Cupping coffee

Quite early for a drink

I found myself asking, where are our cocktails? Surely, they are not being made in heaven and needing a prayer of faith with the miracle of changing water into wine, just at our tables. Soon, they arrived without the need for a prayer on our lips, our yearning and expectations met as the ice entombed slices of lime and lemon in the glass.

Blood orange juice, gin, Cointreau, chilled prosecco and lime came to Alcoholic named as Blood orange French and Pom fizz which was lighter on the palate with pomegranate juice and chilled prosecco was served to Anonymous.

Stirring much curiosity

He puts a teaspoon of sugar in his flat white cup of coffee, the cup having no handles that he has to cup it between his hands as a warmer to take a drink. I could not decide after he put the sugar in his coffee if he was stirring or doodling, but soon after he did have to stir in the sugar, so, my first observation about doodling was right.

Apparently, she looks like a Karen. Pray, what is a Karen look? Surely not Donna Karan. Now, the waiter or waitron as they are apparently known on the menus in Cape Town has noticed I am taking notes, he thinks I am writing reviews of the food and probably describing something, not to my liking, which I am not at this time. What have I been writing about?

No one takes AMEX

So far, I have written nothing about our meals, our choices were good and tasty. We were at Hemelhuijs or Heaven’s house, the U appears as a V on the building sign, I guess we’ll touch the subject of meals another time.

When paying, the invoice said only Mastercard or Visa accepted, it made for a good joke to the waitron when I told of our visit to Simon’s Restaurant at Groot Constantia, the bill came in an American Express folder emblazoned with the by-line, the best way to pay is with your AMEX, but the bill strictly noted, only Mastercard and Visa were acceptable. Funny and ironic at the same time. All the waitrons agreed.

Feeding treasure not at the trove

Ancoats to the belly

Courage, it was, and not of the Dutch variety, at least not that early in the morning and I would never trade my sobriety for the daring to do anything, that I had planned to have breakfast at Trove in the old industrial estate of Ancoats, Manchester, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution is a gentrified area of old mills converted to modern residences.

That itself is interesting because in reading up about the recently deceased Max Mosley, I discovered his father’s knighthood was a baronetcy, a hereditary knighthood, the Sir Oswald Mosley, 6^th Baronet Ancoats and notoriously a fascist leader in the 1930s, of father and son, there is much to be said, but I digress.

Riding on a mule

Arriving at Trove that I last visited in July last year, a waitress enthusiastically sought a table for me before a nonchalant manager interjected and said all the tables were reserved. Whilst he could have offered to take a reservation for later, his off-putting attitude left one feeling another visit to the place will not be considered again.

Staying within Ancoats, I found another place called Mule, where as I ordered I had to pay, leaving no room for tipping for a service well delivered. Strangely, I was forced to obtain cash from a till in Leicester because one of the shops we went to did not have any electronic payment systems. I have not handled cash in quite a while, even church offerings are done contactless.

Tasty with colour

Mule might well be an inspired name, the meaning in English would not suggest that, but that would be to overthink the provenance. The menu was as exotic as it was politically correct with pescatarian and vegetarian fare, I humoured myself looking for something Pastafarian or if I had hair, Rastafarian. Do not laugh.

I ordered the chorizo hash since I needed some meat, that option was not qualified, and it had everything. Chorizo, potatoes, poached egg, and spinach – it had a Mediterranean colour and flavour suited to my palate. I enjoyed it. For drinks; Earl Grey tea, at table three, outside.

Discoveries that lead off course

The lurch for brunch

We have veered off the beaten path in search for brunch around our new accommodations. The places that seem inviting are not particularly offering what we want. When we thought we could walk through Green Point Park, the gate nearest to us was locked, and by the time we got to the open gate, there was no point traversing the park, we kept to the circumlocutory path on the pavement.

After the formalities, sanitised hands, temperature checks, and registration, we made selections from the menu and I was about to hand over my phone when I realised the menus were only available through a QR Code read by my phone. The Jason of Jason Bakery is assuredly not an Argonaut, but for your sausage, thy chorizo instead.

Sausages Española

You can presume if anyone tries something in Cape Town, there will be a copycat and I cannot speak of the originator, it might well be an agreement at the meeting of Cape Town chefs. For a few blocks down, they kept the kitchen open for us at Sotano, minutes after it should have closed.

Jason offered a downloaded PDF menu whilst Sotano on the QR Code revolution sent us to a web page and this time they were upfront with what they were up to. It would appear chorizo is replacing the sausage and the option will appropriately be called Spanglish Breakfast, a portmanteau of Spanish and English. It was good.

And now that we are by the seaside, Brian can get his salt from the sea, the table salt is not nearly enough for him to salt to taste, pepper to heat, and Tabasco to burn. By the time he is done, it is most definitely another meal that he can finish in style.

Agege Bread by desire and amazing consequence

Whistle-stop London

At the behest of Funmi Iyanda, I found myself on a train to London on Saturday soon after a conversation where we decided we need to have a chat.

I left home in shorts and a shirt, wearing boat shoes, a straw hat and nothing else, not even a jacket because we were having one of those unusually glorious summer days in England. Sunday morning was hardly the precursor to a summer's day, it rained and I was not dressed for it.

Arriving at hers, I settled down to a cassava meal with a mix of three different stews that I insisted on having despite her protestations to the contrary, I insisted and enjoyed it.

The evening passed with visitors literally exhausting us, so we never really went out to the US Independence Day picnic because as usual, our good friends are not the best or most reliable timekeepers for engagements.

Good view but the food

On Sundays when I am with Funmi, we have breakfast / brunch at Ginger & White where we meet an eclectic crowd of Bohemian types over scrambled eggs, assorted organic breads and spreads. Their baked beans and peanut butter are just completely something else.

Anyway, as it transpired, we did not make G&W round the corner, but were persuaded to make a beeline to Monument Station to Sky Garden on the 32^nd Floor at 20 Fenchurch Street where the building widens at the top, earning it the name, The Walkie-Talkie. The curve on the building can exhibit the qualities of a concave mirror reflecting and concentrating incidental sunlight to the point of melting parts of cars parked in its vicinity.

Getting in the Sky Garden building almost exceeded the security requirements for international travel at airports; names, phone numbers, metal detectors and baggage scanning equipment, all for the sake of breakfast. We got up there and whilst we might have been bowled over by the views, that was the only thing going for the Sky Garden, the location, cold and unfriendly, the menu was at best perfunctory. A bloody waste of time, to put it mildly.

A place to forget

We left wondering whether to return to the tried and tested or explore the possibilities at Borough Market just one station’s stop down at London Bridge.

We decided on the latter and after perambulating for about 15 minutes, we settled for Le Pain Quotidien where the fare was passable for survivalist mastication rather than for taste or culinary skill.

Femi who had joined us at Le Pain Quotidien was very helpful as I had purposed that on my visit to London, I will get some Agege Bread. She called Anino who suggested we try the Agege Bread shop on Deptford High Street and along the way we would have been able to get some moin-moin for Funmi too.

The Agege Bread adventure

We caught a black cab and made for Deptford, stopping in front of the Agege Bread shop where on entry we were met with a feast of Nigerian delicacies that excited us beyond Pavlovian abandon.

Moin-moin, asaro, ewa aganyin, puff-puff, fresh fish stew, chin-chin, buns, jollof rice, fried rice, fried plantain (dodo), suya and much else, I was whooping with extreme glee that my order probably took the best part of 30 minutes. Visit the All Nigerian Recipes website for an introduction to the vast palate of Nigerian cuisine.

As we were making up our minds about what to get, the proprietor and owner of the Agege Bread business came in and a conversation started, first with Femi and then with Funmi and the next 3 or so hours we were entertained and regaled with his perceptions of living and thriving in the UK having arrived from Nigeria some 30 years ago.

An inspiration and new friend

Whilst Agege Bread might mean many things to many people, the trademark and brand belongs to the Agege Bread business in the UK and it is the standard by which imitation sweet breads are measured.

In all this, we got to visit the East Street outlet of Agege Bread walking through the workrooms and if there was enough time, we might have even visited the main factory in Greenwich.

We were inspired very much by this very confident, self-assured entrepreneur whose perspectives of integration and work ethic left us almost ashamed of what some other Nigerians come to do in the UK. Agege Bread is soon to have a shop at London Heathrow's Terminal 5 too.

Many of the points he addressed are probably best covered in another blog, but the great revelation and achievement of the weekend was how the simple desire for Agege Bread led us to an unforgettable encounter with an ambassador of values those of Nigerian heritage can espouse and exhibit if we decide to be the best we can be.

A friendship was blossoming and part of that was he gave us a lift, not to the nearest station but all the way back home in North West London before returning to his home in Kent.

The Yesterday Telegraph for breakfast

Late again

No great lament shall come of my disappointment when my next visit to Gran Canaria would have me reading yesterday’s The Daily Telegraph for breakfast because it does not arrive on the island till well in the afternoon.

I had written to The Daily Telegraph to complain that an Englishman has the misfortune of not being able to read his daily at breakfast – breakfast on holiday usually starts around 10:00hrs for me.

I can only imagine we are back to some old telegraphy technology, for the speed at which I got a response to what was initially an electronic mail, sent about 2 weeks ago - I did get an apology, so nice of her.

The Reply

The reply came this evening with the following words.

Thank you for your recent email regarding the Telegraph. Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to you.

I understand from your correspondence that you frequently visit Gran Canaria and have noted that The Telegraph is available to purchase around 1pm whereas the tabloids are available to buy much earlier.

The reason for this is that the tabloid newspapers are printed in the Canary Islands and distributed along with the Spanish press; however the Telegraph is printed further away, in Madrid.

Whilst I appreciate that this causes a delay in purchasing the paper and I am sorry if this causes any inconvenience, I regret there are no plans to change our printing site at this time.

May I take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to contact us and I sincerely hope that you will continue to enjoy reading the Telegraph.

Should you wish to contact us please email telegraphenquiries@telegraph.co.uk or telephone us on 0800 31 66 977. We are available to take your call Monday to Friday 9am-5pm and saturday 9am-1pm.

With kind regards

Definitely not with the times

Boo hoo hoo! I took the time to contact you because I could not get my paper on time, surely, arrangements can be made to ensure that the paper is electronically sent to the Canary Islands and then printed out here to sensibly call it a daily rather than an evening paper - The Evening Standard in London is already out at 11:30AM.

I guess The Daily Telegraph has not recognised that its name does not have to reflect its inability to leverage modern technologies to achieve the possible.

In the end, if I can only get my daily in the afternoon, I surely must not be charged the full whack to read stale news, maybe I should seek solace in the bosom of the Page Three Girl.

I need a early-bird paperboy

Need a quick paperboy

One has been reduced to reading the Daily Wail at breakfast; it is not the most comfortable feeling at all.

An Englishman must have his daily at breakfast but somehow the higher brow dailies seem to have relapsed into a sedentary holiday atmosphere with the Daily Telegraph getting to my island at well after 1:30PM.

Shurely shome mishtake – we cannot retime breakfast for lunch; that would just not do.

The Germans have it

As I visited the newsagents this morning, one could be forgiven for thinking I had just walked into a shop on Kurfurstendamm – every paper and magazine had an umlaut.

This island might be Spanish but there are more German signs here, the thought crossed my mind that we might have a Kosovo situation brewing with the Germans clamouring for unity with the mother country.

The dearth of cultured queens

I finally had a night out yesterday which started just after 1:00AM and as I got into town, someone took interest in my using a cane by being a silly busybody.

So, I said, “Are you trying to make polite conversation or are you being a typical uncultured British oaf”. He whooped with despicable effete and ran off with his gaggle (of geese) before my cane brought order to his disorderliness.

Whatever happened to the classy and debonair queens of old who carried themselves with such grace and well-mannered comportment – from Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward – I am reading his letters, Sir John Gielgud and now Sir Ian McKellen.

What we have now are loud and brash chavs with no airs, courtesy or manners – the dregs that make you tilt your head backwards with backhand to the brow in an almost fainting spell of despair.

O! Back to the place where everybody knows my name as they punctuate each sentence with Sir. I am being served - Thank you very much.

Maybe was a cornflake boy

My Genesis in cornflakes

Well, well, the scientists have brought us good news about the boys, I never was a cornflake girl, and I thought that was a good solution, now I know more.

As mum stepped into the kitchen that summer morning in 1965, she must have had a bowl of cereal which eventually aided conception that turned out to be a male.

Yes, as I was saying, research has now indicated that a woman’s chance of having sons instead of daughters depends on having cereals and not skipping breakfast.

I would suppose mum wondered if she should have Kellogg’s Cornflakes or Weetabix, but that makes me wonder how I turned out.

Cornflakes for blondes, bran for brains?

For instance, could it be that she did not finish her breakfast and hence I became an early term baby?

Or maybe cornflakes should have helped me become blonde and my brown eyes are derived from Weetabix.

With the array of cereals on the market today from tasteless but healthful bran, through muesli that is the equivalent of a complete mouth workout that tires you out before the third spoon to fancy Shreddies or Frosties – you are probably on the way to boy-a-la-cereal.

Now, if you had nuts in your cereal, you might end up with a mad child – no original idea of mine, the scientists have put me on the top of the helter-skelter of outrageous imagination and given me a push – Stop! I can’t.

Eat the cereal and ditch the packet

The scientists cover much more ground by asserting high-calorie breakfasts are the best guarantee of influencing the gender of the baby and I begin to wonder if the research is worth the paper of a million Zimbabwean dollars.

The Western slant of this research cannot be overlooked as I see faces of hunger in other parts of the world with boys in tow – who sponsors this kind of stuff?

Frankly, one cannot write much more about this without getting obtusely facetious and quite derisive, but before the ladies wanting boys take all the cereal off the supermarket shelves in a make-boy frenzy and then realise this is not really happening – You bet your life it is a boy – a cornflake boy!

Who would be satisfied with a tom-boy? Check the gender and sue the cereal company.

Reference

The ideas of cornflake girl and cornflake boy are derived from a song (YouTube link) by Tori Amos.

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