Liverpool Part 2 -- Settling In

[Bryan]

Good to hear that you are cooking Edo, In recent years the Mrs and I have come to the conclusion that home cooking is what we prefer.

 

Vegetarians descending upon us for Xmas. Just been checking to ensure that gravy powder doesn't contain crushed animals - ours doesn't. . Onion gravy, with a few cloves of garlic, makes most food more than palatable. Looking forward to roasted King Edward spuds and parsnip, brussels and mashed swede, to accompany whatever the veggies bring.

 

Re books, started with Enid  Blyton, moved on to Biggles and Sherlock Holmes then James Bond. Hated Shakespeare, Walter Scott  and most else we had to read at school - put me off literature for a good while. My Ex English Teacher best mate despairs of me, but then he can't strip and rebuild a gearbox or wire up a light switch etc.

 

Back to seasonal greetings - all the best to my fellow contributors, and to Edo in particular, you deserve a bit of luck bonny lad. 😊

Edited December 24, 2019 by Bryan

[CAROL SAUNDERS]

Edo, glad you at least have your own pad for Christmas - onwards and upwards.  All the very best for 2020 keep cooking and clicking! 😀 

 

Best wishes to everyone else also for Christmas and New Year....

 

Carol

[Ed Rooney]

Garlic and onions make a great flavour base for many dishes, Bryan. 😉 Add an herb or two and some olive oil, and it's hard to go wrong. I ate vegetarian Italian today and had half a bottle of Antinori Chianti. 

 

Liverpool City Centre was totally empty today, not a soul in sight and every pub and bistro shut. I had to walk down to the Beatles statues to find a few Asian tourists. 

 

Best wishes to you too, Carol.

 

Edo

 

 

[John Morrison]

15 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

Garlic and onions make a great flavour base for many dishes, Bryan. 😉 Add an herb or two and some olive oil, and it's hard to go wrong. I ate vegetarian Italian today and had half a bottle of Antinori Chianti. 

 

Liverpool City Centre was totally empty today, not a soul in sight and every pub and bistro shut. I had to walk down to the Beatles statues to find a few Asian tourists. 

 

Best wishes to you too, Carol.

 

Edo

 

Hi Edo...

 

Yes, frying onions and garlic is stage one of most of my signature dishes. Accompanied by a bottle of El Magico, one of the finest Armenian wines known to humanity...

[Ed Rooney]

I've never had Armenian wine. I hope it's less expensive than the Rioja with the Magico name. 

[Betty LaRue]

Oh, you wine snobs.  I have a nice box of Franzia White Zinfandel sitting in my chilly garage.

[Bryan]

Cant be dealing with wine snobbery! Some years ago we organised a blind tasting session for our friends. It's remarkable how removing the labels can change opinions. Didn't do it again, too many ruffled feathers! 

 

The Mrs and I once made a wine pilgrimage to one of the rated vineyards in France, both of us surprised and very disappointed at what we were offered at a tasting - didn't buy anything. On the other hand you can pick up some lovely, but unknown, French brews for very little. Best to go for what the locals are supping.

 

Our elder son brought a bottle of Rioja yesterday nice enough, but, after years of supping Merlot - that from the antipodes consistently good and excellent  value - we've rediscovered German and Alsace whites, Sainsbury's Riesling is very palatable.

[Abiyoyo]

10 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

I've never had Armenian wine. I hope it's less expensive than the Rioja with the Magico name. 

 

We are living in Internet times. I always order my wine from a Spanish website that at the end I pay Spanish prices plus, more or less, 1€/bottle P&P. Much cheaper that buying in any UK shop, and of course, much more variety of wines. After 31 Dec 2020 I do not know what will happend.

[Inchiquin]

I've been lucky to have lived in two great wine-growing regions. In Cologne in the 1980s there was an annual wine festival where I sampled everything that was going. By the time we returned to the UK my wife and I had assembled a good collection of the finest wines from the Rheinland to enjoy back home. And 20 years ago in California I had access to many wines that you won't find in Britain. My favourite was a vineyard called Bogle.

My currrent favourite for everyday drinking (or in my case everyfortnight drinking) is Phantom River Malbec, a Californian that at £5 from Sainsburys is a steal.

 

Alan

[Ed Rooney]

Goodness, I'm lightyears away from being a wine snob. Or a cuisine snob, for that matter. I only drink 4 things: coffee, beer, wine, and tap water. No soft drinks and no spirts. No spirits is a semi-lie, because this winter I sometimes have a shot of brandy after lunch. But then brandy is distilled wine, no? 

 

Don't forget that I've lived in Europe over 20 years of my life so I would have to know a bit about wine. Inexpensive, drinkable wine is what I'm interested in. Drinkable whites are more expensive than drinkable reds . . . so I drink more red. Spain was great for low prices on wine and beer when eating out. And it's not as bad here as it was in NYC.

 

I'm gonna look in Sainsbury's for that Malbec, Alan. £5? Hmm. 

 

Absolutely everything was closed here yesterday. And since today, the 26th, is Boxing Day, I expect that everything will still be shut. Tomorrow? And tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow? ??? 

 

Edo

 

 

 

 

[John Morrison]

8 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Oh, you wine snobs.

 

Wine snob, Betty? I think not. An Armenian wine called El Magico was just a joke. If it existed I'd probably use it to clean bike chains and bring the sparkle back to chrome.

 

Yesterday, I had a bottle of Co-op FairTrade cabernet sauvignon. I would have happily traded it - fairly - for a decent bottle of plonk. Cheers!

[DJ Myford]

28 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

Goodness, I'm lightyears away from being a wine snob. Or a cuisine snob, for that matter. I only drink 4 things: coffee, beer, wine, and tap water.

 

Absolutely everything was closed here yesterday. And since today, the 26th, is Boxing Day, I expect that everything will still be shut. Tomorrow? And tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow? ??? 

 

Edo

 

 

 

 

 

Traditionally the shops would be closed today unless they were holding a Boxing Day sale. They were things to avoid unless you had sharp elbows or a small tank: with the boom in online shopping, the sales may now be safer places, but I'm not going to risk it.

Change your list to tea, cider, wine and tap water and we'd be in agreement.

[Ed Rooney]

 

I can't drink tea. I have cough-variant asthma and tea gets me coughing. Cider I don't care for. I've acquired a taste for Guinness. 

[geogphotos]

Armenian wine

 

https://www.armenianwines.co.uk

[John Morrison]

8 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

Armenian wine

 

https://www.armenianwines.co.uk

 

I apologise - unreservedly - to any Armenians on the forum...

Edited December 26, 2019 by John Morrison

[Betty LaRue]

I have never known much about wine. But a long time ago, my sister discovered Easy Days and Easy Nights. One was a white, the other had a tinge of pink. They were apple wines and delicious. I only like sweet wine. Put a dry in front of me and I’ll spit it out. Those wines are not to be found, now. A shame, they were cheap.

We went on a camping trip to Southern Oklahoma by a lake. We brought those two bottles of wine, and had a glass each sitting around the campfire in October. The next day, while sis and I went to the showers a distance away, the two hubbies drank all the wine. That night, when sis and I looked for the wine for all to share, all we found were guilty, smirking faces.

My sister had discovered a recipe for making homemade wine. It involved grape juice, a gallon jug and a balloon on the neck of the jug. When the balloon was blown up, the wine was ready. So she’d brought some of that wine.

The next day, the guys went fishing. Sis and I sat around the fire in our coats and decided we’d show them, and drink up the homemade wine. So we have these disposable glasses full of wine, delicately sipping. May have been the second glass, and the last of the wine. We heard the guys’ voices coming from over the hill on their way back to camp.

Hurriedly, we chugged the full-to-the-top glasses of wine down so they wouldn’t see.

About 15 minutes later, I turned green. It was a misty day. I signaled my sister I needed to walk. (To keep from throwing up).

We took off walking the road winding through the campgrounds with the guys trailing some distance behind. I’m sure they wondered why I was staggering from one side of the road to the other.

The walk served it’s purpose. But I never touched homemade wine again.

Betty

Edited December 26, 2019 by Betty LaRue

[Shergar]

Im a big  champagne fan, these days I stretch it a bit in bucks fix/mimosa.

 

Mrs Shergar the next day.

"Who has drunk all this champagne"?  

 

Never once in the last 30yrs has she ever asked who has drunk all this orange juice!!!!!

[Inchiquin]

2 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

 

 

But I never touched homemade wine again.

 

 

Years ago I user to make the most delicious wine. Plum, blackberry, elderberry and my absolute favourite redcurrant. I was very meticulous about the process from beginning to end so I never had any disasters and it was always highly drinkable. I just don't have the time nowadays and my house is a building site so there aren't really any ideal places in which to keep wine while it ferments.

 

Alan

[Betty LaRue]

Well, our homemade wine was cloudy. I’m sure nothing like yours! 😁

[pierre rochon]

8 hours ago, John Morrison said:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2019 by pierre rochon

[pierre rochon]

Armenian El Magico goes very well with Venezualian beaver cheese.

[John Morrison]

36 minutes ago, pierre rochon said:

Armenian El Magico goes very well with Venezualian beaver cheese.

 

I'm not going to ask what "beaver cheese" is... 😮

[Inchiquin]

2 minutes ago, John Morrison said:

 

I'm not going to ask what "beaver cheese" is... 😮

 

 

Do you not know your Python?

 

Alan

[Allan Bell]

I drink Earth wine.😀

 

Allan

 

[Thyrsis]

Last year our daughter moved to a house which has a very prolific vine in a greenhouse so we decided to make wine. After getting the grandsons to tread the grapes (slave labour) we produced 17 bottles of red wine! This year there was another abundant crop so we have made more wine, probably a rosé, which already promises to be quite drinkable!