In honour of Keith Flod, fine food, fine wine, fine friends

The stage is set, the fish stock is warmed, a fish veloute sauce at the ready.....
off with Cointreau flamed scallops and a handful of langoustine for starters......
eaten with black chopsticks of course......
with a main of grilled Dovers (the only way according to Floyd On Fish) and poached John Dory, home grown runner beans and Jersey Royals - and, as with every meal, the one final ingredient that was common to all Floyds recipes, FUN! - a fitting tribute to all gastronauts.

Stowed gear

Now that's what you call apressure washer.....
time for an early morning potting round.......
and its calm enough.......
two clear points ahead, the ILB Paul Alexander moves ahead in the callout league.....
how beam trawls are stoed on the deck when a beamer is steaming to and fro the grounds.

Floyd on Fish the book of the BBC series that started it all

The book of the series that started it all, though out of print it is always worth checking out local charity shops before heading off to Amazon......

and you only have to read the preface to realise that here is something different in the way of cookbooks.....

with Floyd's obvious passion for cooking and sharing the experience of eating fish

in the company of good friends and good wine, the book was designed to increase the number of fellow 'gastronauts' around the world - even if he didn't coin the phrase it became a signature of all his shows - here, one recipe - dear to Cornish fishermen in that it is for Hake, which, at the time of writing the book, was not landed in great quantities as netting for this fish was in its infancy in the south west.

Just Feasible

A lick of paint has the Feasible looking good in the evening sunlight......
dinghys go head-to-head just off the harbour at Penzance......
the Tranquility makes a landing, though they are still waiting for some company when the Crystal Seaa II returns from Scotland.......
chilled water leaves the refrigertaed lorry.......
the harbour punt is getting its annual makeover.

22-21 the Penlee ILB pips the big boys in the Silly Season League

There are beasts afoot in Penzance......
some may have escaped from the visiting Circus currently entertaining the town.... there seems to be signs of renewed activity in the vicinity of the Dry Dock......

while Penzance Sailing Club members get a patch of fine weather in which to race.....having towed in the Spindrift the ILB is now one ahead in the call out league....

with the trawl mended and back aboard its time to head over to the iceworks.....

all quiet in the harbour.......

until one of the punts passes by.......

landing gear raised on the Nova Spero.......

the harbour punt's prop has been re-furbished.....

off comes the big meah tangle gear from the CarolH........

as the Billy Rowney heads in throughh the gaps.

Crepsicule cats

Cornish dive charter boat the Celtic Cat from Porthkerris Divers is in town.....
as is the huge cat Meridian a survey vessel from Fugro.......
yet another cat heads off into night, this one on the prowl for Cornish Sardines.......
as does the Pride of Cornwall........
there's plenty of twine left to be braided in the basket.....
work aboard the Doris K is making good progress as the stern rail is rebuilt, lets hope that the occupants of the barge outside aren't kept awake!......
a 1939 yacht, built in Scotland on herring drifter lines, flies a huge Cornish flag.....
making her way up the harbour is the 'sardinniere' Resolute.......
closely followed by the Little Pearl as she pulls out of her pontoon berth.....
passing a handful of anglers on the end of Battery Rocks, the Scillonian III heads for the harbour gaps in Penzance.....
that makes the score 22-21 to the IRB as she shorten up the ends to tow in the punt Spindrift.......


in honour of Keith Floyd it had to be a fish supper, yoghurt and lime zest sauce......
with stir-fried haddock, squid and prawn and a glug or two of course.

Floyd's final fish dish

Keith Floyd, the industry's much loved seafood champion, the man who put passion and fun into cooking on TV and the first chef to make a significant difference to the eating experience of millions in the UK with his enthusiasm and willingness to get involved with fishermen, has died today.

With his pioneering 1984 TV series Floyd on Fish, he created a style of cookery television that is still with us today, informed, educated, fun, insouciant, entertaining, occasionally irreverent or even intoxicated, oft copied but never emulated. The original series bore his name and showcased the man's enthusiasm for fish and fishermen where, instead of dryly cooking in a studio TV kitchen, he could be seen battling with the elements to cook fish fresh from the trawl aboard a boat or fending off the unwanted attentions of marauding gulls on the quayside. The programme's innovative delivery style involved an intimate intercourse with the film crew as he beckoned to the cameraman to zoom into a sizzling hot pan interspersed with his customary, 'one for the pan and a quick slurp for the chef' addition of a preferred red or white wine. His unbounded enthusiasm to promote fish from the shores of the UK and beyond saw a change in eating habits - the population at large discovered that breaded scampi were, in fact, small lobster-like creatures and infinitely more enjoyable when cooked whole with some aioli and a squeeze of lemon.

Luckily for us, his maverick ways became part and parcel of each successive TV series, and, as a result, the man has seen many celebrity chefs follow in his footsteps, the most notable for Cornwall being being Rick Stein - the Floyd legacy lives on - it will be worth watching Saturday Kitchen on BBC1 this weekend as the chef presenter James Martin is a huge Floyd fan.

With the sort of ironic twist that Floyd would undoubtedly appreciated, you can catch last night's programme with Keith Allen on Channel 4 who admits to being hugely influenced by Floyd's TV style an intimate documentary portrait of the chef. Floyd, the bon viveur, talks easily until the arrival of his daughter, whom he hasn't seen for 10 years.

Here follows one person's recollection of the great man on watching an episode from 'Floyd's Fjiord Adventures':

"I suppose I should rephrase this but this is an email I sent to friends back in the UK (I'm in Singapore and saw him on some strange late night channel) after the topic of food cropped up.....

"On the topic of food...... I've just had the joy of watching Keith Floyd.

And it is joy

Compared to the poe faced Heston Blumenthal or ranting Ramsey watching 'Floyd's Fjord Adventures' is a orgy of pleasures. I caught the end of the episode where he's cooking at a Swedish crayfish festival. A barely coherent Keith has clearly been enjoying himself already so cooks an enormous pot of crayfish so endangered you can only catch them one day a year. The stock - probably similar in composition to Keith's own blood stream - is beer and a litre of aquavit. Each bottle is just chucked away into the darkness off camera as the even drunker Swedes sing songs behind him. Adding the live crayfish to the stock Keith has some words of comfort for those concerns about animal welfare, "For those who don't understand why the crayfish have to be live.... tough. It's just the way it is" At the end the delicious looking crayfish are put on a serving plate with about a pound of butter (James martin would love that) plonked on the top.

Rather superfluously Keith's voice adds at the end "Think I might go off and join them for slurp of something now". And to help your mental image, Keith has done all of this wearing a yellow fez!

A true TV legend"

Credited here.

Chelsea bound?

Passing USA air traffic leave leave their mark in the clear skies above the harbour.....
another example of artwork appearing on the refrigerated fish transport......
at the end of the 'silly season' its 21 apiece for the lifeboats - maybe the result should be decided on the next callout......
actor Timothy Spall is currently touring the coast of the UK on his Dutch style barge, The Princess Matilda, with the occasional attentions from a BBC film crew......
sorting fish on the market, an oblique reminder of the heyday of distant water boats, standing thigh deep in fish after hauling, the men would start gutting and repeat, "one in the hand, one in the air, one in the washer, one in the hand, one in the air, ...".....
Newlyn is lucky enough to have possibly the finest fish landed on any market in the UK, here the Scorpio puts another superb trip ashore.....
including these huge red mullet, undoubtedly some of which will find their way on to the slab of a certain Chelsea Fishmonger.

What glorious weather!

After enjoying the music of Michael Chapman at the Western Hotel in St Ives last night, and an excellent meal at Blas Burgerworks it is now seven thirty am and their is a head of steam on the kettle outside the tent.....a walk along the Coffin Way through the fields between St Ives and Zennor includes some unusual styles.......
and some excellent examples of DIY, perhaps its a bigger extractor fan than usual.....
the last thing you expect to see lazing in a field is a buffalo, maybe there will be some locally produced mozzarella in the future....
heading for home as the shadows become longer......
but not before enjoying some of the rugged inlets that perforate the north coast.