Category Archives: Food

Pablo Cheesecake Wants You….

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…well your ideas anyway.

Let me explain

I’ve been pondering the big four oh for a while now, weird because mentally I think I’ll always be  perpetually about fifteen but hey ho. I suppose I view reaching this age, like a lot of people, as something of a milestone. Now, I’ll admit that I’m not quite there yet (my 40th birthday isn’t actually until 24th July 2014. Feel free to mark it on your calendars NOW people!) but it has given me a bit of an idea. I’ve decided that from my thirty-ninth birthday until the big day I am going to attempt forty tasks that I’ve never done before. You know, sort of a bucket list type thingee.

This audacious plan involves me creating a new website where I’ll blog about my various adventures and maybe even get some amusing photos/videos posted. I’ve purchased the domain name pablodoes40things.co.uk (calm down, don’t go there yet just yet. I’ll let you know when it’s live.)

To begin with though I need a bit of help from you lovely virtual pixes that live in the InterTubes. I need some suggestions of things that I can try/do as part of my mission. There are only three rules to this.

  • Firstly,  I really can’t do heights AT ALL so I wont be throwing myself out of any planes or bungee jumping naked off Big Ben.
  • Secondly,  I’m not independently wealthy so cost is a factor. Please take that into consideration if you have an idea.
  • Finally – I am a delicate flower so contact sports are out. (Sad I know, pesky brain injury. I always imagined I’d be rather good a rugby.)

To give you an idea of that sort of thing I am talking about here is the list as it currently stands.

  1. Knitting
  2. Ice Skating
  3. Read ‘Catcher in The Rye’
  4. Knife and Axe Throwing
  5. Visit Stonehenge
  6. Visit Glastonbury Tor
  7. Falconry
  8. Skype someone in another country
  9. Walk a dog (I’ve been with people who have walked their dogs but I’ve never actually walked a dog myself. I know, crazy).
  10. Got to an observatory
  11. Enter a race. (They tell me that it’s the taking part that counts.)
  12. Watch the number one film from each year from 1974 onwards. For reference I’m using this site http://www.films101.com/y1974r.htm
  13. Get my back waxed (*gulps*)
  14. Climb a mountain
  15. Go to a ballet
  16. Eat a Pontefract cake
  17. Go to an opera
  18. Create a short film
  19. Attend a dance class (not sure what style yet?)
  20. Yoga

Sadly (you may have noticed) I’ve only have twenty things at the moment. You all have to help!!! and remember this is things I have never done before.

Help

If you have an idea feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line at pablocheesecake@me.com

I look forward to your nonsense with anticipation.

Pablo “does 40 things before he’s 40” Cheesecake

Pablo Cheesecake vs That, There London (2012 Edition)

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Yesterday Mrs Cheesecake and I had a cheeky little day trip to that there London. Considering we were only there for a few hours I think we managed to fit in quite a lot of stuff.

Borough Market

One of our main reasons for visiting London was to do some shopping at this market. We’ve been there before and I love the fact that there are just so many great things to try and buy. The list of foods we got to try was as follows (those of a sensitive disposition may wish to look away now)

  • A spicy chorizo sausage (on a stick no less, disappointingly it was not sold to me by Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler but we can’t have everything can we?)
  • A duck confit sandwich
  • some artisan black pudding
  • a giant pretzel
  • a giant raspberry meringue
  • wild boar salami
  • garlic salami
  • almond croissant
  • English muffins
  • Wild boar pie

Old Thameside Inn

As chance would have it our internet chum Erik happens to live quite close to Borough Market so we gave him a call and he promptly appeared and took us to a local pub. Sat right next to the Golden Hinde swigging chilled lager is a pretty good way to spend a lunchtime.

Blackwell’s Young Adult Fiction Day

Back onto the tube again and off to our final stop of the day –  the young adult event at Blackwell’s Charing Cross. Arrived slightly late due to my spectacular map reading skills. Also had to leave early in order to catch our train home. That said still did manage to hear readings from Will Hill, Tom Pollock, Tanya Byrne and James Dawson. Shame we didnt manage to catch Kim Curran and Laure Eve but, as I said, this was entirely my fault.

I did spot this when I was in the shop. It will be mine!

Just think of all the unnecessary crap I could carry

Home again, Home again Jiggidy Jig

And then like the ninjas that we are we were off home again.

Till next time

Cheerio

A Cheesecake Ponders…

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One Man and His Tech

I’ve realised that I am slightly obsessive when it comes to tech. I like to embrace new technology whenever I can but it appears that I’m also all about geeking it up as well. I present to the court exhibits A – C as evidence of said 1st degree geekery.

First up my MacBook

Welcome to the Madhouse!

then my Kindle

A wholly remarkable eReader

and finally my phone

 

Bigger on the inside

I think the evidence speaks for itself. The defendant pleads guilty.

The Great Cheese Hunt of 2012

Yesterday Mrs Cheesecake and I hit the city streets of Nottingham on a quest. Our mystical journey was to locate some provolone cheese. Why? (I hear none of you cry) So Mrs C could make a Stromboli and I could eat it. We hunted high and low (ok, so we went to two shops) and eventually managed to source some of this legendary dairy produce. We returned home and the Stromboli was constructed post haste. I’m not going to give a full review, two words should some things up nicely – Fucking smashing.

FantasyCon 2012

Not long till the next Con of 2012 that I’ll be attending. Brighton was a lot of fun last year and I’m hoping for more of the same. I shall endeavour, once again, to reign in my near crippling shyness (always a tough job) and meet many new peoples. Its funny but I genuinely do have trouble meeting/speaking to new people.

Authors are particularly nerve wracking. Don’t get me wrong I’m fine once I relax a bit but initially I have a tendency to be over awed and tongue tied. I suppose its just always a bit of a shock when people ask my opinion about anything. (Wow, what does that say about my self esteem?). The good news is that Mrs C will be with me and this year I know there will be people there who I have met before. This should keep the panics under control*

*You wouldn’t know that I am panicking to look at me. I’m like a fucking iceberg. 90% of me is underwater?…Hmm that analogy made a lot more sense in my head. Oh, wait. I’ve got it. I have hidden depths. Underwater!….what a twat.

Any-who, enough of this folderol, I’m off

Later Programs

End of Line…

 

Maths, Movies, Monsters & Muscles

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Pablo Cheesecake vs Mental Arithmetic

This week got off to an odd start. I discovered that my mental arithmetic is not only piss poor it is in fact SPECTACULARLY piss poor. As I have mentioned countless times before I have been on a diet and exercising for nearly a year. I have attempted, and I stress the word attempted here, to keep track of my weight loss. Some how (and I am still not sure how) I managed to utterly bugger that up. For some reason I thought I had nearly lost 3 stone (42lbs my American chooms). This week I finally realised I had actually lost over 4 stone (57 lbs) Don’t get me wrong I’m over the moon about it but you have to admit that is a bit of a fuck up isn’t it?

The Dark Cheesecake Rises

We saw The Dark Knight Rises today. I reckon it rounded of the trilogy quite nicely. Bane’s voice was undoubtedly very silly but everything else was pretty cool. My personal highlight? It’s a toss up between Joseph Gordon Levitt’s character and Anne Hathaway’s bottom.

Also saw the trailer for Dredd on the big screen for the first time.  Karl Urban does some outstanding chin work. I was impressed.

Cake, Cake, Cakeity, Cake

Mrs Cheesecake has once again outdone herself in the kitchen department. This is the cake she made for my and my nephew’s joint birthday party tomorrow*

Monster, Monster, Monster!

* Technically my birthday isn’t until Tuesday but we’re celebrating early.

Third Time to Charm?

Mrs Cheesecake has suggested we go to the gym 3 times a week rather than the normal 2. She must have caught me in a moment of madness because I surprised myself and immediately agreed. This week coming – Monday, Wednesday and Friday we are gyming it. So if I don’t update next weekend you’ll know what finally killed me. Captain Scarlett has electricity, Superman has Kryptonite, Pablo Cheesecake’s one vulnerability – the gym.

Nighty night Internets, I loves ya.

Tomorrow there will be cake

The Dark Cheesecake

Pablo Cheesecake vs That There London

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It’s not very often that Mrs Cheesecake and I get the opportunity to head of to the big city but yesterday we had a perfect excuse. Mrs Cheesecake is a rather huge fan of Michael Sheen (don’t believe me? check out www.michael-sheen.co.uk, all her own work don’t cha know). Anywho, we had scored some tickets to go and see Himself (that’s what he is known as in our house) as Hamlet at The Young Vic.

As the show wasn’t on until 7pm we decided we would check out a bit of the city we hadn’t experienced before. I should state for the record I was also jonesin for a Starbucks Eggnog latte and figured I could cater for coffee habit along the way.

So prior to the show – Borough Market. Awww man this place is food porn of the highest order. Every direction you turn there are loads and loads of specialist vendors hawking their wares. It is a blissful assault on the senses. Within the first 100ft we had walked past someone making grilled garlic king prawns, someone else selling hot mulled wine and another selling pates, relishes and many varieties of salami. Best part, without a doubt, LOADS of free samples. I just didn’t know where to start.

Eventually, after much umming and ahhing,  we ended up joining a queue for a stall called Roast to Go. The queue was pretty long but I took this to be a good sign, turns out it was totally worth it. I got a salt beef, mustard and pickle sandwich while Mrs Cheesecake had turkey and cranberry. It may have been the best sandwich I have ever eaten (and I really do mean EVER!)

More wandering about and I got to try some splendid cheese, an exceptional terrine and a great wild mustard relish. I think that if we had the time, the cash and the inclination we could have spent the entire day at there.

The evening found us at The Young Vic and we had pretty epic fucking seats, 4th row ain’t at all shabby. We’ve seen a good modern take of Hamlet before, starring the Tenth Doctor and Jean-Luc Picard, but this interpretation was a different class. The performances were all mesmerising but Sheen was exceptional. Nothing better than a bit of live theatre.

I reckon that’ll do for now. Much as I enjoyed visting that there London. It is nice to be back in our little house, fussing the cat on the sofa. I have some serious mooching about scheduled so best be off to do it.

Laters Taters

Ohh by the way, before I forget,  after such a hectic day it may not be a massive surprise to discover that I completely forgot about, and didn’t manage to get, the coffee I was hoping for. Perhaps next week.

A Week of Cheesecake

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This week a bring you a random assortment of the stuff that has happened in our house

The Seven Day Sandwich

Mrs Cheesecake and I enjoy watching Man vs Food. I you haven’t ever seen it I strongly advise you check it out, it fucking rocks. Anyway it got us to thinking about all the strange a delicious looking foods that our American cousins have access. How easy would it be to replicate this sort of culinary adventure in the UK? We decided we would give it a go. We set our sights on creating a Reubens. The primary ingredient is salt beef. Just to make things interesting we thought we would have  bash a preparing our own salt beef. Turns out this takes the minimum of seven days. The beef has to be soaked in water that contains various herbs. Was it successful? We will find out tomorrow. I am hoping for something along these lines.
Reuben Sandwich

Paging Dr Cheesecake

A few months ago I entered a competition to appear in a book by the publisher Abaddon. Bugger me if I didn’t go ahead and win. The prize was to have an academic named in one of the appendices in the novel Savage Knight by Paul Lewis. I decided the nominate Mrs Cheesecake instead and today the book arrived. I had a rummage and low in behold on page 279 the following….
Dr Cheesecake
This may be the coolest fucking thing ever. I’m sort of jealous I gave the prize away now. She’ll be in print forever. Immortality achieved at last.

2011 Challenge Update

We are well and truly in the final stretch. After nearly 10 months I have managed over 16000 sit ups. Less than 4000 to go. Happy days. Actually that is not entirely accurate. I have to think of what I am going to do in 2012. I’ve done the huge cycle trek (500km in 2010) so I am looking for suggestions for next year. No not chin ups I am to tall for that. Perhaps I should come up with some sort of weight training program? I’m sure I can come with something. Hey you never know one day I may not be fat anymore. Stranger things have happened. Admittedly I’m unsure what these stranger things are but you get the gist.
Ohh before I forget, if you feel the urge you can still donate to my just giving page. Well I say mine. It is one that I share with my amigo @Seabrie. Together we are Two Fat Men. Impressive non?

Sunday Night Whimsy

I am a creature of habit. After a long hard week I enjoy putting my feet up and giving my self over to the Lords of Whimsy. What, you may ask, is this? I have this theory that someone, somewhere invented a rule that every Sunday night there has to be a lavish looking TV show on. Disagree? I submit the following as evidence. Hamish Macbeth, Monarch of the Glen, Lark Rise to Candleford (known as Lark Rise to Bumble Fuck in our house – I don’t know why either), Spooks, Downton Abbey. Now don’t get me wrong. These shows ain’t Shakespeare but but sure as hell are entertaining.
Oh well enough of this jibber jabber
Stuff to do
Laters Taters,Adios
Mr C
UPDATE

Just realised this my 150th post. Can’t let this go by without a Fuck Yeah! I can also pretty much guarantee that there will be 150 more. I mean where the hell else am I going to waxy lyrical.

A Random Ten Things

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Tonights post is brought to you by ten random things that have occurred this week in my life.

  1. I’m obsessing about sandwiches again. This time something called a Reubens. Mrs Cheesecake has bought into the lunacy and we are going to prepare our own salt beef brisket. Takes about a week to do so don’t be surprised if there us another update re: this in about seven days time.
  2. So iOS5 landed this week. Based on what I have read on the interweb I have had a hassle free update. Some others have had some issues. I guess I have been lucky.
  3. Fantasycon is going back to Brighton in 2012. The same team that were responsible for this year’s con are going to be running the show again. Same hotel as well. I am pretty keen to attend I think. This year was a great deal of fun. Lots of real nice folks there this time out so I don’t see why it shouldn’t be the same again next year.
  4. This years annual challenge is still going strong. To recap 20000 sit-ups in 2011. This week I have hit 15700. Possibility of completing challenge remains highly likely.
  5. Werewolves continue to usurp my reading list. Poetry as well. Truly a eclectic mix.
  6. I bought a body warmer. This must herald the return of the 1980s. I look forward to the return of day glo socks. They were fucking great.
  7. I have admit defeat and concede that the pumpkins have not performed as well as I would have hoped. I think again the great British weather is entirely to blame. Next year there will be greenhouse and hopeful slightly more successful crops. The parsnips will get picked this weekend. My hopes for them are sightly higher.
  8. No movement on Project Cthulu yet. Perhaps in the New Year If I’m lucky.
  9. Tomorrow my brother in law is coming to visit and we are off to see The Three Musketeers. I have a great love for Frenchie styled movies. I love the numerous versions of The Count of Monte Cristo and also The Three Musketeers so this should be fun.
  10. Messing about with my phone earlier I captured Freya up to mischief – No I don’t know what she is doing either. I’m sure she is up to something though.  
Cat in a bag

Nighty night,

Sleep Tight,
Don’t panic there aren’t any bedbugs that’ll bite….
Just me hiding under your bed

Trolls, The New 52 and a Bake-a-thon

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Pablo Cheesecake, Trollhunter

This morning Mrs Cheesecake and I went to the cinema and we saw the latest found footage movie, Trollhunter. I demand you go and see this film immediately. This Norwegian epic is such good fun. The scenery is breathtaking. The story was highly enjoyable and the trolls themselves are a sight to behold.

I enjoyed this so much I felt compelled to ask Mrs Cheesecake to help me recreate a scene from the film. If you have been lucky enough to see the film then I think you can agree that the result is spookily accurate.

Pablo Cheesecake – Troll Hunter
I would particularly like to draw your attention to the fact I am wearing my nice bright green socks (perhaps not obvious as the photo is quite small, click on the photo to em-biggen). My feet were freezing when we got to Norway this afternoon. Also worth pointing out my hair goes the same colour as the trolls when it needs to get re-dyed (sad but true).
I am slightly concerned that there is going to be an English language remake of this. That would be a damn shame. The Norwegian cast were pitch perfect and I really cant imagine this story working anywhere else in the world.

The New 52

I also dipped my toes back into the world of comics this week. After much pondering I decided to I pick up Swamp Thing and Animal Man from the new DC range. Both were rather good. It has been a long time (years) since I bought any comic and I have to admit I was sceptical but turns out I was wrong. I think I may have to pick up Green Lantern next week. How long will this rekindled love affair last? Only time will tell.

Cakeageddon

Mrs Cheesecake has found her own bliss this week. Today after we got back from town she made a huge rustic loaf of bread, an apple and blackberry pie, a red velvet cake? and roast lemon and herb chicken. Check out the Twitters for evidence of this epic feat. I am being totally spoiled by all this homemade cookery. It is epic. Even as I type now she is pottering around in the kitchen making a cream cheese frosting for the cake. I think my waistline may explode. At least I will die happy 🙂

I’m going to go and get some cake.

Cheerio

Cheesecake Away!

 

Bank Holiday Balderdash (now with added piffle)

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expanding gastronomic horizons

I have uncovered a new taste sensation in the local supermarket. Ladies and gentlemen *drum roll* I give you the Port Royal Salt Fish Patty.

SaltFishLabel-lrg

These rock! They are the best thing in the world ever. Hot and spicy, slightly smoked fish and chillies wrapped in pastry. They are Jamaican in origin and are epically moreish. Mrs Cheesecake is horrified by their smell and doesn’t like spicy foods so they are best described as a ‘solitary pursuit’. The humble Greggs sausage roll better watch its fucking back, that’s all I’m saying.

the bells, the bells

Yesterday afternoon while gardening I found a cat collar with a little bell on it. I figured it had come of one of nextdoor’s moggies so I popped it in my pocket with thoughts of returning it later. Needless to say within seconds I had gone back to what I was doing and forgotten entirely about the collar. Later, and for the rest of the day, I kept hearing a tinkling sound and every time I turned I expected to see a cat. By the end of the day I was beginning to question my sanity. You may not be surprised to discover that the collar is no longer in my pocket.

this is the end?

I have noticed a worrying trend of late. When I go to the cinema with Mrs Cheesecake I like to sit down with a medium diet coke and packet of Tooty Frooties.

Tooty_Frooties

Around 2hrs later, more often than not, I feel entertained and the diet coke has worked its magic so that my bladder is ready to explode. A swift exit is the thing most pressing on my mind. Why then must I sit an wait through ten minutes of credits just so I can get an extra two minutes of movie action? This happened during both films I saw on Saturday. Are you listening Hollywood! You shower of bastards! Stop with the extra scenes after the chuffing credits. Enough already. I demand that you cease and desist with all this foolishness. My bladder and I will be most grateful. This is not a cocking competition you know. Not every film has to have these little Easter Eggs for the intrepid few who manage to hold out.

With that in mind I have decided to add in extra content after the end of this post in order to keep people sat in front of their PCs for far longer than is necessary.

Till a time that is further in the future than now

Bye

Mr C

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DSCF2178

Ta da! Extra content. Woo it really was worth the wait wasn’t it? No I didn’t think so either. I should stress the eyebrows aren’t real. Unfortunately everything else is.

Food! Glorious Food!

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This past weekend Mrs Cheesecake and I went a bit of a bender. A tasty, tasty bender.

On Saturday night we dined at Piccolino in Nottingham. I had a splendid carpaccio of beef to start followed by roast cod with Italian sausage and chilli. Both were exceptional. Is is always my habit I had an expresso to finish. Mrs Cheesecake had mushroom bruschetta with pesto and goats cheese and then as a main course duck with apple.

Sunday lead us to The Priory in Portbury near Bristol. We had been due to go at new year but due to illness were unable to go. We had a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings. It was truly sublime.

Back to the diet today but man what a blow out!