a weekend in worcestershire

Whilst contemplating writing a post about our amazing Canadian holiday (which I've still not actually written, natch), I came across a new formula for dealing with these multi-day extravaganza's - I'm just going to list the five best things. Simples!

So without further ado, here they are:

1. A run around the hills of Worcestershire, followed by Chicken Dansak
After a slightly fraught journey, involving a sudden panic at work and my decision to go off-road to avoid the non-existent traffic, everybody is still fairly jolly on arrival. An hour or so of combination toddler-wrestling later, Dave and myself leave the ladies cooking a spanking chicken dansak and we head out to battle the hills of Worcestershire. DT immediately puts his local knowledge/longer legs/better fitness to good use to leaves me gasping in the middle of a wood. Despite our laboured breathing, and Dave's curious pickled onion fumes, we still manage to see a deer on the track, no doubt stunned by our majestic bearing as we crested a hill. However our return sees one small blonde boy still awake, and watching Scooby-Doo. Naturally it being beyond his bedtime he's on maximum cuteness levels, so it's not too bad. Strangely we don't drink that much...

2. summer spaghetti
After the usual Saturday shenanigans (rugby for the mini-men, shopping for the slightly bigger-ladies, and a trip to the pub in the rain for everybody), Lucy pulls out all the stops with a summer spaghetti recipe I've had my eye on in the latest Delicious. It's a weird combination of pretty much everything in the fridge, so I suspect it'll be a pretty good user-up-of-fridge-stuff recipe. Despite their carping to the contrary, the Taylors are excellent cooks, I thoroughly Bridport their work should you be in the neighbourhood - particularly Dave's Saturday lunchtime smorgasbord...

3. Father's Day at Cheltenham Food Festival
I like eating, Dave likes eating, so what better present than a trip to the Cheltenham Food Festival? Even better, it gave my wife a chance to demonstrate her X-Man powers of sniffing out free booze at 1000 paces, viz walking through the gates she managed to spot Beth's husband Tom and Hugo the van full of prosecco at an angle of almost 180 degrees behind her.

4. Hugh's baker's oven shoulder of mutton
Whilst we're living it up in Cheltenham, there's a thing of magic going on in the kitchen chez Taylor, as a leg of hogget is slowly roasting over it's own layer of boulangerie potatoes. I love a good roast, and I love boulangerie potatoes, but I've never thought of sticking the two of them together in one dish. It's a thing of unctuous beauty, the meat falling off the bone, the potatoes crispy on one side and soft on the other, and a salty gravy - mmmmm! It's not such a good pre-two and a half hour drive home dinner though, as it does tend to induce sleepiness.

5. The Number One Ladies Running Club
For the lack of anything else to list in an as-ever excellent weekend (why WHY did I pick five things?), I'm going to make cheap jibes at being invaded on Sunday morning by two red-faced, sweaty harridans, who appeared in the kitchen shortly after Lucy and Ana went out running. I know they like to encourage neighbours to pop over in the country, but I think in this case the open door policy went too far...

sources
chicken dansak - Anjum Anand, Anjum's New Indian, p87
summer spaghetti - Delicious, July 2011, p39
baker's oven shoulder of mutton - Saint Hugh, The River Cottage Meat Book, p241