Fruits, Roots and Shoots

Moving on

This blog has a new home and a new name at www.scoffinthecity.blogspot.com. Thanks to all who have kept me company for the past couple of years - I hope you will continue to follow my new blog.

It will still have recipes, a seasonal flavour and the chance for you to contribute. What's more, it should look better and be a lot easier to leave your comments. As I have moved to the big city, it seems only right to give this blog a new home too!

The Great British Beer Festival

Where else can you find a Cherry Blonde and a Chocolate Marble in the same room as a Knight of the Garter and Black Beck Belle?...(read more)

Strawberries for Wimbledon

It is halfway through Wimbledon fortnight - and therefore I reckon it is practically compulsory to eat strawberries.

The end of Wimbledon will also coincide with my move to London. So it was symbolic in all kinds of ways when I finally got around to doing pick-your-own strawberries this weekend. I went to AG Meale at Wayford Bridge in north-east Norfolk, and thought about the differences between rural life and life in a big city.

I was quite restrained - we managed to come away with a reasonable number of strawberries rather than punnets and punnets of them, though this was partly because it was late in the day and other people had got to most of the strawberries first!

To add to the symbolism, my parents were visiting, so we had strawberries from their garden on the edge of London to add to the Norfolk strawberries. Good things obviously grow in London too!

Eton Mess is one of my favourite strawberry dishes, but on a scorching hot day like today I think a sundae might just have the edge over it.

One of the beauties of a sundae is that you can vary it according to your preference, but the basics are ice-cream, fruit and whipped cream. This is not an occasion when you need to be restrained though - it is definitely a case of the more, the merrier.

For the ultimate strawberry sundae:

Ingredients

Good-quality strawberry ice-cream

Whipped cream

Meringue nests or pieces

Strawberries

A chocolate Flake or similar

Method

Take half of the strawberries and mash or liquidise them into a sauce and leave the rest whole (or halved / quartered if they are large). Taste and add a little sugar if you think it needs it. Layer all the ingredients in your serving dish (a very tall glass per person is certainly the best thing to serve it in, but a bowl will do) breaking the meringue into pieces if it is not already in pieces. Finish with whipped cream, decorate with the last few strawberries and stick a Flake into it. Enjoy greedily.

Cheat's strawberry shortbread sandwich

Here is a really easy dessert that you can enjoy while watching Wimbledon on television.

Take good quality all-butter round shortbread biscuits, a large tub of clotted cream, and strawberries, hulled and halved/ quartered.

Spread a biscuit generously with the cream and top it with strawberry pieces. Place another biscuit on top of that and apply more cream and strawberries. You can carry on to make even more layers if you have the inclination and the engineering skills!

As you may have gathered, I will soon be moving - and so will this blog. Find it at www.scoffinthecity.blogspot.com

If music be the food of love...

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The nostalgic power of food

I spent an enjoyable half-hour outdoors demolishing half a tub of strawberry ice-cream. It was palest pink (no colourings here), deeply creamy and just sweet enough. An old-fashioned strawberry ice, in fact....(read more)

Carluccio's opens in Norwich

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What do you like to cook?

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A fine Highlands inn

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The trials of finding somewhere decent to eat on a Sunday night

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The perfect picnic

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What actually is a gateau opera? (and other questions only Royal Wedding guests know the answers to)

Obviously, I didn’t get to sample the food at the Royal Wedding reception. Those more distinguished than me were able to enjoy canapes of British produce including Scottish smoked salmon rose on beetroot blini, roulade of goats’ cheese with caramelised walnuts... ...(read more)

The Royal Wedding cake

I have just seen the pictures of the Royal Wedding Cake. It is very beautiful, though not entirely my cup of tea. ...(read more)

Beer, pies and sausages too!

So I toddled along to two of the Easter beer festivals - the Bell in Rickinghall and the King's Head in North Lopham, either side of the Norfolk-Suffolk border near Diss....(read more)