Holly and Otters

Very happy 30th birthday to Gareth.

Much fun was had at Holly Frindle - a beautiful Lubetkin designed house situated next door to Whipsnade Zoo. Jen and I met for breakfast so we could do the last minute shopping and prep, collect the hire car and recover from St John the night before. We met at Breads etc on Clapham High Street, both a little the worse for wear and had some toast and tea. After about an hour of procrastinating and breakfast we had made our lists and set off to do some shopping - on the grounds that we probably shouldn't drive just yet...

We headed off to Moen's on the Pavement in Clapham. It really is a very good butcher. We bought some côte de boeuf, bacon for breakfasts, pork pie, cheese and asparagus. Then we headed a few doors down to Macaron, a really lovely patisserie, for some bread. We then took a little walk over the common to Clapham South to visit Moxons. I'd ordered a wild sea trout and he was beautiful; we also picked up some scallops for an amuse.

Then we headed back to Jen's to drop off the heavy shopping, get a few bits from the local market and then go and get our vehicle. Having accomplished those tasks, we headed to my house to collect all the bits from there and make a couple Pan Bagnat. Pan Bagnat is a Niçoise sandwich, our version was: take a sourdough loaf, chop off a lid and remove the inside. Moisten the crust with olive oil and some red wine vinegar. Layer in the following ingredients - lettuce, tomato, cucumber, olives, boquerones, tuna (I can't remember if there was anything else) and then put the lid back on. wrap this in cling film and weight it down so that it squishes and all the flavours merge - we put it in a bag under a Le Creuset of sausage pasta sauce. Jen made these so expertky while I rushed around packing up stuff. We then went back and picked up everything else before heading to Paddington to pick up the other four members of the group (we were late).

We drove up the M1 to Holly Frindle and upon arrival, unpacked and set about making dinner. It was then we found one of the things we'd forgotten to pack - wine glasses, oops! Dinner consisted of pasta, the fennel sausage sauce, bread and salad accompanied by some delicious red wine - very needed! Games ensued.

Saturday was the day of fun. We breakfasted - I'd made some bread and it over rose during our shopping excursion :

Then we packed up lunch - Pan Bagnat x 2, pork pies, piccalilli and cherries, some wine and water, and headed over to Whipsnade. Lots of lovely animals were seen especially the sealions, the noisy, chatty otters and the 16 week old baby elephant and we lunched. Back home, we set up for dinner. The menu was as follows:
Amuses of Scallop on Chicory with Chilli Jam and Proscuitto
Sea Trout baked in Newspaper with mayonnaise
Cote de Boeuf with bearnaise, asparagus, courgettes and jersey royals
Cheese
Jelly (blood orange and cardamon and lime with grapes) and Ice cream (lemon and basil)









Games ensued:


Sunday was more relaxed and a drive back up. More games on the mini table though:

Fabulous weekend, thank you one and all.