Restaurant Review: David Kennedy's River Cafe, South Shields

Squid Salad, not from Sambucas

To the Fish Quay at North Shields, on a bank holiday Sunday, a day which - in sympathy with my slightly frazzled state - couldn't make it's mind up how it was going to turn out. Malignant early threats of rain proved ungrounded in fact, and it was just getting out lovely as we sat down to the lunch which I shall here recount. This was a few weeks back, but there are, in the interests of posterity, things worth noting both about the lunch we had as well as the ones we didn't.

Out with the old, in with the new

En route

Monday of this week was a resolutely gorgeous day, with nary a cloud in the ether. We made the most of it by putting in a decent shift on the plot, continuing to harvest the abundant crops still doing their thing while putting out a few plants that will hopefully have time to do theirs. We also saw evidence of a few of our more autumnal characters beginning to take shape.

The Beginning of The End...

From the back of our plot today

All things must end, and the first whisperings of the demise of this year's summer abundance could be discerned down at Nunsmoor allotments today. All our beetroot are out, our first planting of peas are long gone - the second is still going - strawberries are finished and, as of today, our broad bean plans were hoiked out and composted. No doubt about it, the season is now hinting at it's own inexorable demise.

Recipe: Rhubarb and Vanilla Cordial

Rhubarb and sweet cicely: BFFs

We're coming to the end of the time when you want to be harvesting any rhubarb; the plants can get exhausted if over-cropped. We took next to no stems from our five or so crowns last (their first) year, but have taken what we assume to be a prudent number this year. We'll be splitting the crowns this autumn and spreading them out a bit too, having fallen into the trap of judging the spacing based on when there was no foliage on the plants, rather than when they are in full flow. If you've still got a few stems going and fancy doing something a bit different, this cordial is a total winner. If you also like gin, then read on indeed, as this makes a sunnily gorgeous mixer for the stuff.

Top of the Crops

A few hours were spent at the plot yesterday, and no doubt about it: the harvest has indeed now swung into "full steam ahead" mode. I reflected on the fact that when you're tending your plants, trying to get them into some sort of productive state, you imagine that the end result will be carefree days spent skipping round the place, plucking abundance from the heaving boughs. Well it's not quite like that; harvesting stuff actually takes time and effort. The fact that I'm stiff as a git today is only partly a function of how out of shape I am and due in at least some part to the simple truth that harvest time is quite hard work, albeit gloriously rewarding work at that.

Awash with Squash

Verdant

A quick Saturday jaunt down to the plot revealed that everything is continuing to do really well in the sunshine-and-showers we've been having. What with attending various weddings and reunions in far-flung corners of the country we hadn't been to the plot for a few days, so it was grand to see everything trucking on autopilot.

Restaurant Review: David Kennedy @ ChefsPod, Vallum Farm

Alright, so this isn't exactly a restaurant, and therefore it's maybe not entirely accurate to call this a restaurant review, but what else to call it? Hut review? Pod review?! A brief explanation:

In Praise Of: Water

An action shot of me watering some veg. High drama, I'm sure you'll agree.

Or, rather, in praise of having a decent supply of it. Until last summer, each plot on our allotments at Nunsmoor had it's own water tap. The problem was, they were all in some kind of loop whereby it only needed one or two people in your vicinity to turn theirs on to deprive you of any water at all. In dry periods, this was a serious pain in the arse. Then, after a vote at the AGM, better water pipes were installed, less dependent on others usage, and with much improved pressure. An increase in fees of £10 per year seemed very reasonable for this. Of course, we then had one of the wettest spells on record, rendering the whole thing a bit of a running joke. Until now...

Factoring in a Fab Weekend

A Police Chopper flies over the plot. Hangover or not, it would've been a crime not to have gotten down there. BOOM!

It has been very much a Factor-50 type of weekend up here in the North East, as it appears to have been pretty much everywhere in these sceptered isles. Sunday in particular was an absolute stonker, with just enough breeze to keep conditions from being unworkably hot. Although at one stage very much regretting the second half of a too-moreish bottle of wine that was imbibed on Saturday eve, I managed to get a fair amount of weeding done this weekend, which was much needed as things were threatening to get pretty untidy. We realised we hadn't any plants to go into the gaps that we're just about to create, so I hastily sowed some lettuces, radishes and kohlrabi in modules and Kasia bought some of the last of the leeks and red cabbages from Wylam Nurseries.

Restaurant Review: Zapatista Burrito Bar, Newcastle

Enough colour for you?!

During the vast majority of the 12 or so years I have lived in Newcastle, it has, where Mexican food is concerned, been a total desert. "When the bloody hell is someone going to open a Mexican place?!", I thought, frequently, shaking a clenched fist skywards to no great effect. There was a place doing "Tex-Mex" near Haymarket that I believe traded in nothing much more interesting than loaded potato skins and the like, so I never went. Latterly, Las Iguanas has brought its brand of vague, South American-filtered-through-chain-restaurant thing to town. So when, quite a while ago now, I learned on Facebook that a Burrito Bar was opening up, an intrigued and hopeful eyebrow was raised in anticipation.

Gardening in fast-forward mode, plus Happy Birthday blog.

Day 1

Some time later...

It seems a tad redundant writing this as the pics here are from almost a week ago, and things are really moving quickly now. Continued decent growing weather has seen things growing noticeably by the day, and has left us struggling manfully to keep up, to the extent that writing about what's happening down at the plot has come second to actually trying to find the time to get down there. Nonetheless, in the interest of posterity, here's what was happening on our allotment last Sunday.

Actually, before I get into that, I noticed that I've been doing this blog thing for just over a year now, so in spite of my reservations about attributing anniversaries to inanimate things like bits of amateurish writing on the internet: Happy Birthday Patchy Growth! To mark this momentous occasion, I thought I'd bung up a pic from our very first day on the plot next to one from Sunday, both taken from the same spot. See if you can tell which is which...

A Bit of The Trip. Restaurant Review: Holbeck Ghyll, Windermere

The name Holbeck Ghyll has been firmly lodged in my memory since it featured in an episode of the brilliant series The Trip featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Kasia and I headed over to the Lake District this weekend gone to meet up with my folks and have a look round Beatrix Potter's Hilltop Farm, something Kasia has wanted to do for ages. Ever-eager to crowbar a posh lunch into an afternoon out, and unable to get a booking for the bargainous-sounding set lunch at The Samling, Holbeck Ghyll it was. I'd read some not-so-great reviews elsewhere (for example here and here), some claiming that the Michelin star held here wasn't perhaps justified, but they were all from a while back, so I was more than happy to find out for myself.

Tomato Cliffhanger

Resplendent in late evening sun

Bit ashamed to admit this (I'm among friends here, right?), but I fear we've gotten dangerously close to knackering up our tomato plants. It's ferociously hot in the polytunnel when the sun comes out and having not been down to water them since Saturday, they were seriously parched by the time we got down tonight.

The Second Coming of the Polytunnel

Another one of those perfect allotment days today, where the combination of ideal weather, things growing  nicely and the fact that you get plenty of stuff done just reinforces the joy of this whole gig. We were down there for near enough seven hours, which passed in an absolute flash. My envy of the hordes of currently-retiring baby boomers, decades of this sort of thing ahead of them, paid for by little more than being in the right place during the right property boom, is only salved by the fact that I get to do this at the weekends too.

Restaurant Review: Electric East, Newcastle

That scallop, pork and peanut caramel dish in full

This was a meal that had been a long time coming. I'd meant to get myself to Barn Asia for ages, having heard furtive whisperings of a dish involving scallops, pork and caramel. Then, for whatever reason the place hit the skids and closed down. Happily, it got up and running again in the same venue and largely the same staff, and I resolved to attend. That was ages back though; we just never got round to it, until a couple of weeks ago when, my parents in tow, we finally got to check it out.

Plot takes a back seat...

New gaff!

There hasn't been a great deal going on for us allotment-wise just of late, nor of keeping this blog up to date  (the second rather naturally follows the first), although not entirely without reason; you see, we've been busy with finally moving in to the above abode. This has been on the cards for some time, and thankfully there were no last minute shit-ups, so we now own our first pad! This is a considerable step up from our old flat in terms of quite a few things, not least outside space.

Restaurant Review: Cal's Own, Newcastle

Pizza heaven

Imagine for a minute that you're called Cal, and then further  imagine that you've decided to open a pun-titled business. What are your options? Maybe a Cal-ender shop? Or you could flog Cal-or gas, or perhaps even set up a Cal-centre (sorry, that's truly crap). Thankfully for the good people of Newcastle in general, and Heaton in particular, Cal of Cal's Own went down precisely none of these avenues, instead selling pizza, both in titular folded, and regular format. Thankfully indeed, because on the evidence of our recent visit it's by some distance the best pizza in town and, actually, I'm buggered if I can remember one I ever had, anywhere, that was better. 

Wet and then dry as life springs forth

Sunday Glummery

We've had a good couple of days of days activity on the plot, first in the rain on Sunday, followed by a quick  dash down in the evening sun after work yesterday. The amount of green, relative to unplanted brown, is increasing all the time, which is making things start to look a bit more productive and full of life.

Restaurant Review: The Broad Chare, Newcastle

The dining room at The Broad Chare

You know that feeling you get when something you both fully expected, and wanted, to be great turns out to be actually not that special at all? I experienced exactly that sense of anti-climax with the last Radiohead album. Repeated listens revealed nothing new, and I had to give up and accept it was just...pretty average. Radiohead being who they are, this was probably a deliberately contrarian ploy on their part to question the viability of the album as a musical form. I'm going to assume that The Broad Chare weren't similarly trying to problematise the three-course meal as a format of dining during our recent visit, and that the fact we had a fairly mediocre meal was down to error rather than design.

Sun, Songbirds and... decomposing marrows

Gathering Rhubarb in the Sun

Just another absolute stonker of a day in allotment land today. Light cloud with periods of bright (and hot!) sunshine made for basically perfect conditions. I've managed to pick up just a touch of sunburn; you never hear of it!