Adventures all round

The start of my Miele kitchen...

Saturday I'm out so the man will go the market alone, armed only with a list, and hopefully remembering to wear his glasses. Almost always I make the decisions about what we'll eat for the week, I do ask if the man fancies something and make changes accordingly but on the day and at the market it's me taking the lead and my sweetpea helping. So for a change I will make a list that covers most of the week but will leave him to choose supper. Sunday I plan to have another go at tarka dal, rice and veg curry as it didn't happen last week. Monday I plan to retrieve the daube from the freezer and top it with cobbler and serve it with sprouts and carrots, which the man can enjoy again Tuesday as I am out learning to make scotch eggs. Wednesday we are out so Thursday I think beans and greens might be a treat.
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For reasons that didn't seem clear at the time I dragged myself out of bed at 6.30 Saturday morning to catch a train to Didcot. Miele had invited some food bloggers to come and play in their Experience Centre and I couldn't resist. They make lovely kitchen stuff that is so logical to use, the only downside of which is for a full fit out I'd probably need at least a reasonable lottery win. Just the one though as it's built to last.
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After a slow cold train I finally got there in time for the coffee demo - built in machines that make triple layered latté and great espresso at the press of a button. I only ever buy a coffee from a chain at the airport if we've an early flight and its horribleness invariably takes the edge off the excitement of going away. Tend to be hesitant about any coffee I don't know but this was good enough to have another. So I did, getting to press the button myself!
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Upstairs the group of bloggers - including Anne from Anne's Kitchen, Robyn from Source Cook Eat, Mimi from Meemalee's Kitchen, Carla who Can be bribed with food, Jennifer who runs chocolate ecstasy tours, poor thing(!) and the delightful Susanna from A Modern Mother, discovering she might like to be a food blogger rather than a parent blogger...
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We had a brilliant couple of hours split between four workstations, each with a different set up. One had a steel plate for the quick sealing of things like marinated prawns, another a salamander that you could set the level above the dish for perfect grill topped finish. My bench had a built in induction heated hollow for the wok which worked a treat for stirfry blackbean noodles. The next bench had a cast iron open grill that I would seriously love in my kitchen almost as much as I want a combination conventional/steam oven in which we roasted a whole chicken to moist fleshed crispy skinned perfection in little over an hour, another of our contributions to the huge feast we sat down to for lunch. Lots of largely food related chat over some well cooked food made for an interesting afternoon, before back to the station for trains back to London. Of course the first train was a slow train and would take longer than waiting half an hour for the fast train, so a swift half in the pub opposite seemed best.
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Home to find the man and tell him of my day. What delight to be presented with a lightly chilled fino to accompany thinly sliced smoked swordfish, the first of his Borough Market delights. There were some jalapeno stuffed olives, a current favourite while I chattered away about steam heat and moisture content how you can programme the coffee machine for nine different coffee drinkers...And then, joy of joy, there were fine little lamb chops to be grilled with new potatoes and both black and green kale for steaming and buttering. I love eating kale when I'm out, but I always baulk at the last minute before buying it myself. I love that his adventure shopping alone doesn't factor any of that in.
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And that there are still things to buy at Borough that we haven't tried and when we do they are sublime.