There’s a very good reason – well two actually – why I haven’t been posting on the blog for a good while. Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying to find my very elderly parents a new home down here in East Sussex so that they can be nearer for us to look after them. At ages 87 (Mum) and 93 (Dad) this move will be daunting for both of them not only due to their age but also the fact that since arriving in this country in the late 1950’s they’ve always lived in and around London. (I’ve actually just looked back to see the date of my last blog post and it was March 30th, that’s disgraceful!). So in addition to looking at property after property and dealing with solicitors and the dark arts of estate agents I’ve also been working on some new designs for the Brighton Open House weekends (more in a post later this week) and of course dealing with the renovations to the kitchen from hell in our own house. The builders have been here for around a month so far and things are going pretty well but of course they haven’t knocked any walls down yet, it’s all been structural work on the outside of the house. The May Bank Holiday weekend was a great opportunity to escape the escalating chaos of the building works and you may notice that our antics had a bit of a gastronomic theme.
First there was afternoon tea at The Brighton Hotel with our friend Clare (thanks Bonnie and Seb it was a really thoughtful gift, sorry we couldn’t share it with you) followed pretty swiftly later that evening by a meal at Moonstone a Sri Lankan restaurant on New Church Road, Hove. Yes, there was room left in my stomach for a curry (though I did skip the starter) and the Kingfish curry with rotis was delicious – rich and spicy with a bit of heat, which I’ll ask them to ramp up bit next time.
On Saturday we took ourselves off to the Brighton Foodies Festival which was held on Hove Lawns from Saturday to Monday. I was lucky enough to win tickets over on Instagram after answering the question ‘if you could eat anything, what would it be and who would you eat it with?’ (I chose shawarmas – if you’ve never had one look them up, done well they’re fantastic). Now before I go any further I do get a little niggled at companies charging for an event that’s held on land like The Lawns where we can normally walk for free but that’s by the by. It was a great excuse to get away from our increasingly dusty house and fill my greedy face with lots of local and not so local produce and I thought I’d share a few highlights.
This lovely man from The Garlic Farm came all the way from the Isle of Wight to cook up a storm with a something called a ‘Vampyre Slayer Burger’ that was actually more like a sandwich but honestly that really didn’t matter. The meat was soooo tender and after being cooked in an indescribably smoky, garlicky sauce it was served up in a wonderfully fresh ciabatta roll with garlic mayo, cheese, rocket and caramelised onions. This thing was so damn good I ate it on Saturday and then again on Monday, by far the best food there.
The picture below shows what was apparently turnip coloured with beetroot juice and of course I was drawn to it because of the colour. Disturbingly though the taste was so sharp it made my eyes water so I passed on whatever else she had on offer. Talking of foods that are disturbing and pink one of the stalls selling BBQ fell foul of Mr Sloan when he tried to explain that finding blush-pink flesh when you bite into a chicken wing is NOT a good thing. ‘They’re meant to look like that’ said the two very young blonde grill girls, not they’re bloody not … unless you want to lose weight very VERY fast. Pink beef? Okay. Pink lamb? Yes please. But as a middle aged woman of Bajan heritage let me tell you girlie, pink chicken is NOT ‘a thing’.
This guy was selling truffle products, the cheese and black truffle oil was particularly good.
Rose Cottage Liquers make the most delicious gin based drinks. Thick, sweet and strong the label suggests that you may want to put a little into the bottom of a glass of bubbly but we drank it in small measures served over a couple of blocks of ice. My favourite flavour by far was the Rhubarb and Haw, and as I normally hate the taste of rhubarb you can imagine how good it must have been. I say ‘must’ have been because the bottle we bought on Saturday afternoon didn’t see the light of day come Sunday morning. Well! It was only a wee one and we took it round to a friend’s house. They (Rose Cottage not my friend) have a website here and so you can order online, if you love gin please try it.
random shot of hot sauces – and there were a LOT of sauces.
And lastly here’s a sot of my VIP goody bag. Yes that IS a peanut butter flavoured hot drink you see at the centre. The first thing I did when I saw it was check how many calories in a 100g serving……463! I’ll let you know when I’ve tasted it.
J x
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