Every good book needs a pantomime villain and somehow Greggs seemed to inadvertently fit that bill. I’d be rambling through some town centre, searching for that elusive traditional butchers or bakers and I’d get hit with a wall of garish blue whether I was in Barrow or Basingstoke.
The ubiquitous Greggs. Their only crime was to get too big. And now they get blamed for the fact that people are too big. The thing is I […]
It’s getting closer. It started with a pie, and a spreadsheet, nearly three years ago and the culmination of this madcap idea is getting ever closer to fruition.
“Life of Pies” will be released in just under two months’ time and the closer it gets the more nervous trepidation and excitement builds (for me at least!).
I recently wrote an article for excellent Barnsley fanzine West Stand Bogs all about pies and my forthcoming book. It was the least I can do after it’s editor tipped me off some time last year about Percy’s Pies.
A small butcher situated in the South Yorkshire town of Jump, Percy’s is a local institution. Enough of the pre-amble though: they sell pork pies for SIXTY FIVE PENCE!!!
The first few weeks of “Life of Pies” were spent sneaking around the North West mainly eating meat and potato pies (because I hadn’t yet told the missus what I was up to).
It soon became evident that I need to spread my wings beyond the safety blanket of my native North West and thus began the GREAT SEARCH in earnest. With wife and baby now in tow it became necessary to source a “family day […]
If I’m honest I don’t envisage a massive market in this book for vegetarians for fairly obvious reasons. And even though I’m partial to a cheese and onion pie, I would nearly always overlook it for a meatier option when selecting my prey.
So I’d say vegetarian pies make up no more than 5% of the book and even so, it’s more a case that it was a quirky meat-free flavour like a butter or macaroni […]
Time for another pie of the day. I missed a couple of days and can only put this down to day job pressures, and “other” hobby pressures of trying to get a magazine ready for the new season.
Regular, pedantic readers will have noticed that I’ve now missed a total of 10 days since I first set out to deliver to you 100 pies in 100 days.
I’d heard about the Killie Pie long before starting the book but I didn’t exactly know what was in it. If you’d ask me now I’d tell you that it’s purely a bloody good steak pie.
North of the Border they are partial to a Scotch pie generally filled with cheaper mincemeat or mutton, therefore a rich, chunky steak pie submerged in gravy is a joy to behold.
I went to Southport at the weekend. You might think that it’s more renowned for fish and chips and sticks of rock but there’s one or two pie purveyors of note if you know your stuff.
CH Latham of Birkdale is one such purveyor, their USP (that’s a unique selling point not that little stick you bung in your laptop) is that the proprietor is a born and bred Wigan lad making authentic “Wigan pies “.
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What happened here was that I tried repeatedly to get in touch with Dunkleys, a champion pie maker around these parts but when I eventually did they were a touch rude to me on the phone.
My ire was further stirred by the fact that sometime last year Wetherspoons took their pies off the menu (as indeed it is Dunkleys that used to supply them). To this very day, all you can get in that fine […]
Bit of a daft name really isn’t? Surely by default a pie should have a crust otherwise it’s not a pie; nor is it crusty.
Anyway, sweeping aside that minor pedantry, if you head to Market Street in Manchester at the minute you’ll find a load of market stalls. It spread around our place like wildfire “THERE’S A POP UP PORK PIE STALL NEAR THE ARNDALE” and indeed there was. We don’t get this kind of […]
LIFE OF PIES IS NOW AVAILABLE TO BUY
I got wed in the Lakes around about six years ago today, it’s an obvious thing to say but when you get the weather, there’s no better place in the world to be. There were no pies on the buffet but had I known this place was around the corner I might have had a re-think.
Situated by the park and bowling green on a road populated by traditional […]
Whoops I nearly missed a day again. Oh well, just time for me to revert to an old favourite I’ve previously blogged about on here.
I’d heard a rumour off one of the chaps on Twitter that they call their sausage rolls HAM ROLLS what with it being in the leafy footballer’s abode of Alderley Edge. Sure enough there they were on the shelves, along with a veritable cornucopia […]
The Googling
The map routing
The nervous wait in the queue
The shop assistant banter
The sights and smells, oh those wonderful smells
The eating of pies
The adventure
The endless, horrendous traffic
The embarrassing moments
The omnipresent WHEN RED LIGHTS SHOWS WAIT HERE signs
I will attempt to keep this brief – because – “LIFE OF PIES” THE BOOK WENT TO THE PRINTERS LAST NIGHT!!!!
Yes, the toil and torment is over and now it’s the waiting game until it hits the streets whilst battling back technical snags.
Anyway, here’s another pie. Following on from yesterday, I also got another pie the day I dropped into the Penmaenmawr Spar – this one from TJ Parry-Jones & Daughters. You can almost sense […]
I actually cooked a big apple pie last night. Trust me this is unusual as a) I’m a crap cook and b) I don’t generally mess around with sweet pies. But what about mixing the two up?
Fruit topped pies are an interesting phenomenon and go most notably with pork. Imagine my glee one Monday morning when I was driving back from Conwy in North Wales and I pulled off the A55 to visit the Penmaenmawr […]
Seeing as they followed me on Twitter yesterday, it feels as apt a time as any to feature one of East Lancashire’s finest. Down the road in Accrington and Blackburn, you have the veritable pie twin giants of Hollands and Clayton Park but this small butchers’ in Burnley is more than a match for the pair of them.
Situated slap bang in the town centre, Haffners is a traditional butchers with strong emphasis on pies. And […]