Gordale Scar, Art & the Dukes of Hazzard!

Some years ago as an errant and clueless art student, I remember being bowled over by James Ward’s magnificent depiction of Gordale Scar.  In excess of fourteen feet in height, and by far the largest canvas in Tate Britain (then simply the Tate Gallery), it caught my eye.  I must have lingered for half an hour or so.  Marveling in its size, I was transported back to Yorkshire, back to the ‘Gateway to the dales’, a stones throw from where I grew up.  Ward completed the work around 1814 and judging by the looming tempest depicted high above the jagged limestone cliffs, the artist didn’t get as lucky with the weather as we were last weekend.  Come to think of it, he probably wouldn’t have had the pleasure of staying on the campsite at the mouth of the scar.  Who knows?

Gordale Scar Campsite is without doubt one of the most striking sites in England.  The current owner appears to be a bit of an artist himself, more Tracey Emin than James Ward.  The fellah has an amazing collection of used foil tray barbeques, empty plastic water containers and knackered fold out camp chairs, all neatly stacked in piles awaiting a nomination for the Turner prize.  From the looks on the faces of folks milling around the toilet and washing block, I guess the majority of campers thought the old guy must be slowly loosing it.  But we ex-art students, we know the truth!

   

Art aside, I was there to see my pals, some of whom, I’d last clapped eyes on nearly twenty years ago!  And what a pleasure it was.  It’s amazing how camping can bring folks together.  We were surrounded and outnumbered by young candidates for the Duke of Edinburgh Award, a couple of whom had the pluck to request that we keep the noise down as they were up at five the next morning.  Ok, our party was more Dukes of Hazard than Dukes of Edinburgh, but for Pete’s sake, I hadn’t even got my tent pitched at that stage!  An evening in the Lister’s Arms would surely keep us out of trouble.


We awoke in the morning with sore heads and more than a little confusion.  So what exactly is a Duke of Edinburgh? We mused.  Well, we all agreed, it’s probably a bit like a Prince Albert, but only more painful!

A book review of sorts

As far as I'm concerned, camping & cooking is easy. Well the cooking bit is easy and let's face it it doesn't really matter if it all goes wrong, so long as you haven't burned the bejeezus out of it you can still eat it. The camping bit is always more tricky. Finding a good campsite can make or break your stay and is probably why I end up going back to the same few sites i've visited over the years. So when I was asked to do a review of a camping guide, I jumped at the chance to go somewhere new! Book reviews are new to me, but i'll give anything a go.

You wouldn’t buy a car without taking it out for a spin, well I did actually – a Dodge Dart ‘Swinger’ and it got me safely from New Hampshire to California, where I sold it for a profit! But that’s another story.  A bloke from Alan Rogers Guides emailed me and asked if I would review their latest edition of The Best Campsites in Britain & Ireland, I’m glad he did!  Using the old ‘test drive theory’ I picked a site on the shores of Llyn Tegid (lake Bala) in North Wales.  Arriving at dusk with the light failing rapidly, my worries about finding a flat pitch for the campervan were assuaged by the fact that the whole site was as flat as a pancake.  It was a combination of the Alan Rogers guide and OS Landranger series, Sheet number 125, which lead us to our caravansary for the evening.

I awoke to the murmurings of a babbling brook and the sunlight shining in through the curtains.  Alan had served me well, the site was splendid, and what’s more, strictly adhering to the brief description on page 238.  Well served with hot showers etc etc.  Maybe it was beginners luck, but I’m starting to like this guide.  With over 600 sites between the covers, it would take a hell of a lot of petrol and more ‘wife miles’ than I could muster to put the whole book to the test.  Ok it lacks the ‘coffee table’ appeal of the Cool Camping guides, and would definitely be improved with actual photos from some of the sites it details rather than using stock photos, but it’s easy to use and appears to do what it says on the tin.

Snatched by Saatchi

Bare with me on this, my web meister has left me for the bright and heady world of Saatchi.  Can't blame him really, the peanuts I was paying him must have gone stale months ago! So I though I'd see how GG translates into the bloggersphere in the mean time.  I thought I could include a lot more photos and more general camping related ramblings.  Let's see how it pans out and let me know what you think.

California Dreaming!

She said YES!  It was as though, for a moment, the setting sun wavered and rose again, ever so slightly, over the horizon. An unexpected extra few moments of light at the end of the day.  The whole Pacific coastline was bathed in a warm glow, and so was I.  I nearly fell over.  Are you sure? Did you hear me? Is that it then?  All thoughts, racing through my head but thankfully prevented from leaving my lips.

We headed back across the warm sand towards the tent and that’s when we met John Maybury of Fort Bragg California.  He was carrying what looked like a lacrosse, which turned out to be a fishing net.  “Have you seen any night fish?” he enquired, “they follow the day fish!”  I explained that while I had just a few moments earlier, landed the greatest catch of my life, I had no idea of what he was talking about.  He was looking for Grunion, small fish about the size of whitebait, and he was using a traditional Native American Indian method to catch them.  The ‘lacrosse’ was a triangular fishing net, which he used to scoop the small fish from the breaking waves.  I managed to trade a couple of cold beers for a bowl full of Mr Maybury’s catch and we headed back to camp.

She’d impressed me all those months ago back in Leeds, dropping tequila & champagne slammers like they were going out of fashion.  The week on Menorca had revealed her penchant for slick camping gear as well as a couple of other points of note. We’d made a fantastic team, picking sites and pitching canvas along the Lost Coast, and now she was pulling heads off little fish!  But best of all she had accepted my proposal and agreed to become my fiancé.

They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.  Perhaps it’s the same route to the heart of a woman.  Whether it was the fancy cooking, my whittling skills or some other divine force at work, the Guyrope Gourmet played a vital role in this courtship ritual and set out a stall and standard to maintain.

The engagement celebration was a riot.  Laughing and joking about my having to ask her father for his daughter’s hand in marriage, we gutted and cleaned the night fish. Tossing them into a bowl of well-seasoned flour, my mind turned towards completing the meal.  It was obvious really.  We didn’t need anything else.  Seasoned night fish fried in olive oil, plucked from the ocean half an hour after high tide, a bottle of J.Lohr, Wildflower Gamay and a wedding to plan.

Caught out by Captcha!

It's no use, I've grown tired of removing ads for fake watches & handbags from the 'Chef's Blog' section on the www.guyropegourmet.com website so I've moved the blogging bit over here!

A culinary cavalcade from Catalunya to California and beyond

The lamb stew i'd cooked up on Menorca had definitely worked some kind of magic.  We'd had a fantastic week camping among the pines and exploring hidden coves, secret beached and various other nooks and crannies.  I knew she was the girl for me, but there was still a lot more work to be done.  The Trangia camping stove may well stand as an exemplary icon of Scandanavian design, a fine example of tessalatory genius, but it alone was never going to win the heart of the girl that introduced me to tequila and champagne slammers!  We returned to England and our day-to-day lives.  Then I took the call, a couple of weeks before the invite showed up.  My pal Max was to wed a texan the following spring, be there or be square.

I planned a trip.  California camping, with a minor (or not so) diversion to Dallas to witness and celebrate the betrothal of one of my oldest pals.  The wedding was fantastic.  It was obvioust that the Texans were not expecting a sassy English woman to show up to a society wedding sporting a pink stetson, but that's a different story altogether.

Camping in California is quite possibly as good as it gets.  We worked our way up route 101, the coastal highway, as far as Sinkyone state park.  The Hidden Coast gets its name by virtue of the fact that the main road is forced by the Rocky Mountains to divert inland, leaving in its wake a spidery scattering of minor tracks and trails, which occasionally lead down to the coast and the amazing unspoiled beached of the Pacific coastline.

I'd been rehearsing the words in my head since we left the San Francisco city limits.  The plan was to stack the cards in my favour by applying the old Menorcan magic.  At various waypoints set among the giant Redwood trees of northern California, we dined on a plethora of Guyrope Gourmet creations.  Lemon and coriander stuffed trout wrapped in maize leaves, ginger marinated lamb kebabs, char-grilled vegetable cous cous.

On Usal beach, i gave it my all.  Producing a couple of centre cut pork chops i'd picked up in a local store on the way in, I marinated them in a melange of ripped basil, fresh squeezed lime juice, chopped garlic and olive oil.  A pinch of coarse sea salt and a few whole black peppercorns really sets it off.  Planning a side of char-grilled vegetable cous cous (it had been a hit a couple of nights before), I realised that the fuel for the MSR stove was running low.  We'd have to settle for plain cous cous, buy it really didn't matter.  Brown the chops on both sides in a hot frying-pan, serve on a bed of cous cous with a few halved cherry tomatoes and some ripped basil leaves to garnish.  A bottle of Bear Ridge merlot comes in handy too.  The meal went down a storm.  I could see my efforts to woo were working.  We ambled hand-in-hand to the water's edge as the sun was going down over the Pacific .... and then I asked her.

Love on an Island

It was the size of her tent that did it.  A cool blue New Zealand number folding to the size of a raincoat and weighing in at less than 2kg.  We'd not long before met at a tequila slamming party in Leeds and were now spending a week camping and walking on the island of Menorca.  This was my opportunity to wow her with my camp-building skills.  I thought i'd 'raymears' her into submission.  If the Trangia stove and British army poncho failed to impress, I knew i'd be back on that lonesome trail of singledom for a while longer.  It turns out I needn't have worried.

We'd been around on the island for a couple of days, camping among the aromatic pines just a kilometer north of a wild beach on the south coast.  Eating our way through chorizo, olives, hard goats cheese and delicious crusty bread, washing it all down with Vina Albali.  Rodney Ansell's Sunflower Guide to the Landscapes of Menorca lead us on a wonderful trail over walls, across rivers, around abandoned rusted cars and through the uplands north of Ferreries.

Stopping for a drink in the balmy heat of the afternoon, we sat among a patch of wild rosemary shrubs.  The smell was magnificent.  The verdant, lush green needles defying the parched land from which they sprang.  Bombarding olfactory senses.  I had an idea.  Rosemary & local lamb. Inspiration!  A future concept was born.

I'd never attempted anything so bold as a casserole on a Trangia before, but it would be the crowning glory on my attemps at wooing my newfound companion.  I'd spotted a carnisseria in Ferreries earlier in the day and now began racking my brains as to how I might convey a desire to purchase a couple of neck fillets of local lamb.  Would I have stopped short of bleating like a fool, who knows?  Regardless, I was saved the audition for animal farm, as like in most butchers' shops there was a rather handy poster on the back wall, which meant that the international language of finger pointing once more came to the fore.

Back at camp I diced a carrot and fine-chopped an onion.  Meat and two veg, keep it simple I thought.  but then I remembered the garlic and abandoned all caution.  simmer the onion and chopped garlic in olive oil for ten minutes or so, add the choppped lamb, salt and black pepper and a sprig of the wild rosemary and the carrot.  Brown the meat and pour in a good glug of Vina Albali, top up the pan with water and simmer for as long as the methelated spirit in the Trangia burner lasts (a good 45 minutes at least!).

The dish was perfect; no fuel left to cook the rice I'd bought, so we dunked the crusty bread and polished off the rest of the Albali.  And there I was, me, my new girl and ambitions of becomming the Guyrope Gourmet.

I kept the waxed wrapping paper from the butchers, and a reminder of Carnisseria 'Barber' in Ferreries, hangs framed on our kitchen wall to this day.