The British Winter Ales Fest

This past weekend we packed our backpacks and headed to Manchester. There's lots to do in that city—museums, good restaurants, the Man U stadium, Legoland, &c &c &c.

I went to the National Winter Ales Festival. I'd volunteered to do anything, from sweeping floors to mopping, to whatever, but they came back with "do you want to pour beer?" Um, yes please.

London Calling . . .

Last weekend we traveled to London to visit for a few days. We got to do the usual touristy things: See Buckingham palace, Parliament, 10 Downing, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the National Gallery, etc. The kids rode the double-decker bus, which they loved. We took the Tube around, and walked.

It was a good time. I managed to squeeze in a few beers and some decent food, as well.

Beers so far . . .

I don't know why I hadn't thought of this earlier, but I've started keeping a running tab of the beers I have while in England. the list is on the right. Some of these I've had before, some are new to me. I'll try also to make some notes about them in blog posts. As the list changes I'll re-post it in main blog posts, but it's also available on the right-hand side of this page.

The running list so far:

Of Birds and Beating

I had a unique opportunity Monday—one of those once-in-a-lifetime things. The woods around Harlaxton Manor are teeming with fox, grouse, woodcock, quail, and pheasant. The pond area has geese and different types of ducks. Today there was a "shoot" on the grounds and I got the chance to go along for the first half of the day. I had read about the hunt a few days before coming to England and had asked Ian Welsh, the tech guru and all-around go-to guy at Harlaxton, if there was any way I could go along. I knew I wouldn't be able to shoot, but I thought I might go along as a "beater." He put me together with the guy in charge of the hunt and I found out last week that I could go along. It was a great adventure.

Coming Soon

Lee went to Cambridge for some kind of an art thing. She'll blog it soon, I'm sure. More importantly she brought home three beers local to the Cambridge area.

I'll try them and report on them next week. In the meantime, from left to right, we have:

• Hawse Buckler, a strong dark ale from Oakham Ales
• Granny Wouldn't Like It, a brown ale from Wolf Brewery
• Cambridge Bitter from Elgood & Sons, Ltd.

Walking, Fish and Chips, and Beer

Today is Wednesday, and I don't have classes on Wednesday. ("Why don't you . . . call me some time, when you . . . have no class") So I decided to take what should be the first of many walks into Grantham. A normal person would walk a straight line into town. It's around two miles each way. But since I started by dropped the two youngest off at school, and then was geocaching along the route, it ended up being a fourteen mile round trip. I had my GPS with me to measure distance, and I really wish I had enabled the "bread crumb" feature so I could see the whole path.  There was some backtracking and roundabout walking, and stops at two pubs. Which brings me to the actual purpose of this post.

Food at Harlaxton

So we've been here for a few days and had quite a few meals in the refectory. This is a UKan word for a cafeteria, although sometimes the word canteen is used by two-year schools and technical colleges. In any case, the food served in the refectory has to be understood in the context of a cafeteria.

First Beer

Whew! I finally managed to get out to get some beer. On Thursday we took the Harlaxton-Grantham shuttle into town, which dropped us off right near the local supermarket. Morrisons is like a Giant or a Vons in the States. We walked up the street a bit (look right, then left, when crossing the street!), and a made a quick stop at the "local."

First foods?

Well, we've arrived here in Grantham, England, and at Harlaxton Manor.

It's a nice place. The interior is gorgeous, and has everything one would expect from a manor house. There's beautiful artwork, lovely architecture, secret passageways (we've found three so far), wood paneling, fireplaces big enough to roast a pig, and many other interesting points.

 My first meal in England? Ha. An energy drink and some Skittles as we left the airport. The refectory (ie., "cafeteria") had an evening meal—I had a salad. So, it's an inauspicious start in the foodie sense.

Tonight a few of us are on for a wine and cheese gathering, so that should be a bit more interesting.

But, all is well. We're busy with orientation and getting settled in.

A Final Dinner in the States

How do you choose a last meal? It's kind of a classic choice, right? Do you go with something exceedingly simple? Bread-and-wine with twelve of your closest friends?

Or do you go for something more elaborate, something closer to what a death row prisoner might choose? In 2011 death row inmate Lawrence Brewer requested and received for his last meal “two chicken-fried steaks with gravy and sliced onions; a triple-patty bacon cheeseburger; a cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapeños; a bowl of fried okra with ketchup; one pound of barbecued meat with half a loaf of white bread; three fajitas; a meat-lover’s pizza; one pint of Blue Bell Ice Cream; a slab of peanut-butter fudge with crushed peanuts; and three root beers.” He then refused to eat the meal, leading Texas to do away with the custom of providing “last meals” to people they were about to execute.

I tended toward the simple end of the scale.

Comfort Foods?

I like to "cook." I use the scare quotes because the word "cooking" usually calls to mind the application of heat to some kind of food. But I prefer the broader use of the word, which would include the assembly of any dish for consumption. So this could include non-cooked items such as sauces, dips, and simple appetizers.

My love of cooking is the one thing that offsets my natural tendency to avoid large gatherings of people. It's not that I'm a misanthrope, or overly anti-social. I'm just not that into big gatherings. Still, the cooking is fun, and it's great to share food and to see people enjoy the food that you've spent some time creating. Sharing food is a very old form of human socialization, going back to before written or oral history.

Introductions

Deciding what to do with the first post in a blog can be tough. It's the introduction to what one hopes will be a long line of posts on a given topic. So it should lay out the philosophy and the direction of the blog. It probably ought to be witty—perhaps weighty.