143. Day By Day, Lockdown’s End Approaches.

Nice packaging.

 

As the days slip away towards the reopening of restaurants, my anticipation grows ever more consuming. You might say I have a consuming anticipation to consume. The weather is really very soothing, warm, sunny, blue-skyed. It’s a sort of gastronomic purgatory with the culinary gates of heaven being oiled so that all we forgiven sinners can flood through them as they swing wide open. No more cook-at-homes, which were one of the circles of hell. No more food boxes delivered to my door which recalled the food parcel gifts generous American sent to English acquaintances during World War II.

  The final stretch. Sitting outside hostelries and cafès glugging coffee and perhaps a pastry. The date of Renaissance is creeping ever closer. But purgatory has a few more weeks to run. Next week I am off for dinner at Craft Dining Room’s outdoor Firepit to celebrate a friend’s birthday and that will be, for me, the first Act of The Apostles. Indoor restaurant dining will recommence not long after that.

   Life is resuming - last week lunch outside at the home of the same friend who reminded me of a true pleasure by feeding me with a Charlie Bigson’s exquisite lasagne, his wife being away on grandchild childcare duties and so not available to render up one of her own equally exquisite lasagnes. How pleasing it was to be reminded of this brand which had drifted outside the increasingly limited boundaries of my memory - there’s a pandemic going on, people are falling down like flies, Boris says you’ve got to stay at home and avoid all human contact (but mercifully the company of dogs is not forbidden) and there you are, there’s something great out there and you’ve forgotten all about it. But this memory of pleasure has now been returned to my locker of happy knowledge and in consequence I have just consumed a plate of Bigson’s chicken jalfrazi, nicely heated up/cooked in the oven in its charming little wooden boxes. The rice was perfect and the chicken was spot on in its spiciness and riven with a delicious butteriness. Having had my memory restored I am now fated to be utterly dedicated in my pursuit of Charlie Bigson meals in these dying embers of this ‘lockdown’. Very good value, wonderfully edible and so much easier than messing around with posh restaurant cook-at-home boxes.

  Meanwhile this year’s Great British Menu travels on its journey around all the regions. This week’s ‘North-east’ heat features four chefs none of whom actually work in the north-east (two of course work in London, one in the Midlands and the other at Winteringham Fields in north-east Lincolnshire (and no, north-east Lincolnshire is not in north-east England unless you have a disordered sense of geography)). What is worse is that it is wholly predictable - every week - as to which chefs will be eliminated at the end of Day 1 and Day 2; it’s almost as though they’ve been selected as cannon-fodder to be blown to metaphorical pieces to make way for the two more prestigious chefs to battle it out in front of Waldorf and Statler and the third judge whose presence remains as superfluous as when she first appeared though no-one actually noticed that she had. Andi Oliver’s commanding presence combining empathy and knowledge is all that makes it worthwhile for the first two nights of the week till W and S turn up.

  Tomorrow is St George’s Day. And Shakespeare’s birthday. And the anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Perhaps I should have a celebratory pie (or should it be a pithivier? - no, definitely a pie).

The eating of a very special pie in Titus Andronicus.

102. Restaurants To Reopen In July.

Furloughed staff of Craft Dining Rooms celebrate the return to work in the open-air dining area.

  Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, confirmed in The House Of Commons on 23 June 2020 that restaurants would be allowed to reopen on 4 July after 3 months of ‘Lock down’ necessitated by the now diminishing COVID-19 pandemic. He also confirmed that ‘social distancing’ should be reduced from 2 metres to 1 metre ‘plus’ (wearing a face mask and other measures) though it is clearly quite impossible for diners to wear a mask while eating unless they find a new orifice in which to insert the food.
  Many Birmingham restaurants have opened their reservations lists in the past few days in anticipation of the prime minister’s announcement and have been detailing the measures they intend to take to enable their diners to feel safe. Of course feeling safe is not the same thing as being safe. I however  will take the plunge at the end of July and will hopefully be heading for Opheem, Craft Dining Rooms and The Wilderness in the ensuing weeks. It seems fitting to return first to Opheem as that was the last restaurant at which I dined just a few days before Lock-down began. Like Pavlov’s anticipatory dog, my salivary glands are working overtime as I write this
  It seems that a new era in Birmingham and West Midlands dining is about to begin.

Excellent social distancing but where are the face masks?

Less than 1 metre apart but it’s alright - they’re all from the same household.