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A treat of a meal in Manteca, London

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“The trouble with eating Italian is that 5 or 6 days later you’re hungry again.” George Miller

It was a windy, wet mid-week day when I stepped off the pavement into Manteca. Instantly all was warmth, and relaxed chat.

Our table was in a long row of tables for two. They were close together, but the restaurant so filled with activity that there was no chance to concentrate on anything other than our own meal and conversation. There was also no looking around for service as it seemed to appear out of nowhere to explain menus and choices, and then to deliver the results.

We were happy from start to finish – part of the theatre that swirled around us.

The open, stainless steel kitchen runs down the middle of the restaurant, with chefs in bright white chopping and preparing and plating up the bread and pasta, the meats and salads, while kitchen staff carry tubs of vegetables to and fro.

Our choices included chunks of foccacia alongisde puffy pork crackling, with a warming, rich ragu. Next came a bitter leaf salad with gorgonzola and pear, and then two pasta dishes, one with a crab sauce and another in a sauce of emerald green kale with chilli. They both tasted fresh and delicious.

We ended the meal with coffee and some salty fudge, then stepped back into the winter reality of London’s streets. Our immersion was over. Our escape was over. Our privileged two hours were over.

Was it worth it? Definitely. We had enjoyed attention, theatre, and food full of flavour, with a quietly professional kitchen right at the heart of our moment in time.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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This was a wonderful present

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I am the lucky recipient of these – a birthday gift. So far I have not used them, but they are lodged in the back of my mind making plans that I hope will come to something when my blogging year is done.

Over the years I’ve tiptoed out into the podcast/audio world a couple of times, and to my surprise I’ve discovered that once I’ve got over the stage fright, it’s relatively simple. To date my shaky editions have been made on an old (2014) 13-inch MacBook Pro, with a microphone, a connector, and the help of GarageBand (which came with the computer).

The first time I came across a big problem was with the short story I’d written during lockdown. I’d assumed that recording the different sections would involve exactly the same process I’d used for earlier podcasts. I was wrong. I soon discovered that when reading, every breath I took was huffing into the recording. It sounded like I was blowing up balloons in the background, or else puffing along on a running machine. I consulted a recording veteran and was told I needed a ‘pop shield’. Since I didn’t have one, didn’t even know what one was, a homemade version was produced by stretching a cleaning cloth across the gap in a coathangar, and then stapling it in place. The difference it made was amazing. On I plodded.

Then, recording done, I packed away the duvets and debris, the microphone, and the coathanger pop shield, and went back to blogging.

However, since then three gifts have arrived. The first was a proper pop shield, and then a few weeks later the amazing equipment above. How lucky … and daunted … am I.

Now there’s planning, and a big space for ideas.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Oiling down the science

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This photograph was taken outside Waterloo Station in London in 2020, when the UK was locked down due to the coronavirus pandemic. The streets were so quiet you could feel the air breathing.

Now we’re back to ‘go’, our emissions trails choking the planet as we rush for growth. And we’re all locked in to the rush – reaching for the quick plastic solution to something, or taking that flight, our guilt moderated by the idea that governments and big business are doing far worse and far bigger.

That’s the problem. Who are these governments? Often the ones we chose. And these companies? Many are the profitable ones with safe, secure shares, good for the pension pot, hooking us all.

Yesterday I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about Exxon, and then found another in The Guardian covering the same story. Apparently, as far back as the 1970s, Exxon’s own scientists predicted the path of global warming with great accuracy, and in 2006 the company publicly acknowledged that fossil fuels did contribute to the problem. However, for many years since, it seems Exxon’s internal direction has been to comfort blanket the climate crisis in the idea that it’s not as bad as the science suggests.

This kind of double messaging nudges many of us to ‘doubt climate science’, to stand blinking as the planet burns, floods, and wind whips itself into chaos around us.

Surely, we need to think better, urgently. The evidence is mounting – climate caused devastation, slow or sudden, is truly calamitous.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023