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London

Snivelling in splendid sunshine

A partly lost week, thanks to a very special welcome home gift from the population of London from whom I have evidently been receiving toxic spores for the past seven days: something so special the Brits give it its own special name: I have a dreaded lurgy. Commonfolk might dismiss it as a cold, but it descended in the form of what I know from raw experience as the London Throat, a harsh and beastly ailment that quickly morphs into other unsociable symptoms – sneezing, hacking and snivelling – and inspires cravings for revolting cures such as Cold Powders and the vile green goo called Night Nurse.

I am, as well, equipped with a box of Sainsbury’s Ultrabalm Tissues, and a comforting leaflet written in typeface too small to read with the red, naked eye of the sufferer, which assures me I have made a wise purchase; these tissues are made from fibres farmed “from well-managed forests and controlled sources.” I would feel happier if the authors of this leaflet had felt able to use the words “sustainable” and “recycled”, but I am not sure they mean the same thing to all of us, and in any case I am dribbling pitifully and will use this box with apologies and contrition, not to mention pain and suffering.

So, feeling this sorry for myself, it was two days prone and unproductive, doing nothing more taxing than making toast and taramasalata, drinking pots of lemon & ginger tea, spooning canned mandarin segments into my insensible mouth, napping, and reading mysteries and thrillers of varying vintages (Peter Robinson to Robert Harris to Dorothy L. Sayers).

And so this morning dawned the third day, when the throat was subsiding and I had a brief illusory sense of well-being which drew me out into the brilliant and even seasonably warm sunshine shining down on London,

entering its charmingly named Late Summer Bank Holiday Weekend. I went on an errand of mercy (mine) to the Oxfam bookshop in Turnham Green, where I found three treasures: Not On The Label by Felicity Lawrence; Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll (a beautiful re-issue from Persephone Books); and Headlong by Michael Frayn. After a restful afternoon sipping watercress soup with the ever entertaining and delightful Meli in the sunny, flower-lined courtyard of Carvosso’s Wine Bar and Eating House, and a stroll and people-watching interval on Acton Green, I returned to another bowl of mandarin slices and a nice shot of Night Nurse which should find me rested and recovered by morning. Or so I can hope.

Some relaxed West Londoners, well out of the sun of course, having that pasty English skin, but happy to see it from the shade.

By dusk, the party ships come out to play…

And as night falls, a dinner ship sails into a perfect London sunset.

Cloudy with sunny periods and a chance of rain

Sunday was blustery and grey, with madmen sailing up and down the Thames all afternoon, as they were again today.

Later Sunday afternoon, I hopped a bus towards Mayfair and found a perch right at the front upstairs, my favourite place to sit even now I’m no longer a tourist. It gave me a great view of the wet windy streets as we sailed up Vauxhall Bridge Road, and then pulled up at Victoria station, where we paused. There seemed to be some cars stopped in front of us, and I watched a couple of them u-turn up a taxi lane and drive off; a fender-bender between the two in front, I supposed, until I saw the bare feet, the curled form of a young woman who must have been hit by a car just before we arrived. Given the absent-mindedness and trust of the pedestrians wandering around the station – not to mention the proliferation of iPods – it’s surprising there aren’t more incidents like this, or maybe they’re so common they don’t warrant a mention any more. It took 10 minutes or so until the police arrived, and we were diverted off on a different route with the sirens drawing closer. I’ll never know…

I got off at Hyde Park Corner and scurried beneath Park Lane to the Curzon Mayfair, one of London’s most comfortable cinemas, where it is possible to take a gin and tonic and box of popcorn into the show with you. We saw The Walker, which was a nice bit of mannered fluff, and my first movie in 10 months! –and then parked ourselves at a table in the Shepherd Market branch of Sofra, which was heaving with custom, to enjoy some lentil soup and delectable Turkish mezze, succinctly served on a snappy glass platter.

Monday morning I found my way to the offices of Sustain, a cheery band of food activists, representing about 100 different organisations, and squeezed into the select crew that makes up London Food Link. The building wasn’t easy to find, since in true London form, the street number I was looking for, 94, is not between numbers 95 and 93 as you might expect, but around a corner and slightly behind number 93. After a day crunching words for the delightfully named and highly readable quarterly newsletter, The Jellied Eel, I emerged from the bowels of the Underground to find there was at last a big chunk o’ blue opening up over London.

Grey becomes us

So, I’ve been two days in London, which has been grey, damp and deliciously cool.

Leaving Parma scorching in its 32 degrees, I arrived to a 22 degree Friday afternoon and hopped the bus that all the Ryanair passengers were not taking because they’d bought the more expensive “cheaper than airport prices” bus tickets on a different service. So five of us enjoyed a roomy and peaceful ride through green countryside, occasionally lit dramatically by shafts of English sunlight, steered by Tony the driver who’d showed us two emergency exits to the bus and assured us we wouldn’t need them. Our route took us down Finchley Road, my old stomping grounds, and I was happy to see many landmarks still where I left them, on past the Wellington Hospital where I had my knee operation years and years ago, down Oxford Street, past Hyde Park looking lush and stately, and finally I was released into the modest zoo of Victoria Coach station. My host was waiting for me and after a quick drink and a tour of my new temporary home, departed for deepest Berkshire, generously leaving me an Evening Standard, a pint of milk and a loaf of bread to settle in with.

Saturday morning I did some larder-stocking. My first thought, as it often is when arriving in London, was for the dark aromatic coffee I buy from Markus Coffee, a little operation on Connaught Street that has valiantly, serenely and deservedly survived its proximity to a Starbuck’s that opened on Edgware Road seven or eight years ago. Walking there from the bus stop I crossed Connaught Square and passed parallel rows of traffic cones preventing parking in front of one of the homes (a pricey neighbourhood, this, where I imagine house prices vaulted the million pound mark a good decade ago); two other curious features about it suggested a story. One was the hand-written sign affixed to the wall, reading “No Reporters” and the other was a policeman cradling a machine gun and glaring at me as I passed; ditto his two colleagues who were pacing up and down the street. I wondered at first if it was a crime scene, but my friendly coffee dealer told me it was only the Blairs, who were not around much these days anyway. I picked up my package of heaven and wandered up Edgeware Road, wafting dark coffee fumes everwhere I went. A little preliminary shopping and a dolma stop at my favourite Lebanese grocery, The Green Valley, and I was headed back home.

Saturday afternoon brought a welcome last minute invitation to join Nancy and Mike at the How We Are: Photographing Britain exhibition at the Tate Britain. I was buffetted by grey winds on my way but got there to find a blue pixie dancing on the steps in welcome

and we spent a happy, somewhat overwhelming couple of hours exploring British photography of all kinds by all sorts of photographers (Lewis Carroll, Julia Margaret Cameron, Martin Parr) from all points in photography’s history. There was even a visual explanation of where the term “blue print” comes from which was a bit of a revelation, as were three photographs of the Horn Dance of Abbott’s Bromley, ancestral home of my mother’s family. Afterwards we enjoyed a couple of pints and some fairly stale crisps in a nearby pub, blissfully smoke-free since the smoking ban came into force here last month.

Then we thought we’d catch a bus to Islington — only the bus stop had a big yellow sign on it

advising us that due to an accident on August 7, the stop was closed for as long as they jolly well said so. As the wind now had damp substance in it, we were disinclined to do as the sign suggested and walk over the bridge to the Vauxhall bus station, and while we were dithering, a bus pulled up, so we got on, victorious over signage.

Then, carefully avoiding low trees,

we made it to the Afghan Kitchen

where we managed to come away with Lavand-e-Murgh (chicken in yogurt), Qurma -e- Gosht – kachalo (lamb with potatoes), Qurma Suzhi Gosht (lamb with spinach), Bajnon Borani (aubergines with yogurt) and Sarah’s (a vegetarian concoction of kidney beans, chick peas and potatoes in yogurt) and off we went to Cross Street where we cleaned the plates as best we could. Delicious welcome to London.

London break

London was mercifully cool and damp after a hot week in Parma, and it was wonderful to catch up with the old gang in the Shackleton Room of the Troubadour where we dined on Brompton Burgers and fish and chips. The food, I’m afraid, looked more promising than it tasted, but the service was excellent and the private room a fortunate thing as there was a lot of youthful exuberance beyond the doorway. London restaurants can be deafening. (But at least they will be smoke free come July!)

We followed with a very large cake from Patisserie Valerie:


Says it all, really.

The next day my kind cousin took me to a Chiswick treasure, Fish Hook, which used to be a South African specialty restaurant (Fish Hoek as it was then) whose niche turned out to be just too narrow for the neighbourhood. In its new incarnation, it serves well priced lunch specials like this one: asparagus veloute with cockles and pea sprouts…


…followed by perfectly cooked sea bream…

… and – living as I do in gelato country I was curious to see how English versions compared – home-made ice creams (vanilla, caramel and chocolate). The comparison? I think I may actually prefer the local gelato here in Parma; the ice cream tasted … thicker and more dense. Still good, though. Might need further research.

I had a very good supper, surprisingly good, from a Lebanese takeaway called Elias, on Turnham Green Terrace. Lamb shish, tahini, hoummus, felafel, pita bread and a few other things – all incredibly good and carefully prepared before my very eyes. And a fresh apple, carrot and ginger juice to wash it down. Perfect.

Then on Sunday I was reunited with my old writing group and we had a delightful poetry workshop (and excellent lunch of bits and pieces from Carluccio’s) before a few of us headed off to a Poetry School talk by Michael Schmidt about value judgements in poetry at the dangerously wonderuful London Review Bookshop.

Sallied out of there with a few more food books (In the Devil’s Garden; The Cheese Room; Last Chance to Eat; and even a small poetry anthology, Open-Mouthed) and dined on Indian (balti curries, for a thoroughly British experience) at Annapurna.

And back to sweltering Parma. On with the week….

Cheese, more cheese

Travelling on Ryanair is … an experience. One of its peculiarities is that passengers are charged many hidden fees: for use of a credit card to make the booking, and for checking a bag, for example, and they give not so much as a cup of coffee away for free in-flight. So it’s not as cheap as you might first assume when you see 99 cent fares. But okay, so it’s the only game going direct from Parma airport to London, with your (count ’em) 15 whole kilos checked baggage allowance (which you’ve paid for the privilege of bringing). And then you get the thrill of rubbing up against your fellow passengers in the scrum at the boarding gate and you can try to out-run them on the tarmac for better seating. I won’t attempt to describe the experience of dragging (heavier than it sounds) 15 kg of suitcase without wheels (never again) through the seething inferno of holiday travellers at Stansted Airport on Christmas Eve. Brrr, may I remember enough to never do that again, and may I forget the rest.

For my return to Parma, I chose to alot a hefty corner of my 15 kg to a lovely smelly bag of cheese from the well-regarded and cunningly-named Cheeses, which has been doing a queued-out-the-door trade in Muswell Hill for some years. Not least because the shop is tiny – holds three thin customers at a time, with floor to ceiling shelves of this and that to look at while you wait. It has one modest display case which manages to hold a prime selection of farmhouse cheeses from Britain and beyond. I saw a piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano lovingly displayed and simply described (“exquisite” I think was all the sign said, or needed to say) and a bevvy of French beauties perched around it in various postures of diminishment, and beyond them a hearty selection of British cheeses.

The cheesemonger looked very weary – it was getting on to the evening of December 23 and his sign advertising baby wheels of stilton had probably lured a few dozen extra souls ithrough his doors – but he cut me some fine wedges of Cornish Yarg, Berkswell and aged Caerphilly. The women behind the counter were cheery and helpful and pointed me towards some Millers Damsel digestive biscuits to go with my selection. Luckily for my baggage allowance I managed not to come away with a slate cheeseboard or jars of chutney or tins of quince cheese to go with, nor even a fragile package of inky Charcoal Wafers, though I was sorely tempted, but they were recommended for brie, camembert or goats cheese.

After a few days’ rest for the cheese, yesterday afternoon we gathered in my Parma kitchen to test our palates and practice our tasting terminology, yeah verily once more for England.

Yarg, I’d learned, was not an obscure Cornish word after all, it was the name of its early makers (Gray) turned around. A little disappointing to be disillusioned, but the cheese is made from a 13th century – and it seems a tried and true – recipe. Wrapped in nettle leaves, it looked very handsome, its ivory paste contrasting nicely with the dark green wrappings frosted by a pale mould. Lots of butter, rendered butter, and a bit of tangy sweetness – and perhaps a little pineapple? It had been described elsewhere as young with a fresh, faintly lemony taste; creamy under the crust, yet firm and slightly crumbly at the centre. And it was too. Many thumbs up for this one.

Next we examined the Berkswell, a ewe’s milk cheese made in the Midlands, and named for the village which took its name from the Saxon chief, Bercul, who was baptised in the ancient well at its centre. I read somewhere that it had been originally developed from a Caerphilly cheese recipe, although it bore little resemblance to the one we tasted after this. We admired its rind which has a tan, cobbled appearance – must be moulded in a net? We found its ivory paste smooth and firm, the tang and texture reminding us of cheddars of our pasts; a hint of animal aroma reminded us it was a sheep cheese, but the flavour was subtle and sweet. It struck us as being quite different in flavour from its Italian cousin pecorino, and people liked it for being a happy contrast to the Italian wonders all around us.

The last to fall under the knife was the aged Caerphilly; unusual, they told me at the shop, to find an aged version, as it’s usually eaten quite young. We noticed the moulds on the rind and the thick, even nail (undercrust) which when tasted was soft and silky in contrast to the dry, fine sponge of the centre. Its colour ranged from ivory in the centre to straw yellow in the nail. I’d read that it was eaten by Welsh miners to replace the salt they lost in their labours, but it wasn’t an overwhelmingly salty cheese. It had, when I unwrapped it, a whiff of ammonia but that didn’t linger after resting and cutting. It evoked aromas of yogurt most strongly, and for its texture Louisa dredged from her olfactory memory a comparison with a Greek cheese, like (but not) Halloumi. I suppose the salt content makes it a dryer cheese than most? Caerphilly is a sweet, crumbly cheese that’s nice in cooking; I remembered some Glamorgan Sausages I’d eaten at a New British restaurant once and they were a beautiful melding of salt, cheese and leek. Not nearly enough left over to cook with this time even if I wanted to…

London interlude

Just back from a week in London – a busy frantic expensive delightful week, and a week without email or internet. A novelty, but I’m glad to be back at the keyboard. I have a piece to post about the truffle hunt last weekend but will put that up in the next couple of days.

Merry… Oxo?

(from one of the dwindling number of antique dealers in Camden Passage, Islington, North London)


Quiz night at the Troubadour: I managed to crash the party five years after attending my last one. These are brilliant and entertaining evenings which feature themes, announced in advance so people can seek out a poem or write one for the event, and the readings are accompanied by ferociously difficult poetry quizzes. Last Monday was The Inexorable Sadness of Pencils. Here’s a taste of the quiz: What is Craig Raine describing when he says and the ground is full of pencil boxes? Name the Leeds-born author of these lines from The School of Eloquence… His home address was inked inside his cap/ and on every piece of paper that he carried. And who was he writing about?

I was happy to see Catherine Temma Davidson for the first time in a long time. Her excellent first novel, The Priest Fainted, (still in print!) has a special resonance for my foodie life these days. She’s working on a second novel and says food figures in that one too.

London poet Paul McLoughlin and poet-novelist Catherine Temma Davidson.


Steve Hatt, legendary fishmonger, on Essex Road, Islington.


Fighting the neverending battle against street crime, with a taste of the week’s fog in the background. Outside Turnham Green station, West London.


Hampstead Heath. A little teeny tiny bit of it.


The big cheese at Waitrose, Brunswick Centre, near Russell Square.


Paxton and Whitfield, on Jermyn Street, been around a year or two. Cheesemongers to gentlemen, they say (–so where do the ladies shop?) and handy to Pink’s and Fortnum’s where you might like to browse on your way to tea at the Ritz, perhaps?



What we did and didn’t eat at Amato in Soho. Beautiful cheesy quiche and interesting salads (some rather middle-aged broccoli in there but otherwise good). Gorgeous pastries to admire through the glass on your way out.


What would a visit to London be without a nod to Newton and a visit to the temple of knowledge – the British Library, one of my favourite places in the world. The caff’s not bad either.


A foggy night on Primrose Hill.


And: buon natale to one and all. How it was looking earlier this evening in the Piazza Garibaldi, Parma.