I remember Sawers Delicatessen from a couple of years ago as the place where I bought my first tub of Cherry Garcia. They don’t seem to stock Ben & Jerry’s anymore (there’s a B&J kiosk in Castle Court anyway) – instead, the freezer section is now overflowing with all kinds of interesting fauna – including whole rattlesnakes, at £79 a pack! Are they the ones who didn’t make the grade during the casting call? If I ever feel curious enough to make a purchase, I’ve already found some instructions on how to prepare them. It begins amusingly enough with the words, “Take dead rattlesnake…”, which also makes for an the ideal introduction to a spanish Hannah Glasse tome.

Snakes aside, this deli is like a little cave stuffed full of goodies. I like a place that sends dinner ideas buzzing into your head the minute you step inside. I’ve already got my eye on the pieces of salt cod, for making brandade, and if we don’t make it to the markets on friday, we just might have to come back for a wedge or two of cheese.

Sawers Delicatessen
7 Fountain Centre
College Street
Belfast
BT1 6ET

Too many hours on a cramped plane later, we have finally made it to Belfast to visit Barry’s parents. Flyin’ ain’t one of my favourite things to do, but it’s a means to an end, so some of us suffer through it with lots of fidgeting about in their miniscule seats, trying to watch the movies available or nibble the hot food provided – a passable chicken curry and coconut rice, in one case.

Due to increased security, there’s a whole new bunch of stuff that you can’t take on board. Apart from the standard 2 lt. bottle of bleach, cigarette lighters or knitting needles, you now can’t take face cream, liquid eye liner, bottled water etc. At one point, while in the middle of 2 1/2 hours worth of queueing, we walked past a desk with a collection of things that had just been confisticated from checking-in passengers – it was overflowing with lots of little lip balms, tubes of sun tan lotion (probably bought on the way out of the country, because who would need sun tan lotion while in the UK?), and a single bottle of vodka.

Anyway, we’ve only been here two days and it has already rained at least five times. That would explain why everything is such a vibrant green colour. I took some photos of the family backyard yesterday, and today, we visited a nearby Tesco supermarket to stock up on some things – mostly bad, bad, bad junk food – that you can’t get back home. We got back just before it started to rain again, and settled down with cups of hot tea and the smell of baking chocolate cake wafting from B’s mom’s kitchen. What’s not to like about being here!

No Sunday cup of tea is complete without something to nibble on. Bill Granger’s coconut bread is a good place to start. Sweet and moist from the shredded coconut, fragrant with powdered cinnamon, it also makes for a great breakfast food. I made a 5x recipe a couple of days ago, for people at work. The leftover was packed into a container and stored in the freezer. When B got back from New York today, we caught up over vanilla tea and toasted slices of the bread.

Make this bread – it only takes like 2 Earth Seconds to make; the rest of it is oven time – slice it hot or let it cool then toast generous slices of it and enjoy while soaking up some sun on your balcony with another Bill.

Bill Granger’s Coconut Bread :

2 eggs
300ml milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
350g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
225g caster sugar
150g shredded coconut
75g unsalted butter, melted

Whisk the eggs, milk, vanilla and melted butter together. Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl, add sugar and coconut, and stir to combine. Gradually stir in the egg mixture until just combined. Pour into a greased and floured 21x10cm loaf tin and bake in a preheated 180’C oven for one hour, or until bread is cooked when tested with a skewer. Let cool for five minutes before removing from the tin to cool further on a wire rack.