Food & drink

My favourite cocktail is Blue Lagoon 😊

If I have a most-hated food it would probably be beetroot. I'm of the age that I grew up experiencing those horrible 70s institutional salads that had a half of greying boiled egg, dessicated shreds of carrot and made you want to suspend a hammock between the salt and pepper shakers for the limp tired lettuce. And there'd always be one or two slices of the dreaded beetroot, the texture of which managed to be freakily both soft and hard, and one single molecule of which would horribly dye all the other items on the plate and everything within a five-mile radius that unearthly potassium permanganate colour. It hits a hat-trick or horribleness in looking, smelling and tasting revolting. It's now of course a very in-vogue ingredient and gets roasted up and included in lots of dishes and yes you can get the orange and yellow ones but I can't bear the taste of any of them.

One of the most horrible things I ever had was shredded jellyfish, in the long-gone Luxuriance in Soho. It looked like pale elastic bands, was cold and managed to be both bland and disgusting, which is quite a feat.



What?! Why the shrieking pirouetting hell would anyone even think of such a stupidly repulsive idea, let alone make it?



"Shamelessly"! I now have an image of someone the opposite of you who does feel dumpling shame, sneaking off to have secret dumpling sessions, looking furtively around while they do so.

I'd never heard of khinkali and just looked it up - thanks, I like learning about unfamiliar foodstuffs. Now I want to try some. Pierogi, oh man! I've enjoyed many a ribsticking Polish meal and it invariably has to involve pierogi. (And be rounded off by a square of crumbly plain cheesecake or those sweet cheese pancakes). What about dimsum like hargau, etc? For me one of life's culinary pleasures is the occasional dimsum lunch, indulging in that whole range of sensations the best dimsum provide - crunchy, slithery, subtle, rich, sticky, sweet and savoury, and of course ordering just that little bit too much of it.

Oh I just thought of another cocktail I love, the sidecar, another one they do very nicely in Scooters (and at the other end of Waterloo, Brasserie Blanc do a pretty fine one too).

A nice way to round off post number 999. That's me off then.

(...until I stroll nonchalantly back in next week because I'm too much of a loudmouth and can't shut up).

I bet you'd eat it if Bettys hid it in a cake. 

I love it in a salad with some goat cheese and rosemary.

I never knew I actually liked beetroot until I left home. I'd never had it before as it's pretty much the only thing my dad doesn't like.

I'm having scampi and chips for dinner and on tempted to put it in a basket but the nearest thing I can find is a picnic hamper. Not the same is it.
Oh and I found Lidl own make angel delight so that's my pud sorted. Welcome to the 70s!

Parson Cross is all loved up tonight, BurlyBeaR. If there's a night to safely eat Chorley Cakes, it's tonight.

Richard E Grant is just feet away, over my right shoulder. He's having a bag of popcorn for his tea. Film stars have a very peculiar way of eating. I assume it's to avoid smudging their lipstick. Nobody wants to be constantly touched up!

The photo he posted on Instagram does show some rather spectacular makeup!

I wasn't aware that was even possible.

"Contains eight servings". Yeah, nice try, but I'm not falling for that nonsense. I know a single serving when I see it.

As the cold dark days set in, its that time of the year to bring out the slow cooker for those stews and casseroles. There is nothing more satisfying in the cold weather than walking into your house to the smell of a nice stew or casserole that's been cooking all day.

I know a lot of people who received slow cookers as wedding presents but then never used them. They had the idea of coming into a house full of the smell of a casserole but found that they couldn't face cutting up onions and raw meat at 7 in the morning to prepare it.

Lemon haters had better keep away from my house this afternoon as my book group is coming and, as I won first prize in the domestic section of my local flower show with my lemon drizzle cake, I  have been requested to bake another to the same recipe.  I am quite pleased with the way it has turned out.