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One of the best things about being with Steve is that we both love to do wonderful things together and we really appreciate them. The planning and anticipation can almost be as fulfilling as the doing, and we love to remember and talk about the experience afterwards. So it’s like we get to do something three times instead of just once.
Today, Steve and I went to Gidleigh Park for afternoon tea. Gidleigh Park is a luxury country house hotel located on Dartmoor near the village of Chagford. It’s a mile drive up a single track road so we really felt like we were getting away from everything. We saw a heron fishing and two pairs of deer en route.
Gidleigh Park
On our arrival, we were greeted and as we were early (afternoon tea is served at 4pm) we went for a walk around the grounds to build up our appetite. The surrounding area is wild Dartmoor at it’s best – mature woodlands with the very same River Teign that I cycle along on my way to work running through it.
Once we arrived back at the hotel, we were shown into the beautiful oak panelled library and settled in next to the fire. In keeping with the period of the building, there are architectural and design influences from the Arts and Crafts Movement and the décor is understated, British elegance. Owners Andrew and Christina Brownsword also run ABode Hotels, where Steve and I had our cheap date a few weeks back. Once again the service was excellent and BTW Gidleigh Park has been named England’s Hotel of the Year. Gidleigh Park is renowned for its food and has earned two Michelin stars. Definitely somewhere we plan to return to for a special meal sometime.
In the library
We ordered the High Tea with smoked salmon, ham, chicken and egg & cress sandwiches (crusts removed, of course); lemon, chocolate and carrot cake, an exquisite fruit tart; scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream and four types of cookies. I chose Gidleigh Park blend tea, which was a mix of English Breakfast and Earl Grey and Steve had a cafetiere of very good coffee.
Afterwards, we were left to relax in front of the fire and stayed until night had fallen. The drive home was lovely with the nearly full moon lighting our way.
A proper cup of tea
Brunch \ˈbrənch\ n [breakfast + lunch] (1896) : a meal usually taken late in the morning that combines a late breakfast and an early lunch. The French try to avoid English terms being introduced into their language so they call it le grand petit déjeuner translated as the “big breakfast”. Austrians start their day with a light meal followed by mid-morning Gabelfrühstück meaning “fork breakfast”. From the Netherlands we have zondagsontbijt or “Sunday breakfast”. When I was in college, my German friend Sigrid used to give me not one but two breakfasts! Zweites Frühstück or second breakfast is still served throughout Germany most notably in Bavaria (there also called brotzeit, literally “bread time”).
In the immortal words of the great bard himself (sort of):
“What’s in a name? That which we call a brunch
By any other name would still be good to eat”
Obviously, the word brunch is a marriage between breakfast and lunch, but why not leakfest?. Actually I just googled it and got a plethora of links to a huge variety of websites, blogs and forums including security/media leaks (obviously), vintage amplifiers, coolant/oil leaks in car engines, but nothing at all about food or a regatta gone horribly wrong.
Steve works from home and I go out to work three days a week, so we have the opportunity to begin four days a week with brunch. This morning, I got up and put the pureed pumpkin I made on Sunday night into Zip-loc freezer bags, a really good storage idea I got from Pioneer Woman. I measured it into 2-cup portions, handy for the recipes I plan to cook with it, and they stack very neatly away in the freezer.
Speaking of pumpkin puree recipes, this morning I am making Pumpkin Pie French Toast from Kevin at Closet Cooking, one of my favourite food blogs. I slightly modified the recipe with my ideal proportion of eggs to liquid, which is 1 egg to 1/3 cup liquid, increased the amount of vanilla extract and substituted crystallized ginger for ground ginger.
Pumpkin Pie French Toast
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1/3 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/2 teaspoon Bourbon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon finely chopped crystallized ginger
- 1/8 teaspoon cloves
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 8 slices of bread
- Butter for cooking
- Maple cured bacon
- Maple syrup
Mix everything in a shallow dish. Soak the bread into the egg mixture on both sides until it absorbs the liquid. Saute in a pan until lightly golden brown, about 2-3 minute per side. Serve with maple syrup and bacon and coffee.
Worth sleeping in for!
I practice a policy of gastronomic laissez-faire and say “Live and let live, but if you hunger for a critter, try to get one that has been raised and killed humanely”. If possible get it from the source and don’t waste any part of it. Thank it’s soul for giving itself so that I may eat, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.
I was once very irritated by a smug, holier-than-thou vegetarian who said, “I don’t eat anything that has a face” and I know of certain carnivores (who shall remain nameless) who won’t eat an animal which has a name, eg Bossy the Cow or Chicken Little. Well, even my vegetables have names and faces. Enter Sam and Petunia, our Jack-o’-Lanterns. They both have both names and faces and are both going to be eaten.
Sam & Petunia
Sourced from Michael Howard’s deli, just across the street from us; all of their meat and vegetables can be traced to the farm it came from.
Sam and Petunia had a happy, free range life in their pumpkin patch . . . . .
and fulfilled their duty as Jack-o’-Lanterns, sitting at the top of our stairs and welcoming our dinner party guests.
I started with the offal and made toasted pumpkin seeds for hors d’oeuvre at our Samhain Feast on Saturday.
Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
- Pumpkin seeds
- Olive oil
- Sea salt
- Soy sauce and chili powder, or freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat the oven to about 350° F/180°C. Toss the seeds with olive oil and salt. Sprinkle with either soy sauce and chili powder or toss with Parmesan cheese. Spread on a cookie sheet and roast for about a half hour, tossing about every 1o minutes.
Tonight I made pureed pumpkin which I’ll freeze and use for soup. pumpkin cheesecake and our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. Sorry Linus!
“Yuck” my colleague Ann, who gardens, said when I told her what I intended to do with the green tomatoes she brought me. In the UK, people make chutney from the early autumn green tomatoes that never get around to ripening. But I’m a Southern girl at heart and know about Fried Green Tomatoes. Even though I grew up in Southern California, my parents were from the South – my Mom, Nell Rose, hailed from North Carolina and my dad, Frank, was an Okie from Muscogee.
Before
After
Steve and I are hosting a Samhain (pronounced SOW-in) feast on Saturday night. Samhain is a festival held at the end of the harvest season in Gaelic cultures. Principally a harvest festival, it also has aspects of a festival of the dead and is a time to honour the ancestors. We’re cooking a huge pot of cassoulet as the centrepiece of the meal and we’ve asked each of our guests to make and bring a dish that some of their ancestors would have eaten. My contribution will be fried green tomatoes and okra. More on the whole Samhain thing in another post, now let’s have something to eat!
Fried Green Tomatoes
- One or two medium green tomatoes per person
- Salt and pepper
- Cornmeal or polenta
- Bacon drippings, sunflower oil or sunflower oil that streaky bacon has been cooked in
Slice the tomatoes about ¼-inch thick, season with salt and pepper and then coat both sides in cornmeal. In a large skillet, heat enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan and fry tomatoes until lightly browned on both sides.
Steve says, ‘Surprisingly, tasty!”
When I made these the other night, I fried up some boneless chicken fillets, Southern style, made a pan of buttermilk biscuits and boiled some green beans for a Southern meal.
Last night I made BFGT sandwiches for dinner.
BFGT Sandwich
- Three slices of streaky bacon
- Three slices of fried green tomato
- Welsh Rabbit cheese sauce or Mature cheddar cheese
- Ciabatta
- Butter
- Jalapeño peppers
Cook and drain the bacon slices. Fry the tomatoes in the fat. Split the ciabatta lengthwise and toast under a grill Butter it and spread with cheese sauce or thin slices of cheddar. Grill until brown and bubbly. To assemble the BFGT, layer bacon and fried tomatoes on one half of the bread, add a few sliced jalapeño peppers and top with the other slice.
Pretty dang good!
Since the clocks have turned back, my bike ride after work is when it’s starting to get dimpsy. Dimpsy is an old Devonian word for twilight dusk. I notice the smells and sounds so much more when I can’t see the colours and details of things. The sleepy songs of roosting birds, the smell of woodsmoke from chimneys and bonfires, the pungent cedar tree by the old stone bridge and owls hooting in the apple orchard at my bus stop.
I normally have a 15 minute wait for the bus and haven’t been sure about how I’ll feel sitting in the dark (in the spring and summer, I can catch up on my reading). But, I like watching the night settle in. There are no street lights for miles around and the few houses at Farrant’s Cross have warm, yellow glows in their windows, so I have some company nearby. Last night I remembered that when I lived in L.A., when the darker, silent days of fall and winter arrived, the city would get even brighter and noisier. In the country and in a still rural part of England, the villages and people adapt to the season – tearooms and pubs reduce their opening hours and people stock up on wood, eat warming foods and move their activities indoors.
The trees were sillhouetted against the deepening blue sky. In a few weeks at this time, the sky behind them will be black and they will have stars caught in their branches.
Steve was due home after me, after a long drive from a meeting for his work, so I decided to make something quick and warm and comforting for dinner. Welsh rabbit, or Caws Pob isn’t rabbit at all, but a thick cheese and ale sauce spread over toast and grilled until it’s bubbly and browned. Quick to make and really yummy.
Caws Pob
- 2 llwy fwrdd of fenyn
- 2 llwy fwrdd of flawd
- 1 llwy de of fwstad Dijon
- 1 llwy de o saws Worcesterchire
- ½ llwy de o bupur du
- 60ml o gwrw porter
- 200g caws Chedda
- bara
Yn gyntaf dylid todi’r menyd mewn sosban cyn ychwanegu’r blawd a’i gogino am ddau funud (heb losgi’r blawd). I’r gymysgedd yma dylid ychwanegu’r mwstadd, y saws Worcesterchire y cwrw. Wedi cogino’r cymysgfa am tua pedwar munud dylid ychwanegu’r caws wedi ei garfellu ychydig wrth ychydig gan sicrhau and yw’n llosgi ar waelod y sosban. Tra mae’r caws yn toddi dylid tostio bara ar un ochor a phan mae’r caws yn barod dylid ei dolldi ar ben ochr amrwd y bar cyn ei roi o dan y gradell i liwio pen y caws.
buddha
Welsh Rabbit
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 60ml porter beer or brown ale
- 200g Cheddar cheese, grated
- sliced bread
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour. Cook this mixture for about two minutes, ensuring that the flour doesn’t burn. Add the mustard, Worcestershire sauce and the beer. Cook for about four minutes then begin adding the grated cheese little by little, ensuring that it does not burn on the bottom of the pan. Whilst the cheese is melting slice your bread and toast on one side under the grill. When the cheese has all melted turn the part-toasted bread over and add the cheese mixture on top of the uncooked side of the bread. Place back under the grill until the cheese has coloured a golden brown.
Steve and I went on a budget movie and dinner date the other night. First stop was the University of Exeter library for a film. When I used to work there, in another life, I cottoned onto the private viewing carrels and pretty extensive video collection spanning British, American, European and World cinema.
We saw Rebecca; released in 1940 this was Alfred Hitchcock’s first American project. Based on the Daphne du Maurier novel of the same name, it is a classic.
For dinner we had booked a table at Michael Caine’s Abode restaurant in the Cathedral Green. At about £12-15 for a starter and £22-24 for the main course, this isn’t normally a first choice for a cheap date. But we had taken advantage of an early dining offer at £14.95 for 2 courses if booked between 6 and 7 pm Monday to Friday. It was fabulous. The food was very good and beautifully presented and the service was exquisite. At no time did we feel like hoi-polloi because we were there on the early bird special. While we had a pre-dinner drink in the Champagne Bar, our waiter took our dinner and wine order. The dining room was beautiful, decorated in dark wood with bright orange notes from Gerbera daisies on the tables and details on the menu. From our table, we looked across the green to the beautiful Exeter Cathedral. As I mentioned before, the service was 5 star. Each dish was described to us as it was served and our waiter kept our bottle of wine to one side and never let our glasses get empty.
To begin, Steve had pickled fillet of sea bream with soused onion and fennel and a fennel cream sauce. I chose ham hock terrine with a grain mustard emulsion and pickled vegetables. Both were very savoury and delicious. I was a bit disappointed with my main course of Jerusalem artichoke and truffle risotto with parmesan and an artichoke broth. It was just a tad too bland for my taste, although the risotto was cooked to perfection. Steve hit the jackpot with roasted local Creedy Carver duck leg with roasted celeraic & garlic, savoy cabbage and a lightly spiced jus. The meat fell off of the bone and the vegetables were a perfect accompaniment to the richness of the duck. We shared a bottle of Le Petit Jaboulet Viognier which cost as much as our meal, but what the hay!
The early dining offer is a great idea, either to keep dinnertime business coming in at a time when folks are cutting back or to lure people in who may normally not pay upwards of £35 for a meal. The menu is seasonal, local and changes weekly. I know where we’ll be going for our next cheap date!
