Yearly Archives: 2006

Tonight I was at a loss as to what to have for dinner. I’ve had these Quorn balls in the freezer for ages and I keep meaning to use them for something, so now seemed the ideal time.

With only half a plan in my head I placed six balls in a bowl in the microwave, with some sweet and spicey rice in its packet beside the bowl. This gave me three or so minutes to conjure up some kind of sauce to add to the above.

Raiding the cupboard, I made myself a concoction of random amounts of ketchup, mustard, mayonaise, vinegar and, after tasting, some honey to try and rescue the situation. If I’m being honest, it didn’t quite end up as tasty as I’d imagined it would do, so the honey was an attempt at sweetening up the brown gloop before me.

The balls and rice were ready now, so I stuck the sauce in the microwave for a minute while I neatly arranged the quorn balls on the bed of sweet and spicey rice. Not quite sure why I allowed myself to get ahead of things at this point, but in those Jamie Oliver adverts he always seems to be throwing any old shit together and conjuring up wonderful meals, so I was kind of looking forward to eating my dish in the same way Jamie’s hipster friends must do.

With a ding the super foxy sauce was ready and I poured it directly onto the meatballs. It was a little thicker than I’d hoped for, but I knew the milk was on the turn so I had nothing to thin it with. Besides, I was hungry – time for my tastebuds to take the super foxy fork ride to heaven.

Well, I thought, this is promising – couple of mouthfuls in and I haven’t yet gagged. Sadly, the gagging would arrive at the same time as the fourth meatball. I misguidedly opined that there was no way it could be the super foxy sauce. I was simply guzzling and eating more slowly would cure that.

On Saturday there, I went into Liverpool to meet Graeme, Lisa, and Simon to watch the football and have a few drinks. We started off at a shady old man’s pub for a quick one, before heading down to a new-ish sports bar in the regenerated area of the town center.

The sports bar was very similar to the one I frequent in London with Cousin Iain, so I think it’s part of the same franchise. Anyhow, it was mega crowded – leading to immediate thoughts that we’d be better served elsewhere. Literally – it took Simon a good ten minutes to get the first round in and he’s not the kind of person who goes unnoticed at the bar.

Graeme, Lisa and Simon headed off to find somewhere quieter, while I opted to hang around with oirish Gavin who we’d met there. As Simon had noted, it actually was a good atmosphere for watching football, but after they’d left the place continued to get more crowded and I was glad to go and join the rest of the gang in a quieter pub at half time in the match.

The match over and done with we went to Pizza Express for some very tasty pizza’s and a couple of bottles of surprisingly good house white. We were in the restaurant for quite some time, finishing off the wine, so when we left Simon decided to call it a day, while the rest of us went off to meet Gavin in Flanigan’s Apple. We had one drink there, before heading to a bar called Revolution, a trendy new-ish place that replaced the previously trendy Bluu Bar, to meet Tom.

It was quite a nice place and we got a seat around a table after not too long, which kind of camped us there for the rest of the evening. Truth being told, I had probably had enough to drink by the time we got there, so several hours later when we left I was pretty well sloshed. Graeme and Lisa left at that point and I headed off with Gavin, who had offered to put me up for the night to save me an expensive trip home.