Friday in Liverpool

We always knew this day would come.  This is the sad day that Joe and I both failed to do any food pictures.  I know, we've let you down, and worse, we've let ourselves down too.

But let's not be too down heartened as we do have a good excuse for our failure.  Friday night was more about the drinks than the dinner.

On Friday Joe and I took a little trip along the M62 to the Wirral.  The main point of our visit was that our friends, Laura and Chris, have recently had a baby girl called Grace, and Friday night was Grace's head wetting drinks for the boys.  Joe went for a boys' night in the Black Horse in Heswall, dinner being usurped by a succession of pints of San Miguel.  You can't blame him really.

I was also out on the tiles, accompanying the lovely Stephie and Shereef to see Mr Scruff at The Magnet in Liverpool (I am so down with the kids!).  The Magnet is a super cool bar and club in the Cultural Quarter, around the corner from the Philharmonic pub.  It was established in 1958 and has seen the Beatles passing through, as well as the first gig of Freddie Mercury and Brian May in their pre-Queen days.  To me, that's pretty awesome.  The bar is 1950's diner inspired, with a great range of spirits and beers.  If you head downstairs, you are into the cave-esque club which, on Friday, was full of an eclectic range of people drinking and dancing to Mr Scruff's beats.  All in, it was a great night, and I'm sure you now understand why we might have failed on the food front....

Me and Stephie at the Magnet

Saturday - Chapel A Arts Festival, Organic veg box & Fish pie!

It was an early rise for me as I had a bit of work to do before the fun for the day started - we had fish finger sandwiches with a bloody mary at 12pm which is a lunch that everyone should enjoy! With the work and other chores out of the way (me - food shopping, Jo - cleaning) we decided to stroll across to Chapel Allerton from Roundhay for the annual Chapel Allerton Arts Festival which we hadn't been to for a couple of years. It has been running since 1998, and we were impressed by the music, food and fun that it offers.

On arrival, there was a group of white haired gentleman on stage playing New Orleans Jazz, with the Leeds master trombonist Ed O'Donell taking center stage who has been making music since the late ‘40s......we both loved them!!! I want them at our wedding next year but Jo isn't convinced!......here is a picture; I video that I will upload later that is well worth a watch.

Even though we had only had lunch an hour or so before, I suggested that we would need a snack and the first thing I spotted was a.......pork pie! (I forgot to mention yesterday that I also had a pork pie from Malcolm Michaels in Kirkgate market which is definitely a wedding contender) The festival pork pie came from Crumb and Crust that is a bakery in Chapel Allerton. Overall it was a good 6/10 - not the best but not the worst and at £2.50 was definitely on the expensive side.

A good looking pork pie but not the best

An unsure looking Jo with our pork pie

As we strolled on, we came across Chris Long who was representing Hope Farm who are part of the Riverside Organic Veg delivery scheme. He obviously loves his job, and convinced us to trial the service with our first delivery of a small box coming on Thursday. We had been thinking about doing this for a while so are looking forward to seeing what we receive next week - we will be reviewing then.

An example organic veg box - a large I think. We have gone for small

Our excellent salesman in advertising mode

Next stop was drinks at Seven - a place that we both really like as it is relaxed, has the papers and sells good value food and drinks.....

My ale of choice

Jo had one of these followed by white wine

Our starter before heading home for fish pie

By now it was around 6pm so it was time to head back home for dinner. As I have said before, I never fail to be amazed at what Jo can rustle up give a couple of ingredients - when doing the food shopping I picked up some fish bits asuming that Jo would be able to make fish pie without checking with her that we had the right stuff in the house - I was right!!! - love the heart by the way. 

Veg to accompany the fish pie