Cheeks and lips

I've had the week off work this week to celebrate both our anniversary and my birthday. Naturally for me this goes hand in hand with some decadent dining....and a few bottles of wine and a couple of martinis.

Have you ever sampled braised ox cheeks or tulips? These were just some of the delights on the tasting menu at Club Gascon. I know in these days of the credit crunch it's highly frowned upon to be splurging out on such extravagances at £75 per person (inclusive of wines), but I just felt the need.

Well, I can highly recommend it.....the menu is divine. Plus, a bonus of the credit crunch is that service in restaurants and shops seems to have gone up ten notches, so I don't resent that 12.5% service charge so much when the waiter genuinely seems to care about his product.

The Come Dine With Me Dream

We were watching Celebrity Come Dine with Me recently and that got us thinking about who we'd love to be dining with if one of us were a celebrity who'd been invited to feature on that show.

Obviously, the ideal fellow contestants are celebrities who are fun, have great conversation, who won't cause an argument and who can cook.

These are the four we were both in agreement on - yes, we know only one of us could be the fifith diner and neither of us are celebrities anyway, but this is just a game:

Stephen Fry - great wit, highly intelligent but not condescending, and we're sure he'd mix a fabulous cocktail.

Dolly Parton - witty, warm, charming, pre and post-dinner entertainment, boob jokes and great southern cooking.

Larry David - funny, potentially heated conversations - Charlotte always worries that she says the wrong thing, but he would undoubtedly eclipse any faux pas she might make, and he loves food even though he may well not be able to cook.

Sue Perkins - another hilarious wit and following her stint on The Supersizers Go, tasting the stomach-churning delicacies of times gone by we know that the foody conversations would be fascinating.

Let us know who you'd choose. We'd love to know.

Fancy a tipple and a dance?

Do you sometimes watch a film that has a bar or club scene in it and think "I would really like to go to that place!" I'm always doing it. Maybe it's because I like the demon juice too much or maybe it's because I'm always on the search for the perfect watering hole or place to dance. Here are some of my favourites:

The Kit Kat Club - Cabaret
Putting all that horrible pre-World War 2 Nazi business aside, the Kit Kat Klub looks like a great place to let loose and down a few. Liza with a Z performs nightly, exotic clientele rule the roost and wild horses would have a drag me away from wanting to get up on stage to do a turn. Willkommen, bienevue, welcome indeed!

Chez Lui - Victor/Victoria
Another bar which is as camp as a row of tents and has July Andrews doing drag! "When people speak of gay Paree,They think that when they say Paree is gay,They mean that gay Paree is gay!"Cabaret is provided by the insatiable Toddy who loves a warm hand on his entrance and greets his guests with equal aplomb "Thank you, thank you, you're most kind. In fact, you're every kind."

Odyssey 2001 - Saturday Night Fever
For the soundtrack and the fact that the dance floor has those flashing chequerboard lights.

Studio 54 - 54 and Last Days of Disco (loosely based)
The ultimate disco. Wall to wall celebrities (Truman Capote...check, Liza Minnelli...check, Debbie Harry...check, Any Warhol...check), fabulous music and probably the best fashion decade ever(1970's).

Coyote Ugly Saloon - Coyote Ugly
If only to dance on top of a burning bar in cowboy boots.

I am sure there are plenty more, but where would you like to go?

Hot sausage

The boys next door invited us to partake of their hot sausage last weekend. It was fat, juicy and delicious. We, in return, let them sample our marshmallows, which they found most moist and tempting to the tongue.

No, we were not engaging in some kind of sordid orgy, but rather sitting around a bonfire in the back garden roasting and toasting the above products. M and his partner D like nothing more than a good burn up, M being particularly adept at lighting a fire. Perhaps there was nothing else to do growing up in Poland in the 70's and 80's than to set fire to things?

Anyway, we tasted some lovely kielbasa, some vegetables cooked in a Dutch oven in the fire (cabbage of course, with it being a Polish party) and we provided the marshmallows. On D's recommendation we ate them between two 'wine biscuits'. No, we weren't too sure what he meant either, but it turned out that 'wine biscuits' is just a New Zealand word for rich tea biscuits.

Many people have questioned whether it is permitted to have a bonfire in the back garden, but our council states that it is ok as long as it isn't disturbing anyone. So seeing as the neighbours don't complain, we go ahead.

And I am sure the heat warms the cockles of the men 'cruising' in the woods at the back of our houses! Perhaps we should go with D's suggestion and open a tea stand at the end of the garden as well. Nothing like a bit of warm sustenance after being 'exposed' the elements!

Lesbeans

Beans are great. Which are your favourites?

French beans: Les beans, Charlotte's favourite.

Runner beans: a bit stringy and boring in my opinion and far too athletic-sounding.

Black beans: best known for that Chinese restaurant favourite black bean sauce.

Broad beans: these delecterble beans have another name. Click here to see what my alter ego (with a suitably foody name) has to say about them.

Butter beans: I love these - my favourite. Do them Greek style in tomato sauce and serve with stuffed vine leaves and tzatziki. Ambrosia.

Haricot beans: better known as baked beans; store cupboard essential. But don't buy Heinz.

Lesbean: a misspelling of the word that describes us Sapphic sisters.

Has bean: was a lesbean, but now prefers meat and two veg.

Says bean: says they like les beans but really they prefer les saucisson.