I can’t believe it is February already! The nights are already getting shorter and the crocuses and snowdrops are coming into bloom around Huddersfield. This February has supposedly been one of the warmest on record, but on a wet Friday evening, Huddersfield was doing its rain thing as the Intellectual Dinner Club made their way to Holmfirth for their around the world tour of cuisines – this time it was Spain’s turn as we visited Les Caveaux in Holmfirth.
Our journey to Holmfirth was not without incident. Holmfirth was kicking! Clearly others were looking for a good night out in Holmfirth and as a result the car parks were all full. In a tucked away car park we hit jackpot or so we thought. The car in front of us was doing very strange things indeed; choosing to try and park in a space that could have only been described as ‘cosy’ to say the least, changing their minds, performing an 87 point u-turn, then wanting the space we were patiently waiting for by blocking us in. Now if there is one thing I learned in February, it is never to annoy the normally serene Phoebe, especially when she is driving. By her own admission the ‘Red Mist’ descended and because these ladies were unwilling to move, sped off and frightened a poor taxi driver so much, he let us into the traffic, at risk of being mowed down by 4 angry witches!
Eventually after finding another space, we made our way to Les Caveaux in the centre of Holmfirth. Les Caveaux consists of an upstairs restaurant bar with gorgeous views across Holmfirth town centre or the more intimate cellar bar downstairs. We were to have our meal upstairs and were shown to our table. The dining area is lovely and welcoming with wood beams and stone walls strung with fairy lights. Our host was extremely welcoming and advised us to choose between 2 or 3 tapas dishes depending on how hungry we were.
The menu is broken down into vegetarian, meat, fish and warm salads. We were feeling very hungry and decided to try something from each of the menus. Once you have selected your dishes, you write your order on a pad and the waiter will come and collect the order. This felt very novel and added to the fun, sharing aspect of tapas dining.
Our orders came quickly and looked delicious! Each dish was presented beautifully in earthenware pots and spread all over the table so if you wish you could all have a taste of each dish. My personal favourite was Chorizo and Potatoes with Tomatoes and Paprika, which still has my mouth watering even now! Between us we managed the grilled haloumi, patatas bravas, baked Portobello mushrooms with spinach, pine nuts and goats cheese, battered squid, meatballs in rustic tomato and pernod sauce, braised ox cheek and wild boar and apple sausage as well as a seafood paella. Phew! It was lovely to be able to have a sample of each dish and I don’t think we could all agree on one favourite as they were all so tasty!
Following our early evening parking altercation, our conversation turned to all things automobile – do you leave your car in gear, our own road rage incidents (now that the red mist had fallen from Phoebe’s eyes) and the joys of motorway driving. But much more excitingly we were celebrating Cathy’s new job which she was due to start shortly!!! Cathy had been on an induction day and was telling us all about the aircraft hangar used to train students as well as the fake hospital complete with fake bodies!
And so to dessert! We all opted for a dessert except for Amanda who decided to have her usual liqueur coffee, (presented in the correct receptacle!). We all opted for the meringues with Chantilly cream and berries. Once we’d ordered the couple at the next table let us know they had loved their assiette of puddings (perfect if you can’t decide what to have) which included home-made lemon curd ice-cream. I was feeling very envious until my dessert came. The meringues were home-made and were delicious and light- the perfect end to a brilliant meal.
Our themes
This month our theme was to create a picture that told a thousand stories. I had deliberately chosen this theme as I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. I am not a natural artist to say the least. As usual, we had all left it to the last week to start the project and I think all of us were looking for inspiration up to the last minute!
Catherine brought with her a picture that she knew of her Uncle John’s home in Canada. She drew this whilst staying in Canada and said that the picture brought back sights and memories and like a flash she would be transported back to a happy memory. The picture was amazing!Phoebe whilst looking for inspiration, decided to make a cake and knowing that she wanted to work with the manga style - ‘cake ninja ‘ was born! This was a terrifying figure in black armed with a wooden spoon and a cake. Phoebe then used photography to document a subject close to her heart – cake decorating! which charted the progress of a cake from start to finish.
In typical chic style Amanda, who is visiting Paris this year, decided to sketch the many outfits that she would be wearing against a backdrop of famous Parisian sites. Each outfit was elegant, stylishnd carefully chosen proving that Amanda can show the French a thing or two about fashion!
My inspiration came from war photography, which I am very interested in. Whilst scouring the internet I came across an image so moving and yet simple. The image is of a weeping marine taken during a Memorial Day parade. The picture makes me want to know his story, who he is, who is crying for and what happened. I recreated my own version of this picture, scaling it back to a simple black and white drawing. I cannot do the original photograph justice, but was OK with my efforts. It was interesting that we had once again chosen our passions from family to cake-decorating, fashion to photography. This was a tough theme but I enjoyed it very much.
And so it came time to pay our bill and make our way (without incident!) back home. I’m looking forward to next month already.
The plan this month was to make sure that I started my theme straight away. I had it all worked out, I was going to treat it like a school project...do my research early and plan out how I was going to present the information then I was going to sit down and start writing, maybe do a bit each day. This did not happen. Those of you that follow the blog know that I've been having a hard time lately...the past three months have dealt some pretty horrible blows but there's no way I'm using those as my excuse to have not done my theme as planned...the truth is I was lazy. Instead of using my free time to get stuck into my theme I was sneakily watching absolute rubbish on the television, Cupcake Wars, Bridezillas and my favourite The Real Housewives of New York City. These programmes were more appealing than sitting down and doing history research...I'm so ashamed. This after all was my theme, I chose it and I really wanted to do it. But here I am limping to the finish line with my theme only just completed and perhaps looking not quite as good as I had hoped. It's done, i've just printed it off and after a pretty rubbish week it really helped me to take my mind off things, I've actually learnt something and I'm thinking if only I could have done something like this at school I would have found History far more interesting. Tomorrow is our next dinner...we're off on our culinary travels again this time for Sunday lunch and I can't wait to escape reality (and the television) for a bit and be with my four fantastic friends. 
