The where to find us page is now updated with the new stores and coffee shops where Full English goodies can be found, including our newest friends-

Cafe Caffeine has been enjoying a revival this year, with lots of new food from local vendors like us. It’s a great local cafe for South Congress area folks and South Austin lovers, with wifi as well as great food. What people say.

The Hideout Coffeehouse is on the front of the improv hotspot Hidedeout Theatre.

And Greenling Organic Delivery now stocks our flapjacks, so you can have them brought to your door with everything else organic that you love.

Onwards and upwards!

Glasto 2009- this is what 100,000+ tents look like- click to see bigger!

Every year at this time, more than a hundred thousand Brits go slightly bonkers all at once, by camping on the same farm, enjoying a staggering lineup of international musicians and performers, praying for sunshine so the whole place won’t turn into a gigantic mudbath, and queuing for appalling portaloo facilities in between. Much fancy-dress (US: costume) is worn, many fire-eaters on stilts and suchlike are admired, and in general everyone has the biggest party in the world.

Even though we have never been to the festival ourselves, our “UK base” is just a few miles from the action, and this year one of the teenagers has managed to wangle** a ticket with family friends, and is making her inaugural visit with great enthusiasm, so we are all excited on her behalf. It’s hard to explain what is so special about Glastonbury, but something about this unique mixture of music, camping close enough to hear your neighbours snoring/singing/chanting Druid rhymes all night in the surrounding fifty tents, holiday-bonhomie (people actually talking to strangers in a friendly way! a major departure from the usual buttoned-up English habit) and (last but definitely not least) Very Extreme Hardship, really does both suit and summarise the British character. Maybe one year we will make it over there. Probably when scientists finally invent weather machines and can actually guarantee sunshine.

** “Wangle” is one of those ridiculous-sounding British words that Americans find hilarious. It means “to resort to trickery or devious methods”, in the manner of the Artful Dodger etc. There are an awful lot of words for this concept in the GB, for some strange reason- it’s a bit like the legend of the Inuit words for “snow”. One very popular one is “fiddle”, as in the recent MP expenses scandal. In the US, this words means “play” in an honest if unfocussed way, and does not imply deceit of any kind.

millionaire’s shortbread (click for larger view, you won’t regret it)

We are very excited to announce that two of our top favorite sweets are now available in two of our top favorite South Austin food stores- you can now get original flapjacks and millionaire’s shortbread at Thom’s Market on Barton Springs Road, and Farm to Market Grocery on South Congress. These are wonderful independent food stores that support local artisan businesses like ours, offering hope to all of us who have had enough of megasupermarket culture and support the rise of human-scale shops with human-friendly products and produce.

Thom’s Market is owned by Bill and Beth Thom, who once took their kids out of school for a year to sail around the world- how cool is that?! Here’s the Austin Chronicle’s great and enthusiastic piece about them. And here is a lovely write-up of Farm to Market, owned by Peggy McCoy, in Edible Austin- which also kindly mentions us on their front page at the moment.

As not everyone in Austin has even heard of flapjacks or millionaire’s shortbread yet, please do share the news with your South Congress area-loving friends. The campaign continues…

“What delicious pies!” the President was thinking.

It’s been a while since our last post and we’ve been busy if not exactly blogging- more news to follow in the next couple of days, but for now, we bring you an important (if slightly overdue) news item: President Obama was offered Cornish Pasties on his first ever visit to the Queen of England!

According to this article, the important part of the gift-exchange was the personalised ipod Barack and Michelle presented to the Queen (did it have “Elizabeth Regina” etched on the back? Or just a lot of Pet Shop Boys singles? We do not know). But we beg to disagree: surely the main thing was the mini Cornish pasties offered by Elizabeth and Phillip to the Presidential couple as part of the world leaders’ summit buffet! They may have been hidden between posher items such as champagne, wine and canapes of chicken with zucchini on skewers [...] smoked quail eggs, foie gras and tiny rolls of duck filled with melon, but certainly the fact that they were included in such distinguished company more than proves the superiority of these traditional and delicious hand-held peasant pies!

Delicious Cornish Pasties, from the Full English stall, every week at SVFM- just look for the British flag!

Although, we also feel that the Queen and her consort might have done more to promote the cause of British food in their menu-planning, as everything else seems to have been more along the lines of what Mr and Mrs Sarkozy might be expected to serve.

Still, a definite win for those of us in the Cornish Pasty community! Three cheers!

The bad news is, the day before Valentine’s day was Friday the Thirteenth, and unfortunately a strange fellow in a stripey jumper (sweater) with knives for fingernails stole all our scones. Actually that’s a lie, what really happened was the pink-icing butter biscuits (cookies) above took so long to make, we ran out of time to do scones as well this week. So scones will be back next week.

But the good news is that pink-icing butter biscuits will be making a special one-day-only romantic appearance later this morning (it’s 12.19am as I write this). If you are reading this any time after 1pm on the 14th February 2009, you missed them, which is very sad, but they are not too hard to make despite taking a while, and the recipe is right here.

We hope you have a great Valentine’s day, and remember to treat your sweetie to a delicious Cornish pasty or a lovely bag of flapjack, or if you don’t have a sweetie then be your own sweetie and get them for yourself. Although it’s never too late- come back next week and there will be scones again! Proof that every cloud has a silver lining and the key is just remembering to live life as inside-out as possible.

New honey and raisin scones, as seen at Sunset Valley Farmers’ Market

According to Wikipedia, scones are “drier and larger” in the United States than in the UK where they originally come from- Scottish first, then popularised by the English 4pm tea tradition. The best way to eat them now is as part of a “cream tea” in Devon or Cornwall (SW England), split in half down the middle and piled with strawberry jam and clotted cream. If you can’t get clotted cream, which is a very thick spoonable cream with a sort of crust on top (sounds weird, tastes great) then whipped cream is pretty good too.

I like scones split and spread with butter as a slightly healthier option, using English butter which is way better than the pale American sort. Although, the scones above are still good without butter or cream or jam, just as they are, which is apparently the American Way.

Shakespeare fans may also know that Scone is the ancient coronation site in Scotland, where Macbeth gets crowned king after murdering most of the rest of the cast. Sadly Shakespeare did not mention whether the coronation tea party involved butter, jam or cream, but they would all have gone well with traditional Shakespearean mead, which is made with fermented honey- Renaissance Fayre planners, take note!

We English people love our rich fruity Christmas food, unlike most Americans according to last week’s Austin Chronicle. Here’s what Mick Vann says about fruitcake:

Nowhere in the world do fruitcakes suffer the abuse that they receive here in the States. They are received as gifts from well-meaning friends then thrown away or regifted. Fruit cakes are used as doorstops, bookends, etc. For the last 13 years, Manitou Springs, Colo., has held its annual Great Fruitcake Toss, “encouraging the use of recycled fruitcakes”; if you don’t have one of your own, you can rent one for 25 cents. The current record is held by a group of Boeing engineers who last year built the Omega 380, a bicycle-powered compressed-air cannon that shot a 2-pound loaf of fruitcake 1,420 feet downrange.

Yes, bad fruitcake really is horrible, and when a food gets a bad reputation it becomes much harder (a) to get hold of a good version, and (b) to persuade people to try your good version. So I’m not sure whether people are ready to taste our Christmas cake yet, never mind buy one (so much fruit, brandy, time and love goes into a proper, dark English Christmas cake- it’s not a choc-chip cookie!) but we will offer some slices soon and see what you folks think.

On the “ageing” controversy, I feel obliged to point out that a proper, dark fruitcake drenched in good French brandy every other day for several weeks is a very different thing than an old forgotten dried-out lump of sadness. Just sayin’…

And here is the Chronicle on micemeat, which I was amazed to learn does actually have a tradition in the United States, just not a very popular one again:

Without a doubt, aversion to the idea of meat in a dessert is the cause of mincemeat’s decline. Modern-day Americans think that mincemeat “sounds gross.” Unless strong-armed into trying it, most Americans will studiously avoid it (even meat-free versions), simply because the name has the word “meat” in it.

Kate Thornberry actually got her recipe from a 1904 book full of Victorian “monstrosities” (a lot of Victorian food was gross in more than just sound), while over there in the U of K, we carried on making this stuff and serving it in the holidays all those years! I think we have also been perfecting its use during that century, though, resulting in the small delectable treats with the buttery pastry of my post below. But as so few farmers’ market customers were even willing to taste it- a free mince pie this Saturday (December 6th) for anyone who mentions this blog!

Fairy cakes are what English people eat instead of cupcakes, but the same sort of thing- a light fluffy cake, usually vanilla but sometimes they come with raisins and then they are called queen cakes instead. The main difference between these and cupcakes is the thin layer of glace icing (plain powdered sugar mixed with a bit of water) instead of the big buttery topping you find on cupcakes. Rather than the cake being a carrier for the frosting, we prefer the topping just to lightly decorate and accentuate the cake. Also we like them to look home-made and all different and even a bit wonky, as we consider those qualities more charming than uniform perfection (it’s a British thing).

The cakes above went to the farmer’s market this week and all sold, so sadly there were none left for my tea, but another bunch of lovely pink and green holiday-looking ones is landing on our Live Oak Market stand as I type*. We’ll be bringing in new ones most days- plenty of our other stuff is good for a week or more but these are best enjoyed asap, if not sooner.

*our home on Ben White and Manchaca, click for the Google map.

Over the next few weeks, we will be making some exciting traditional seasonal goodies for sale on our stall at Sunset Valley Farmers’ Market. It’s a little early yet, but I could wait no longer before making these favourite winter treats, mince pies- all lovely and fresh (not like the weeks-old boxed pies) made with our very own mincemeat (none of that shop-bought stuff).

Here’s what’s in the filling: apples, currants, raisins, cherries, almonds, lemon rind & juice, spices, hard cider and brandy (all the alcohol is cooked away, so they won’t make you drunk).

If you are thinking they don’t look very beefy, that’s because mince pies and the mincemeat inside them have not actually contained any meat for a few hundred years. In Olde Englande in the days before refrigerators, people used to mix their meat with sugar, alcohol and dried fruit to make it last longer, and I am guessing also to disguise the taste of the ageing meat, because that doesn’t sound too good to me. These days the only meat product left in mincemeat is suet, which is a bit like lard, but these ones do not contain any suet because it isn’t available in the US and actually fruit filling doesn’t really need added fat to taste delicious.

Also when the original meaty version was first invented, it was made in the shape of a manger with a baby inside, for obvious Christian seasonal reasons. I love that- a tasty little baby Jesus pie! Cute

The actual news headline is Gardener who sawed off arm saved by sausage rolls, and it’s quite a dramatic story:

Mr Stirling knocked on neighbour Steve Francis’ door and told him: “Please help I’ve cut off my arm.” Shocked Steve, 49, said: “He wasn’t screaming, he was as relaxed as can be. I didn’t realise anything was wrong until I looked down and saw his arm was missing.

While paramedics were working on him Mr Francis put the arm in a plastic Tesco shopping bag.
“I then put it in another bag with frozen pastries in to keep it cold,” he added.

There is so much that is so very GB about this story, but our love of sausage rolls is possibly the main thing- the sheer joy of a Great British Snack food actually saving someone’s limb! I wonder if burgers or tacos have ever achieved such medical triumphs?

So please come to Sunset Valley Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings and buy some of our traditionally seasoned Full English sausage rolls. They may not save your limbs, but they definitely make a tasty snack!