Cafes

I’m pleased to discover that one of our familiar cafes in Kirkcudbright has re-opened. I think it closed last year and the business was up for sale. It’s under new ownership with a new name and I look forward to visiting on our next time there. We know all the cafes in Kirkcudbright and Castle Douglas, some better than others. We have lunch out most days when we are there, or coffee and cake. Less often at home, but it’s nice when we do venture out.

On my birthday, a few years ago, we were having lunch in the Ashton Pavilion café in St. Anne’s. Someone began to play the grand piano, very accomplished and lovely to listen to as one tune seamlessly flowed into another. ‘Nights in White Satin’, perfectly played, filled me with emotion and reminded me of the time years earlier, when having lunch at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, a small group of us were entertained by Michel Legrand running through his playlist in preparation for the evening. He didn’t play ‘Nights’, but the feeling was the same. Amazing talent.

There’s a fabulous café at the Lowry in Salford. The gallery and theatre, not the hotel, though it might have one. My husband and I had lunch there after a pilgrimage to the paintings, where I can gaze at Lowry’s work and cry and sigh as I love them so much. It was a special day. We spent the afternoon in Weatherfield on a Coronation Street tour, where I cried and sighed again because I love it so much. I would have liked afternoon tea at Roy’s Rolls, but sadly, the door was locked and even more sad, it wasn’t real, just a street frontage. It would be fabulous to be an extra in Roy’s café. I would sit quietly reading, fully absorbed in the book, newspaper or whatever, ignoring everything and everyone around me. Maybe someone will let me.

Edward Hopper’s painting, ‘Nighthawks’ appeals to me. The subject is an American diner late at night, not quite a café, but something about it intrigues me enough to want to be there. The characters look glum, even stern, like there’s something awkward going on. Ok, I’m nosey.

Park’s Art Deco Café at Stanley Park is open after the winter break and we have just about completed our Rushton & Co. style painting and decorating at home. I think we’ve earned a lunch out.

My Haiku poem,

When in Kirkcudbright
There’s a nice, new café
To add to our list.

Lunch in the Lowry,
Spellbound in the galleries,
We should go again.

I went to New York,
The Waldorf Astoria.
Lucky, little me!

I’ll sit silently
When I’m an extra
On Coronation Street.

Let’s go to the park.
We’ve finished decorating,
The café is open.

PMW 2026

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Tamping - Forget the Coffee, Get the Teapot

 

I’ve just been trying to read an article about what happens if I tamp expresso too hard. I quickly lost interest and gave up. On the occasion that I might have a cup of coffee, presently once a day, it is from a jar of instant Nescafe Gold. It will do for me. Visitors to my house can have the same, or choose between regular Nescafe or decaf. At the moment, there are still a few sachets of instant latte lurking in the beverage cupboard, left over from when we thought them a good idea. Nescafe, of course, but unwanted, not liked, still in date. I’m baffled by coffee menus in Costa, Starbucks and similar. On reading the first sentence of that article, I'd satisfied  myself I’m not missing out on anything. I don’t need a coffee maker or a tamping mat, though the mat could possibly have other uses.

Morecambe promenade, circa 1960. Sunday morning with my visiting grandparents always involved going to church – Sunday School for me – then a stroll along the front to what I think must have been Nanna Hetty’s favourite café. We had cups of coffee, even me at age five or six. It was either to warm me up on a cold day, or the huge glasses of squash were considered too much. I enjoyed these excursions and remember feeling quite grown up having coffee and popping two light-brown sugar cubes into the cup. I don’t think there was any fuss about choice. Coffee was coffee and in our house and Nanna Hetty’s house, it was in a small, round tin, in powder form. A few years later, when I was old enough to go to the shop by myself, I sometimes bought an individual sachet of instant Nescafe for a few pence. This was old money, pre-decimal. It was just the coffee, not the ones with added milk powder that are available today. I wonder then, when did all these types of coffee and the use of tamping mats come about?

Italian brothers, Sergio and Bruno Costa started their coffee bean roastery in London around 1971 and opened their first coffee bar in 1981. In Seattle USA, the Starbuck team of business partners Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl were doing the same thing around the same time. Fifty-plus years later, they are both globally established, offering a long list of different coffees, keeping their baristas busy with their tamping mats. My daughter doesn’t generally like coffee, maybe a caramel latte, but on a short holiday in London when she was about fourteen, she carried a takeaway Costa cup everywhere as it seemed to be the thing to do. And she didn’t walk with us, she was either a little in front, or a couple of paces behind. Funny that.

Well, those of you with tamping mats, coffee makers, even percolators or coffee bean grinders, you know what you like, so enjoy. I'll have a pot of strong tea. A good builder's brew.

My Haiku,

Who wants a latte?
What’s ordinary coffee?
Is it a flat white?

The Barista’s job,
What is tamping all about?
What is expresso?

Why a tiny cup?
I’ll have English Breakfast Tea,
Yes, tea. Very strong.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Watermelon - Business Trip, 1984

The first time I ate watermelon I was astonished to find it so cool, refreshing and thirst-quenching. I was in my late twenties at a motorway service station somewhere in middle England, a welcome break on a tedious homeward journey of delays then slow moving traffic. The afternoon was hot, the car was stuffy, my companion was moody and I longed to be home alone. I hated those pointless business trips. As usual, it could all have been discussed over the phone instead of dragging people from offices as far away as Whitehaven to a soulless Holiday Inn in Swiss Cottage. Sucking the watermelon helped cheer me. Juicy watermelon, chilled and delicately delicious, in triangular slices like I gave to my children years later, my grandchildren nowadays and I was an adult before my first taste.

Anyone who has endured chemotherapy will acknowledge the effect it can have on the whole body and mind. We are all different in how we react and the prescription is tailored specifically to an individual. One thing that was common between me and fellow patients was lack of appetite on good days, nausea on bad days and sore mouth ulcers all of the time which made eating very painful. Most of us relied on pineapple, honeydew melon and watermelon. All were manageable, soothing and easy to digest. I still enjoy all three, though watermelon is my favourite. I’ve promised myself to buy a whole one and have a go at decorative carving.

I missed out on ‘making a shark from a watermelon’ last year. Well, I think I missed out. The tutorial was advertised on our list of possible activities when we had an all-inclusive mini-break last summer, but it seemed not to be included during our stay. I’m keen to do it, so I’ll try. I can still eat it, however much mess I make.

 

I found this poem:

Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle
Received from a Friend Called Felicity

During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees
Was to be skinned;
When shiny horse chestnuts
    (Hollowed out
    Fitted with straws
    Crammed with tobacco
    Stolen from butts
    In family ashtrays)
Were puffed in green lizard silence
While straddling thick branches
Far above and away
From the softening effects
Of civilization;
During that summer--
Which may never have been at all;
But which has become more real
Than the one that was--
Watermelons ruled.

Thick imperial slices
Melting frigidly on sun-parched tongues
Dribbling from chins;
Leaving the best part,
The black bullet seeds,
To be spit out in rapid fire
Against the wall
Against the wind
Against each other;
And when the ammunition was spent,
There was always another bite:
It was a summer of limitless bites,
Of hungers quickly felt
And quickly forgotten
With the next careless gorging.

The bites are fewer now.
Each one is savored lingeringly,
Swallowed reluctantly.

But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which maybe never was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.

John Tobias

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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