pumpkinstrokemarrow

Or to be more precise, cabbage whites. Bought some large curly cabbages over the weekend which were very disappointing. Pale green exteriors, white interiors and a wet, feeble taste, quite spoiling the texture. Luckily, by Wednesday (yesterday) the man at Cheam had taken delivery of some more pointy green cabbage. So got some of that and topped up with a double cow chop weighing in at 4.85 pounds. Which looked as if it had been hanging for a while. Boiled sliced pointy cabbage for about 5 minutes. Baked the beef for 90 minutes at 180C. Rested somewhat as recommended by TB for about 5 minutes. Boiled white rice and forgot the carrots, these last lurking at the bottom of the refridgerator at this time of year. But cabbage and beef both superlative. The latter loose, mainly a pale brown with just a hint of pink. Absolutely spot on. Had it in sandwiches later, fresh white bread sliced maybe 1cm thick, no butter or other additives. Maybe even better. There is no doubt that fore rib makes very good sandwiches when cold - although preferably not chilled. This last not being so easy to manage in this fly-blown Indian summer.

Followed up lunch with a spot of heritage garden at Hampton Court. It must be some while since I have been there in high summer, if I have ever been. The herbaceous borders were a touch past their prime but very impressive just the same. With the much more highly coloured beds out on the grass providing good contrast. We decided at this point that the flower gardener at Hampton Court knows his stuff. Then around the corner to the seriously heritage gardens, the ones on the way to the vine. Two sunken gardens looking almost as good as the beef had taster earlier. Lots of heritage people (apart from ourselves) billing and cooing over them. Plus they had provided a sort of botanical garden in pots. All sorts of intersting hot country plants. Oranges, lemons and prickly pears to name but a few. Altogether well worth the £5 we were charged (£4 for concessions), a total of £9 more than we would have been charged when we first started going to Hampton Court - at which time one only paid to get into the building proper. Sadly, we failed to find the garden shop where we would have been able to purchase some Hampton Court grapes. I wonder whether wine buffs would approve of making wine from grapes from a vine which is hundreds of years old? My understanding is that commercial grapes are like apples, ripped up every so many years. In the case of apples, the so many being about 40. Old trees not good. Tend to be full of disease I should think. Although it is also my understanding that pear trees go on for much longer for some reason.

Which brings me onto a pearlet. If you look at an elderly French fruit book, for example in the excellent RHS garden library in Vincent Square (honourable members of the public may view but not borrow), you find 10 pears for every 3.2 apples. Perhaps the warm climate does something for pears which does not run in our wet climate. English fruit books tend, more or less, to reverse the proportions.

Day washed down at TB, where I was pleased to learn that the local housing association had not ejected an elderly surviving brother from one of its houses quite as summarily as I had previously been told (vide supra). It seems that the dead brother had been claiming housing benefit for years without declaring that he had his possibly solvent brother living with him. So while it is possible that the surviving brother is dim but innocent, one can see why the housing association have taken a dim view of the whole tenacy.