Tuesday 3rd September, Another Curry Walk

An email from the Long Suffering Rick gently hinted that a Curry Walk was overdue. I fired off emails to those well known Curry Walk aficionados, Martin & Alan. Alan was predictably enthusiastic, Martin was willing but the flesh it was weak – a particularly painful back problem meant he was virtually immobile. The decision was taken: we’d do the walk and eat Martin’s curry for him. Oh, and drink his beer at the end.

My old friend John had been cajoled into joining us. He’s not that old really, but he does enjoy a curry. And a walk. He’s quite partial to a few decent beers too.

Rick planned the route, it was his fault turn. A tram ride from Timperley whisked us up to our rendezvous point with Alan:  Prestwich on the north side of Manchester.

The Plan (Ho-ho!) was to follow the banks of the River Irwell into the centre of Manchester. To get to the river from our start point meant wandering down a short section of the busy A56 Chester to Broughton (North Yorkshire) road. You can often turn up some real gems if you keep your eyes open when walking through built-up areas, like the delightfully named ‘Railway & Naturalist’ pub:

The Railway & Naturalist, Prestwich

 

Leaving the busy A56 to walk through Prestwich village we passed the old church of St. Mary the Virgin:

The building has been extended over the years You don’t need to look too carefully to spot some of the alterations. Alan knows more about it (and the pub opposite), he and Sheila used to live locally.

 

 

After walking through the wooded graveyard we followed a very good path that took us through Prestwich Clough > Drinkwater Park and then the River Irwell:

Rick doing a map check…..John McN checking the location of his marbles

 

The River Irwell

Most people think that the course that rivers follow as they wend their merry way into busy city centres as being dreary at best. The route the River Irwell took was anything but – it was quite delightful.

The path was very pleasant indeed although there were constant reminders of our close proximity to central Manchester:
  The Manchester skyline, the 550’ 47 storey Beetham Tower on the RHS

 

Manchester City Council appear to have provided comfy seating on the route. Nice, eh?

 

 

I’ve no idea what this is, perhaps a tribute to the area’s industrial past?

 

I think this building may have some connection with the old trolley-bus system that was in use in Manchester until  1966.

A Manchester Trolley-bus in 1966. Pic taken from Wikipedia.

The weirs of the river began to sound unnaturally loud….then I realised I was hearing the rumbling of stomachs. It was getting towards 2pm and we were hungry, hungry, hungry.

Above: the view to Salford from the bridge below:

I can’t imagine local councils forking out for such elaborate signage these days.

 

A sadder-looking River Irwell. The building behind the bridge is the old sorting office. So Alan says. And he knows about these things.

 

Our bee-line to the luxury of ‘This & That’ took us past Manchester Cathedral, a rather magnificent building that is undergoing some restoration work. Whilst this work is being carried out a temporary building has been constructed to serve the faithful:

Manchester Cathedral with the Cathedral Pre-fab to the left.

 

No idea, but it goes to show that you should always look up when in a city centre. Not all the time though.

 

 Getting closer….The Urbis and The Printworks. I can almost smell the curry.

 

Inside the Printworks

 

Gotham City?

 

Moments later….well minutes later actually, (John McN and I found ourselves slightly lost) we entered the hallowed towers of ‘This & That’. No photos of our excellent meal, only the aftermath. We were too damned hungry to be messing with cameras.

 

I enjoyed rice with curried chicken, curried cabbage (wonderful!!), and dahl. All for £4.90.

John McN and Alan, hunger satisfied.

 

The process of rehydration was carried out at the very excellent Ape & Apple where destructive quality control tests were carried out on some of Joe Holt’s finest ales. The ale passed all tests with flying colours. I wouldn’t have expected anything less…but it’s best to be sure.

 

It was great to see Sheila who joined us for a short time before John McN, Rick and I headed off to the tram and then home. She had lager, but she’s a lovely lady.

 

Poor thing. Hot, sweet tea will help.

Alan reckoned we walked 13.3km, that’s around 8.3 miles in English. It was downhill. I know this ‘cos that’s the way that rivers flow.

A grand day out in excellent company. Oh, and we all thoroughly enjoyed Martin’s curry and beer. Thanks Martin, I’ll be down for a coffee in a bit.

You can read Alan’s report here, it has much nicer pics and a map.

More of my pics are here. No photos of the curries or the beer, we were too hungry and thirsty to be mithered.

Backpacking meals

The Mrs JJ had a significant birthday recently. We had planned to go out for a celebratory nosh at Greasy Lizzy’s, Timperley’s answer to the 5 star Cordon Bleu restaurants of Paris, London and Rusholme. Anyroadup, when it came to the crunch she didn’t feel up to it. I can’t imagine why.

Instead of going out to eat, I nipped round the corner for a couple of take-away curries: a Chicken Tikka Mosala for her, Vegetable Dopiaza for him. Both served with pilau rice of course.

You know how it is, we only got half-way through our meals and found that we couldn’t eat another mouthful. The leftovers were put in the fridge and would have likely been forgotten about…but I had a cunning plan.

Next morning I finely chopped up all the lumpy bits of the left-overs and put the resulting mush into my dehydrator. 8 hours later all the moisture had been driven off and the resulting crunchy bits emptied into zip-lock polybags. Along with Tesco’s garlic and something-or-other naan bread, I had two excellent backpacking meals.

Dehydrated Chicken Tikka Mosala 

Rehydration of home dehydrated meals is a much slower process than with the commercial stuff, but the results are immeasurably better. And so it was.

Whilst my neighbours were tucking into their rehydrated cardboard (with added MSG) I was enjoying my excellent curry. Stormin’ was the only exception I was aware of – he dehydrates his own meals and was enjoying a similarly delicious evening meal.

If you fancy making your own meals all you need is a dehydrator. I use an American Harvest Snackmaster, similar to this one. I’d suggest a bit of experimentation, but it won’t be long before you’re making your own backpacking meals.