Apples and onions

Imperial unit of length, four letters.

Damned imperial measurement system. I am a metric child, born late enough to have only ever been taught millimetres and metres but early enough to still have bought fresh produce in pounds and ounces. I don’t object so much to the transition to metric or the lingering half-status of the imperial system, but being raised exclusively with one means I’m usually stumped if an older butcher or grocer asks me how much of something I want. And this kind of crossword clue reminds me of one of minor annoyances of the imperial system - a four letter crossword entry with the clue “unit of length” could be “inch”, “foot”, or “yard”. I’m not bothered about the inconsistency of the imperial system (twelve inches to a foot but three feet in a yard… I had to look that last one up), but I am frustrated that the three primary length measurements of the system all have four letters in them. It simply doesn’t help with crosswords.

Looking up from my paper (crossword doomed to be no more than eighty percent completed, I can feel it) I observe the scene. I’m in Broadford, one of the less defined, less attractive and frankly straggly towns of Skye, and I’m waiting for a bus. Beneath grey skies, light rain is falling, and I’ve retreated to a Beinn Na Cailligh, a café on the outskirts of the village. There are three buses a day from the principal towns and villages of Skye to Glasgow, and I tried to catch the first one. Although the ticket I bought was flexible, the driver refused to let me board the earliest serviceon a technicality. Flexible ticket or not, mobile tickets have to be checked against the driver’s manifest, so they’re actually only valid on the booked bus.

The driver did give me a lift though, picking me up from the cloud of midges beside the road where I hailed the bus and bringing me a few kilometers down the road to Broadford. There was, at least, more chance of me passing two and a half hours here than where I’d tried to board the bus.

My walking tour of Broadford was concluded in about five minutes. The main road from the Skye Bridge up to the island’s de facto “capital” of Portree passes through it, and there are a handful of minor streets on either side. For a brief stretch the road passes alongside what could have once been an attractive harbour, but just to cement the town’s aesthetic mediocrity, a petrol station and aircraft-hangar of a supermarket were built between the road and the water. A handful of attempts at town beautification have produced some delicately designed parks, but the town’s entire density is too low and the buildings are notable only for the functionality and weather resistance. Of all the towns to be stranded in the Hebredes, Broadford is not my choice destination.

But there are at least some retail opportunities, so I buy a paper and send a postcard, and once Beinn Na Cailligh has opened at nine o’clock, I saunter in for a cooked breakfast. I’m already damp and shivering, and the prospect of a meaty breakfast (black and white pudding included) cheers me. The coffee isn’t bad either. There’s an actual espresso machine, which probably tells you all about the expectations of modern holiday makers who visit Skye. I’d previously be told by a resident that amongst English tourists, Skye is a firm favourite with lower income groups (my interpretation of his words), a fact that seemed to be born out by the conversations I overheard in the café and the types of cars parked outside. There were others, however, with bemused Spaniards peering at the desert cabinet and an American woman flying in to get three cappucinos “to go”.

Outside I spy some middle aged men who’ve pulled up in a silver car and who have stepped out to photograph a pair of buses that have pulled up at the stop outside. They snap a few pictures and then drive off, perhaps to catch the same bus further down the line. During the hour and a half that I spend in the café, I count almost twenty buses coming and going. Skye is phenomenally well served by public transport. Locals rub shoulders with tourists on most of the routes that connect the towns and villages of the island with the railway station at the other end of the Skye Bridge in Kyle of Localsh, and the ferry terminal at Armadale.

I clear my plate, finding black pudding much more digestable with brown sauce. The sauces come in small plastic sachets that are kept in little bowls on the table. I remember that it was around this time last year, on a Caledonian Macbrayne ferry not far from Skye, that I noticed something on the very same design of sauce sachets.

Each sauce packet was a little double sided envelope. One side, in white against the appropriate colour, was the written name of the contents. On the back was a photograph of the principal ingredient. So on the back of the tomato ketchup sachet were tomatoes. On the back of the mayoinnaise sachet were hard boiled eggs, de-shelled and cut in halves. What surprised me a year before, and what I remembered again that day, was the illustration on the back of the brown sauce sachet.

What would you expect to see on the brown sauce sachet? What are the primary ingredients of brown sauce?

When I first picked up one of these little brown packets, I was quite surprised by the illustration. I may be devoted consumer of brown sauce, but only because I find tomato sauce a little too tart and dull. I’d never really thought about what might actually give brown sauce its flavour.

According to these packets, the primary ingredients of brown sauce are apples and onions.

Whether or not this commercially prepared and packed brown sauce had ever come into contact with an apple or onion is open to debate. For all I know, it is quite possible it was just “red” sauce with extra vinegar and colourings. But the idea that once upon a time, brown sauce was freshly prepared with green apples and brown onions amused me, because it’s only when I’m in the Scottish islands that I consider the origins of brown sauce.

Poaching

Last week, while travelling at speeds of almost 200km/h, I ate freshly prepared Eggs Benedict and drank a quite reasonable Merlot. Some unexpected news had reached me during a five hour train journey (via the complimentary wireless internet provided on said train), so I decided to celebrate with a modest lunch in the restaurant car. The restaurant on National Express East Coast services is in fact half of a first class carriage beyond the standard class buffet counter, so for penny pinching apex travellers like myself, a meal on the train is actually a pretty cheap upgrade to first class for as long as you are eating. The Eggs Benedict didn’t last that long, although the Merlot and a coffee meant I spent the time it takes to get from York to Peteborough in a much more comfortable seat than that which I had occupied from Glasgow at the other end of the train.

I don’t think I’d eaten Eggs Benedict until a few years ago when I tried the dish during a torrential summer downpour in a Montréal bistro. Something I miss a great deal from living in Canada (and travelling in America) is the ease and affordability of eating out for breakfast. The consumate skill required in preparing Eggs Benedict makes it a justifiable purchase in a breakfast joint, especially since I rarely have the motor skills first thing in the morning to poach eggs.

These eggs were amazing, served beneath a creamy hollandaise sauce on lightly toasted muffins, with a few slices of cured ham and salad. Light yet filling, supremely healthy, and surprisingly well matched to a glass of red wine. Before I left the train at Peterborough I asked the chef, who was lingering at the end of his immensely impressive narrow kitchen in the next carriage, how he managed to make such perfect poached eggs on a train. He said it was simple.

“I’m just good, that’s all.”

Not the kitchen tip I was hoping for, but he did disclose that poaching eggs can’t be done without a drop of vinegar in the boiling water to help the eggs thicken and coagulate. Having never poached my own eggs before, I was reminded of this tip during an early morning B&Q trip today. I was accompanying a new homeowner who wanted to buy a new contraption that makes painting easy for those who forget to wash their paintbrushes. After finding the device and purchasing it at half price we stopped at a supermarket on the way home, planning breakfast. Eggs, salmon, hollondaise sauce and bagels were procured, along with a copy of the Saturday Guardian. With some fresh spinach leaves at home, I launched into my first ever attempt to poach some eggs. I must confess that I’m slightly surprised at just how easy it was - the vinegar in the water does indeed help, and by using a spoon to stir a whirlool in the pan of boiling water the egg forms a vaguely contiguous shape that is simultaneously aesthetically pleasing to mount on a toasted bagel. I plan to poach some more in the coming weeks. What with my kitchen being slightly more spacious than that on board a high speed train, and noticeably more stable, I suspect all that is needed is practice.

Castle Acre bookshop discoveries #2

It’s been a bit of a dairy-centric day at the bookshop. After my earlier discovery of literature promoting southern Scandinavian cheese products, these three beautiful pamphlets emerged from another box of donations. I must have had milk on the brain. But then again, I was friesian in there, and unpacking books meant I was moo-ving about a bit. I only semi-skimmed these ones, but I made sure to cream them off from the rest of the stock. Surely someone must want to pur-cheese this little set? I think that the illustrations are udder-ly beautiful.

Each one carries the following on the back cover:

Published by the National Dairy Council.
Melbourne House, Aldwych, London WC2.
llustrated by W. G. Morden
© Copyright 1960 the National Dairy Council.

I’m going to separate these three and wrap them together. They’re in near mint condition. Drop me a line via the comments box if you’d be interested in them. We’ve talked about uploading the shop’s small but growing inventory of first editions to Abe Books or similar, but at the moment I suspect the subscription costs would be too high.

I leave you with my favourite cover design of the day, and a scan of a loose inside sheet. If the inside sheet was originally published with the book (and I suspect it was) we have an extremely rare complete document here.

Regardless of historical or monetary value, that’s one cool cover design, and one surreal title for an educational booklet.

Castle Acre bookshop discoveries #1

I like cheese, and I like bookshops. I also like a bit of classy fifties, sixties or seventies graphic design. Finding a beautifully preserved promotional leaflet for Danish Cheese, presumably published some time in the early seventies, makes for an amusing highlight of a few hours volunteering in the Friends of Castle Acre Church Charity Bookshop.

Cheeses are like people. They have character or they have not. Tou must choose them carefully just as do a friend.

Cheese from the friendly land of Denmark has centuries of cheesemaking experience behind it. Modern Denmark has added scientific know-how and the last word in hygienic standards to produce fine quality cheeses. Danish cheeses make friends wherever they are served in countries as far apart as Britain, the United States and even in Japan.

Making good cheese takes several weeks before it reaches the degree of mellowness that appreciative customers demand. At every stage the Danish State Quality Control regulates the standards of quality, hygiene and purity required. The State Quality Control was set up in 1906, at the request of the the farmers themselves, using the symbol the Lurmark.

Danish cheeses are amongst the finest in the world, wholesome and satisfying, simple or sophisticated, to please every palate.

The very small text at the bottom left of the image above reads:

Issued by: Danish Agricultural Producers, 2/3 Conduit Street, London, WIR 0AT on behalf of the Danish Export Board.

These leaflet dropped out of a hardback cookery book of the same era that was donated today in a large bag of other books. The book has joined the growing selection of cook books in the back room, but I couldn’t resist holding on to this charming little leaflet. Who would have thought there were so many cheeses made in Denmark?

As you can imagine, I just can’t wait to try out the “Samsoe Sputnik”.

Cut 6 oz. Samsoe in 3/4″ cubes. Cut a slice from one end of an orange to make a firm base. Pierce the cheese cubes on a cocktail stick. Add a grape, cherry, mandarin segment or piece of pineapple to each cube. Push the other of the cocktail stick into the orange to form a decorated “sputnik”.

The Friends of Castle Acre Church Charity Bookshop is open 10:00 - 16:00 every Saturday and public holiday, and is found at the eastern end of Castle Acre’s high street in west Norfolk. Thousands of paperbacks and hardbacks already in stock, with no small number containing similarly delightful little historic documents between their pages.

Wagamama opens in Sheffield

The Japanese noodle bar chain Wagamama opened a branch in Sheffield’s redeveloped Leopold Square a few weeks ago, and along with my mystery dining companion I got tickets to one of the preview nights. Since I found out about this promotion through the lively Sheffield Forum, I posted a brief review of the restaurant online the next day. A few flattering comments about my review encouraged me to share it again here. I’ve made a few corrections for the sake of grammar.

… Went to Wagamama’s last night for one of the preview meals. I’ve eaten in their London and Amsterdam branches before, and first off loved the food. Great flavours, textures and well balanced dishes. The Wagamama “big concept” is that food should be cooked, served and eaten fresh, meaning dishes come at different times as soon as they’re ready. Nice idea, but my main dish arrived fifteen minutes after my friend’s. Now I like the idea of cooking something to order and getting it to me fresh, but a good restaurant will do that anyway and know how to cook dishes at the right time to be served together. It’s a big black mark for laziness disguised as trendy concept cooking. Similarly, it’s a bit superfluous for the waitresses to be scribbling dish numbers on our paper placemats if every other server still has to ask who’s eating what when they bring it to the table.

The freshly squeezed fruit and veg juices are great - a very refreshing appetizer. Didn’t try the beers, probably a mistake since only the house wine was on offer and it was pretty naff. Our starters were both dumplings - great seasoning and spicing, and the little dipping sauces were great too. My friend had a coconut-soup-based noodle dish (forget the name) which was very filling and well spiced, but the noodles were on the undercooked side of firm.

The biggest disappointment is basically the restaurant design itself. When the chain started, their branches (notably the one near Piccadilly Circus) were architectural treats: clever, minimalist and well detailed. The Leopold Square complex has that depressing air about it that so many new Sheffield developments or refurbs have: the whole development has been clumsily converted from an old school with no attention to detail, and absolutely no joy in those little bits that make a building really beautiful to be in. Whereas Strada across the square have made a real effort to dress and decorate their dining room to create an ambiance and atmosphere, Wagamama’s have basically slapped a coat of white paint to the builder’s plasterboard and specified the cheapest skirting, tiles and a set of lighting tracks that look like they belong in an office. The original branches made the minimalist Japanese canteen concept cool and appealing. This branch’s design just feels like a rush job. The premium Wagamama charges in its menu over East One or any of Sheffield’s other noodle bars isn’t justified by the atmosphere.

We were sat at the furthest end of the restaurant from the door, so I spent most of the evening looking at the bleak white wall that frames the old windows onto Leopold Street. There’s nothing wrong with cutting through two floors to insert a new one-and-a-half-height space, but they missed a great trick here with some colour, some texture, maybe even exposed materials from the old building. We felt like we were in a white plastic box that was stuck inside an old building… no real connection from inside to out (so Hooters fans might regret not being able to ogle at the busty blondes who haven’t heard of feminism)

Finally, I appreciate the hard work put in by all the staff, and forgive any of the minor problems with service. It’s a great idea to have trial nights to make sure everything runs smoothly. My only tip is the same I’d give to almost every server in this city: don’t hover around diners so much waiting for us to clear our plates, and not to keep asking if our glasses are done with before they’re not.

So: great food, but the whole excitement about Wagamama is the style and concept, and both the Leopold Square units and the Wagamama designers have cut corners. I’d still say that East One in the West One complex does everything Wagamama does better, with a bigger menu, bigger portions and cheaper prices. And it does it without any failed aspirations to be a trendy minimalist canteen.