Wednesday, October 23, 2013

English cheese and New Zealand reviews

I've been in England since 12 October. Several friends have asked how I'm finding the food after France. I have to say that, as I've been staying with friends, I've been relishing home-cooked breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Bacon! Mashed potatoes!  And tonight, smoked trout and mackerel! In Cheshire my lovely hosts produced many good things, including a glorious board of entirely English cheeses - Leicester, Cheddar, English Brie, Stilton... all of them excellent.


Now I'm in London for the first time since 1995. Today my friend Sandra took me to the cafe at the top of the National Portrait Gallery for breakfast. There's a stunning view over nearby London, including the lovely wreathed dome of the National Gallery. I eschewed eggs Benedict, etc in favour of nursery food: two boiled free-range eggs with a generous pile of toast soldiers drizzled with Marmite, and a pot of proper loose-leaf tea. Bliss. On Thursday I'm going to have dinner with a friend at another venerable London institution, the Spaghetti House in Goodge Street. What will life serve up next, I wonder? Meanwhile the New Zealand Listener has published what I consider to be an excellent review of my food memoir in the 17 October issue. Very satisfying!

6 comments:

Alexia said...

It's a great review, isn't it? And very well deserved! Maybe a publisher will pick it up, Anne. I hope so, it deserves to be widely read.

AnneE said...

Thank you, Alexia - only of course it is already published by Awa Press, so I guess you mean someone may want to do it in print - but probably not.

Domestic Executive said...

Oh Anne, I am do jealous. Eating at them portrait gallery was my go to treat restaurant when I worked in London and worked around the corner from the spaghetti house so it was rather a regular. Glad you are having fun.

Anonymous said...

Loved your book and would like to ask if you can have a published paper copy as I have friends who don't use e readers. Would like to but this for them for a gift.
Miriam

AnneE said...

I did have a lovely time at both these places! So nice to hear you frequented them too. But I have to say, apart from a Turkish lunch, most of what I ate after that was not great at all and sometimes downright awful, especially the bread!

AnneE said...

So sorry, Miriam, there isn't a print copy. If they haven't got an ereader but they do have a computer, or a smartphone, they can download it to those - they just need to get the Kindle app. first and then you could gift the book to them.