Tea Room Lunch

We had lunch with R&D at the Teddy Bears Tea Room in Chirk. It's a small, cosy (cluttered) establishment that is down to earth and homey. Just right!

It was a tad disconcerting to get the response "we have oatmilk" when I explained I have an allergy to soya. The lady in the kitchen called out, "we have soymilk," and then our server said they had gluten free bread. Oh dear!

I explained what they needed to look for and where, and was brought a delicious toasted egg & mayonnaise sandwich (using rapeseed oil), with a salad and some crisps, along with a coffee SANS soymilk. Some of the menu items were titled Daddy, or Momma, Bears Breakfast.

What is a tea room? It's a low-key 'restaurant' that serves light meals, cakes, scones and biscuits with tea and/or coffee. This little tea room also had a yarn shop attached, called The Shop Next Door!

Harvest

Oi! The church bells of St. Myllin's rang out on Friday evening, not as part of the Sunday service, nor for Monday's practice, but for the crop harvest. The bells traditionally rang to give thanks for the bounty, and to ensure the preservation of the gathered crop.

So I thought I'd better get to work harvesting quinces from my garden, and make that quince paste (membrillo) and jelly I've been meaning to try. My quinces were small and hard, with lots of pips and minimal flesh. Still worth a try, I thought.

I plucked this heavy load in no time - the aroma is floral and fruity, so fresh!

I washed them all thoroughly - only 2 sowbugs, 2 snails, no worms or tunnels, and very little decay/degradation to avoid or cut away.

This is what they look like on the inside - no real flavor sampling was done though, as they're too hard, astringent and sour to be appreciated raw. It looks like a combination of a pear and an apple, and there are a lot of pips, which look a bit like popcorn kernels.

I decided not to peel them - that was just too much! The smell of them cooking is heavenly!

I drained off the juice, then added sugar for the jelly (left). The flesh went through the blender, and was then slow simmered with sugar to make a purée.

The jelly turned out well - it turns rosy pink during the cooking process. It's a tasty new flavor for our palette.

The membrillo paste had to be left overnight in the oven to dry out more. We sampled some with cheese and crackers - reviews were positive! 

Voilà! My first membrillo, or quince cheese ("a sweet and tart, thick jelly made of the pulp of the quince fruit. It is a common confection in several countries" - Quince cheese). 

The color of the paste is a little 'off' (not rosy pink) because I included the skins in my purée. 

This turned out to be a fun fall project. Though I really enjoyed trying something new and feeling successful at it, it was very messy and tedious. Everything was sticky afterwards - the purée bubbled up and exploded up into the hood filter and backsplash at one point when I chatted to a neighbor, and even the underside of my shoes made a tacky sound, so I had to mop the floor as well.

The purée is excellent stirred into yoghurt - ooh, man!

 

Forest Garden

Llanfyllin has a forest garden on the floodplain of the River Cain that was started in 2014. It's a food producing garden of perennials that incorporates all levels of plants: trees, shrubs, wildflowers and herbs in an attempt to emulate a bountiful natural woodland. In other words, it's a multilayered foraging garden (forest-gardens)

The fruit and herb produce from this garden are freely available to all residents to harvest. 

We have a wide variety of heritage apple trees grafted by Tom the Apple Man in Welshpool, as well as raspberries, sloe berries (blackthorn or Prunus spinosa), quinces, pears, herbs, and medlars, which are new to me. 

Medlars (Mespilus germanica) look a bit like a cross between a rose hip and and an apple, and apparently need to undergo a process of 'rotting' before becoming edible. They are a rare and ancient fruit, popular in medieval times, and mentioned in some Shakespeare plays.

We came home with quite the bounty!

Now for some baking to warm up the house ...

Trains and Tucker

We boarded the Cambrian railways iconic 1980s Pacer commuter train as the only passengers, to the next stop, Weston Wharf, where we dined. I was perturbed to find out I was regarded as a 2nd class adult:

While we waited for our ride, we watched all the comings and goings from the platform.

The Stonehouse brewery and distillery where we had dinner, sports a very rustic look - cutlery stands in tin cans at each table. The cider was really delicious.

     

This was served as nachos! Intriguing take on corn chips. No melted cheese either. It tasted fine, it just wasn't what I'd recognize as nachos.

It was a fun outing -it's been just over 10 years since we visited a train exhibit, from what we can recall!

Dinner at the Palace

Yes, we dined at the Palace a few nights ago, where they served the most amazingly delicious Indian food. We didn't sit at the same table as Charles or Camilla though!

The restaurant and take-away is only 6 miles from home in a town called Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain. I drove, but I could tell Dale was on the edge of his seat and couldn't wait to get out. We tried the special Wednesday night offering, which is any starter, main, side and naan (or rice) for a set price. We each picked different items and shared the delectable dishes. Wow! Did we enjoy the varying flavor combinations.

I didn't take any food pics, sorry. We did ask if they had mango lassi, but without any luck. They said they'd try and do that in the future. This restaurant is near a free public parking lot (added bonus).

The name of the restaurant reminds me of a kid's story book that was a favorite for a long while.

Community Garden

Another function hosted by B.R.A.C.E. this week to strengthen community was an open day at the community garden. There were refreshments, plants for sale, a live jazz band, a clothing swap and garden tours.

We can bring compostable materials here if we wish (just a walk down the street)

We've met a lot of like-minded people in this group

Volunteers work here twice each week to maintain the lots, which are not individually owned

This particular tea was among many donated to the event.  Ain't consumerism wonderful? Do you consider yourself to be a strong, down to earth and spicy man? Then this is the tea for you! Or does it mean if you WISH to be  strong, down to earth and spicy then drinking this tea will help?

Bara Brith

(We've been in Wales for 4 weeks already! Time has flown by)

Speckled bread is a traditional Welsh bread, known as bara brith (pronounced bara breeth). I made a sweet, tea infused version that is more cake than bread, but which is the most widely served kind. It's pretty much like a regular fruit cake and is definitely speckled.

I then dove a little deeper into the origins of this bread, and discovered that it had traditionally been a yeast bread with sugar, mixed spice and fruit for special occasions in the mining community. 

I tried an online recipe of the yeast version, which came out like this. Funny thing was, this one didn't have any tea in it. It tasted just like hot cross buns for Easter, it just didn't have a white cross on it.

I tried to find a more 'traditional' tea and yeast bread, and found one from The Great British Bake Off TV show, so I tried to see what the tea version was like.

Mixed dried fruit plumped up with tea. The remaining liquid part of the tea is used, too.

This is it

Well, it was okay. Meh, nothing to write home about, though that is exactly what I'm doing! Definitely bready, but no real impact from the tea. I'm going to stick with the fruit cake version from now on. We both like it more.

You just never know where curiosity will take you! In researching breads, waterfalls, town and river names, I have stumbled onto a pattern of Welsh naming conventions - the common noun comes first, followed by the specific name, so for Bara brith: bara is bread, brith is speckled. For Pistyll Rhaeadr, the literal translation would be Waterfall Rhaeadr and for Afon Cain, it would be River Cain. In English, we're more likely to say Cain River or Speckled bread. So happy to have worked it out for myself!

Crushing It

 Some leftover wintergreen candy canes, unwanted. I crushed them ...

and then stirred some into a cheesecake, with the remainder sprinkled on top. Not too bad, it just tasted a little bit like mouthwash!

Secret of Happiness

Is this the new dieting mantra?

"The secret of happiness is not in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less"

- Socrates

Oh man! Putting on 15 lbs in one year has me 'reading into' things about weighty issues, but still I can't bring myself to be more active. I love food and I also love to bake. I try portion control, but when it tastes good, I want MORE! This is where I'm trying to develop 'the capacity to enjoy less,' as per Socrates' wisdom. Strangely, when I think about it, I have a subconscious fear that I'll go hungry if I eat less, so I make sure there's enough on my plate to ensure that won't happen ...

 

Soy Based Knowledge

It's amazing what one can learn from reading books! Memoirs and fiction contain information that is true, but is merely communicated contextually and in passing, not primarily, as in non-fiction. Whilst reading "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" (Alexandra Fuller - and may I plug what a GREAT book this is), a memoir about growing up in Zimbabwe, reference was made to a breakfast staple having soy in it, to which I found out many years later, I'm allergic. I had eaten that cereal most days as a child.

Back then, growing up in South Africa in the 60's and 70's, no thought was given to reading labels and ingredients, and having an allergy was for wimps! But it was our basic and everyday breakfast growing up - a bowl of ProNutro cereal, promoted as a high protein breakfast, containing corn, soy, sugar and other minerals.

Until now, I'd thought my allergy was something I'd developed later in life, from moving to a continent where soy is a staple in everything, and to which I was unaccustomed, or that pregnancies had upset my immune system. I had no idea that I'd been exposed to soy in South Africa. It was not a food or ingredient we ever deliberately added or served in a dish. I do know that I grew up with a lot of digestive discomfort, which I thought was normal, and how intestines and bowels worked. I had been hospitalized for observation, and tested (barium enema anyone? So, so awful ... ) and prodded for all sorts of diseases, but not an allergy, in my late twenties, to no avail. I had tried avoiding gluten for years, and then went lactose free, with no significant improvement. A specialist in Maine finally recommended allergy testing at fifty-something years old, which has made my life so much more comfortable. Having got used to the work-arounds, I actually like making my own food and avoiding production-line, processed food.

It's interesting to me how knowledge and information is disseminated and imbibed, and how slow realizations can be. 

Excessive Frugality

Do you "save" your microwave seconds left behind for the next person to use? If not, you're throwing away, or wasting, time 😂 - have you ever thought about that?

Admittedly, we (my family) are a bunch of weirdos who love to joke about silly things such as this. We're NOT serious. It's fun being absurd sometimes.

Do you do things that are more excessively frugal than us?

Shameless Manipulation

I have started a new "tradition" in our house - every time my favorite driver, Max Verstappen, wins a Formula One Grand Prix race, we celebrate with scones, strawberries and cream. Dale does not support Verstappen, but this is how I manipulate him into cheering for my driver and being excited when he wins - he'd never turn down an opportunity for fresh baked scones! Sneaky me!

Sometimes a few weeks go by without any scones, so that makes rooting for him all the more necessary.

Life in the Netherlands

We worked on the same projects as yesterday in on- and off- rain, and wind. The garden is looking a bit more 'kempt', as opposed to unkempt, now.

One of the local grocery stores not only provides small shopping carts for children, but puts out free produce that children can choose and put in their carts. 

Photo: D Schultz 

There are a lot of paved and covered surfaces with very little lawn or moisture retaining surfaces in this built up area. The aroma from this flowering hub was phenomenal.

The roads in the neighborhood are very narrow, with indented areas that force drivers from opposite directions to take turns yielding to each other. In the next pic, the round road sign is indicating that drivers approaching the constriction from my viewpoint have the right of way, and that cars coming towards me must yield to oncoming traffic.

Here is an alleyway that runs along the length of a series of properties to provide public access that we don't see in the U.S.

We ended the day with a terrific meal created by our host: Espresso martinis and soto ayam (chicken soup) from Thailand.