Healthy food when travelling? Warnings ABC, and D About additives, Drink, Food, Stress and Sleep

EU healthy food symbol.

When I travel, I become more conscious of how stress, drink and food affects my mood. 

As you travel you discover interesting foods to eat. But there are also foods you prefer not to eat.

Fresh Food UK, England and Scotland

 My parents always avoided processed drinks and foods, especially meat and fish. They tried to avoid higher prices and food ingredients you did not need and could not identify. They did not want their food, chopped up, disguised, watered down with water and sauces, cheating them of the basic product.

Fish and Salmon

We had no idea that grilled fish or battered fish might be more or less healthy.

Fresh salmon was a rare treat. 

But so was smoked salmon. Our one mistake was eating smoked salmon, a party treat. Later as we grew more affluent, we ate more of it, on bagels, along with more food from delis and supermarket food,

 I had never realised that smoked salmon was literally smoked, preserved by adding smoke from fire, which dried the fish and made it less friendly to tiny life forms, 'germs', which we later identified as bacteria, which created illnesses treated with anti-biotics.

Fresh Fruit 

My late father lived to 93. He was born in WWI.  From childhood he had eaten an apple a day for lunch all summer.

 I recall hotels and restaurants had trolleys of desserts, which included fresh fruit salad.

My father, as a child, had a potato in its jacket, containing vitamin C, in winter. The potato in your pocket kept you and your hands warm at school, where there was no central heating.

Bread and Potatoes

Nowadays restaurants serve bread while you wait for your meal. 

When I was a child, you either had potatoes, or bread, not both. You had bread in home made sandwiches for a quick lunch. 

Diabetics and Sugar

After my mother died in the year 2000, I used to go out to eat with my father and prepare meals for him. He had late onset diabetes, which meant avoiding foods contaoning sugar. I made fresh fruit salad for dessert.

I read the labels of everything to avoid sugar.

He said he like marzipan. That is basically ground almonds with sugar. I gave him a tiny amount once as a birthday treat. I bought it from the supermarket.

My husband had lymphoma, a form of cancer.  I take thyroxine medicine for thyroid failing to function.

He looked at the diet advice on the Cancer Research websites. For the five years whilst he was in remission we were very careful what we ate.

I read, and was told by friends, that food blackened caused cancer. Burned toast. Grilled meat and fish.

Browned Food

My husband tried to avoid browned food.

All the grills. 

Fast food with the outside heated to a crisp and the inside raw. 

Toasters dry out bread and cook it, turn toast brown with black edges when the toaster set to a different thickness of bread.

Does heating the bread in toasters kill off bugs, or burn the edges to charcoal?

Raw And Uncooked Food

Raw food such as raw fish in sushi and sashimi, 

and steak tartare, 

and gazpacho,.

Heated Food

British tourists to Spain are apprehensive about luke warm food. We think that food should be heated to destroy germs.

Covid And Diet

In addition to restricting travel, Covid drew our attention to the fact that being overweight made you more vulnerable.

I still reduce the number of times a day I shake hands, and use elbow bumping instead. 

In 2026 I still use toilet paper to wipe toilet seats, toilet handles, taps, toilet cubicle handles.

Health & Holidays in Hot Mediterranean Countries

Everybody loves the sun. Indulging in good food and drink. 

What must you and I watch out for? Stress.

Too much food.

Too much drink. Too much alcohol.

Gas in Drinks 

Bubbles. You think of Champagne. But gas is not only in Champagne, 

which started as gas as a by-product excreted by yeast, like burping bacteria.

Like aligote - my favourite, but it is made with sweet fruit syrup to balance the acidity of the white wine.

spumante, (sparkling). I love it.

fizzy drinks 

gassy water instead of sin gas.

Do as I say, not as I do. I love Champagne, Asti Spumante, Prosecco. 

Stress limited

We now have newspapers and news on phones all day. My friend S is a jolly person whose husband is in a wheelchair, he was an ear nose and throat specialist. She recently told me she no longer watches the news, nor lets him watch the news, because it is too stressful.

A measure between the two extremes of having the news flashing past every minute, and never knowing what is going on, would be to go back to the old system of reading printed newspapers, checking morning and evening news.

Sufficient Sleep

Many studies have shown that sleep is vital. The signs on motorways no longer merely warn that speed kills. They say tiredness kills. They tell you to stop for rests.

Review your home and holiday behaviour. I try to cut out flights and ferries at times which require my losing sleep. Alternatively, I catch up on sleep before driving or going out.

Rest, relax, stay healthy and happy. 

Useful Websites about diet and health

Cancer research

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/diet-and-cancer

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/food-additives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_additives

The Daily Mail online has many articles on health.

Please share links to your favourite posts.

British Food in my poem, Tea For Three by Angela Lansbury

 We travel around the world at our supermarkets. Lild is German, Marks and Spencer and Waitrose are British. We eat porridge, British style, English style with sugar rather than the Scottish custom of adding salt. 

For lunch, we have smoked salmon from Scotland. Or sardines from Portugal. Or sushi, a Japanese dish.  

Breakfast

Traditional English breakfast

Porridge oats, sugar or honey

Then baked beans, egg and bacon grill

Hotels give this thrill, for money

For daily grub go to the pub

Avoiding big hotels' big bills

Choose sausages and black pudding

Fried potato, and tomato

Lunch

For lunch you could choose a Scotch egg

Sardines on toast, a healthy fish

Fish and chips is what we like most

Sundays Yorkshire pud with beef roast

If you're adding roast potatoes

Careful. You'd better keep quiet

Please don't spoil my good gourmet day

By reminding me to diet

For weekday lunch we have salad

And smoked salmon in a bagel

Supermarket sushi, garlic

We buy half price when we're able

Tea

Each afternoon we stop at four

Or four thirty, or even five

By which time we're yawning and tired

Need food and drink to stay alive

Tea time in London's any time

No longer always Earl Grey tea

We drink hot coffee, apple juice

Lemon, ginger or mint for me

 If you've never had hot crumpets

Your gourmet life has not begun

If you're offered two with butter

Please don't stick to half or just one

Scones feature in Cornish cream tea

Spread thick cream, then strawberry jam

Some say you should put jam on first

Avoid arguing, if you can

We sometimes choose a restaurant

But most of our food's home made

We make brown bread with seeds and nuts

Seville oranges marmalade

We clear the table, wash the dishes

And load the dishwashing machine

It does a very good job

Of keeping our plates sparkling clean

Dinner

Then it's time to lay the table

And get ready for dinner

For me, it's brussels sprouts

Chicken and chips is a winner.

Plates of steak, add English mustard

Chocolate pudding, with custard

Christmas pudding, then easter eggs

Build balloon tums and tree trunk legs

Tea Tomorrow

I hope you'll come to tea with me

But I must tell you with sorrow

I ate the last baklava and chocolate

My fruit diet starts tomorrow.

-Ends-

Please follow me and see my blogs on travel, dress, comical poetry, wine and dine, dress, and share links to your favourite poems and posts

Eggs Benedict With Smoked Salmon - what do you call it?

Shukla at Soyo restaurant

 Eggs Benedict is a classic breakfast dish supposedly invented in America for a diner named Benedict consisting of eggs in bacon. Since Jews, as well as Moslems, don't eat pork, the variation you get at restaurants serving no pork can substitute other foods. In Soyo restaurant in Golders Green, London, England, I had Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon. All my life I have struggled to remember the ingredients of Eggs Benedict. However, now I find it is easy to remember. I realize that it's eggs on toast, or breakfast eggs and bacon. The eggs are wrapped in the bacon. But for those who don't eat pork, smoked salmon is substituted. (For those who don't eat fish either, another variation is with spinach, a contrast or green and yellow.)

Wikipedia gives the two stories of supposed originators, rival characters called Benedict, as a first name or surname. The earlier dated version seems to be a financier who went into a hotel in New York. 

I sort of remembered a British character named Benedict. But maybe my memory simple abbreviated the story and edited out the fact that the man was American.  

Anyway, if you are in London, I recommend that you go to Soyo restaurant and try their Eggs Benedict, which is made with smoked salmon.

Paris Baguette and Food in Terminal 4 at Changi airport

Paris Baguette is just after you exit. In fact we saw it from inside whilst waiting for our luggage.

We arrived at Changi on a flight from Vietnam on VietjetAir. (You have to pay for food on the plane.)  After you collect your luggage from the carousel you see this  oasis beyond glass. Just beyond the exit is this eating place.

Paris Baguette at Changi Airport Terminal 4, Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.


We shared a coffee with cream; and a smoked salmon and avocado baguette (roll).

Afterwards we discovered alongside is another eating place serving one of our oriental favourites - mango sticky rice.

A handy large guide on the airport internal wall shows you what is available to eat and drink on all three levels.

Singapore is a great stopover between Russia or Europe and Australia. 

Travel Tips

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

australia.com

visitbritain.com

visitbritain.shop.com

visitbritain.org

visittheusa.co.uk

visitsingapore.com

Singapore Airlines: 

singaporeair.com

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2018/12/secret-travellers-seen-on-newton-station.html

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/01/cute-musicians-in-cartoons-on-toilet.html

See also my posts on Waterloo Street, The National Gallery, and Singapore's big attractions.

The Best Bagels and The Best Smoked Salmon

Problem
Where do you get the best bagels? The best salmon comes from Scotaland - unless you like gravad lax with dill. You can buy salmon at all prices from Tesco and Morrison.

I buy good value rubbish bagels all the time from Tesco or Morrisons. Big ones, plain, cinnamon. Whatever is going cheap. When they are on offer I buy several and stick them in the freezer. You have to heat them up in the oven. Good enough.

My family don't like them. They prefer bagels from B & K, and salt beef.

When I served the Tesco bagels to my club, Peter was not impressed.

However, I've found something better.

Salmon and cream cheese. Photo by Angela Lasnbury. Copyright.

Sesame or poppyseed bagel? I'll have both. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

However, I just tried the best bagels, small and tasty, from Daniels. They were served at a funeral tea in London. I liked them so much I tracked them down.

Temple Fortune, said the man who bought them. My friend Peter - who used to run a restaurant. He had one restaurant in London. Before that, another in Spain. He should know.

The bagels - small bagels, so you don't exceed your calorie count. Choice of poppyseed or sesame seed. (Plus much more in the shop.)

Cream cheese and smoked salmon. Perfect smoked salmon. Not too salty. Not too bland.

I was not so struck on the dessert tarts. I cut one in half to economise on calories. I preferred their fruit kebabs in traffic light colours, giant red strawberries, pineapple, green fruit.

Tart from Daniels. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The sandwiches were OK very OK. But the more I think about the bagels, the more I want them.

If you are in the Temple Fortune area, go there. Take me with you.

They are in Hallswelle Parade. How will I remember that? Swell place. Hallswelle, all's well.

Daniels Bakery
Hallswelle Parade
12-14 Hallswelle Road
London NW11 ODL
England
UK
Tel: 020 8455 5826
danielscatering.co.uk

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

What To Expect When Invited To Funerals: A Christian Cremation or Liberal Jewish Funeral In London and more

A family travelled from Australia to London for their friend's funeral. It's snowing. Will we reach the funeral and get back? Are modern funerals like those in the old days?

My late father told me that when he was a teenager in the late 1930s in London, England, he organized the cars to the cemetery for his grandfather's funeral on a snowy day. The car got stuck in the snow and stopped. My father had to get out and push, standing with one foot on the running board, then turn the cranking handle. My father's uncle Gus, nicknamed the Joker, quipped, "Your Grandad doesn't want to go!"

The snow in the suburbs is worse than the warm centre of London. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Problem
Winter seems to be funeral time. Is it the cold killing everybody off? Or the cold days and short days, and dark depressing everybody?  I was invited to another funeral this week in 2018. Invited is not the right word, not etiquette. You are not invited. That's for weddings and celebrations. You are informed. It was modern. The message came by what's ap.

My lime green car is not the appropriate colour for a funeral. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

We can hardly see to drive. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Whose car will we travel in?

The mourners travel with the coffin in a cortege. Here are the funeral cars which went to a Christian cremation. Funeral cars look alike - unless you have a horse and carriage.

 Funeral Car In Black. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

What else did I find out I needed to know? Parking.

Parking
Parking - is it easy? The last two or three cemeteries I went to had big parking areas. But this week's was in the centre of London and very difficult parking. A good thing I went with somebody else.

Liberal Jewish Cemetery. Quite different to the Orthodox ones. Despite the theory that 'anything goes nowadays', most mourners wore black or dark colours. My plan to wear black to play it safe turned out to be correct.

Clothing Colours
Nothing worse than being the only person in bright pink at a funeral of over two hundred people all in black, when you are not even related. (That happened to me at a Catholic church in Southern England in 2017. I wasn't wearing bright pink, dusty rose, but it looked luminous like bright pink. I felt as inconspicuous as a flashing Belisha Beacon.)

Seats and No Seats
This month, Feb 2018, the funeral of a young man with cystic fibrosis, died in his late thirties, had over 200 people. His friends included those who had flown in from Australia. Latecomers did not get seats. I was standing inside. The last people to arrive, even worse off, were left outside, could not get in the door. They could not sit. They could not see nor hear the speeches.

There were three speeches by the mother, father and sister. No microphone, so those outside could not hear.

A Christian Cremation Funeral
In January I went to the cremation of a Christian neighbour, who had reputedly died (committed suicide?), after depression. The white coffin and pink flowers helped uplift the spirits. At the cremation, the coffin was left behind as we filed out, and curtains closed around the coffin.

Liberal Jewish Burial Funeral
For a Jewish burial in England, the coffin sits in the prayer hall while the eulogy (speech of praise) is read after the prayer. The Jewish minister was a woman.

The prayer books open back to front, because of the Hebrew, but the English is on the opposite page. You may have to share prayer books.

Reading Hebrew
If you want to learn the Hebrew alphabet you can do so on Duolingo Tinycards. You can also brush up on your Hebrew words and phrases and simple sentences with Duolingo.

Services seem to start, or continue with at least one paragraph about we are all dust, and live briefly as the grass.

Jewish Prayers
You might be interested in learning the Kaddish (prayer said at funerals, actually an affirmation of belief in and trust in God) in Hebrew or English or both. In the Liberal prayer book which was used, some of the paragraphs read were from the Song Of Songs. You can find the sources at the back of the prayer book (following the numbered pages. The back which looks like the front because the book goes backwards).

In the audience we had members of a Toastmasters International club, of all religions and none.

How To Get A Copy Of The Speech
You are not supposed to take photos or videos. I think that's a pity. Often the person reading the eulogy has a handwritten or typed copy of the speech. If you wish to read it, or send it to a relative of yours who could not attend, they might send it to you or give it to you. If there's only one copy and they don't want to part with it, you could take a photo of it with your smart phone to read later.

(At another cremation, of my ninety-year-old distant aunt, I emailed a copy to the speech to the lady who ran the care home. She had gone to the wrong cemetery by mistake.)

I made a mistake not taking an umbrella.

That person with the umbrella did the right thing. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

I was once told that Ashkenazi graves, for 'German' and also European people, have upright headstones, but graves for the Sephardi ('Spanish' -also Moroccan and Middle Eastern). This UK cemetery has both.

Wheeling The Coffin

At the Liberal Jewish funeral, the coffin, covered in dark cloth, was then wheeled out to the graveside, a long walk, with the coffin and the family at the front of the procession.

The oblong hole for the coffin was large and has wooden or other reinforcements to keep the walls upright. The cemetery attendants lower the coffin. Then they wheel off the bier, a bit like an empty hospital trolley, ready to collect the next coffin.

Spooky, seeing the black-coated men trundle off in the distance, without the coffin. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

At really big cemeteries the elderly and infirm can take an electric buggy a bit like a golf cart. Remember to wear closed shoes, not your high heels, in case your grave is at the end of the grassy field, especially if it is or was raining or snowing. In case it is raining or snowing, even if you travelled there by car, you might need an umbrella for the cemetery walk. Plus gloves and a warm hat and scarf.

The Practicalities

The coffin is wheeled to the graveside, where the removed earth is in a pile. At a Jewish cemetery, rabbi, the minister, is likely to say a few words in Hebrew. Then the rabbi may throw in a handful of earth, and the immediate family are the first to pick up a handful, or use a spade to throw in a lot.

No Flowers
At the Christian cremation, we had flowers on display. At a Jewish funeral generally no flowers.

A Romanian Eastern Orthodox Christian cemetery, full of colourful real or plastic flowers. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

No Hand Washing?
Traditionally, at a Jewish cemetery we would wash hands and say a prayer during the hand washing. You might think that it's healthy to wash your hands. But apparently, the prayer and ritual cleansing and re-starting life, symbolically is equally important, or more important, or the only important thing, depending who you ask. But this was Liberal Jewish. No hand-washing.

We debated whether everybody would go back into 'the chapel'. I was sure they would. You always do. Firstly, for a quick final prayer, secondly and/or to tell everybody they are all invited to tea wherever, and prayers later, at that address or another.

Then we drove off to the funeral tea. Nobody was organizing cars. I was now shunted to a different car, with different friends.

Mixed colour bread. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Funeral Tea - The Best
At a Jewish event, usually a kosher caterer. This event had a caterer who provided as far as I could see, no alcohol but several types of soft drinks.

Bagels with smoked salmon. What looked like aubergine wraps. Two people told me they were good. But I liked the smoked salmon half bagels, with either poppyseed or sesame seed.
I asked who did the catering. Somebody said Danieli.

Most unusual were the sandwiches in a mixture of breads including a bread which looked like a marble cake, with dark brown bread contrasting with white.

For 'dessert' skewers of fruit, giant red strawberries, yellow pineapple chunks, green fruit. While eating tea, yuou are likely to meet people from all over the world.

Esperanto on the grave, in Warsaw, Poland, of Zamenhof, who invented the international language. Photo by Adrian Grycuk in Wikipedia article on Zamenhof.

The Cemetery
If you linger in a cemetery, or go looking for your own family's graves, you will find Hebrew useful. If you don't have time to learn it, print out the Hebrew-English so you can read gravestones. It is enormously satisfying to read a word or two in a foreign language.

Many people nowadays are hunting for their ancestors' graves to help with their life history. Latin would be useful looking at Roman tombstones in museums. Esperanto for the grave of Zamenhof, the founder of the easy international language.

Useful Websites
Hebrew Alphabet
tinycards.duolingo.com - Hebrew
Hebrew Language
Duolingo.com - Hebrew

Kaddish
The kaddish is written in Aramaic, the language of the people, as well as some literature, at the time of the Romans and Jesus. Oddly enough, it focuses on god and eternity rather than the soul of the deceased. A bit like singing God Save the Queen at the end of a cinema performance in the old days, a solemn ending calling on the Almighty, trusting that your fragile brief life is part of the eternal good, and hoping that the Almighty will soon bring peace and life to all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaddish (Multiple technical translations.)
https://www.shiva.com/learning-center/sitting-shiva/kaddish/ (A soothing modern translation.)

Find A Grave
findagrave.com 70 million memories.

Catering For Funeral And Other Events
Daniels Catering
Tel: 020 8455 5826 Mob: 07931 576779
cafdan@aol.com
www.danielsbakery.co.uk

http://www.kosher.org.uk/caterers

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/whats-difference-between-kosher-and.html

What To Say
To orthodox Jewish mourning family you say: "Wish you long life."
When saying goodbye to other guests and relatives you might say, "May we meet again - on happier occasions!"

More on funerals:
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/what-was-good-about-middlesex-stadium.html

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/frank-talk-about-jewish-funeral.html
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts on funerals and learning languages. Please like, follow, and share links to your favourite posts.

Chinese Etiquette For Chopsticks, Rice and New Year and Lo Hei

Problem
How do you spread maximum goodwill during lo hei and Chinese New Year?
How do you avoid offending people?

Answers
1 LO HEI
Organise or attend a reunion of family or friends or a club at which Lo Hei is served at the start, middle break or end of the meeting. Lo Hei is Chinese New Year dish of colourful mixed vegetables, often mixed up in front of the diners, adding each colour and symbolic food in order. You can buy Lo Hei sets in supermarkets. You can look on line to find the best prices.

Gold and Prosperity
The little oblong puffs symbolise gold or prosperity.

Fish
The fish might be prawns, king prawns, smoked salmon strips, dried salmon skin.

Story
At a Toastmasters meeting I attended at Toa Payoh Community Centre, the organiser had the list of ingredients and what they symbolise on her mobile phone (in Chinese characters). So she was able to read off instructions to others who were opening the food packets and tubs provided.

Jewish, Seder and Order
If you have ever been to a Jewish seder night or watched one on the internet or read about it, you will notice that the Seder service also takes different symbolic foods in order, symbolising sweet and sour events in history, drawing your attention to the different tastes (and colours). The word seder means order.

Fish Or Vegetarian?
Ideally last you add fish on top, in small strips, and mix it in so all diners get some. Before adding fish check if your diners include, vegetarians and those allergic to fish or shellfish. If so, you can either add the fish separately, or give them a portion before adding fish.

Left Or Right Hand
In Asia you use your right hand for eating and handling food, your left for dirty jobs, washing the floor or handling genitals when going to the toilet. Do not hand food to people with your left hand.

Chopstick Tips
When separating pairs of chopsticks and handing them around for a lo hei, make sure you open the packet at the end with the thickest part of the chopsticks, or allow each person to open their own, or to separate the sticks, or hand them from the thick end, so you are not handling the pointed end which goes in their mouths. (In fact, you are not supposed to put the pointed end in your mouth, because it goes back into the communal bowl to pick up the next piece, but I still don't like to see somebody's fingers on the ends of ht chopsticks which some Westerners will put in their mouth, and which everybody will put in the communal fish.

Chopsticks and Rice
Easy To Eat
If you don't like rice, or can't handle picking up grains of rice with chopsticks, then Lo Hei is a great dish. All the food is shredded and mixed together so you don't have to cut or mix or pick out anything.

Chopstick - flat or upright?
If you are given rice earlier or later, do not end by putting your chopsticks upright in leftover rice like incense sticks. This is only done for offering food to your dead ancestors. So to leave chopsticks upright in rice is offensive, upsetting and confusing for others. Don't do it even if you are not with Chinese friends, or if you are at home, because it sets a bad example to other Westerners and children who are then likely to do it in public restaurants where they will get wary looks from waiters, and be admonished by Chinese friends.

Chopsticks Resting Flat
When you have finished eating, lay your chopsticks flat. In restaurants you are given a chopstick rest on which to place your used chopsticks.

Tossing High
When tossing the Lo Hei before you all start to eat, the story goes that the higher you toss, the greater the prosperity. The Chinese seems to regard this as great fun.

Tossing Carefully To Protect Carpets /Floors
However, in some places the owners of the building might not appreciate having food on the floor. (A nuisance for staff to clean up. If your room is a dance hall, or yoga hall, the barefoot dancers won't want your food or grease on the floor. Food on the floor also attracts insects.

Several possible solutions:
Provide an edge to the bowl - such as paper table cover.
Place a larger flat platter underneath the central bowl.
Ask everybody to toast carefully and explain why.
Tell everybody you will need everybody to help clean the floor afterwards - and hope this discourages them from making a mess they have to clean.
Bring kitchen towel to clean up the floor.

Giving And Receiving Advice
Don't worry about doing things wrong and being informed or corrected. Speak and think positively. For example, "Thank you so much for telling me!" "I'm so glad you told me / helped me / warned me (mother-in-law / teacher / guide / my friend). You have saved me so much possible confusion / embarrassment!" "I do love learning about foreign / other /Chinese culture."

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts here on this blog and other blogs on blogger.com You will also be able to read more about me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and elsewhere on the internet. Take a look at my books on etiquette, travel, languages and other subjects on Amaxone and Lulu.com
Please follow, like my posts and share them with your family, friends and colleagues.

500 wines and salmon - more news about the super salmon

The salmon I found so melt own the mouth was from Hansen and Lydersen. The family business started in Norway. The grand-daughter has revived it in London. Her son does the smoking. I met a lady - I'm a bit confused, I am not sure whether I met his mother or his wife. Anyway, what is clear is that it's a family business.

The brochure explains everything in exquisite detail. The salmon is smoked in a mixture of beech and juniper wood. It is not frozen. It is wrapped in paper, not plastic. The London smokehouse will send the salmon to you the day that it is ready. Outside London you will get it delivered a day later.

So far, so good. But the really interesting thing for me was that you get different flavours in different parts of the fish. The salty and smokey flavour is more pronounced in the thinner tail. The subtler flavour is in the lower middle. You can follow their guide and choose which parts you prefer. If you order a whole side you get both and can compare.

Names to Remember
How do you remember the names? Norwegian names sound strange to people in London. Sen means son. Like Williamson and Robertson in English-speaking countries. So Hansen sounds like son of Hans. Lydersen sounds like son of Lyder. The family member who started it all was a salmon fisherman called Lyder-Nilsen. (Think of son of Nil or Neil). He was born in 1886 in Norway.

Fish Fit For A King or Queen
If you order the Queen Maud Fillet, named after Noway's Queen Maud, who preferred this, you get the most succulent part of the salmon.

Tasting and Buying
You might be able to taste their smoked salmon at restaurants such as Le Meurice in Paris or The Dorchester and others in London. You can buy and taste it at delicatessens such as La Fromagerie in London (one of my favourites - they have a great cafe cum restaurant. You might also be able to buy from Harrods or Ocado. In addition Hansen-Lydersen also sell at a couple of markets.

I must say that having tried smoked salmon in thick cuts, I much prefer this style. The thin slices you normally get in the plastic wrap packets from supermarkets seem awfully mean and tasteless - except for the ones which are over-salted. If you want to order online, you must order 48 hours in advance.

Keen Tourists and Big Buyers
You can visit their smokehouses in London or the Cotswolds.
Email: contact@hansen-lydersen.com

They have an amusing concertina book about the company with the addresses on the back.

email: orders@hansen-lydersen.com
website: hansen-lydersen.com

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Bangers Restaurant near Moorgate station on the Met line in London

Bangers Restaurant, only a few steps from Moorgate station on the Metropolitan line, turn the corner and it's on the next corner across the road.

In a basement, but surprisingly large, with lots of rooms and nooks.

Service
Warm and friendly staff. They serve wine and food until late at night, starting with breakfast at 7.30 am with free coffee.

Decor
One of the main rooms has white walls, black ironwork and wooden floor, tables and dining chairs. All brightened by the electric lights, and small and large candles.

If you want to snuggle up on a sofa, they've got that.

Want red to wake you up at breakfast time? You can have that.

Just want to stand at a bar? They've got that? Plus a barrel or two.

Private Side Rooms And Alcoves

English Food
Bangers and mash is the traditional English comfort food of sausages with mashed potatoes. They have two side rooms using the name Cumberland, which is a kind of sausage.

But we ordered much grander food for dinner in the evening. We were a wine society group enjoying a dinner where we were allowed to serve our own wines. I presume there's either a room hire or a corkage fee, not sure.

Starters - Smoked Salmon, Crab
My starter was a very tasty and smooth smoked salmon enhanced with thin slices of radish. I'd never tried radish before. It looks pretty and adds a refreshing bite. Others in my group had crab starter. Two of our group of about twelve were allergic to crab and chose smoked salmon instead.

Main Course - Duck
The main course was duck with potatoes - and watercress and green beans.

Cheese
Our dessert was the cheese board. Two generously large slides of cheese, with octagonal crisps biscuits in three colours, dark, light and medium. The cheeses were tasty a softish blue cheese which I made the mistake of eating first, because after it the other yellow cheese seemed like a tasteless cheddar. I would have preferred portions half the size and three cheeses or better still four cheeses.

Looking at my picture I recall that the cheese and biscuits came with three grapes and some tasty sweet chutney.

Water, Service and Loyalty Card
Our deal included water, sparkling or still. Staff were always around. Somebody to point the way to the ladies. Somebody to fetch toothpicks. Somebody to get me still water instead of sparkling. Somebody to find me a loyalty card.

Coffee and Chocolates
The restaurant was able to provide a decaffeinated coffee.You might expect this everywhere. However, during the last year I was at a restaurant which did not have decaffeinated coffee.
With coffee we were served orange flavoured chocolate segments.

In case you are curious as to what we drank, two sparkling starter wines, one from Tesco, perfectly acceptable, and another which most people thought was even better. After several Saint Emilion reds, provided from the collection by our wine club group organiser, far too much to drink, we ended with his own port wine.

Prices
I was going to give you a section of prices, then I thought, I don't have time to type all this. So I took a photo of both sides of the menu.

This was for May 2016. For seasonal items and updates check out their website.

In addition to the Bangers menu which you can read on line, they have a daily special written on a board.
Eldon House | 
2-12 Wilson Street, London EC2M 2TE, England
Tel:020 7377 6326 

http://www.davy.co.uk/wine-bar/bangers/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangers_and_mash

Toilets And Amusements
A trip to the toilets revealed more decor. I saw one downstairs toilet for Ladies where the cubicle door has the amusing line: Take a seat.  It is a framed advertisement for their restaurant, but an amusing location for it.

Every time I turned a corner I found something new. It wasn't until late at night when most people had gone that I noticed these creatures, fish, birds and animals.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, researcher, speaker.

English afternoon tea for a book group: brown bridge rolls and lemon drizzle cake

If you are a reader - and you must be if you enjoy reading blogs, you can meet local people in other countries by going to a book group. In Singapore I went to book groups attached to the American club and a South African book group.

Some of the book groups met in a club house, such as the American Club in Singapore. You could join the American Woman's Association which cost less than the club membership and it was easier to join if you were not American.

Most of the meetings were in the club but some were in people's homes. In order to encourage people to volunteer houses, many meetings were either just coffee and biscuits, or end of year meetings were often pot luck, with many people bringing home make cakes. The British tended to make one big cake. The Americans were fond of making muffins. In England we used to make smaller fairy cakes for children's parties.

What can you serve? In England at a book group we like to serve bridge rolls. Toppings can be cream cheese, chopped egg, smoked salmon, tuna, tuna and sweetcorn, and other fish such as herring. For a special occasion such as a party you would slice something circular for a decoration in the middle, slices of tomato, olives, cucumber, a contrasting colour.

If you can't get bridge rolls, a very good substitute is marks and spencer rolls. They come in white or brown.

Favourite cakes are lemon drizzle cake, with or without icing, chocolate cake, cakes with nuts.

Of course, if you were reading Marcel Proust's A La Recherché Du Temps Perdu you would serve madeleines, oval shape cakes, which you can buy in large supermarkets in the UK.

Angela Lansbury, author.

Breakfast Travel Diet - I must avoid the almond croissant

My favourite snack is Costa's almond bake slice.

I've looked at snacks in Waitrose cafe and at Costa, as well as the freshly baked croissants and muffins in Tesco and Morrisons - and tea time scones with cream at Marks & Spencer to take home and divide between two people or two meals.

Croissants are the worst and if you look at recipes to bake your own you see why they are so calorific and taste so good. Full of butter. My other favourite is almond fillings and marzipan. Marzipan is basically ground almonds mixed with sugar, the amount of sugar varying from about 25% to 75%.

You are better off buying a sandwich - but the egg with mayo could contain more calories than the chicken sandwich.

As for bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese!

So I have to run to and from the shop in order to eat half a croissant. Anybody want to run with me and then share my almond bake?

We've started doing a daily calorie count in our family.

http://www.costanutrition.co.uk