Peter and I went to this very reasonably priced Chinese restaurant called Tao in Golders Green, Northwest London. It is a buffet kind of restaurant where you choose vegetarian or/and meat dishes. It used to be a vegetarian place only but in the last couple of years, it started to serve meat as well.
The food is good but some takes getting used to like the tofu with cabbage soup. At first we were not sure as it tasted like boiled socks. (LOL, I am not really sure how boiled socks would taste as never tried boiling any before, hehehe) Well actually it smelt like socks. We only tried a few dainty sips of the soup and gave up. Food smell does make food tastes better or not.
Two days ago, we went back to the restaurant as I was positively starving and couldn’t resist the appealing array of dishes visible on the restaurant front window. So rather gingerly got a bowl of the soup. They seemed to have varied their food preparation as the soup is not too bad, It lost the boiled sock taste and smell but rather quite delicious and just set you up for a feast of vegetarian and meaty dishes.
I really loved it and so below is an easy recipe, which anyone can try at home.
Tofu & Cabbage Soup, iphone photo by JMorton
Tofu & Cabbage Soup
Ingredients
½ pound soft tofu
1 half head of Chinese cabbage
1 tablespoon cooking oil
2 tsp sesame oil
1 inch ginger, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced finely
1 tsp cooking wine
1 tsp salt
a few shake of freshly ground black pepper
4 cups water
Method of preparation:
Cut the soft tofu into cubes.
Wash and chop theChinese cabbages
Prepare a pan with water and ginger. Heat the water to boiling with high fire and then put tofu cubes in. Continue cooking for a couple of minutes.
Add chopped Chinese cabbages to cook until soft.
Season with salt and pepper.
Pour into a large bowl and finally add some sesame oil to serve.
If you are really partial to meat, add sliced fried pork into the boiling water and proceed with the recipe above.
~Enjoy!
Did you know?
Superstition: There is an American superstition which believes that a salty soup means the cook is in love.
Coming home on my commute this evening and arriving at Golders Green, I read the latest offering quote/thought for the day written up by London Underground Station(Tube) supervisor Chris on the noticeboard at Golders Green Underground train station. When Chris is on duty, he likes to keep us commuters/travellers smiling with various quotes he finds.
The quote chosen today is from Quentin Crisp.
Quentin Crisp – Englishman in New York
Quentin Crisp 25 December (1908 – 21 November 1999) was a fascinating & colourful character, Crisp was a flamboyant openly Gay Englishman, he was an author, actor and was a witty raconteur.
Crisp wrote and appeared in popular and hit one man plays describing life as a homosexual in British society 1920s-60s.
In 1975, the excellent actor John Hurt (known for his amazing performance in ‘The Elephant Man’), in one of his early roles, played Crisp in an entertaining and thoughtful TV adaptation of Crisp’s autobiography called ‘The Naked Civil Servant.’ In 2009, Hurt reprised the role of Quentin Crisp in ‘An Englishman in New York’, which covered the latter years of Crisp’s life in New York.
Well worth watching!
Pop/rock star Sting dedicated his song ‘Englishman in New York, (1987) to Crisp. He had remarked jokingly “that he looked forward to receiving his naturalisation papers so that he could commit a crime and not be deported.” In late 1986 Sting visited Crisp in his NYC apartment and was told over dinner – and the next three days – what life had been like for a homosexual man in the largely homophobic Great Britain of the 1920s to the 1960s. Sting was both shocked and fascinated and decided to write the song. It includes the lines: It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile,
Be yourself no matter what they say.
Here is wiki link about him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Crisp
MORE QUOTES FROM QUENTIN CRISP – THE ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK
………………………………………………………………
A gentleman doesn’t pounce, he glides.
– Quentin Crisp
….
I don’t hold with abroad, and think that foreigners speak English when our backs are turned.
– Quentin Crisp
…..
If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.
– Quentin Crisp
…..
I want to write the words that people want to print.
-Quentin Crisp
…
There are three reasons for becoming a writer. The first is that you need the money; the second, that you have something to say that you think the world should know; and the third is that you can’t think what to do with the long winter evening.
– Quentin Crisp
~ ~ ~
The trouble with children is that they are not returnable.
– Quentin Crisp
Chris one of the station supervisors at the Underground (Tube) train station at Golders Green entertains us travellers/commuters by posting quotes. thoughts & sayings on one of the station noticeboards. Today he posted this as one as a remebrance on the day after the great man passed.
As we all know today is All Hallows Eve, the day/evening before All Saints (a.k.a. All Hallows) on 1st November. Halloween is the night when all spirits of the departed can return to earth for one night only each year. It is the night when demons, devils, fairies, goblins, witches, wizards and warlocks wander abroad. November 2nd is All Souls Day, when the departed, deceased family, relatives and friends etc., are commemorated by Christian churches in the West.
A dark murky 6.40am time, as I was on my 20 minute commuting walk to my local underground (Tube) station, I saw in the gloom ahead a figure in white striding ahead of me. As I got nearer and we have both arrived at the station (Golders Green), I saw it was a man dressed as the cool horror movie character ‘Beetlejuice’, the ghostly/demon exorcist, (played by Michael Keaton). Apparently the sequel Beetle Juice 2 may be made soon 🙂
He was wearing a pure white suit with thick black stripes, he wore white face make up with blacked out eyes and mouth topped off with a green wig. He looked the part. I had to smile, also he was also carrying the commuter accessory of a back pack/rucksack and was wearing earphones, maybe he was listening to spooky music?
When the train pulled into the platform, he sat opposite me in the carriage. He did indeed look so conspicuous and colourful and stood out from us dull autumn garbed fellow Tube travellers!
No one seemed to look at him except me. I got spooked that perhaps I was the only that could see him!
He got (at least not floated ) off the train at Euston.
I guess he may have been an office worker wearing Halloween fancy dress for a fun ‘dressing up day’ at work, some workplaces, firms & companies here do have sometimes. Also some wear costumes to get charity donations too. Good for him as it brightens up a routine commuting and work day!
Our nearest recreational park has a small lawn bowls club of which I am a member. The club in Childs Hill Park, near Golders Green N W London, has been in existence from the 1940s. As a child and growing up when walking through the park, I used to watch the large numbers of bowls players, ladies and gentlemen resplendent in their white clothing, genteelly playing this quintessentially English game.
A typical Lawn Bowls game note the clubhouse
Our club house is small but cosy iot is like many dotted around the UK!
The outdoor lawn bowling season normally covers from early spring to late summer.
I enjoy playing and find it relaxing. We are all friendly and enjoy chatting and bantering as we play.
Strolling up the bowling green after each ‘end’ (game) of bowls is completed on a fine spring or summers day is wonderful. A slight cooling breeze with a clear blue sky except for a few white fluffy clouds and hearing birdsong makes most pleasant backdrop to our games.
At it’s height, the club had 20-30 members, which was excellent for it’s size and location.
Sadly over the last few years, club membership has dwindled, mainly due to older members becoming too inform to play, or sadly passing away and going to that great bowling green in the sky (wonderful if real!). They are missed and pleasant memories linger.
My club currently has a quorum of about six-eight regular players with four more who attend semi regularly; we hope to get more new members.
Yes bowls is perceived to be an older persons game, especially those who have retired and are 50 plus. Many younger people do play
Lawn Bowls 60c_Australia Post stamps- young players!
Other local clubs which are larger have a more varied age range. These clubs also have more social facilities such as a bar etc. In large cities and towns with the cliché 24/7 lifestyle and increasing immigration, lawn bowls is seen as a very much minority past time. The game still thrives in many smaller English/British towns and villages etc. Work retirees with more time do join too.
After we play (a game is normally 2-3 hours) on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon, we adjourn to the clubhouse next to the bowling green, for tea, biscuits, cake and a chat… very English and British!
The game or match itself is not complicated. I like to think it like like snooker in some respects, the way the ‘bias’ of the bowls (or woods as we call them) can be used to block or knock the opponents bowl away from the smaller target white ball (called the jack) or use rebound of an opponent bowl to get near the jack. The player who gets his or her bowls nearest to the jack wins.
If you get the chance to play give it a go you may instantly like it, I did and was hooked. Sadly at present, I cannot play as much as I would like and miss the friendly camaraderie you can get in a club.
A Brief History of Bowls
As histroy students should know the most famous story in lawn bowls is with Sir Frances Drake and the Spanish Armada. On July 18, 1588, Drake was involved in a game at Plymouth Hoe when he was notified that the Spanish Armada were approaching. His immortalised response was that “We still have time to finish the game and to thrash the Spaniards, too.” He then proceeded to finish the match which he lost before embarking on the fight with the Armada which he won. Whether this famous story really took place has been heavily debated.
King Henry VIII was also a lawn bowler. However, he banned the game for those who were not wealthy or “well to do” because “Bowyers, Fletchers, Stringers and Arrowhead makers” were spending more time at recreational events such as bowls instead of practising their trade. Henry VIII requested that anybody who wished to keep a green pay a fee of 100 pounds. However, the green could only be used for private play and he forbade anyone to “play at any bowle or bowles in open space out of his own garden or orchard”.
Bowls has been traced certainly to the 13th century, and conjecturally to the 12th. The world’s oldest surviving bowling green is the Southampton Old Bowling Green, which was first used in 1299
The English Bowling Association was founded in 1903 and it is very well organised sport which hosts numerous competitions from the club to the national level. The sport is most popular in the South of England with thousands of devotees.
Today the sport is played in over 40 countries such as USA. Australia, New Zealand, S Africa Hong Kong with more than 50 member national authorities. The home of the modern game is still Scotland with the World Bowls centre in Edinburgh.
Game
A Lawn Bowler
Lawn bowls is usually played on a large, rectangular, precisely levelled and manicured grass or synthetic surface known as a bowlig green which is divided into parallel playing strips called rinks. In the simplest competition, singles, one of the two opponents flips a coin to see whowins the “mat” and begins a segment of the competition (in bowling parlance, an “end”), by placing the mat and rolling the jack to the other end of the green to serve as a target. Once it has come to rest, the jack is aligned to the centre of the rink and the players take turns to roll their bowls from the mat towards the jack and thereby build up the “head”.
A bowl may curve outside the rink boundary on its path, but must come to rest within the rink boundary to remain in play. Bowls falling into the ditch are dead and removed from play, except in the event when one has “touched” the jack on its way. “Touchers” are marked with chalk and remain alive in play even though they are in the ditch. Similarly if the jack is knocked into the ditch it is still alive unless it is out of bounds to the side resulting in a “dead” end which is replayed, though according to international rules the jack is “respotted” to the centre of the rink and the end is continued. After each competitor has delivered all of their bowls (four each in singles and pairs, three each in triples, and two bowls each in fours), the distance of the closest bowls to the jack is determined (the jack may have been displaced) and points, called “shots”, are awarded for each bowl which a competitor has closer than the opponent’s nearest to the jack. For instance, if a competitor has bowled two bowls closer to the jack than their opponent’s nearest, they are awarded two shots. The exercise is then repeated for the next end, a game of bowls typically being of twenty one ends.
Lawn bowls is played on grass and variations from green to green are common. Greens come in all shapes and sizes, fast, slow, big crown, small crown and so on.
Lawn bowls can also be played inside too and is known as indoor bowls. Our club leased a hall and had a bowls carpet smaller than a proper outside rink/green, but enough to play a decent game in bad weather and winter!
Scoring
Scoring systems vary from competition to competition. Games can be decided when:
a player in a singles game reaches a specified target number of shots (usually 21 or 25).
a team (pair, triple or four) has the higher score after a specified number of ends.
Games to a specified number of ends may also be drawn. The draw may stand, or the opponents may be required to play an extra end to decide the winner. These provisions are always published beforehand in the event’s Conditions of Play.
In the Laws of the Sport of Bowls, the winner in a singles game is the first player to score 21 shots. In all other disciplines (pairs, triples, fours) the winner is the team who has scored the most shots after 21/25 ends of play. Often local tournaments will play shorter games (often 10 or 12 ends). Some competitions use a “set” scoring system, with the first to seven points awarded a set in a best-or-three or best-of-five set match. As well as singles competition, there can be two (pairs), three (triples) and four-player (fours) teams. In these, teams bowl alternately, with each player within a team bowling all their bowls, then handing over to the next player. The team captain or “skip” always plays last and is instrumental in directing his team’s shots and tactics. The current method of scoring in the professional tour such as the World Bowls Tour .Each set consists of nine ends and the player with the most shots at the end of a set wins the set. If the score is tied the set is halved. If a player wins two sets, or gets a win and a tie, that player wins the game. If each player wins a set, or both sets end tied, there is a 3-end tiebreaker to determine a winner.
Bias of bowls
Bowls with target smaller jack ball(white)
Bowls are designed to travel a curved path because of a weight bias which was originally produced by inserting weights in one side of the bowl. This is no longer permitted by the rules and bias is now produced entirely by the shape of the bowl. A bowler determines the bias direction of the bowl in his hand by a dimple or symbol on one side. Regulations determine the minimum bias allowed, and the range of diameters (11.6 to 13.1 cm), but within these rules bowlers can and do choose bowls to suit their own preference. They were originally made from lignum vitae, a dense wood giving rise to the term “woods” for bowls, but are now more typically made of a hard plastic composite material.
Bowls were once only available coloured black or brown but they are now available in a variety of colours. They have unique symbol markings engraved on them for identification. Since many bowls look the same, coloured, adhesive stickers or labels are also used to mark the bowls of each team in bowls matches. Some local associations agree on specific colours for stickers for each of the clubs in their area. Provincial or national colours are often assigned in national and international competitions. These stickers are used by match officials to distinguish teams.
Bowls have symbols unique to the set of four for identification. The side of the bowl with a larger symbol within a circle indicates the side away from the bias. That side with a smaller symbol within a smaller circle is the bias side toward which the bowl will turn. It is not uncommon for players to deliver a “wrong bias” shot from time to time and see their carefully aimed bowl crossing neighbouring rinks rather than heading towards their jack.
When bowling there are several types of delivery. “Draw” shots are those where the bowl is rolled to a specific location without causing too much disturbance of bowls already in the head. For a right-handed bowler, “forehand draw” or “finger peg” is initially aimed to the right of the jack, and curves in to the left. The same bowler can deliver a “backhand draw” or “thumb peg” by turning the bowl over in his hand and curving it the opposite way, from left to right. In both cases, the bowl is rolled as close to the jack as possible, unless tactics demand otherwise. A “drive” or “fire” or “strike” involves bowling with force with the aim of knocking either the jack or a specific bowl out of play – and with the drive’s speed, there is virtually no noticeable (or, at least, much less) curve on the shot. An “upshot” or “yard on” shot involves delivering the bowl with an extra degree of weight (often referred to as “controlled” weight or “rambler”), enough to displace the jack or disturb other bowls in the head without killing the end. A “block” shot is one that is intentionally placed short to defend from a drive or to stop an oppositions draw shot. The challenge in all these shots is to be able to adjust line and length accordingly, the faster the delivery, the narrower the line or “green”.
