But most of today's blog could be entitled "A history of Peter in three foods."
I mentioned them yesterday. They are fish and chips, pizza and Eggs Benedict. All play a part in my life beyond food. I have probably mentioned these things before but never together in a single blog. So here goes.
It was sometime from the start of my research into my family history that I found my maternal grandparents ran a fish and chips shop in Woodcock Road in Norwich. I believe it's still there.
My grandmother never mentioned this fact but obviously it's part of my heritage. Growing up in Hellesdon, we had a very good fish shop just a few yards down the road. It was a sister shop of another one closer to Norwich and not far from Woodcock Road and I think this was called Thompsons although I may have got that wrong.
A specialty at this shop was a bag of scraps which were small pieces of batter that had come off the fish. They also did exotic things like fritters (battered and fried potato) and battered pineapple rings and my first taste of scampi which in those days was quite posh but is now cheaper than fish. More than half a century later I can still remember the set-up of that shop - predominantly yellow- and the smell of the fish frying.
I went there a few years ago when I was clearing out my father's bungalow just round the corner. It is probably still a fish and chip shop. One of the things I want to do in the near future is have a look round Hellesdon and some of the haunts of my youth, beginning with a bus ride from the city centre. Will report back on that.
So to pizza. No other food can suffer as much from poor standards apart possibly from burgers. Burgers are so variable. They can be flat and taste like cardboard (won't say where from but I'm sure you know) or succulent or home made and juicy.
Pizzas are the same. Cheap bought ones can taste of very little, well cooked ones can be a delight.
Probably my favourite time of my working life was my three years on the Beccles and Bungay Journal and Eastern Daily Press in Beccles in Suffolk.
During my time there an Italian couple opened a pizza restaurant. It was in the days when mass produced pizzas weren't a thing. I can't remember whether we had pizzas before Vittorio's but it was certainly difficult for a long while to have them afterwards.
For Vittorio and his wife, whose name escapes me but whose name obviously ended in the letter a, pizzas were an art form. The problem was his restaurant came at the same time as pizzas began to become mass produced. The couple's seafood pizzas were a dream but they weren't cheap and that became a problem and you can easily guess the outcome.
Vittorio came into our lives for a short time and then just as quickly exited them. He had been high up in the Italian diplomatic corps and I can't remember how he came to be living in a relatively small Suffolk town. We never heard from them again but for a short time their friendship was appreciated. He did refer to me once as one of the top journalists in Europe, probably because I wrote some nice things about his restaurant in the local paper.
And so to Eggs Benedict, the actual origin is not clear but it looks as if the dish started life in New York. At that time it used Canadian bacon which later became a chunk of ham, apart from in Holt where it appears to be a small strip of cheap bacon.
My main memory of Eggs Benedict is linked to my retirement. I was asleep in a hotel room in Banff in Canada when I received a telephone call to say I had been granted early retirement with a pension. The caller with the good news assumed that I was on holiday in Europe and an hour ahead of their time and not six hours behind. For once I was happy to be woken up in the middle of the night.
A few hours later we went out to have a celebration breakfast at a little restaurant called Melissa's. We had prosecco and Eggs Benedict and they were delicious to say the least. The restaurant is still there. Perhaps one day we will go back - who knows?
So a little bit of my life in three meals.
*. *. *
Had a very pleasant afternoon yesterday at an afternoon tea event to mark the 15th birthday of the Star Throwers cancer support charity in Wymondham which has helped so many people in the past.
We sat next to somebody who went to the same grammar school as me albeit over a decade later. So we were able to reminisce about the school and found out there were other people we both knew as well.
Afternoon tea was extensive, although I do have a gripe about afternoon teas in general - too much sweet stuff and not enough savoury. There gets to a point where, after a glass of syllabub, a fruit scone with jam and cream, a sweet muffin, a lemon tart and a macaroon, you are left with a craving for something savoury to take away the sugar rush.
We had a lot to do with Star Throwers in its early days through Les King who was its patron and involved us in lots of different events and I raised money for the charity in a variety of ways which I'll tell you about sometime in the future.
*. *. *
On Sunday morning I finished off the latest Good News magazine and started work on the May Hethersett Herald and realised once again just how much is going on in the village. I did that while I kept one eye on the London Marathon. There was a world marathon record in the women's race. They kept referring to it as a women's only record and they kept emphasising the "only" bit. Is this a new term? Is it all down as usual to political correctness and why cricketers are now referred to as batters rather than batsmen (I think I've been here before)?
Delighted to see that Hethersett men's Saturday football team is just one match away from winning the Central and South Norfolk League Division One. It could be a fitting end to the team's association with that league. We have always been denied a place in the higher league due to the lack of facilities, something that's now been rectified. But this season we were denied a place because we failed to finish in the top four last season.
When I was club chairman our stated aim was to step up to the Anglian Combination. Now it looks as if that dream will become reality.
Food seems to figure quite strongly in today's blog. Tomorrow I promise not to mention fish, chips, pizzas or anything featuring eggs.
NOTE - I could have re-written this blog after an item in the local news which was quite a coincidence. It stated that a fish shop in Norwich had caught fire. Barrett's in Reepham Road was the scene of a large blaze. That's the exact shop I had been writing about and that my friends is worth one of my very rare exclamation marks!