Regular readers will most likely know a handful of factoids about us WANF-ers and our proclivities, among them: one of us is English, the other Italian-American; we enjoy making a wide variety of dishes, many of which we’ve sampled on our travels; and we have a young child. The more perspicacious among you will notice one or more incompatibilities in the above, especially with regard to the child and love of travel. Upon our recent visit with our English family, these came home to roost and were amplified by an exquisitely-timed bout of gastrointestinal trauma. Not that this made for a disastrous visit – far from it, in fact – but it certainly hampered our ability to sample local specialties and, after having looked forward to the prospect of an honest pub lunch for around 18 months, it made such sampling as we were able to undertake an exercise in sweet frustration.

Perhaps ironically for someone from such a small country, my knowledge of its regions is slight. I blame this on the bourgeois attitudes of my parents as much as on two back-to-back dreadful, cold, wet and windy family vacations to Wales at the age of five and six which persuaded us to forsake the British Isles henceforth for the balmier climes of continental Europe. However, I credit these early trips to Europe with my passion for good food, having been introduced to Breton buckwheat gallettes stuffed with local wild asparagus and grey shrimp in cream sauce when, through the owner of the gite and local parish priest, Monsieur Fleury, we acquired a pile of them, freshly prepared by the gnarled mitts of one of his flock, an ancient black-garbed widow named Madame LaPorte. That I was immediately and completely terrified by the sight of this one-toothed old crone lest she put me in her cauldron yet volunteered to visit her again the next evening to collect some more (my first halting words of French having been “encore des gallettes, s’il vous plait!) speaks volumes about the transformative effect of good food.

So it was that when we joined my family – sister, her husband and kids, plus my Dad and my step-mother – in an old sandstone farmhouse in the Cotswolds this past week, my expectations for what would ensue were mixed at best, chiefly featuring chaos of screaming children chasing chickens interspersed with light showers worsening to daylong downpours and limited access to anything worth eating. I am pleased to report that I was simultaneously almost completely right and completely wrong.

If there is a golden triangle for food in the UK, it’s arguably centered on the Cotswolds – a region of bucolic rolling hills made up of portions of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and Somerset and bordered by some of the prettiest villages in neighboring Hereford & Worcestershire. For in these yellowish dry stone-walled fields are produced world-famous cheeses (single and double Gloucester, the original Cheddar, and Oxford Blue), some fine regional ales (Donnington’s, Flowers’), scrumptious ciders and perries, some of the UK’s best heritage breed pork (Gloucester Old Spot) and, believe it or not, a significant proportion of England’s “best” wines (a term I use advisedly, but in the knowledge that some 700 years ago, during the late Medieval warm period, English wines from this region were considered superior to their French counterparts. Thanks to my father for that priceless historical gem.)

Where we stayed, in the tiny hamlet of Hampen, one would have found it almost impossible to go hungry especially at this time of the year when nature is in a riot of growth provoked by 18 hours of daylight and regular gentle showers, and still-warm organic eggs, with yolks so rich they were almost red, showed up on our doorstep every morning. It was, therefore, a major disappointment when, laid low by a virulent stomach bug acquired somehow on the plane over, I was forced to do just that to avoid regurgitating these delicious vittles. Happily, in spite of my weakened condition, the spirit of those long ago days in Brittany prevailed and consecutive lunchtime visits to two of the Cotswolds’ finest pubs were enjoyed, if approached rather warily.

The Mount Inn overlooking the picturesque village of Stanton in Gloucestershire possesses one of the finest views of any pub in England. Taking in this charming vista over a pair of Donnington’s Ales and hearty servings of old spot sausages with cheddar mash and Hereford beef and suet pudding was a lunch to soothe the soul and calm the guts of even the most jaded traveler. Similarly, the Ebrington Arms in the eponymous Worcestershire hamlet lying just outside the county’s perennially best-kept village of Chipping Campden and adjacent to the fabulous gardens at Hidcote Manor, was a sight for sore eyes after half a week living on water and dry toast. Microbrews from nearby Stow-on-the-Wold helped down a wonderfully gamey pan-fried Gloucester old spot pork chop and a Ploughman’s platter featuring local ham, farmhouse cheddar and chicken liver terrine with a selection of house-made pickles.

Of course, these were just short breaks from the general pandemonium at the farmhouse where terrified chickens scattered in a harrumph of feathers at the gleeful charge of my three year old nephew and excited screams of “poo! Poo!” filled the air almost constantly. And sure, there were a good couple of days of cold and blustery rain that kept us frustratingly confined to quarters and encouraged breeching of the wine by late morning, but this was nothing to bear compared with the loss of appetite and downright fear of eating during those hellish first several days. If Beethoven’s personal purgatory was going deaf while conceiving his most brillaint compositions, then mine is almost certainly being physically unable to enjoy eating when surrounded by a veritable bounty.

We recently invited you to tell us what your top five flavors of potato crisps/chips are, and we were, frankly, amazed that so many of you did. Not only that, we were surprised by the variety of flavors you selected. It seems that there is a wide world of taste out there and we are not alone in our obsession with salty, potato snacks.

So, preamble over, because there were such great flavor suggestions, the decision was tough, and there are three categories: honorable mention, close but no cigar, and, the one, the only, the champion top five. Bear in mind that only the champion wins the package of British crisps.

Honorable Mention:
Joanne @ Frutta Della Passione
Heather @ Gild the Voodoolily
Melissa @ moe.org
and Fuji Mama

Close but No Cigar:
Maybelles Mom (solid flavor selections and the extra note about eating Lays while posting was a nice touch)

Champion Top Five:
Choosy Beggar Tina (exhibited good knowledge of British gourmet sandwiches with the “chippie” aka chip sarnie, aka chip barm, aka sandwich of french fries, to endear herself, and followed up with great overall choices, but the all important no. 1 choice – my all-time favorite flavor – salt & vinegar.)

1. Ketchup
2. Smoky Bacon
3. Old cheddar and red onion
4. Lime and black pepper
5. Sea salt and malt vinegar (kettle cooked, please!)

Congrats Tina, we’ll be in touch to arrange the crisp transaction very soon!

Those of you who have watched or read Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, will be familiar with the idea of top fives. In the movie, the main character (played by John Cusack) is a record shop owner, who spends most of the movie revisiting the demise of his past relationships, and in so doing, constantly re-imagines his top five break-up songs according to how each break-up made him feel. However, top fives are not limited to songs or relationships, you can have a top five anything: top five smells, top five colors, top five sneaker brands, top five breakfast foods, etc., anything at all.

There are only two rules to top fives: one, everyone’s top fives are different, i.e. there is no single right or wrong top five; and two, your own top five selection will almost certainly change over time, as Cusack’s did according to the particular break-up.

One top five that I spent much of my early twenties thinking about is my top five crisps, or potato chips. Much of this thinking was done in the pub because a) much of my social life was in the pub, and b) after a number of pints, one often finds oneself craving salty snacks. This craving led to the purchase of far too many bags of crisps in a variety of halitosis-inducing flavors, followed by lengthy arguments about their various merits.

The purists, and I happen to agree, would argue that you shouldn’t compare potato crisps with cheese puffs because the latter are made from corn. It would be like comparing dogs to cats. So rather than do a top five salty, packaged snack foods that are good with beer, this is simply a top-five potato crisp/chip flavors. Of course, this begs the question what my top five salty, packaged snack foods are, or if a better top five would be my top five cheesy corn snacks, but that would be another post, or number of other posts.

Please post your own top five potato chip/crisp flavors in the comments section with or

without lines of reasoning, because yours won’t be the same as mine, and my top five might even change if you suggest a flavor I’ve left out. It’s all very subjective, and, some may say, pointless, but I love top fives because they are a source of endless and purile debate, which in election season might just be the antidote you need.The “best” top five (selected according to how I’m feeling at the time) will win a flavor-selection of fine English crisps.

(Please note that you might not be familiar with some of my top five – the UK, generally speaking, leads the world in the variety of potato crisp/chip flavors available – but there are many flavors available in the US now so this shouldn’t be a problem.)

Top Five Potato Crisps/Chips Flavors (in reverse order)

5. beef & onion (sounds nasty, and is, in a way – meat flavor potatoes anyone? but, like #4, it’s a taste investment)

4. cheese & onion (similar to cheese & chive, but the onion-y tang gives it that little extra oomph now and through the morning after)

3. worcestershire sauce (it really does taste like Lea & Perrins’ classic condiment, not as stinky as #5, but still tangy enough when you’re drunk)

2. prawn cocktail (this flavor began resembling cocktail sauce (ketchup & horseradish), but these days has a slightly shrimpy, sweet tomato taste. Too fishy for some, just right for me.)

1. Of course, the king, beating out every other flavor by a country mile, salt n’vinegar. What can I say? It’s just magnificent. The perfect combination of salt and acid with the fried potato taste of the crisp. Cuts the beery mouth feel and encourages salivation, then requires more beer to refresh the slightly parched tongue, and when you get to the bottom corners of the bag where all the flavor and crumbs reside, the vinegar’ll turn your lips purple. Glancing around the pub, you tell you’re not alone as you spot other sn’v lovers by shade of their lips.

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That day, my friend and I popped into said pub and sought something warming to take the chill off. The specials’ board told of a “South African hot toddy” – something I had never heard of. I was familiar, as many of us are, with the typical hot toddy – whiskey or brandy, with hot water, sugar and lemon juice, (and there are many variations on that theme – some including tea, some not) but this one contained brandy, hot water, ginger, rooibosh (red bush) tea, honey and lemon juice, the rooibosh tea making it particularly South African. It was delicious, simultaneously intoxicating, soothing and warming. The ginger and lemon enlivened the sense and the palate, the red bush tea is a restorative, the honey offered energy, and the brandy rounded everything out with a boozy smoothness that engendered warmth and relaxation. After two, or was it three, of them, we were ready to venture home in the cold, but instead, and very mistakenly, decided to have a go at ice-skating. We didn’t break any limbs or endanger anyone with our drunken attempts at toe-loops and salcos (we were the only ones on the ice), but when the alcohol wore off and the bruises came through, it became clear that it had been a mistake.

However, the drink really is a treat if you’ve got chill in your bones you just can’t shake, just please don’t go ice-skating afterwards. Before perhaps, but definitely not after.

South African Hot Toddies Recipe (serves two):

4oz brandy (doesn’t have to be good stuff ’cause you’re adding lots of flavor to it)
10oz boiling water
2 bags or 2tbsp red bush tea
4oz lemon juice (juice of 2 or 3 lemons)
4tbsp runny (clear) honey
2tbsp ginger root (stem ginger), sliced into thin rounds

Divide brandy, lemon juice and honey into two mugs. Toss in the ginger and red bush tea. Fill mugs up with hot water and stir vigorously until honey has mixed in and you can smell the ginger. Allow to steep for three to four minutes before removing red bush tea bags (or tea strainer with loose tea), put your feet up and enjoy!

P.S. – in case you were wondering, like I was, why it’s called a hot toddy, here’s what I found the explanation to be. During the British Raj in India, the British came upon a sweet sap, and a liquor fermented from the sap, from tropical Asian palm trees (the so-called toddy palm – genus Borassus), called toddy by the locals. The British then added this sap to their cups of tea as a sweetener, making it a hot toddy. In many cases, the fermented sap (which was alcoholic) was also added to these cups of tiffin. British sailors (who are not famous tee-totallers) picked up on this idea and began making their cups of tea in this way, substituting the sugar and their rations of rum for the toddy. Quite how whiskey or brandy became involved, I didn’t discover, but there you are, a little history with your recipe.

I describe the beers in this way for a reason. You see, the old joke that Americans never seem to tire of cracking when offering me a beer goes something like this: “Want a beer, Jonny?” “Yes, please, I’d love one.” “Here. It’s been in the fridge, sure you don’t want me to warm it up for you?” Oh, the mirth.

British beers, you see, have a reputation of being served warm. This is not true, unless you consider cellar temperature to be warm. Personally, when I think of warm, I think, 80 degrees, blue skies, and the merry chirping of songbirds, not a pint of frothy ale from a cask kept in a cool, dank cellar, served at around 50-55 degrees. By contrast, American beers are always served cold, sometimes painfully cold, and historically, this has, in my opinion, been because they taste so bad when drunk at any higher temperature.

Nowadays, there are many delicious, craft-brewed, bountifully-hoppy, traditional-style beers being made in America, and I enjoy as many of them as I can. In our fridge right now are a variety of excellent English-style beers by Wild Goose ales, brewed in Frederick, Maryland, that we’re working our way through and appreciating drop-by-drop.

But here comes my point, these beers would be much tastier if served a bit warmer. Cooling anything reduces evaporation and prevents the perfumes and flavors of the beer from mixing with air, and therefore, one tastes fewer of the drink’s complexities. To me, this is a shame. After all, why spend all the time and effort imbuing ones’ ale with complex, herbaceous flavors and then chill the crap out of it so the drinker cannot appreciate them? This is why British ales – bitters, pale ales, IPAs, milds and porters – are best served at cellar temperature.

Hand-Pulling
This brings me to my second point. Hand-pulling. We recently watched a show called “Sam the Cooking Guy” or something, on NYCTV, and the host visits an “English pub” in Los Angeles. It’s an English-owned establishment and serves all manner of fayre from Blighty. Sam asked the owner to show him how to pull a pint. He then holds a glass to the tap and pours a Guinness. I like Guinness as much as anyone, but it’s Irish, not English, and you can’t pull a Guinness because it’s a cream-flow beer. Pulling a real ale is a bit like pulling the arm on a slot machine, except it must be done carefully and at a smooth, measured rate. The idea, you see, is to aerate the beer, giving it a head, and allowing air to mix with the beer to release it’s flavors. Typically, for a pint two pulls will be needed, followed by a minute or so of contemplation – a la Guinness – while the air settles and pint comes to a rest.

I have visited lots of English-style pubs in America and not one of them has real, hand-pulled ales. Why is this? Is it not allowed by law? Is it too complex a procedure? I’d love to know why because I really miss hand-pulled ales, they just taste better, and unlike an ordinary beer, you have to have a bit of skill to pull a good one. Any fool can turn on a tap, but only a practiced-arm can pull a great pint.

Anyone who’s interested in “real ales” (i.e. cask-conditioned, hand-pulled ales from the British Isles) should check out the CAMRA website – camra.org.uk. CAMRA is the campaign for real ale and began as an organization to protect the integrity of British ale-producing and serving from the onslaught of, admittedly delicious, lagers and pilsener-style beers that began to be imported to Britain during the 1960s.

We’re back from our quick, 5-day trip to Northern England to visit Jonny’s family and I may just go to bed at 9PM like I did last night! The problem with these quick trips home (I feel like it’s kind of my home these days) is that by the time you’re over the jet lag, you have to turn around and come back. Ah, well. I have no reason to complain. This is one of our first trips back that was almost completely trouble-free (sans the 24 hour stomach bug we both had over there). But you really don’t give a shit about those things, do you? Now, on to the food.

Jonny had been kind of home-sick and had been dreaming of freshly pulled pints of bitter for the past 4 months. For some reason, I was starting to have pub envy too. Honestly, no place on earth can do a pub like the UK. The atmosphere, the sounds, the smell and the just-chatty-enough-without-being-annoying bartenders make it different from any bar/pub/lounge I’ve been to outside of the UK. Because we have Fox Soccer Channel and Jonny can watch his ‘footie’ matches all weekend from the comfort of his couch, besides missing his family, he really does yearn for the British pub the most. And it’s sad because I can pay $500 to bring all the Premiership Football matches to our cable box (and he can drool over every Man United game), I can fly his family over for a visit, but there is nothing I can do to replace the missing English pub in his life. It’s frustrating, but we deal.

The second we landed at London Heathrow, even as sweaty, bloated, gassy, bad-breathed and tired as we were, we knew we had to stop off for a pub lunch on the way up to Manchester. We had only 2 hours of sleep on the plane (Virgin Airlines give you your own TV with like 30 movies and video games to choose from – I couldn’t peel myself away from it for more than a few hours!) but the adrenaline of getting to that pub lunch was keeping me up and helping Jonny find the energy to do the 3+ hour drive up North. We decided to stop in the adorable, quaint and touristy town of Stratford-Upon-Avon about 1 1/2 hours from Heathrow. I had been here a few years before, but only to grab a sandwich, sit out in the park and take a leisurely walk around town. Stratford-Upon-Avon may sound familiar to all you non-UK people reading – it is the birthplace of William Shakespeare. There’s loads to do around the town with lots of shopping and places to eat to make a night out of it. Regardless, we made an hour of it and were pleased with our selection – The Garrick Inn. It’s Stratfords oldest pub dating back to the 14th century, but the music selection piped in makes you feel as though you’re in 1988. It was fabulous and everything I could have wanted on 2 hours sleep. Jonny had the cottage pie (REMEMBER – Cottage Pie is made of BEEF… Shepherds Pie is made of LAMB. Shepherd’s herd sheep, cottages herd beef – it’s very simple… don’t get it wrong unless you want a cranky Englishman ‘schooling’ you) and I had the delicious Beef and Ruddles Ale Pie in shortcrust pastry with a jug of gravy on the side. WHOA… it was very good but note to everyone – do NOT attempt to drive another 2 hours after a pint and a large pub meal – even after you’ve taken a walk to wake yourself up. Jonny did a fabulous drive getting us there, but I was actually having a dream while my eyes were open. It happened, I swear.

Days later, we were well rested and ready to take a day trip to Chatsworth House in the beautiful and picturesque Peak District (in Derbyshire). The Chatsworth House is a little more than a house – it’s a friggin’ mansion with large, lovely gardens on a giant estate. The Duke and Dutchess of Devonshire still supposedly live in this ridiculously lavish ‘house’, but it’s so huge you’d probably never see them. It was beautifully decorated for Christmas and I very nerdily and dorkily and cheesily got majorly into the Christmas Spirit for the first time in 2007. We were also lucky to have a day with one of the clearest English skies I’ve ever seen. There was not one cloud in the sky – if you’ve ever been to the North in winter you’ll understand what a big deal this is. At lunchtime we were excited for another pub lunch. We found the charming Eyre Arms in Hassop, about 10 minutes drive from Chatsworth House. Built in the early 1600′s, this snug pub was registered as a public house in 1753. It was everything we wanted – delicious and cozy with log fire-burning next to us and hilarious local blue-hairs drinking ales in the middle of the day. Brilliant! Jonny had the amazingly scrumptious Venison Pie topped with a huge pillow of puff pastry. I ordered off the specials board – Roasted Pheasant in a madiera wine sauce with mushrooms and bacon. Again, we left happy, full and bloated. We were able to walk it off back at the Chatsworth House gardens where we frolicked and explored for two hours. I HIGHLY recommend checking out the Chatsworth House if you are making a trip to Northern England.

Unfortunately, our eating-fest was put on a minor hold while we puked and (you know what else) our faces off the following day with a strange 24 hour stomach bug. It’s always fun to waste a sick day while you’re on holiday!! It sucked but since we were at Jonny’s dad’s house and not at a hotel, we were comfy lying on the couch and drinking tea all day.

Stomach bug or not, we had a nice time on our quick jaunt to the UK. We gained weight and, thanks to that bug, we lost it all again!

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