Food so good it nearly made me cry.

So last week it was my birthday, and as a special treat Chris and I went to The Ginger Man in Brighton. The Ginger Man is one of four restaurants owned by the same group- The Ginger Fox, The Ginger Pig and The Ginger Dog being the others, but the one we went to is the original and BEST. (please note I haven't actually been to the others, so this claim is completely unsubstantiated.)

Man alive it was good. We arrived at the little living-room sized restaurant at 7.30pm, and we were on our own in there apart from one older couple. I of course knocked half the stuff off the table as soon as we got in, and they knew we were pikeys. The menu was incredible, with a choice of veal, pork belly, fish, steaks...I was basically in Food Porn Heaven.

Before the starters and mains come out, you are given soup and bread courses, which were fucking genius. The soup was a little espresso cup filled with leek and swiss chard broth. At first I was all 'yeah well it's a soup. It'll get boring. Like soup does.' But then BAM. The most delicious soup EVER. I gobbled mine in about 2 minutes flat and then sat opposite Chris who was taking his time, I nearly launched myself across the table to wrestle it from his hands. Next- the bread. Now, I love bread as much as the next person. Bread is great. It fills you up, it goes with everything (roast dinner sandwich, anyone?) and it's cheap. But this bread was no ordinary bread. This bread was the bread equivalent of an Aston Martin. It came out in a little freshly baked loaf, with sea salt and rosemary massaged into the crust, and a pat of butter. It was like we had never seen food before. I think you were supposed to slowly enjoy it - we ate it so quickly that the people next to us had barely sat down before they were covered in a blizzard of toasty crumbs. I'd go back just for the bread. Apparantly Davis Adam took some home in his pocket once, it was that good.

Next - the starters. I went for the twice baked Tunworth cheese souffle, which was light as a cloud. A delicious cheese cloud.  Hark at it here with it's truffled green beans and toasted almonds. It was all very Masterchef. John Torode and his stupid egg mate with a face drawn on would have been all over it.

I honestly don't know how they did it. It melted on the tongue, a bit like a posh Skip. Chris went for the wood pigeon, which was dressed with a blue cheese crumb and pomegranate seeds. I tried his, and luckily didn't get food envy as I'm not a fan of pigeon, it tastes a bit B.O-ey, like licking a Polish builder's armpit. But yeah, mine was fucking great.

We both opted for the rib-eye steaks, with black truffle butter and dripping chips. Now this is when I nearly started crying with joy. it was so incredibly good, I actually got emotional. Those dripping chips are singularly the most delicious potato product I have ever tasted, and i've had a fair few potato smileys in my time.They were a meal in themselves - crisped up around the edges, fluffy inside, meaty almost, and dipped in the black truffle butter they were a party on my palate. I nearly had to nip off to the toilets and have a quick wank. Seriously, that good. Just look at it.

Pudding was a bitter chocolate pot, with sea salt caramel and clotted cream. SALT in a pudding. SALT. I love salt, I make no bones about it, I am not ashamed of it. My arteries are probably thicker than Katie Price but I just can't shake the habit. So SALT in a DESSERT was perfect. It was delicious. I was so full that I wished I was bulimic and unfortunatly couldn't finish the lot, but the memory will stay with me forever. It was pretty pricey, around £100 with wine, but FUCK ME it was good. Highly recommended, for a special occasion.

Sorry that was all a bit sweary and rude but I simply can't put into words quite how delicious it all was. So fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

The Ginge Hits The Gingerman

Today is my birthday. I am 24 today. That's still 6 years off 30 and i'm not quite yet 'Mid-Twenties' so I am still happy about having birthdays. The sun is out, I have fresh daffodils on my desk courtesy of the lovely Jenny and I am full of the joys of Spring.

I am also WAY EXCITY about dinner this evening. Chris and I are going to The Gingerman, and I. CAN'T. WAIT. I have already looked at the menu about 8 times, chosen what i'm going to have, changed my mind, played the game where someone else chooses what they will have and then I revise my choice so I don't get Food Envy (it is a very real and debilitating condition) and then gone back to my original choice. I've wanted to go for ages but it's a bit expensive for just popping in for lunch so it's a bit of a special occasion treat. They do DRIPPING CHIPS! And bloody CHAR GRILLED QUAIL! Fucking QUAIL! I'm way too pikey for all this. Also I eat with the knife and fork in the wrong hands so i'm a bit of an embarressment at the dinner table to be honest. But for tonight, I am actually going to brush my hair, put some clean pants on and talk in proper RP and pretend I eat quail all the time, instead of Londis chicken burgers and Herta Furters (I absolutely love them, even though apparantly they are made of Alsation.)

Only 8 hours and 15 minutes to go! AAAAHHHHHHHHHH.

Remembering the Double-Down

Last night I had an epiphany. It finally hit me that in the middle of May, I am going to be boarding a plane and heading to Florida for two weeks. This, in itself, is great. Despite basically being one giant freckle, I enjoy sunbathing as much as the rest of 'em. I like sitting by the beach and reading millions of books and watching all the fat old women trying to discretely remove sand from the gussets of their all-in-ones. I like ice lollies. I like the nice big wide roads, and I would even go so far as to say I don't even mind getting sunburnt, because I'm on holiday- and that's what's supposed to happen. 

All that is great. Lovely. Can't wait. But then, last night as I visited my mate Leap and we enjoyed a delicious KFC (dine in as it was a special occasion), it hit me. I could once again have the most hallowed of all chicken based fast food products....THE DOUBLE DOWN SANDWICH.

Last year my boyfriend and I got caught up in all the volcanic ash saga and ended up in Miami. On the long drive from Sarasota to Fort Lauderdale we were fucking STARVING. And then, out of nowhere, we saw the shining beacon up ahead that was Colonel Sanders and collectively sighed in relief, did some air punching and American style whooping and drove on in.

When there, and safely within the air conditioned restaurant, we gazed up at the menu with disbelief. For there, in front of our own, British eyes, was the stuff of fairytales, the Mecca for the Masticator (sorry) and it was beautiful. For those uneducated in fast food, the Double Down Sandwich is to KFC what the Martini is to James Bond. Here's the Daily Mail's artery thickening article on it, which I had dribbled over the week before we went on holiday.  It appears some absolute genius was sitting in a product meeting in KFC Head Office and decided that what the USA needs, what it's been crying out for, is a chicken burger that - and this is the amazing part -  instead of BUNS, it needs CHICKEN AS BUNS. You heard it right. CHICKEN AS BUNS.

It was fucking GREAT. I wish I could stick my nose up at it and say it was horrid, that I felt disgusting and greasy after eating it, that I needed to escape to the toilet and have a baby-wipe bath. But I didn't, I loved every salty, cheesy, crispy yet greasy bite was delicious. So I am now sitting counting down the days, seconds and hours until I can once again enjoy one in all it's beige goodness.

Possibly the best things i've ever seen

Cupcake Burgers. YES YES YES.

The Chicken Skin Sandwich

I haven't posted anything for a while since my flurry of activity a couple of weeks ago, and I am blaming Sky. I started this blog with the knowledge in my heart that I was having my Sky and broadband installed the following week, thus enabling me to post from the comfort of the prone position, in front of an episode of Man V Food, at home. But alas and alack, t'was not to be, and the bastarding Sky man never turned up. What really infuriates me is that we had a SIX HOUR window during which he could just turn up, so we had to cancel plans in order to sit gormlessly looking out the window and awaiting the knight on his white horse, or rather the fat bloke in his white van. Two weeks on and we are still no closer to actually being able to watch Boardwalk Empire which is basically the whole reason we are getting Sky anyway, apart from the fact I can record as many episodes of Teen Mom and My Super Sweet Sixteen as I like so I can watch them in secret whenever Chris isn't in.

So that's my excuse for not having written anything, I haven't given up, in fact I have a whole library of pictures of us chowing down on DoubleDowns and deep throating Salty Dogs that I am looking forward to disgusting you all with. (I love how when I write 'you all' I know I am writing to approx. 10 people. You've got to start somewhere though, eh.)

In the meantime I'd like to introduce you to one of my favourite websites. This website has got me through some hard times, when I faced redundancy this is where I turned, throughout prolonged illness I knew a URL straight to happiness. Ladies and Gents - www.thisiswhyyourefat.com. 

The most incredible single-subject blog out there, This Is Why You're Fat, with the tagline 'Where dreams become heart attacks', is a library of the most insane culinary creations out there, mainly in the USA (obviously). Hours have been spent poring over 'The Meat Ship', whihc does what it says on the tin. 'The Pork Orgy' is particularly great. And i've been known to actually get turned on by the genius 'Banshi Rolls'- Burger, pANcake, and suSHI rolls: cheeseburger sushi deepfried in pancake batter, with burger meat, deli style american cheese, red onion, and chipotle mayo. I need a lay down.

Before I get back to work, I will leave you with this parting gift - the fried skin sandwich. Feel free to print it out and laminate it. Enjoy.

Uncle Ben can suck my balls.

Lunchtimes at work are a tricky thing. It obviously all depends on where you work as to how good your dining experience is going to be - if you've got a canteen you're pretty much sorted, if you have a break room with a large kitchen you're also alright as you can whip something up pretty easily. if, like me, you have a microwave and a desk to rely on you need to get more creative.

At my last job I was in the centre of a large town, with a Subwee and KFC within spitting distance which is good news for Fat Friday, but bad news for my rapidly expanding waistline. Subwee was usually the caterer of choice for me and my colleagues. In fact one girl would get a foot long chicken and bacon with mayo - hold the salad - and extra cheese pretty much every day. If she was on a diet she would get the same order, MINUS the extra cheese. So still a foot of bread, then. Genius. I'd always get a turkey breast and ham, cos I'm right healthy, like. Rather cleverly, she would also, on 'diet days', go to Greggs and get a big ham and cheese baguette and come back and microwave it, "so I can pretend it's a Subway." Just get a fucking Subway love, you're eating the same amount of calories. But anyway, that was then, this is now. And I am typing this from my desk, where I have just - for the fourth time this week - delved into my drawer and reluctantly pulled out some Uncle Ben's rice. I was actually going to treat myself today, and I bought £2 along in my pocket and was going to nip down to Sainsburys and get some chicken to supplement it, but of course it's pissing it down and the chance of me actually getting off my fat arse and leaving the office is about the same as the Daily Mail writing a clear concise and well informed piece about single mothers. Ie;- nil.

Uncle Ben's rice is the single most depressing thing to have happened to me this year. It is bland and inane, each piece of rice taunting me with its crap coating of 'mexican spice' which is about as spicy as the contents of my Nan's knicker drawer. I'm so bored of eating it that if I were ever to actually be in the same room as anyone who works for them I would happily punch them in the face. I am sitting here thinking up inventive ways of using said rice to actually kill the people who make it, which is neither healthy nor particularly sane, so I have sent off good old Pete in Telesales to nip down the road and get me some of Sainsbury's rip off of Percy Pigs- 'Eric the Elephants' which should hopefully bring me out of my rice-induced rage and restore all balance in the world. Wish me luck.

Lasagne, a bit like childbirth.

Last night we made a lasagne. It was a fraught and most difficult creation due to a number of factors. It started off doomed when we had actually planned to make it the day before, but me being me, I left all the mince in the fridge at work - only realising of course, the very second the train doors glued shut and pulled away leaving me in a face-palm moment. I should have taken that as a sign, to just sack it off and have some nice supernoodles or something, but NO. So I arrive home last night, mince in tow, to find CJSMM at home with the ingredients layed out and away we go. I don't know why we find it so stressful cooking together, but we do, and it's a wonder neither of us got killed. We didn't have milk for the white sauce, so we ended up using creme fraiche, and we dropped half a pot of pepper in it. The butter had somehow inexplicably turned into cheese, which was just delightful. We didn't have cheddar, so we used mozzarella. We destroyed the kitchen with the food processor and each accused the other of having broken it. We hadn't. I think I probably cried at one point. In fact I definitely did.

But amazingly, as it cooked in the oven, and he plonked in front of the football, and I got ridiculously over-excited about having a house phone to play with (this means we are now adults I think. Terrifying thought.), it smelt like an actual proper real life lasagne. We served it with a rocket and spinach salad, and a nice bit of crusty bread from my Dad's bakery (The Wheatsheaf Bakery if you're ever in the area) and it tasted really bloody good. We felt proud of ourselves, and looked on at the fruits of our labour like it was some incredible piece of artwork, like a Picasso on the plate. The situation was all a bit like childbirth, really painful but I've kind of forgotten quite how much as the end result was so bleedin' gorge.

I think i'll have supernoodles for lunch, though.