For the past few days I’ve been holed up in bed with the “lurgie” (a tummy bug).
In a reversal of roles, Meredith has been cooking and caring (she was ill first)–serving up simple, delicious, restorative vegetable soup and scrambled eggs.
Yesterday I had stomach enough to read a brilliant piece in The Observer newspaper by food writer Jay Rayner challenging people’s reluctance to give a second try to food they have detested eating (or in my case, the thought of eating)–tripe for instance.
It transported me back nearly 35 years to Madrid.
Angharad and I were in Spain to promote Poldark, which was proving enormously popular there.
At that time there were only two TV channels–and the other one was devoted to parliamentary debates.
The visit was an extraordinary experience.
Two thousand plus fans at the airport to welcome us. We were mobbed everywhere we went–it felt momentarily like being a Beatle. (Nobody waiting for us at Heathrow on our return, however….)
Years before Angharad had spent some months in the city au pairing for the family of a well known psychiatrist–a friend and professional colleague of her father Professor Lynford Rees.
Her return had a particular resonance for her and the Spanish family.
To celebrate, they threw a lunch party for us at their home.
It was a moment of peace, an escape from the craziness of the celebrity culture that was new to me and which I was finding both exciting and at times hard to handle.
(At one point, the tabloid johnnies were crowding me with questions about how it was that at the age of 35 I wasn’t married. Angharad–sensing the danger of an explosion–whispered in my ear, “Smile, Robin, for heaven’s sake, SMILE!”.
The party was delightful, of course, except for one detail: The main dish was tripe in tomato sauce.
Photo found on the Internet–but strongly resembling the dreaded dish.
Tripe, I’m told, is a delicacy in Spain–and cooked by an expert (I have to take Jay Rayner’s word for it) it’s delicious.
I eat most things–growing up in the fifties, fussiness about food was not encouraged in our house. The starving children in India featured often at meal times when a reluctance to polish off the last crumb was shown. My mother never tried tripe on us though.
I remember looking down at the plate I’d been offered and after a moment mastering feelings of politeness, guilt and hunger, turning discreetly away from the crowd and parking the plate of offal, untried, behind a palm tree.
There have been moments since–in Florence for example where street stalls selling steaming piles of tripe are a regular sight–when I have thought about giving it a second try. So far I have managed to resist the temptation.
Anyone else willing to own up to a food phobia?
Robin Ellis 
Beetroot ! Without a doubt even if it served with a salad I would not be able to eat anything else on the plate & was once served a cold beetroot soup at a very posh dinner party and felt all eyes were on me !! but I could not touch it for any price . Thanks Robin love following your posts
Thanks, Fiona–for coming clean!
You’ve opened a Pandora’s Box with this question, Robin! A clash of cultures occurred when I married my California Mexican (the one who tried unsuccessfully for years to get me to call him “El Darko – the Mexican Poldark”) in 1989. One of his favorite dishes his mother made for him on his birthday each year – Lengua el mole. (Cow’s tongue). This woman from Iowa knew there was only ONE place for a cow’s tongue and THAT was in a cow’s mouth, and NOT on a dinner plate on the table. Sad to say, I have never and most like WILL never be able to conquer my abject FEAR and LOATHING for this one dish that makes him remember his dear mother. I’ve tried, honestly I have, but the closest I have ever gotten is placing the dreaded object in my shopping cart, which at last rememberance was abandoned somewhere in the frozen food aisle as I ran trembling for the door!!
Wow Maureen! Great story. The strange thing is that Meredith told me a few minutes after I posted that her mother once served tongue for dinner and she found it revolting and never forgot it. My mother served cold tongue to back up (eak out) the ham! I got to like it with Colman’s English Mustard (hot).
I’m still chuckling at Maureen’s response. I used to enjoy eating tripe in Hong Kong when I lived there (the Chinese can make anything taste good!). That is, until I found out what it was. When in Asia, it is sometimes best not to ask.
Personally, I hate escargot. I think it has to do with having grown up in the state of Washington where slugs and snails abound. (When I was a child, my dad stepped on a slug outside in his socks and I can still hear his tortured howl today!) Anyway, many years later, a girlfriend held a dinner party for me, which was wonderful of her to do. But wouldn’t you know it, the first course was escargot! I thought to myself, oh no—now you’re done. You’re going to have to eat it. I scooped one out of the shell. OMG it looked disgusting. I put it in my mouth. I thought maybe I could swallow it without really chewing. But I just couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t go down. So when no one was looking I pretended to cough into my napkin, depositing the snail inside it. Then underneath the table I transferred it to my husband’s pocket! Fortunately for me, he was sitting beside me. I coughed all through the first course, but miraculously recovered in time for the rest of the meal! My husband later visited the powder room where he flushed them down the toilet. And we’re still married. 🙂
Tripe is well named, looks like something the cat threw up! Have never eaten it and never will no matter how they “tart” it up! 🙂
Meredith is a Midwestern gal like me. We KNOW what the cows did with those things! HA!
Robin I am with you on this – tripe NO THANK YOU, when I was a child and , my father was very ill my mother cooked him tripe in milk,I can still her face she hated doing it,but she had been told that it would be good for him.Years later she told me that it was only the fact that she loved him that got her through.
Get well soon Robin,you are in good hands.
Clams and oysters. Don’t tell me they’re delicious…..I’ve attained the age of 73 without eating one and I’m not going to blaze any new trails now.
I’ve had tongue served as a luncheon meat, I’ve had calves brains, scrambled with eggs, and sheep’s lung cooked in some kind of vinegar sauce. My parents were from Austria, and apparently, they ate all parts of the animal due to bad economic times. Nope, not any more. I must tell you everytime I see a picture from Poldark, I smile.
SWEETBREADS! A first date many decades ago took me to a posh French restaurant. I ordered the something that I thought was veal. I’m sorry, all you excellent French cooks, but it was REVOLTING. I also shy away from Liver, but I love liverwurst… Go figure!
Nancy N
Hullo, 5th Beatle Robin!
I started to laugh when I read your post, remembering our last trip to Poland. Some of our relatives live very modest lives, close to the land, you might say. So we really appreciated all the effort they put into this HUGE feast they had spread out before us–traditional Polish foods for us and other relatives who had come from near & far to see the “American cousins.”
One of the foods we did not recognize, however, was a brothy soup–delicious at first taste–until the bits of “vegetable” started rising to the top: flimsy and white, nothing we could identify. I thought perhaps mushrooms?? Then I noticed Gene put his spoon down, smile politely, and I took his cue! Neither one of us was certain, but it looked awfully like the picture at the top of your post!
The other thing we tried, at the urging of our lovely hostess at a B&B in Scotland, was blood sausage. She, too, cooked up a storm just for us, and I was nearly done eating my unusual but tasty breakfast…”What is this called?” I foolishly asked…..Then remembered patting the cows & animals in the yard and THAT was THAT!!
Last one: Back in his army days, Gene was eating very delicious “mushrooms” on the island of Rhodes when he noticed his army buddy sitting across from him “turning green.” Flipping the mushroom over, it looked like a miniature brain. And someone reluctantly told him that they were, indeed, calves brains! He couldn’t take another bite for all the money in the world!!!
How ’bout les cuisses de grenouilles???
My Polish father made tripe and I loved because I never knew at first what it was! Even though I know now and have made it myself I like it! If it is prepared right it is a wonderful Polish hearty soup. I also love tongue, beetroot and lots of other food items. The only thing I just could not eat was when a once boyfriend long ago took me to a very special Yugoslavian restaurant. He had made special reservations months ahead for a fetal pig served on a bed or cabbage. I know I insulted him and the chef but I just could not even look at that dish. Needless to say our relationship did not lead anywhere it ended after that event. 🙂 Food makes the world go round! 🙂 Karola
Loved Poldark! watched when it aired and just recently watched it again.
Fetal pig–oh dear!
Snails. I know they are a delicacy, but I just can’t help thinking about the slimy trails they leave all over the garden. And octopus ink. No thank you. When I was about 12 I was out to lunch with my mom, She had a tongue sandwich, I had a stuffed tomato. I got the best!
I love tripe,especially trip and onions in a white sauce with mashed potatoes and peas.Can’t stand curry or the smell
Well, I agree with yours, Robin!! I could never get past the idea of eating entrails of any sort.
Glad to own up to my own, especially since I share it with you!! Could never get nerve enough to try calves’ brains or sweet breads (pancreas!! Ugh!!) either!!
So, there you are: a confession!
Best wishes to you. I enjoy your cooking website. You’re quite a chef!. Poldark still remains my all time favorite series!!
Lea Frey Los Gatos, CA.
What memories! My Granny just adored tripe with onions in white sauce; my mother tolerated it and would cook it for Gran in her later years, but ‘Yours Truly” just could not get past the looking and saying Yuk. I love kidneys, brains and liver but tripe, never in a million years, even if I was starving.
My mother in law used to make “Potted meat” using tongue and other assorted goodies and it was quite delicious but I always thought of it as poor man’s food. I insisted that we were not that poor. Anyway they have all passed on now and I will never feel obliged to cook and eat such things.
Helen (from Australia)
I was raised near Chicago, but my family is from Kentucky, and there are some “delicacies” of that region I can’t bring myself to try, such as Raccoon or Squirrel meat. But the most repulsive to me is Hog Brains or feet. Um, no…just no. 😦
Oh, yes, dear Robin. For me it was French grenouilles. I still remember my “experience” as if it was yesterday… I was at a boarding school my parents living about 500 km away. To-ing and fro-ing to go home I used to lose two precious days. That year with Christmas approaching I was invited to stay at school with other girls whose parents were in Indo-China or Algeria. “Stay with us, Odette. This Christmas we’ll have les grenouilles vertes, Le recolte sera merveilleux…” A resident teacher was telling me. Well, you have no idea how quickly this youngster has packed her bag with her most sincere apologies…
Je suis tout a fait desolee to know that you aren’t well. First it was Meredith and now is your turn. It’s a small wonder with Autumn in Tarn and the weather being so temperamental. I wish you both to get well quickly….
I have eaten tripe: in Florence, Cluj (Romania) and Porto, and each time it was flavoured with garlic so tasted fine. I eat haggis, so it didn’t seem logical to shirk the local delicacy. However, my stomach rebelled afterwards on each occasion, but that could be coincidence. I’m not bold enough to repeat the experiment soon though.
I ate tripe in tomato sauce in Rome, or I should say I tried to eat tripe in tomato sauce – horrid. Only managed about 2 mouthfuls.
My grandmother used to eat it regularly, soaked in malt vinegar. I can still see it on the plate in my mind.
Well, I am not fond of entrails of any kind but “Trippa alla Romana” very well cleaned, the softer part especially =cuffia, cooked with tomato, Roman mint =mentuccia and some peperoncino=chilly pepper and parmesan on the top is really delicious and it is a so traditional dish in Rome. I eat it sometimes and I find its taste delicate.
On the other hand what I tried to eat many years ago, 1985 New Year’s Eve dinner in Alpe di Siusi, a well known Italian location for skiing, at the presence of some European diplomatics and officers, was rice cooked with kidneys =risotto al rognone. I had read it on the menu and had said to myself to not be fussy. But when I put the first bite into my mouth the first reaction was to run away to the toilet and throw it out. Being embarassed in front of the above people and some family, I had just a few seconds to think what to do best and then…I swallowed down. I left the rest on my plate of course…..
Robin! Yesterday I finally received the book I had ordered, “The Making of Poldark”, so after having watched all the episodes after…..36 years!!! now I can read also your book and keep it to be signed….
Take care and I wish a soon recover.
Paola
Great kidney story, Paola. Hope you enjoy the book…
I love this post & the subsequent discussions! Everyone seems to have offal in common…I wouldn’t choose it, but could eat it & sweetbreads are delicious…no, my own bête noire is far more mundane & one I know you will shake your head at with incredulous disbelief. Eggs. Or ‘devil’s orbs’ as I have named them. I’m not allergic, & am fine if they are an ingredient in cakes etc. But as the ‘star’…no no no. Nothing makes me feel sicker than seeing someone dip asparagus or toast into a runny yolk. Fried, poached, boiled, scrambled…well, scrambled egg would GIVE me a tummy upset, not help to cure me!! How ridiculous, I know. Egg sandwiches I find particularly hard to understand!! I do, though, try them every year in some form…as Jay Rayner says, you never know. But for the past 47 years, the answer has been & I suspect will remain….NO!! Hope you continue to recover quickly…hope we have given you a bit of a laugh, anyway…the best medicine! X
Gosh, Rachel–eggs are a good standby for lunch for us. I wonder why you hate ’em so–undercooked and runny when you were young? Nigel Slater shares your feeling I think. Yes the collection of stories grows by the hour and each a tonic. Sweetbreads though—ugh!
I was in a Tapas Bar in Madrid and ordered a selection of dishes, including what I thought was pasta tubes in tomato sauce, but it turned out to be tripe in tomato sauce. It has a unique and unforgettable taste! The barista was not sympathetic and I haven’t been tempted to try it again!
Get Well Soon to you and Meredith! When I was a child, I used to eat tripe . If I remember right, it didn’t taste of much. Normally, I try any food I’m given even snails once in the South of Spain. I wasn’t keen on them but as my friends had gone to a lot of trouble picking them up from the path and cooking them in a big pot, I thought it would be rude not to try..
Thanks, Heidi.
Hope those snails were well cleaned!
My mother was a true Manx woman she adored tripe and onion soaked in vinegar. I have to say she was the only one in the family !, another delicacy she loved was a roll mop herring and of course the liver and onion it’s NO wonder I have been a vegetarian since a youth !!
Funny! I like roll mop herring. Liver and onion-umph–well the liver has to be cooked fast and quick!
Ugh to all hope you are well now take care Deborah
Forgot to say hope you are feeling much better now Robin.
I think I will pass on all of the above mentioned thank you! YUCK!!!
Headcheese. OMG, my parents loved it, and you couldn’t have paid me enough to eat it. Just the thought of it gives me a stomach ache.
WHAT is headcheese!?
A great post. Strange how many of us have the same reservations when it comes to food.
In France headcheese is called “museau”. It is made from the meat of the head of the animal and is sold in small pieces in little trays at the butcher. It doesn’t look at all appetising and is definitely one of the things I would never eat.
In my book headcheese is right up there with tripe, eel, and the unmentionable small critters in shells that play havoc with the garden.
Give me one of Robin’s lovely recipes any day … but without the anchovies
I hope you are feeling better Robin
Thanks Tina–small trays of unamusing museau to be avoided.
I can’t even stand the WORD headcheese! It’s all the scrapes of the pig in some sort of clear gelatin! Gross!
I don’t think I’ll be being adventurous with that!
Speedy recovery!
I always couldn’t even stand to look at tongue, and anchovies are not my favorite, in any recipe.
Great story, and it is so hard to be polite when you are revolted by the sight of the food, isn’t it?
Hope you’re feeling better, Robin. 🙂
On my way–thanks Charlotte.
My submission is also: Tripe! My first and only encounter with the stuff was at a London playhouse in 1977. Onstage, the characters were hawking tripe and randomly tossing slabs into the audience. I narrowly missed being triped!
I recently found your blog, Robin, while wandering all things Poldark online. I, too, had found myself transported back almost 35 years through interesting coincidence. This past summer was a time of reminiscence amongst remaining women friends who had been part of the clan of Poldark. Back in 1975, ladies of all ages gathered in the small living room of my family’s rustic summer mountain cabin near Yosemite to watch Poldark on the tiny screen of our old black and white TV. My mother, the instigator, had us all well-provisioned with popcorn, but the munching stopped as the first strains of the dramatic theme music sounded. I, in my late teens, was amongst the youngest of the women, but we were all equally smitten!
After telling the stories of the old Poldark times this past summer, I arrived home to city life in the fall. In the DVD section of my city’s library there is a bottom shelf along the perimeter that I had never explored because of the difficulty it presents. The shelf is less tall than a DVD, and so the videos have been shelved in such a way that one must crouch to the bottom and pull them out in order to read the title on the spine. My mother passed away several years ago, but she often “communicates” with me from the beyond. Standing in the “P” section of the DVD’s, I caught a glimpse of her elegant hand with its long, beautiful fingers, pointing to the bottom shelf. I listen well to mom, and so I crouched awkwardly to the floor and pulled a handful of DVD’s. There in my hand were the two volumes of 29 episodes of Poldark! Thanks, Mom!
I went on a two week Poldark binge, thoroughly enjoying the timeless story, (most of which I had not seen,) and the way it also connected me back to a very important time in my own life, surrounded in the mountains by a community of lovely women mostly now gone. I was distressed to learn how many of our beloved heroes and heroines have also passed on, too early, including our beautiful Angharad. I am sorry for the losses of your mates, Robin, but you still have Cap’n MacDonald to annoy you!
Long may you and Meredith live with great passions and good health. Thank you for reading my story of how your work(s) have touched my life. I am also a gardener and passionate cook. Keep posting your inventions with zucchini, because as we know, there is ample opportunity to manage the abundance!
Dear Keri–thanks for telling this story, it is touching. And thanks to your mother’s guiding hand too!
Our courgette plant still offers one every couple of days–hanging in there, like the rest of us!
my sister in law here in France brought us a bucket of snails once, and proceeded to feed them flour for several days until what came out the other end was perfectly white. This to her was evidence that they were now clean and could be cooked and eaten. But not by me, no way!
Oh, lots of stuff but one memory I have deeply imbedded is when I was around 9 or 10 and we went up to stay in my grandmother’s gentleman friend’s cabin on Lake Mille Lacs in upstate Minnesota. This was in the early ’60s, and I was shocked by the strange, low, rounded huts that were by the side of the road on the drive up there – Native Americans were living in them. One morning I came out and found Mr. Gentleman skinning a raccoon he had trapped and was throwing the insides into a bucket. I asked him what he was going to do with the ropes of intestines and other organs and he told me the Natives will come around and he would give it to them to eat. That trip was when I first realized what poverty really was – in our world. Might have been tasty eatin’ to the Native Americans but wouldn’t they rather have a hamburger?
Your post has for me resurrected a memory from long ago. I would never ever knowingly eat tripe – unthinkable!. BUT, on a trip through Italy back in the 70’s, my husband (who actually likes tripe) ordered soup for me in a restaurant there (I don’t understand Italian, so I relied on him to tell me what it was). Not until we were driving away from the restaurant did he burst out laughing and tell me that what I had eaten was soup made with tripe. Knowing my aversion to the stuff, he thought this deception was hilarious. Had he told me while I was eating it I wouldn’t have been able to take another bite, but since the tripe was already long gone I was able to keep my cool.
A much happier memory for me is enjoying Poldark when it first aired here, and, even sweeter, enjoying it again years later on video tapes from the library with my teenage daughter who fell in love with it every bit as much as I had. She has now named one of our cats Ross. Everyone who hears his name says, “Oh, Ross from ‘Friends’.” Nope, Ross Poldark.
Thanks for that Janice–“Husbands..!”.
Those that have dared, say tripe is far from–tripe!
It’s the look that’s difficult.
Glad your daughter likes Poldark…
Dear Robin still I could remember your trip to my country Spain, everybody here watched Poldark, me too but my wife Cuca was in love with Poldark as nearly all Spanish women by those time.
Cuca was 26 more or less but a sister of my mother who was 86 was in love with Poldark too, and my mother, my sisters, every girl or woman who watched the best tv.serial that we could see along time.
This year I could go to London, Cuca remains here in Madrid as she is ill with multiple esclerosis, another young woman from Lima was with her, and they watched Poldark again, the 10 DVD we have at home.
Isabel, which is the name of thei Peruvian woman was fascinated with Poldark now, as she didn´t see it on the 70 years.
Even more Cuca, my three daughters and me have read the books of Wiston Grahan more than three times, all the eight books in Spanish, it is a pity the other books are not translated to Spanish, I have them by kindle but still I haver read them.
Thanks dear Robin, you have done so great work that you were like a parte of our life, of our family.
I am like you 70 years old already, but I can´t forget your Poldark play. Great, nice, and I am going to read your book in English, why not in Spanish?. Here would be a best seller that´s for sure.
Tell me Robin how I cand send you the euros to get the book dedicated to Cuca my wife?, despite she didn´t know English, she only a little French, sure she like to have the book dedicated by POLDARK, incredible.
I like to have it also, plese tell me and I´ll send you the euros money or pay the book against reimbursement by mail.
Emiliano arribas perdiz
Av. Pedro Diez, 32 1ª C
28019 MADRID SPAIN
phone. 91 472 84 22
solosencasa@hotmail.com
emilianoarribas@gmail.com
http://gatufo.blogspot.com.es/
Thank you Emilianos for all your kind words and the recipe which I will find the translation for.
I am sorry to hear that Cuca suffers from MS; a very hard condition to live with.
I’m traveling now but I will send you a book signed for you and Cuca when I get back home.
Please give Cuca my very best wishes–and mine to you too, of course, from a seventy one year old to a seventy year old!
Dear Ellis, Thank you so much for your mail, it is really so nice from you to reply mine. Now that Cuca are at my side, 45 years together, we got married on 1970 I have translated your message to her. She is really happy listening to your words, it is true, we all here (my three daughters who read also the books, Cuca, and now Isabel the Peruvian woman who look after us, she help me from a year to look after Cuca as I was just a little overhelmed with so too much work) love Poldark and all the characters of the TV.BBC serie and the book. To us it is one of the best translation to the TV. from a serial of books, incredible good and even now time hasn´t pass over the TV serie. I have been reading about your life now Robin, sorry I was looking on facebook and could see you have also a health problem but you have written some books about cuisine, that´s really so good. The man who put his voice on your character of Poldark in Spanish has a very good voice a I think Demelza and you were really very well (I don´t know how to say in English) dramatized in Spanish. But even all characters of the Tv were very good done, Prudy, Painter, Elizabeth, all were incredible familars to us. Just a questinon, the the scar on your face was real?. It seems so.
Thanks so much dear Robin (our Poldark) and have in mind you have two friends in Madrid always, if you come here please phone me it would be like a dream to have Poldark at home in Madrid.
Cuca is going on despite her m.e., it is progresive but very slow, it was discover when she was 54 years old, what it is not frequently. She is the best woman I could find and her character it is very very good despite everything.
Again thank you so much and I hope to have news from my dear friend of 71 years, like me that will be 70 on 29th next november.
My best and a BIG THANKS FROM YOUR FRIENDS IN MADRID. Un abrazo. Cuca y emiliano.
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:26:14 +0000 To: solosencasa@hotmail.com
jUST A PHOTO OF THE THREE…..
THE CAT IS GATUFO, SO NICE CAT, IT IS MALE….
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:26:14 +0000 To: solosencasa@hotmail.com
thanks my dear POLDARK, Robin you are great here at home.
Dear Robin, what you eat were CALLOS A LA MADRILEÑA, it is a typical
dish from MADRID, I don´t like it despite I was born in Madrid.
Now it is not so frequently to eat this food.
It is bett the TORTILLA A LA ESPAÑOLA, hummmm nice
Good memory my friend.
Raspar los callos con un cuchillo y cortarlos en trozos. Ponerlos en agua junto con la mano de ternera. Frotarlos y cambiar el agua 2 ó 3 veces. Meterlos después en agua con un chorro de vinagre, unos trozos de limón y sal. Cuando queden blancos, volverlos a lavar varias veces, hasta que el agua salga completamente limpia.
Poner los callos, morros y mano de ternera cortados en trozos en la olla a presión, junto con una cabeza de ajo, una cebolla y la zanahoria troceadas, el laurel, unos granos de pimienta, sal Y 1/2 litro de agua. Tapar la olla, y cuando empiece a girar la válvula, dejar cocer durante 45 minutos. Cuando pierda la presión, abrirla.
Echar en una cacerola 4 ó 5 cucharadas de aceite y dorar 2 dientes de ajo y la cebolla picados, agregar la guindilla, el jamón, el chorizo y la morcilla troceados. Rehogar todo y añadir una cucharada de harina y otra de pimentón, remover y agregar algo de caldo de cocer los callos.
Pasar los callos, la mano y los morros a una cazuela de barro. Echar por encima el refrito que acabas de preparar y cubrir todo con caldo de cocer los callos. Meter la cazuela en el horno, a temperatura media, durante 1 hora, para que se terminen de hacer. Rectificar la sazón y servir bien caliente.
Si quiere complementar más este plato, puede incorporarle en el último momento un bote de garbanzos cocidos
++++++
this is the receipt if you like to eat them again, they are very nice if they are
good cooked.
emiliano
I have been searching my tiny brain to recall what kind of food I despise. Sadly, I’ll eat anything, anywhere, anytime – and in vast quantities. But with the admission that some folks don’t like eggs (and, yes, Nigel Slater hated eggs as a youth – his father demanded that he eat them), I admit that I can’t stand: AVOCADOS! The first time I had them was as a young actress in New York City circa 1979 among a group of other actors on a rooftop somewhere in Greenwich Village. Happily, snaring a piece, I was horrified at its greasy texture and bland taste. I sat there stunned. To this day, I don’t know how I got that slice down. I tried it again ten years later at a restaurant at the Jersey Shore and had the same awful reaction. Weirdly, I will try a guacamole dish – but it’s avocado tricked out into something else, isn’t it?
Robin, my husband, a Diabetic Type 2 type, has discovered your wonderful website. Tonight it’s monkfish for 2!
So happy you happened on the site, Maire–bon appetite and welcome!