Fringe Food & Drink

If this years Fringe Festival goes ahead it will because the Manchester Food & Drink Festival is going ahead. It will be the 4th year of the Fringe. A few places have dropped by the wayside. Chorlton Wholefoods in the first year, dropped out the second, and is up for sale at present. Murial's Greengrocers in the first couple sold the shop last year - retirement. Carringtons - currently closed will it resurface. Bean Counter has taken over Battery Park but still enthusiastic, Barbakan planning an expansion as they've bought the premises next door, Unicorn set to expand as they've bought the whole site and car park. The festival does need some new participants so it better represents Chorlton's diversity of food & drink. The planning doesn't start for a few months yet. So in the meantime we'll be filling this page with other ramblings. No change then.

A box of bergamots arrived by mistake. Wrongly labelled as lemons. I thought they were lemons but more rounded and a deeper yellow. Anyway they had to be sent back. This is because the shop thought it couldn't sell them. They know their business, but what a state of affairs. It's an impovrished country when a box of fruit can't be sold because it's different. However I managed to take one home for free. It's only a citrus fruit and with the web you can look up a million ideas of what to use it for. Obviously not perfume or making Earl Grey tea which comes from the oil in the skin. Maybe I'll just eat it and share it. We need more consumers who will try different foods and maybe the shops will try and offer things that are beyond the normal everyday. Some hope.

Food Blog somebody's food diary. It's by an American, they eat chicken, and they count calories everyday and put the results in this blog. Amazing thing this t'internet.

Kiplog lots of links & resources and other food bloggers

Eating Well Cheaply it is possible to eat well and very cheaply. The constraint is time. A bit more time and thought and you are there. Meals have to be cooked from scratch, the more you avoid added value, takeaways and ready made meals the more money you save, the more control over taste and nutrition you have. Your call.

Trouble for Pizza Hut police called because they served non-vegetarian pizza as vegetarian. Like this police called to investigate business. They want to investigate why Pizza Hut serve pretend pizza and not the real thing. All this comes about because of religious reasons in India (it could be religious reasons in any country) not because of another multinational food crime.

Somebody offered me a sample of something called "Mock Goose". It was a flavoured tofu pattie. I declined their offer. But why "Mock Goose" it could have been named after any number of farmyard animals. Why not "Mock Grouse" or "Mock Wild Fowl". So what's happening in Chorlton besides the traffic congestion. Friends call me up from the Lead Station whilst I cycling from work. So cancel to Burns night meal and end up in Diamond Dogs & The Trevor. Well the offer of drinking & eating with friends is not to be spurned. What is really annoying is where do I tie the bike up on Beech Road. Well not near the shops or the Lead Station or Diamond Dogs. No half way down the street chained thru a rubbish bin. Angry Cyclist of Chorlton does a spate of letters to the local newspapers. Still keeping up the project to photograph every evening meal. No camera, so end up buying one of those disposable cameras - half plastic and half cardboard with a built in flash. The results will be interesting or blurred.

Now why do they make something called Fishless Fishcakes, no that's not right why do they call something Fishless Fishcakes. No fishes are involved 'cos it's basically a flat breadcrumbed potato croquette. No fish taste is involved. So who is fooling who? The makers or the buyers. Or is it for people who are coming off dead fish. They never make potatoless chips, no that's not right they do make them and serve them with burgers under a big yellow M. But they call them fries not potatoless french fries.

Made my old favourite for tea [ hot evening dinner to some ] - Penne alla Norma, named after the opera by Bellini. Now watching "question time" on BBC1, it's all talk of war, and we're going to war. Last night nipped down to the local shop at 2200 hours after the football [ won 1-3 now on to the final in Cardiff ]. To my surprise on the counter they had leaflets about a public demonstration against the proposed war. It involved coaches so it was most likely in that carbuncle in the south where they all moan about transport problems. Very rarely do shops get political - well you are always going to offend someone and affect business. The state propaganda machine is going to have to work hard to get support for this conflict if this is happening.

The most unfashionable cooking pot. Have you tried buying one recently, nobody stocks them. No TV chef is ever seen with a ready to explode pressure cooker in the studio. Not when you can be stirring things in a copper sauce pan. Then I saw this item a fancy Swiss pressure cooker for 93 quid. Can't believe anybody is going to pay 93 GBP for a designer boiling vessel. Check Divertimenti and search for a product. I got one in a big shop in Rusholme for 35 quid. Those dried beans cook to soft with the gas set on the lowest flame. Yes they are still scary, still remember the incidents at home when my mother got the steel monster on the hot plates.

Why is the shop still closed for a refurb? Building work going on at The Lloyds / Hardys / Edwards (choose your own name) pub, another refurb and another makeover.

Cat to the vet, then to Old Trafford to get the ticket to watch the Basle game in March. Got the priorities right, though the cat wasn't overly impressed with the car park at the back of North Stand. There I spot a postal worker collecting his ticket, driving the works red van, and no doubt on company time. Very reassuring that the people still use works time to do their own chores. Also contrary to what the papers would have you believe Manchester United has a big local working class following...there are rows of prawn eating corporate types but the heart of the game is still with the ordinary people. Well witness the crowds at Wimbledon or lack of them.

Can't believe this build up of forces to attack Iraq. First it's 26,000...then the figure it's 31,000...topped by ITV News at Ten 32,000. A lot of money keeping this lot out in canvas, dust and sunshine. Top tip don't have the TV sound blaring away whilst surfing. Hear the word tenalady - woooh, wo, wo i'm at the site. They've even got tenalady for men. A big cod-piece to soak up the leaks. Sod that, I'm going out for the pumpkin seeds to-morrow. Get that prostrate sorted on 100g a week. If you've never tried them then now is the time. Lovely toasted, or soak for a day & blend to make a paste which you flavour with spices to make a good sandwich filling. tenalady or pumkin seeds as part of a balanced diet.

Across the streets I've noticed some black and white posters proclaiming DON'T ATTACK IRAQ. Well I've no intention of attacking anybody, let alone a well armed brutal dictatorship in Asia. They've long been a source of amusement these imperative statements. No longer used in advertisements - when did you last see something like Buy Our Bread!, or Get Some Margarine Now! On a better note I did photograph a poster shown left. Makes the point but it probably won't stop another war over oil. Afganistan was the last one and that was just over building a pipeline by Bush's capitalist cronies.

This is the plan move all the experiments with mobile blogging & audio blogging. Even video blogging to a seperate page where practise makes perfect. Keep this page as news about food, drink and local events. Wet weather Sunday listening to BBC 1XTRA on the TV / SKY dish. Why I don't I wire the thing up to an amp and the speakers and get some stereo - why don't I find something to broadcast it around the house. Marmite on toast being prepared in the kitchen, cup of black coffee and plans to go into town (city centre Manchester) to while away the remaining hours of daylight. Else stay in and get couped up cabin fever.

Live at old trafford 1-1 ht

ignore all this stuff i'm just testing again

SMS BLOG TEST MSG#3

AGAIN

Walked thru the rain for breakfast at Diamond Dogs on Beech Road. No mushrooms in the place so went for an off beat choice. I'll have what Sue Fox is having - she was putting up her exhibition of photographs. So what did we have - baked beans, brown rice, tofu and a dollop of humous. Photographed the hot plates for my exhibition. It's an expensive business putting up a photographic display. The costs of printing and framing run into hundreds of pounds. Feeling shaby after a night on the beer and some late night whisky. Abandoned all project work.

LIVE NUDE CATS cracked up laughing, had a few bevvies first, humous and grisini for snacks.

sat in the backyard

Mobile weblogging worked tonite. Mobile phone, wap service, email sent to a web page - not this web page. Hurrah but I've no wine in - Carringtons the local quality wine merchants is closed for refurb until the 16th. Celebrate with cider - starting with an obscure Welsh cider called Sleeping Dragon just as soon as I finish this.

where indeed. A long boozy meal with friends in Sasso on Beech Road. Forget the Morrisons-Safeway deal - and it galls me that some commentator on the BBC News says who ever take its over it'll benefit the consumer with cheaper prices. Might sound like i'm on out on left field limb here but cheaper supermarket prices don't benefit consumers. Short term it appears so, but long term it means margins are squeezed, corners cut, workers get less pay, small producers go to the wall. Wal-Mart, Sainsbury, and Tesco arn't in the businesss to help the consumer they are there to make money from the consumer. How do they do it - pay less to the lorry driver, the family in Mexico growing coffee beans or the pie maker in Mowbray. Big companies are paying big money to be on the supermarket shelves. Paying cash in clean brown envelopes to the supermarket chain for a good slot on the shelves. Cutting costs come sfrom cutting corners, cutting wages, ignoring standards.

Local news - So Chorlton Wholefoods is up for sale, Battery Park eventually to get a new owner - Bean Counter supposedly, Moo shuts up shop. All this from a Sunday walk around the streets where i live. Still can't do mobile weblogging though, tried today with poor results.

You can't beat working and having the radio on. Straight after Mark & Lard on BBC Radio1(1300-1500 UCT), tune down to Radio4 for Veg Talk (1500-1530 UCT). It's name sounds staid but it's presented with verve, flair and a phone in. Mercifully the people who do phone in have a brain and don't witter on with half baked opinions from the tabloids. Recommended listening, you'll learn a lot. Now that the BBC give you a chance to listen to their weeks output again over the web I can catch it next week when I forget to listen first time. Veg Talk.

So another supermarket chain gets eaten by another supermarket chain. Reference to Morrisons taking over Safeway for several billion pounds. So Chorlton will get a Morrisons and not a Safeway. Every capitalist wants to be a monoplist. The concentration of the countries food supply into even fewer hands goes on.

This is a picture of the baked bean pie I made last month. A recipe under development. Part of the "I've taken more photos than I've had hot dinners" project to be exhibited in a local shop at the end of January.

Best of the reading this week was an article in the Weekend magazine section of the Guardian with photos of what people eat across the world. Tried to find an online version but it doesn't appear to exist. So there is no point in going into explaining. The other good thing was at the online verion of the New Humanist - God on the Box was a funny article and i immediately flicked over to the God Channels Sky 671, Sky 672 mentioned in the piece. Soon flicked back to reality or rather a feature cartoon film Shrek on Sky Movie Premiere - a five star animation & script.

Just love these clear sky days. Temperature is below zero but five layers of clothing keeps the chill out. Went in Waterstones but came to my wits when I checked out all the cookbooks. A slew of titles by country or celebrity chef didn't tempt. Why not read all the cookbooks I already own. The ones I've picked up last year at the Oxfam 2nd hand bookstore in Chorlton or at the discount bookshop opposite. Just how many recipes do you need? Clearly in my case lots and lots and using the web adds to the catalogue. Why not cook up some of the ones I already own.

does this work anymore. [ It does but I sent this yesterday ]

First photos developed from the "I've taken more pictures than I've had hot dinners" project. Looking good, but there does appear to be a lot of rocket leaves in my dinners. Even on baked beans. This beats keeping a food diary...you just snap with your little camera every main meal you eat...a pattern soon emerges.

Here is a map - tried to do mapblogging this evening but there is someway to go - like get to grips with xml this is to go with the story below about mobile weblogging something i've been trying for ages with poor results.

this is live on Portland Street Manchester froma broadband phone box 10 pence a minute. THE NEAREST THING TO MOBIE blogging U can manage. Havent a clue how to correct this typing. Want some more i will just waste the time, its 50 pence minimum payment. cannot find the asterisk in the keyboard.

Second day of the year - feel better than than the first day. Start the new age shabby beyond belief. Shabby on over-indulgence.... it can only get better.