St George’s Hall

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

We found ourselves walking out of Lime Street Station yesterday and then across the road into St George’s Hall. There was an arts & crafts fair going on and so we looked at the arts & crafts but I found myself spending more time looking over the building and its internal splendour.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And then we walked back outside through the great columns that stand opposite the old station hotel. There were chairs and a table had been set up from where you could buy coffee but I couldn’t help thinking that here was an opportunity lost.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Afterwards we admired the ginger cat in 69A on Renshaw Street and then went for lunch in Maray. Is it now the best place to eat in Liverpool?

Tortilla

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

I got told off the evening for boiling my potatoes.

The Spanish tortilla had been cooked and was on the side in the kitchen resting for a few minutes before being eaten.

As it sat there it was briefly admired by a friend but I was told that I should not have boiled the potatoes.

She was right of course. If I had been doing it properly I should have cooked the potatoes in hot olive oil before adding the onions and egg. But I was being lazy and truth be told I was more worried about whether the egg would stick to the bottom of the non-non-stick pan.

In the event it seems that the pan has managed to pick up sufficient seasoning over the last couple of years and it is now more or less non-stick and I was able to get the tortilla to slide out without too much mess.

I still cheated by using the grill to cook the top rather than go down the route of tipping it out onto a plate and then tipping it back in upside down.

Rather to my surprise we finished it all.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Another prawn curry

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

Six years ago when we went to Australia I came back with a signed copy of David Thompson’s Thai Street Food. I am still not quite sure how I was able to bring it back with me on the plane. It is a monster of a book and weighs a ton and must have taken up most of my luggage allowance all by itself.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I had it out yesterday as I was looking for another prawn curry to make.

Once assembled it was fairly straightforward. A lot of the recipes in the book involve the making of a paste. This means getting out a heavy pestle and mortar and spending the best part of an hour chopping and pounding.

The spices were done first – a mixture of cumin, coriander and fennel seeds which all had to be roasted and then ground to a powder. They were mixed with some mace and white pepper.

In the meantime some dried red chillies had been soaking. Once soft they were chopped and ground to a paste with some salt, a couple of cloves of garlic were then added to the mix and ground down as well. They were followed by coriander roots, lemon grass, red shallots, galangal and turmeric. I was able to find some fresh turmeric roots in The International Store and they have stained everything a bright yellow. The spice mixture was stirred in.

I was left with a thick brown pungent paste.

This went into a wok to be fried off with some coconut milk. As it started to stick I tipped in the rest of the coconut milk, stirred in some sugar along with an onion that been chopped into chances and a couple of cubed cooked potatoes. As it all started to cook I added the raw prawns and a couple of handfuls of split cherry tomatoes. Once the prawns were pink I seasoned it with fish sauce and chilli powder.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We ate it with boiled rice and cucumber relish.

An angel and a lost Superlambanana

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Saturday lunchtime we were walking through the woods around the back of Llanberis when we found ourselves looking out over a field at the end of which stood a lone Superlambanana looking slightly lost under a glowering grey sky and the benign look of some white cottages.

We had spent the night before eating soup and drinking beer amidst good company and gearing up for the prospect of a night spent in a mini Swiss chalet nestled amongst some hobbit hutches and a Celtic meeting room. The beer was flavoured with elderflower and went down very well indeed and managed to stave off the worst of the midges for a while.

The chalet was cozy until I woke at 4.00 in the morning as the beer took its toll and I was obliged to stumble out in the semi-dark with a torch so I could find a convenient tree on account of not yet having worked out the location of the compost loos. I had had a go of course earlier in the evening but found myself peering in through the windows of what transpired to be occupied hobbit hutches.

After the adventures of Friday night a walk was planned.

The plan kept simple. All we had to do was walk back up the hill until we found some white markers. We could then follow those to an old slate mine where we would find a stairway to heaven and a house full of old shoes.

Somewhat to our surprise the plan almost worked. We followed the white markers and they took us past the Superlambanana and then onto the slate mine. The slate mine was suitably abandoned and grey under the mountains. There seemed to be a number of options for the stairway to heaven and it transpired we took the wrong one. We scrambled to the top of it any way and ate flap-jacks and drank a pint of beer. We then scrambled our way back down.

Having scrambled our way down I put my hand on my head and realised that a new leather hat had been left on the top of the steep path we had just scrambled down. I had taken it off to better tip the can of beer down my throat. There was nothing for it but to mutter an oath and head back up the hill to fetch it. Three days later I can still feel the tightness in my thighs.

We didn’t find the house of abandoned shoes.

Back amongst the hobbit hutches some of us went for a swim in the lake whilst others got ready to do battle with the midges by sampling more of the elderflower flavoured beer. We then stood around a fire outside in the gloming and listened to stories and drank at prosecco fished out of a blue box in a cold stream. The same blue box also held some excellent smoked beer which joined forces with its elderflower flavoured ally. There was then time for more good food before a gathering in the Celtic hut where a fire was lit and we listened to talk of the mountains, and a whistle.

Later as we stood outside the midges descended. Vast bottles of emollients were produced and all available skin duly lathered. I did without confident that the combination of smoked and elderflower flavoured beer and the smoke from the fire would keep them at bay.

I was wrong of course and 24 hours later I became a twisting mass of bumps and itches.