[Photos] UK 39 - Cockfosters, and Meals.
Jun. 27th, 2019 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonvoiceAt the end, we stayed around Barnet (though specifically in Cockfosters) which was our last week before we were to drop the car off at Heathrow (at which point we experienced a terrifying attempted carjacking where a car literally exploded into flames next to us while an incredibly drunk man forced his way into the car and attempted to get us to drive to a mysterious location for a mysterious amount of time) and catch a cab to Gatwick.
I have good friends in Barnet, and though I was skeptical we'd get to spend much time seeing Tif and Kuba, in the end we saw them nearly every day, treated to incredible Polish hospitality, watching Miś and watching Glen and Kuba play VR. Tif did the cover for Blackwood, and has also done several banners for my Fae Tales universe, and we actually met through her reading my series and reaching out. She does amazing book cover work for HarperCollins in London (yes, that HarperCollins), and otherwise freelances.
On a whim I've also decided to put all of our other food photos in this post. Mostly because I got hardly any photos of Cockfosters or Barnet.
One of the houses we regularly walked by. This little section, really close to Southgate Station, was also a Turkish/Greek part of the community. They had a wonderful grocery store, bakery, and cafes, and the food here was some of the best we had throughout the entire UK. We got a few looks, particularly going into the bakery where it didn't seem like anyone spoke English, but once they realised we wanted to buy things, they were happy enough, and it was all really delicious.
The final place we stayed was a self-contained studio next to a guesthouse. The host was very sort of wary of giving us specifics, and seemed very concerned with meeting us (which was difficult given traffic etc.), but it turned out that she was incredibly lovely, and one of the most generous hosts we had.
We also met a lovely Sri Lankan woman while we were walking back from Fio's (the Mediterranean grocery) and talked to her a lot about Sri Lanka, Australia, health stuff, and more. She seemed concerned that we wouldn't much like the colder weather, but we assured her it had been lovely, and that we like the cold.
And then I went home and had pastirma on freshly cooked bread, followed by dried golden sultanas and chocolate baklava.
The guesthouse.
Tif honestly had the greatest things in her house, lol.
Just one of Tif's many, many bookcovers.
And now we are at food!
I think this may have been one of the last desserts I had, in a Premier Inn, at Gatwick airport.
I genuinely can't remember where I got this, but I'm laughing because what I DO remember is that we were all joking that it had salami on it. And that I had to get it, because it was a cheesecake with salami (it wasn't, it clearly said that it was a raspberry disk or something). And NOW I remember, this was in Chichester when we had dinner with the family. And they dared me to get the 'salami cheesecake.' It was delicious.
One of the first meals Glen and I had when it was just the two of us in Chichester.
HUGE meal sizes. Incredibly mediocre food. This was in a pub in Chichester again, while we listened to an incredibly rowdy, drunk, kind of awful schoolteacher talk about how 'double u' is wrong, because 'it's not a double u' (i.e. W shouldn't be 'double u') while a bunch of dudes around her basically said things like 'and you're fucking teaching my kid????' and I was like 'oh. god.'
In Wales, we found a small cafe in Prestatyn which was cozy and friendly and had a surprisingly huge menu that was still actually pretty delicious.
From the cafe in Prestatyn. I had a fish finger sandwich, something I had a craving for, when Mum got all nostalgic and talked about how she used to make them for us kids (and I still make them sometimes because making them with packet processed fish fingers is SUCH good shitty budget food lmao). But this sandwich had really good homemade bread and properly battered pieces of fish so.
Part of the Sunday chicken roast I had at The White Swan in Stratford-Upon-Avon. What isn't shown here is the separate platter of very beautifully treated vegetables.
The Turkish re-imagining of a Reuben I had at the cafe in the Turkish/Greece/Mediterranean strip in Cockfosters/Southgate. Everything here was delicious, even the dressing on the salad.
And finally, the best meal we actually ended up having throughout our entire trip to the UK. I hadn't expected much, for a lot of reasons, including not being seated for ages, but you know what by the time I started eating, it didn't matter.
Dessert. Mine is the deconstructed Eton Mess, which guys, guys, it was SO GOOD.
I have good friends in Barnet, and though I was skeptical we'd get to spend much time seeing Tif and Kuba, in the end we saw them nearly every day, treated to incredible Polish hospitality, watching Miś and watching Glen and Kuba play VR. Tif did the cover for Blackwood, and has also done several banners for my Fae Tales universe, and we actually met through her reading my series and reaching out. She does amazing book cover work for HarperCollins in London (yes, that HarperCollins), and otherwise freelances.
On a whim I've also decided to put all of our other food photos in this post. Mostly because I got hardly any photos of Cockfosters or Barnet.
One of the houses we regularly walked by. This little section, really close to Southgate Station, was also a Turkish/Greek part of the community. They had a wonderful grocery store, bakery, and cafes, and the food here was some of the best we had throughout the entire UK. We got a few looks, particularly going into the bakery where it didn't seem like anyone spoke English, but once they realised we wanted to buy things, they were happy enough, and it was all really delicious.
The final place we stayed was a self-contained studio next to a guesthouse. The host was very sort of wary of giving us specifics, and seemed very concerned with meeting us (which was difficult given traffic etc.), but it turned out that she was incredibly lovely, and one of the most generous hosts we had.
We also met a lovely Sri Lankan woman while we were walking back from Fio's (the Mediterranean grocery) and talked to her a lot about Sri Lanka, Australia, health stuff, and more. She seemed concerned that we wouldn't much like the colder weather, but we assured her it had been lovely, and that we like the cold.
And then I went home and had pastirma on freshly cooked bread, followed by dried golden sultanas and chocolate baklava.
The guesthouse.
Tif honestly had the greatest things in her house, lol.
Just one of Tif's many, many bookcovers.
And now we are at food!
I think this may have been one of the last desserts I had, in a Premier Inn, at Gatwick airport.
I genuinely can't remember where I got this, but I'm laughing because what I DO remember is that we were all joking that it had salami on it. And that I had to get it, because it was a cheesecake with salami (it wasn't, it clearly said that it was a raspberry disk or something). And NOW I remember, this was in Chichester when we had dinner with the family. And they dared me to get the 'salami cheesecake.' It was delicious.
One of the first meals Glen and I had when it was just the two of us in Chichester.
HUGE meal sizes. Incredibly mediocre food. This was in a pub in Chichester again, while we listened to an incredibly rowdy, drunk, kind of awful schoolteacher talk about how 'double u' is wrong, because 'it's not a double u' (i.e. W shouldn't be 'double u') while a bunch of dudes around her basically said things like 'and you're fucking teaching my kid????' and I was like 'oh. god.'
In Wales, we found a small cafe in Prestatyn which was cozy and friendly and had a surprisingly huge menu that was still actually pretty delicious.
From the cafe in Prestatyn. I had a fish finger sandwich, something I had a craving for, when Mum got all nostalgic and talked about how she used to make them for us kids (and I still make them sometimes because making them with packet processed fish fingers is SUCH good shitty budget food lmao). But this sandwich had really good homemade bread and properly battered pieces of fish so.
Part of the Sunday chicken roast I had at The White Swan in Stratford-Upon-Avon. What isn't shown here is the separate platter of very beautifully treated vegetables.
The Turkish re-imagining of a Reuben I had at the cafe in the Turkish/Greece/Mediterranean strip in Cockfosters/Southgate. Everything here was delicious, even the dressing on the salad.
And finally, the best meal we actually ended up having throughout our entire trip to the UK. I hadn't expected much, for a lot of reasons, including not being seated for ages, but you know what by the time I started eating, it didn't matter.
Dessert. Mine is the deconstructed Eton Mess, which guys, guys, it was SO GOOD.
