Shrove Tuesday isn't as Shriven as it used to be

My ‘giving up chocolate for Lent’ plan proved spectacularly unsuccessful, lasting as it did a mere three days. (Although on the 'being able to eat chocolate again' scale, it's actually been a roaring success, obviously!)

It wasn’t my fault, mind, it was the beer.

Ilkley ‘The Mayan’, specifically, at the Cask in Pimlico. It’s a chocolate chipotle stout, and certainly the best beer I’ve had this year. (And I've drunk some good beer this year).

Chocolate beers can be a bit hit'n'miss, and I’ve never drunk a chilli beer that I could honestly say I really enjoyed, but Ilkley – one of my favourite breweries at the moment –  manage to get the combination just right.

It wasn't that surprising given that, in just a few years, the Yorkshire brewery has shown itself to be remarkably adept at experimental beers - like their Crafty Jane cranberry milk stout - as well as doing a fine line in big, hoppy pale ales, which, to my mind, should be any credible brewer's meat and drink

At 5.3% the Mayan had enough stouty weight behind it not to be watery, but was still staunchly in ‘quaffable’ territory. The cocoa on the nose was like an upmarket chocolate milkshake, while the heat only comes through at the finish and leaves a nice lingering burn.

It's worth breaking your Lenten fast for!

Pancake Days and Mondays never get me down

It struck me this week, while cooking the pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, that it’s the one day of the year when one's dessert usually takes up the greater portion of the meal as a whole.

This year, we only ate a very light supper of beans on toast, so as to leave plenty of room for a succession of freshly cooked pancakes. And things were much the better for that, I can tell you.

Tosser.

My blood sugar reading the following morn might have been higher than the doctor would have liked, but it was worth it.

I shan’t bother with a pancake recipe because it’s so easy. Eggs. Flour. Milk. Sugar. Sans lumps. In quantities such that the mixture takes about half a second to drip off a spoon.

And always fry them in good quality salted butter. And eat them immediately. Easy.

Insider Secrets from the world of Batter

I do have one little tip to share though: Add some maple syrup to the batter mix as well as putting it on your pancakes. You won’t regret it.

Oh, and take a risk-averse approach to the art of tossing. You might look cool if you manage too, err, pull it off, but it's better to use a spatula and ensure that the flipped fucker ends up back in the pan where it bastard well belongs.

It's also worth varying the quantity of batter and therefore the thickness of the pancake - thick Scotch style and wafer-thin French style are both good, as are all the varying degrees of girth 'that lie betwixt the twain'.

We had our pancakes with chocolate, banana, maple syrup (obviously), whipped cream and chopped nuts, which is possibly a tad on the hyper-indulgent side, and again not appealing to my GP, but they tasted awesome.

And given that I’ve joined my good lady wife in giving up chocolate for Lent this year, I feel my system deserved a fitting Mardi Gras blow-out.

I’ll give you one more seasonal tip: Savoury crepes are a doddle to make – just omit the sugar and syrup, and add some fresh Parmesan to the batter mix. Serve filled with chilli con carne. Or Boston Baked Beans. Or just some pancetta fried with onion, garlic and tomato. You can’t go wrong.

Utter Crepe! (Well, actually quite good....)

The glut of visitors descending upon The Wharf this week for the Motor Expo has driven an already crowded area to the point of combustion. Possibly literally.

Motor Expo

It’s not just all the extra people, but the vehicles parked incongruously on every thoroughfare taking up space where people would normally be free to roam. Just not right, it isn't.

And I'm probably being as thick as a 4x4, or, worse, somebody who drives one, but I still haven’t figured out the fuck did they get all those Morgans and Lotuses and whathaveyou into the reception area of the tower. Do they remove all the people-doors and drive them in from the street one by one? Do they assemble the cars inside the building?

I’m not against motor shows – I actually find them quite interesting – but as with football and beer festivals, I find being in a large crowd a bloody nuisance rather than some kind of life-affirming sense of solidarity and togetherness. (And, yes, I still experience crowds at football, despite supporting a very unsuccessful and unpopular team).

Anyway, with thousands of Fiesta drivers excitedly taking lots of pictures of supercars they’ll never be able to afford (as well as the resident BMW 3-Series suitcunts who could buy something more interesting but won’t), the places where I usually pick up my lunch have all been doing very good business.