Sorry, haven’t blogged since Friday, the result of having gone with Martin to the Bokbier Festival at the beautiful Beurs Van Berlage on the Dam to meet some very nice SFnal friends of his over from Scotland. I wasn’t able to drink, which rather negated the whole point of going to a beer festival; and as an unwilling teetotaller’s not good company and because I didn’t want to cramp anyone’s drinking style I skipped out early, just as things were getting convivial. But not soon enough, it appears, because the next day I was as sick as a dog.
The smell as I walked into the main hall where the pumps were should have given me a clue – concentrated yeast, fermented hops, collected man-farts, stale cigarette and dope-smoke plus a general pervading miasma of pent-up testosterone. Given that many Dutchmen are about 6 foot 5 or even taller and I’m only 5 foot, I was just at the right height to get it right in the nose. Blegh.
Since people come from all over to the Bokbier festival there must’ve been some nasty well-travelled bacteria from several continents mixed up in that lot. As at the moment I’m still horribly underweight and my immune system is still shot to shit from surgery, blam, I caught something vile. Spent last night throwing up and feeling like a wet rag. I hope it’s not the first flu of the season.
Anyhow as a result of that this morning I needed s some serious sustenance and Martin had the remains of a hangover to cure. A proper breakfast seemed in order. When I say proper breakfast, I mean a full on English breakfast – bacon, eggs, mushrooms, fried bread and beans – which is exactly what we had. Now I feel much restored.
I personally consider what we ate this morning to be the absolute bare-bones English breakfast, though your mileage may vary. There are loads of variations; optional are black pudding, white pudding, sausages, tomatoes (tinned or grilled fresh ones, both things I can’t abide), kidneys (lamb usually) and kippers or other some other smoked fish. All this to be accompanied with toast, butter and jam, marmalade ( there are various competing schools of thought on which kind) or honey (though I like Marmite, all that yummy zinc, mmm) and to be followed by proper porridge (not instant oatmeal) with proper golden syrup and cream. None of your namby-pamby dry cereals or poncy muesli. Then there are regional variations like haslet instead of black pudding and the legendary Ulster fry with soda bread and then there’s various types of Scots pancakes and griddle scones too…
Hard to believe so many people once started the day with even a small selection of that lot – and it used to be fried in lard. We only ever have a fried breakfast at home now and then these days and even so it’s all grilled but the eggs. Those are fried in only a tiny amount of extra virgin olive oil and I can’t eat those anyway so my breakfast’s virtually fat free. Away is different though- hotel breakfasts don’t count. There’s nothing like coming down to a big B&B breakfast that you haven’t had to cook yourself and everyone knows food you didn’t cook yourself has no calories ( just like holiday food, or at Christmas or birthday chocolates).
Anyway, why all this preamble about breakfast, you wonder? Because it’s Sunday and because for once you may have time to read something a bit longer than the avaerage blogpost I heartily recommend Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone 8-page piece on the criminal Congress, published last week but ideal for a relaxed Sunday, though you may not be so relaxed when you’ve read it.
My banging on about breakfast is by way of encouraging people to put a good lining in their stomach to protect against the inevitable explosion of bile that will follow on reading this article, which lays out in very plain terms the sheer dumbassed ineptitude, small-minded viciousness and greed of Congressional Republicans, Taibbi shows exactly how, in simple steps, process of government has been perverted and twisted by the Republican Party to make the US an effective one-party soft dictatorship, and by whom. An excellent bit of reporting. Taibbi’s not scared to use invective where necessary, though he’s never over-the-top; if anything his muted use of insult gives his words that much more power, considering how much vituperation he could have heaped on these host-killing lampreys.
Hah. You thought you’d escaped the politics with all the talk of bacon and eggs. No such luck.
Read more: Food blogging, English breakfast , Amsterdam, Bokbier, US Politics, Congress
