Restaurant Review: Al Baik, Newcastle upon Tyne

Proteins!

I've held the view for quite some time now that Lebanese is one of the premier pre-piss up cuisines. The conviviality of shared mezze starters, the light and zingy flavours and the wilful contrariness of starting your evening off with a kebab are all very much in its favour in this regard. And anyone who doesn't enjoy scooping up mounds of silky smooth hummus with those airily light breads you get at the start of the meal is sadly defective in a quite significant way. There was no piss-up happening when we visited Al Baik recently to celebrate a family birthday, but I was looking forward to it nonetheless, not least as there had been furtive whisperings that we might take on the "Super Al Baik Special Mixed Grill", of which more later...

Branching Out

A tree, in a car, today. Fancy that!

Just back from the plot, which, if things continue apace, is going to have to be referred to in future as the orchard. You see we've expanded our fruit tree empire by 100%, adding an apple to the plum that we planted a couple of weeks ago. Heady times. In so doing we've also rediscovered (we had been once before, but then sort of forgot where it was) a genuinely excellent garden centre. Cowell's, near Woolsington, had an impressively comprehensive range of all manner of fruit trees and were able to dispense some really useful advice about planting them. Never again, Homebase.

Reaping the Remaining Wintery Roots

As I type these words the rain is teeming down outside against a darkened backdrop of utter gloom. In the "news", that fine upholder of the British tradition of talking complete toss to anyone within earshot that is The Daily Express is predicting apocalyptic scenes of snow-laden Armageddon. That's right people, winter's here.

Late Season Gardening in Slow Motion

A suitably crisp autumnal day off work, and the first visit to the plot in nearly a month. If we were still in the midst of summer, I'd have been full of guilty trepidation at the prospect of the weed-fest our neglect would have dealt us. At this time of year however growth has slowed down to comparative slow motion which, after the frantic dash of the high season, comes as something of a relief and allows you the pleasure of just wandering round a bit and realising that things are much as you had left them. With a couple of notable exceptions.

Restaurant Review: Amma, Newcastle

It's fair to say that when we moved to Benwell earlier this year it wasn't because the area's thriving restaurant scene. While there are a lot of things I like about living round here, nipping down to the local cafe for a latte or bite to eat isn't one of them, as no such place exists. The few Just-Eateries that loiter around do not inspire any kind of enthusiasm, so it was with no little interest a few weeks back that we noted the opening of Amma, just up off Scotswood Road, claiming to specialise in South Indian and Sri Lankan food. There are no shortage of "Indian" restaurants around town, although most, as anywhere in these sceptered isles, serve up the same ghee-heavy selection of standard curry action. The promise of a more regional south Indian cooking within walking distance of our door was tantalising stuff.

Fade To Grey

The Hooded Composter

I couldn't get Visage's 1980 masterpiece out of my head while we were down at the allotment on Saturday, no doubt in sympathy with the conditions which were the very epitome of dreich. Days like this are, I think, the ones which remind us that no matter how much we enjoy this caper, we're never going to be what you might refer to as hardcore. A bit of drizzle and a notable lowering in temperatures were all it took for us to collectively decide to sack it off after just a few essential tasks were hastily completed.

Autumnal harvesting and planting

It's a nice time of year on the allotment right now. The flurry of high summer seems like a while ago; temperatures are well suited to working, there are still things to harvest, but there is that pleasing feeling that when you hoik up a weed, it won't be back with reinforcements anytime soon. There are some lovely colours around as well, not least of which being the Blueberry plants, whose leaves have turned a (un-photoshopped, honestly) vivid shade of pinkish red. We made the most of a nice Saturday afternoon to get a good amount done, although very much at "pottering about" speed.

Restaurant Review: The Ledbury, Notting Hill

Canapes: Gruyere tartlets

With an impending "big" birthday uppermost in our minds, we took the chance while at a lunch with some of the North East's best chefs recently to ask where in London would be a suitable venue for a full throttle celebratory blow-out. A couple of places garnered honourable mentions, including Kitchen Table, but a fair consensus seemed to be that we'd struggle to do any better than The Ledbury. That was my cue to cancel the booking that I'd made elsewhere, and then spend a considerable portion of the next week on TopTable, stalking a box-seat booking. It paid off, as I snared a prime time 7:15 seating. Hurrah.

A Crazy Spud and Crimes in Cold Blood

The work of some utter shithouse or other

Sunday gone was a day of tidying up, weeding and covering up sections of the plot that shall harbour no more crops until next year. Such activities do not make for great or interesting pics, so apologies for the lack of veg-porn, but the season's abundance is very much drawing to a close.

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...