A few days ago when I was making Mole Sauce I was saying that I couldn't get tomatillos anywhere and that nobody I knew had even heard of them and where do they turn up but in Exmouth of all places - yes, Exmouth.

Now there are some as may enquire as to where exactly Exmouth is and to ease the confusion I will let you know it is a small seaside town at the end of the river Exe south of Exeter and it's not the sort of place I would have expected to find a tomatillo - but find them I did.

I was in Exmouth as that's where my chum Peter Ashwin lives - he is (or was) my PhD supervisor. He had just gone over my thesis with much menace and a red pen and we were chatting about food, when for some reason he mentioned he was growing tomatillos in his greenhouse.

I almost died of shock.

So for those poor unfortunate folks who have never seen a tomatillo I took a photo of a ripe one and one growing on the vine. They are really quite tasty - the texture is like a green tomato but they are sweet and perfumed and very different to a tomato. They'd be great in salads and that's mainly what Peter does with them.

I might even start growing them myself.

So like some wish granted by the djinn I even got to try the one thing on my blog that had eluded me - I think now I have eaten just about everything that can be eaten in some form or another - except for maybe lobster which I don't think I've had once all year - but we can't have everything can we?

Shark steak today. We went to The Grove - a seaside pub overlooking the sand. It was however nighttime, pitch black and raining hard so we sat inside. The shark steak was quite good but the 'seasonal vegetables' weren't very seasonal at all, it would be almost impossible to serve both peas and mange tout as seasonal vegetables as they are the same thing but picked at a different time of the year. Seasonally speaking they are mutually exclusive.

Still, not a bad meal and pint or two of beer and some of Peter's home made apple wine before bed and I was feeling really quite chipper.

Home tomorrow and my last day. I shall have to do something special.


Cake Blog

Citrus Polenta Cake: From the Boston Tea Party - a South West Britain chain of coffee bars. The cake was really quite good and so was the coffee.


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