And this is how they bring it up the beach

You thought fish was expensive?

straight from the sea at Aldeburgh

After lunch we walk along the seafront and buy one of these fat beauties straight out of the sea.  The whole cod was £14, cut into eight huge steaks by the fisherman and with another fish head thrown in for soup.

Oysters at The Lighthouse – Aldeburgh

Lunch at the Lighthouse on a Times eat-three-courses-for-a-tenner voucher but have to go off menu to have two oysters with my starter. They are listed as appetizers and priced at £1.75 each…too tempting. Served with two types of tabasco I have them with my gravadlax starter and they take me straight to the bottom of the sea with flavour.

Woolpit fish and chips

Well it’s December and I haven’t been anywhere nice for the last week, in fact I haven’t been anywhere – nice or not.  I was thinking about making mince pies and looked up Delia’s recipe but decided not to buy all the ingredients just for a few, as I know it will be me that eats them all. I haven’t bought any because first of all I won’t like them as much as home made and secondly, if you want Christmas to start the week before and end the week after, there is something really exciting about waiting to eat that first mince pie and my mum makes the best. So, fed up with cooking and no children around this evening to make it too expensive I secretly bought Woolpit fish (plaice) and chips and they were really really nice.

Suffolk Herring Festival

fresh from the sea...

Little herring-shaped signs on the side of the A12  look interesting and eventually find a leaflet for this event 24th-25th October at Middleton Farm shop.  Their blog is on this site;  unfortunately I don’t like herrings or kippers – too boney for me - but I love the smell, and soft roes and might try and find time to go and have a look.

and on the way back from the seaside…

drove to Aldeburgh and spent £25 I haven’t got at one of the fish sheds. Bought two large dressed crabs, one for me - one for dad; a skate wing, a piece of cod, prawns and mussels for a fish soup that I cooked when I got home. Not very much money really for one of the most dangerous jobs there is – out at sea.

Also bought two types of pears and some apples from the side of the road in Coddenham.

A trip to the seaside…

Visited Thorpeness Golf Club and hotel for the magazine and surprised to find that anyone can go there to eat. All day bar snacks sound nice (Omelette Arnold Bennett among other things…) but I had celeriac as a vegetable with my pork – first time ever served this in a year of writing about Suffolk restaurants.  Chocolate tart with hazelnut pastry was fab – buttery and dark.