I found this sifting through my external drives, and if there’s one place it might be enjoyed, it’s here. My Dad became quite adept – in a quiet way – at cooking for himself, and wrote about it with as much enjoyment. He took the photographs, too. I did him a layout, which has become uglified in file conversion, and his achievement merits a little wider circulation.
Good appetite!
https://workupload.com/file/BrSfjkUd4Sx
Lovely stuff, HP. Entertainingly droll and rather informative. He’s thoroughly unsound on scrambled eggs, mind you. But sound on liver, so I forgive him.
@mikethep
A gay mate of mine once explained to me the wisdom underpinning Ian Fleming’s dictum about refraining from eating scrambled eggs you have not prepared yourself
I tend to agree. What is the wisdom?
I’ll post the story my mate told me later on
Hmmm. Am I the only one wondering how the gayness could be relevant?
I am not sound on liver. Mine probably looks like a rugby ball by now.
@mikethep
A bit of contaxt, I met Madge about 40 years ago when we both worked in Jeddah. As his liver was practically hanging out of his arse after years of drinking, Madge had made the mistake of going to Saudi to get away from boozing little knowing that expats there were pretty much pissed every night of the week, there being fuck all else to do except glug down illegal hooch.
Anyway on with the story (excerpted from an international worst seller wot I wrote a few years back
Also in my Movenpick top ten is Madge and his apparently bottomless (pun intended, he’d have appreciated the wordplay) treasure trove of rough trade tales. The merest mention of sex, and Madge would begin gleefully filling in any gaps in our knowledge about what the UK’s tabloid press then still laughably referred to as ‘London’s seedy gay underbelly’.
The climax to his story about an acquaintance he claimed liked to place live budgerigars into wellington boots he would wear during vigorous sex sessions was especially gruesome. At la moment critique, Madge’s mate would apparently stamp the wellies hard against the bedstead with presumably fatal consequences for both blameless birds.
Madge’s bittersweet piece de resistance from around the Movenpick pool concerned an ‘ageing queen’, two royal guardsmen and a saucepan of eggs benedict. More than half a lifetime since Madge, lips positively smacking with relish, first span me the yarn, the mere mention of his ‘stately homo’ homey’s favourite dish continues to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
It seems Madge’s lonely friend Victor used to conduct regular nocturnal trawlings of Hampstead Heath in search of potential playmates. Most nights, the pensionable one would strike up a conversation with like-minded young squaddies from the Mounted Regiment of the Household Cavalry. His ultimate hope was to bring whatever new friends he made back to what Madge mischievously described as his ‘poky little bedsit’ for a little mounting of his own.
One night, the old letch struck gold in the ‘bouncy bounty stakes’, returning home with not one but two of what Madge unforgettably described as ‘incredibly buff although sadly not bear-skinned young buckos’.
Alas, it seems that despite his penchant for sexually ambivalent members of Her Majesty’s armed forces, Victor’s regimental flagpole rarely ever stood up straight and true. This rather limited his attempts at heavy petting to a couple of clumsy minutes on the sofa. His sexual urges apparently sated for the night, the old queen usually repaired to his flat’s tiny kitchenette to whip up a snack for his latest paramours.
Left to their own devices as their host busied himself elsewhere, this particular evening’s two young stud muffins spent the next God knows how long admiring knick-knacks and exchanging small talk. Every doodad and back issue of the Spartacus Gay Guide sandpapered bare of possible topics of conversation, the first of the soldiers remarked upon the unusually long time Victor had been gone. It was quickly agreed that he would enter the kitchenette to make sure the old roué hadn’t fallen over and knocked himself out or spontaneously combusted.
Kitchen door delicately opened, the soldier was horrified by the sight of the elderly cottaging king enthusiastically – if fruitlessly – masturbating into a steaming saucepan of hollandaise sauce garnish. Pausing only to give Victor a good kicking (something Madge invariably referred to as the ‘cost of doing business in gay circles, darling’), the pair fled into the night.
Golly. I was expecting something to do with milk, which I was going to diskard utterly.
This is the type of anecdote I appreciate for strictly professional purposes. More, please.
Madge sounds like a bit of a cunt.
I was thinking the same.
Wouldn’t care to be in his company for any longer than absolutely necessary.
Surely “arsehole” would be more appropriate?
As the actress etc
G (I) love and special sauce?
What nonsense, that scambled little glory sitting on beans with toast nearby looks utterly perfect to me.
*salivates*
I wish “sitting on beans with toast” wasn’t quite so close to the Madge chronicles.
Well, there’s always Ann-Margaret in “Tommy”…
He does write in a very entertaining way and his charm really comes over in his prose.
Who’d have thought !
You’re talking about @jaygee right?
I think he meant HP’s pater, but WTF, I’ll take it
Sorry – what?
I think he meant HP’s pater, but WTF, I’ll take it
Oh.
https://workupload.com/file/BrSfjkUd4Sx
Your work is never done
People really are doing it on purpose now.
If only he’d learn to think outside the box
Most excellent, HP. I like your Dad better than you
@Henpetsgi
Hard not to like a man called Today’s Special
You’re setting the bar pretty low there, O’Wrongness.
I would never be so rude as to suggest that your father here displays a wider vocabulary than yours, but I definitely get the impression that he knew more words back then than you do now. “Redolent”, for example, I don’t think you know. And “imbued”. He’s better at placing them in the right order too. Mind you, I’ve not read your novels yet.
Stephen King has no complaints.
Well that’s very redolent of him. I’m imbued.
Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Applause!
I haven’t even looked at this yet, but the cover showing a chap cheerfully holding a tub of chicken Bisto is already an improvement on almost every other cookery book in existence.
He’s wearing a loupe attached to his glasses, too, like what real chefs do.
Send that pdf to the BBC and he’ll get his own series.
House prices in Leicester go through the roof.
He’d make a pretty dull presenter now, alas.
Sad to hear that, HP.
But Sniffity is right on the money there. This all reminds me of a Tv show we had here a while back: Solens Mat.
An unassuming, elderly gent who spoke fluent Italian and knew about food travelled in Italy, met very charming, everyday folks and watched them cook and ate with them.
TV cooks can be so full of themselves and in your face. Your old man would have been a big hit with those of us who enjoy slower TV.
A Proper Dad. Scissors hanging safely but handily. Saucers over ingredients. And the zippy up cardigan we aspire to.
Magnificent.
That cardigan was held together by structural food stains.
Lots of good reading there, Saucy. I particularly like his ideas on sandwiches.
Would there be any objection to passing this link on to some friends in a food-oriented private FB group I belong to?
Go ahead – I’m sure he’d have been flattered and very pleased.
Look he writes in a very entertaining manner, and I know he’s your dad and all, but poached egg on baked beans? Really? I’m sorry, that’s just unacceptable.
AND YET! You’d be defending Jamie Oliver’s take on “egg fried rice”? GOOD DAY, SIR!
Food of the Gods, old bean.
If Blue Boy doesn’t want his, pass it over here.
Food of the beans, old God.
(No, me neither.)