Mums - what are they like!?!

[OverWyreGrower]

My mum has been going through a difficult time recently. My younger sister has been diagnosed with the big C (again!), and as she has her own business, my mum has been working for her whilst she has gone to hospital etc.

Not only that, but the business (which my mum has a half-share in) hasn't been doing too well, so there have been serious money worries, and talk of closure etc.

So, Mr OWG and I thought we would treat my mum, and take her out for a meal. We're quite the foodies at OWG Towers, and have fancied a visit to Northcote Manor (link) for some time, to sample the Michelin-Star food there.

They have a fairly reasonably priced Sunday Lunch menu at 4 courses for £30 a head (remember, this is MS food, top chef etc). We offered to take my mum there and showed her the menu.

She has refused!! She doesn't like anything on the menu - it's all 'silly food' and didn't we know we can get a carvery for £3.50 a head from a pub near her!

Now, I wouldn't eat a £3.50 ph carvery if you paid me, all that mass produced food, sat under heat lamps for the duration of the sitting... yeuch!!

Honestly - refusing a paid for, special treat meal in favour of cheap pub food.....

[Flummery]

I'll come - fancy an adopted Ma?

[Nicos]

Aww...she's also trying to save you a bit of dosh me thinks!!

....perhaps you two go there on your own- and take her somewhere a bit more run-of -the- mill????

[TEB]

Why dont you take her to the carvery as its a treat for her, sounds like she would enjoy that more than the posh place, you could always have a salad

[Alison]

Personally I wouldn't go to either, don't like the cheap carvery for the reasons you've given but don't like posh poncey food either. Find it all a bit too much emphasis on the visual and I can't get my head around how much you actually pay for not a lot. If it's a treat for your mum, take her to the type of place she wants to go, there are plenty of really lovely pubs that do good food, cooked to order and that sounds more like her sort of place.

[Flummery]

The only worry I have about these foodie type places is that, having watched Michelin star chefs on TV, they ALWAYS touch the food with their fingers - especially when plating up, so it's not even going to get cooked into sterility again. They would fail a basic food hygiene course. Of course, in the un-posh places, they might be even worse. Which is why I like to cook my own as well as grow my own!

[TEB]

erm but they have to touch the food, (its the reason smoking is banned in a kitchen, going back a few years) because of hand to mouth contamination but for some foods there is no getting away from contact with hands.

[Alison]

erm but they have to touch the food, (its the reason smoking is banned in a kitchen, going back a few years) because of hand to mouth contamination but for some foods there is no getting away from contact with hands.

I don't touch cooked food as I serve it up, always think it's pretty poor manners to handle food that somebody else is going to eat in this manner. Find spoons, spatulas, etc work well

[TEB]

Who talking about cooked food, how do you make a salad

[Alison]

Ah, was basing my response on the comment that Flummery had made about cooking to sterility!

[Hilary B]

When it comes to salad or similar, freshly-washed hands (using a disinfectant/wandwash) or latex gloves, would seem to be the solution. In the supermarket, the staff on the fresh-food counters sometimes use hands to control an item, but they wash their hands every few mins!

[TEB]

Also not all food is cooked to sterile or beyond and steaks are checked by a poke test, wearing gloves or using instruments is not always practical in a kitchen, but good hygene and common sense is the order of the day, I ran a restaurant for 7 years and not one case of food poising, although we did have the odd people phone and say they had food poisoning when they were in the restaurant the night before and in every case they were trying it on because when we asked what they had eaten it was something that we weren't serving (you would have thought they would have checked out our menu first).

[Two_Sheds]

didn't we know we can get a carvery for £3.50 a head from a pub near her!

I have a FiL like that. He's quite happy to let us pay for all his meals out, but then he complains loudly and bitterly about how awful they are, and how "not worth it" they are.

I also have a mother (you know who you are!) who has refused to come on an all-expenses-paid trip to Chelsea.

[Two_Sheds]

My younger sister has been diagnosed with the big C (again!)

I'm really sorry to hear that. Best wishes to her.

[dexterdoglancashire]

So sorry to hear about your sister again. Hope it all works out OK.
As for Heathcote Manor, Ive been raving on at Drew to take me there for my birthday! You could always pretend you were going somewhere else and then drive there with your mum? Id love to hear what its like.
Ive once been to a £3.50 place - it was OK considering I was starving, but I wouldnt do it again.

Love Bernie