hmmm.... and washed down with a nice Burgundy or Côtes du Rhone from your area can't be bad...

With seafood? I'd rather a nice Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé

being PC maybe BG , but I really can't stand ANY white wine !!! even with fish - why are we obliged to drink white wine with fishy foods ? to me a wine heathen, why not drink what your taste buds appreciate rather than feel obliged to follow the party line wnd have a white because tradition dictates ?



for me it goes back to the bad old days of Sainsburys' Leibfraumilch which was great as an anti-freeze but undrinkable



I make an exception for moules marinières tho' and ding in half a bottle of Sèvre Muscadet !



Pouilly would be out of Peggy's area tho' Sancerre would be a bit closer to home - can't beat a regional plonk !



whatever you drink at this festive period just ENJOY !!!

Probably orange juice

I'll be helping myself to several Artois's seeing as my good landlord friend is open from 11am until 3pm.

Good man.

that's what I like about you WZ - class mate, sheer class !





anyways, got the xmas lunch sorted - me and the two cats are having bacon, sausage, eggs & beans, probably with some mushrooms & grilled tomatoes - I may even venture a bacon butty for brekky - all washed down with a fine Corbières (2.35€ out of Lidl )





may sound a bit ordinary to you lot but sheer luxury to any expat missing REAL grub !



Merry Xmas everyone

The only downside is that landlord isn't cooking for me this year.

He served us up some genetically modified goose last 25th, in the bar.

Anyway, he's off visiting family this time round and won't even be open Xmas night.



Just as we'll I've stocked up on various M&S meal deals.

It'll be one of, Oakham chicken, steak or gammon on the big day.

Meals for two but I'll be scoffing the full compliment.

It's nowt to do with tradition. Or at least it shouldn't be. The point is to choose a wine whose flavour compliments the food you're eating - regardless of which colour that might be. Most fish dishes go better with white wine than red, but it's not a hard and fast rule.

utter hogwash Kosh !





white wine doesn't have to compliment fish any more than a cuppa compliments a bacon buttie ! a really nice Rosé goes down equally as well with oysters etc than any white plonk



if people prefer white wine with fish then great for them but personally a nice light red (not Bordeaux or Bergerac & other heavy reds) slides down nicely thanks very much



there's a lot of wine snobbery where convention kicks in and the customer feels obliged to follow the rules of eating & drinking, none more so than the french ! they've turned wine snobbery into an art form



it should be a case of 'whatever turns you on' (or for WZ a case of Stella !) and for me personally a white with fish is a no no but good luck to those of you who enjoy their white



bon appetit

snail vol au vents with the aperitif tomorrow

Just to wind back a couple of pages ref: pork pies...



Made four of them yesterday with finely diced pork shoulder and belly pork and have just scoffed the first for my dinner (not lunch) this lunchtime, with Branston and a slavver of cranberry - even though I say so myself, it was bloody lovely.



I ended up using the silcone deep moulds and resulted in a pie approx 3 inches in diameter and 2.5 inches high, a decent meal in itself, but a couple of notes made during the process, I didn't get the gelatine right and the pies filled with pork fat which I drained but failed to fill properly with gelatine, and the pies had to be taken out of the moulds, brushed with egg and stood in the oven for the last ten minutes to properly brown the sides off.



Next time they will be perfect, in the meantime I've got three left

Just leave 'em in the shell, knock the back off and replace like a vol au vent lid



We'll be having Gloucester Old Spot loin (I did a swap - 5kgs of fish for 5kgs of pork) for our Christmas dinner (at about 3pm, all the pubs in Winky give you your first drink free, so with 6 pubs, I'll spend nowt tomorrow). Starting with a plate of smoked halibut and finishing off with a selection of local cheeses (including Somerset brie), sourced from the various artisanal cheesemakers we still seem to have round here. I'll open a Chablis and a Rioja, both will get supped, along with a bottle of Warre's Cavadinha 1996 (that won't probably see then end of tomorrow).



The great thing is, Emma don't drink