Empanadas and Fried Tomatoes c/o Black Horse Pub

Eventually Fat T.'s parents, and their visiting friend, arrived and we hustled over to the Black Horse Pub for lunch. The last time I ate at the Black Horse I had their burger, so this time I thought I'd go in an entirely different direction and try their empanadas. I also ordered a virgin Bloody Mary, which had a nice kick and, I'm pretty sure, the olives had capers in them!

The pub offers traditional British breakfasts, which I didn't really feel the need to eat...but the idea of breakfast tomatoes did appeal to me. I was surprised at how thinly sliced the tomatoes were, as I usually think of a fried British tomato as being pretty much one whole half of the thing. A mistaken impression?
Fat T.'s father had the meal to the left. It is a full English breakfast holding nothing back. It's in full English-y mode. I'm pretty sure the beans started talking about putting wellies in the boot and throwing fetes without rubbish bins. But maybe that didn't happen. Who's to say really?
Thanks to Fat T.'s parents for the meal. It was nice to see them in a post-wedding setting.

Choo Choo!

Our last day in England was spent, by me, reading books and feeling embarassed. I read Ordinary People in a couple of hours and then got very far into, but did not finish, Julia Glass' new novel. Dinner was at a place and consisted of a small Caesar salad and a very unsatisfying chicken sandwich.
On the drive back there was a balloon.

Now We're Getting There

Upon arriving in England everything went 'afoul'. The ride back had even more screaming children then it had going (two little girls were on both flights but on the second one they were backed up by two more little girls, ugh). After we got through customs we went to see what baggage carousel we needed to go to get, believe it, our baggage. There were maybe a little less than 100 people milling around the screens with this information. We stood there and we stood there and we stood there some more. We stood there long enough to hear people groan over England's loss (or maybe it was some other team's loss). We stood there long enough to see our flight number make it to from the second screen (low down) to the first screen (high up) until, all of a sudden, our flight and its blank spot that should have been filled with a carousel number disappeared entirely. I believe all this standing took about forty minutes. That was disgruntling. Then we got our baggage, my mother and I and met up with my father who had gone on ahead to get our car. And that is where disgruntlement got notched up to severe tetchiness. Basically what should have been, maybe, a forty five minute drive from the airport to our lodgings for the night became an epic two hour (or more?) drive around and around and around. It was bad. At one point we stopped at a roundabout to consult my father's fifteen years out-of-date map and the police came with disapproving looks...those looks became a little less disapproving once we opened our mouths thus branded ourselves hapless Americans. The policemen's directions got us another, say, five miles down the road before we got flummoxed again...and again...and again. Oh! And again. We finally arrived at The Brocket Arms around 10 and it's a good thing we did because if we hadn't, well, erm, it wouldn't have sucked. We were welcomed into a small but bustling pub and quickly had pints in our hands. The landlord/governor type, whose name was Toby Wingfield Digby (first initial C), held my hand in a slightly creepy but actually kind way and helped us figure out how to turn the car lights off. Though the kitchen was technically closed for the night they opened it up again for us. Mom and I each had a bowl of soup (it was kind of too thick and not so good) and shared some fried shrimp (nicely fried but forgettable). Dad's venison sausage and chips on the other hand was quite tasty. I think the general rule with pub food is keep to the basics and don't ever think that maybe something exotic will be done very well. I went to sleep after my second beer.
The next morning we had breakfast outside as cooked by the guvna'. He and his wife have an English Springer Spaniel that bounded along anywhere the wife went (mainly it seems she was going back and forth between the stable and the house) but occasionally stopped at our picnic table for a quick petting. After our breakfast we needed to get going in order to get to our next destination...Lodge Down again...in order to be part of 150 (250?) people celebrating the 2005 Derby winner, Motivator. This horse was owned by the club that the Lodge Down owners belonged to...thus the shin dig. Before we left, however, we had to settle up with the guvna'. This included a credit card, a small glass of beer and, with said glass of beer, a beer baptism. That's what I said. Beer, on my mother's, my father's and my own naked foreheads with wishes of health, happiness and grandbabies. It was weird.

The horse party included a tent, live musicians and me becoming the 'drunk, brash American'...I had kept her under wraps for most all of the trip but somehow that afternoon and evening seemed like the time to unleash her on a bunch of Brits.
But before I became brash, I had three different kinds of salad.
And a heck of a lot of strawberries.
Then I got drunk and refused to call a young gold professional by his name and opted instead to call him 'golf guy'. Croquet was played, a pool was swum in, some (not I) recklessly rode around on a lawn mower, snooker seemed to have been played and I generally behaved badly. Though without breaking anything nor insulting anyone (says my mother). Whoopsy!

Last Breakfast...Ever...That's Not Actually True

So before our decamping to France I had one last English breakfast. The English, I may have mentioned, don't have such phrases like 'over easy' or 'over medium'. The first morning when I used my favorite phrase (over medium) I got quite a look from our hostess but once it was explained the eggs were exactly right. If only diners in America, who supposedly do understand these phrases, would actually do as they are asked. Grilled tomatoes are one of my favorite things.
Strawberries aren't too shabby either.

Ascot Day 4

Well here I am back in Chicago. Bit of a gloomy first day back, all cloudy and shizz. But it gives me time to, finally, catch myself up in earnest. So hold on to your hats and taste buds folks, I am planning on posting and posting and posting it well. Below is my fourth Ascot breakfast.

The last day we arrived at a leisurely time and planned to all go our own separate ways, no champagne largesse or clubby clubbersting. Over our many dinner meals we collected, as leftovers, a fair amount of new potatoes that were then turned into very satisfying cold potatoes (salt, vinegar, oil and smorgasborg of spices etc).
The back of our car/picnic table.
Below is a triangle of the Royal Enclosure.
Dinner at The Blue Boar, I think.
The salad was good. The spaghetti Bolognese was okay but kind of weird.
I didn't win any money the last racing day but the pace was nice. My mother and I hung out together and generally wandered around. Sometimes sitting in the stands, sometimes standing by the finish line and generally betting on horses that didn't win. At the end of the day our neighbors zoomed off to a hotel near the airport while we returned to one more night at Lodge Down.

Ascot Day 3

The third day was also far better than the first and equal, though very different, to the second. That day we arrived very early to the car park, had much champagne (running beverage theme, yes) and then staked out a prime spot in the outdoor grassy champagne bar area near where the horses were saddled. This allowed us many benefits: a place to sit and keep for ourselves complete with umbrella to shade us from the sun, the ability to see the horses before betting, a place to bet with not terribly long lines, toilets nearby, champagne and Pimms cups, a seafood bar and, you know, ambiance and a lack of total assholes. The only thing this location lacked was any actual way to see the races. I won money regardless. Oh and we got to see famous-in-Britain but unknown to us stars get interviewed at the table next to us.
Breakfast, do you notice that I tried to get slightly different things every day? Maybe that's not true. At the time I thought I was going for variety.
Initially I had two hats for four days but then my mother lent me the brown one. Then I usurped my father's rental top hat (he bought his own black one) and added some feathers, by Ascot standards it was pretty unimpressive but, well, I thought it looked jaunty.
One of three seafood platters our table saw.

This is a photograph of one of the Queen's horses...they accompany the old crazy carriage she comes in on.
I am taking way too many photographs of the sky.
Action Shot!
Random famous/not famous people. The women in the brown hat was a BBC newscaster, I think. The blonde a former pop star and the back of the head man is a famous footballer...rednap?
Dinner that night at the Pheasant. Avocados in Britain are not very good.
Lamb, on the other hand, in Britain is good.

Ascot Second Day Photographs

Below are all the tasty little nuggets of food we were served in the club. The first a samon tar tar.
Little spring roll thingy.
Young and, for the most part, attractive servers constantly were walking the length of the club with tray upon tray of these suckers.

They even had small bowls of salad (below) and soup (not pictured because I didn't have any).
Blurry Queen photo.

Epicmania

After two attempts to post a blog entry, one foiled by a wonky wireless connection the other foiled by own uploading/erasing stupidity, I have learned my lesson and I've gone back to my QM2 method of blogging. In other words, I'm writing this while on the balcony of our Dublin hotel room. Soon we're going to go have lunch with the poet friend of my father's. In my second attempt at blogging I had uploaded a lot of photographs and then made very brief comments on each, now however, I am writing without exact purpose. I am chronological by nature and would like to write about the different experiences I've had and places I've been in the order in which they happened. Though at this point I feel as if I should just jump back in to where I am and write about the Thai dinner we had last night and the rather less than appealing breakfast I had this morning. So much food to upload and place in a time continuum, oh my.

On the day we left my last internet/wireless haven we stopped in a town and had lunch. I had a Budweiser (prounounced bud-viser) and a Salad Nicoise, I thought it was pretty good. We then went to the once a year open garden of the town manse and looked at lots of pretty flowers and grounds. Below is my last breakfast before changing camp...aren't those just the cutest little egg cozies you've ever seen? Yes, yes they are.


Rich British people live below.
Rich British people pay someone else to make pretty flowers grow. They smelled good too.

Then we arrived at Lodge Down Bed & Breakfast which is where my parents have stayed while attending Royal Ascot for the last twelve-ish years. I have visited twice before, first when I was 11ish and then again when I was 18ish. The proprietors of Lodge Down have become my parents' friends and were kind enough to make us dinner not one but two nights which, as you may know, is not part of the B&B business…if it was it would be the D&B&B, which it is not. We arrived two days earlier than the races began and did not meet up with our former Maryland neighbors/current family friends until the next day. Now this is just useless chronology of nothing events. I've relaxed my rather strict no faces policy with the Uma photograph and that will continue for a bit...I mean I did wear hats. Below are my parents staring at the Lodge Down view as the sun goes round the corner.
The dinner we were lucky to receive...chicken with creamy sauce, ham and veggies.
Pretty sky. I've never been big on showing people photographs of the sky, they're pretty but if you've seen one pretty amateur photograph of the sky you've seen them all. Nonetheless, look, pretty.
This was the view out my window. I was lucky enough to get my own room for this portion of the trip (thanks, Dad!).
An English snail doing it's thing.
I took a walk through the Lodge Down land on the next day. As I think I mentioned it's horse country so they have a cross country jumping course scattered around. This made me think of the days when I ran around on horses doing such courses and jumping jumps, well, kind of like this. (above, the snail and jump space is wonky)
The second lovely dinner. This was cooked by our host and hostess' daughter, roasted chicken and goodness.
Breakfast, the first day of Ascot.



Royal Ascot was an experience and a half. Though, if you're to believe my parents, my neighbors and a good helping of Brits, it wasn't half the experience it could have been had they not spent three hundred million pounds renovating (re: fucking up) the entire grounds/course/grandstand...the old paddock versus the new paddock…the old seats the new seats etc. My parents have always shelled out the relatively big bucks to be in the "Royal Enclosure", a realm where one, if a woman, must wear a hat and a non-strapless dress and one, if a man, must wear a morning suit and top hat. The Royal Enclosure, with these new improvements, seems to be a little less enclosed…I'm pretty sure my mother said something along the lines of 'well, they're just letting anyone in now". Each day of Royal Ascot followed a similar beginning schedule, breakfast by 8, leave by 10, arrive by 11:30, drink champagne in the car park until it's gone, repeat.


First dinner at some place or the other. Cod I believe. Also a mushroom soup but I couldn't get a good photograph of it, not bad, not bad at all.
This would be my second Ascot day breakfast.
This would be me in my second Ascot day outfit, looking stoned but not being stoned...champagne stoned maybe, though actually not.

The first day we didn't get off very smartly and so traffic was a bit much. The first day left me feeling rather grumpy. A twenty minute wait for Pimms Cups with my mother left me with tears in my eyes (from rage, not sadness, at the very rude British man who declared he was next in line when VERY CLEARLY he was not). An equally full of herself woman telling me that she, in fact, was behind the man that I was behind. Grrrr. My mother and our two former neighbors felt equally grumpy though my father had found a suitable routine of betting and a good view of the finish line, so he was happy. And the husband of the neighbor pair was grumpy, in part, about not winning any money. I won no money that first day and that may have also effected my sentiments…no it was the rude people and the lack of place to sit comfortably.

The second day was far better than the first, this was due to the lady former neighbor and I spending most of the day in our B&B host and hostess' club a lovely enclosed area with lots of sofas and tables and chairs (finding a place to sit in the Royal Enclosure is not to be envied). There we were served champagne, champagne and more champagne with a liberal helping of cute amuse-bouches…and then tea and cookies (this is where neighbor lady switched with my mother as our host/ess only had two guest badges)…and then more champagne. I also won money that day and saw the Queen, the not king and the other not king (also known, respectively, as Prince Phillip and Prince Charles).

My goodness, I have to go get ready to go somewhere else entirely and I'm not nearly done uploading photographs. Pardon me if I, er, stop here and upload the Queenie and the tasties later!