The dunnock has two penises - I mean, a lovely walk along the Dorset coastal path.

I don’t usually tag along to Adrian’s beery events.  But I make a large exception for Badger Ales.  Firstly because, as you know, I have this sort of badger ‘thing’ going on.  Secondly because they are just so damn nice and such good fun (the Badger people I mean, not the badger badgers which are, in fact, beasts of a frankly surly disposition). Thirdly because they had invited Pete Brown (beery author with a wicked sense of humour) and Liz Vater (organizer of the Stoke Newington Literary Festival and all-round splendid person).  And fourthly because a Badger do is never just about the beer – they know how to tempt. 

This time the carrot was a six mile walk along the coastal path in Dorset, a stunning bit of the South-West coastal path sponsored by Badger (capital B). Then, just in case that wasn’t alluring enough, they said, ‘Oh, and we wondered if you might prefer to have a facial and pedicure in your hotel room while your husband is touring the new brewery.’  To which I replied, ‘Er…well…go on then.’

We started off with a light lunch at the Lulworth Cove Inn, a lovely place, recently refurbished, overlooking the beach. Fabulous food and a really laid-back seaside vibe (children and dogs murgling around in a pretty civilized fashion).  We had the SP with us of course and Pete and Liz had brought his favourite sex toy, their aged dog Captain, and they started their usual malarkey under the table, fortunately away from the eyes of small children.

Then we climbed, and climbed, and climbed – up a gazillion steps to Durdle Door.  Along with seemingly every other person in Dorset.  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Mark, who has charge of the entire coastal path (yup, not just the South-West bit). ‘They’ll all give up at the top – we’ll be the only people from then on, pretty much.’  And he was right.  We walked, up and down, up and down, and didn’t encounter another human – just wild wind and the long inhale and exhale of the ocean.  And Naomi from Natural England fed us snippets of useful information about flora and fauna, including the unfeasibly complicated life cycle of the large blue butterfly which involves a frankly bizarre symbiotic relationship with the red ant. I’m not even going to go into it – if you’re interested you can read all about it here. 

‘Holy crap,’ I said. ‘They really don’t deserve to survive, do they?’

Naomi nodded firmly. ‘It’s beyond fussy, totally ludicrous.’ And we then fell into a discussion about other creatures which have evolved themselves into a corner – like the giant panda with its ludicrous eating and mating preferences.

Who'd have thought?  

‘Mind you,’ said Naomi. ‘Some creatures are just darn smart. Take the dunnock...’

‘The small brown bird,’ I said.

‘That’s the badger,’ she didn’t say.  ‘But yes,’ (she did say)… ‘did you know the male dunnock has two penises?’

‘You what?’ I shook my head, wondering  how, even on a nice country walk for a nice brewery company, the conversation had veered round to bizarre sexual habits.

‘Well,’ she said, warming to her theme. ‘Dunnocks are very promiscuous.  So the male dunnock uses one of its penises to scoop out any semen before planting in its own’ (this accompanied by rather nifty hand gestures of the scooping and planting variety.

And so we ambled into Osmington Mills chortling with laughter and stumbled into the Smugglers Inn and downed a pint of Brewer’s Bee (the new Badger brew) or, in my case, a slug of Pearwood (pear cider) which was mighty refreshing.

Mikey...

And then we skidaddled off to the Inn at Cranborne where they held our noses and force fed us outrageously good beer cocktails (I kid you not – I’m trying to prise the recipe for the Bourbon and maple syrup one out of them).  And they stuffed us full of even more excellent food.  And Captain and Dante started up their own vaguely distasteful sexual floor show again (this time out in the open) but, praise be, the pub has its own modesty police in the form of a very small Jack Russell called Mikey who broke up their entanglements with a firm sniff.  

And all in all it was a very fine day indeed. 

Anyhow, what was the purpose of this post?  Just that, if you're out and about in Dorset, do check out those pubs - they're all super-fine and dog, child, everything friendly.  And if you know of any other creatures which really have gone a bit nuts in the evolution stakes, do let me know.  

Can't cook? Won't cook

I don’t cook. It’s not that I can’t but rather that Adrian loves the whole malarkey so much that really, it would be cruel to butt in. I’ll knock up the odd batch of scones but, apart from that, my repertoire runs to toast. Even before I met Adrian I was a bit of a faddy cook. I don’t like preparing meat; I positively baulk at handling fish – so, by default, I was pretty much vegetarian. So the second part of our River Cottage experience set a few alarm bells ringing. We were going to learn how to prepare and cook pheasants. We? As in me?

Now we live in full-on pheasant country and eat a heck of a lot of the birds. And, before people wave their hands and shout ‘cruelty’ I would just say that I’d eat game any day over factory-farmed meat. If you’re a full-on vegetarian, then fair enough – but if you tuck into chicken, sorry, you don’t have a leg to stand on.

Anyhow... We were met in the kitchen classroom by several brace of pheasants. Hmm, brace. In other words, two. One each. I got as far as spreading the legs on mine and rearranging a few tail feathers and then thought, sod this. Let Adrian be the caveman; I’ll be in charge of seasoning. He was in seventh heaven – normally he just carves the breasts off pheasants (far too lazy for all that plucking) but now he was learning all kinds of clever new techniques.

I’ve never been on any kind of cookery course (at least, not since school – at which thought memories of Christmas log appear unbidden with a Proustian taste of nasty chocolate icing in the mouth). The River Cottage approach is delightfully ad hoc. After we (note the royal we) had extracted the meat from our pheasants, our teacher Steve waved a hand at the large table behind him and said we could gather whatever other ingredients we fancied for a game stew. Adrian eyed up the wild mallard breasts longingly but was steered in the direction of legs (moister apparently and hence better for long cooking). We decided on a pretty traditional version (see recipe at end) and Adrian set to sautéing the meat while I chopped vegetables.

I liked the attitude of the teaching staff. If you were happy being left to your own devices, that was cool. If you needed help, they were there in an instant, offering suggestions. It’s not remotely precious, not remotely patronising.

While our stews merrily bubbled, we whipped up a fruit cake each (yup, just like that). Then we were dispatched to the yurt (total heaven, with a huge woodburner in the centre) to sip elderflower champagne while the kitchen was transformed into a dining room for lunch.

What can I say? A second day of gargantuan feasting. But it was huge good fun and I’m coming round to the idea of cooking...providing, that is, I have kitchen elves to provide me with ready-prepared meat and to whisk away the dirty pots and pans. Oh and a brace of madly cute River Cottage chefs wafting around to tell me that my efforts are ‘perfect, darling, just perfect.’

Now then, this is NOT turning into a food blog... However, for those that are interested, the recipes follow....



Badger Ales Game Stew
Serves 6

2 tablespoons rapeseed or sunflower oil, or dripping
250g home-cured bacon belly, or bought pancetta, cut into chunky cubes
1.5kg mixed game, cut into large chunks
2 onions, finely sliced
2–3 large carrots, cut into big chunks
2 celery stalks, sliced
6–10 juniper berries, bashed slightly

2 bay leaves

A large sprig of thyme
At least 300ml beef, venison, chicken or game stock
300ml Hall & Woodhouse beer, of your choice (we used Poacher’s Choice)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil or dripping in a large, heavy-based frying pan, add the bacon and fry until it is lightly browned and the fat runs.

Transfer to a casserole dish. Now brown the meat in the same pan, in batches, transferring it to the casserole as soon as it’s well coloured. Add the remaining oil or dripping to the frying pan, then add the onions and sweat until soft but not coloured. Add the carrots and celery and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes. Transfer to the casserole and add the juniper berries, bay leaves and thyme.

Pour a little of the stock into the frying pan and stir well for a few minutes to deglaze the pan, then add this to the casserole too. Pour over the remaining stock and the beer, adding a little water too, if you need it – the liquid should cover the meat by a good couple of centimetres. Season with pepper, but no salt, as the bacon will be quite salty.

Bring to a simmer and cook, uncovered, at a very low, tremulous simmer for 2–3 hours, until the meat is completely tender, skimming any scum off the top as you go along. You can also cook it in a low oven, about 120°C/Gas Mark ½, with a lid on.



presentation not our strong point!



When the meat is cooked, taste the stew and season. The juice will be thin but well flavoured; if you prefer a thicker sauce, you can strain the liquid off the meat and boil to reduce and thicken it, then return it to the pan. Serve the stew with a dollop of good buttery mash and some steamed cabbage, sprout tops, kale or other greens.

Badger Ales Fruit Cake

Serves 12 (ahem....not in this house it didn't!)

225g light wholemeal cake flour or spelt flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

A pinch of sea salt

1 rounded teaspoon ground mixed spice

150g dried figs

150g stoned prunes

150g dried apricots
85g orange marmalade
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
Finely grated zest of 1 orange
300ml Hall & Woodhouse beer, of your choice (we used their Applewood cider)
200g unsalted butter, softened
200g light muscovado sugar
4 medium eggs

Lightly grease a 20cm spring form cake tin and line with baking parchment. Put the flour, baking powder, salt and spice into a bowl and whisk lightly to aerate and combine.
Use kitchen scissors to cut the dried fruit into chunky pieces – cut each fig into about 6, removing the hard stalk, and each prune and apricot into 2 or 3. Combine them in a bowl. Warm the beer or cider and pour over the chopped fruit in the bowl.
Beat the marmalade with a fork to loosen it, then stir in the lemon and orange zest. Combine the marmalade with the dried fruit. Allow to steep and cool.

Put the butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat well until very light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour/spice mix with each. Fold in the remaining flour with a large metal spoon, then fold in the marmalade and dried fruit as lightly as you can. Try not to overmix it; everything should be just combined.

Spoon into the prepared tin and place in an oven preheated to 160°C/Gas Mark 3. Bake for 1½ hours, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin.

In which I eat too much at River Cottage

When in doubt, eat. It’s an adage that I always fall back on when times are tough. My NaNoWriMo effort is crumbling to dust (my muse has obviously taken a gap year) and I’ve been feeling more than a little fed up.

‘Hmm, wanna come to River Cottage?’ said Adrian.

‘What, Hugh do-dah wotsit’s place?’

‘That’s the badger,’ said Adrian. This is a phrase James picked up from someone at school, signifying ‘that’s the one’. It’s now common usage in the Bonkers House and, in this particular case, was more than apposite as it transpired that we’d been invited to River Cottage by Badger Ales.

I was puzzled (I don’t usually get invited on Adrian’s beery shindigs) but hey, I wasn't going to argue. A couple of days away from the Bonkers House?  Bring it on.  The Great Damp Proofing Scheme has patently not worked; my desk is fast becoming an instrument of torture and, above all, my book is acting like a toddler with attitude.

Inevitably the SP was the main attraction. As we signed in at The Alexandra in Lyme Regis, the girl on the front desk looked alarmed. ‘Where’s the puppy?’ she said, peering anxiously behind us. We reassured her that we wouldn't dare just bring our own boring selves and fetched him in from the car.  Universal adoration followed as we went through to the bar and I could have sat quite happily drinking G&Ts and nibbling olives all night.  But River Cottage awaited.

Dinner was a table-groaning feast. Trust me, there’s not a whiff of nouvelle cuisine here – it’s belt-straining trencherman stuff (but cooked with a light hand). The idea was that we’d be matching beer with the food. Now I don’t mind the odd glass of beer/ale/whatever but I’ve never gone an entire meal eschewing wine. I have to confess I was a little sceptical.

We started with River Cottage Stinger (a nettle beer produced in partnership with River Cottage), sipping it alongside the canapés. Hellfire, they were a meal in themselves (hot smoked goose breast; ham rarebit; sea bass with chilli and garlic; carrot hummus on homemade pitta bread). I liked the beer (enough that I had two glasses) and, having it in a nice glass made a lot of difference (okay, I know that is a seriously girly thing to say but it’s true – a pint can be a bit offputting).

Next up, smoked Pollack from Lyme Bay on a bed of potato cake with sorrel topped with a poached egg and parsley sauce. Accompanied by Golden Champion (a light refreshing ale with fruity/floral notes). It was perfect: hmm, I was starting to see how this could work.

My belt was straining but next up was venison (fallow) two ways (the shoulder slow-cooked in red wine overnight; the saddle with a bacon, onion, garlic and parsley stuffing, wrapped in caul fat). It was served with sliced of roasted pumpkin and briefly blanched cabbage and topped with a bordelaise sauce (with a tablespoon of Pickled Partridge). I found the venison saddle just a smidge tough but the shoulder was melting.

We tried two beers with this – Pickled Partridge and Poacher’s Choice. Which did I like best, asked head brewer Toby, sitting to my right. He was talking about liquorice and damson notes; I think I caught the phrase ‘chutney in a bottle’ but, to be honest, I’d gone past the picky stage; I liked both of them (and had empty glasses to prove it).

‘That’s it, I’m done. I couldn’t possibly eat another bite,’ I said firmly. Then the Sticky Toffee Pudding arrived. Ah heck. It would have been rude not to, wouldn’t it? Particularly as Toby was pouring a glass of Blandford Fly. ‘Ginger beer for grown-ups,’ he said firmly, reassuring me that the ginger would cut through the sweetness of the pudding. It did – it really did – so much that somehow, against all known laws of physics I managed to eat a couple of cider brandy truffles.

So, food and beer? Much as I loathe to admit it (Adrian has been banging on about this for years) I have to say it really worked. Not just worked but, to my tastebuds, worked even better than wine.

Do you still get a hangover? Um, yes. But actually, not quite the stonker you acquire mixing champagne, white wine, red wine, port.

Did I go for the full English breakfast? No.

Did the SP get a long walk along the beach at Lyme? Oh, don’t be silly. I had to be wheeled out.

PS - will report on the cooking day when I've recovered...
PPS - above, the view from our hotel window.... *sigh*
PPPS - the diet?  Just don't, okay?
PPPPS - have I got a clue what I'm talking about with beer?  Nope.  If you want proper commentary, try Adrian's blog - http://maltworms.blogspot.com/