Dorking, Food, Photographs

I have recently been struggling with accepting that I have to commute 1.5hrs on a good day, every day to London to a job that I broadly love, from a town that I broadly love too. ‘Wasting’ 3hrs of my life every day on a train was beginning to be a pain, particularly in the winter when everything seems so much hassle and trains are failing left right and centre.

I’ve done some soul searching about why I definitely love Dorking and don’t want to move, and should probably buy the t-shirt or mug to prove it. I have just spotted the website that sells I Love Dorking merchandise (Dorking About - great idea of a site but maybe needs a little technical attention - I know a man who can FYI) and I’m really please to find another site that doesn’t slag it off so much as the perma-miserable Dorking Town Blog, although you can glean a certain amount of gossip from the comments posted there, I’ll give them that.

Photograph courtesy of www.dorkingabout.com:

Reasons why I Heart Dorking:

Muddy Paws Petshop - the friendly owners know you want 10kg of Iams Light and a huge back of wood pellet cat litter just by looking at you! Love them!

The lovely higher-end gift shop Blacks (no website) who stock nice leather goods, Calvin Klein jewellery and watches and best of all Georg Jensen homeware and gifts:

Seeing the Surrey Hills from the High Street:

and having goslings and other wildlife on your doorstep and the ‘honk’ of the geese as they fly over each evening:

One of the advantages of living in a lovely sleepy town is that not a lot happens. Some might say that’s a bad thing, but I get my kicks when I’m in London.

Two news items that caught my eye recently were these:

‘Dorking restaurant manager risks life to stop death plunge‘

Clearly an incredibly selfless act on the part of a restaurant manager who came to the rescue of an alledgedly suicidal but definitely drunk, drunk. Hats off to Jalal Shamsuddin of Zafron who’s heroics must have been an automated response, given how scary he described the situation!

Secondly, this, which looked more exciting on the newsboard in the High Street and a far more tenuous link to Dorking when you read the article (I was envisaging a cameraman finding Big Foot on Box Hill, but no:

and here is the story which turns out to be a Dorking-based cameraman making the BBC documentary about ‘Ida’ the a fossil discovered in Germany that is the most complete early primate skeleton ever found. This was a big hush hush news story and a cast of the fossil has now rocked-up at the Natural History Museum, London.

They really do try quite hard to make exciting for us Dorkinians….is that what we call ourselves by the way?

Homemade icecream has always been something I’d like to do. We’ve made sorbet before using the plums from a garden tree, but it didn’t involve any churning, so it had the wrong texture.

This week we’ve added to our Major portfolio and now have the ice-cream maker and the multi-mill for grinding coffee beans, spices and all manner of fiddly stuff. I was a little wonder-some about why the icecream-maker cost £50, but I think its a nice addition, particularly if I can design recipes that are much less indulgent than this:

Blueberry Ice-cream Recipe

200ml of double cream (bad start)
70g of caster sugar (gosh, does that all really go into lil'ole icecream
400g of blended blueberries (ahh antioxidants, and fruit, thank goodness)
juice of half a lemon
and...that's it

I made sure the mix was cool before putting the Major onto its slowest setting with the pre-frozen bowl (24hrs in the freezer) and the churner assembled and spinning. Then left it to gently churn for 20 minutes before I scooped it out and into some ramekins and the rest for the freezer. Here is the churning process:

And the final result, ready to go:

It seems to have frozen well and I can provide some assurance that it was delicious. The flavour was delicate and not too sweet, and the texture was particularly light.

I better start looking into frozen yoghurt recipes…!

I am a bit of a beading fan and today was time for some indulgence at the Bead Fair held at Dorking Halls. I strolled over there and nabbed some photographs to show you - a veritable feast for the eyes (and the wallet):

I picked up some bargains for a couple of projects I have in mind. Some 6mm onyx, hematite, dalmation jasper, moonstone and lava.

Have a decent sized patio means that we can grow veg and herbs close to the kitchen and do as much as possible to protect them from the wildlife that are intent on chewing their way through anything. Here are 2009’s attempts at a laughably self-sustainable existence!:

This is my first crop of mint leaves, washed and ready for the refrigerator (macro 100mm F2.8 lens). We plan to make some mint ice-cream or perhaps a pair of mojitos.

This year I have bought a proper tomato plant support which will avoid elaborate wiring of the tomato this year. Gone for just one in the grow-bag, next to the aubergine plant. Last year only one of the three tomato varieties consistently provided tomatoes you’d want to consume.

This is our first attempt at growing aubergine, beetroot and courgette , I don’t know what to expect. Anyone else done it?

Progress reports in a few weeks.

Mint Crisp MacroOriginally uploaded by Yppop

I got in trouble with the husband for spending time taking photographs of this carefully engineering chocolate bar, instead of checking into a hotel in Hobart.

Isn’t it well designed? Shame about the lame chocolate around the blue tubes of minty crispness…

Weetabix are different in Australia

Originally uploaded by Yppop

These brekkie blocks were not quite the same as at home and were made from bigger flakes and had the tendancy to go soggy faster. But still it was good to see something familar on the other side of the planet.

Coffee Swirl that didn’t taste of coffee

Originally uploaded by Yppop

From the slice of Australian life that we saw, it would seem that bakeries are beating the recession. There seemed to be proportionally fewer chain stores over their compared to the UK. Certainly each town has an independent bakery or several and they are fully of goodies that you don’t see in the UK.

To the right I demonstrate the ‘____ swirl’, which to be frank didn’t taste AT ALL of coffee and was really a current bun with some coloured icing on top.

Then there was the Kiss Biscuit - a sandwich of buttery lightness containing butter cream and usually covered in hundreds and thousands. My friend Clare, who is an honorary Tassie tells me that they like to put 100s and 1000s on lots of things, including toast as a treat for the kids.

Lastly another bakery rule: all doughnuts must be cinnamon sugar coated…not plain. Despite my general hatred of cinnamon, these were so subtle, it was great. Maybe one day I’ll wean myself on to cinnamon properly…but I suspect doughnuts is a high risk methodology!

Fruit Pavlova

Originally uploaded by Yppop

This really is just a reminder to myself to remember to make a pavlova. It was so light, it almost seemed healthy…yeah right!

Chocolate Brownie in Max Brenner, Manly, nr Sydney

Originally uploaded by Yppop

In reading the generally lame Australia Rough Guide book, we did come across a trend that doesn’t seem to have caught on in the UK…yet. Chocolate Cafes.

Max Brenner looks like its done Australia and a bit of Asia and is now working on conquering the US. Before long we will see it in the UK, no doubt.

As you can see from this chocolate brownie, it looks gorgeous and humongously indulgent and it really really was.

The thing I loved about being there was a group of about 6 nuns, wearing white (rather than black) cassocks ordering things of a chocolatey nature! Very brave I thought…until I saw their special matching invisible white tabard to protect their white pureness. Rubbish!