Vanquishing the pre-holiday bulge. Sigh.

I haven’t been abroad since 2009 and that was a city break .. so no bearing all in a bikini. Infact it is extremely rare I get a chance to wear a bikini unless I go swimming and then my good friend ‘water’ hides all my sins. But in less than 5 days I will be gallivanting around the coast of Croatia, all faults bared, in an unforgiving bikini ensemble. Obviously I bought bikinis that are heavily padded, underwired and have a flattering cut. But no amount of sorcery is going to hide the after effects of my teenage sugar binges.

You see I used to be overweight, not obese, but I certainly wasn’t healthy. I was a sugar addict and thought nothing of polishing off two pieces of toast slathered in jam and butter each morning washed down with a pint of full fat coke. Stretch marks criss cross my upper thighs like war wounds, constant reminders that eating two chocolate bars a day for 3 years has its consequences. I decided to go head to head with sugar addiction …  and seemingly I won (sort of, least that’s what the scales say). However, I still get the insane cravings. Last week I could be spotted going round Sainsburys picking up chocolate bars and trying to sniff through the packaging and fool myself  that smelling it would be as good as eating it. I filled a large pick and mix cup with all my favourites and I was actually salivating until I decided to put it back down again. (By the way sorry Sainsburys staff, I guess you either had to throw that out or painstakingly put each sweet back in its correct box, oops). The cravings have only worsened over the past month because I am acutely aware I should be behaving myself in the lead up to my holiday. Therefore June has been a cream tea-less month *sob* and I’ve literally forgotten what fat tastes like. I’ve come up with the mantra “sweets taste good for 5 seconds, holiday photos last a lifetime”. I realise this is no better than Kate Moss and her mantra “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” and I do apologise to all those out there doing their best to encourage girls not to focus so much on weight (I certainly wish I wasn’t so obsessed with it) but I can’t help worrying…….and craving.

In particular I have been craving cream teas. When I return from Croatia I am heading to the nearest gluten friendly establishment and I am going to order TWO cream teas just for me and I am going to eat until I am crying with joy and pain. I might even wear my bikini as I eat them and just watch it split down the seams as clotted cream sweeps down my gullet in waves. Remember Primose Tearooms which I reviewed in December? Well they got in touch and they make a gluten free chocolate almond cake which I am very excited to try. So for the next two weeks I need to show restraint. Then when I return I will be back on the cake wagon my friends, it’s going to be messy.

An island based experiment in gluten free Cream Teas

Well, the diagnosis is not official. The doctors continue to ignore and frustrate so I have gone with self diagnosis and that is 100% I cannot have wheat and therefore can never have a “normal” cream tea again. This is definitely some sort of punishment for what I have done in another life. I was probably Pontius Pilate or something – that seems about fair.

So with my little coeliac head held high I have decided to continue upping my chlosterol even for compromised taste and eat gluten free Cream Teas from now. My boyfriend, in his usual quest to find me food so I won’t get hungry/moody, discovered a place on the Isle of Wight that does coeliac friendly cream teas and it was actually really good.

Just look at that picture. Obviously it wasn’t all for me – that would be obscene. But evidently the portions were amazing.

Appearance – 9/10 The crockery was very sweet and all matched in a strawberry pattern. The use of a fruit and one that is red (red increases the appetite) was a clever ploy to build up my hunger as we waited to be served. The scones came out in little lined baskets which were a nice touch, the only thing letting it down was the pre packaged butter.

Quantity – 10/10 Absolutely no complains on the quantity. I have become a bit of a lightweight recently and I’m not used to carb loading as much as I used to so this rating may not be scientifically correct but everyone around me seemed to struggle to finish theirs so it must have been a lot. The scones were as big as my face, delightful.

Taste – 7/10 Now this is obviously going to be unfair as mine was the wheat free alternative and therefore a blasphemous alternative to the god-like original scone recipe. It still actually tasted quite good and once smothered with lots of cream and jam then was even better. The thing that niggled me was the little parcels of butter put on my plate. I almost quietly took the waitress aside to explain her embarrassing faux pas. *my sweet dear, butter with a cream tea? We are not peasants* But I noticed everyone around me lashing butter all over the scones. I thought obviously they were doing this out of novelty and on that particular half of scone would forgoe on the clotted cream also but no! they lashed that on too. I reprimanded them but they carried on regardless…. Island Folk, least they didn’t burn me on a remote hill.

Price – 8/10 About right. For the quantity – great value.

Ambience – 7/10 The café wasn’t the most snuggly of places - although freezing outside so probably better if sun was streaming through the windows. But service was prompt and they said we could keep asking for more cream and jam so that bumps them up in the ratings for me.

How it made me feel - 6/10 Unfortunately afterwards I felt full but not neccessarily "good full". I think the gluten free texture of the scone made it quite powdery and this meant my mouth felt slightly gritty and I had to swill with tea. I also felt ridiculously full - but this was down to pure greed on my part so let's not make the cafe's rating suffer because of my vice. I didn't feel quite as content as I always do after taking on a mammoth scone and therefore it only gets a 6...

Overall score – 47/60

Death Row Munchies - not intended to offend.

So who else watched the Werner Herzog Death Row documentary on Channel 4? Me, obviously. Not just because I have an unhealthy fascination with serial killers but because I am morbidly interested in what people choose as their final meal. Surprisingly, the programme didn’t really hone in on this crucial topic. It dealt with, y'know, the more pressing matters of what crime had been committed and inmate’s thoughts, feelings and such like. Pffft, just tell me in minute detail what you want to eat!

I feel vindicated in my food obsession when I think of the whole practice of a final supper. Prisoners aren’t asked ‘What song would you like to listen to? What TV programme? What sport would you like to play?’ They go back to basics, to the root of satisfaction, to the ultimate primal urge… food.

Creepily, I have put a lot of thought into what my final meal would be. It has changed over time. In my early teens it was a salt and sugar fest. A loaded burger with every topping you could imagine – enough cheese to finish off a small dog, bacon, bbq sauce, nachos on the side, onion rings, thick greasy fries, helped down by a lard ridden milkshake and some sort of doughnut fest for afters. I was in the stage of being brainwashed by too much American TV (blame Nickelodeon), my favourite being 'Kenan and Kel' and therefore my idea of what was a normal consumption of burgers was drastically modified. As I grew into my late teens and became more health conscious my final supper plans became more sophisticated. I wanted Italian artisan style breads, with antipasti platters and sorbets to cleanse my palette. My empathetic side must have been developing as I realised most people on death row probably felt pretty nervous and therefore smaller portions sizes would be better so they could snack, dwell, snack, vomit with fear, snack.

As I near my mid-twenties, my death row meal has changed again. I want the salt hits again but in the more mature form of a rich sauce to accompany a decadent duck dish, with some heavily garlicked potatoes, I want a cheese course and I want the strongest heaviest cheeses with biscuits that pack about 500 calories a bite as they’re so butter laden. Then for the grand finale – my dream dessert. You’re probably imagining some sort of Guinness World Record size Scone Monster. But no, my ultimate fantasy pudding is a melt in the middle chocolate pudding. It all began with that M&S advert. It was back in 2005, 01:42 on this clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4jvF9Q2QC0 . That advert, according to Wikipedia – “led to a remarkable 3,000% rise in chocolate pudding sales, something that has not recurred since”. It was one powerful symbol, a fork gently but decidedly ploughing through the centre of a moist, slightly wobbling chocolate pudding to unleash a warm river of chocolate goo whose force pulls in the dollop of cream that is resting on top and they mix together to become the most formidable of combinations. It was an oddly sexual image, a chocolate volcano of epic proportions, and it seemed to grip the nation. Zombie like chocolate lust took over the UK and we just couldn’t consider anywhere but M&S for that filthy chocolate hit. This image has had a profound effect on me and when I succumb wholeheartedly to my food fantasies (often on a Sunday afternoon when I’m losing interest in a book/film/conversation) I just let that image wash over me. I personally don’t think I would have been quite as courageous as that lucky fork holder in the advert. I would probably have tentatively poked a hole in the top to see if it really was the right consistency of gooey inside and then scooped a half forkful up and nibbled slowly to savour the taste … then thrown caution to wind, picked up momentum, finished it in 2 minutes and then spent 20 minutes rolling about on the sofa going ‘I’m soo full.. but it was gooood… but I’m fulll’. Pathetic I know but I am predictable.

Anyway.. that would be my death row pudding.

For those of you who are interested in what actual people on death row have had for their final meals, visit this website - http://www.ranker.com/list/top-10-most-elaborate-final-meals-in-death-row-history/john-barryman.  Robert Dale Conklin’s choices are interesting. John Wayne Gacy – a serial killer who has fascinated me for a while because he dressed up as a clown (and I have a fear of clown outfits) so he became SUPER scary serial killer material - decided he wanted a pound of strawberries. Odd. However for the majority of cases; burgers, pizzas, fried chicken and fizzy drinks feature heavily. Hmm does fast food cause murderous tendencies!? Could this be a  blog post!? Probably involves basing what I say in actual science... so maybe not.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/sXzNSjPONVGr5iLRAfqL-dQ/view.m?id=15&gid=artanddesign/gallery/2012/apr/27/photography-death-row-last-meals&cat=most-read - another website just brought to my attention with morbid pictures of death row last meals.

Cream Tea Confession

Well. I am ashamed. I am a disappointment. I feel it is time to confess.

I didn’t go through with the cream tea challenge.

The crux of the matter is my body seems to be rejecting mass cream tea consumption. I have this ongoing saga with the doctors. They tested me negative for coealic disease. I celebrated.. for about 5 minutes.. because I know there definitely is something still wrong. I spoke to a coeliac friend who said they also tested negative on the blood tests but the endoscopy came up positive. So I go back to the doctors (I get a different person each time but this one was both sullen and utterly weird) and he says ‘Well keep on with the gluten free diet then if you feel better for it”. I tell him I want to see a specialist; I need some sort of diagnosis or help in understanding why I keep feeling ill. Sorry, can’t refer you until you test positive for coeliac. Grr. So rant aside, I am struggling with cream teas. I crave them, dream about them, lust after them but my body is conspiring against me.

I’ve decided one cream tea a month will be fine, I just can’t overdose on them. (Although the thought of me sprawled out in a tea rooms, frothing jam at the mouth with a needle full of clotted cream is an entertaining image nonetheless). So, basically my sincere apologies for building you all up for the challenge only to reveal that I in fact ate a measly 1 ½ scones leisurely in a sunny garden instead of force feeding my calorie intake for a week in one sitting. It would have been a good experiment and maybe once this whole digestive system palaver is sorted I may be able to schedule it in once again…

Next post… I will be having afternoon tea at http://www.thebathpriory.co.uk/ … very excited and I expect great things…

Man vs Food, Woman vs Cream Tea.

Man vs Food is fast becoming my favourite programme. The premise is an American food lover, Adam Richman , travels to American cities sourcing restaurants that do gigantic portions and/or food challenges for their customers and then he puts himself to test by attempting to eat as much as is physically possible. Surprisingly, Adam is not obese and this is due to the strict exercise regime he follows (he exercises before eating, stating that squats are best for building the appetite, and then on the treadmill after to burn off the calories) This discipline gives me a lot of respect for Adam. He is bringing blood, sweat and tears to the act of eating. He will eat in the extreme and work out in the extreme. Work hard, play hard. This isn’t greed, this is a food religion.

I can imagine me and Adam would be great friends. I would be there to mop his brow when the inevitable meat sweats began, I would provide words of encouragement during the challenge such as “Food grows on this good Earth for men such as yourselves to eat and to eat in abundance. Don’t let food control you Adam, seize what is yours”…Or something similar. I want my pep talk to adequately reflect the gravitas of the situation and support the almost biblical significance he places on the act of eating. Yes, we would be good friends Adam and I.

What I love about Richman is not only his overwhelming enthusiasm for food but his absolute dedication to the food mission. He often does spice challenges which can involve a stack of meat “hotter than the sun” which he will devour with astonishing speed, sweating profusely yet never once removing his jacket – to me, further evidence of his food fundamentalism – it’s all about the pain and the lessons learnt. This is the exact opposite of comfort eating.  I also love the fact he is (seemingly) an incredibly nice guy. He spends part of each episode talking to the restaurant owners and the local customers, getting to know the history of the venue, what the locals love about it and what’s on the rest of the menu. He basically acts as an advert for the restaurant, selling to you their food with infectious enthusiasm and mouth watering descriptions of the menu options. His salesman technique is so effective, that now I often find myself daydreaming about visiting junk food joints in each state and sampling the biggest most intimidating dish on their menus. I know my British pea sized stomach wouldn’t even make a dent on most of the dishes Adam knocks back but I would love to try.

On January 27^th 2012 Richman announced his retirement from competitive eating. Spurred on by the need to keep the food torch burning and from being ever so slightly brainwashed from watching countless episodes of unashamed gluttony … Woman vs Cream Tea is born. Bring on the cream tea challenge!

The Rules

45 minutes. No stopping the timer, no breaks.

Marks and Spencer scones.

Strawberry jam, Raspberry jam and Blackberry jam (a choice to keep it interesting)

Tub of Rodda’s clotted cream

As much tea as one can drink.

Not being sick (during or after), no spitting out food.

So how many can I eat…?

My ad hoc research assistant (ie. My friend who listens to me rant about food far too often) found that :

"The average sized scone is about 52g. Wikipedia says that the average human stomach can expand to hold approximately 1L of stuff. Let's assume you're not going to get the scones to be more dense than the dough. So if we look at a reciepe for scones :

"Turn on to a floured work surface and knead very lightly. Pat out to a round 2cm/¾in thick. Use a 5cm/2in cutter to stamp out rounds and place on a baking sheet. Lightly knead together the rest of the dough and stamp out more scones to use it all up. "

Then a 2cm thick, 5cm diameter circle is about 39 cubic cms, or about 0.039 litres, which means you can eat about 25 scones before your stomach gets full. But then we need to add on jam and cream. So I think 20 scones before you will definitely be sick."

Excellent research.

I surveyed my friends and responses varied to how many they thought I could eat, they ranged from 2 (this person doesn’t know me very well) to 117 (this person is ridiculous). The general consensus was between 6 -8. So I will be happy to achieve 7. I also have a competitor, one of my friends has daringly asked if she could challenge me.

Bring it on!

Chocolate Turncoat

February. A month most people dislike. It’s cold, there are no bank holidays, Valentine’s Day for single people can be a painful reminder of love lost, looking or unrequited … Shrove Tuesday provides the only excuse for gluttony in the whole month and then this is followed sharply by discipline demanding lent.

Personally I like February. Firstly, it’s my birthday so I anticipate quality time with friends, food of my choice and, of course, presents. Pancakes being one of my favourite foods, Shrove Tuesday fills me with child-like excitement as I consider all the hundreds of combinations of pancake fillings. (Although I didn’t indulge this Shrove Tuesday as I was treated to heart shaped blueberry pancakes on Valentine’s Day instead…) February is usually the month of crisp cold sunny days, sprouting daffodils (my favourite flower) and hints of spring.

I’m aware that the above paragraph sounds like one truly terrible attempt at Keats so moving swiftly back onto what I know best … FOOD. February was busy and decadent food was in abundance (hurrah!). Combine this with a fear I would be diagnosed a coeliac (I’m not!)  and I nearly missed out on a February Cream Tea. The horror!

All was saved on a crisp cold sunny late February day in Plymouth at Chocaccinos - http://www.chocaccino.co.uk/

Me and my friend Chloe and her new born Jasper had a Chocoholic’s Dream Cream Tea at £4.75 each. Yes I know, chocolate again! I’m jumping on the chocolate bandwagon. I am living up to all chick lit stereotypes; I am a woman on a chocolate mission. It’s just SO good. I will resume normal cream tea habits soon I promise but winter just makes me want to indulge on a serious level. Your disgust with me aside .. here’s the review :

Appearance -  6/10 – The appearance left something to be desired. Very plain almost clinical looking cutlery. The scone itself was a beast but there was no finesse in the presentation. I was slightly disturbed by the appearance of a knife AND fork on my plate but upon cutting into the scone and realising its crumbly texture I was happy for the fork.

Quantity - 8/10 – Only one scone came out and I think both me and my friend had the same sinking dread – Have we been scammed? But then we had our first bite and it was warm, thick, heavy chocolate scone goodness and we knew we could only ever manage one of these monsters.

Taste – 9/10 - absolutely beautiful taste. The scones were soft and warm straight from the oven. I never thought that a chocolate chip scone, clotted cream, chocolate sauce AND jam would work but it definitely does! You can have a novelty cream tea but also keep the components of a traditional one. Have your scone and eat it, marvellous!

Price – 9/10 - Price was just right. Obviously the bargain hunter in me will always want a cheaper meal but it was very good value.

Ambience – 6/10 - the location of Chocaccino’s is in a pleasant area of the Barbican, it was a sunny day and I had the company of one of the nicest ladies I know. However the inside can have a canteen feel to it.
How I felt -8/10 - I decided in the interests of my waist line that I would substitute lunch for the cream tea. It was a good idea as I felt less guilty about the calories and it kept me full into the evening. The chocolate aspect of a cream tea also makes you feel all warm and gooey (endorphins being released?) in a different way to the usual cream tea.

Overall score 46/60

A Chocolate Cream Tea – Revolutionary or just plain wrong?

On New Year’s Day I ventured up North and went back to my university city of York. I had been indulging in calorific foods since early December (refer back to previous post for the gluttony of the Christmas period. I feel that now something is in writing about the pressures of Christmas eating that I am somehow absolved of any responsibility for my greedy  ways) and yet still was up for trying “A Chocoholic Heaven” as Bullivants of York named it. This consisted of a hot chocolate with cream, marshmallows and a flake, a chocolate chip scone with clotted cream and a nutty chocolate spread as jam replacement.

Now, I do enjoy chocolate but I am not a chocolate fiend like a lot of people I know. I tend to be drawn towards the chocolate pudding option on a menu but often because this is the most decadent looking choice. When I eat a pudding I want to feel full, slightly sick and like I couldn’t possibly have eaten anymore. That is the feeling you get with the chocolate options. The fruit, or god forbid the cheese option, leave me feeling far too healthy and somehow cheated. So, chocolate I do enjoy but I wouldn’t say I am an addict. I can’t remember the last time I had a chocolate bar infact. Therefore the chocoholic heaven was a little daunting. I feared it would be too rich or too sweet and I wouldn’t enjoy. There’s a fine line between the too-full-slightly-sick (content) feeling and the too-full-very-sick (ill) feeling.

The chocoholic heaven was a thing of absolute beauty. Not necessarily aesthetically. As you can see from the pictures the nutty chocolate looks decidedly like melting rabbit droppings and the odd pale brown of the scone isn’t altogether inviting. But when I bit into that scone it was a moment of perfection, I was overjoyed. I had my doubts and people had been quite vocal about their suspicions of a chocolate cream tea. Most people said it was just “wrong”. They feared change. If something is broken don’t fix it… right? Well, wrong. This is the malady of British. Compare us to the Americans who constantly strive for bigger and better. In England a chocolate cream teas raises eyebrows, shocked sighs, very few establishments even have the courage to put this on their menus. I think it is fair to say that if cream teas took off in America then they would have all fanciful forms of cream teas…. Jams from the most obscure of fruits (Sharon fruit cream tea anyone?), green tea cream teas for detoxing, bubble-gum cream teas for kids, alcoholic cream teas for boozy dinner parties. They would take the original concept, play with it, advertise it, make it trendy, and give us all the variety we could ever imagine. Britain, in contrast, if it likes something then it keeps it. Not to say this is altogether a bad thing but sometimes change is good and the chocolate cream tea is an example of truly scrumptious change.

Bulivants of York, 15 Blake Street, York, YO1 8QJ

Appearance – 5/10. Unfortunately the colour of chocolate being brown doesn’t lend itself to looking pretty. Not in comparison to the classier cream and the lusty coloured berry based jams. Something about the red and white together on one plate (just missing some blue to recreate our flag). Whereas the chocolate cream has that odd looking scone which looks like a bun that’s been left in the oven too long and the dubious looking chocolate spread (which I love the taste of being a fan of all things praline).

(me so full and overwhelmed)

Quantity – 8/10 – Although there is only one scone, this was more than enough. The richness of the chocolate meant even I wouldn’t have been able to eat two of them. Only problem is not enough chocolate spread. I wanted to spread without rationing. You can never underestimate the contentment that spreading without rationing provides to a foodie.  

Taste – 10/10. Amazing. Made all the more amazing by the fact I was at first dubious. That first bite won me over. I was bowled over. I slumped onto the table groaning with pleasure. I looked at my companion with eyes glazed with food lust. He was slightly taken aback by my reaction.. Infact he looked at me like a non-smoker who encounters a chain smoker whom has been in stressful meetings all day and is greedily inhaling their first drag in hours. I was in too much ecstasy to feel embarrassed by my moans and groans.

Price – 9/10 – I can’t remember the exact price, £6.50 I believe. Which I thought was very reasonable considering portion size, the drink that was included and the quality of the food.

Ambience – 6/10 – This is what let the place down. From the outside it looks sort of oldie-world, quaint and honest. But inside was a stale atmosphere, uninspiring décor and it was too cold. I wanted open fires and sofas I could sink into.

How I felt – 10/10 – setting aside. I felt bloody great. I did at one point think it could be game over. The last few bites became daunting and I felt a sheen of panicky sweat form on my brow. But I finished it and it was amazing. So amazing in fact I then baked my own chocolate chip scones with a friend (see below). She is now also a convert.

Overall score 48/60

Recipe for the above

Ingredients

Serves: 12

• 225g (8oz) plain flour
• 5 tablespoons caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
• 100g (3 3/4 oz) chocolate chips
• 3 tablespoons orange juice, or as needed

Preparation method

Prep: 15 mins | Cook: 15 mins

1.Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (gas mark 6). Lightly grease a baking tray.

2.In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. With a large fork, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the chocolate chips. Mix in the orange juice to form a dough.

3.Turn out the dough on a floured surface. Pat or roll into a 23cm circle about 1cm thick. Cut out 12 6cm round scones, pushing the dough scraps together for the last few, if necessary. Transfer the scones to the baking sheet.

4.Bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool.