Back from Milford SF
Oct. 4th, 2008 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaceyI'm tired out, but it was a great week full of fascinating people, mind-blowing ideas (almost literally) and about 160,000 words of intense critting. Twelve writers, 25 pieces of writing, 25 hours of formal critting and who-knows-how-many-hours of reading. The standard was scarily high. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mevennen , bluehairsue , maeve_the_red and chrisbutler were all there, plus some old faces and some new.
Chocolate and alcohol featured in varying amounts. Much useful information was shared. Post-crit discussions continued to chew over stories and ideas. Meal-time discussions often turned gory and at one point we realised that the Welsh language class - which came in on Tuesday morning and stayed for lunch - had gone very quiet just asbluehairsue was expounding on cannibalism.
Trigonos - the centre where the week is held - is a fabulous place with its own frontage on to a Welsh lake with Snowdon peeking up in the distance and the Nantlle Ridge looming up above. This is the view from the main house down to the water. Wherever you point your camera you come up with a magnificent landscape - even in the wet. It's not a hotel, but it's very comfortable and the atmosphere is welcoming and easy-going.
The only slight drawback (for me, but not for others I hasten to add) is the centre's food policy - excellent and totally praiseworthy in theory as it's sustainable (mostly from their own garden), but it's vegetarian with a strong vegan bias and sadly not really to my taste (or my digestive system's) as I'm a) not vegetarian b) definitely NOT vegan and c) not keen on vegetables except when served up with meat/fish and lots of gravy/sauce, veggie or otherwise - and cooked with SALT (please!). Breakfast was toast/cereal/fruits etc. so no complaints there. Lunches were fine (delicious home made soups). Starving was impossible because there were also yummy cakes with afternoon tea plus delightful desserts at dinner. But sadly the main courses for dinner diverged from my definition of food. No one else seemed to worry, but root vegetables al-dente aren't my thing. Crunchy green veg is grea, but I find crunchy potato and swede less appealing. I feel guilty for griping because the chef took great pride in his cuisine and for many people it's one of Trigonos' plus points. Also he very kindly made me other stuff when pulses or peppers were dish du jour. Unfortunately my idea of comfort food is shepherds pie and his is roast courgette and tomato with brown rice. Nuff said?.
Anyhow, I came home and made liver, bacon and onions casseroled in rich gravy. Ah! Much better. It's not the meat I miss, it's the gravy.
mevennen , bluehairsue , maeve_the_red and chrisbutler were all there, plus some old faces and some new.Chocolate and alcohol featured in varying amounts. Much useful information was shared. Post-crit discussions continued to chew over stories and ideas. Meal-time discussions often turned gory and at one point we realised that the Welsh language class - which came in on Tuesday morning and stayed for lunch - had gone very quiet just as
bluehairsue was expounding on cannibalism.Trigonos - the centre where the week is held - is a fabulous place with its own frontage on to a Welsh lake with Snowdon peeking up in the distance and the Nantlle Ridge looming up above. This is the view from the main house down to the water. Wherever you point your camera you come up with a magnificent landscape - even in the wet. It's not a hotel, but it's very comfortable and the atmosphere is welcoming and easy-going.
The only slight drawback (for me, but not for others I hasten to add) is the centre's food policy - excellent and totally praiseworthy in theory as it's sustainable (mostly from their own garden), but it's vegetarian with a strong vegan bias and sadly not really to my taste (or my digestive system's) as I'm a) not vegetarian b) definitely NOT vegan and c) not keen on vegetables except when served up with meat/fish and lots of gravy/sauce, veggie or otherwise - and cooked with SALT (please!). Breakfast was toast/cereal/fruits etc. so no complaints there. Lunches were fine (delicious home made soups). Starving was impossible because there were also yummy cakes with afternoon tea plus delightful desserts at dinner. But sadly the main courses for dinner diverged from my definition of food. No one else seemed to worry, but root vegetables al-dente aren't my thing. Crunchy green veg is grea, but I find crunchy potato and swede less appealing. I feel guilty for griping because the chef took great pride in his cuisine and for many people it's one of Trigonos' plus points. Also he very kindly made me other stuff when pulses or peppers were dish du jour. Unfortunately my idea of comfort food is shepherds pie and his is roast courgette and tomato with brown rice. Nuff said?.
Anyhow, I came home and made liver, bacon and onions casseroled in rich gravy. Ah! Much better. It's not the meat I miss, it's the gravy.
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no subject
Date: Oct. 7th, 2008 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Oct. 7th, 2008 05:58 pm (UTC)On this thread, we were invited to dinner at a friend's house and she said we were having chicken wings. Yum, we said, and, Can we bring anything? Nope, she said.
So we had chicken wings cooked on their gas grill, delicious, and also a marinated turkey breast. No rice, no pasta, no quinoa, no veggies, no salad, no nothing except grilled meat.
I went to the store to get ice cream for desert and I almost bought a carrot to gnaw on for the walk back. If I could have washed and eaten it before getting back to the house I would have done so.
I felt very odd afterwards.
no subject
Date: Oct. 8th, 2008 01:49 pm (UTC)Re the no-veg thing. You must have noticed the same in Germany when staying with our mutual friend, GW. When we were there I ate myriad things which had ultimately started out as part of a pig. I did not try 'mett' (if that's how you spell it) which turned out to be raw minced pork. (Yes, eaten raw!!)
We did hit asparagus season on one trip so it was pig and asparagus in more or less equal quantities.
But my first ever continental trip was Belgium in 1975 and after a week of meat and potatoes of varying kinds I was screaming for anything green and leafy.