All posts by jedski

Brighton Life, Eating Out, Features

Go to the pub. It’s your duty…

WHERE WERE YOU when Lockdown eased? It’ll be one of those questions that people will ask for years to come, but unlike the moments that stopped in your tracks when Elvis died, when we crossed into a new millennium, when you got your first mobile phone, you’ll probably remember the end of Lockdown as the night you stayed in. Again. 

We went to the pub, the Ram Inn at Firle, a treat of a country pub, far enough away from the madding crowd but full, we hoped, of cheerful locals raising a glass. But what to wear? Patterned cloth mask or Boots’ whitest? Gloves: blue plastic or a pastichey yellow Marigold perhaps?  

By the time you read this, you’ll gasp at the answer. Reader, we were naked.  Well, our faces were anyway. And we weren’t alone. No-one, not our friends who sat opposite us unaware of the aerosol potential of a leaky laugh, or the staff wore anything to hide our wide smiles at the sheer joy of leaving the house. 

But my vision of a delightful feast in the company of fellow foodies, was less of a warm hug and more of a socially distanced ankle rub. There was more room at the Inn than any needy traveller could have dreamed of that night. The 4th of July went out with less of a bang and more of a whimper.

By the time The Whistler hits the streets, we’ll know more about the impact of that lacklustre welcome back to the locals. The wheat will have been sorted from the chaff and the redundancies will be strewn over the pavements like butt ends after a Friday night in the old days. Or maybe not. 

Across Brighton, the gourmet scene was booked solid. Steven Edwards at etch. in Hove (beautiful plate pictured below) was ready to set off the fireworks on July 4th with not one but two openings. His new restaurant, The Bingham Riverhouse in Richmond had only just launched when Lockdown closed its doors in March, but the 2013 winner of  MasterChef: The Professionals reports both restaurants are back and firing on all cylinders. 

Brighton Restaurants have compiled an up to date list of the Brighton restaurants which are bravely marching on. 

https://restaurantsbrighton.co.uk

Do them a favour and don a mask, wash your hands and head down to your local pub or restaurant, or if you can’t leave home just yet, order a take-away. What would Brighton be without its food scene? What would life be without a pub?

Gilly Smith

www.gillysmith.com

Health Matters

Getting To Slee…zzzzz

SO SLEEP IS BECOMING a bit of an issue at the moment for many people. It is horrible not to be able to fall asleep, because your mind is out of control or waking up again in the early hours and not being able to go to sleep. Stress and anxiety are contributing hugely to this current issue of insomnia. To be able to go to sleep the brain needs to switch to the relaxed alpha state as opposed to being in the busy beta brain state. How do we get into that state? Meditation and relaxation techniques are key to calming ourselves down. We need sleep to function properly as lack of sleep will also compromise our body systems including the immune system. According to the Chinese Medicine body clock, waking up between 3 and 5 am is likely to do with adrenal exhaustion or between 1 and 3 am indicates the liver might be struggling for example. 

There are many reasons why we don’t sleep well so the key is to get to the root cause of the problem. Here are some other tips to get a better night sleep.

Avoid caffeine after 3pm. It is a stimulant and can take a long time to be eliminated from the body.

Alcohol, even though it can make us feel sleepy it tends to wake us up again in a couple of hours and it is difficult to go to back to sleep again.

Large meals in the evening should be avoided as they might promote a high insulin release which might lead to low blood sugar which then releases adrenaline into the blood stream and that would often wake us up and we might struggle to fall asleep again. 

Add more tryptophan foods into your diet. Tryptophan is the precursor to serotonin (the happy hormone which also helps us sleep). Include fish, legumes, avocado, bananas in your diet. A little bit of banana or an oat cake with a little avocado before bed could be beneficial.

Make sure your diet contains enough Magnesium as it is the nature’s tranquilliser, and finding a good Magnesium supplement might also help.

Aim to go to bed earlier 22.30 -23.00 and try not to use phones or computers two hours before bedtime.

Melatonin is a hormone secreted by
the pineal gland in the brain which
regulates our sleep wake cycle. To help
our body to make more melatonin
naturally, get out in the sunshine
during the day and at night sleep in a dark room. Bright lights inhibit the release of melatonin.  

Exercise regularly as this can often improve sleep patterns, but do not exercise too late as this could be stimulating for the body.

Reducing stress levels is key – meditation and yoga are great tools to help achieve this.

Helena Taylor

Book a free 20-minute call to discuss stress, female health and hormonal balance and how I might support you on your journey to optimal health.
Email: helena@nutritiouspantry.co.uk, www.nutritiouspantry.co.uk.

Brighton Life, Features, The Arts

The Way We Were

Undoubtedly, one thing we will always associate with the year 2020 is the frequent use of certain words within our vocabulary: Lockdown, frontline, pandemic, social distancing. All as a result of the emergence of the Coronavirus. However, these are certainly not exclusive to this period.

Brighton Life, Environment

Jim Gowans’ West Hill Watch

ALTHOUGH DELAYED BY the Covid crisis, Brighton and Hove City Council are planning to conduct a review of the Local List of Heritage Assets – a list of local buildings, monuments, and other sites such as parks which may not be of sufficient national importance to warrant their inclusion in the Statutory List which is maintained by Historic England (formerly English Heritage), but may nevertheless be valued for their contribution to the character of the local area or for their local historical associations. 

The last review in 2015 resulted in five buildings or structures within the West Hill Conservation Area being included in this Local List. The five comprise (rather remarkably) three pubs, one chapel and one set of petrol pumps! The pubs are the Royal Standard, the Queen’s Head and the Grand Central (more of which in a later article) and the chapel is the Providence chapel in West Hill Road (pictured below). The petrol pumps are outside 19A Bath Street and date from the early 1950s. These pumps, which are unfortunately lacking their original advertising “Shellmex” globes, are of historic interest as part of one of the first (if not the first) petrol stations in Brighton. 

The host building is a 19th century residential property which was greatly altered in the 20th century to allow the ground floor to be used as a petrol station and garage. The chapel in West Hill road was built in 1894-6 by architect Charles Hewitt as the Nathaniel Episcopal Reformed Church. Acquired by a Strict Baptist congregation in 1965, it was renamed Providence Chapel before being re-opened in 2013 as the West Hill Baptist Chapel. 

Its architectural style and red brick are a pleasing contrast with the (mostly) white painted rendered facades of the surrounding streets, whilst its sympathetic scale and unpretentious design all contribute to its being a valuable local heritage asset. 

If any readers of the Whistler wish to suggest additions to the local list, please send them to the editor. Do bear in mind that a number of buildings and structures in the West Hill area are already nationally listed, the most notable being Brighton Station which is Grade II.  

Money Matters

The Price of Gold and Social Distance

IT SEEMS ONLY MOMENTS after concluding my last article, and entreating our erstwhile readers to enjoy the sun, that the settled spell of quasi-Mediterranean weather turned considerably more like Scandinavia, than Cote d’Azur. Maybe I’ll keep off the weather, and stick to matters monetary, for a while. I last wrote of our not really knowing what was going on, and how the future would pan out. I would like to think that we have a little more of an idea now, although things are far from over, in your writer’s humble opinion.

It is fair to say that we have made great progress in the fight against Covid-19 and things are starting to look considerably more positive than a couple of months ago. That said, by the time your noble Whistler hits your letterbox, we could easily have experienced an increase of cases, as Leicester has, as the reopening of pubs and other social areas have brought people together (and the odd bits of sunshine, have brought crowds to the beaches).

Economically, we still have a long way to go. I fear that there will be plenty of pain for us to endure, over the forthcoming year or so, even if things go well. It is looking increasingly like there will be a No Deal Brexit, with all the ramifications that may come with that scenario, and the fallout from the pandemic, may be with us for a long time after the virus itself has been consigned to history.

I said last time, that I thought some companies and markets had been oversold, and that seems to have been true. By way of an example, at the time of writing, Halfords share price has risen by 31% since the battering it received in mid-March and the FTSE100 index is up by some 20% over roughly the same time.

The price of gold has gone up since the troubles hit, as it has long been used as a hedge against uncertain financial conditions, with iShares Gold Producers ETF up by some 60% in the same period. But volatility has returned with a vengeance as the markets try to come to grips with the potential outcomes of the virus, economically, socially and geographically. To use the Halfords example again, at one point during the last four months, the share price had nearly quadrupled after having fallen by over 75% in the preceding months, but has dropped by some 20% in the last week or so.

I’ve recently spent time advising friends and clients as to what they can do, to help them to get through these difficult times. Clearly, there are some that will have been unaffected by the virus both medically and financially, but many people have suffered. Consider the Self Employed Income Support Scheme if you haven’t already, and there is a second tranche due.

Small businesses can access the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, where the Government will support a loan from a panel of lenders, from £2,000 up to 25% of the business turnover (or £50,000 whichever is less) over 6 years, with no repayments due in the first 12 months. The interest rate is only 2.5% p.a. As an individual, you could consider using a mortgage payment holiday to enable you to repay more expensive borrowing, like credit cards or overdrafts (remember that overdraft interest rates, are due to soar). Individual circumstances will dictate what is suitable, however, as one size does not fit all.

Stay safe, stay well and keep your fingers crossed for no second spike.

David Foot

Andrew Polmear

In Praise of Cheese

Cheddar? Camembert? Andrew Polmear has a little nibble

LAST TIME I wrote about the wine that goes with cheese but what about the cheese itself? There are similarities with wine: they both start with a fairly uninteresting and pretty uniform product (grape juice or milk), they are acted on by micro-organisms to ferment or, in the case of milk, curdle. Then they are handled by artisans, or factory hands, to be made into a final product that can be so specific it is unique to that vineyard or farm. 

At our house we have three cheeses on a cheese board: a soft cheese, a hard cheese and a blue. How do they come to be so different? Let’s start with my favourite soft cheese, Camembert. The French were quick off the mark with Camembert de Normandie, which has been protected since 1983, which means it can only be made in Normandy using traditional methods. They all have that distinctive round shape, are wrapped in grease-proof paper and sold in little wooden boxes. But that doesn’t stop the rest of us from using the word Camembert. 

Two things are crucial in the manufacture of any Camembert: when the curds form the whey is drained off, but not forced off, so the cheese has that creamy texture, almost liquid in the middle; and once the cheese has come out of the mold it is coated with Penicillium camemberti. It then sits in storage while the penicillin penetrates to the heart of the cheese, giving it that distinctive mouldy flavour. It’s ripe after one month and goes off soon after that; women in France can be seen taking the wooden lids off the Camembert and pressing it with their thumbs till they’ve found one that they think is perfectly ripe. 

For a hard cheese, how about a Cheddar?  Any bland, hard cheese wrapped in plastic can be sold as Cheddar, but real Cheddar is widely sold and it’s a marvellous cheese. Belatedly, we have protected the title West Country Farmhouse Cheddar for cheese from the West Country made in the traditional way.  It originally came from cows fed on the lush grassland of the Mendip Hills and matured in the limestone caves around Cheddar. But the truth is, they can make wonderful Cheddar as far away as Scotland. The crucial things about it are that the liquid whey is expelled from the curds to the utmost degree, and then the curds are minced and tossed and poured into their molds and pressed. This gives that distinctive hard but elastic texture. Mild Cheddar may be sold at two to three months. Pay a little more for a supermarket version marked Extra Mature and you’ll get a cheese that’s at least nine months old and worth the extra money. In a Which? blind tasting in 2016 Cathedral City Extra Mature (available at Tesco) and M&S Cornish Cruncher three-year-old Vintage came out top. For a blue, in England, the one to beat is Stilton. It’s amazing to be able to report that it’s been protected since 1910 and still only six dairies are licensed to make it. More whey is drained off than in Camembert but not as much as for a Cheddar, so it has a buttery, smooth texture. And, crucially, blue penicillin mould is added to the bacteria used to curdle the cheese. After storage for six weeks it’s pierced with up to 20 needles to let in the air that’s needed for mould growth. 

Again, supermarket Stilton is fine. Good Housekeeping reviewed Stiltons available for Christmas 2019. Lidl came top, with M&S and The Fine Cheese Co. runners up. Only Iceland really disappointed.

Editorial

The Whistler – June 2020

4 Comments

Well, this isn’t how I expected things to be when, last Christmas, Colette asked if anyone fancied taking over at The Whistler. I thought I’d be holding court in the garden of the Duke of Wellington, meeting people, writers, contributors. We’d share a chat and a drink as the wonders of West Hill revealed themselves. I didn’t expect to be locked in and locked down, spending time doing pub quizzes on my laptop, dancing in the kitchen and doing this strange social distance sideways skip on the pavement every time I ventured out. But then, I don’t suppose anyone expected that.

A strange couple of months? You could say that. But it’s been an interesting time, too. Despite spending all our time Zooming, it’s been a time to slow down, to consider and reflect. What does life look like? How does it work? Maybe there’ll be some changes – we’ll see. But amidst all the isolation and distancing, there’s been a lovely coming together. So often you see people on the streets standing apart yet together, sharing a chat and a laugh in a way we wouldn’t normally see. The community pulls together.

Vinod and Meena, the absolute cornerstones of West Hill, took it on – no surprises there – keeping the shop going, keeping the smiles going, making deliveries. The oil keeping the engine of community running.

They were awarded the Mayor’s Gold Certificate – “in recognition of your dedication, passion and hard work in supporting the community”. Quite right, too.

“It’s nice that people in the community recognise what we do” said Meena.

“The people in the community don’t need to be told” I replied.

And talking of keeping the community going, a word of thanks to Colette who has steered the good ship Whistler for so long. What an absolute star. Unsurprisingly, she’s been fantastically supportive and helpful since handing over, probably thinking “Was this a good idea?” more than once. But if she thinks that’s the end of her Advice Hotline… Not a chance.

Like most other things right now, we’re only online this edition. Next time round, who knows? But we’re here, we’ll always be here. And in a few weeks – or months – time, if you find yourself in a pub garden and you see a bloke in a linen suit and straw hat, nursing a vodka and tonic… come up and say Hello.

If you’ve got something to say, drop me a line. If you want to write something, drop me a line. If you want to draw, photograph, contribute in any way… drop me a line.

Jed Novick

thewhistler1976@gmail.com

Eating In, Features, The Arts

Lockdown Reads: Cooking The Books

After a couple of months of Lockdown, even the view across Devil’s Dyke and a low tide beach at sunset might be wearing thin. Time then to pop over to Provence, or maybe down to Devon? In Cooking the Books podcast, I’ve curated some of the latest foodiest reads for you.  I talk to the authors about the food that takes us to Provence in Jo Thomas’ Escape to the French Farmhouse,  a 1950’s Scarborough summer in Benjamin Myers’ The Offing, downtown Chicago in Sara Paretsky’s Dead Land and 1600’s Norway in Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s Sunday Times Bestseller, The Mercies.  Joanne Harris takes us to her fictional Lansquenet -sous-Tannes for her latest in the Chocolat series, The Strawberry Thief and Veronica Henry is in Devon for A Wedding at the Beach Hut.

 

 

 

Gilly Smith

 

Click here to listen

 

Andrew Polmear, Brighton Life, Eating In, Features

Wine to go with cheese

Most of us are finding ourselves eating at home a lot more than in pre-Covid-19 times. In my household it means we eat a lot more cheese than usual, since we consider a cheese course an important part of a proper meal at home. With the cheese it’s very tempting to continue drinking whatever wine we’ve already opened. I think we can do better than that. Here are my thoughts.

When it comes to wine that goes with cheese, it’s got to be red. The only exception is a heavy sweet wine, like Sauternes, that goes wonderfully with very tasty blue cheeses. Roquefort is the usual example. That aside, any red will do, although in principle the stronger the cheese the more powerful the wine. Red is good but it’s not perfect.

To move up a notch we have to go to fortified wines. A dry austere Amontillado sherry is thrilling with any cheese, although it will dwarf a mild cheese, for which you might try a Fino. For those who get confused by the different types of sherry, remember that sherry is made at first like any white wine, but then left in barrels open to the air. If the wine develops a creamy layer of yeast on top, called flor, it becomes a Fino – dry, light in colour with a sharp yeasty tang. If the flor dies off or is killed off by adding alcohol, the wine is exposed to air and darkens, developing that distinctive, austere, almost bitter, nutty flavour with overtones of tobacco and spices from the oak barrel.  That’s an Amontillado. An Oloroso, that’s an even darker sherry which never had flor on top, would be marvellous too, but it, too, must be bone dry. They are much harder to find. Don’t use sweet sherry, not even anything with the word “cream” in the title. Save that for the pudding.

Equally wonderful would be a Tawny Port, again because it’s got that austere dry nutty, leathery tang. Ruby port wouldn’t do. It hasn’t been oxidised so it has a rich fruity flavour that goes with fruity puddings but not cheese. Ruby port is either matured in huge barrels or in tanks or even in the bottle. Tawny ports start off like ruby ports but spend longer – much longer – in much smaller barrels, slowly oxidising, turning brown and leathery, losing all that fruitiness but developing that spicy, nutty, leathery essence.

If we were really celebrating I’d ask for a glass of Madeira. Malmsey is my favourite but I’d settle for any of them. It’s not unlike port in the way it’s made but it’s from a different grape, different terroir and, unlike port, it’s gently heated while oxidising. Like port it needs to be at least 10 years old; then it’s heavenly.

But how can anyone manage to drink wine with the meal and a fortified wine with the cheese? The secret is to stick to small amounts. You only need a mouthful of the fortified wine. Then put the stopper back on and keep it somewhere cool. That way you’ll stay within your 14 units a week. And the joy of these fortified wines is they will last for months once opened. After all, at Downton Abbey they sit for years in decanters on the sideboard without going off.

Andrew Polmear

Brighton Life

Jim Gowans’ West Hill Watch, June 1

Digital Screens at Brighton Station

The proposal to install 11 digital advertising screens at Brighton Station has given BHCC conservation officers cause for concern. The station which dates from 1841 is a landmark building within the West Hill conservation area.

The officers’ report points out that the  proposed digital screens would be substantial structures and the majority would be visually intrusive; those either side of the front entrances to the main building would detract from the simple classical proportions of the grade II* listed Italianate building. These eight screens would be wider than the classically derived columns and pilasters against which they would sit and would harm the proportions of the entrance area and obscure the edge detailing of the columns, pilasters and arches. They would compete with and visually dominate these important architectural features, which are prominent on arrival and departure and which set the character of the external and internal concourse areas.

The application proposes a substantial overall reduction in the number of advertisements within the Station as compensatory benefit and an overall rationalisation of signage. However, most of these existing signs are in much less prominent and sensitive locations, mostly lining the platforms where they have much less impact on the architectural interest of the Station. The signs to be removed also include non-fixed signs which do not require Listed Building Consent and these may potentially reappear without such control.

Some Silver Lining to the Covid Cloud

Whilst your correspondent has not ventured far during the current Covid emergency he has been aware of an increase in neighbourliness as one pleasing consequence of the “lockdown”. There have been offers from younger, fitter residents to help the more vulnerable with shopping and errands and the Thursday evening applause for key workers has encouraged neighbours to acknowledge each other’s presence (at a safe distance) in an unprecedented way. In West Hill Road, for example, colourful bunting and children’s artwork at the windows has added interest to the street scene and raised the sprits of those taking their daily permitted exercise. Many residents have taken this opportunity of confinement combined with fine weather to maintain the outside of their homes by re-painting doors, polishing brass door furniture and sprucing up the front garden, all of which has improved the environment for all to enjoy especially as restrictions on movement are gradually lifted.

Flint Fall Out

Maintaining the outside of many homes in West Hill during the Covid emergency has sadly not extended to saving one attractive feature of the conservation area which is being steadily lost as the years pass. This is the flint panel which originally added interest to front boundary walls of most of the properties. After a century and a half the mortar holding the flints in place is in many cases beginning to fail, allowing weeds to penetrate which then force the flints to fall out. Regrettably, front boundary walls have often been repaired by merely rendering over the flint panel and painting the entire elevation including the brickwork with white masonry paint. If these “snapped” flints having fallen out, are not lost, it is a relatively straightforward job to reposition them. Ideally a lime-based mortar should be used as this will allow the wall to “breath”. Modern cement-based mortars may shrink on drying and fine capillary cracks can develop that admit water and cause damp internally. This can consequentially shorten the life of the repair.

Jim Gowans