SOME THINGS I PUT IN MY MOUTH - 2023 EDITION

AWAY FROM HOME:

 

A Negroni at Iberica, Victoria.

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A sausage roll at Delice, Lloyd Park – beef sausage for some (in fact I suppose fairly obvious) reason. 

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A pasty on an appealing plate, at the caff at the East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden.

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Toasted sandwiches served on slate at the Copr Bar, Swansea, though I actually forget what was in them:

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Zestily presented sausage bap and chips at the Sun, Dedham:

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It’s a wrap at the Welcome Institute.

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Anchovies, at the Orford Saloon in Walthamstow.

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Crispy squid, chips and salad, at the Rising Sun, Twickenham, eaten in the unexpected company of pre-game rugby fans who were consuming vast quantities of pizza.

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Seared Ahi tuna with ‘resort grown avocado pickled shallots, shaved Fresno pepper, gochujang bbq drizzle,’ at Edna’s Eaterie, Tucson Botanic Gardens. No, I’d never heard of gochujang either but it’s a kind of chili paste apparently.

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Spoiled for choice at the caff at the Horniman Museum.

Photo by Caroline Gannon, as are quite a lot of the others.

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AND AT HOME

In fact it’s a venison fillet but I know it looks like a sausage:

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Cheese straws, made by following (not very closely) a recipe for ‘Dishoon’s cheese and masala sticks’ 

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Devilled kidneys – my butcher is a good butcher but you have to ask him to order in kidneys specially:

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Another steak tartare in a universe of steak tartares:

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Taco night – not so much deconstructed as self-destructed:

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White Lake Cheese Somerset Dairy Tor, from Teddington Cheese in Richmond.

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Comparatively sophisticated - smoked mackerel. asparagus, Hollandaise sauce:

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Cheese on toast and beans (less sophisticated)

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A haggis pie with what looks like a fox’s face, though it was supposed to be a heart:

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Shepherd’s pie, post-Xmas – made with leftover duck (I read that Giles Coren was having the same.)

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CHRISTMAS TRIMMINGS

One year, when I was a kid, I was ill on Christmas day morning; nothing really alarming and with no obvious cause, but I was feeling totally out of sorts.

My family used to spend Christmas at my grandparents’ house. Various aunts, uncles and cousins lived very near by - and over the course of the morning quite a few of them trooped in and stared at me and said how ill I looked and how they hoped I'd be able to manage a bit of Christmas dinner.  And one uncle said, ‘Well perhaps he’ll be able to have a bit of turkey, even if he can’t manage all the trimmings.’

 

And this dismayed me because when it comes to Christmas dinner I liked the ‘trimmings’ much more than the turkey. It was the stuffing and the cranberry sauce, the pigs in blanket, and of course the roast potatoes, that really tickled my fancy. 

 

Well the years have gone by and my feelings about the trimmings haven’t really changed, but fortunately since my mother’s no longer in charge of things I don’t have to eat turkey.  This year’s bird was a mighty duck, from Creedy Carver of Devon – ‘reared for flavour’ – well, why not?

 

The inamorata and I worked diligently, and you know, it all went as well as it possibly could have, and I ate it with enthusiasm; duck, trimmings and all.

And as you may have spotted, this year the trimmings  included red cabbage.

 

Oh yeah, and there were martinis too.  We didn't have those at my grandparents' house.

A DUCK WITH MY NAME ON IT (MORE OR LESS)

 

REASONS TO BE EATING

Above (not absolutely in focus) is the Sa-Wooei Special Duck: “double cooked,” crispy, salty, intense, with a not-too-sweet, homemade plum sauce.  

         It would certainly be reason enough to go to the Sa-Wooei Thai restaurant, 10621, San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, California.  But you know, food is never the whole or the only reason why you go to a restaurant.  I was attracted to the Sa-Wooei because it had a fine (if not easily legible) neon sign:

And perhaps even more because it was on stilts.  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen, much less eaten in, a restaurant on stilts before.

And then there was the garnish – a butterfly carved out of a beet.  Edible for sure, but nobody else in the restaurant seemed to be eating theirs.

All good reasons to go to Sa-WooEi, but really, above, all the duck.