Lunch

I'm not sure that French toast (or eggy bread as it's known in our house) is the traditional accompaniment to asparagus but, on the grounds that both bread and asparagus can be dipped in boiled eggs, I thought it would work. It did.

The asparagus was from our Riverford organic vegetable box. I've only every poached the delicate stems, but decided to roast them on this occasion (10-15 minutes at 180 C, tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper) and was very pleased with the result.

Made me Smile!

I spotted this amusing piece of graffiti on the Bristol-Pill cycle path on Sunday.

All Things Pig

Last night we ate out in our local church. Not the usual ploughman's or bring and share buffet, but a 7 course All Things Pig menu devised and cooked by Vincent Castellano and his team. Never having been to a pop up restaurant before I wasn't quite sure what to expect but was very excited by the prospect.

We turned up at 7 pm with two bottles of the recommended wine (a Medoc and a Vin de Pays d'Oc), to find the church lit by the candles usually reserved for Carols by Candlelight or Midnight Mass, and two long trestle tables running the length of the nave. Final touches were being made to the decorations, and a man dressed as an orthodox priest was wandering around muttering in a thick French accent and dusting down guests with a pink feather duster!

We took our places and were served a cocktail containing cider, drambuie, sherry, and lime! It was surprisingly palatable.

Proceedings took a while to get started but we had plenty to drink and friends to chat with. Eventually the 'real' vicar said grace and service began. Each course was introduced by the French priest who would have been very informative if we could have made out what he was saying. However it didn't matter in the least as the most important thing was what the food tasted like - and it was delicious.

We started with a Delice de St Antoine, boudin noir and caramel apple.

Followed by a platter of charcuterie - coppa, saucisson sec, pate de campagne and pate en croute, served with Bertinet sourdough bread and a dish of radishes, cornichons, pickled onions and olives.

Next came a slice of brawn with celeriac remoulade.

Followed by a glass of poached rhubarb and vodka.

The main course was a slice of slow roast pork ham loin with madeira glaze, smoked pancetta, cotechino and braised choucroute, served with a potato, leek and apple gratin with cheese.

The cheese course featured Trethowans's Gorwydd Caerphilly and Stichelton and Homewood's Old Demdike with more Bertinet sourdough bread.

And to finish we were served a Royal au Chocolat with a coffee cream sauce.

This will go down as one of the most memorable meals of my life. My only quibble was that I found the loin of pork slightly too salty for my taste, but I don't salt much at home and no one else remarked on it. The highlights were the delice, the boudin, the pate en croute and the cheese.

The ambience was excellent. We were serenaded by the Gaulois brothers on their guitars and an accordion. Guests were invited to get up and dance between courses and a few did. There was none of the pretension I feared. Everyone was there to enjoy the food and the company, and neither let us down.

I'm grateful to Mike for organising the event and Castellano's for rising to the challenge.

I hope it is the first of many such events.

If at first you don't succeed ...

On Wednesday 2 March, at the third time of asking, Bristol City Council approved an application for a superstore on the the Bristol City Football Club site at Ashton Gate.

The first application by Tesco was withdrawn following an independent report that found there was no need for a new store (we already have an Asda, a Sainsburys, an Aldi, a Lidl, two small Tescos and an Iceland). The second application by Sainsbury's was recommended for approval by the planners but turned down by the councillors for unacceptable level of development, unacceptable increase in traffic and detrimental influence on local retail. Sainsbury's lodged an appeal against the first decision, while at the same time submitting a second revised application. This was recommended for refusal by the planners, on grounds of retail impact, but finally approved by the councillors, for reasons which were not obviously apparent to me on the night and are still to be published by the council.

This decision, in my opinion, is wrong for so many reasons. We don't need a new store, and certainly not one billed as the largest superstore in the southwest. It poses a real threat to our local high streets (trade diversion anything from the applicant's 3% figure to the independent consultant's 7% figure). It will lead to an increase in traffic (anything from the 20% predicted by the applicant to a possible 65% predicted by another consultant) and encourage car dependency. It will have an adverse effect on the quality of the lives of the residents adjacent to the store. It will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. It will encourage reliance on food produced hundreds, even thousands, of miles away rather than local produce. It will not deliver the number of jobs promised and may eventually lead to lower employment in the are. It is ultimately not future proof.

I've been involved with the Stop Sainsbury's campaign and its predecessors (Berate and Basics) since July 2009. I'm no expert in planning law, retail development, environmental science etc but I've worked alongside people who are, to mount a campaign against all three applications. I've leafleted flats. I've stood on the street engaging with passers by. I've emailed my MP and councillors on numerous occasions. I've blogged about it. I've made placards and demonstrated. I've invested time, money and emotion. And then came the decision on 2 March.

It hit me harder than I thought and is the reason I haven't blogged for over a week now. I couldn't bring myself to write about it but neither could I let it pass without comment. I couldn't have campaigned against these applications had I not been convinced that they were wrong and I guess I find it hard to accept that there are other people, including friends and acquaintances, who can't see how potentially damaging this superstore will be, not just to our local community, but to all our futures. We can no longer go on doing business as usual. However my greatest disappointment is in the people who couldn't care one way or another, who refuse to engage, who are prepared to allow events to take their course, who can't see the point in becoming involved. I just don't understand them.

Of course it's not all over yet. The decision, which is contrary to the council's own Local Plan(!) is automatically referred to the Secretary of State for approval and the call has gone out to all Stop Sainsbury's supporters to write to him asking him to 'call it in'. There are grounds for this. All 5 of the LibDem councillors on the committee were substituted less than a week before the date of the meeting to save them from a repeat of the abuse and intimidation they suffered following the hearing of the first application. Too much weight was given to the enabling argument (the sale of the old stadium ground to Sainsbury's will help finance the construction of a new stadium on Greenbelt land!). It is contrary not only to Bristol's Local Plan but also to National Policy and Bristol's emerging Core Strategy. The reports were inadequate and the traffic assessment was flawed.

Appealing to the Secretary of State is a long shot but well worth taking. If Sainsbury's can keep coming back, then so can we.

Besides, even I'm able to concede that it's not all been doom and gloom. This campaign has been instrumental in my forming new friendships, becoming more involved in the local community and renewing my passion for localism. It has also prompted me to do something I should perhaps have done much earlier ie renounce my membership of the Labour Party and join the Greens!

Never give up!

I'd Like to go a Wandering ...

I've recently come across a blog that I'd like to share with my readers. It's called Wondering Wanderers and it will 'follow a family of four on their adventures around the UK in 2011, WWOOFing, living in a van and learning as they go'.

The freedom of the open road has a mythical attraction. I'd be surprised if there is anyone who hasn't at some stage in their life dreamed of upping and offing to travel the world. Most of us haven't even got as far as the front door but this family have packed up their house, loaded their camper van and are on their way. Part of me thinks they're completely bonkers but the rest of me is full of admiration, and not a little jealousy, for the path they have chosen.

I'm looking forward to keeping up to date with their adventures and am grateful for the opportunity to 'virtually' travel with them.

A Far Far Better Thing!

It's half term and, while giving my kitchen a bit of a spring clean, I listened to Vanessa Feltz standing in for Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2. The premise of the show, for those not familiar with it, is that listeners call in to respond to one of the advertised questions of the day.

One of today's questions was 'Can we afford to have children?' (or something along those lines). I was frankly appalled, and genuinely saddened, by some of the comments. A number of women phoned in to say that they could not afford a second, or third child, but there were a few who said that, having done their sums, they had decided that they could not even afford one. The most tragic was a woman who admitted to having aborted her second child for financial reasons.

I really and truly didn't get it. It would be foolish to suggest that children don't cost money, and irresponsible of prospective parents not to give any thought as to to how they could be afforded. But surely couples in a first world country cannot seriously be claiming that they cannot afford to have a family? Or can they? Vanessa referred to a recent Aviva survey which estimates the cost of bringing a child up (to 21 years) at £271,449. It goes on to claim that some parents spend, on average, £1,000 per month on each of their children! I'd be interested to examine the breakdown of these figures as I'm certain we don't spend anything like that amount on our two girls.

Our decision to have children was not taken lightly. We lived in London for the first 6 years of our married life. When we decided to start a family we knew that, although we were comfortably off as a couple, we couldn't afford to have a child in London, given my desire to give up work until they reached school age. We could have moved elsewhere in London but we eventually landed up in Bristol where my husband was fortunate enough to find another job and where we bought a house for less than the sale price of our London flat. Our first child was followed two years later by a second. If we have made sacrifices I am not aware of them, nor would they matter in comparison with the returns. Our house is small but perfectly adequate. We do not own a car. We have one TV. We bought the girls laptops for their school work but they've never had X Boxes or Wiis. We go on a fortnight's holiday every summer, usually to a cottage in Cornwall, but we've also been to France, Italy, Majorca and Greece. We visit family and friends in Scotland. We take day trips to London. We eat well at home and go out for the occasional meal. The girls have instrumental lessons and get to go on school trips. We are careful with what we have. I don't know how we stand against the national average. Perhaps I'm one of the lucky ones and should stop lecturing people less well off than myself. But then again, perhaps I'm justified in advocating an achievable simpler lifestyle Happiness cannot be measured in terms of our material possessions and instilling this truth in our children is worth more than any expensive toy.

I am therefore puzzled by the women who called in to speak to Vanessa. It is, of course, impossible to judge them without knowing their personal circumstances, but from what they said I gather that, for some of them, their jobs are the stumbling block. To return to work would mean having to shell out hundred of pounds a month in childcare costs, but to stay at home would either put paid to their careers or drive them insane. I guess I have difficulty understanding someone who claims to want a child but is not prepared to make the necessary adjustments to do so. It hasn't always been easy but when I look at my two daughters I have absolutely no doubt that they are the best thing I have ever done, and there is nothing I would trade for the experience of bringing them up.

This is obviously a very emotive issue and one which I may regret having broached. However I was disturbed by the notion of a price being put on a child.

Please feel free to comment. I'd really like to know what you think.

Food for the Soul

Last night was Curry Night at my local church (St Aldhelm's, Bedminster). Under the direction of one of our members, a group of us transformed the rear end of our church into a restaurant where we served chicken and vegetable curries, rice, naan bread, a trio of side dishes, gulab jamuns and pista kulfi.

It was hard work but well worth it, judging by all the compliments we've received. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. There was a healthy mixture of ages, backgrounds and religious persuasions. Diners lingered over their drinks and their conversations mingled with the bhangra music.

The church had a distinctly spicy aroma as we walked in this morning.

However, our efforts were a mere foretaste of what is to come. Watch this space for details of a pop up restaurant coming this way!