Chips on the knee and peppermint tea
Nov 3rd 2008
I had to break the news today to a colleague of mine that Starbucks would not be returning to our local branch of Sainsbury’s after its refit. She was horrified. Personally, I don’t care. I’d rather support independent coffee shops if I can. I’d much rather have lunch at Al Panino’s in Macclesfield where they make everything fresh in front of you and it tastes great, than have a pre-wrapped Panini in an identikit soulless cafe that could have come from anywhere. (Al Panino’s doesn’t have a website, but it’s on Chestergate in Macclesfield, worth checking out – try the aubergine, mozzarella and sun dried tomato ciabatta – bliss).
In fact, we tried a great coffee shop in Monmouth this weekend, one of a small chain in the South Wales/Bristol area (and as they’re not a global conglomerate trying to take over the world, we’ll forgive them for having more than a couple of branches).
Coffee#1 (which we found using H’s iPhone to search the ‘net – not that he’s a geek), is at the bottom of the main street in Monmouth. It was a lovely, warm, relaxing place with wooden floors, comfy leather sofas upstairs, papers to read and yummy food and drink. I discovered my new favourite drink there – hot apple and cinnamon. They put the apple juice through the hot steamer that they’d normally froth milk with, and then sprinkle cinnamon on it. It comes out slightly frothy on top, with a warm, baked apple smell to it. Mmm mmm mmm. Together with a couple of Welsh cakes (like scones only flatter) and a bite or two of H’s massive, mince pie-tasting toasted tea cake, it was a perfect way to spend a couple of hours hiding from the cold.
And this is where I should explain the title of this post. Bit of a long story. Picture this. A big farmhouse next to a famous recording studio, filled with anything between 18 and 20 adults (we lost count on a few occasions) and about 10 children (ditto – you try counting them when they don’t stay still long enough). The reason – our best man’s 40th birthday weekend. Much consumption of wine, whiskey, sloe gin, absinthe (!), and beer, together with much excellent home made fare including veggie chilli, birthday cake, pecan pie and sweet potato and carrot soup (although not as excellent as H’s home made butternut squash, sweet potato and roasted red pepper soup, which he made last night with ‘added love and spice’ – apparently).
During the weekend, said adults and children (except yours truly and H who had decided to check out the aforementioned café) went on an outing to a local sculpture trail (which apparently didn’t have much in the way of sculptures, but hey ho). Best man’s wife fell over and scraped her knee. By Sunday night it had swollen to frightening proportions. The remedy? A cold poultice of a bag of frozen chips applied to the knee. This was held in place whilst sitting at the table with four of us who had turned to cups of peppermint tea, which we saw as a sign of our advancing age and inability to drink alcohol for quite as long as we used to. ‘Chips on the knee and peppermint tea’ – a line we felt was ripe for a prog rock song. The recording studio next door suddenly looked very promising.
Nov 3rd 2008
Invasion of the iPhones!!! The techno-luddite that i am, I resisted mobile phones for many years and since have gone for the very basic makes calls and texts type of handsets. Now however, Stacey has an iphone and is a complete dork about it. Plus I inherited her old phone which does many wizzy things my old one didn’t like take pictures. The two of us can commiserate each other over our spousal communications selections.
Nov 4th 2008
Oh you speak my mind! I want real coffee from a real shop. You can taste the soul in the coffee when it is made with love and not just churned out in a McDonald’s style.
And now I just need to find somewhere that makes your apple drink – it sounds just perfect :-)