Croydon boxes clever

Since we moved out of London into more rural pastures, our nearest 'town centre' for 'doing stuff' has become Croydon (which, technically involves venturing back into London, but you can't have everything.)

Oft maligned as a humdrum 1960s concrete jungle in the same vein as Coventry or Slough, Croydon is nevertheless an important hub for South London and indeed substantial parts of Surrey and Kent. East Croydon station is actually the busiest in all of Greater London apart from the central termini, which - if you don't know the area - gives you some idea of its prominence.

Following this months thunderingly calamitous election result, which was even worse than my pessimistic prediction, Croydon Central is also our nearest Labour seat. As I say, can't have everything.

Eat. Drink. Play. Apparently.

One thing we do have now in Croydon, right bang in the centre, immediately next door to East Croydon station and therefore impossible to miss, is a shiny new BOXPARK. Which means eating, drinking, socialising, and general happeningness. The sort of 'contemporary space' that you really wouldn't ever associate with Croydon. Until now.

Bodeans, Bodeans, Bodeans, Bodeans, I'm begging of you please do cook me meat!

I wrote the other day about Masterchef contestants not getting much of an opportunity to slow-cook, and it got me thinking:

What would John and Greg make of Bodeans? A place that smokes and slow-braises meat over many, many hours, if not days. If not years.

'You've got one hour and 15 minutes?' I suspect not, somehow.

Can canned beer ever be any good?

Before we were old enough to get served in pubs, my friends and I used to buy cans of beer from the corner shop. We thought it was all very grown up - particularly because we eschewed the usual Fosters and Stella in favour of tinned John Smiths, McEwans Export, and my favourite at the time, Royal Oak.

There was even a 'draught' bitter from Guinness with one of those plastic 'widgets' in the can, which were all the rage in the early 90s. It was probably discontinued years ago, but back in the day it was massive, and even had its own bizarre TV ad, where some guy travelled to an unspecified hot country and chose to keep his supply of Guinness bitter in a river!

Remember this?

I thought it was a nice beer at the time, but I ate Big Macs and Dairy Milk back then as well. Didn't know any better (which was ironic as I thought I knew it all).

Once the pubs started letting us in and we got to drink real beer on a regular basis, it soon dawned on me that the metallic fizz we'd been supping was inherently inferior, and that was that, really. For the best part of 20 years, I've only ever drunk canned beers very, very occasionally, and then usually only out of politeness.

That changed a couple of days ago.

Miami Rice

Some years ago, back when the internet first ceased to be the sole preserve of cybergeeks and porn-lovers, there was an invasion of 'cool stuff'.

In those days, 'cool' usually meant a dancing Jesus or a photoshopped hamster with big eyes made to look like it was saying something cute. Oh joy.

Every time we think those dark days are behind us and we've moved on, someone somewhere comes up with another tedious meme that spreads like Leukemia. Keep calm and post another fucking picture of a sunset with 'motivational' words on it. That sort of thing.

And stupid pictures of kittens with banal, anthropomorphic sentiments. The suffragette movement may have achieved a lot of advancements, but they have a lot to answer for here!

If people truly like this cacksome drivel then that's all well and good and fine and dandy'n'shit. My worry is that anything I might actually find entertaining or interesting gets lost under unfathomable piles of mindless cock.

You have to feel for all the people who never get to read Ben Viveur because the internet traffic is backed up with cunts re-tweeting Stephen Fry and asking for ploughs in Farmville.

I'm about to share a great recipe for leftover roast pork, for example, but hardly anyone will get to see it. All too busy keeping calm, I shouldn't wonder...

Hard and Fast day

Today has probably been the hardest fast day since I started doing the 5:2 diet over seven months ago.

It comes a couple of days after my birthday, so I've been drinking beer and eating cake and doing other things that I'm well entitled to do 'because it's my fucking birthday'.

But for some reason it's been particularly hard fasting today - all I've had is a little tub of flavourless cous-cous and a soup that tasted like watery mushy peas. Ugh.

It's been unsatisfying to the point of starvation, and I literally feel hollow and empty. Bad times.

I feel like beer, burgers and chilli cheese fries that burn my mouth.

Basically, I feel like another visit to Lucky Chip burger now, having belatedly discovered their full gorgeousness on Tuesday night. God, that would really hit the spot right now.

Oh yes, sit down my children, and I shall tell you a tale. A tale of aged beefy goodness. And fries.

Fajita of Contentment

Stop the world, I want to get the fuck off!

Actually, that would result in floating indefinitely through space, but the infinite-voidy stuff would probably be quite peaceful once you got used to it.

Sorta like El Chico's. I'll explain presently.

In a couple of days I shall be 36. That means I'm closer to 50 than to 20! What the aged fuck?!?

El Chico's

Another sobering thought is that a few days ago I lost another grandparent - that's three dead in the space of 18 months - and as that generation rapidly disappears from my life I feel not only a sense of enforced having-to-grow-up, but also of rapid, irreversible, tragic change.

Fortunately in this ever-changing world, there are some things that pretty much stay the same. And sometimes you just need familiar creature comforts like that.

I can cling to the fact that the denouement of the new Scooby-Doo movie will probably involve a janitor or sheriff revealed inside an apparition costume. I can enjoy listening to Queen and the Beatles knowing that I know their entire catalogue and there won't be any unpleasant surprises from here on in.

It's a hot comfortable bath of reassurance.

And on Thursday I'll be going to the Tower of London to witness the Ceremony of the Keys - and while this is a new experience for me, I take comfort from the fact that I'll be witnessing something that has been exactly the same, every single night, for about literally hundreds of years.

I think the last time they changed the format for the ceremony was round about the last time El Chico's  changed their menu!

Ah, the old ones are the oldest...

Do they have Vanuatuan takeaways in El Salvador?

I remarked the other day that it was almost impossible to find food that identified as 'United Arab Emiratean' in Dubai. (Which is in the United Arab Emirates if you needed reminding!)

This got me thinking.

Think, think, think went my brain, like some sort of vast, organic thinking machine.

And I came to the conclusion that this criticism is possibly a bit harsh, if only because the UAE is far from alone in having a dismally flaccid presence in the World League of Food.

Want to know what I'm banging on about? Hold tight for some Gastro-geopolitical discourse.

The unanswered question

Re-reading that article I wrote for a doomed airline, and indeed my first ever foodie blog post reveals a theme. A theme about which I've been jabbering on for many years.

I love pubs and I love burgers.

Or, rather, I love good pubs and I love good burgers.

But there is one question to which I've never really found the answer: Why can't pubs do decent burgers?

Maybe the question is actually why don't pubs do decent burgers, but the underlying point remains.

It should be simple. They should be able to do it. The fact that they can't or don't bothers me. A lot.

See, in the good ol' US of A, any reasonable pub or bar - not even especially good ones - will probably serve you a perfectly good burger and fries for just a few bucks.

Here you can get such a burger in a few dedicated specialist burger restaurants and pop-ups. Byron,  Haché, and the MeatLiquor/wagon/easy chain. And there are several others on my 'to-do' list with burgertastic reputations.

But in our pubs the quality of burgers is pretty lamentable.

Could this have been my big break?

It's been a surreal few days, what with losing my Grandma, and then starting a new job today - the day after leaving the previous one! And going back for a meeting at the place I just left on my first day!

Our family seem to have suffered rather a lot of bereavements over the past year, and coupled with the stresses of job insecurity for much of that time, it's been a bit of a rough ride. But, hey, I can cope with pretty much anything, me.

Anyway, in preparation for leaving my old job I had to allocate several hours to 'digital tidy-up', sorting out anything I wanted to copy off my work laptop before I had to give it back.

For some, this task is inconvenient and tiresome, but I actually find it quite cathartic, not just because of the whole 'putting stuff in order' therapy, but also because I'm constantly finding little bits and bobs that I forgot about. Humourous jpgs, revealing and salacious emails, 'To Do' lists of stuff that never got done, that sort of thing.

All flights grounded...

The exercise also turned up a little gem about which I'd completely forgotten - a copy of a foodie article I'd written for Maxjet's in-flight magazine in 2007, just weeks, or possibly even days before they went bust.

The funny thing is, I actually got paid for the piece, but was never sent a proof (or indeed a final copy) and to this date I've no idea if this issue of the magazine ever made it onto a flight. I suspect it didn't.

I'd rather have not had the money but got the article into the skies though - and if Maxjet had survived, there would have been a series of these fuckers, which might possibly have propelled me to minor stardom, but alas this was not to be.

And so, I've reprinted the article below in all it's glory - hopefully not violating copyright legislation in the process - for all to see.

I've not edited it, and there are some concessions to contractual obligation in the copy, but overall I think it's a decent piece and one that Maxjet passengers would have enjoyed, if only they'd ever got to read it...

Cobb Salad - a lesson in history and irony

Neccessity, so it's oft said, is the mother of invention.

It's certainly the father of improvisation, the great-uncle of creativity, and perhaps a distant second-cousin of genius.

Everybody who likes to cook will be instantly familiar with the following scenario:

It's late, you're hungry, you've had too many takeaways lately, and you feel like cooking something. But all the shops are closed, so you have to throw something together based on the ingredients you happen to have in the house...

So, what do you end up eating? Fuck knows. It's different every time. Sausage omelette. Herring on toast. Quince and Clam pie. Sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's actually so unbelievably good that you turn it into a proper recipe and make it again and again and again for the remainder of your days.

The Duke of Pork (and Beef)

I've been having a tough time lately - mostly work-related stuff, though there is an end in sight, but also my ongoing health issues - and so I frequently need cheering up.

Fortunately I'm quite easy to cheer up. Good food. Good beer. Indulgent treats. (Although these probably don't do anything for the health issues, admittedly - the doctors in their infinite medical wisdom have decided now that my calcium channels need blocking, as well as my ACEs inhibiting!)

So the other night we opted for one such indulgent treat. Several pints of excellent beer (including Arbor 'Goo Goo G'Joob' at a hefty 11%) and a few bags of Pitta Chips at the Craft Beer Company, and then on to Duke's Brew & Que.