So. I thought I'd tell you about my fab weekend at The Pudding Club in Mickleton - a lovely village in the Cotswolds. On my recent author trip to South Africa we met a lovely young bookstore manager, John, in Johannesburg who mentioned that he'd been to England lots of times, but had never been to the Cotswolds. Well, of course, we had to correct that!
To cut a very long story short, John came to stay with us last weekend and we took him off to one of the monthly meetings of The Pudding Club which is held at the Three Ways Hotel. The Pudding Club was started twenty-three years ago by a couple who were fed up of getting nothing but a slice of frozen cheesecake as dessert in British restaurants. Their mission since then has been to bring back the good, old-fashioned British pudding.
We live so close to the Cotswolds - just an hour or so away - yet I forget how lovely it is. The weather was fabulous - the Indian Summer we'd been promised arrived at long last! Friday afternoon was spent wandering through Broadway and taking afternoon tea. In the evening the dinner started with a reception and some Elderflower champagne. We sat on a table with some lovely people - a couple celebrating their third wedding anniversary and two of the sweetest lawyers I've yet to meet having a romantic weekend away. There are some 'pudding' themed rooms in the hotel - Lovely Kev and I stayed in the Chocolate room (surprise, surprise) on Valentine's night - but they were all full this time.
The main course - no starter or bread to take up room for those precious puds! - was a lightish beef goulash. We were warned that every mouthful of potato meant one less bit of pudding!
Then the selection of seven puddings were introduced to rapturous cheers by the diners. We had a voting card on the table and had to make notes on our favourite pudding. Yes, jam roly poly was on the menu as we golden syrup sponge, sticky toffee pudding and plum crumble.
I'm afraid that I was a lightweight and cracked after three puds! Though I did have a rather large helping of the glorious chocolate steamed pudding with chocolate sauce (and custard!) Lovely Kev managed five puddings before throwing in the towel. The only one on our table who managed all seven was the tiny Japanese lawyer who weighed about four stone! The record for the evening was eleven puddings and the holder of the all-time pudding pig was a young man of nineteen (and six-foot four) who managed a whopping twenty-three puddings! At the end of the evening we all voted for our favourite and Sticky Toffee Pudding won.
Would highly recommend it for those with a sweet tooth and eyes bigger than their tummy!
On saturday we had a nice long walk to shed some of the calories and took in Bourton-on-the-Water. Lovely but so many people! We also walked between Lower and Upper Slaughter along the river and then had tea (and more cake!) at the Mill Museum overlooking the lake to the sounds of Billy Holliday. Bliss.
Am hoping to speak to the lunch club that they have there at some time in the future. Any excuse for more fab puds! Love C : ) xx