Cheese

About a fortnight ago now, a low key outing to London Bridge to replenish cheese supplies. A cool day which looked as if it might well turn wet and windy and I only just declined a lift to the station. Which was just as well as up on the Meadway roundabout, I came across this striking fungus. Or perhaps a mushroom. On a post which had been a small tree at some point in my time in the world of work.

Onto a train to London Bridge. Good to be back in the warm! And by the time we got there, the rain had started, albeit only just. 

The weather did not stop Borough Market being as busy as ever, mainly with people eating rather than shopping. With the bonus that in the cheese shop I happened to bump into the chap that made, or perhaps sold, the Lincolnshire Poacher that I usually buy. He was suitably gratified by my purchase and my accompanying remarks - and eventually I decided that he really was a cheese man, possibly the Tim Jones to be found at reference 1.

While at the website this afternoon, I also chanced upon a list of shops in the US which stocked his cheese, some of them with rather fanciful names. I did not try all of them, but of those that I did, none seemed to offer this particular cheese, although one went so far as to include a mixed bag from Neal's Yard Dairy, a mixture not including Poacher. Perhaps 'stockists' included everyone who had ever sampled or bought.

I might also say that these American shops looked a touch precious to me. Didn't have the regular cheese shop feel of a Neal's Yard Dairy.

While Mr. Jones told me something of the trials of a cheesemaker during COVID, when they made something of a cushion for themselves by going for older cheese. Older cheese which he said would be drier. I imagine, if I had a choice, I would prefer younger, as I do, as it happens, with Emmenthal.

Part of the reason for his visit to town was to see how his cheese fitted into the offering as a whole - perhaps he was visiting all his better customers - a consideration which had not previously occurred to me. But clearly a sensible thing to think about if you are in the business.

Next stop, Olivier's bread stall, where I went for a 'pain de compagne', as snapped above, which turned out very well: big holes, chewy, off-white. Talk on the website of long fermentation and sea salt, but nothing about sour dough, which does not always agree with me. Not that different from the rather larger 'rustic' which we also like.

Along the way, taking in a couple of the meat stalls, looking only. Lots of good looking meat available, not just beef, and I don't think there would be any difficulty sourcing a Sunday or a festive roast there should need arise.

Next stop, lunch. I could have bought some sausage and made a start on the Olivier, but I had not thought to bring a suitable knife with me and in any case the bread was a bit chunky for outdoor work at London Bridge. So, instead, I gave the new-to-me Orée a try with a ham and cheese roll, long format. £5.50 for a good quality roll, slightly too salty ham and caterers' cheese slices. Rather more than I wanted for a lunchtime snack - there being a more serious meal in the offing - but not bad, better than average.

I took most of it sitting in the quiet upstairs concourse at London Bridge Station while the lady pulled the shutters down on the nearby pasty shop. An odd sort of place, with upstairs looking to be designed to cope with a massive peak time load and with nearly all the shops and services what seems like quite a long way downstairs. It would be fun to see how busy the place is in the morning rush hour, but the snag there would be getting up what would these days be rather early for me.

Back at Epsom I took a ride in an all-electric Nissan Dynamo, to be found at reference 4 - although, curiously, I failed to find it at the Nissan website. The driver, who was not the owner but who was a veteran of Viceroy Cars, from where he said he knew me, was very pleased with it. The 150 miles or so range was plenty for what he did in a day and he could then charge it overnight on a regular 13 amp socket. Nothing like as heavy to drive all day as a regular Diesel black cab, which he said weighed around two tons. He also said that there was a gear box, which surprised me, as I had thought part of the attraction of electric was doing without this expensive bit of machinery.

Cursory search this afternoon, reveals that you do indeed have gear boxes for electric locomotives - so why not taxis?

Home to read about ancient Poland, as already noticed at reference 5.

PS: while posting this, I was reminded by a correspondent of Gérard Depardieu, the French actor with a curious attitude to citizenship. According to reference 6, of French origin, he has been Belgian, Russian and now an Emirati. During the Russian phase he was very full of Putin - but, to be fair, that was ten years ago. He is a very rich man and I had thought that all this amounted little more than the happy combination of cocking a snook at authority and avoiding paying taxes - but Wikipedia does not say anything about that, beyond referring to some BBC items back in the winter of 2012/2013. It may also be that you cannot renounce your Russian citizenship, rather in the way that you can never leave some religions, once inducted. Subject to full-on papal wrath, poisoned perfume and so on - but I have not looked into that.

References

Reference 1: https://lincolnshirepoachercheese.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.oliviersbakery.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.oree.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/electric-london-black-cab-launches-187-mile-range.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/11/two-threads.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_Depardieu.