MM Links October 2010 [Week 3]

Strix | 07:44 Sat 16th Oct 2010 | Quizzes & Puzzles

50 Answers

When I first lived in Soho at the beginning of the 70’s I was being paid rather well and being surrounded by restaurants of many countries it seemed stupid to cook for myself. There was every kind of restaurant in terms of price as well as culinary skill ranging from the most expensive French restaurant through to a Chinese-for-the-Chinese takeway just off Cambridge Circus where I found myself eating all sorts of extremities and innards that I was too scared to ask as to what they were!

The Week 719

DT26373

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Strix

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Chinatown as it is now did not exist then and Soho was still pretty well untamed. There was an ongoing turf war between various Chinese Triads which culminated in a massive fight, with meat cleavers, in front of terrified customers, in a Chinese restaurant in Wardour Street just round the corner from my flat. My flat was in a building that itself had a couple of years earlier been fire-bombed in one of these wars and a Chinese had hurled himself to his death, onto the railings outside, from the flat below mine.

The street I lived in was half-pedestrianised and was much used by “ladies of the night” to accost every passing male. Even more basic was the ground floor of my building which was the “Golden Girl Night Club”, a clip-joint, with “ladies” sitting at open windows beckoning mug punters in where they would be “encouraged” to buy an expensive “Hostess Cocktail” in return for some sort of non-existent “favour”.

Strix

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Most of the ladies in Soho were under the control of a character known as Maltese Frank who I was told would, once a week, go into a bank in Soho Square and from a paper bag deposit not less than £5,000 and that wasn’t the only bank he visited every week!

But there was growing competition in Soho mainly from people of West Indian origin trying to muscle in on the territory and fights between the various groups of girls and their minders became a more and more regular occurrence and was increasingly more violent. It was, very definitely, a “rough trade” area.

But for all that it was a fascinating place to live for it was an area much favoured by artists and other creative types. The French House (York Minster), the Colony Club along with the Coach and Horses being some of the more preferred watering holes. But for me eating out in restaurants for nearly three years was the greatest pleasure and really educated my palate in not only my judgement of good food but also, when I left London, it made me all the more keen to learn how to cook really well.

Strix

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So let us get back to food. In my many years at University I had, I like to think, become competent at cooking. But only once, that I can remember during my Soho years, did I cook something “posh” for my flatmate and I. It was tournedos Rossini with gratin dauphnois and mangetout. I didn’t know what red to have with it and went to a very upmarket wine merchant and asked for advice and they recommended Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou. It, the two bottles, and the meal were wonderful but that wine ruined forever my ability to enjoy mediocre red wine. I can drink vin de table (a.k.a. plonk), no problem, but over-priced poncey-labelled mediocre red, no way. So my wine buying is either the cheapest or the most expensive I can afford.

After I left London, in relative poverty in 1976, eating out in restaurants became history. I had to go back to cooking for myself and I lived on my own (apart from weekends) for nearly eight years. Rattling around alone in a 5 bedroom farmhouse on the south coast with the wind whistling through I would, in winter months, cook in outdoor gear with a scarf round my neck and with the finished food rush into the one warm room! But I collected recipes, books and kitchen kit (wok, le Creuset, Magimix, Sabatier knives etc) and slowly my skills improved.

Strix

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As a result of my subsequently improved skills I do all, without complaint so far, the cooking in the Strix nest. People say to me “Oh, you must enjoy cooking” – “No,” I reply, “I don’t but I DO like eating!”

Thus this week the words I have chosen all come from the culinary section of what passes as my brain (which I think does exist despite crofters despair as to the “numerical side”!) BUT again, like in previous weeks, do NOT assume that my preferred link words are necessarily to do with cooking or eating!

By the way, as a hint to those new or unaware of the kind of words I select as links, I do NOT use the names of people or of places.

Strix

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As always, for the every day running of MM, I will follow the same rule as introduced by crofter on word length. Each of my chosen link words contains at least four letters and at most eight. Stray outside this range and you will be wasting one of your attempts!
Each of my selected words may go in front of or after my challenge word. The competition will officially close at 7.00pm on Sunday evening when crofter will declare my selected words and the same rules for awarding points will be applied as have been applied during all MM Link Games in the past. Only THIS TIME the scoreboard will be ACCURATE!!!!!

My final set of four words to have their links predicted will appear below at 9.00am.

So, sit down, unfold your napkin and tuck in.

Strix

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I, STRIX, THE GREEDY-GUTS, challenge you to find my preferred link-words to these words which are

PAN (I am allowed a three letter word but you are not)
PLATE
GLASS
MEAL