Cow and Plough, Oadby



Cow & Plough

I was meeting my Tea Circle friends (TCFs), who 16 years ago I’d met through ante-natal classes.  The venue was the Cow and Plough at Stoughton Park, very appropriate as in our yummy mummy days we were all season ticket holders to what was then a lovely farm park.



Lovely lighting for the middle-aged complexion

What used to be the farm park café where we’d drank  coffee and kept our toddlers happy with cheesey wotsits has now been transformed from a barn like building into a lovely restaurant, with lots of wood panelling, antique furniture and beams wrapped round with fairly lights. Tables were candle-lit and we sat at nicely upholstered dining chairs.  It was nowhere near full on a Thursday night, but the atmosphere was good and on a gloomy September evening we appreciated the fact the heating was on, music was playing in the background AND the lighting was just right: dim without being gloomy which suits the middle-aged complexion perfectly. It did not suit the menu-reading though.  The reading glasses came out and the one TCF who had resisted them experienced a eureka moment as she borrowed a pair. 

It was pie night and after a glance at the main menu, which did look lovely, we decided pies it had to be.  What a decision: fish pie; beef and ale, chicken and mushroom, cottage and a veggie option.  And to have chips or mash?  Thursday Pie Night also meant we were getting a bargain two pies for £16.00.    On arrival we’d been asked what drinks we'd like and I had the usual old faithful’s, a big glass of cool Sauvignon Blanc followed by a Merlot to go with the beef and ale pie I’d decided on.

The pie was delicious and just the comfort food I never get around to making at home, with chunks of tender beef in a rich gravy encased in lots of crusty but light pastry with a cloud of mash and a few carrots, leeks and gravy.   

We reminisced some more about the old days, wondered if there was any way we’d be able to get the kids there to celebrate their 16^th birthdays and decided that although the spirit was willing the stomach was too full to cope with puddings.  Next time, next time…

http://www.steamin-billy.co.uk/cowplough/
The good: Catching up with the Tea Circle, the pies and the service.
The not so good: Knowing that reading glasses are now an essential item.
Go again: Definitely.  I want to try the non-pie menu.

Middle England Foodie Events

Pies at Melton Mowbray Food Festival

Food often gets mentioned in my blog posts as I love it.  It’s great to try out new, minimum fuss recipes and experiment with the odd new ingredient which can usually be found at the back of my fridge a year later. 

For ages, I’d been meaning to go to the BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham and last year managed a trip there and found it so disappointing. The exhibition hall was like an aircraft hanger full of people trying to sell olives, cheese and other bits but hardly anything I couldn’t have found in Sainsburys without being charged £20.00 for the privilege of trudging around the NEC - give me a farm shop or farmers market every time!

So this autumn, I've noticed that there are a lot more local outdoor foodie events to go to and I'm definitely going to try one or two of these.  If you do too, leave a comment.

Saturday, September 7, 2013
Weston & Weedon Food Fair, Northants
Due to be opened by Great British Menu’s Matthew Fort and with William Sitwell one of the writer’s for Waitrose Kitchen magazine there too – sounds good.
http://tastespice.co.uk/ai1ec_event/weston-weedon-food-fair/?instance_id=814

Saturday 14th September 2013
Rutland Food & Drink Festival

On the edge of beautiful Rutland Water, near Empingham. There’ll be cooking demonstrations from Rutland’s top chefs; a range of local foods to purchase; locally brewed beer to enjoy; live music and children’s activities.

September 21st - and 22nd 2013
The Great Taste Festival of Food and Drink, Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire

Plenty of food and drink stands as well as a live cookery theatre, special guests and bars and pop–up cafés. There will also be appearances by celebrity chefs offering advice, answering questions and signing
http://www.greatfoodmag.co.uk/all-star-cast-for-clumber-great-taste-festival/

Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th October 2013
Melton Mowbray Food Festival Held in the heart of pork-pie making land, Melton Mowbray is traditional market town set in the rolling Leicestershire countryside. There’ll be live food demonstrations in the Aga Rangemaster Cookery Theatre and activities going on in the Family Food and Fun Zone and of course lots of food and drink stalls.
http://meltonmowbrayfoodfestival.co.uk/

The Castle Cottage Café, Oakham, Rutland

A local's tip led me to this gem of a cafe.  I was in a brilliant clothes shop called the Attic (sadly now a pet shop) with DMAF and we were getting peckish (as is our way).  Luckily, the shop assistant recommended The Castle Cottage Café for lunch, which we'd never have found, being tucked back down a cobbled street near to the church and Oakham Castle.

It’s worth a trip to Oakham just to go to this café and I’ve been back a few times since my first visit and this time it was a sunny August day and just right to sit out in the gorgeous, shabby chic style garden.

I know, I know.  There’s only so much shabby chic a middle-aged woman can take, but this is the real deal of genuine vintage put together with thought and love.  It’s all cream painted picket fence; geraniums in buckets: ornately framed mirrors reflecting the garden back,  tables of all shapes and sizes, pretty cushions on slatted chairs, chandeliers, flowers and, of course, lashings of bunting.

Lashings of bunting 

What to choose for lunch is a dilemma.  The tian of layered smoked salmon, prawns and advocado with a lemon mayo looked beautiful but perhaps something more substantial was needed and both myself and DMAF opted for the Ploughmans Platter which seemed to suit the sunshiney day.

The good: The fabulous shabby-chic garden and imaginative, well-presented lunch-time food.

The not so good: One wasp!

Go again:  Definitely.  Sometimes the café does evening events and wine tastings.  Details on their website.

www.castlecottagecafe.co.uk

Botanic Gardens

DMAF and I arranged to catch up after her weekend away in Europe (far less middle aged than my local trips) and meet at Oadby’s Botanic Gardens.  Although the Botanic Gardens are fronted by the very busy A6, once you’re inside you feel you’re somewhere quite secluded and away from the city and we stroll along the pathways lined with borders of flowers and for those in the know, many of the plants and flowers are rare and specialist. 

Outside of term-time the 1920s house becomes a café with tables set out underneath the trees on the lawn and a pretty setting for our cappuccinos, with cakes, lunch and breakfast available depending on time of day.  

It all sounds rather sedate but an antidote to that is that you’ll be walking around the gardens and out of the blue see a pair of legs or an industrial sort of structure in the middle of a lawn as since 2002 the gardens have hosted an annual Sculpture in the Garden exhibition. 

Apparently, this year’s theme for the sculptures is ‘A Change of Heart’.  I researched this fact for you dear blog readers and must go back to the gardens to see if my middle-aged brain can make more of the sculptures with the theme in mind.

The good: The sculptures add more interest.

The not so good: Café only open for two months of the year (as the rest of the time the house is inhabited by students) so check if you’re planning a visit.

Go again : An easy convenient place to get to, plenty of on-street parking and would definitely go again particularly when the cafe is open.

University of Leicester Botanic Garden, Stoughton Drive South,Oadby, Leics.LE2 2NE
botanicgarden@le.ac.uk

A Midsummer's Night Dream at Leicester's Jewry Walls

Hope over experience, that’s what planning to do any outdoor event in Britain is, I’d thought looking out at the morning's torrential rain.  Tonight the plan was outdoor Shakespeare complete with picnic beforehand and on this occasion hope actually won as by 4 o’clock, it was all glorious sunshine. 

We arrived at The Jewry War Museum, Leicester, and found ourselves a sunny spot to picnic, keeping it simple with M&S deli items.  Bucks Fizz and Bellinis kept the mood buoyant and soon we were facing the outdoor stage in front of Leicester’s Roman walls.  The Festival Players had been performing my favourite Shakespeare play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ all over Britain, with Leicester the last but one stop, before appropriately enough Stratford.

A Festival Player

The Players enthusiasm and energy was brilliant and it was all quite mad featuring an all male cast, with  the actors playing three different roles each.  At one point the crazy costume changes meant that Hermia who was also a hairy-bellied Puck lost her wig, but this just added to the hilarity.  I’ve usually found the scenes with Bottom the funniest but here Helen (like Frankie Howard in drag) and Hermia with their tussling over love-interest Lysander, stole the show for me.

As twilight wrapped itself around us, watching the play here in Leicester's very unromantic city centre became strangely atmospheric with layers of Leicester all around us - St Nicholas Church with it’s Gothic graves silhouetted  in the setting sun,  behind that ‘Holy Bones’ and the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple and directly behind the stage the old, old walls of Roman public baths.

Midsummers Night Dream - magical as darkness fell 

The noise of pneumatic bus doors and screeching brakes kept it real while the odd bit of heckling from a passing drunk and revellers exiting the Arriva bus shouting ‘Behind you’, made it as traditional as Shakespeare’s day.  The cast coped well with a mock cross 'adieu' from Helen to the noisy hecklers.

The good : The sunshine, the picnic and The Festival Players were brilliant.

The not so good: We'd bagged seats near the front but others further back may have found it a bit difficult to hear due to passing traffic.

Go again: I’d definitely go to a performance by The Festival Players again and fancy Macbeth which The Players are performing next year.
www.thefestivalplayers.org.uk

Kelmarsh Hall, Northamptonshire

Kelmarsh Hall, Northamptonshire

Part of my writing this blog is to venture to new local places and so with my fellow intrepid  DMAF we went over the border into Northamptonshire the self-proclaimed  ‘Rose of the Shires’, and to Kelmarsh Hall.

Beautiful Borders

Pulling up on the car park my spirits sank slightly at the sight of a coach full of late-late middle-aged people, but on the advice of the lady selling tickets we went straight for the gardens while they stampeded to the tea-room to scoff cake.

Just the sort of gardens I love.  Not boring sweeps of green but lots of different areas and best of all old, old walls with borders deep as my whole garden, spilling out their flowers.  A little one-up-manship began with DMAF in naming flowers.  Agapanthus, Euphorbia,  Crocosmia, Echinacea….., we recited like middle-aged Hermiones from Harry Potter.

There’s something so evocative about a walled gardens – memories of reading The Secret Garden, Tom’s Midnight Garden, and so on and DMAF and I pondered the idea of my painting my garage wall with yoghurt to get a similar ancient effect but decided it was more likely to encourage unwelcome rodents rather than an aged patina and decided NO.

We’d escaped the coach party and decided tea and cake was now in order, but smelling something deliciously savoury and it being around lunchtime our plans changed and we decided on the home-made broad-bean, pea and courgette soup.

We waited and waited and still no soup.  After chasing up twice and with apologies and offer of a free drink the soup finally arrived.  The offer of free cappuccino  mollified our middle-aged irritation  and the  soup had us swooning with delight at how lovely it was with DMAF and I agreeing that soup was about the only thing that when well-made was both healthy and delicious and made even better as it came with lovely chunky bread and plenty of butter.

The good: Kelmarsh Gardens are beautiful with something for everyone – a woodland walk, fab borders with towering, dramatic plants, a lovely walled vegetable garden and lovely for lunch. 

The not so good: The wait for the soup, but what with the free coffee and the deliciousness of the soup, it was all good.

Go again – Definitely.  It’s worth looking at the events page of their website too as there are quite a few interesting talks, cookery demos, etc and my DMAF, hoping to find her inner artist, has signed up to an hours session of painting in the garden.
www.kelmarsh.com

Bradgate Park

Bradgate Park, Birthplace of Lady Jane Grey

Today, I’m at Bradgate Park with my friend from uni (FFU) who is a regular to the park and knows exactly where to park a car for free and to walk away from the main path which in the summer holidays is heaving  with prams, kids on trikes and excited dogs. 

Climbing uphill along a bridalway bordered with swathes of triffid like bracken, FFU's black lab sets a fast pace and soon we’re looking back down over the park.  In the distance are the ruins of Lady Jane Grey’s manor house, where local legend has it that the ghost of this Queen of England for nine short days appears on Christmas Eve.

Bradgate’s highest point ,‘Old John’, an ancient stone tower and significant landmark on the local skyline is still above us and a steepish climb is rewarded with sweeping views over four counties.  I've no idea where the name ‘Old John’ actually comes from, but as a child I remember we scared each other with the story of an old man called John who had lived in the tower and whose ghost would ‘get you and keep you there forever.'

Lunch is calling and we walk back down towards the ruins of the house where a tea-shop is also situated and then we spot deer that the park is famous for. 

Deer at Bradgate Park

It’s lovely to catch up with FFU and as usual we chat about work (or my lack of it at the moment); books we’ve read and films we’ve seen but her creeping towards middle-age has brought out a whole new dimension to her personality and she tells me three filthy jokes!   The fact she’s even remembered them  is deeply impressive.

Still giggling we put black lab on the lead and go for lunch at Jade Tearooms, bagging a table outside.  Jades is good whether you want coffee or lunch with lots of variety at a reasonable price and is much better for food than the tea-room in the park.  I choose a toasted sandwich filled with goats cheese and red pepper at a very reasonable £4.50.

The good: Walks through the rugged Charnwood Forest, having lunch at Jades, the jokes.

The not so good: Blister on my foot through wearing unsuitable footwear.

Go again :  Definitely.  It’s a park for all seasons, spectacular in the snow with a bowl of soup at Jades afterwards and lovely in the summer, big enough to avoid the crowds once you’re off the beaten track.
See http://www.bradgatepark.org/index.php?ID=1

Jade's Tea Rooms