dr0dKIxV4ymATFAMfcEwJoZdnHef9Va6lFkVJxID2_q3RkA8cuLZipUn3nWpIHglJq1uN2aFUbDddXeKjlkzmCxtpm59bj22qEegqYNaw0/s1600/IMG_20160813_174814.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UdSNsiUJd4fC1CsqZxKYQrFxkqFEXz5r-_dr0dKIxV4ymATFAMfcEwJoZdnHef9Va6lFkVJxID2_q3RkA8cuLZipUn3nWpIHglJq1uN2aFUbDddXeKjlkzmCxtpm59bj22qEegqYNaw0/s640/IMG_20160813_174814.jpg" width="512" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
My last few blogs have explored a few of the emotional issues that surround the simple act of eating. Food guilt, eating as a way to reward or punish your body and the positive control that cooking can afford us. So, now I want to steer my writing towards the application of these thought processes, pairing more food-positive musings with recipes that will hopefully demonstrate my words in a practical and delicious way.<br />
<br />
Cooking is incredibly rewarding when you share the food you make. I adore cooking for my boyfriend, because he is so grateful that I take the time to make good food for us. When I visit home, I like to bake a cake or cook a meal for my family, to say thank you for letting me come and stay/drink their wine/that they haven't turned my room into a gym yet. I recently made a huge Indian meal for Calum's sister and her boyfriend, and knowing that we were all going to eat the food I was making over some drinks and good conversation meant that the day of preparation was almost as enjoyable as the evening itself. Similarly, when I visited my friend Lauren recently I made her and her boyfriend dinner in their kitchen, because I had a recipe I wanted to cook specifically for her (sweet potato mac'n'cheese, it's unreal) as well as to say thank you for letting me come and drool all over her cat. Hell, if I have kids I'll probably love cooking for them too. Not because I want to fit into some dated, gendered 'Mum' role, but because I view food as a tangible means through which I can pass on my love to people. Cooking is a process as rewarding to me as it is to those who (I hope) enjoy my food and the intimacy of creating something which I tailor to nourish a particular person lets me know them, and myself, better. <br />
<br />
However, I have in the past found this love of cooking for others to be dangerous. It is a very easy way to give up responsibility for yourself, in that once you have finished cooking that can signal the end of your involvement with the food. I find it easy to let others enjoy what I create, but sometimes don't take as much joy in the eating as I should, full up as it were on the satisfaction that I made someone happy. When my mind was still wrapped up in a warped view of eating, cooking tricked me into thinking I was nourishing myself through feeding other people, while I let myself starve. This is why now, when I feel myself slipping down the slope towards self-punishment again, I make sure I take the time to cook a meal just for me, alone.<br />
<br />
Recently, my Mum bought me Ruby Tandoh's new cookbook, Flavour. A GBBO runner up, I didn't at first warm to Ruby's quiet but fiery personality when she was on TV, but always respected that she didn't change herself for the camera. Yet after reading her articles across various platforms, seeing her food-positive and life affirming views on Twitter and now reading her beautiful book, I find her to be someone I increasingly admire and relate to. I think her love of food stems very much from the same issues mine does, and in the introduction to Flavour she hits on several points that resonate strongly with me. To conclude the introduction, she says the following:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Learning to cook helped me to enjoy food again, it connected me with the people I care about and, most importantly, it taught me how to care for, love and nourish myself. Be your own best friend, cook yourself something special and eat what you want today.</b></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivCQPOLTTy1j8F4IAF3-etJBGjN8gz1WshfTqf4wPOIrb-vD1h6W8pFeU5ORRmMBWmxV8x_z5a8p4XAwGnGcarwU4afi4CIJc9si9ER5t9LmGWYf929-FfTMk7nZrpTQ29BgfvcMZfAaII/s1600/IMG_20160808_174432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivCQPOLTTy1j8F4IAF3-etJBGjN8gz1WshfTqf4wPOIrb-vD1h6W8pFeU5ORRmMBWmxV8x_z5a8p4XAwGnGcarwU4afi4CIJc9si9ER5t9LmGWYf929-FfTMk7nZrpTQ29BgfvcMZfAaII/s400/IMG_20160808_174432.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
This mantra that Tandoh describes is what I strive for when I cook for myself. When you're in the kitchen on your own, facing a night of your own company, it's easy to be lazy. While there is nothing wrong with a baked potato or getting a takeaway, I find that sometimes if my focus on food is directed inwardly, I can be overly scrutinising of calorie content or 'healthiness', or I neglect to care about eating good food together. That's why, selfish as it may seem, I now tend to make more of an effort to cook lovely food for myself than I do for anyone else. I set the table, light a candle and I want my food to be beautiful, delicious and something I am indulging my body and mind in. The process of cooking gives me the mental stimulation I need, but if the eating isn't as big a part of that joy then the experience is not complete. When I cook myself lunch I do it properly, listening to what my body needs and taking time to prepare it so I know it's as tasty as it can possibly be. It was the same when living alone: getting in the kitchen and sitting down to eat created a sense of community between my body and mind. Knowing that you can sustain and make yourself happy on your own is a powerful and important feeling, and nourishment is a big part of that. Now, when I have an evening to myself I am sure I don't revert to bad habits. I plan my meals, take time to buy ingredients and really enjoy them. Cooking for yourself should be as fun as cooking for others, if not more, because what is more indulgent than treating yourself? If we can't enjoy things as much on our own as we do with others I believe that speaks to a lack of self-love. I cook to reflect and sustain my personality and I am not less of a person on my own. Teaching myself to enjoy what I cook as much as I expect others to has done wonders for my self esteem and confidence and I don't think you're ever truly lonely if you enjoy your own company. One can be the loveliest number.<br />
<br />
So, in this vein I wanted to end with a simple recipe that I love to cook for myself. As Calum doesn't eat fish, I take the chance to make it for myself when he isn't here, and my recipe for sweet chilli salmon noodles ticks all the boxes. It's easy, quick, beautiful, has fairly basic ingredients, is full of flavour and really delicious: a perfect dish to enjoy on your own soon.<br />
<u><br /></u>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHneECAktinWa-XHR8coIoe_t5Z04SORVXe5VJBovNBPlIeWcyr8N1pUDgDMLvlkquHKpqaFDIjVoW3s__P_SF0nLkQTRtCazWX3rCB5_-3gLNs1AYai8v4YZOnV4PqQ8ul1raDt9mcOp/s1600/received_10210020238652081-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHneECAktinWa-XHR8coIoe_t5Z04SORVXe5VJBovNBPlIeWcyr8N1pUDgDMLvlkquHKpqaFDIjVoW3s__P_SF0nLkQTRtCazWX3rCB5_-3gLNs1AYai8v4YZOnV4PqQ8ul1raDt9mcOp/s640/received_10210020238652081-1.jpg" width="531" /></a></div>
<u>Ingredients (to feed one) </u><br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>1 salmon fillet</li>
<li>5 tbsp of sweet chilli sauce</li>
<li>3 tbsp of dark soy sauce</li>
<li>2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped</li>
<li>1 tsp of freshly grated ginger</li>
<li>1 spring onion, sliced</li>
<li>A drizzle of vegetable oil, or chilli oil if you have it</li>
<li>A squeeze of lemon or orange juice</li>
<li>1 finely chopped chilli (add as much as you like, depending on spice tolerance)</li>
<li>A handful of spinach leaves</li>
<li>1 egg</li>
<li>A nest of egg noodles, or enough for one portion</li>
<li>A tbsp of chopped fresh coriander</li>
<li>A sachet of miso soup (optional)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<u>Method</u><br />
Preheat oven to 180 fan<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>This recipe works best if you marinade the salmon in advance, so a few hours before you eat it, put the raw salmon fillet in a ziploc bag with 2 tbsps of the sweet chilli sauce, the soy sauce, garlic, chilli, ginger and lemon juice. Leave in the fridge to marinade for as long as you can before you cook the salmon. </li>
<li>When it comes to cooking time, tip the salmon and all it's marinade on to a double sheet of tin foil. Splash it with a drizzle of oil, then crimp the edges of the foil together so you have a sealed salmon package. Put on a baking tray and then bake in the oven for 13-15 minutes, or until the fish is flaky and cooked through.</li>
<li>Towards the end of the salmon cooking time, maybe 5 minutes until it is done, boil a pan of water for the noodles. You will also need to put the egg in a pan of cold water and get it boiling. Egg noodles only take a few minutes to cook, so time it so that they will be done around the same time as the salmon. Similarly, you want to egg to be slightly soft boiled, and this will take a minute when the water is at a rolling boil. Once it is done run it under cold water to stop further cooking.</li>
<li>Once the noodles are cooked, drain the water leaving about a tablespoon in with them. Keep them on the heat, and add the spinach, blanching it until it has wilted. Drain now if there is any excess liquid. To the noodles and the spinach, add the rest of the chilli sauce until the noodles are coated, as well as the spring onion. When the salmon is done, flake it away from the skin using a fork. Stir the fish as well as the chilli, ginger, garlic and any sauce left from the marinade through the noodles. </li>
<li>If you want to turn your noodles into a ramen bowl, now is the time to make the miso soup (by adding hot water to the sachet). Serve the noodles in a large bowl, garnishing with the chopped coriander, and pour the soup over, although they are just as delicious without it. Peel the cooked egg and half, serving on the side of the dish. </li>
</ol>
<div>
While this dish can obviously be cooked for more than one, it brings me happiness when I am on my own, and I hope it can do the same for you. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Lindsay x </div>
<div>
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Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-54995190848647431532016-07-26T08:57:00.002-07:002016-07-26T09:15:32.296-07:00Dispelling the myth of Food Guilt.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of the most perplexing things I wonder about when considering my relationship with food, is the guilt I sometimes feel after, or even during, eating. The feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach that follows a particularly large or indulgent meal totally ruins the pleasure of actually eating it, and all too often turns the delicious taste left in my mouth sour. This self-pitying food guilt I occasionally inflict on myself is not only incredibly self-indulgent in a masochistic, narcissistic way (I mean, talk about first world problems) but also borderline ridiculous and the more I think of it, the stupider it seems. I know I am not alone in this: myself and most of my friends have, at one point or another, muttered 'oh god, I shouldn't have eaten that/so much' and then punished themselves later by having a stingy dinner, or starving themselves altogether, despite having made the decision to order/buy/cook whatever they have just eaten in the first place. While people experience subjective food guilt to varying degrees, depending on their self-esteem, body issues or in my case, occasional batshit crazy rationality, I think it is time to address this puzzling negativity that too many of us perpetuate in ourselves.<br />
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I like to think of myself as a pretty smart person. Most of the time I have a grip on myself, my life and my thoughts. I'm often proud of my mind and the things it can produce and, as I have addressed in my previous blogs, am a cook who takes immense satisfaction from making delicious food. So, you would think that when I make a decision of which the outcome is certain, for instance, pressing 'order' on the Dominos' website, I would be prepared for and accepting of its results. Why then, does food occasionally seem to create a disconnect between my body and mind? Fast food websites do not make ordering from them overly simple. Scrolling through menus, selecting toppings and filling in your card details should, in theory, give you plenty of time to mull over your decision. 'Do I really want this pizza/curry/Chinese?' If yes, click checkout. If no, close the tab. More often then not though, whenever my meal has arrived after an agonising half-hour of subtly looking out my curtains to see if I can spot the delivery driver, I eat it and experience instant regret. No matter how much I enjoyed eating whatever it happened to be in the moment, my mind then turns on my body and the two have a fall out. It is as if my brain can't comprehend the satisfaction my body feels from eating something it deems 'bad' for me, despite the fact that it was actively involved in the decision to eat the food, and so a cycle of guilt and punishment ensues.<br />
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This downward spiral into food guilt is completely self-perpetuating. My decision to eat something 'bad' makes me feel increasingly negative and cruel towards my body. In turn, the negative mindset I find myself in means I care less about regaining my self-respect. I make more decisions that I know will end up in additional food guilt and self-loathing, therefore elongating the period of bad feeling. This experience isn't limited to just ordering takeaway food either. I have known myself to spend over an hour making the most delicious macaroni cheese from scratch, only to eat it and then spend the evening agonising over its calorie content. How ridiculous is that? To invest time, effort, money and love making something, to have the pleasure of enjoying it taken from you, by yourself. Only when thinking about this in depth recently, through my more self-reflective writing and efforts to be more self-loving, have I realised that this food guilt I sometimes feel is a myth, created by a brain that has been damaged by society's expectations. Therefore, it is also a feeling I can choose to completely overcome.<br />
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While some food is unhealthy, eating it occasionally for pleasure can only be good for your happiness. Furthermore, eating pizza once a fortnight will probably not have a huge effect on your figure, so me studying my stomach in the mirror after a meal, scanning for instant change is nothing short of deranged. Society condemns certain body shapes and the things, or foods associated with them. However, were we to just ignore this and have healthy relationships with our minds and bodies, occasionally indulging ourselves for pleasure would not be negative. To the contrary, it can actually make you feel pretty good. I am capable of thinking and making decisions for myself and the idea that societal tropes of appearance and healthy living can override a decision I made, with a guilt I don't believe in, is preposterous. The further irony is that when I accept that I have enjoyed something that wasn't very healthy, or maybe had too much cheese on it, I move on from that experience totally unscathed. Continuing to like myself, I fall back into normal healthy eating patterns rather than feeling guilty for days and life goes on. Pizza is delicious. Macaroni cheese is one of my favourite meals. If I want to eat them, I will, and I'll be damned if afterwards I feel anything other than happiness that I could allow myself to enjoy something. Sure, I'm not saying that I will be eating indulgence food every day and loving it, health is important too, but I'm tired of my brain sabotaging my stomach against its own will.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Homemade macaroni cheese, what's not to love? </td></tr>
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Deciding to stop partaking in food guilt makes enjoying food and liking yourself a lot easier. I also find that, personally, I am less likely to overeat indulgence food when it doesn't make me feel bad. If there is less stigma attached to it in my mind I can take or leave it, choosing to enjoy it only when I know I will get the most satisfaction. Getting away from this strange paradox of punishment and reward also means I like and respect myself a lot more. If I order a pizza, that's fine, just like it's fine if I eat really healthily for a week. While food guilt is something that is probably only the tip of the iceberg for a lot of people who suffer from eating related anxiety, addressing its ridiculousness can be the first step in overcoming it and moving towards self-acceptance. Being in control of our bodies and minds in a positive way is an agency we deserve on a primitive level. Eat pizza if you want, eat salad if you want, just make sure that whatever you do makes you happy just for you and you alone.<br />
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Lindsay x<br />
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<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-79812337398871528872016-07-11T03:23:00.000-07:002016-07-11T03:46:01.933-07:00Be your cake and eat it. (Part two)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was in my mid-teens I had a difficult relationship with food, and I'm sure that anyone who knows me now, or follows me on Instagram, will find that hard to believe. What started as a biological reaction to stress (my nerves are very closely tied to my digestion, a subject I may explore later if I'm feeling particularly disgusting) became a means of control. If I limited what I ate I had power. I liked the way it made me look and failed to recognise when I went beyond skinny and into 'at risk'. At the worst stage of my obsession, I would weigh myself three times before I went to school and not eat anything while I was there and away from the worried eyes of my family, all of this propagated by photoshopped images society pushed on my impressionable teenage mind. While that tricky time is water under the bridge now, dismissing it as a phase or insignificant would be foolish and I try my best to keep learning from it. On one occasion, my friend Chloe said to her mum that I 'wasn't a good eater' when I was around for dinner, and the title sticks in my head as the complete antithesis to the person I am today. I am a brilliant eater, in fact I prize it as one of my most impressive talents. When I am feeling particularly mean towards my figure I sometimes yearn for the time when I was seven stone, but remembering how miserable I was back then quickly puts those thoughts to rest.<br />
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The change came when I realised just how much thinking about not eating was dominating my life. I constantly monitored what I put in my body, how much I weighed and viewed my thinness as a trophy. I would look at a beautiful meal my mum put in front of me with dismay, not pleasure, and squandered the limited time I spent with my long distance boyfriend thinking about food and hating myself for any transgression. I may have looked good, by the standards of a dysmorphic and unrealistic society, but I was so unhappy that none of the very few benefits were worth it. Paradoxically, during this time I still loved to cook. I would bake cake after cake, loving the sensation of making something and seeing others enjoy it, but too often not partaking in it myself. This masochistic need to nourish others but deprive myself is a trope endlessly perpetuated by society: an image of a 1940s housewife providing for her husband while retaining an impossibly tiny waist and a set of shiny pearls springs to mind. However, my way of overturning this twisted relationship perpetuated by consumer culture was to see food for what it is; not an enemy but something good for me.</div>
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Moving away from home was a positive step. Rather than regressing once more into bad habits I turned my controlled eating into a love of cooking. While my Mum is the best cook I know and definitely passed her passion and talent on to me, I had to take my nourishment into my own hands to truly love food again. Cooking was revolutionary. Selecting, buying, preparing and assembling ingredients made eating pleasurable and I still had the control I craved. Knowing exactly what I was putting together to make a meal left the power in my hands, but now I was enjoying the product. I put on weight and learned to love myself by learning to love what I was eating, because I was creating it. As a creative person, the act of making food is very therapeutic for me: refuge after a long day at work or from the stress of university. Importantly, cooking makes me very aware of what I'm putting into my body, but not in a negative way. </div>
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Recently I watched a documentary on Netflix that explored the processed food industry, and a dietitian told viewers to eat macaroni cheese tonight if they felt like it. And a bacon cheeseburger, and apple pie, and cookies and ice-cream, on one condition: you had to cook everything from scratch, yourself. 'I guarantee you won't eat that cheeseburger, or the apple pie, or the cookies', he said, and he hit the nail on the head. While pizza is my favourite indulgence food, when I'm working I'll grab anything that's going for the sake of not starving, and sometimes there is just not enough time in the day, for the most part I eat healthily because I cook my meals myself. I'm by no stretch of the imagination a 'clean eater' and I think subscribing to that lifestyle is as damaging as any other obsession, but it's inevitable that when you make something from scratch you're more conscious of everything you put in it. Putting good stuff in my body makes me feel good. Fast food is wonderful and everything has its place, but personally I need to get the best from food to feel my best and the easiest way to do that is to make it yourself: you're less likely to overindulge and more likely to love what you eat. Nourishing our bodies means we can recreate a healthy, organic relationship with them, overcoming the unhealthy mindset society inflicts on us by dictating an ideal. Reclaiming food by creating it myself allowed me to reconnect with my body and view it once more it as a friend, not an assassin. Now I am much healthier, happier and while I will always have bad body days, I figure that's ok. I can go on a health kick if I want, or eat less snacks without going overboard. The stigma that once connected eating with ugliness in my mind is no longer there. I make the best macaroni cheese I've ever tasted and my cakes are great, but the most important thing is that I'm in control in a good way. No one can dictate to me how I should look, feel or what I should eat or cook apart from me, and now that I love myself once more the relationship between me and food is a good one. </div>
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In part one of this blog I mentioned The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood, where the protagonist eats a woman made out of cake, which she has baked, to reclaim her body and her identity. While I'm not suggesting that eating as a way of being in touch with the self need be so literal, (although I did bake heart shaped cakes so I'm sure there is some latent symbolism at play) I thought I would finish this blog off with a cake recipe in the spirit of Atwood and self love. Filled with lovely ingredients, this is my 'Special Carrot Cake', a recipe I used to bake back when I didn't want to eat the final product and one I enjoy much more now. It's easy to make and very delicious. I hope if you try baking it, it makes you happy. Thank you for reading. </div>
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<b>Special Carrot Cake</b></div>
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<u>Ingredients</u> (To make a large cake, double layered cake. Half the recipe for a batch of cupcakes.)</div>
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Preheat your oven to 170 degrees and grease and line two deep 20cm cake tins</div>
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For the cake: </div>
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<ul>
<li>300g plain flour</li>
<li>300g soft light brown sugar</li>
<li>3 eggs</li>
<li>300ml vegetable oil</li>
<li>1 tsp bicarb of soda</li>
<li>1 tsp baking powder</li>
<li>1 tsp ground cinnamon</li>
<li>1/2 tsp ground ginger</li>
<li>1/2 tsp salt</li>
<li>1/2 tsp vanilla extract</li>
<li>300g carrots, grated</li>
<li>100g nuts of your choice (I use mixed unsalted nuts for the variety)</li>
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For the icing: (Again, half quantities for small cake/batch of cupcakes)</div>
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<li>300g icing sugar, sifted</li>
<li>50g unsalted butter</li>
<li>125g cream cheese</li>
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<u>Method</u></div>
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<ol>
<li>Put the sugar, eggs and oil into an electric mixer (or use a hand blender) and mix with a paddle attachment until all the ingredients are combined. </li>
<li>Gradually add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt and vanilla extract. Continue to mix slowly until well mixed. </li>
<li>Stir in the carrots and chopped nuts by hand, making sure they are evenly distributed in the mixture. Spoon the mixture into the cake tins and smooth. </li>
<li>Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the sponge is golden brown and bounces back when touched. Testing with a knife or skewer is also a good indicator, but as this is a moist cake it may not come out completely clean even when fully baked. Better to go on colour. </li>
<li>When done, let your cakes cool in the tins for ten minutes before turning out onto a wire cooling rack. Meanwhile, make the icing. </li>
<li>Beat the softened butter and the icing sugar carefully until well mixed. Add the cream cheese in one go and stir until completely incorporated. Then beat until it is smooth, light and fluffy. </li>
<li>After your cakes have completely cooled, ice them. If making a big cake, sandwich the two layers together with icing and then decorate the top. If making cupcakes, dot some on the top and then smooth out with a knife. Decorate with more nuts and ground cinnamon. The wonderful thing about this recipe is that it is versatile enough to make lovely cupcakes or a large cake and both stay delicious and moist. I usually make half the quantities when in Glasgow so I don't end up throwing any out. </li>
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Lindsay x </div>
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*P.S: Just wanted to make clear that I don't think any type of body shape is bad, I am just referencing my own previous attitude to eating, which was unhealthy.* </div>
Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-41575115650265583202016-07-06T07:38:00.001-07:002016-07-06T07:58:55.029-07:00Be your cake and eat it. (Part one) On Sunday I returned from a lovely week long holiday on the Isle of Mull with my family and boyfriend. The time spent without sustainable wifi, with loved ones and in an isolated, empty part of the world are both the reason why I am slightly delayed in my writing and also in part its inspiration.<br />
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I always find myself at peace when walking outside, on my own or with someone I know very well. The sensation of absolute comfort, I realise, comes from the anonymity that these situations provide. When I am outside and not likely to see many people, and if when I do they are similarly bedraggled and decked out in a non-sexy waterproof, I don't really care about the impression I leave. On the other hand, my everyday life in the city means constant interaction with people, people, people, strangers or otherwise. Being under a constant societal gaze has more of an impact on me than it probably should: if I go about my day not feeling that I look my best I become shy, retiring and sometimes pissed off, desperate to get home and into my pyjamas ASAP even though I'm usually an outgoing person. The most ridiculous thing about this conundrum is I know that NO ONE CARES. No one is going to stop in the street and think 'my god look at that sweaty rushed mess of a person, her life must be a joke', because everyone is as deeply entrenched in their own bubble as I am. But this form of image-based social anxiety has got me thinking recently, particularly with regards to my focus on food. Consumer culture bombards us daily with advertising and social ideals, and this is at its most personal with regards to the body.<br />
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Diet pills, fast food, bikini adverts, clothing shops, beauty products, photoshopped front pages; even my short walk to work is choc-full of subtle subliminal messaging, telling me what sort of perfect form my life and body should take and what I need to buy in order to achieve that. Similarly, one scroll through Instagram, Twitter or Facebook provides endless images to compare ourselves to and, more disturbingly, the temptation to edit our pictures with filters and photoshop so we can 'compete' in the looks market. Furthermore, the way we look at our bodies can be reduced to nothing less than symbolic cannibalism, and this is where it gets interesting.<br />
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I know many people (myself included) particularly women but also men, who look at their body with shocking self criticism; 'my thighs are huge'; 'I have no waist'; 'I wish I had bigger boobs/a thigh gap/longer legs'. This reduction of the self to separate body parts is reminiscent of the dotted lines that are drawn on pigs or cows marking how they should be butchered: what shape and size the 'perfect cut' should be. Consumer culture goes so far that we view our own bodies as commodities to be devoured by others. This is why I only question myself when looking through the filter society has instilled in me, and am more at peace when away from its pressures. While I don't underestimate that many people want to look a certain way to feel good about themselves, that the 'certain way' is deemed as ideal in the first place is down to an image we are constantly sold, as blatantly marketed as branded sportswear and the lithe people who model them. I believe that one of the reasons people can become so obsessed by their bodies and by extension what they eat is that they care, deeply and disturbingly about how they relate to this image both in the mirror and under the gaze of others. Our image, how we look and what we choose to promote about ourselves in real life and on social media is all an impression created, manipulated and designed to be consumed, gobbled up by those who see it. Otherwise, why would we care about the shape of our thighs? Why would we edit pictures of ourselves and present someone who is to a certain extent untrue? With the exception of matters of health, most self loathing I encounter comes from an anxiety that we don't fit the mould, or come within the butcher's perfect dotted line.<br />
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While on holiday I read Margaret Atwood's crucial first novel, The Edible Woman. In the book, Atwood's protagonist Marian suffers from a subconscious anorexia, as her body rejects her mind's settling for a life of subordination and marriage by slowly limiting the food she can stomach. By the end of the novel, Marian cannot eat anything and her breaking point comes when she realises the person she has moulded herself into is not truly her, but someone to be consumed by her fiancé and society. Her retaliation to this is miraculously grotesque. She bakes a effigy of a woman out of cake, created for the sole purpose of being eaten. <b>'You look delicious,'</b> she says to the cake, '<b>Very appetising. And that's what will happen to you; that's what you get for being food</b>.' When her fiancé Peter shows up, she calls him out on his (albeit perhaps innocently unaware) bluff - <b>'"You've been trying to destroy me, haven't you," she said. "You've been trying to assimilate me. But I've made you a substitute, something you'll like much better. This is what you really wanted all along isn't it?</b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b> I'll get you a fork."</b>' Peter, while obviously not wholly responsible for the expectations he harbours due to society, can nevertheless not stomach his tailor made woman. He leaves, and the real </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">pièce de résistance comes when Marian takes the fork, suddenly hungry, and eats the cake herself. Symbolic cannibalism becomes a vehicle to restore self-control, rather than a cause of self hatred. The image of the woman eating the woman-cake, once more with an appetite, powerfully turns the consumed once more into the consumer and Marian retakes her agency and rejects society's measure of her through the trope of food.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">This idea, that of both being your cake and eating it, is what I will explore in the second leg of this blog, coming soon. Alongside a cake recipe (of course) I will discuss how food can overturn what consumer society has taken from us. Nourishing our bodies in a healthy manner should be a positive way to look after and love yourself, not a trip into guilt-ridden angst. By recognising how our consumed image makes us alter what we in turn consume, literally, we can use food as a means to change the way we view ourselves and others. Our bodies should not be labelled as pre-judged chunks of meat, and from my experience forming a positive relationship with food can be an excellent way to stop butchering our self-esteem. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">Lindsay x </span></span>Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-15803497032210327952016-06-17T04:59:00.000-07:002016-06-17T05:45:00.390-07:00Are we what we eat? A new kind of 'research' into personal food writing. I'm always worried that when I get to September I'm going to feel like I wasted Summer. Those four months of non-study time are always set up in my head as time that I'm going to DO something. However, I have yet again been too lazy/busy to organise any kind of internship, and while I am working nearly full time at the moment, I want to make sure at least some of my spare time is occupied in doing something that will be useful to me when I return to studying.<br />
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After nearly a solid month of rejecting socialising, normal eating habits and even ignoring my own family when they came to stay in order to sit in my kitchen and pour over sticky notes, my obsessive studying paid off and I earned exam results I was extremely happy with. For me, ever the over-achiever who is oddly competitive with myself, that means the pressure is on for my final year, where the one big difference will be the dissertation. Now that dissertation advisors have been allocated and proposals approved, I feel 'safe' enough to begin what I'm hoping will turn into my summer project and double as a lighthearted strain of dissertation research. My dissertation, roughly, is going to investigate how writing about food becomes writing about the self. Having had a varying personal relationship with food, transforming myself from struggling with a borderline eating disorder into the ardent food lover I now am (albeit still with some body issues), the way people relate to something which, at the end of the day, simply keeps us alive has always fascinated me. Especially in today's world, where social media and popular culture pressure us to look certain ways and be in ultimate control of our bodies, while at the same time plastering Facebook feeds with videos of ridiculous cheese or chocolate covered indulgence foods, only to then make us feel bad with unattainable Instagram posts of avocado flowers and chia bowls. While I don't yet have specific texts or themes to focus on, I thought that starting with a personal study would be a valuable and enjoyable place to start getting in the right frame of mind, and I plan on using my blog as a vehicle to do so.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I want to know why, some days, we can look at ourselves in the mirror and as a result of what we see, evaluate everything that passes our lips not in terms of deliciousness and nutrition, but by measure of calories and self-loathing. At the same time, I personally find that when in life I have a lot on my plate, cooking and putting food on my <i>actual</i> plate becomes a kind of solace and escapism from everyday pressures. Furthermore, I believe that food is something that it is possible to have a deep rooted personal relationship with: some dishes or tastes can remind you of particular people or transport you back to a moment in time. Even the ceremony of eating can carry so much higher meaning, be that sitting down at a table with your family or relaxing in front of the T.V with a bowl of pasta, grabbing a rushed and unloved sandwich or taking the time to plan a meal. Chefs and restauranteurs view food as an expression of the self, and I think the same stands in my kitchen at home. So, my plan is that alongside relevant reading to see how literature presents the food-human relationship, I want to explore how my own food writing is about more than just knowing where to get the best burger or being able to cook a recipe. How and why does nourishment become about more than getting from day to day without starving? I would like to think that there is a reason, other than my greed, why I think about what I'm going to make for dinner as soon as I wake up. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
While I'm not sure exactly what form this 'research' is going to take, I think I will still blog about the food I cook and eat in the main. For readers who do just want to know what I'm eating to either recreate it or go to that restaurant, don't worry, there will still be plenty of that. However, I'm going to try and dig a bit deeper, looking into my personal regard for food and why I started writing about it in the first place. Whether that takes the form of explaining the origins of my favourite foods in more detail or just making my writing a bit more reflective, we will see. I'm aiming to simply start considering why food means so much to me and has become such an oddly large part of the identity I ascribe myself. 'Food lover' means more to me that just enjoying the taste of things, and that is what I want to investigate. My thinking is that the format of my blog will provide adequate pressure to keep going, and hopefully some of you will find my summer project to be interesting reading. I am not expecting to come up with any ground breaking revelations about humankind, but even just actively engaging with the subject of food and the self will hopefully be useful.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I would love to hear from anyone who has a personal experience or opinion about what I'm going to try and do. Any theories on why you love or hate certain foods, or even what the ceremony of eating is to you would be really interesting, so please feel free to share them with me. I'm not setting a deadline for my next post, as I want to really think about how best to approach this new vein of writing, but any suggestions or questions people would find it interesting if I addressed would be appreciated. For now though, I am going to go and eat a fish finger sandwich for lunch, which I know will make me feel just like a child. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Lindsay x </div>
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Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-12217051149522121882016-06-03T05:12:00.000-07:002016-06-03T05:37:56.480-07:00Book Review: I Love Dick, and a recipe for Avocado Baked Eggs <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">That the last time I wrote this blog was back in
November, is telling of the fact that I find writing to be something that's
hard to get back into once stopped for a while. Throughout the year I have
written many essays, but once you settle into an academic tone where you use
words like 'elucidate' and focus on things like Shakespeare's use of Ovid in
his drama, coming back to writing in a colloquial, approachable and
entertaining way is always harder than I think.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">This is, perhaps, the reason why when I stop
blogging for a while I find it an increasingly daunting prospect, and the realm
of restaurant reviews and recipes that I used to write with ease seems almost
impregnable. However, while my third year at university was the hardest and
most rewarding time of my life thus far (I have already read over fifty texts
this year and it's only June), it is now scarily over, leaving the time that
used to be filled with revision and reading confusingly empty. I have found the
readjustment to life without studying geekily difficult and summer seems to
have become a limbo-time, where I don't get to do my one 'me' thing. While I
can’t complain about the lack of essay-stress, or more time to do things with
my boyfriend, I feel like I need something to fill the space and give me
purpose. So I thought there would never be a better time to throw myself back
into writing what I used to enjoy so much, to both keep my hand in and fill my
time when I'm not working with something more rewarding than watching Netflix,
as well as reclaiming something that is just mine, aside from the series of
fantasy books I am indulging in. I am returned, with a slightly updated blog
and probably a slightly different take on things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I was struggling to come up with ideas as to
what I should write about for my first re-entry. A simple restaurant review
didn't seem 'special' enough to announce my return to blogging, so instead I
wanted to write about a book which I recently read that had great impact on me
(see, I really CAN’T get away from those bloody essays). That book is I Love
Dick, by Chris Kraus. Now I can hear the sniggers from those of you that
haven't read the book, and maybe a knowing chuckle from those of you who have,
but I Love Dick is not a work to be laughed at. Written in 1997, I Love Dick
was one of the books on my reading list for American Literature since 1900, set
by the formidably great tutor Jane Goldman. The book is a powerful and confusing
melt of fiction and fact, with real life ‘characters’ and a plot that really
happened, but Kraus refuses to define her text and therefore the emotions she
depicts within it as either made up or a one-off case study. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">A must-read for my
feminist bookworm pals, (and everyone else to be honest) Kraus doesn’t reduce herself to fill the role of a typical female
character, overcome with lust and at the mercy of the man, ‘Dick’, with whom she is infatuated. Instead, Kraus harnesses her female emotion and makes it a
force to be reckoned with. Turning the regular gender-roles in fiction on their head,
particularly in confessional fiction in which men are seen as ‘revolutionary’
for divulging their emotion yet women are seen as desperate and pitiful, she
writes a series of letters to Dick. She plays him, unwittingly, in a game, and the reader sees him transformed from subject to object, as ‘Dear Dick’ becomes ‘Dear Diary’. Kraus reduces the
male object of her affection into a means for her to express herself, as so many
men do in their treatment of female characters. Given the real-life basis of
the ‘plot’, Kraus delivers the final blow to Dick by publishing her ‘novel’,
therefore defining Dick exactly how she wants as we see him become an artistic
entity, governed by the author. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Whilst this is a very brief summary of what I
think to be Kraus’ aim, the actual content of the book is brilliantly funny, sad
and revolutionary. The </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">brutality of the lengths she has to go to in order to
assert her power within her own life and art, reducing another person
as she goes to get dominance, shows just how difficult it can be for women to
get the inherent respect in literature that is more often than not a given for
men. She states at one point, ‘<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #131313;">I'm moved in writing to be irrepressible. Writing to you
seems like some holy cause, cause there's not enough female irrepressibility
written down. I've fused my silence and repression with the entire female
gender's silence and repression. I think the sheer fact of women talking,
being, paradoxical, inexplicable, flip, self-destructive but above all else
public is the most revolutionary thing in the world’</span></b><span style="color: #131313;">. I would say that anyone who is interested in female
irrepressibility, in both life and literature, should definitely read I Love
Dick. I recently met Chris, and knowing that the short, softly spoken woman
standing in front of me was so transformative and strong was inspirational and
life affirming. Kraus shows everyone, of either gender, that the boundaries in
life and art are easy to transgress, and the product of her doing so is
amazing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #131313; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p>~~~</o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #131313; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #131313; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Academic book-spiel over, I thought I
would include a simple, easy recipe to finish off. For me, food, reading and
self-love are inextricably linked, as anyone who knows me will probably be all
too aware. So this is a recipe for my avocado baked eggs, which are healthy but
indulgent and, most importantly, delicious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #131313; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ingredients (serves one)<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">2
eggs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">1
avocado<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Salt/pepper<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Dukkah
seasoning (a sprinkle)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Tsp
butter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Method <o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Preheat
your oven to 180C. In either a small ovenproof dish, or two ramekins, place the
knob of butter and melt in the oven for a minute until fully melted. <u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Cut
up your avocado into strips. This can be done as messily as you like, there are no prizes for neatness here and I definitely don't expect any ridiculous avocado roses. Then, crack the eggs into your dish, and arrange
the avocado in the raw egg white. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and dukkah, an Egyptian blend of spices, seeds and nuts (which you can buy in Tesco) to
create a delicious smoky flavour. </span><u style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Place
the dish in the oven for around ten minutes or until the egg white has
solidified. Eat straight away, with a side of toast. <u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3rNImhe8jNQUI4F_1or4qSMmyYWL6ujmr6w5vJBXdqa_B1aLcHsFYKDNFSMQkjv2VjyUPX5ocerphtUGhGttvPLRmTnNmr8ON4EU_g_5t24ORQZEEmzYjOZ9-b15MVp9G8hSo0NDA0yUK/s1600/photo+1+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3rNImhe8jNQUI4F_1or4qSMmyYWL6ujmr6w5vJBXdqa_B1aLcHsFYKDNFSMQkjv2VjyUPX5ocerphtUGhGttvPLRmTnNmr8ON4EU_g_5t24ORQZEEmzYjOZ9-b15MVp9G8hSo0NDA0yUK/s400/photo+1+%25281%2529.jpg" width="377" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">This recipe is
irresistibly easy and delicious, not to mention very instagramable. By cooking
the avocado you create a smoky flavour, which is almost meat-like and very
different from the raw taste. Combined with the eggs and the spices, this makes
for a surprisingly quick and satisfying lunch. You can customise the recipe by adding some smoked salmon, wilted spinach or, to make it really indulgent, double cream, however the original is plenty flavoursome. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Lindsay x <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-44486365354217504552015-11-15T06:30:00.000-08:002015-11-15T06:30:45.844-08:00Review; Lunch at The Left Bank and Glasgow's Best Chilli.The amount of time that has passed since I last blogged is almost inexcusable. Almost, apart from the fact that now that I'm in third year, I have started what I like to think of as 'adult' university. Adult university is big, scary and really hard. In the time it has taken me to adjust to the heavier workload and higher expectations, both my own and those of others, my little blog took a back seat. I'm also trying to do more extracurricular writing; the university paper and other blogging platforms, building a 'portfolio' if you will. But hey, it's important not to forget where you came from.<br />
So, my blog refuses to be ignored (nobody puts bloggy in the corner... SORRY) and so I am back, writing about all of my food adventures, as well as anything else that happens to be of interest in my relatively uninteresting life.<br />
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Last weekend, Calum and I visited the breathtaking city of Prague. However, since my last blog was a travel piece about the Outer Hebrides, I don't want to bore you with more tales of my gallivanting just yet. Instead, I'm going to do a restaurant review, of a place I recently ate at and loved.<br />
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I turned twenty about a month ago, and to celebrate the end of my teenage years my friend Lauren and I went to The Left Bank, on Gibson Street. I had never been before, but it's a place which I always see mentioned by the hordes of Glaswegian foodies I follow on Twitter and Instagram. The restaurant's recent win of the Glasgow chilli cook-off sealed the deal, and off we went.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty wallpaper at The Left Bank</td></tr>
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Tantalisingly close to Glasgow University campus, The Left Bank looks pretty unassuming from the outside and I have walked past it a few times without realising. On the inside, the chic understatement continues and the minimal, charming decor creates an inviting, laid-back and classy atmosphere. This relaxed, homely vibe extends itself to the menu, where the ethos is local ingredients and home cooking, given a refreshingly modern and vibrant twist.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aperol Spritz and Rose Lemonade Spritzer</td></tr>
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The bar has an impressive cocktail menu. I opted for my favourite, an Aperol Spritz, which was perfectly made. Lauren went for a delicious non-alcoholic option, and had the homemade rose lemonade spritzer, also delicious.<br />
In terms of food, there are a few different options for your dining pleasure.<br />
They offer brunch in the morning all week, which I definitely need to try soon as it gets wonderful reviews. The fusion of scottish classics, like porridge or eggs mornay, with the more unorthodox Lebanese breakfast or Huevos Mexicanos mean that there really is something to suit any palate. With everything on the breakfast menu coming in at under eight pounds, the competitive West-End prices mean it is not to be overlooked.<br />
Lauren and I were there for lunch, where you have two menu choices; either the lunch menu, available on Monday to Friday from 12-5, or the all day mains menu, also served from midday.<br />
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The lunch menu has a selection of wraps, ciabattas or salads, all coming in at under £6, and fillings include North Sea Haddock fish fingers, bhajis, and homemade hummus with harissa and dukkah. Yum. The all day mains are slightly more expensive, although not as pricey as the evening menu. Choosing between the delicious looking burgers, the fish and chips, the mussels cooked in Vietnamese broth or the Goan chicken curry was incredibly tough. Not often do you find a restaurant that has such a variety of food, all influenced by different places, yet all made with the same quality ingredients. It is the kind of menu which makes choosing your meal a non-choice; you know everything will be superb, so you resign yourself to coming back and trying everything else some other time, life is tough.<br />
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For me though, it had to be this chilli I had heard so much about.<br />
Now, chilli con carne is a dish I cook often for myself at home, so I rarely order it out because I can do a damn good job of it myself. For The Left Bank I made an exception, and I'm very glad I did.<br />
The chilli is made of both beef brisket and pulled pork, combining the two meats in a way that both lightens and adds depth to the dish. It is topped with molten cheese, which acts as a lid, keeping in all the delicious warmth and spice. The homemade tortilla chips, artfully skewered in the middle of the plate are paprika-y and smoky, and make the best cutlery to scoop up the chilli and sour cream. Finally, even the rice was a cut above, delicately spiced and complementary.<br />
Lauren had been before and so insisted that we order a side of the Ayrshire chips in rosemary salt, which come with an amazing spiced mayonnaise and did not disappoint. I highly recommend indulgently mopping your plate with them.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Glasgow's best Chilli</td></tr>
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The chilli came in at £8.95, and is definitely worth the money for the quality and effort that is obviously put into the dish. My only (tiny) qualm would be that the portion was a little on the small side; it suited me well for lunch, with a side dish, but I know that if I took Calum or one of my brothers along, their hollow-legged appetites would not be satisfied.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ayrshire Chips with rosemary salt</td></tr>
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On the whole, The Left Bank definitely stood up to my expectations. It is elegant but not pretentious, and does Scottish fusion with the best of them, combining local ingredients to create exotic tastes as well as newly-perfected classics. I will definitely be visiting for brunch, and the evening menu looks divine; perfect for an occasion. It is a place I know my mother will love (which, if you know my mother, is definitely a compliment). Whilst it might not be the place to go if you want lots of food, for not much money, that's not necessarily a bad thing. What The Left Bank does it does very, very well.<br />
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My next blog will be a travel piece on the stunning capital of the Czech Republic, Prague.<br />
Until next time!<br />
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Lindsay x<br />
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<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-14489719807383275602015-07-29T04:36:00.000-07:002015-07-29T04:46:33.548-07:00The Little Curry House, small but mighty. It has been a while since I blogged, for a number of reasons, some more glamorous than others.<br />
Since my last post, work filled my time to such an extent that any spare moment was spent asleep. That was until I went to T in the Park, where the half-frozen chips and cheese, hockey-puck chicken burgers, porta-loos and mud are arguably less than glamorous, but that is definitely beside the point.<br />
After T in the Park I was lucky enough to be going on holiday with my best friend, to Croatia. We flew out to a beautiful island on the Dalmatian Coast for a week, where we swam, ate sea food and tried to avoid the 38degree sun as much as is possible. As a result I have returned the exact same 'light porcelain' colour that I was before (or that's what my makeup tells me at least). This all adds up, as well as the fact that, I'm sure as all bloggers know, sometimes you just get yourself into a bit of a slump.<br />
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Now that I have returned to Scotland, where the rain doesn't exactly encourage outdoor frolicking and work has slowed down a little bit over the quiet summer months, I don't have any of those excuses, glamorous or otherwise, to keep me from catching up.<br />
My last blog was a review of a newfound favourite Indian restaurant in the West End, Cafe India Tapas. Following on from that I promised a review of another great little Indian, which I discovered with my lovely friend, and excellent eating partner Floraidh, The Little Curry House on Byres Road.<br />
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Me and Flo have made a bit of a tradition of spontaneous lunches together. I'll be honest, it's what I drag all of my friends to do with me, keen or otherwise. So on one of these occasions, after our planned restaurant turned out to be shut, shock horror, we had to be inventive.<br />
Both finding that the other loved Indian food, we found ourselves standing outside The Little Curry House. The restaurant, formerly known as the Wee Curry Shop, is a surprisingly tiny place, which is wedged in-between shop fronts and doesn't immediately stand out when you walk past. It has been on the Glaswegian curry scene since 1988, and is run by a father and son team. Interestingly, the head chef, and father of the duo, used to be head chef and half owner of Mother India's Cafe, a restaurant that I haven't visited yet, but which I am always told is the best Indian restaurant in Glasgow. After nearly a decade there he took over what was the Wee Curry Shop, and The Little Curry House is the result. Having both heard good things, and with this incredibly promising history we decided to give it a go.<br />
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When we went in, we were the first customers of the day, and were seated up in the mezzanine floor right next to the window and right above the kitchen. This meant we, the nosey beggars that we are, could watch everything we ordered being cooked from above.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIpib9zEc0K3QK0jgkmYHn6NgJfMZKjPQbkR3zq-vdubJ4nsJWvZr3M360aNJ219CLx23XyDEju2QM-yUd6J4pECtYuaDwkhuh4EMCLhG3CWrZatI89yoh6D1GkbwfsKEK-DV9B_Fcg370/s1600/photo+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIpib9zEc0K3QK0jgkmYHn6NgJfMZKjPQbkR3zq-vdubJ4nsJWvZr3M360aNJ219CLx23XyDEju2QM-yUd6J4pECtYuaDwkhuh4EMCLhG3CWrZatI89yoh6D1GkbwfsKEK-DV9B_Fcg370/s400/photo+3.jpg" width="298" /></a>It smelled amazing, and the matchbox sized kitchen was obviously already busy preparing food for the day, as well as the odd takeaways which appeared every so often. The menu was quite small, but in that really good way where you know everything is going to be cooked carefully and with exacting detail. There were an impressive number of vegetarian dishes, and not one meal that I wouldn't have ordered. Floraidh and I both went for the Chilli Garlic Chicken, consistently one of my favourite curries, mine with pickle and hers without. On the side we each ordered a naan bread, with Floraidh getting a plain and me going for my somewhat guilty favourite, Peshwari, which I only get if I'm not sharing it because a) Calum doesn't like it, and he is my regular curry partner and b) it's too good to share anyway.<br />
The food came quickly, after we had watched it being cooked, served in a little copper pan with the naan in a basket beside it.<br />
It was delicious, spicy but not too spicy, full of vegetables and really well cooked chicken, fresh garlic and green chillies, as well as a fragrant but subtle blend of other flavours.<br />
The naans were hot and obviously freshly made, and I scoffed the whole of the Peshwari despite being completely full, just because it was so good. The quality of the food was on a par with what I have eaten at other, 'fancy' Indian restaurants, but paid almost double for. The two paired together made the perfect size lunch, and we left full, but not stuffed.<br />
I'll admit, we even got an ice-cream afterwards, but that was nothing but greed.<br />
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My meal, plus a soft drink, cost me just over a tenner which was almost unbelievable given the quality of the food and the excellent service. Both of the waiters that served us were chatty, informative and really friendly. The restaurant itself is lovely inside, with subtle Scottish decoration and a calm, friendly atmosphere, perfect for lunch and a glass of wine with a girlfriend, or an intimate romantic meal. Given the incredible prices, gentle on even the stingiest of student budgets, I will definitely be going back to The Little Curry House and I think it will be my go to when it comes to a curry craving, especially given it's worryingly close proximity to the University. Library break, anyone?<br />
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Good quality, well priced, with delicious ingredients and a subtlety of flavour that makes perfect sense when you know of the head chefs prowess, The Little Curry House produces amazing quality Indian cuisine but without any flashiness, other than the impressiveness of the food. I would recommend this charming little restaurant in a heartbeat, whether you are a relatively new curry fan or a connoisseur. Don't be fooled by it's small size, The Little Curry House delivers some seriously impressive food.<br />
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Lindsay x <br />
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<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-72023476733160858702015-06-28T09:42:00.000-07:002015-06-28T10:05:49.762-07:00Review, an excellent Indian - Cafe India TapasIndian cuisine is one of my favourites.<br />
It's a tricky one though, as apart from rustling up a quick jalfrezi with some peppers, chicken and paste from a jar (my spice cupboard is not as extensive as I would like it to be) it can be hard to know where is best to go for a good Indian meal.<br />
An average takeaway is frankly not worth the tummy ache. A really good one gets incredibly expensive before you know it - once you've added the poppadoms you can be paying so much you may as well just get a Dominos topped with tikka sauce and onion bhaji.<br />
Similarly, eating out in good Indian restaurants is often over my usual budget, so apart from celebrating a birthday or anniversary, it's not something I do as often as I would like to. So, when you find a really good, reasonably priced Indian restaurant, with authentic food that delivers it's money worth, it's like discovering a hidden gem, or a needle in a haystack.<br />
Needless to say, coming across two in the West End in the past few weeks has left me feeling very lucky indeed. This review and the consecutive blog will hopefully explain why.<br />
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I have tried a few of the Indians around me. Masala Twist on Byres Road is excellent, but a little pricey. The Full Bhoona, irresistibly close to my flat, is sadly lacking.<br />
If I want a good, reasonably priced takeaway I go to Queens Cross on Maryhill. The couple of times I have been, the curry has been surprisingly good for the cost, but it's just a tiny takeaway so it's more of a stop over after a few pints than somewhere to go for dinner.<br />
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The first of my new discoveries is one that is fairly new to Great Western Road, Cafe India Tapas. However, trying to do research (I always like to check menus and prices before I commit to eating out) proved difficult. The website didn't seem to correspond with the restaurant menu I expected and I couldn't find much on their Facebook page. So, turning to reviews I was told repeatedly that it was good quality food and good value for money, particularly because it is BYOB, which can bring down the cost by as much as ten pounds per person. One night when we fancied a spontaneous dinner out, Calum and I grabbed a four pack of Stella and headed along.<br />
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We were seated by a lovely waitress on the mezzanine level of the restaurant, and brought our menus, as well as a couple of glasses for our terribly classy drinks.<br />
As the name suggests, the majority of the dishes are tapas style, although you can opt to choose just one as a single main if, like my brother, sharing food makes you violently uncomfortable. Never ones to miss out on trying as much food as humanly possible, we opted for the tapas.<br />
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We went for five dishes; the butter chicken, the chicken chillie garlic, channa daal, chicken karahi (punjabi style) and the chicken achari, plus a pilau rice each and a garlic naan to share.<br />
Poppadoms came first, served with excellent spiced onions and shortly followed by the rest of the food. For tapas dishes there was a very reasonable portion of each dish.<br />
None of our choices disappointed.<br />
The channa daal was delicately spiced yet still hearty, Calum declared he could eat a whole bowl of it on it's own. The butter chicken wasn't just chicken in sweet cream, which is sometimes a risk with mild curries, but delicious. My favourites were probably the chicken chillie garlic and the chicken achari, which is cooked in chilli pickle. Both were quite spicy, with visible green chillies, but it wasn't a case of scorched tastebuds, the other flavours still came through for a balanced taste.<br />
The garlic naan was delicious, the chicken tender and all of the food had been noticeably cooked to order. It had a wonderfully homey, authentic and humble air about it, as if you were sitting down and eating food with an Indian family. Without pretension, just a focus on good ingredients and incredible flavour.<br />
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The combination of curry and beer meant we could hardly speak to each other by the time we were finished. When offered the option of dessert, we both declined. However, our host told us that the chef had just made a dessert that was probably the best he had ever tasted. Still not convinced we could manage another bite, he was charmingly relentless and brought us some to share, on the house. I didn't quite get the name but I think they were Gulab Jamun, which are sweet Indian dumplings served in sugar syrup, sort of like exotic treacle sponge pudding. I have never tried them before, but they were incredible, served with lovely vanilla ice-cream and piping hot, they were definitely worth being so full we had to walk home at snail pace. I would even order them the next time I visit.<br />
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When the bill came, it was just under £30. At £15 each, to share five curries, a naan and have a rice to ourselves I don't think I have ever had a more reasonably priced Indian meal, especially seeing as I didn't have to eat the next day because there was so much food. It just shows you how much not having to spend a fiver on a watered down pint makes a difference.<br />
Now that I know just how good Cafe India Tapas is, and that the takeaway branch (situated right next to the restaurant) is within easy walking distance, I think it will probably become my go-to Indian restaurant. I will definitely be taking my family next time they come to visit, as it's a great space for large parties and the nature of the dishes makes it perfect for sharing with a big group, unfortunately for my brother.<br />
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I would highly recommend it for anyone who wants an authentic Indian that isn't quite as 'West End' pricey as Ashoka or Masala Twist. The staff are lovely and the service was impeccable, it really is worth a visit.<br />
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In my next blog, which will hopefully be following shortly I will write about my other newfound Indian favourite. Perhaps one with a more intimate vibe, but just as good in different ways. I've made myself hungry now, might need to get out the spice paste.<br />
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Lindsay x<br />
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<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-22640257284528511422015-05-18T05:28:00.000-07:002015-05-18T05:36:04.057-07:00The best chippy in Glasgow? The Chippy Doon The LaneFish and Chips. The British classic, by this point almost overtaking burgers as my go-to comfort food. It transforms a city lunch break into a short holiday, and even if it IS covered in batter, a really good fish and chips can be satisfying in an (almost) light way. Or so I like to tell myself.<br />
Old Salties has so far been the chippy I frequent the most, I've written about it before. It's close-by and really, really good, as well as reasonably priced.<br />
But as they say, variety is the spice of life. Not wanting to get stuck in the same old, chip shaped rut, Calum and I headed into town to a chippy I've been told about before, but never visited. One that is recognised as an iconic Glaswegian restaurant, The Chippy Doon the Lane.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy7-QBDSitDnwMiJ8mElKH43hMNEYTq9F_ZMyl0fQbw3NUHFPndmMnTMJMAMoNV33brbhMGNTzgpoXd1zovyo9K9MfeOKQLme0R78EJHOGw1vYU0ou5NDt48kxLPyzqpygQStdWBcnPfjX/s1600/photo+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy7-QBDSitDnwMiJ8mElKH43hMNEYTq9F_ZMyl0fQbw3NUHFPndmMnTMJMAMoNV33brbhMGNTzgpoXd1zovyo9K9MfeOKQLme0R78EJHOGw1vYU0ou5NDt48kxLPyzqpygQStdWBcnPfjX/s640/photo+3.jpg" width="476" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3sUF9YrWYE118MZeGFhnOs8R9sNbB6CKa4FCh_-QHIn6blK1ouxhBncwfqErkqZOraMaMBsm3aTKwqWkZBKMCEN3SxA4E6hqbKFRqPfsMDkMxk9TxSVrcceFK_cCsPdY-_J8jr8fmrLv/s1600/photo+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3sUF9YrWYE118MZeGFhnOs8R9sNbB6CKa4FCh_-QHIn6blK1ouxhBncwfqErkqZOraMaMBsm3aTKwqWkZBKMCEN3SxA4E6hqbKFRqPfsMDkMxk9TxSVrcceFK_cCsPdY-_J8jr8fmrLv/s640/photo+2.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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If you go to Old Salties for your faux seaside lunch, then you would head to The Chippy Down the Lane for your fancy holiday dinner. Down the tiny, and inconveniently un-signposted McCormick lane, off to the left of Buchanan street if you're coming down from the galleries, it is pretty easy to find as long as you keep your eyes peeled. When you do, the restaurant is Tardis like. From the outside and the thin entrance staircase you expect a pokey wee place to match the traditional twee name. Instead, it opens up into a huge, modern and very chic restaurant, with a number of different rooms and a marquee. It feels classy, yet down to earth and friendly. You would not look out of place if you were sipping on one of their selection of £5 cocktails to go with your fish supper, or had ordered a bottle of prosecco.<br />
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The menu offers a selection of fish more extensive than most chip shops, from sustainable pollock and coley, traditional cod and haddock, to the more luxurious plaice. For non-fish eaters, the menu includes a fantastic looking burger, tangy southern fried BBQ chicken, fishcakes, tandoori salmon as well as haggis, black pudding, sausage and steak pie suppers. Deal wise, they have a lot going for them. Opt for the 'Fish Tea Special', which includes a Coley supper, tartar sauce, lemon, bread and butter and either tea or coffee, for just £6.45. If you are stopping in for dinner with a girlfriend, or a lunchtime break from shopping, you can get two fish suppers and two small glasses of house wine for a very reasonable £18. So far, so good.<br />
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Now, I fully appreciate that a good fish and chips is a good fish and chips and there is only so much between one and the next. So it has to be down to the little things to elevate your chippy above the others, and ensure the food lives up to the hype. The Chippy Doon the Lane dubs itself "the best chippy in Glasgow", well, we would soon see.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhvdMiRs8h3I0B23bonR3O3A8ROGvK5U_eYQS6pcll95BZ16ENOivu6IhEblswr62XA1EQEOoy6_xS-wX2bV9wfn2h7aDRL_UynOxWMmKPgYuRIn5rk0-5mMrqUEDprDhjZv0FT4P8e5WB/s1600/photo+5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhvdMiRs8h3I0B23bonR3O3A8ROGvK5U_eYQS6pcll95BZ16ENOivu6IhEblswr62XA1EQEOoy6_xS-wX2bV9wfn2h7aDRL_UynOxWMmKPgYuRIn5rk0-5mMrqUEDprDhjZv0FT4P8e5WB/s640/photo+5.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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I chose to have my pollock battered, never one for the healthy option, and it was delicious. The fish itself wasn't the whale-like portion that you sometimes get, but to me that was a good thing, it meant I really enjoyed the portion I had. It was perfect, the fish was fresh and flakey and I ate all the light, crispy batter. I would really recommend pollock, it's a sustainable white fish which is just as delicious and meaty as haddock or cod, but doesn't damage diminishing fish stocks. The huge bed of delicious chips the fish came on made sure I was definitely full, but not in a way that made me feel like having a three-day-long nap. I also had the mushy peas, made with traditional, creamy marrowfat peas, the richness of which was cut perfectly by the tangy homemade tartar sauce. The whole lot was served in a cardboard tray, complete with wooden fish fork. Heavenly. Calum, who for years hasn't been able to eat fish, is slowly trying to acclimatise himself to it once more, and this was the first time he tried my fish and said he enjoyed it. Not just tolerated it, but actually liked it. If this pollock can convince him, it will definitely tick boxes for you.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE4fjgav7xtgpub-ZkQFBVyBxYGENDIhlycL7jRkbn-RjnL_Fvpz46cRpVwsFNBNbIKuz0IsFcewf4NpFareLJXmtdGofh5mnlkNeSKlSIs8j11TzjvLblmvNO-LQW_Lw6EvwuFLUm_I8k/s1600/photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE4fjgav7xtgpub-ZkQFBVyBxYGENDIhlycL7jRkbn-RjnL_Fvpz46cRpVwsFNBNbIKuz0IsFcewf4NpFareLJXmtdGofh5mnlkNeSKlSIs8j11TzjvLblmvNO-LQW_Lw6EvwuFLUm_I8k/s400/photo+1.jpg" width="400" /></a>Calum had the southern fried chicken goujons, which came on a bed of chips with salad, BBQ sauce and coleslaw. The chicken was free range, a big plus since when you eat chicken out most of the time, you know it isn't, but nevertheless I always feel guilty choosing not to ask. The chicken was fried in a batter that was heavier than the fish batter, but it complemented the goujons perfectly, and was lightly spiced. Calum said the coleslaw wasn't the best he'd ever had, but overall he really enjoyed his meal and finished the lot. He was full too, and he has hollow legs.<br />
Price wise, we paid just under £25 for our meal, and given the quality and quantity of the food, as well as the excellent service, it felt well worth it. The only thing I would say was that the alcoholic drinks were a bit too pricey for me. For instance a pint of Heineken was a fiver, which seems a bit ridiculous, seeing as the cocktails were also £5 and a pint of craft beer in most good pubs isn't that expensive. However they did regain a few points, because you can choose to get a pint of your favourite soft drink, rather than just a glass or can, something I really like as some places just give you those tiny glass bottles which you end up needing three of.<br />
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Overall, The Chippy Doon the Lane is definitely high up in my personal running for 'the best chippy in Glasgow'. The actual fish supper was one of the most delicious I have had and I can't wait to try the different fish options on the menu, as well as the other dishes. The non-fish options make it a great place to take anyone, and the restaurant has a flexible atmosphere, making it appropriate for any occasion, be it casual lunch or special meal. You can even hire out any of the rooms for private dining, and it seems like a perfect venue for a quirky wedding reception.<br />
Of course, different chippys offer different things, but this one is a perfect mashup of elegant dining experience and great comfort food, prosecco and cardboard fish trays meeting in perfect harmony, yet still with great value for money and brilliant, friendly service.<br />
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The Chippy Doon the Lane is perfect for those times when you feel like going out for a treat, but still eating something simple and classic, that's reasonably priced and not a burger - although they have one of those if you really fancy it - but still hits all of the same, indulgent buttons. Go, I urge you, and be ready for a place that makes your humble fish supper a really special occasion. Worth writing poetry about.<br />
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Lindsay x<br />
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<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-33646414744668974032015-05-09T06:00:00.002-07:002015-05-09T06:00:59.486-07:00Review: A tongue twister of a burger @ Burger Meats Bun (meats burger meats bun meats...?) Living in Glasgow, there are hundreds of places to eat. Sometimes, it feels like all of them are burger joints. Not that I'm complaining (I'm really not) but sometimes it can get a bit confusing, even tiring. Bread Meats Bread, Handmade Burger Company, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Ketchup... Endless combinations of the words burger, bun, meat, bread, you get the idea. They all seem to be weirdly close to each other too, head to West Regent Street and there are burger restaurants as far as the eye can see. <div>
Nevertheless, my exams finished earlier this week so it was out in search of something festive in a burger bun to celebrate. I will find the best burger in Glasgow, although at this rate it will take years and a couple of dress sizes. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9U_u4uZQznvARbcVBlqGy8nFLE-iGLLPQ63I6QjEr6KGl_OonddaxCgdkEUqpT-U8KdnpBdBN1AYSSdCCQJp7vdYT1alAQKpiJfs5eR7WvZjpTfLM0seQKB7tZTkQZ1bBI_bqzuS29aNC/s1600/photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9U_u4uZQznvARbcVBlqGy8nFLE-iGLLPQ63I6QjEr6KGl_OonddaxCgdkEUqpT-U8KdnpBdBN1AYSSdCCQJp7vdYT1alAQKpiJfs5eR7WvZjpTfLM0seQKB7tZTkQZ1bBI_bqzuS29aNC/s320/photo+1.jpg" width="239" /></a>So, me and my friend Sarah went to one of the synonymously named places that I hadn't been yet, Burger Meats Bun. Burger Meats Bun is one of the most well renowned places to get your burger in Glasgow, winning Yelp awards for being a top place to eat. The two guys that run it met whilst working at the Michelin-star Peat Inn, in Fife. I've been lucky enough to eat there once before, and it is nothing short of heavenly. Accommodating and friendly despite the fact that it was Michelin-Starred and my family and I rocked up in shorts and with sandy knees, when everyone else was in dinner suits. Oops. </div>
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Knowing that this was the birthplace of the Burger Meats Bun idea, I already knew I was in for something more than your standard Big Mac, in terms of both quality and the atmosphere of the place.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMXDzfwO00zFR1Gs5SDeYYjgv_IJlXiYFGp9ADS93N96AzoAPBJfzVjiyTKBDq0yKZvon8UfBOnxaqgMpfe0jbI2zOPDxQixt4VD15m4tkwYcTPWht4fm5-qOO_mPhSh_uum-CQriOwPsy/s1600/photo+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMXDzfwO00zFR1Gs5SDeYYjgv_IJlXiYFGp9ADS93N96AzoAPBJfzVjiyTKBDq0yKZvon8UfBOnxaqgMpfe0jbI2zOPDxQixt4VD15m4tkwYcTPWht4fm5-qOO_mPhSh_uum-CQriOwPsy/s400/photo+4.jpg" width="298" /></a>On West Regent Street, the restaurant is at basement level, giving you the weird feeling that you're going into a nightclub. When you get into it though, it is cosy yet modern, with some quirky twists. Cute murals, relevant quotes and the like. The little plastic cows, farmer and tractor were a personal favourite, it made me and my fellow county bumpkin Sarah feel right at home, and the kitchen roll on the table is a definite good shout. </div>
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Having looked at the menu before we went, I had a feeling that I would end up going for their seasonal burger. Made of seasonal ingredients, the Spring version was the 'Dolly Bun'. A Lamb patty, topped with feta cheese, peas, broad beans, fennel, black olive tapanade and lollo rosso. </div>
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I'm not normally one for lamb. I find it overly fatty and a bit too rich, but in burger form it's normally not quite as indulgent. </div>
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This burger was perfect. </div>
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I am not exaggerating when I say it was, perhaps, one of the best I have had so far. The combination of the succulent, but not too rich lamb, with the deliciously fresh spring flavours and salty feta was so good that it was gone in a matter of minutes. It was like eating one of my favourite salads, and I wasn't left feeling like I weighed three stone more, it was light and felt disconcertingly healthy. That of course all changed when I washed it down with the Thai Chilli Cheese fries. The portion is just the right size to share between two, and they are deliciously spicy, topped with fresh red chilli, cheese and spring onion. </div>
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Sarah went for the other special. They change their specials very regularly, and I'm not sure how often, if at all, they are rotated, but Sarah had 'The Bun with No Name'. A Korean/Japanese inspired burger, it consisted of a breaded chicken base, with lime and coriander slaw, kimchi, lettuce and red dragon mayo. I tried it and it was just as good as mine, the combination of zingy Asian flavours giving it a similar refreshing lift. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5_vOHWvuKZeOVi3QDVbozGZbfPcwYFnyiWUIl91bhRBS6QyYa25vp-jLp-QejjInH4Mxu8BAQn6KqrMJVZaIUdQIXhEBVUc8J_K5J1fTVoBeuMA2EdsJtD5tS9w_1V3iYTlLq3IDqb_Bh/s1600/photo+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5_vOHWvuKZeOVi3QDVbozGZbfPcwYFnyiWUIl91bhRBS6QyYa25vp-jLp-QejjInH4Mxu8BAQn6KqrMJVZaIUdQIXhEBVUc8J_K5J1fTVoBeuMA2EdsJtD5tS9w_1V3iYTlLq3IDqb_Bh/s400/photo+3.jpg" width="298" /></a>We finished off with a delicious and light chocolate milkshake, served in a delightfully kitsch milk bottle with striped paper straws. Cute, but perhaps not the most practical, they go all soggy if you don't make fast work of the milkshake. Motivational, perhaps. </div>
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Burger Meats Bun is slightly more expensive than some burger places, my Dolly Bun was a tenner, but not compared to the ones that offer a similar kind of 'experience', such as Bread Meats Bread. I have to say, much as I enjoyed the highly praised Bread Meats Bread a lot, I would definitely go back to Burger Meats Bun sooner. </div>
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Confusing I know, sorry. </div>
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It might have just been down to what I chose on the day, but the freshness of the flavours in my spring themed burger was satisfying in a way that I enjoyed more than having a brisket topped, gravy soaked something or other. It's all mood/day/weather/occasion dependant though, I suppose.</div>
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Anyway, if you're being put off going for a burger, are feeling like you have exhausted the ranks of restaurants and just want to admit defeat, I would recommend trying Burger Meats Bun before you give up completely or visit the same place twice. These are burgers with their roots founded upon a Michelin-Star after all... so they're really bloody good. You might be left with your tongue twisted, but only in a good way.</div>
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Lindsay x </div>
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Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-20408857049508468792015-04-28T03:56:00.000-07:002015-04-28T04:33:39.614-07:00How to eat like you're at the beach, without leaving the West End of Glasgow. I'm a country girl at heart. As much as I love living in the city, and in spite of spending my formative years in Calgary, I know, ultimately, that I want to end up somewhere where I have a nice garden and maybe even no neighbours.<br />
Don't get me wrong, right now you couldn't pay me to live anywhere but Glasgow. It's perfect, full of life, amazing people and endless things to do. It's my favourite city in Scotland, and it now truly feels like home. But sometimes everyone needs a break from the bustle of city life. However, my post today isn't a recommendation of a nice beach to go to or hill to climb, instead I'm posting an 'eat like you're at the seaside' blog, without having to leave the West End.<br />
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Pah, I hear you say, impossible. But with summer approaching 3 out of 7 days a week, blink and you'll miss the warm days. SO, if it's too short notice to get out of the city, or to the coast, this recipe for lunch destinations with that 'coastal feel' will fool your tastebuds into thinking you're in a seaside town.<br />
It all started when I met my friend, and blogger extraordinaire, (check her out she's something special) Floraidh, for lunch. Dithering about where to go, we both decided on a place we frequent far to much. The chippy on Byres Road, Old Salty's. Many posts ago I wrote about a place called Charlie Rocks. Well, Old Salty's now takes up the Charlie Rocks unit. Run by the same small Glasgow-based group of restaurants, they were changed over not too long ago. Whilst I liked Charlie Rocks, I think the people who makes these decisions made a wise, wise move. I've been to Old Salty's more times than I care, or even remotely want to, remember. This is for a number of reasons - <br />
Fish and chips is my favourite food (besides burgers) and they do a seriously mean fish and chips.<br />
They have a five pound lunch deal, during the week, which is seriously good value for money, given the mammoth portion sizes.<br />
The macaroni cheese, available on it's own on the lunch deal and also in their macaroni pies, is what I want my last meal on this earth to be.<br />
The chips are exactly like they 'chippy' chips from your childhood, only way better.<br />
You can take out the food, (way too tempting) or sit in the cute restaurant, the upstairs of which has a great, almost birds-eye view of Byres Road, great for people watching if you're dining alone (see Floraidh's latest blog).<br />
It takes me around ten minutes to walk to it from my front door, although there is also one in Finnieston.<br />
They have many, many delicious non-fish options for my non-fish eating boyfriend.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7LEFpSRyrCXDIbmntzWqUaL-I9_al-q24RDI1Swpg2DfDIyr30k01wKZZ7gMpVfxUPW6yYqVSnIX2Zxvm5_rVyHvvrWV43yxyMbqB8_OXfKtFg4MwPZdS34YFtsGVVwqmYChP5Vcx3bPP/s1600/photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7LEFpSRyrCXDIbmntzWqUaL-I9_al-q24RDI1Swpg2DfDIyr30k01wKZZ7gMpVfxUPW6yYqVSnIX2Zxvm5_rVyHvvrWV43yxyMbqB8_OXfKtFg4MwPZdS34YFtsGVVwqmYChP5Vcx3bPP/s1600/photo+1.jpg" height="640" width="476" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The macaroni cheese, on the £5 lunch deal. </td></tr>
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Because I have visited so often, I have tried the Haddock supper, the Hake supper, their macaroni, the macaroni pie and the steak pie. I know, I winced whilst I typed that. I've also had the ice-cream and jelly, and the chocolate brownie. Ahhhhh.<br />
Nonetheless, they were all delicious and I couldn't recommend them enough. I'm pretty fussy when it comes to fish and chips, to the extent that heavy batter actually makes me physically ill. The batter at Old Salty's is always light, crisp and hot, you can tell it's been freshly made. I even tried some of Calum's deep fried haggis one time (I know, how stereotypical) and it was, despite all expectations, light and fluffy. Whilst me and Flo were eating our Haddock suppers, we started reminiscing about the chip shop in Anstruther, one of the most picturesque seaside towns in Scotland, when it hit me. We could be on to something here. Taste-escapism.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Haddock Supper</td></tr>
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For dessert, we continued the seaside theme and decided on ice-cream. Leaving Old Salty's, we went to Crolla's, an Italian ice-cream parlour that has been a Glaswegian institution for over 100 years. It's also on Byres Road, and I had never been before. Looking at the menu proved difficult enough, but that was before I even saw the ice-cream counter. Piled high in beautiful, colourful Napoli display trays, which make you feel like you're on holiday, they have flavours you couldn't imagine. From patriotic tablet and Irn Bru, to exotic Baileys, Turkish Delight and Coconut, it took me ten minutes to decide. I ended up with a rather unusual, but nonetheless delicious combination of apple pie and baileys. Two scoops served in a lovely glass sunday dish. Floraidh opted for tablet and chocolate. The menu also has elaborate sundays, waffles and a raw cookie dough dish that I will have to try the next time I go. As we sat downstairs (because it was raining, obviously) with the ice-cream ending our lovely fish and chips, it truly felt like if you threw in a couple of little boats and some freezing cold paddling we could be in lovely Anstruther, or any other picturesque seaside town. Hey, you could even head down to the pond in Kelvingrove Park and really complete the picture. I'm joking, please don't.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apple Pie and Bailey's, from Crolla's</td></tr>
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We were both left feeling happy, and so well rested and full that we actually needed naps. Lunch had provided the perfect mini-break, without having to pack beyond a handbag. So, next time it's beautiful weather and you want that 'stay cation' feeling, put on a summery outfit and go and sit outside Old Salty's, then wash it down with some traditional Glaswegian ice-cream from Crolla's, which you can take out if it's nice enough to go and sit in the park. The perfect faux holiday pairing.<br />
Holiday sorted, and in under two hours.<br />
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Lindsay x<br />
<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-73657210351179847202015-04-18T05:21:00.000-07:002015-04-18T05:21:26.518-07:00Falling in love with Nippon KitchenI have been trying to not eat out so much, for a number of reasons. These include cost, waning healthy aspirations as well as the fact that I don't deserve a social life at the moment because every waking moment should be filled with studying. <div>
HOWEVER, earlier this week I was afforded a hiatus from my (lack of...) hard work as my Mum and youngest brother came down for a visit. This of course conquered all of my previous reservations. My lovely, beautiful, kindhearted Mother would probably pay, it would be rude to not wholeheartedly enjoy the most of her generosity and <i>ruder still</i> to keep my head stuck in a book when my beloved family had travelled to see me. Excellent. </div>
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So on Wednesday night we went to Ketchup. I don't think I had been in over a year and given my weakness for anything in a burger bun, it was great. I had the 'from Russia with love', a beef burger with lettuce, goats cheese and beetroot chutney. It was lovely and the flavours were great, the goats cheese really made it. Mum went for her favourite, their fish finger sandwich. Even though she was sat staring at Brel, her favourite place in the whole world, she was comforted in the knowledge that Brel have taken theirs off the menu. It was a win win. </div>
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Liam, of course, went for the Glaswegian crowning glory. The 'egg on your face'. I have had it before and can vouch for it's deliciousness, but don't go for it if you have eaten in the last twelve hours or have any reservations about getting egg <i>all over </i>your face. It is a beef burger topped with a full cooked breakfast. Egg, black pudding, bacon, a potato scone, cooked tomato and HP sauce. All washed down with a banoffee milkshake and skinny fries, no less. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTnRnRZJao2bx0AywZbyU58c9r8C3MeDvdGXH7Lvpved1zHC5Fjlqv2hBRI7lHj7-zDL8HpZw9a49B9WADpWo4hyphenhyphenD_QKrrG35aDC5U4CMzpvumhgHYJ8CjkmRJdAmeusBmpoIKaIssPCA7/s1600/photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTnRnRZJao2bx0AywZbyU58c9r8C3MeDvdGXH7Lvpved1zHC5Fjlqv2hBRI7lHj7-zDL8HpZw9a49B9WADpWo4hyphenhyphenD_QKrrG35aDC5U4CMzpvumhgHYJ8CjkmRJdAmeusBmpoIKaIssPCA7/s1600/photo+1.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a>It was Thursday that brought the real excitement though. Having gone into town to shop, we ended up pondering what to have for lunch and landed on sushi, wanting something healthy after the burgers the night before. I have been to Wudon in the West End, and would definitely recommend it, but hadn't so far had Japanese in the city centre. We didn't want to end up in YO! Sushi so I did a bit of Googling, and as it happened we were just around the corner from Nippon Kitchen. I had heard some great things about it from friends, but so far never visited, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. </div>
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Inside it is lovely. In a corner building on West George Street, the restaurant is beautifully decorated with Japanese art and smells amazing, of wasabi and soy sauce. We were seated in at the window automatically and given the menus, both the lunchtime special menu and the regular one. The lunchtime menu looked great, and was very reasonably priced, but we ended up all getting bento boxes from the main menu, as we couldn't decide between getting mains or getting sushi, and this was the best of both worlds. </div>
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Me and Liam went for the seafood bento, and mum for the vegetarian. Each box came with a delicious miso soup to start with, one of my absolute favourites. It was light and flavourful and full of tender tofu and seaweed. Then came the sushi, three California Maki rolls each for me and Liam, which were delicious. Mum's came with tempura sweet potato maki rolls, a combination which might sound odd but was wonderful. Light, sweet and obviously freshly rolled. It might have been the best sushi I have ever had. </div>
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The boxes came after that. I love the cuteness of a bento box. Everything in it's little compartments makes me feel like I'm in 'My neighbour Totoro', it is like everything you could wish for if you got to design your own school dinner. My box was nothing short of beautiful; salmon teriyaki, panko breaded king prawns, crispy seafood gyoza and pickles. The salmon was sweet and sticky, which was contrasted perfectly with the tangy, sharp gyoza and all finished off with light and crispy panko prawns with a delicious dipping sauce. </div>
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The vegetarian box was equally impressive; vegetable tempura, edamame beans, crispy vegetable gyoza and Japanese curry sauce, the likes of which you get with a katsu curry. My mum is quite fussy with fried things, and she said the vegetable tempura was the lightest tempura she has ever had. The curry sauce was delicious and also packed with veg. I am always disappointed by curry sauces which are just sauces with no vegetables, so this was a big positive. Both boxes came with steamed rice, and so were plenty filling in that lovely way that comes from eating well made Asian food. You are full, but you feel like you have done your body good, and it won't sit in your stomach for the next three days. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vegetarian Bento Box </td></tr>
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Despite being comfortably full, we had to go for pudding. We shared green tea ice-cream and banana tempura with vanilla ice-cream. I don't think I will ever be able to convey with words just how <i>amazing </i>the banana was. It was like all your favourite desserts in one, somehow tasting like a pancake/doughnut/fresh banana at the same time, but still not stodgy in any way. Served in golden syrup, if I had died right there and then, I would have been happy. The green tea ice cream was also delicious, fragrant and sweet. We did take issue with the little beans it was served with though. I couldn't really fault the taste, but I think it will take me a few more visits to get my head around eating what feels like tiny baked beans with ice-cream. </div>
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I have to say, it was one of the best meals I have ever had, in Glasgow and beyond. I love Japanese food, but rarely eat it out beyond chain restaurants. However, I will definitely be going back to Nippon Kitchen as soon as I can. The lunch menu was great value for money, and whilst the bento boxes were perhaps a bit pricier that some of the other mains, it came with sushi and miso so it was definitely good value and a great way to sample a lot of different things. We left feeling full, healthy and very satisfied. </div>
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I know this has been a rave, but (aside from the bizarre beans) there was nothing I could fault. I loved the restaurant, the food and the service was excellent. If you're a fan of Japanese, I beg you to go and please invite me along with you. I can't wait to try everything else on the menu and just writing this has made me crave it so much I might need to go and get some sushi from Tesco, although I have a feeling that might just not cut it...<br /></div>
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Lindsay x </div>
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Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-36927936394361892112015-04-14T04:58:00.001-07:002015-04-14T05:14:17.754-07:00An 'Instagram-worthy' Brunch, at TriBeCa Cafe. Brunch is a meal which always fills me with envy. Being my favourite kind of food, I tend to eat 'breakfast' as many times a day as I can. Scrambled/poached/boiled eggs are often what I have for my lunch, being both healthy and quick, and I even own a waffle iron for those days when indulgence feels necessary.<br />
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Come the weekend, and my Instagram is flooded with pictures of brunch from all over the world, taunting me, teasing me, laughing at my poor Wheetabix. 70% of the people I follow are foodies both from Glasgow, as well as further afield. The other 30% are, ironically, beautiful people who look like they never eat pancakes unless they are raw or possibly made from chia.<br />
Not that I am belittling in any way. I wish more than anything I had a) a modicum of self control when it comes to food b) any motivation whatsoever to joint a gym and c) all the money in the world to spend in Roots and Fruits on beautiful, healthy and occasionally powdered ingredients.<br />
Whilst I did visit the Juice Garden on Byres Road for the first time yesterday and had a lovely acai berry smoothie, supposedly to aid weight loss, I will never, ever say no to a burger even if it is made of beef and not falafel. Despite my (normally good) efforts to always eat healthily, which I enjoy more than I may make out, I may have to unfollow the beautiful people of Instagram for a while, or at least until I get my 'bikini' body. Ha.<br />
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This Sunday past, looking at pictures of hollandaise got too much. Having made waffles so many times of late they weren't as exciting as they should be, Calum and I decided to actually go and get brunch somewhere other than my Ikea table.<br />
I know that at the weekend Glasgow's brunch game is on point. The small but perfectly formed North Star Cafe, just at the bottom of my road, does a cooked breakfast to rave about, but gets so busy that if you don't get down for 10am on the dot, you will only get a table by sheer luck until closing. The wonderful little Italian, run by amazing friendly people, actually won Glasgow's 'Best Cafe of the Year' yesterday, congratulations!<br />
If you are a Glasgow native and you haven't been, you should be ashamed of yourself. I'm kidding, but go along as soon as you can for delicious fresh Italian food in the friendliest of atmospheres at very reasonable prices.<br />
I have also tried brunch with my parents before at the gorgeous 'Epicures of Hyndland' which is beautiful and elegant, if a bit beyond my price range, but a definite recommendation.<br />
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However, me and Calum wanted to go somewhere new and we ended up at the TriBeCa Cafe, on Park Road. I have been wanting to try TriBeCa ever since I moved to the West End, but somehow have never got around to it. The menu promised the indulgence food I normally long for - big, unapologetic American cuisine, and the all day breakfast menu looked like one of the best I had seen, which made it an obvious choice.<br />
The Park Road branch is situated just beside the bottom of Kelvingrove park, right next to Kelvinbridge Subway station, so walking along on a sunny day is really lovely.<br />
When we were seated, it took far longer to choose than normal. The menu was full of eggs, heavenly looking buttermilk pancakes with endless toppings, gargantuan five-egg omelettes, New York style french toast, as well as burgers, sandwiches and salads. In the end I went for one of my brunch favourites, eggs florentine, and Calum went for the Brooklyn Breakfast. The best of all worlds, if your stomach can take it - a stack of buttermilk pancakes, two bacon rashers, two link sausages, two eggs in your chosen style and a cooked tomato, all served with maple syrup. By the time Calum was finished he was nearly paralysed.<br />
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My meal was similarly filling, the two poached eggs and butter wilted spinach topped a bagel, not an English muffin, making the whole thing more substantial that usual. The hollandaise was one of the best I have had so far in Glasgow; thick, creamy, sunshine-yellow and not too vinegary, which can be a killer.<br />
Calum paired his brunch with their freshly squeezed orange juice, and I opted for the same but with lemonade. I would seriously suggest getting some tap water too, if you're thirsty, because it was really hard trying to stop ourselves drinking the wonderful juice in one go.<br />
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I would wholeheartedly recommend the TriBeCa Cafe to anyone who likes their food to be seriously gutsy, it is not for the faint-hearted or lovers of small portions. They have three locations in Glasgow including Park Road, as well as one on Dumbarton Road and one on Fenwick Road. The day menu is sublime, and from 5pm to 10pm they have a 'Smoak' menu, which offers BBQ, burgers, hotdogs and the mother of all greed, poutine. Oh, and they serve you your bill with jellybeans... when can I move in?<br />
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I'<span style="text-align: center;">ll be going back as soon as I can, to try an evening meal perhaps, or even just for another brunch and eventually one of their famous 'Snow Blizzards'. I think it will take a lot of visits to exhaust their selection.</span><br />
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For now though, it's time to stop procrastinating and go and do some much-needed revision. Hey, I might even make myself poached eggs for lunch, albeit in my pathetic little silicon egg poachers...<br />
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Lindsay x<br />
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<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-79821234939296802832015-04-01T12:53:00.000-07:002015-04-01T13:04:52.132-07:00Beer tour of Glasgow pt. 1 - Brewdog and Drygate Brewery Since Sunday my boyfriend Calum has had a week off of work, and since term is finished we have been having a bit of a holiday. Instead of packing up and heading somewhere costal as originally planned, we decided to stay put and actually spend some time exploring what Glasgow has to offer, before the studying has to seriously kick in. Probably a good move, considering how awful the weather has been.<br />
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We had a few things planned for our stay-cation. Today we ticked off a walk around the beautiful Culzean Castle in Ayr, lovely but very windswept; don't put much effort into your hair when you go, and wear sensible shoes.<br />
Tip: Park in the village of Maidens just along from the castle and walk along the coast until you get to it. It's free (unlike the steep National Trust parking at the site) and the walk along the beach and cliffs is incredibly beautiful, giving a great view of Ailsa Craig, the volcanic plug lying just off the coast, even eerily visible on a day like today.<br />
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As well as exploring new areas, we wanted to tick off a few places in Glasgow. Namely, beer-type places. Calum is big into his craft beer. I like it, don't get me wrong, but am still an amateur for the most part and shamefully still find lager the nicest to drink, although I am slowly coming on to the Pale Ales. For the sake of my beer education we decided to pay a visit to one or two of the bars and breweries you can find in Glasgow. We chose the BrewDog bar, just opposite Kelvingrove Art Gallery in the West End, and also the Drygate Brewery, right next to the Glasgow Necropolis.<br />
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For those of you who don't know, although I am sure you do because BrewDog is EVERYWHERE you go, it is one of the most successful British Craft Beer brands, which started in Aberdeenshire (wahey!) and has now spread worldwide, with bars as far flung as Helsinki and Sao Paulo. The Glaswegian equivalent is on Argyle Street and has a beautiful view of Kelvingrove Art Gallery. We ducked in out of the rain for a couple of pints on Monday and it was lovely. The bar has a great atmosphere, busy even on a Monday afternoon, and the staff really know their stuff. The beer menu was extensive but there were plenty of other drinks available if beer isn't your tipple. What really excited me (of course) was their food menu. Namely, the burgers. We didn't have food there, but will definitely be going back, as the burgers that were passing by our the table every now and then were enough to make my mouth water.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stunning stained glass at Glasgow Cathedral</td></tr>
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Yesterday, deciding to brave the spring showers, we wrapped up and went for a walk into town, to the Strathclyde University area. I will admit, it isn't a part of Glasgow I have spent much time in, not having much reason to visit outside of the main shopping areas, so this made a nice change. We started off in the Cathedral, which although it may look small from the outside by cathedral standards, is Tardis-like on the inside. Whilst I don't know a lot about the history behind these kinds of places, the architecture was breathtaking and it is definitely worth a visit if you haven't been before. Right next to the Cathedral is the Necropolis. With 360 views of the city, the huge graveyard doesn't make nearly as morbid a walk as you would expect. The impressive stone tombs, carved angels and a 58ft high memorial to John Knox, make for interesting viewing.<br />
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One of the best (or most convenient) things about the Necropolis from our point of view was, however, not the architecture or the history, but the fact that nestled to the side of it is the Glaswegian brewery Drygate.<br />
Drygate is another successful craft beer brand, and chances are if you're from Glasgow you will have seen their 'Gladeye IPA' or 'Bearface Lager' at some point in your local pub or beer-seller. When you visit Drygate there is a Beerhall, a restaurant and a shop. It looks puzzlingly industrial from the outside, but that's because in addition to selling their beer, they are brewing it on site.<br />
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We had been wanting to visit for some time, having sampled a couple of the beers out and about, but also on recommendation that the food was just as good as the booze. Sitting in the restaurant, the decor is minimal but just enough, and the small wood-burning stove keeps the sub-zero Glaswegian spring at bay. A glass wall on one side lets you look into the silvery goings on of the brewery whilst you sip on it's products. They have 24 beers on tap, both their own and visiting draughts, as well as over 200 bottles to choose from, which they change frequently. They also have a huge selection of gin and whisky. I was heavily tempted by the gin, but it felt too much like sacrilege so I went for a beer.<br />
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The staff are again completely in the know about what they are selling, and when clueless little me had to tell them, sheepishly, what I liked, I wasn't just given a Stella and told to sit in the corner but they were actually incredibly helpful, and with the help of Calum even took me out of my comfort zone to try new (and lovely) things.<br />
Then there was the food menu. Small plates, tapas/streetfood inspired, we were advised to choose a couple and share. We went for the three mini burger sliders (beef with cheddar, lamb with harrisa and venison with blue cheese) and a cauliflower and paneer curry. Both dishes were incredible, the sliders were tender and the variation was lovely compared with committing to a whole burger, but the curry took the prize. Delicately spiced, the cauliflower was cooked to perfection and topped with creamy paneer it was just light enough to accompany what we were drinking perfectly. Paired with a side of their <i>indescribably</i> good twice-fried chips, it was the perfect amount. A couple more drinks in we then decided to get a cheeseboard. You choose three cheeses from their selection and they come served with grapes, oatcakes, a cider jelly and apple chutney. Delicious. Whoever is writing the menu obviously, almost cruelly, knows what people who are drinking beer will want to nibble on, and we left slightly tipsy but wholeheartedly satisfied.<br />
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Of the two, whilst BrewDog was a lovely bar and I will definitely be returning to try a burger, DryGate pipped them at the post. I don't know whether it was because we were eating too, or how lovely and helpful the staff were (or the three beers we had cough cough...) but the whole experience was wonderful and I will definitely be going back as soon as I can. They even do regular comedy nights, as well as an Urban Market down there on a Sunday which is very high on my to do list at the moment. Local produce, crafts and beer, what could be better? Whether you want a meal with a bit of a difference, want to treat a loved one, are a massive beer-head or even just fancy trying somewhere other than your local, both these bars were very reasonably priced for the high quality they delivered. Now that they have been tried and tested we will definitely be becoming regulars. When we can afford it, anyway. </div>
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Next on the beer tour list is the WEST brewery, but I might need to give my liver a bit of time to recover before then...<br />
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Lindsay x<br />
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Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-74495401052866143822015-03-26T03:43:00.000-07:002015-03-26T04:31:18.825-07:00'The Hidden Lane Tearoom' and discovering Finnieston. <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As bad as it is, having lived in Glasgow for nearly two years now, until Tuesday I had never actually visited Finnieston. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I had heard about it; the scores of nice restaurants there, the transformation from urban industrial estates to cool pop up bars, hipster haunts and art studios. You're less likely to find dockworkers wandering the streets now, and more likely to see artists wearing vintage and riding bikes with baskets. I had even thought that Finnieston might be TOO trendy, but it becomes quickly obvious that even if it is, that doesn't take away from what it has to offer. As JG Wilkes, half of legendary Glaswegian duo 'Optimo' (Their legendary night at Subclub is ALWAYS amazing) said of Finneston - </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 24px;">It’s buzzing there and you can get a nice bit of fish for your tea, even though you have to eat it off a slate and drink your drink out of a jam jar"</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Amen to that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">O</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">n Tuesday, on a recommendation from my friend Lauren, we decided to visit Finnieston to do the most traditional of activities. No, not go and look at the crane, but have afternoon tea. The Hidden Lane Tearoom is a place that's name can be taken very, very literally. On Argyle Street, you have to keep your eyes peeled for the signposted lane, which I think is officially called Argyle Court. Once you find the elusive lane however, it feels like you have stepped into a kaleidoscope. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Full to bursting of studios, a jewellery shop, record store and a collection of galleries, each building is painted a different, brilliant jewel colour. The aforementioned basketed bike leaning against the peeling canary yellow wall doesn't FEEL like it's there to complete the picture, it all feels real. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIyU8BJ7N1fWoS5NE6sCz3YOLP0o7DP8T6Rtz6bk-42qmkOasqVkVei_8hrVjtGodMlDQ0Yo2XZvBVaw9ZR000AdxjEr-QOR71fyMe91sQL3VjpkAZL33cILgpfjGETuNWRbiQshRMplw2/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIyU8BJ7N1fWoS5NE6sCz3YOLP0o7DP8T6Rtz6bk-42qmkOasqVkVei_8hrVjtGodMlDQ0Yo2XZvBVaw9ZR000AdxjEr-QOR71fyMe91sQL3VjpkAZL33cILgpfjGETuNWRbiQshRMplw2/s1600/photo+3.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ4whMVz0X2tPekMG2EQqpISJoh_bjZ5_6__yh3fOelhqHqspMd1xvYDCOpGQz3omVpDFIgrQc7W4dcYDEHfqKRU_yMKgn6aIdsn3MyH1oE_OlOlPnAN7jTA6qiwQTIp0yTw3g4orkjgu0/s1600/photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ4whMVz0X2tPekMG2EQqpISJoh_bjZ5_6__yh3fOelhqHqspMd1xvYDCOpGQz3omVpDFIgrQc7W4dcYDEHfqKRU_yMKgn6aIdsn3MyH1oE_OlOlPnAN7jTA6qiwQTIp0yTw3g4orkjgu0/s1600/photo+1.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tucked at the end of the lane you will find the tearoom, whose glass front wall reflects the colours opposite, making it literally a hidden gem. It only gets better when you get inside, feeling like what you want every slightly stuffy, Cath Kidson filled cafe to, but authentic. Filled with mismatched antique chairs, vintage crockery, faded pastel colours and a wall of promising cake stands, it is nothing less than dreamy. I am immediately propelled to being my ninety year old self, all I want to do is sit down and knit and drink tea until I burst, even though I can't knit. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We sat upstairs, overlooking the mezzanine balcony, in order to get the best view of the place. After seeing the cake stands there was nothing for it but to go all out and order the luxury afternoon tea. At £15 per person - only £3 more than the regular version, and with unlimited tea - it is far less expensive than alternatives I have seen in chain teahouses, and definitely more satisfying. With an endless supply of Lavender Earl Grey, we cooed over the china, the delicious tiny homemade cakes and sandwiches, and over the lane, the chairs, the lamps, the tea strainer... everything. It was hard not to pack up and move in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The tea itself was delicious, the sandwiches fresh and the cakes perfect, filled with the zestiest fruit flavours and just the right size, we left pleasantly full but not stuffed. The tea menu is filled with exotic sounding Chai's, herbal and fruit blends which I am no expert on, but I can highly recommend the Lavender Earl Grey, it was light, <span style="text-align: center;">floral and lovely. This is one to take your vintage-minded girlfriends, your Mum or your Granny to. It won't break the bank, and it really feels like the real deal. The quiet lane is the perfect place for it, taking you just out of the bustle of the busy Argyle Street, so you feel like you could sit and bask in the artsy glow for hours. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiarGXz-oxy8KqQ6QrCs1I5e1QQHUk6sTLQ-_qpT5EtaENr38uaQDhaawszPOqwB6zL_Ah03o5ffPcfTW1yWi32OTa8gLNERXln8V-ku1NpsH_2FAZmiHsm0qglQSqL5Zn1K-5FRWQEa0hU/s1600/photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiarGXz-oxy8KqQ6QrCs1I5e1QQHUk6sTLQ-_qpT5EtaENr38uaQDhaawszPOqwB6zL_Ah03o5ffPcfTW1yWi32OTa8gLNERXln8V-ku1NpsH_2FAZmiHsm0qglQSqL5Zn1K-5FRWQEa0hU/s1600/photo+1.jpg" height="400" width="298" /></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwm3FmPdtO5J8ewdR_iYmJsE4n6qphzRWbfNsa6ngNvJBxgoMGBa7fDdg28GpfRGMcRZVOyVzzWy4xPMCBgLOu55l1ZpXpZtv1vpRQ0iixYMOoh0q9yIjx9fQZEKu_M1libW483OUWZEdM/s1600/photo+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwm3FmPdtO5J8ewdR_iYmJsE4n6qphzRWbfNsa6ngNvJBxgoMGBa7fDdg28GpfRGMcRZVOyVzzWy4xPMCBgLOu55l1ZpXpZtv1vpRQ0iixYMOoh0q9yIjx9fQZEKu_M1libW483OUWZEdM/s1600/photo+2.jpg" height="400" width="298" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My first visit to Finnieston was no doubt a success. The Hidden Lane Tearoom is even more enchanting than the name suggests, but not only that, Finnieston itself is full of potential. I am already making a list of places there I want to visit, and it is filling up fast. I fear for my bank balance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hope you are all having a lovely week, and if anyone Glasgow/Finnieston based has any recommendations for me, please get in touch! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lindsay x </span></div>
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Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-67453829519951827792015-03-24T03:03:00.001-07:002015-03-24T15:53:20.815-07:00Raving about a book and my 'Easy Weekday Halloumi Salad'Hello there beautiful people.<br />
This post is going to be one of those lovely posts that I feel is the start of my regular blogging again. Namely because A) all my university assignments are now in until exams; B) I really want to step up how much I'm writing, as I am beginning to aim towards bigger things and C) it's sunny outside and I woke up at half eight not feeling tired. Instead, as cheesy as it sounds, INSPIRED.<br />
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I will be putting a quick and easy recipe at the end of this blog, just of the dinner I made for myself last night. A lot (well, more than five) of you seemed to appreciate it last night on Instagram (thank you), but for now I am just feeling like chatting with you. Well, with this text box. ...myself? Hmm.<br />
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I wanted to throw in a book review. I feel like I don't do this enough seeing as the main aspect of my life is reading, so here we go.<br />
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The book is called H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald. Her accolades are many, including being a historian at Cambridge University, poet and illustrator. Already the back cover tells me this is a woman to be seriously admired. The book has been getting a lot of attention recently. You have no doubt seen it on one of the end sections of Waterstones, or seen one of Helen's retweets, from one of your more bird minded friends (or mothers), if you'll excuse the pun. Now, I am a big animal lover. The part of me who used to play with homemade bows and arrows in the woods behind my house, and has watched Harry Potter upwards of 300 times, LOVES the idea of owning owls, hawks, you name it. Helen herself compares the experience to that of having a daemon, as in Phillip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, a bond that after reading the books I was obsessed with.<br />
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'Is my cat my daemon? Does he love me that much? Do I want a measly cat as a daemon? I'm choosing to ignore that he only follows me around like a soul mate when he's hungry, la la la.'<br />
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I even took an online test to find out what animal my daemon would be and got... a gibbon. I was less than impressed. But the fact is, beyond the part of me that lives in magical fiction, I never thought much of the actual reality of taking on something like training a hawk. I didn't think it would interest me in itself, let alone reading a book about it.<br />
The book is beautifully, beautifully written. Helen makes her experience read like prose x 10, filled with poignant personal anecdotes and historical facts the likes of which only a historian would know. It reads in such a way as if you were having a really personal, detailed chat with a close friend.<br />
She makes little processes, like... making a Hawk hood for example, incredibly exciting.<br />
Her enthusiasm is palpable. You will want to do things you didn't even know about before, and do them WELL.<br />
When you are reading it you are totally rooting for her and Mabel, her hawk, and everything they go through.<br />
By the end of it, you feel like one of the friends she talks about throughout the book. I don't just admire Helen Macdonald anymore, I want to invite her round for dinner.<br />
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I am aware this is a rave, but am confident in my recommendation. Not only has everyone I have spoken to about it loved it, but it has some brilliant reviews from very high places. I may not judge a book by it's cover, but I do tend to judge it by it's reviews.<br />
Definitely worth getting on the bandwagon with this one, if you haven't already.<br />
It will ignite your inner geek-child, always a good thing.<br />
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Anyway, that became a bit of a ramble, so to keep things short and sweet and end things in my usual, food obsessed way, I will tell you about the salad I had last night.<br />
I'm trying to do meat-free mondays, a big hashtag on Instagram, don't you know. This week also happens to be national meet-free week, with chefs and bloggers putting beautiful veggie recipes up everywhere. This is my input, I suppose!<br />
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So here is my recipe for what I will call... 'Easy Weekday Halloumi Salad'.<br />
This recipe will feed two, and is incredibly easy. I use a delicious Egyptian aromatic spice rub called 'dukkah', which my mum gave me and is readily available in health food shops, but if you don't have it salt and pepper will do!<br />
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You will need,<br />
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<li>1 block of halloumi cheese, sliced. I bought mine from Tesco, but feel free to use as much/little as you want. </li>
<li>1 red pepper, cut into thick chunks.</li>
<li>1 sweet potato, chunked again. </li>
<li>Half a butternut squash, cut into chunks. </li>
<li>1 red onion, cut into quarters. </li>
<li>Fresh spinach, for the base of the salad. </li>
<li>A drizzle of olive oil</li>
<li>Salt and Pepper to season</li>
<li>Balsamic glaze, to finish. </li>
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This recipe really couldn't be simpler, I made it for one last night and it was delicious and filling, as well as being incredibly healthy. It is made easier still by the fact that Tesco sell little bags of sweet potato and butternut squash, ready chunked! Lazy, but lovely, and useful if you're making it for one but don't want the responsibility of a whole squash on your hands, heaven forbid. </div>
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<li>First, preheat your oven to 200C or 180Fan. Put all of your veg in a roasting tin, and toss in the olive oil, salt, pepper and dukkah. Any other spices you fancy can go in at this stage too, I know cumin would be delicious with this dish! </li>
<li>Roast the veg in the oven for half an hour, tossing halfway through. Check the potato and squash are soft through with a knife. </li>
<li>Lay out your bed of spinach on a plate, and top with your roasted vegetables. </li>
<li>In the same tin, lay out your slices of halloumi and put back in the oven. You can either leave your oven on fan, or swap over to grill, depending on how you want your halloumi cooked. I had mine on fan and grill combined. You want your halloumi to be golden brown on both sides, this won't take long at all! Perhaps five minutes.</li>
<li>Finish off by topping the warm veg and spinach with the cheese, then drizzle with balsamic glaze or even just balsamic vinegar. Hummus would also make a delicious addition. </li>
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Voila, dinner done. I cooked it for one, and because it is all roasted in the one tin there was very little washing up to do, yay! This makes a really filling, healthy, vegetarian weekday supper. Whilst it is a very simplistic recipe, it's one I think I will be cooking a lot from now on, tweaking and adding to it as I go! For instance, if you wanted to pad it out even more, roast a chicken breast on top of the veg. However, the halloumi is plenty filling on it's own.</div>
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So I'm off to my last Tuesday of second year (WHATWHEREHOWWHYAHHHFIUBE?!?!?!) feeling uplifted and healthy, and unrealistically calm about the fact I am nearly halfway through my university career.</div>
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I am going to put it down to the salad. </div>
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Happy Tuesday everyone and if you go on to read 'H is for Hawk', which you definitely should, I hope you love it as much as I did! </div>
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Lindsay x </div>
Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9003671896316816387.post-15659802390622332162015-02-01T06:29:00.001-08:002015-02-01T07:01:53.114-08:00Hollandaise history and another Burger... Happy Sunday Everyone!<br />
I am spending today with my nose in a book, in my pyjamas whilst simultaneously watching 'Gilmore Girls', so in order to save me and my conscience from feeling just a bit TOO un-productive I thought I would post my latest food endeavours.<br />
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My first success was one of my own which I am ridiculously excited about, no matter how minor. I managed, for the first time today, to successfully make hollandaise sauce! I know! I've never tried before, it always seemed far too scary and difficult and only within the grasp of seasoned experts, but it was actually refreshingly easy.<br />
I adapted a recipe for simple hollandaise sauce from the BBC Good Food website because A) I didn't have any white wine vinegar so just used lemon juice and B) I was making it for one (is the loneliest number...) yeah whatever.<br />
I'm not sure that it was absolutely perfect, it didn't quite have the mayonnaise thickness it often does if you eat it in a restaurant, but it tasted and looked far better than I was hoping it too, so if you want to give it a go, I encourage you to, as it turns out it can be accomplished by mortals.<br />
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<li>65 grams of butter</li>
<li>a generous splash of lemon juice</li>
<li>salt and pepper </li>
<li>a splash of ice cold water</li>
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<li>First melt the butter on a low heat in a sauce pan, then (try until you get bored) to skim off the solid stuff that sits on the surface. Set aside but keep warm. </li>
<li>Then, whisk the egg yolk, lemon juice, water and seasoning together in a glass bowl that will sit over a pan of simmering water in a bain marie. Whisk until it goes pale and gets thicker. </li>
<li>Remove from the heat and trickle in the butter slowly, whilst whisking, and it will continue to thicken until it has the consistency you want. Feel free to add cayenne pepper or similar spices at this point. </li>
<li>Whisk, a lot, then it's done!</li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhZNxCsew9QqLz9hB3u77mxrKL4yk1NxeMIkl2547h331MF6wEcdifupk8YVDOi8li3BjCQiCj-STGfPJhTqHhcTQ7igf_l9yluaeWcQO3Uo5EOe2Wt4u0wj57ZDlVAOhdoSZCVgfsr0W6/s1600/10426780_10205743484575902_3969497898762967244_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhZNxCsew9QqLz9hB3u77mxrKL4yk1NxeMIkl2547h331MF6wEcdifupk8YVDOi8li3BjCQiCj-STGfPJhTqHhcTQ7igf_l9yluaeWcQO3Uo5EOe2Wt4u0wj57ZDlVAOhdoSZCVgfsr0W6/s1600/10426780_10205743484575902_3969497898762967244_n.jpg" height="400" width="297" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBCdERRAQ-7gU0Hq_IUaUxyFD_bnvSwTqautn1Xc8uv422gzaSs0PyMOj_wf2_tl8BgKFk3H0Ew63DbIRnUFhPjdTyBsr8hPnsEIX0iOW6A3LVVakujrawnDlEqPufdZNyLjVeO-oBXtZN/s1600/10968448_10205743483455874_3022545247774738492_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBCdERRAQ-7gU0Hq_IUaUxyFD_bnvSwTqautn1Xc8uv422gzaSs0PyMOj_wf2_tl8BgKFk3H0Ew63DbIRnUFhPjdTyBsr8hPnsEIX0iOW6A3LVVakujrawnDlEqPufdZNyLjVeO-oBXtZN/s1600/10968448_10205743483455874_3022545247774738492_n.jpg" height="320" width="238" /></a><br />
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I had mine as part of a slightly bastardised Eggs Benedict, using a bagel instead of an English muffin and bacon instead of ham. Next time I'm going to make Eggs Florentine, which is my favourite and uses wilted spinach instead of ham. I also have to shamefacedly admit to not poaching my eggs in the traditional way but cheating with the genius that is silicon egg poachers. I'll get there one day. </div>
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SO that was success number one of the weekend, the second one being not a recipe but a review of the relatively new BRGR on Great Western Road, which Calum and I went to for the first time yesterday in an attempt to cure our hangovers from Pressure at the Arches on Friday. </div>
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The restaurant itself is very small, but decorated in a nicely off-beat, casual way. They give you a roll of kitchen roll for your table instead of napkins, which, in my opinion all restaurants should do. Especially the ones in which you inevitably end up with your dinner smeared across your face and hands. </div>
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Knifes and forks are wooden (if you are in need of/ask for them) and the food is served in a McDonald's-esque way, wrapped in paper and in cardboard cartons, which adds to the diner feel. </div>
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I strayed from my usual preference of beef and went for a chicken burger called 'The Breaded Piece' which was chicken in panko breadcrumbs with pickles, red onion, salad, burger relish and garlic and parsley mayonnaise. It was delicious, but very messy, although I have to admit that was partly my fault for not realising what the cardboard burger 'hawder' was for until after I finished. Duh.</div>
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Calum had a Spanish themed beef burger called 'El Classi Coo' which had manchego cheddar, chorizo and other spanish themed things. It also got the seal of approval. Alongside our burgers we shared some piri-piri seasoned fries, a couple of drinks and a delicious strawberry milkshake, and the whole thing came to a very reasonable £17. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhttghsgFlCb4WXhOGgogkN1V549vxSkpzqmbHvXISFOT8yxrYv5CBEsHFsO4dM-fO5UQvTxgOK_39tHmg5BFikFqttyS-Mv4gyBOMMI-nOd2-l2VuHt-HdRnzvZ-WJ7Q9FIkpGcfNAmgbs/s1600/10177981_10205743483495875_2846056360495186789_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhttghsgFlCb4WXhOGgogkN1V549vxSkpzqmbHvXISFOT8yxrYv5CBEsHFsO4dM-fO5UQvTxgOK_39tHmg5BFikFqttyS-Mv4gyBOMMI-nOd2-l2VuHt-HdRnzvZ-WJ7Q9FIkpGcfNAmgbs/s1600/10177981_10205743483495875_2846056360495186789_n.jpg" height="320" width="225" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ojbmQ8tJvX6KhNtdRgF6tAed9jKI7z9sluKKY3HWlozzGDIvi_r-7GVkkrDA7TxJzcRRPcEqTKX1h-ZxxYjlQ4k2U_W1TyOf8Vo3fSrv5H9YXCyPwLhO_vXf6E6x0rx6m9-Mt1TDIAMG/s1600/551493_10205743483415873_6136268286192602667_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ojbmQ8tJvX6KhNtdRgF6tAed9jKI7z9sluKKY3HWlozzGDIvi_r-7GVkkrDA7TxJzcRRPcEqTKX1h-ZxxYjlQ4k2U_W1TyOf8Vo3fSrv5H9YXCyPwLhO_vXf6E6x0rx6m9-Mt1TDIAMG/s1600/551493_10205743483415873_6136268286192602667_n.jpg" height="400" width="297" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLmKPdjAOcC8V8xG38Au26npETEQXZdnWhaPqc8w7buJQqe2iWU2hUb5W3xtyGNNSe1MltTBYj9Fc6XHwG4LyMf8ef58cmfQbEoJ9K0w9KItOo-cGZeFOhyphenhyphenDxr8wBzUa6c5wmnZAfyqaSL/s1600/10951422_10205743483375872_7895159410299534937_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLmKPdjAOcC8V8xG38Au26npETEQXZdnWhaPqc8w7buJQqe2iWU2hUb5W3xtyGNNSe1MltTBYj9Fc6XHwG4LyMf8ef58cmfQbEoJ9K0w9KItOo-cGZeFOhyphenhyphenDxr8wBzUa6c5wmnZAfyqaSL/s1600/10951422_10205743483375872_7895159410299534937_n.jpg" height="320" width="238" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidc3fE2XfkDF_lGp5dZRWtrHdtYuLuxXzHamWoPf85c0pvrRWGqBGd2lqlx8zL4y2cNtLRa_uZDHVL-n93jo575fZ_zKkwFnTHRsXKCGDPSEhi-q2NvryHJKXYOhr-m9tfctAhrfM3KNHW/s1600/10917035_10205743483335871_3507632454176328067_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidc3fE2XfkDF_lGp5dZRWtrHdtYuLuxXzHamWoPf85c0pvrRWGqBGd2lqlx8zL4y2cNtLRa_uZDHVL-n93jo575fZ_zKkwFnTHRsXKCGDPSEhi-q2NvryHJKXYOhr-m9tfctAhrfM3KNHW/s1600/10917035_10205743483335871_3507632454176328067_n.jpg" height="320" width="238" /></a><br />
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The menu is simple and small, in that good way which means you know that everything has effort and time put into it. It has some really good looking vegetarian options and daily specials as well as a kids menu and, alternative to the burgers, chicken wings. The price is pretty spot on for the portion size, and even by hungover standards I was left feeling very full. I would definitely recommend it if you're looking for good quality fast food with a Glaswegian twist. </div>
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So, the last weekend of January hasn't exactly been the health fest I was aspiring to, but hey-ho at the end of the day I wasn't fooling anybody. At least I started as I mean to go on.<br />
I hope your Sunday is as full of absolutely nothing as mine is going to be.<br />
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Lindsay x<br />
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<br />Well Fed&Well Readhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02216306553419638660noreply@blogger.com0