Apples and Strawberries from New Malden.
As my general growing and farming ability improves, I thought I would share a few decent photos of the first ever apples growing on my Cox’s apple tree and a strawberry.
Strawberry living in New Malden
Arcticterntalk.org
The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world
Archive for the tag “food”
Reflections on Vienna
In summary I really like this city. Although have not seen a great deal of the buildings or architecture, the people are nice, the ambience is warm and importantly the wine is superb. Dinner in a venue like below is not done that often. The food is interesting and relies on veal, either served in small burgers or as Weiner Schnitzel. The streets are complex to cross to avoid meeting trams coming head on but unlike in Milan the aim of the tram is not to hit you but preferably miss you. I shall return.
Dinner Venue Vienna
Refettorio Restaurant Milan. Going to Milan? Go there!
One of the best meals I had for a long time was in a restaurant in the suburbs of Milan called
Refettorio
Via Dell’Orso, 2, 20122 Milan, Italy
There was no menu, although it became apparent after a while that there were maybe 3 menus on offer. The 30 euro menu, a 20 euro menu and maybe a 18 euro menu. We had the largest menu. Food and wine were superb. Nothing was less than 100% here. You may ask what was the menu? Well let me try and describe what we had.
- Bowl of salad and separate bowl of mozzarella on the table with oil and excellent bread. We presumed this was the starter. Wrong
- Slices of thinly cut veal with a sauce maybe like thousands island? Starter? Wrong again
- Dessert type dish full of cold rice salad.
- Dinner plate full of excellent risotto, cheese and tomato sauce. At this stage we all asked if this was our main course. All food was excellent but we were getting a little embarassed that we could not finish any of our dishes.
- Spaghetti Bolognese. Again excellent.
- Chicken and vegetables. Main course! Wrong. This was one of two main courses! We at this stage said enough……we give in…….no fish main course please……
- Ice Cream
Wine was also excellent and I could have been fooled into thinking it was a claret.
Start a petition to get decent Magnum Ice Creams in UK. Magnum 5 kisses.
Every country one goes to has better ice creams than UK. Spain has so many different and better ice cream choices, and now too Portugal. Why can Portugal have some delicious looking Magnums not available in UK? Who makes these cruel and unprecedented decisions? Do they all have cold arctic souls!
magnum kisses
The price of Ice Cream
Walking along the small high street of a surrey town I happened to glance in at a cafe shop that recently started up, selling mainly coffee, cake and a few other items. Few tables outside on the pavement and looks overall quite nice. What however caught my eye was the price of a single scoop of ice cream or ” italian gelato” as it was described, a single scoop was £2.21. When did this happen? Recently Iceland were selling huge packs of white Magnums for 4£ and that got you I recall at least 8. A huge 2 litre tub of a nice ice cream like Kelly’s cornish can often be got on special offer for as little as 2£. Crazy pricing. Let me know the most expensive scoop of ice cream that you know of, outside of central London or other touristy areas.
Stockholm
Although I have been to Stockholm a few times I have never truly appreciated what a pleasant city it is. This time snowbound, everything looked cute but everything worked. Trains and planes and cars were all on time, taxi drivers spoke eloquently and engaged passengers in meaningful conversation. The people all looked young. Maybe the old ones get locked away in some sinister plot. As one arrives at Arlanda Airport, they really do play ABBA music to welcome you and photos of famous people like ABBA and Roxette adorn the walls of the luggage reclaim area. T
There is a price to pay and that is literally true. This city is expensive and is best visited when someone is paying the bill. A Croque Monseiour would cost you over 12£. Coffee usually is around 4-5£. Hotels are pleasant places where receptionists are helpful and smile. They are also warm. One of main complaints this last winter has been arriving at Marriott hotels to find that the room heating has been switched off for seemingly the last millennium. On my arrival it happily gets turned on but then takes the length of my stay to warm the room up.
The characters in Stockholm also are straight from the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I could have cast that film many times just by sitting in a cafe and looking around. Lastly the food. It is good. The restaurants have a kind of laid back attitude where service is good but not to the point of being obsequious. Tables have gingham cloth covers and serve you pretty much what you want. I had Meatballs. I could have had massive Steaks. This is a place to come back to, but please someone invite me and pay my bills while I am there. The street names are right out of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo like Sodermalm.
Get me out of here I am a Doctor
I am not so sure that I would describe this week as interesting but a learning experience it has been. I am not an ill sort of person and indeed do not recall the last time the GP would have had me in his notes for an acute illness. In fact the only reason that I went today was because of this ludicrous strike that is being wrongly perpetrated by Doctors tomorrow. I began feeling unwell a week ago but suddently found myself so tired that I was essentially unable even to stand up for more than a short time. Viral chest symptoms ensued, followed by ear pain, throat pain and no appetite. A real glut of viral symptoms, which I suspect is some type of viral pneumonia. It has taken 4 full days to get even up to 10% of wellness but today now am starting to feel a bit better. I went to the GP to have a second opinion and also in case I needed at some stage to have some illness letter for whatever. This is what I learnt
- No chance of getting an appointment on the day one phones. Fully booked. Stage 2 is then demanding to be seen and there is a triage service whereby a doctor rings you back, questions you in the format of Paxman and then allocates or not a slot. Being a medic I am aware of the right things to say. Others may not be
- On arrivial at the practice one speaks not a single word before being seen. the check in is via a screen. The receptionists sit around speechless to the patients, busy around doing whatever, but not speaking, doing anything but communicating to patients waiting.
- I spent 2 minutes in the surgery room. The examiniation was a perfunctory version of perfunctory. I could not believe how inadequate it was. Despite having never having had a chest infection before, my chest was not examined other than superficially.
- The aim was to get me out of there quickly. A prescription was what was needed, even though by their own admission it was not needed ( antibiotics do not treat viral infections).
I came away quite sad that professional service levels have sunk so far since I qualified in medicine in 1981. Little/no professional eqitquette, little/no skill and little/no attempt to hide this shambolic state of affairs. Finally, having not done what should have been done, my blood pressure was checked, am I being too cynical to even think that this was done to meet some NHS metric?
The Food in Barcelona. Rotten octopus pasta.
There is nothing wrong with Spanish food but what I have been served this week has been in general terms very poor. Let me rant through it. The hotel breakfasts at Diagonal Zero hotel were the same each day, and I don’t mean the same type of food but the same food exactly. What was not eaten was put back. Pineapple with black bits attached of dubious origin appeared each day. Eggs of various descriptions appeared and all uniformly ranging cool to cold in temperature.
Dinner night 1 – in the hotel bar an alleged Salmon Club Sandwich – well ok, nothing major to complain about
Night 2 – Dinner in Barcelona FC. Set menu. first course smelled of rotten fish and I think was rotten fish ( octopus in ravioli with squid ink sauce) followed by uncooked steak with vegetables so small that they may have been grown in Gullivers Kingdom . Lukewarm
Night 3 – Tapas. Ok ish. Everything fried. Fried cheese on a stick, fried this, fried that……..no vegetable. Lukewarm.
Night 4 – Harmless Burger and chips in hotel
Night 5 – Set menu in restaurant called Limbo. Strange assiette of starters , I assume a sort of Tapas, including deep fried asparagus. Main course of chicken bones in nondescript sauce, all Lukewarm
Maybe this goes down as good food there but for me I just cannot eat uncooked, lukewarm, horrid looking food. And thats why I have lost weight this week in Barcelona. What I would have given for a KFC
Squid Ink surrounds a lukewarm octopus in pasta. Believe me it smelled worse than it tasted.
Mansfield 5 Darlington 2
As was in the area on a work trip I decided to drop in and watch the game. Mansfield is always a friendly place to watch a game and usally half way decent football too. £16 to get in at the away end. Pastie and Mars Bar for tea. The game was frenetic. Darington looked like scoring whenever they went forward and conceding whenever the ball was in their box. The Mansfield striker Matt Green got a hat trick, a typical centre forward who has scored over 20 goals this season and one can see why. Turns out that the darlington team in the main are just youngsters and they did exceptionally well. Great goal from Macready. Keeper did well.
Photos below to give a flavour of the game. Not really up to usual standard as floodlights not strong and had to use ISO speed 6400 with only 1/250th speed. Anyway enjoy. Have a look at the penalty. Mansfield must have been super confident he would score as none of their players enter the box at all! In fact where are they?
My claim to fame is that I had breakfast in a small hotel near the Millenium Stadium with the grandparents of Marc Bridge-Wilkinson, when Brentford were playing Port Vale there. Of course he scored and always did against Brentford. in case anyone interested my footbal grounds website, which is going to have a a massive overhaul soon is at http://www.footballgroundz.co.uk
Good luck to Darlington. I shall buy some shares tomorrow.
The ground
What is he doing? Jordan Pickford
Goal for Mansfield
The closed down stand with maybe a hole in its roof??Penalty first photo
Penalty second photo
Penalty third photo
Breakfast From the Co-op New Malden
A very cold day in UK. About freezing all day and will fall later with promises of snow even to reach London. All football locally cancelled. The only option was a trip to wycombe v Tranmere. This I declined for various reasons that include, all games usually get called off at Adams Park , not exciting opponents and the nonsense trying to park near the ground at Wycombe. So stuck watching TV and being grateful to Sky. So not much to blog about today. The only real news is that i bought tickets and booked hotel to visit Cayman Islands later this year and bought also a nice breakfast from the Co-op. the latter sounds strange but trust me their bread is better than all other supermarkets and their rolls are delicious. they now do tiger bread rolls, which all three of us consume rapidly. My only other sensible comment today is that blueberries are a very underrated fruit.
Breakfast selection from the New Malden Co-op
Breakfast
Frosty Car
A Great Place
The rants and warblings of an active and some would say disturbed mind. A Brentford Fc supporter and a psychiatrist and photographer. Welcome to my musings and rants.
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 