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Corned Beef Hash Revisited, or Why does this key not work?

A can opener or a cannot opener?

The first can of corned beef I have bought for many years!

This is a short piece about my new book ‘Two’s Company – Simple: Fast and Fresh Recipes for Couples, Friends & Roommates, by Orlando Murrin. I am focussing on one of the first recipes I tried in the book because the corned beef brought back memories. First of all, just to explain that Orlando is a chef ‘friend’ of mine. I have never met him, but he is a member of my Facebook group, Archers Chit-Chat, and is a great source of advice and inspiration. It is because of Orlando that I now buy mixed sized free-range eggs, rather than the large ones. These are much kinder to the hens, who suffer from being pressurised into laying large eggs. This advice is endorsed by the British Hen Welfare Trust. Orlando knows that I do not take his other well-known piece of advice in the kitchen, which is to not bother to heat up your oven. Well, sadly my oven is not very advanced, despite probably being only about 5 years old, and it really does make a difference to my meals if I pre-heat the oven, especially for bread, pizza, cakes, scones and so on. I don’t do this to extremes though and find 10 minutes will generally suffice.

We as Chit-Chat were even mentioned in one of Orlando’s articles for the Waitrose news weekly paper. There are lots of keen cooks amongst us and the discussions can get quite heated (even if the ovens are not pre-heated!)

It is always great to have a new cookery book. Indeed as a keen amateur cook and a school librarian, I live by the mantras ‘You cannot have too many books’ as well as ‘You certainly cannot have too many cookery books.’

Today I decided to make the Corned Beef Hash Revisited from Orlando’s new book. You can see the results in the picture:

This was the kind of dish which I think would be great for breakfast or brunch, although Orlando suggests it for supper with some home-made baked beans. I decided to make it for lunch. We don’t eat that much meat and so when we do I quite like something more exciting than corned beef! But lunch seemed the right occasion for this dish. I served it with some sliced mushrooms, as there were some lurking in the fridge which really needed using up.

So what is the significance of the sub-title of this article? Well I was quite surprised to find that the can of corned beef was meant to be opened with a key! I had not seen one of those for years and it seemed so nostalgic. However, after having a go, the key snapped off and I had to resort to the can opener. Even though the can was rectangular with rounded corners, it was a relief that I did manage to open it. It got me thinking about cans of food and how we open them. The immediate literary reference which comes to mind is the can of pineapple in ‘Three Men in a boat’ which is one of those classic comedy scenes.

Here are some interesting facts about cans and can openers:

  • Canned food was invented or came into being in 1810
  • The can opener was invented in 1858
  • In 1866 J. Osterhoudt patented the tin can with a key opener
  • The modern can opener, with the wheel device, was invented in 1870, but it was tricky to use
  • An improved version of the can opener, with a second, serrated wheel, was invented in 1925

We have had family holidays in self-catering accommodation and not been provided with a can opener. I have to say that we have fared better than George, Harris and Jerome in managing to get to the contents of our can. My daughter Jessica did very well with a knife on holiday in Sardinia. We had asked our host for some extra equipment in the kitchen, but failed to notice the absence of the can opener. Not that we eat much canned food, but canned tomatoes and chick peas are part of our staple diet! Strangely we also could not find a can opener in our apartment in Florida, so I made do with the end of a bottle opener. You will see my efforts from the picture, but of course this method would not have worked for the corned beef!

The trouble with this method of opening a can is that the whole structure gradually caves in the more holes that you make.

I have completely digressed from the main theme of this article which is the corned beef hash recipe in Orlando Murrin’s new book. He uses some lovely flavours in his recipe. Chilli, garlic and tabasco feature as well as worcestershire sauce, the latter of which I think is probably traditional. He also suggests flipping the hash over in sections to make it easier to manage.

We really enjoyed the hash, but I had one problem with it, which might be just me. I found it very hard to cook the eggs in the middle of the hash without burning the hash slightly. I did put the lid on my saute pan, but it is still much more tricky to cook eggs in this way than poaching them or frying them in the pan on their own. This is no criticism of Orlando’s recipe, but my own incompetence. Next time I think I shall just fry the eggs on their own and put them on top of the hash at the end. I do think that the home-made baked beans would have made it lovely and moist too, so I’ll do those next time.

I love to support independent bookshops, so here is a link to some of my favourite cookery books available: the-jolly-jaunts-of-sarah-kooky-cook Bookshop UK

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America: My brief observations on the language and culture

Helpful sign in cafe where we partook of breakfast one day

This sign actually filled me with much cheer. One of my moans (and do understand that I am not a moaner; I like to be very positive and see the best in people!) is that you cannot have a choice of a medium or large coffee. If there are only two sizes, then they have to be small and large! To have the option of medium, you would need 3 sizes. However, I am not exactly clear on what the customers might try to order in a typical cafe for someone to have been moved to put up the above sign.

My pre-conceptions about American culture and language:

  1. I was expecting to be told frequently ‘I just love your accent.’
  2. I was anticipating that there would be many differences in vocabulary.
  3. Related to the above, I anticipated that it would be easy to confuse Americans by using an English word that they might not have come across.
  4. I had ideas that Americans are very warm, welcoming and friendly to tourists.
  5. I was expecting to confuse many waiters by asking for ‘water.’ This was one that I had been warned about in advance; apparently the way we pronounce this word is different enough to confuse the Americans quite easily!

Usually when travelling I speak the native language if I can; in fact French is the only foreign language I can speak competently, but I have a smattering of Spanish and am willing to have a go, particularly with foodie words; I come across these in my reading of cookery books and food magazines. In America though I was deliberately sticking to English vocabulary as a kind of test. We are very at home with American culture in the UK, but I know that UK culture is not as widely known in the USA. So would it not be interesting to stick to asking for ‘chips’ and seeing what would turn up? I could talk about visiting Boston in the ‘autumn’ rather than the ‘fall.’ Where does the queue start? Is there a lift in the apartment? Where are the loos? (this one can sound rather rude I have since discovered!) However, I am not interested in going for a lie down, so I don’t want a restroom; and I am not planning to have a bath. Does the house have a lovely garden? (after all, ‘yard’ does sound to be like something at a building site!) Paul thought that I was a real stickler to my English and happily asked for the check rather than the bill and suggested we should cross to the sidewalk.

However, interestingly enough I found that Americans are probably becoming much more international and have started to embrace UK culture, as I only managed to confuse a few people! There are really an awful lot of words which vary between the two countries. This is my list of the most common ones that you might come across, with the English words on the left:

Pavement – Sidewalk

Bill – Check

Rubbish – Trash

Boot – Trunk

Chips – Fries

Crisps – Chips

Expiry date – Expiration date

Garden – Yard

Hire – Rent

Accelerator – Gas

Manual car – Stick Shift

Lift – Elevator

Mobile phone – Cell phone

Toilet/Loo – Restroom/bathroom

Autumn – Fall

Tap – Faucet

Petrol – Gas

Jelly – Jello

Jam – Jelly

Queue – Line

Trousers – Pants

Handbag – Purse

Ground Floor – First Floor

First Floor – Second Floor

Take-away – Take-out

Roundabout – Traffic Circle

Wash hands – Wash up

Postcode – Zip Code

Helpful sign in the Everglades. I don’t think we get many vultures damaging vehicles in the UK! What is a windshield wiper?!

I genuinely had not come across the notion that there is no ground floor in American apartments (note here that I think we actually use apartment as much as flat in the English language). I did not have the opportunity to try to confuse anyone with this difference in vocabulary, but maybe on our next visit… The idea that the first floor is called the second floor in America is strangely worrying. I feel a bad poetry moment coming on….. The specific example I can remember of locals having to clarify what I meant was when I asked if the apartment had a lift. We were back in New York for our second visit and the apartment was poky, the hallways were smelly and it was difficult to get away from the smell because the instructions to find the key were extremely confusing! Actually there was no lift or elevator and what a good idea I did not clarify which floor we were heading for!

Some aspects of language and culture which are much more like back home

I love the fact that miles and fractions are alive and well in the USA. We had a lot of fun with our hire car sat nav. Not only were the instructions nice and familiar being in miles, but our female guide (it seems that sat navs are always female) was rather obsessed with fractions, as in: ‘In 9 tenths of a mile you will reach the Bee Ridge Road.’ Or ‘In about half a mile, turn left.’ (why, ‘about half a mile?!’ Can you not be a bit more specific?!) Thinking about it, I am sure that she concentrated on halves, quarters and tenths, not bothering with eighths very much.

I also like to use fahrenheit rather than celsisus, so it was good to hear of temperatures in the 80s and 90s and not having to do my usual conversions that I do in the UK. Also it was nice to be working in gallons of petrol. I cannot understand the logic in the UK of describing cars as doing for instance ’60 miles to the gallon’ and then selling petrol in litres!

Returning to my list of preconceptions above, we were told on many occasions ‘I love your accent.’ People would often ask us where we were from. Paul had suggested that maybe we would get mistaken for Australians, but that was not to be the case. In fact, our ‘Swimming with the Manatees’ guide guessed that we were from Oxford when I asked her to make a guess. Actually this was one place she had visited in the UK and is not far from where we live! The silly thing is that as soon as an American says to me ‘I love your accent’, I start to speak subconsciously in an even more RP way. Maybe that is just me?

We found on the whole that Americans were extremely friendly and welcoming. On the metro, travelling from JFK airport to our apartment for the first time, one member of staff was really kind and helpful at assisting us with buying tickets and heading off in the right direction. On our second trip to New York, we took a taxi to the apartment. This was the incident with not being able to find the keys and trying to get upstairs with no lift in a very smelly building! In the midst of all that, Paul discovered that he must have dropped his mobile (no, not his cell phone!) in the taxi. He tried ringing the phone, and 15 minutes later the taxi pulled up outside the apartment block as the driver wanted to return the phone to him!

I did ask for ‘water’ a few times but was disappointed, as on each occasion I was understood even with the English pronunciation! Times have moved on….

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Why are Sarah’s knickers on the lawn?

Hunting for my make-up and jewellery bags
Why does my dressing gown have the wrong cord on it?
All these cables, yet not the one I am looking for!

I love our long jaunts through Europe. Once you have crossed the English Channel, the world is your oyster, or your lobster as Paul always says. I am very lucky to be married to a man who does not mind driving me everywhere, frequently round the bend! There are very bendy, mountain roads on many of our routes! He even puts up with my rubbish navigating and we always end up in our hotel or apartment in time for dinner!

One disadvantage for me of living out of a suitcase for a few days, is the possibility of losing essential items, and muddling up my clean and dirty clothes! Paul never muddles his up – he has a system! It is often not until we get to our longer self-catering stop (anything from a week up to 3 weeks) that I finally establish whether or not items are lost, left in hotel rooms, dropped out of the car in a manic attempt to find something or were left behind in the UK!

So far this holiday I have managed to lose:

My laptop charger

Half a night’s sleep worrying about the laptop charger and wondering if I can get a new one delivered to our apartment in Croatia

My phone charger

My dressing gown cord

My beach wrap

My make-up bag

My jewellery bag

Filters for the aeropress

My credit card

About 30 euros

My glasses (actually not true – I just forgot to pack them!)

Portable chargers for the mobile phones as we have no USB connection in the car

A quick update:

Everything turned up apart from the beach wrap (left at home), filters (no idea! I do remember packing them so maybe they will turn up in the car in six month’s time!), the dressing gown cord (just spotted by Paul’s mother in her washing machine!), the credit card and the euros – my purse was either lost or stolen in Strasbourg, but thankfully it is less hassle losing a credit card than a ‘phone!

The chargers turned up but were worse than useless! Paul gets a selection of them free from conferences, so maybe we need to buy some better ones! The problem with not being able to charge the phones in the car is that we have long days of driving and inevitably the ‘phones don’t keep their charge that well. So it is touch and go whether or not we’ll manage to find our hotel/apartment at the end of the day!

Once we arrived in Kastel Novi (or Newcastle as we call it) I found another way of losing things, underwear and other items of clothing. We had a lot of washing to do when we arrived, and there is a washing line on the side of our first floor apartment, which you access from the balcony in the second bedroom. It is quite easy to lose knickers and other essential items with a little casual flick of the wrist in the wrong direction! Fortunately my knickers launched themselves into our hosts’ garden rather than onto the awning. However, Kathrin assures me that they have a broom reserved for exactly these situations! See the pictures below of the scene of devastion on our first morning:

Washing line with missing knickers….
Phew! The knickers landed safely!

What is the most interesting item you have ever lost on holiday?

Beautiful Boots for women

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Left-over Cheese and Cake?! An oxymoron!

I am as keen as everyone else to eliminate waste, and not throw away food. Yes, I sometimes cook too much at this time of year. It is very difficult to gauge appetites, and I’d rather have something left than nothing at all. How do you know if everyone has actually had enough to eat? We have a big family Christmas (on average there are about 17 of us), with two days of eating, drinking, jollity, playing games, singing carols and acting out a panto! Christmas day is spent in Feltham, at one of my cousin’s houses, and Boxing day is at our place near Maidenhead. We have traditional turkey on Christmas day, with lots of trimmings, and a fish or vegetarian alternative for one family member who does not eat meat. On Boxing day I make a casserole or something else hot with potatoes and vegetables or salad. We have this usually at about 3:30 after some of us have been for a walk, and others may just have had a few drinks in the pub.

One of the Christmas tasks is to make sure to use up all the left-overs. There was far too much cassoulet, so I gave some to my mother and we ate up the rest a few days later. I had also made Boston baked beans, so the remains of that became soup on Saturday.

What really makes me laugh is magazines and cookery programmes suggesting ways of using up left-over cheese and cake! Cheese is not left-over! I don’t buy a chunk of stilton and expect it to be all eaten up at once! The idea of left-over cake is even more bizarre! Even on my beloved Radio 4 there was a cookery programme discussing this topic. I had better not mention the name of the programme… Anyway it did not spoil my enjoyment of the episode. On Boxing Day I delegated one of my cousins (cousin once-removed to be precise) to create a Christmas tree cheeseboard. It was spectacular. You can see the picture of this below:


Christmas Tree Cheeseboard, made by Mathilda Featherston, inspired by Ciara Mangan, who was inspired by Pinterest. Ciara is a member of the Facebook group Archers Chit-Chat, which I set up almost a year ago

Mathilda did not use the stilton, so does that now count as left-overs? Thanks so much for the idea Ciara! I am thinking it would be possible to do different shapes, such as stars, maybe an Easter egg!

In my world it does not! I am going to try the cheeseboard again on New Year’s Eve, but I’ll have to do it myself this time.

Even more bizarre is the idea of left-over cake. Does anyone make cake with the idea of eating it up all at once? However, we had a funny Christmas cake incident this year, with a complete cake being left at our house. Paul loves fruit cake but I do not, so I rarely remember to make it. My aunt had already left him a huge chunk of home-made fruit cake, and then we found this complete cake in a box! It turns out that it was meant to go back to Germany with one of my other cousins, so that is going to be collected today. Here is the cake in question:

Christmas cake left at Vine Cottage

When I want ideas for left-overs, it is for those jugs of gravy, various vegetables from the Sunday roast, or bits of dinner left on the plate by my daughter. I always leave a meal for her to eat after her evening shift in the pub, and invariably she leaves half of it. Some might throw it away, but in our household that will probably become the basis of a lovely soup! Yesterday we had soup made from Boston baked beans and Jess’ left-over fish supper. Then in the evening we had cassoulet, not disguised as anything else. plus potato gratin made from left-over jacket potatoes and a selection of rosti cakes. We were certainly full of beans that day!

I regularly make a dish called ‘Shepherd’s Left-overs’ which is truly delicious! In my childhood we always called any mince-based dish with mash on the top, shepherd’s pie; we discovered years later that it should in fact be called cottage pie if made with beef rather than lamb, but old habits die hard. To make shepherd’s left-overs, you just put all your various meat and vegetables in the dish with anything else that is hanging around. Needless to say, I have a level 2 certificate in food hygiene, and am well aware of the critiera and risks involved in using food that is past its best! I just don’t do it! You could add some chunky soup, gravy and maybe even some curried vegetables. Then top it all with some mash or sliced potatoes. These could be second-hand or freshly cooked. If the three of us don’t manage to consume the whole lot in one go, I do then bin the remains (in the food bin handily provided by our local authority).

I am always amazed when I come across people who say that they never make soup. What else do they do with their left-overs, apart from make ‘Contents of the Fridge Soup’ ? I do of course make fresh soup on a regular basis, and I would never serve the second-hand version to visiting dinner guests!

The other left-overs which I never have, which are mentioned in magazines and by cookery writers, are jars of curry pastes, miso paste, mustard and so on. Why do these also count as left-overs? Am I alone in thinking the idea of left-over curry paste to be somewhat of an odd concept?

What do you do with your left-overs? Do you have left-over cheese, cake and jars of mustard and spice pastes?

Look out for the thrilling sequel to this article, on the theme of clothes and other stuff that relatives and friends leave in your house! What do you do with random jackets and shirts that no-one claims?!

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Of Men and Monsters – Meet Josh


The Loch Lomond Monster!

Cafe Arriba in Portree on Skye

Does Sarah know that the Loch Lomond Monster is right behind her?

This little adventure all started originally because of an inadequate breakfast at our Airbnb on Skye. Let’s just make it clear that this was our second visit to Skye. Our first visit there was when we stayed at the Airbnb caravan owned by Cheryl McCulloch, an Archers Chit-Chat friend of mine, whom I finally came to meet. Breakfast at her place was good. We cooked it ourselves, and enjoyed eggs from Cheryl’s hens.

Anyway, I digress. After some rather dull sliced white toast and a strawberry mousse at our over-night stop, we decided that it was time to move on and find something better. We had also not had any coffee, as it was too much bother and mess to make it using our bag of fresh coffee with no proper facilities and not even a jug. Paul quickly had a look online, and decided that we should head for a cafe in Portree http://cafearriba.co.uk/ 

I have to say that the breakfast there was superb, with an excellent menu choice, with options for a full breakfast or pastries and filled croissants. I went for a croissant filled with smoked salmon and cream cheese, and Paul chose the waffles with fresh fruit and maple syrup. The coffee (we like ours strong and black) was very good too.

One of my faults or strengths (whichever way you look at it!) is a tendency to engage people in conversation – be it strangers on trains and buses, or hotel and restaurant staff. Where we come from in the South East, this is more unusual, although I do not agree that people on public transport are unfriendly! Our waiter, Josh, was very friendly, and I took the opportunity to tell him that we were travelling to Loch Ness to have more of a touristy day. Having spent many days in remote locations with the wind and the rain beating down, for me this was to be an exciting diversion. I love tourist tat, and was keen to investigate paint-your-own Nessie monsters, maybe even a blow-up Nessie for the bathroom.

This is why it is so good to talk to people! Josh then told us a funny story, and I asked his permission to reproduce it here. He has lived in the area for most of his life, and for 22 years he visited Loch Lomond, hoping to catch sight of the Loch Ness Monster! His family did not take the trouble to explain to him that the Loch Ness Monster (apparently!) resides in Loch Ness, not Loch Lomond!

Of course after visiting Loch Ness, we went to Loch Lomond to see if we could spot the monster there; we have named the Loch Lomond Monster Josh, and you may catch a glimpse of him in some of these pictures.

If you go to the Scottish Isles, do take the opportunity to visit Josh at the Cafe Arriba, and at Loch Lomond of course!

Submarine searching for the Loch Lomond Monster

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Self-Drive Cars – will people fill them with rubbish?




Many of my friends will know that I have a driving phobia and drive a car very little. I just have a few set journeys into the town centre, for which I can stick at 30 miles an hour for most of the time. The affordability of the self-drive car is probably not going to come in time for people of my generation. But what a marvellous concept it would be for me! I cannot quite imagine what it would be like to get into a car and just let it drive me wherever I want to go. Could I take a sedative and go to sleep for the whole journey? Or would I have to be ready to take the wheel in case of an emergency? Would I be okay with the car driving me on the motorway with no other human being present? I think I’d have to try the experience first with Paul, my very patient husband, in the car with me.

Of course when the self-drive cars do become more commonplace, car ownership will probably be completely different. I imagine that these cars will be more like taxis without drivers, rather than vehicles which people would own and keep on their driveways. Living where we do, at the end of a long, country lane, perhaps I could summon a vehicle with a click of the fingers.

The other question is of course, what about people who like to travel with everything but the kitchen sink to accompany them? Supposing people need a car suitable for transporting half a dozen German Shepherd dogs? Would it be possible to order a suitable car? Personally I don’t want the risk of summoning a car which might have a whiff of dog about it. Tongue-in-cheek and naming no names, I do have friends who keep rather a lot of rubbish in their cars. This might be sweet wrappers, empty drinks cans, tissues which have fallen out of the box, spare clothes, emergency food and items which have never quite made it to the tip. Would it be possible to order a car filled with rubbish in order to have the whole, homely experience? Or would each car be emptied and cleaned after use and the hirer charged for the service?

Self-drive cars – if only I were ten years younger, I might be able to find out the answers to all of these questions and more!



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Are we Tourists or Travellers?






Some Roman Bridge or other in Alghero with a bit missing

Whenever we drive right into the middle of a city along a cobbled street which looks as if it should not be accessible to cars I always say, ‘oh well we’re tourists!’ Not that anyone has ever challenged us. We once famously drove right under the aqueduct in Segovia, Spain, completely unintentionally. Although there seem to be fewer pedestrianised streets in Southern European cities than in the UK, driving under the aqueduct was not meant to be an option! We think that locals are so bemused by seeing a UK registered car in such unlikely places, that generally they take no notice and do not challenge us!

Anyway, back to my original question. I decided that my best place for research would be amongst my Archers Appreciation friends on Facebook. They are such a lovely, witty, intelligent and friendly bunch of people that I often turn to them for ideas. Okay, I am a librarian by profession and know about the value of reliable research and what a wide range of sources there are. However, this article, like most of those on my blog, is meant to be fun and light-hearted. I shall not be referencing using the Harvard system.

At the end of July, the beginning of our long summer holiday, I asked them: ‘What is the difference between a tourist and a traveller?’ I agreed that I would quote their comments and mention them by first name. These are some of the responses I had. I shall then decide whether on balance their responses can prove definitively whether Paul and I are indeed tourists or travellers!

‘Travellers are nice people like us, tourists are other people.’ (Andrew)

‘A traveller is a pretentious tourist.’ (Jean)

‘Delusion.’ (Gina)

‘I travel, you are a tourist, he is a day-tripper.’ (Kate)

‘A traveller thinks they are better than tourists and thinks they are keeping it real! Travellers may wash less often – unless I am travelling! (Niki)

‘We like to think of ourselves as travellers – probably a bit pretentious I know – because we tend to travel for long periods and get close to the lives of real people as we go, rather than just going to see some attraction. I usually take the trouble to learn at least a little of the language if possible.'(Les)

‘A tourist is someone else, making the crowds bigger and the queues longer; a traveller is me, not part of the crowd or queue, just caught up in them.’ (Jamie)

‘A tourist pays for their holiday, a traveller has it paid for by their parents.’ (Dinsdale)

Reply from Helen: ‘Even in middle/old age?’

Reply from Jamie: ‘Oh god no, those yoof backpackers are decidedly tourists.’

‘A tourist takes a photo every 5 minutes, a traveller is content just to look.’ (Joan)

‘Travellers never stay at all-inclusive resorts, they are strictly for the tourists.’ (Louise)

‘I would say a tourist wants to look at places, and a traveller wants to experience places.’ (Sarah)

‘We are travellers; they are tourists. Probably working class. Or American.’ (John)

‘Tourists go where they are led. Travellers go where they will. Tourists seek comfortable situations. Travellers put up with whatever comes their way.’ (Di)

‘I spent 7 days in Petra and visited the site 5 times from different angles and loved talking to the Nabataean; they realised I wasn’t going to hire their donkey so used to just chat about life and drink mint tea.’ (Rachel)

‘Round here, travellers set up their caravans in the local park and leave mountains of rubbish and human poo behind when they depart several weeks later.’ (Deb) – As Les pointed out, this could be the wrong sort of traveller!

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions and contributions from my lovely Archers’ friends. In a way I think that Andrew, Kate, Jean, Gina and Niki have hit the nail on the head. I don’t like to think that we are better than other people. Paul and I talk about ourselves being ‘travellers’ in a jokey way. I do like to visit the attractions of the city, the places that everyone else wants to go to. For instance, when we arrived in Bilbao at the beginning of our journey, we spent several hours in the Guggenheim museum.  According to Joan, I am definitely more of a tourist than Paul, as I do take a lot of photos. For our 4 week holiday this year, I have probably taken about 1000 photos, and it is going to take a long time to sort them out! I also like to do silly things, such as standing in the same pose as a statue and getting Paul to photograph me!

Flowery Dog outside the Guggenheim

Sarah with Garibaldi in Palau

We do like to plan our holidays, and always book accommodation in advance. We wash every day, and always eat in restaurants or I cook proper meals in our villa. We do not eat street food or walk around eating – something to do with my upbringing I daresay! I actually love the look of street food, but just want a table and chairs to complete the experience! The planning is partly because we like home comforts, and partly because we often travel at peak times – getting decent accommodation in August last minute is not easy! We also like self-catering, and this is really not practical or even possible to book last minute.

Louise points out that a traveller would never stay at an all-inclusive resort. Okay, at this point I had to make my confession to my friends that we did do this for our honeymoon in Cuba! (July 2004)To be honest, I think that most of the hotels in Cuba are all-inclusive, and it may have been difficult to do otherwise. We did love the holiday, but it is the only time we have ever stayed in a hotel for 2 weeks and not done any cooking at all! I am not sure we’ll ever do it again, although one of my ambitions is to go on a cruise; my dream holiday is a world cruise for several months! If Paul reads this, there is a great one advertised in the back of the Radio Times – 120 nights departing in January 2019. Passenger 1 pays from £15,999 and passenger 2 goes free!

Rachel’s comments about her experiences in Petra sound very much like our idea of making the most of a place. We often return to a favourite city, and sometimes just wander the streets, not visiting any museums or cathedrals. My favourite activity is to sit in cafes and restaurants and watch the world go by. When we went to the Alpujarras a few years back, we went to Granada several times at different times of the day; once we went early morning, and another time we went in the evening just for dinner. On another visit we did go to the Alhambra Palace, although the intense heat nearly defeated me!

However, when it comes down to it, I know that I am more of a tourist than Paul is. I adore tourist shops and buying souvenirs and gifts to take home. I send about a dozen postcards to friends and family whilst we are away. Paul is in his element when visiting archaeological sites, and has a particular passion for Visigothic sites (okay, my little joke! I believe there are not actually that many Visigothic sites world-wide!) I am convinced that an interest in the Visigoths is not common among tourists! This summer there were many interesting archaeological sites to visit in Sardinia, and I do enjoy these experiences, just not in the heat! Paul very kindly found places for me to rest and amuse myself whilst he went exploring. Luckily he was usually able to find me a beautiful beach with crystal clear sea, and my favourite activity on holiday in August (yes, it even comes above going to the shops!) is swimming. Now, would you consider swimming to be a tourist activity? Certainly on our travels, we came across very few UK visitors, and we did not see another GB registered car for many weeks (not until we reached Chamonix). However, there did seem to be a lot of local tourism.

Les makes a really good point about learning the language. I do feel less of a tourist in France because I speak French (could be fluent if I made the effort!) In fact, I was very pleased to interview our host at our final hotel in France, conducting the entire conversation in French (watch out for my future blog post about Maison Ailleurs). Paul also speaks French (not as well as I do!) and has a smattering of Italian. We both speak a few words in Spanish and can just about manage menus in Italy and Spain. We picked up a bit of Portuguese too, last year. Sometimes I get utterly confused and have spoken short sentences partly in French, Italian and Spanish!

Our mode of travel is probably unusual to some. We very rarely fly (I cannot remember the last time we went on an aeroplane – maybe 7 years ago?) This year we went on 5 ferries – Portsmouth to Bilbao, Barcelona to Sardinia, Sardinia to Corsica, Corsica to Genoa and finally Caen to Portsmouth. On ferries 2, 3 and 4 we were the only UK travellers as far as we could make out! Ours was certainly the only GB, right-hand drive car on these ferries, something which did confuse some of the ferry staff! Now, I ask you this, would a tourist travel all that way by 5 ferries and hundreds of miles of driving?! My daughter came to join us in Sardinia for a week, taking the more conventional route from Heathrow to Olbia!

So, what do you think? Are we tourists or travellers? Does it really matter?!

GB Car Spotted at our Hotel in Chartres!

 

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The worst tapas bar in Salamanca….. (probably) (August 2014)

Possibly the worst tapas in Salamanca…

We are taking our usual long summer holiday this August and this time decided to head for Orgiva, in The Alpujarras in Southern Spain. The format of the holiday is to take a long drive and ferry trip. We are not keen on flying for various reasons, and Paul loves driving. So on the journey down we camped at various sites until reaching Orgiva after 6 days travelling. The journey also gave us an opportunity to visit some other great cities and regions of Spain.

Those of you who know me know that I love food. That is a big understatement but we’ll leave it at that for the moment! In fact really I prefer to cook than eat out, and fortunately Paul prefers my cooking to restaurant food. In the UK this is not only because of the quality but also the cost. So on holiday (as we are this year for 4 and a half weeks) we eat out more than we do in England for the rest of the year. When travelling this is inevitable; I do not actually cook when we are camping. What we did not have much of last time we were on holiday in Spain was tapas. We seemed to go to the wrong type of restaurants. And we were never offered free tapas with drinks. So on this holiday I have been delighted to encounter both free tapas and plenty to buy from menus.

I am not going to name this restaurant, but I shall just say that it is in Salamanca and was not a good experience. We arrived before 8:00pm and the dinner menu was not available until 8:30. So we decided to go for tapas, or rather raciones, which are bigger than tapas. We did get carried away and order 4 each, so 12 dishes for the 3 of us. Amongst those dishes were some repeats; Paul and Jess both chose Spanish Omlette, and Paul and I both opted for Patatas Bravas. For a start the portions were huge; I should maybe have looked more closely into exactly what a raciones is! It was not just that though. It was all so stodgy, with mainly carbohydrate-based dishes. My Russian Salad was indescribable! Awful dressing and slightly rancid-tasting vegetables. It was the Patatas Bravas which defeated us though. In fact we thought maybe he had brought us the Patatas with pink cocktail sauce by mistake, which was also listed on the menu. The bill listed it correctly though. As is traditional with this dish, the potatoes were cooked separately with the sauce dolloped on the top, but even Jess was not tempted by extra chips! So you should be able to see two plates of that in the picture, barely eaten.

On the positive side, I enjoyed my mussels and Paul enjoyed his potatoes cooked with chorizo. It did become a bit of a competition to compare who had actually managed to eat a complete dish of food. It reminded me of a lovely tapas bar in France last year, when we really challenged the chef by ordering everything on the menu!

On another positive note, it was a very cheap dinner, as they all tend to be in Spain!

 

 

 

 

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Come back oh thou Finger Bowl, all is forgiven! (August 2016)

Excessive use of napkins owing to lack of finger bowl

Prawn Debris

I am not going to name and shame this restaurant in Spain, as it would be unfair, as the practice of providing a ghastly, synthetic wet-wipe instead of a finger bowl is all too common in most modern restaurants. What is the point of the wet-wipe? You cannot use it in the middle of your meal, as it would be used up too early, and it makes your food taste horrible too! Our waitress was also confused that we requested a plate or bowl to put our shellfish debris in! What exactly were we supposed to do with all those shells?!
When I was a child and we went on holiday to Southern Europe, you were given a good honest finger-bowl; a nice bowl of cold water and a slice of lemon, to enable you to rinse your fingers in-between mouthfuls. Nowadays, I not only get through a ridiculous number of napkins, but everything gets mucky, including your wine glass or whatever else you happen to be drinking from. On this particular day in Spain, I was almost tempted to take the lemon from my drink and fill up the ash-tray thoughtfully provided, with water to make our own make-shift bowl.
Does anyone else mourn the demise of the finger bowl? Or maybe the restaurants we are going to are not high-class enough to warrant their use!