Another Food Blog

According to a bizarre article at The Viewspaper, coffee is the devil’s own drink. I rarely drink it myself – only normally after a large meal in a formal setting, when it tends to come as the fourth or fifth course, with mints alongside. A decent cup of espresso at that point often prevents me from falling asleep during the inevitably dull after-dinner speeches that tend to accompany such evenings. It’s an excellent stimulant for counteracting the booze from the earlier part of the meal.

Indeed, I’ve heard people swear blind that coffee in the morning helps them to get over their hangover from heavy drinking the night before. I’ve not yet found the need, but I thoroughly believe those that tell me, as I’ve seen them both before and after their caffeine hit!

Many people insist on only ‘proper’ coffee – freshly ground from beans, and brewed carefully in a device with a plunger. Others are happy with what’s available, which usually amounts to freeze-dried granules from a jar on the shelf next to the tea bags. The purists have the edge here from my point of view. I’ve tried both and there is often much more depth of flavour and intensity in the ‘proper’ coffee.

So, if you wish to get on the good side of the devil once you pop your clogs, perhaps being buried with the best Java blend and associated equipment might be the right technique.

If you’ve ever owned a toasting device, such as the George Foreman grilling machine, you will understand that if you wish to make a toasted sandwich with one, it’s best to include cheese in the filling, so it melts and combines the other ingredients together very satisfyingly. I’ve recently tried such a thing at The Maypole in Cambridge. My favourite is the mozarella, sundried tomato and basil toasted sandwich. It often comes with chips (unless you specify otherwise) and salad, all of which is complimented by condiments such as mayonnaise, tomato ketchup, vinegar, salt and pepper. Quite filling, absolutely delicious, and only £5.50. Well worth a try if you’re in the area.

The owners of this Cambridge pub are from Italy, and it shows in their Antipasto Mediterranean. The dish comes served with two pieces of large, crusty bread, and the main part of the meal is made from sundried tomatoes, olives, feta cheese, various herbs and a few other bits and pieces, sliced small and put into a serving dish next to the bread. It’s really quite excellent, and filling, and one of the cheapest things on their menu, at £4.95. I thoroughly enjoyed mine whilst watching a lecture on the internet about dark matter, via their free wifi system. Well worth the time spent here (I write whilst sitting in their outdoor space, which is covered well with giant umbrellas, protecting us from the recently very unpredictable weather).

Occasionally, I pop into town to perform some task with the university. In general, this takes a few hours (library work and similar), so I always take in something to eat. When I forget to pack something from home, I pick up a flapjack (or oatcake, depending on where you’re from) from one of the local shops on my way through.

There is always a selection, but my favourite so far has turned out to be raspberry, although the hard-yoghurt-covered one is a close contender. There are those with chocolate, but I choose them for their relatively healthy nutrition, and the chocolate seems to go against this notion somehow…

It was a warm and busy day in Cambridge. We actually had to move from two different establishments before we found a table big enough for the six of us. We eventually settled at The Eagle, in one of their nicely wood-panelled rooms. In celebration of (most of) us finishing exams, we managed to get through three bottles of an excellent newbie (as far as I’ve noticed). Its name is Duc de Roucher – no prizes for guessing the translation. It was a standard 12.5%, and we had an entertaining time opening the first (minor spillage, by an ‘expert’).

The nose had chocolate, violets, a hint of lemon and was generally creamy. The body had relatively large bubbles for a real Champagne, although it kept the fizz well throughout. There was the standard biscuit flavour and quite a tangy edge to it. The finish had a firm acid, and left us pretty well satisfied. Thanks went to our gracious host, in and around some entertaining debates ranging from the standard political issues right through to metaphysical theological nonsense (although I think we got there by accident).

That it may be, but it was still excellent. A friend and I were out enjoying the weather and window-shopping for a netbook, when we realised it was quite late and we ought to continue the fun and dine out. (Another cunning way shops staying open until 8pm make you spend more…)

His ex-gym (Greens, Cambridge) was close by, and he recalled that they served light meals in their atrium, so we popped in there. There was a surprisingly long list of different sort of salads and sandwiches, and I opted for a smoked salmon bagel. There was a selection of bagels, with different flours and different levels of grain. Being a health place, I thought it would be silly not to choose brown flour, with as much granary stuff as possible, and I’m glad I did.

It came with an excellent crunch from the toasting process, and a thin layer of cream cheese. To this, I added black pepper and a tiny amount of salt from the table’s dispensers. It was just filling enough. With it, I drank sparkling mineral water, whilst my friend enjoyed a chicken wrap with Appletise, which he seemed to enjoy, although he later ate dessert elsewhere whilst we mulled over the window shopping’s conclusions.

I walked past Hotel Chocolat whilst out getting my voicemail fixed, and was very tempted to go in and buy some aids for my academic activity. However, I then noticed the prices and decided a somewhat more special occasion was required, so instead dropped by Sainsbury’s on my way back to the bus stop.

In there, I noticed alongside the well-known brands two particularly interesting bars: one was dark chocolate, and the other milk. Each bar was 100g, and cost just 27 pence. This was the basics range. I couldn’t resist trying them out at that price, as I wouldn’t feel too bad even if I hated them.

As it turns out, both are perfectly acceptable. In fact, the dark chocolate, without a side-by-side test, was indistinguishable to my untrained tastebuds to any other I’ve had. The milk chocolate wasn’t as good as my favourite, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, lacking that distinctive flavour that I grew up with – hints of malt, cream and vanilla, but it was decent chocolate. Given that another chocolate, Milky Bar, was also 100g but cost £1, I know how I’m going to shop in the future (given how little of the stuff I eat).

Every now and then I take a walk through the market in Cambridge, and this last week’s weather has been magnificent, so I went a couple of times. On one day, I was tempted to buy a chorizo sausage, so I did. Although it cost £3.75, it was quite hefty (about the size of two normal sausages, uncooked) and it lasted me through at least ten deliciously varied salads, and I even fried some of it, using the fat that ran off to add flavour to some otherwise bland bacon.

My favourite thing to do with it has been salads. One in particular stood out: three slices of chorizo, Chinese bean sprouts, Cambozola cheese (pictured), several mushrooms, spring onions and English mustard on the side. That’s the base from which I vary the salad, sometimes adding a hard-boiled egg, sometimes some lettuce or cucumber. Perhaps a bit of smoked fish. Any combination is healthy and tasty!

Today, I awoke to a fridge with the last meal-sized portion of smoked salmon left over. I took a very thin slice of crust from the end of a granary loaf, coated it with olive oil spread, then lay the smoked salmon slices on top. I added a hint of freshly-ground, black pepper, then spread a little plain yoghurt on top. On top of this, I put four thick-sliced pieces of cucumber, then took a slice of lemon from near the middle of the fruit. I squeezed it over the top of the arrangement, then noticed that the pulp that had provided the juice was relatively free from the pith, and easily separated into its segments. Therefore, I added these to the top and finished off with more pepper. Absolutely fantastic, with extra zing from the pulpy bits of lemon. This reminds me of Madsen’s trick with a tiny number of granules of sugar on berry-fruits, each of which gives a distinctly noticeable, albeit brief, burst of sweetness.

As I’m not drinking at the moment, to keep a clear head for academic purposes, when a friend ordered a ‘Bon-Bon’ cocktail at B, Cambridge, I took the merest sip, to taste, as it was a new cocktail to me. The flavour was quite remarkable – mostly marzipan, but with sweet lemon, too. Their ingredients list reads like this: ‘Stolichnaya vanilla vodka, shaken with butterscotch Schnapps, vanilla sugar and lemon juice.’ Clearly, you should be at least willing to pander to your sweet tooth before you order one, at £6.95. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and having looked it up on the Internet, I noticed that most others do it with limoncello instead, I guess, of the sugar and separate lemon juice (and, presumably adding to the alcohol content!). It was good served over ice in a short glass, and probably a good swelteringly-hot garden party drink (drunk slowly, as it packs quite a punch).