It was a night which delivered everything it promised. Pies, mainly and plenty of them! The back room of the Raven proved a great little spot for the assorted ladies and gents of Wigan Pie Society to celebrate the launch of Life of Pies in no uncertain terms.
I had a few shocks and setbacks along the way, not least concerns about the delivery of the books in time after they got held up in customs […]
I’m sat at home waiting for the delivery of 1,000 books. Nervous and exciting times indeed. It has been a long haul: nearly three years in the making but the Life of Pies is nearly ready to be unleashed onto an unsuspecting public.
First job will be to post out many of the 114 copies that have been advanced ordered. I’m also tied up with preparations for tonight’s book launch at The Raven Hotel in Wigan […]
Cirencester is one of those places that, no matter whether you live there or not, you just have to adopt a West Country accent to say it. When I came here, I was initially looking for a Halls Bakery within the castle walks but I simply couldn’t find it. Parked on double yellows running around in the pissing rain like a drowned rat. How dare the Romans not provide multi storey short stay (preferably free) […]
Having introduced the original Clarks yesterday, it would be harsh not to give it’s English cousin a bit of air space.
The same day I went to Cardiff, I also weaved my merry way to the Clarks pie shop in the sleepy area of Bedminster (sorry) in Bristol. Cruising along the A5 past the Severn basin with an army of joggers and cyclists up above, down below and alongside on a glorious wintry day. Past the […]
It was chirpy Bristolian Ian Holloway who first opined that Clarks Pies were one of the best things to come out of Bristol (apart from himself). However, it seems that statement was a touch liberal with the truth, you see Clarks pie originated in Cardiff and still thrive and survive there to this very day.
I took the opportunity to head west last year to understand the Clarks phenomenon. Pulled up in a working class area […]
I feel duly obliged to do a piece on this one in my pie hall of fame. If you see the links on the right, you’ll notice it is the most read story on this here blog.
It wasn’t always – it seems to have rocketed up in the past few weeks to come from nowhere. Maybe the eighties teen heartthrob show “Dawsons Creek” has seen a resurgence in recent times? Maybe […]
You might recall a few blogs back I mentioned the bad press that Greggs get, simply for their mass market domination of the steak bake sector.
To be honest, there is another company that have emerged in the North West which has also taken a bit of stick for it’s bold, affordable approach.
But what’s the problem here? People in the North West like eating PIES and the POUND BAKERY simply makes the money in […]
Yes – It’s a pair of advance copies of Life of Pies sent by air freight!
As the picture below testifies! (pie supplied for measurement purposes)
I’m still waiting for a definitive date for the launch. The pallets have been shipped I just don’t know exactly when they will land at my door.
Current estimate is some point between October 16th – 24th, so just over a month to go!
I will be holding a launch in Wigan on […]
Ah yes, the butter pie: talk about a pie which divides opinions.
I had one the other day from Galloways and my personal opinion is that they are pleasant, but I’d always rather have a bit of meat in there if possible.
For the uninitiated, this is a pie made with butter, potato and onion. In much the same way as Friday is “chippy tea” day, the Butter pie was conceived as a way for all good […]
Although I’m quite centrally located – indeed I’m based in the pie capital of the country that is Wigan, there are certain places that I had to visit yet were quite hard to get to. It’s not easy to get to Inverness and back in a day just to get a pie and whereas Mrs T is an understanding girl, I’d possibly be pushing my luck a bit there.
So I hit upon an idea: if […]
From one Thomas to another….with the main consistency being that it’s an awkward bugger to spell and say. Is it Thomas Butchers, Thomas the Butchers, Thomases Butcher, Thomas’s’ Butchers, Thomas’ Butchers, Thomases the Butcher oh my head’s gone….for a veritable wordsmith this ties me in knots.
I made several trips to marvellous Barrow during the course of the book, it turns out that the longest cul de sac in the world is a veritable pie hotbed.
The half dozen or so pie purveyors present in the peninsula all lay claim to make the best meat and potato pie, so what to make of Thomas the Bakers of nearby Ulverston?
Yesterday I revisited my trip to Corfe Castle to get a Bridport Gourmet Pie. That wasn’t all that I picked up on my travels there. You see, the small general store at the foot of the castle, Clealls (which I believe has since shut down) had a wide range of pies and my natural gluttony meant that there was no way that I was stopping at just one.
However, the second purchase was no ordinary pie. […]
As I’m a third of the way through this little appetiser now, I perhaps need to iterate that the pies featured in this blog are not necessarily the best 100 I had, and they are featured in NO PARTICULAR ORDER as they say on those cheap gameshows you people seem to like watching.
They might be, they might not. I just dip into my pie archives and see what comes out…..if you want the full story […]
What? Fish & Chips? Yes Fish & Chips!
If myself and my fellow cohorts from Wigan have a secondary obsession apart from pies, I think it’s safe to say that it’s fish & chips. Open warfare and a large portion of ridicule can be thrown about on social media when it comes to debate and quality of the infamous “chippy tea”.
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 […]