OK, when I say “forage”, I mean we just went food shopping.
I’d been to the hospital this morning to get the sutures out of my knee. Didsbury is just a few minutes drive from there and has a number of good food shops within, literally, just a few steps. Which is just as well as, on two crutches, I’m not walking very far.
So, there were a couple of 35 day aged sirloin steaks from Axon’s that’ll form tonight’s dinner. The butcher usually has a good range of local stuff and, whilst the pork was Cheshire raised, there were no claims for the beef. We bought a couple of slabs of shortrib for the freezer – this used to be called Jacob’s Ladder but we seem to be increasingly adopting the American name ( I blame Food Network UK).
Two doors down is Evans. The fishmongers has recently changed hands but seems to have retained its trading name. We got a couple of mackerel filleted, again for the freezer, and got a tub of cockles for the father in law. I mean we paid for the cockles, not swapped the FiL for them.
Literally next door is the Cheese Hamlet. Always a good range of British cheese. We took some of Quicke’s Extra Mature Farmhouse Cheddar and a Red Leicester.
Evans used to sell fruit and vegetables as well as fish but gave up a couple of years ago, as it was proving uneconomic with the pressure from supermarkets – most probably Aldi which has opened up fifty metres away. That leaves just Fresh Save. It’s usually an interesting visit there – the shop is Asian owned and stocks a good range of British products, as well as more “exotic” things, spices, etc. All we needed was a pomegranate for a dish I’m making latter in the week. But they also had a box full of mixed tomatoes – red, green, yellow, different shapes & sizes, even a stripey one. We got a few to go with the cheese for a “ploughman’s lunch”, with some of my 2016 vintage “Christmas” chutney. And bread.
As for the bread, there’s a newly opened, French owned patisserie, Bisou Bisou, across the road, which also sells some bread. That’s a baguette then. And a couple of patisserie items for dessert, after the steak – a vanilla and red fruit entremets and a raspberry religuese .
