A hearty (New) English pub lunch

As part of our goal of not wasting yet another summer sitting around (and then spending the fall bemoaning the fact that we did nothing all summer), The Boy and I came up with a plan to take a few day trips and see some new places.

Our first ride was back to Portsmouth, NH. Okay, that wasn't a completely new place, but I hadn't been able to get the scotch eggs out of my mind. So the real point of the trip was to have lunch at the Coat of Arms pub.

The Coat of Arms is a pretty fair approximation of the real English pub experience: it's a dark room with a long, solid bar, a snooker table, dart boards, footie on the telly and the pervasive odor of stale cigarette smoke. It also has a good selection of beer on tap, including Old Speckled Hen, McEwans, Courage and Tetley.



And, of course, our main reason for visiting: a menu that includes such traditional, artery-clogging delicacies as scotch eggs,



a surprisingly good steak and kidney pie,



a sausage, fish and chips basket meal that renders future visits to the rather overpriced A Salt and Battery in NYC unnecessary,



and a treacle pudding and custard that wasn't quite perfect--the treacle had soaked into the sponge instead of sitting on top, and the "homemade" custard tasted suspiciously like the canned Ambrosia version--but certainly nostalgically lovely enough under the circumstances.



It's probably not the healthiest thing to be an hour's drive from such greasy, stodgy, salty temptation. But it's good to know that, when the urge strikes, there's a place to indulge occasional cravings for the food of My People.

The wearing of the red, white and blue. Or not.

April 23 was St. George's Day. But I don't need to tell you that, right? Unless you celebrated so heavily that you're only just waking up. Woo! A crazy time, what with everyone wearing "Kiss me, I'm English" shirts and the Chicago River dyed red, white and blue, and local politicians mentioning ancestors who fought at the Battle of Hastings, and all the bars offering half-price pints of sausage rolls?

Oh, right, that didn't happen.

You'd think the pubs, at least, would jump on the bandwagon, given that there are few other promotional excuses between St Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo. Though perhaps the day's timing isn't great in Massachusetts, following as it does on the heels of Patriots' Day.

In England, until recently, patriotism and nationalism were a little too closely intertwined; for some, the Union flag had symbolism similar to the Confederate flag over here. But the tide is turning, largely because English pubs have realized there might be a bob or two in it.

At LimeyG headquarters, of course, we were already prepared.

Breakfast: Heinz baked beans on toast (topped with my new obsession, Seaside cheddar).



Lunch: cheese and pickle sandwiches. Has to be Branston Pickle.



Dinner: shepherd's pie.



We'd planned to crack open a tin of Heinz treacle sponge pudding, but the temperature had been in the very un-English high seventies all day, and somehow a bowl of dense, sweet cake topped with hot custard just wasn't as appealing.

Oh well, I guess we can always save that for next year's debauched festivities.

The antidote to a winter night

You take one of these:



And some of this:



And you put them together to create this:



Custard hot enough that you can feel the warmth in your throat. Cake light and spicy and studded with fruit.

Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.