Hello. I’m afraid I’ve taken almost no pictures of anything this week, so I don’t have anywhere near enough to show you. This is probably in part down to my sudden fear of delicious food that’s set in because I piled on way too many pounds from starting the Christmas gluttony in mid-November. Healthy attitudes towards life should with any luck resume next week, be patient with me. It’ll also have a lot to do with how busy I constantly am for what feels like no reason at all. Is that just me? Always busy yet somehow never really accomplishing anything? I feel a lot like that today.

Anyway..

I have raved at you about the Bar-B-Q Shack at The World’s End pub a couple of times before, they do the best BBQ I’ve tasted in Brighton. Last time I went in there, they had a new menu so obviously I had to try something different to tell you all about it. Usually, as you know, I order the pit master – sausages, brisket, a shit tonne of BBQ sauce, topped with an ABT (bacon wrapped cream cheese jalapeno) and it’s easily one of my favourite sandwiches in town. On Sunday, I tried the Flaeskesteg sandwich which literally no one could pronounce. We all tried; the guy behind the bar, the girl that brought it over, not one of us could even attempt to say Flaeskesteg. Pork and crackling Danish style with red cabbage, pickles and mustard. It’s delicious, and I totally recommend it for crackling lovers, but it does not beat my beloved pit master.

P.S – there is now a vegan option on the menu. I’m too scared to try it when there’s so many delicious meat options on offer but I’ll probably give it a go next month for Veganuary!

I finally made a couple of batches of mince pies this week. Yes, it has genuinely taken me this long. Something is off with me this year! I use a muffin pan as opposed to a shallow one to make ’em deep filled, and sweet shortcrust instead of plain old pastry for extra decadence.

Potash Farm sent me through some of their delicious cobnuts in this gorgeous little hessian sack to play with. I’m still deciding what I’ll do with them, but in the mean time I think you really need to know about their chocolate slabs. Luxurious, high quality chocolate dotted with kentish cobnuts, that’s a stocking filler we could all do with, am I right?

My neighbourhood has a street by street advent calendar thing going on this year, and I dragged Cab round the houses that are lit up already. Some of them are so clever, some so creative, some so pretty. I really hope this idea catches on and gets more and more popular each year! Do you have anything like this where you live? I’d love to hear about it so hit me up in the comments if you do!

I’ve signed up for ODEON Limitless. It’s a big commitment at £17.99 a month for a minimum of 12 months, but my 2017 NYR is to watch every single movie to come out next year, and this is how I’ll do it. To be honest, it’s kind of a steal – all I have to do is see two movies a month and I’ve already made my money back. I bought it a week ago, and already I’ve seen two movies. So I feel like I’ve made a good decision. I think I might dedicate some blog space to talking about film as I get more and more into it, for now, here’s what I saw this week…

Arrival

image credit: vox.com

I have never been so gripped by a movie as I was by this one, and that truly is saying something. If you’re a regular reader, you know that I have ADHD (I mention it wherever relevant cause I think it’s an important thing to talk openly about and remove the stigma of) which means that sitting in front of a film and not having my mind wander dozens of times throughout therefore missing out on several essential plot lines is a luxury rarely afforded to me. Watching Arrival I was sat, open mouthed and completely focused and engaged in the story the entire time. The main character is female, which is always a plus for me, and she’s intelligent, sensible and reliant on nobody. Tick, tick, tick. Amy Adams plays a linguist at the top of her game head hunted to communicate with aliens when they land on earth. Not something I would have chosen if I’d seen a trailer, but I’m so happy we picked it out at random. Please go and see it.

Doctor Strange

image credit: Pioneer Press

I deserve a slap on the wrist for this, but I’ve always sort of dismissed Marvel films as standard action movies that I would have little to no interest in. It wasn’t until Cab made me watch Thor a while ago that I realised they were actually right up my street. Doctor Strange was fantastic. Just the right amount of magic fighty scenes and some really good actually properly funny one liners!

Would you be interested in seeing cinema reviews (once I work out how to actually write them) as a separate section on Cate in the Kitchen? Let me know, I’ll keep thinking about that..

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