pumpkinstrokemarrow

One plus was that we happened to buy our tickets the day before, so for £20 each we got entry, fish & chips and a pint (there was a glass of wine option for the ladies). Whereas had we paid on the day that little lot would have been £16 + £7.50 + £4.10. A useful saving which entirely made up for throwing money down the horsey drain. The fish & chips were fresh and not bad at all, served up by a polite young lady down from Twickenham for the day. Not too much fish but with the chips quite enough to fuel one up for the main business. The pint was cold lager, with no warm beer in sight, either on tap or in bottles.

Another plus was that because the spring meeting is not that busy, us who had paid to get into the regular stand had access to a good chunk of the posh stand where one could buy oysters and stuff like that. And more important, get a good view from a balcony in the shade, this last being an important consideration in the full afternoon sun.

A minus was that we did not manage to pick any winners. The ticket illustrated yesterday being one of the losing three.

Back down Chalk Lane to the Amato which was open and was selling warm beer, taking in on the way some interesting erect catkins, rather like midget horse chestnut flowers, but green rather than white. After the beer we decided that we needed some proper grub but did not fancy proper cooking. Maybe the Portuguese café in South Street could do us a tin of chick pea stew - the sort of thing that they sell in the bars on Tenerife. As it turned out they did do tins of chick peas but not chick pea stew, so we settled instead for a tin of trotters and beans, known to them as chispalhada (refeições tradicionais). Which is a bit odd as the recipe offered by Mr. Google under this name involves pork chops and beans rather than trotters and beans. A Portuguese mystery. Moving on, it was lucky that the café keeper explained that we should have the stuff with boiled white rice, moistened with a little gently fried onion. Lucky because the chispalhada turned out to be very salty and liberal with lumps of fat and bone, and would have been a bit strong neat. Unlucky because I overcooked the onion - which would have been fine for a hamburger with ketchup but was too strong for the delicate trotter flavour.

Perhaps next time we will try the tripe version.