I'm suppose to look puzzled, not angry!

About Me

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I have a book to publish. Editors love it, marketing departments say 'up the media profile'. So here I am 'upping it' and writing about the book, food, and life in general.

Wednesday 31 October 2012

Goodbye Lifebites. Hello gillwatson.co.uk

It's time to move over to http://www.gillwatson.co.uk/blog/ .  Please be very lovely and add your e mail address to follow me because I'm not allowed to transfer you over myself.

Before I go I thought I should mention that Prue Leith said my book, EATING MY WORDS sounds brilliant and she has agreed to take a look at it.  Hopefully she will feel compelled to give it an endorsement.

One reason I am so keen on Prue is that she heads all sorts of charities and committees to encourage better school meals for kids.  As you all know I've been working with Grassroots to try to somehow get food into schools to supplement packed lunches.  There are too many kids arriving at school with nothing more than a slice of bread or a couple of biscuits to eat.

What we really need is a campaign for FREE SCHOOL MEALS FOR ALL CHILDREN.

I have a dream of Prue heading my campaign.  She could call on TV bosses to ban all food programmes on television until governement policy is changed to give all our children  free school lunches.

Before I go, I'll leave you with the photos I took in Burnley Tesco's the other night.  This is just part of the food in the bakery section that's dumped every night.  Bread, pastries, cakes.  They can't even use it for animal feed anymore just in case a horse throws up and Tesco are sued.

I think it's time for a change here.  All this could have been put in the school freezer for the starving school kids.



Saturday 20 October 2012

Time to be nice . . .


Cleaning products in the loos

Clean carpets
Cute handwipes
So, after the troubles with La Laconda (please read the comments from the chef and the happy customer) it's time to give my new review of Shanghai.  It closed for nearly two weeks for re-painting and carpet cleaning after my 'Clean it up!' Tripadvisor review.  It's now spotless and the carpets no longer look like animals had been bedding down on them for the winter (as one Tripadvisor reviewer commented).  We visited for Joe's 7th birthday and took the Be-Ro milk chocoate cake which Joe had made with big sister Zoe.  I had tried to convince him that a character cake from Tesco was a good idea but he was having none of it.  The Be-Ro cake is the only one he will eat.  I will post the recipe at a later date.

As usual we were running late which meant that the cake was still slightly warm when I sandwiched it together with whipped cream.  All was well until we arrived at the restaurant and suddenly the cream turned to milk, poured out of the cake and threatened to ruin  the newly cleaned carpets.  There were international screams of distress and much running for wet cloths. A tray was found and the carpets and day were saved.


Not so happy cake

The usual



S&S pork

Paper beef, fried noodles with beansprouts





















We ate all the usual suspects - spring rolls, prawn toast, satay chicken, honey ribs, seaweed, wontons, chicken lettuce wrap, crispy duck.  Then paper beef, sweet and sour pork, noodles with beansprouts and lots of Neil Joubert chenin blanc.  Everything was great.

But then, on my way to pay the bill, I found the staff eating lobster, baked white fish (looked like a big bream) steamed dim sum and my favourite Chinese spinach.  "I want lobster!  I want spinach!"  I cried.

"Come, take chopsticks, eat with us" said the lovely lady.  I didn't.  I was as good as gold and left those chopsticks where they lay.  But once upon a time (about 4 years ago) there was an a la carte menu at Shanghai offered in addition to the £12.50 order-all-you-like menu.  This menu featured such delights as the lobster with ginger and garlic.  We even spent Christmas day there once dining on the eleven course banquet until Grandpa Louis fell asleep at the table and we had to take him home.

"Come. Take chopsticks.  Eat with us."

My favourite Chinese spinach with chilli and garlic

Lobster left-overs

So, a great night BUT we were the only people there.   PLEASE all you Brierfield locals, give Shanghai another chance.  It's clean, it's friendly, the food is great and the wine crisp and cold.  What more could you want?

We left a bit of a mess by the way . . .
PS  There may be another long break from blogging as I try to set up my new website.  At the moment I'm having a bit of trouble downloading pictures but when it's sorted we will be moving across to www.gillwatson.co.uk.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Murder, gay telly and spitting. How do such searchwords lead to my blog?

Murder?  Gay telly?  Spitting?

It's all very odd.  The last search of note which directed someone through Google to my blog was 'Gay arab searches sex on Edgware Road'.  That lead some poor sod to my post, Edgware Rd edibles and the time we mistook someone's garden for a restaurant.


This week we have the above selection.  Who has Johnnie Mountain supposedly murdered?  And why would anyone think my friend Fernando (of The Ivy and the Hotel Inspector) was gay?

But most random of all is 'spitting'.  No matter how I try I cannot fathom how someone would be directed to my blog after putting 'spitting' into a search engine.