November's cashmob

It rained. We discovered that the weather and the light have a big effect on custom at Ringmer Wine Store - if it rains or it's dark, customers don't come. So we were pleased to provide Daniel with a little bit of an extra boost on a very rainy day.

Here's the shop front, looking very clean in the rain.

They don't just sell alcohol here. Locally produced Christmas puds.

Flowers as well.

Very tasty locally made frozen meals.

Chutney and all sorts of knick knack.

Daniel about to sample a cake stick: a ball of cake covered in chocolate, on a stick, intended to accompany your coffee. Made in the village. I've tried one. It works. I will be going back for more.

Nov 5th meal

We stayed in for bonfire night and I cooked:

Roast veg and goat's cheese starter. All the veg and the cheese were local. The cheese is topped with honey and pepper, and grilled till soft before being put on the roast veg. The honey is very local. I wasn't able to get a proper picture before the gannets got at it.

Main course was Kolkhata curry with veg rice and artichoke ragout. Meat from local butcher, local yoghurt, international spices and rice. All the veg in the veg rice was local again (onions, shallots, carrots, sweet corn, courgettes) as were the artichokes and potatoes. Also the spring onion that goes in the artichoke ragout (I refuse to call them salad onions.)

I didn't get an individual pic of the veg rice, but it's in the pic of the meal, on the right:

For the veggies there was walnut and olive pistou. Onion, green bean, celery, tomato local. Not sure about the walnuts.

And for afters Dutch apple cake, which for a variety of reasons has to be gluten free and vegan, so I used Dove's all purpose flour (UK but not absolutely local), and left out the eggs. Apples would have been from our garden but we finished off the last ones last week, so I got these from Lew's.

It really needed cream or ice cream to go with it but the fridge was empty. Anyway, still warm, it was moist enough without. And there's one serving left as a reward for finishing this blog.

I was quite pleased with that - a three course meal with international recipes and about 90% of the ingredients locally sourced.

Oh, yes, and a bottle of wine - French, so not too far away.

Disappearing wind turbine

The wind turbine went for a walk the other day:

Then it came back