Toast to the Haggis:

Ach! Ye fat bastard, ye.
Ye mid-winter harbinger of constipation.
We thank ye fer showin’ us
That gout isn’t just for rich men.
To the Haggis!

Wetherspoon’s Burns’ Week came around again this year.  I’m a fan of offal but Jackie only tolerates pâté so, except for my Burns’ Night indulgence (she likes the whisky part of it, mind) I tend to fill up during this week (and on occasional trips to Florence).

Friday 20 January: Highland Burger with a pint of Welsh Pride (no Scots beer available on the day), Four Candles, Oxford

Saturday 21 Jan:  Haggis Tacos, Slug and Whippet, Ruislip

Method: heat some haggis with chilli sauce, cumin, and paprika; put in flour taco shells, add lettuce, cilantro, tomato, and cheese.  Yum.

Sunday 22 Jan: Haggis Stuffed Roast Chicken, Slug and Whippet, Ruislip

Recipe: like it says on the tin…Stuff a 2-3 kg bird loosely with haggis (it takes about ½ a tube of industrial haggis from MacSween’s), yesterday, and bake for 20 min per 500g plus 20 min at 200°C.  Let rest for 20 minutes before hacking it to wee bits to serve with turnips and taters.

The result was a very moist bird with the savoury scent of the haggis infused therein — but not overwhelmingly so.  The haggis itself was enhanced with some of the chicken drippings and even Jackie had a small amount of the filling.

Monday 23 Jan: Scots Omelet, Slug and Whippet, Ruislip

Method:  Fry up some haggis and keep warm; pour a shitload of beaten eggs into the pan and lift to allow layers to develop.  Usually topped with a bit of grated cheddar and the warmed haggis, this time it is haggis neat, folded and devoured with some black coffee and a shot of whisky.

 

Tuesday 24 Jan: Another Highland Burger, this time at the Swan & Castle, Oxford

Wednesday 25 Jan:  Burns’ Lunch, The Chequers, Oxford plus a flight of three whiskies and smoked salmon to start…obscenely good, but I can sense the gout taking hold if I keep this up.

Thursday 26 Jan:  Another Burns’ Lunch, this time at the Four Candles, Oxford with some of the folks from work (to remind myself that they’re not all bad … or sober).  They ran out of swede (the turnips bit of the neeps and tatties) with the second order but told me they had run out of the lot so I ordered a double Jura with the intent of sitting with the fellows then walking over to the other Wetherspoons for my own lunch; a prof from biochemistry talked them around to substituting peas (“ach! woman, there’s summinck GREEN on me plate!”) so I got that.  But, they charged the “with beer” price and didn’t give me beer (and I already paid for the whisky).  Fer fucks sake.  EVENTUALLY they made this right.

Friday 27 Jan: Haggis Stuffed Mushrooms, Slug and Whippet, Ruislip

Method: Fill the caps of baby bella mushrooms with haggis (and some others with sausage, others with a little pesto…y’know: hors d’oeuvres) and bake at 200°C until everything is sizzly or until the cheese, if you top with it, melts.

Oddly, I now crave a big plate of liver fried with onions.

 

 

I got to the Village Inn bar just after 9am and pulled off my backpack to retrieve some cash.  “Has he been running?” one of the fat blokes at the table behind me asked Pantomime-loud to indicate he wasn’t asking his drinking buddy but, rather, me.  I didn’t flinch and awaited my turn with the bartender who was pouring a double brandy back for another punter to accompany his pint of lager.  I love a Wetherspoons, me: not only do they refurbish and repurpose grand old buildings all over this grand old country but they serve cheap booze and do it earlier than most houses in the land.

 

I fetched my porter and the table in the window beckoned with “all the drunks are here now” but it wasn’t clear if that was an invitation, a territorial declaration, or acknowledgement of my presence.  So, I logged on to my email to make these few notes and look around the house.  The weird, solarized effect in the photos was unintentional but seem appropriate to the visit.  For instance, I noted that my old bartender, Jefe, was offering my other old bartender, George, a Meet Rack shirt (way to be, Jeff) so I offered up a Drunken Bunny shirt trade.  A sublime creäture I made pizzas around for a while at Fellini’s back in Atlanta, was retweeting about the Hideout’s (one of my favourite non-Blues Chicago bars) 20th anniversary.  Flashbacks, eh?

 

The bar itself is lovely (again, one of the things Wetherspoons gets right, despite their predatory acts here and there).  It is also, now, an entry on the August 2016 Pub Per Day Challenge.