Saturday saw the arrival of Tea's last Christmas present: a personal Thai cookery lesson with Annabel, of Annabel's Kitchen. Tea chose to make Tom Yum Goong soup, Beef Panang curry and vegetable Pad Thai. Annabel picked up all the ingredients at our local Asian specialty shop, and brought everything we'd need, including the cookware, this massive mortar and pestle, a food processor, those special dishes for the soup, and even the cooktop cleaner and wash-up liquid.
I think the biggest thing I took away from the afternoon, as an eager spectator -- well, and besides the extravaganza for my taste buds, obviously -- was the value of fresh, traditional ingredients. Fresh lemongrass is incredible, for example, and galangal, while similar to ginger, brings something a bit different to the soup.
I know Tea was excited to have one of her longstanding questions answered: how do they get the beef so tender? Braising in cocunut milk, apparently, and then storing it in a mixture of that braising liquid and more coconut milk. One final note on the ingredients: proper coconut milk is really a wet pulp; man, that stuff smelled so good!
Pad Thai can also be tricky. From start to plate was really quick, and it was amazing to watch Tea bring it together. There's also a specific time and water temperature for soaking the noodles beforehand to ensure they cook up just right.
And just when you think it can't get any better, you realize that all that clinking and splashing behind you is Annabel washing up as you dig in. Bliss!
Strange title, I know, but bear with me: Tea was so excited about this find... Words fail me, to be honest. But, alas, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The forecast for the weekend was dismal indeed, but, lo and behold, Sunday dawned clear, blue and beautiful -- yes, dear readers, my earlier comment about uncannily accurate forecasts has since been proven wrong; so very wrong -- so we stuck our noses in our many books on English walks and decided on one near Burford and Fulbrook.
The landscape around there is really quite something: you can be walking past hills of golden hay one moment, through rolling green hills speckled with white stones like so much confetti the next, followed by flat fields, the tree line well in the distance. As we struggled to figure out just which tree line was the 'copse' referred to in our book, it all seemed like a mirage around us, never getting any closer. We put it down to the carb-laden Thai feast of the previous evening, courtesy of Tea and Miranda's cooking adventure. (I just got to plow through the spoils. Woo hoo!) Luckily we got a second wind shortly thereafter.
St. Oswald's Church
Then it was through Paynes Farm -- where I got to pet a horse! (I was gonna give him my apple, but it was still early days at that point; what if my second wind started to fail me?) and, later, some of the most beautiful, lush valleys we've seen; we keep thinking we won't be able to top the previous week's walk, but there's always something. Another highlight was St Oswald’s Church in Widford. Unfortunately it was closed -- an extremely odd thing, according to a disgusted local we met; we'll definitely have to go back -- but even its exterior was very impressive.
In the Royal Oak
Back in Burford, we were lucky that the first pub we happened upon -- The Royal Oak -- was the town's only entry in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide (I'd forgot to bring it). And rightly so! Tea enjoyed some fabulous toffee cake and a tea (with lots of extra hot water -- nice touch!) while I had a pint of Wadworth's 6X and one of Henry's Original IPA. The place was dripping with character, including the bartender's collection of cups, mugs and steins hanging from hooks in the rafters; you couldn't see the end of them! But the best part by far were the two dogs hangin' out there; one but a puppy. We got to rub him lots before some folks came and bought peanuts; Tea's seriously thinkin' about carryin' a pocketful of dog treats in the future to compete.
Shopping was on the agenda after those refreshments: Burford has some beautiful shops, including lovely china shops, and, getting to the subject of this post, outdoor-wear shops. It was outside one of the latter that Tea spied some wellies; but not just any wellies: these had plenty of extra room up near the calf, a failing that had prevented her from finding a good fit up 'til that moment. And then there's the hiking boot design... Suffice to say that she was over the moon, and ready to try them out on a second hike right then and there!
Behind St. John the Baptist
As we were heading back to the car, we noticed St. John the Baptist Church and had to take a closer look. Unfortunately, it too was closed -- this time for organ practice -- but, again, its exterior was well worth a look. Then it was for home, and, luckily, we made it just as Miranda was getting back from her day in Avebury. So we fired up the Thai leftovers, and repeated the delicious feast of the previous evening. Good times!
Pretty quiet day so far. We had an appointment at the bank this morning, and spent much of the rest of the day anticipating news regarding the approval of the tenancy agreement. Unfortunately, the business day is over here now, and it's just been confirmed that there's still no news. Tomorrow's our last business day here, so we're really hoping for good news in the morning.
High Street After the bank appointment we went to the Suffolk Arms for a bit of lunch, and then wandered along Bath Street to High Street (and yet more shopping). We spent some time in Marks & Spencer -- which was so much bigger than the shop they had in St. John's for a bit, when I was a kid -- before descending upon what will surely be a favourite haunt of mine: Moss Books.
Our Moss Books purchases At times I feared for my safety under those precarious precipices of tomes, but, truly, had anything happened, I would've died a happy man. I barely scratched the surface of their collection, and the combination of awe and walks down memory lane -- they have the largest collection of old TSR-era paperbacks that I've seen outside my parents' basement -- still has me shaking my head. I picked up a fantastic copy of Crime and Punishment, and Tea got Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food; the latter is a collection of simple, tasty recipes, and she's particularly excited about the wide range of curries therein.
I'm not sure when my allergies finally forced us out on the road again, but at that point we decided to head across to the street to Frankie & Benny's again, for a proper meal this time. (Tea was intrigued by the menu yesterday.) Tea had the Margherita pizza and I had the sausage and mash.
On the way back to the apartment, we stumbled upon a market of sorts in an alley. We'd been attracted by yelling that put me in the mind of some eastern European auction; sitting here now, I'm still not sure what that guy was selling -- no, Dubya, it wasn't sacks of random meat ;-) -- because the table across the way from him had all these bowls of random fruit, each for a pound! Tea got a bowl of cherries, looking very pleased with herself.
There's a smaller album associated with this day, and I'm gonna try something new: embedding a slideshow on this page. Let me know what you think.
UPDATE: We ordered Chinese food from Golden Mountain and played games -- Fluxx and Ticket To Ride -- 'til 1 a.m. this time. Definitely a pattern emerging.
We got an early start of sorts today: board games and wine 'til 2 a.m. (local) -- you'd think we were protesting the time change, with 9 p.m. EST being a perfectly reasonable time for such things.
On O'Neill's patio I had time to finish The Cider House Rules before Tea was ready to begin Day 4 proper. First up was lunch at O'Neill's: Tea had the two-cheese burger -- with some sort of blue cheese that she really enjoyed -- and I had Guinness fish 'n' chips with mushy peas -- I can see I'm gonna be a big fan of the mushy peas!
The library Then it was off to a bookstore Tea had heard about called Cooking: The Books; as you might expect, it was packed to the rafters with all manner of cookbooks, and books about food and drink in general. The printed-word trend continued with a stop at the library; not a big branch, per se, but laid out very well, with a good mix of old and new titles (including movies, CDs and comic books -- a.k.a. graphic novels). The facade is under construction right now, and I loved the smell of freshly-cut wood as you entered and left the building.
We then made our way to High Street, and decided to pop in to Starbucks for a pick-me-up as the rain began. (I love the way they assume you're staying in there; nice, big, ceramic mugs too.) A bit of grocery shopping at Tesco and Wilkinson followed, and since the rain was still fairly heavy once we'd finished, we decided to see a movie.
The subtle differences continued when the lady behind the cash asked us whether we'd prefer to sit in the front or the back of the theatre: they assign seats at their cinema! We had an hour to kill before the show -- Last Chance Harvey -- so we headed across the way to Frankie & Benny's for a pint.
Inside the cinema Our return to the theatre brought new surprises: they serve liquor, for one; and they asked Tea whether she'd like her popcorn sweet or salty. (The latter, of course, silly woman; my girl is nothing if not a salt lova.) The ratings are also very prominent, on both the trailers and the feature. I think they should've had them in front of the ads too: they played one for the Royal Marines that left me thunderstruck -- I think I muttered something along the lines of "f***in' hell..." following it.
An interesting consequence of assigned seating was that hardly anyone showed up before the feature began. Prior to the trailers, it looked like we'd share the theatre with half a dozen couples at most. Halfway through the trailers, the theatre was still half-empty. Then they just started spilling in, and it was about five minutes into the feature before it trickled off, leaving only the first two rows free for the most part. It was refreshing, actually, compared to the line-ups at our multiplexes.
Thai Emerald We were feeling a bit peckish after the show -- excellent movie, incidentally, as you'd expect of anything that would interest both Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman -- so off we went to Thai Emerald. What an impressive restaurant! Big, banquet-size tables that still manage to feel warm and welcoming; and the food! Oh, the green curry was amazing! Everything was, really. Even the Thai beer, Singha, managed to surprise me, tasting more like a bitter than a lager, and, honest to goodness, reminiscent of Fuller's ESB (which I love). A great cap on the evening, to say the least.
Finally, here's some comic relief from the morning. If you're interested in looking at more photos from the day, check out our Day 4 album -- note that we've had a request for supermarket photos; this isn't some sort of fetish of mine. :-)
