D, E, Food

Tommy had many passions, he loved life, he loved cricket, he loved cars (mainly the type that don’t run very well, and often break down…) he loved rugby, but his greatest love, I think, was food and drink.

He had a real love of fine food, of fine wine and interesting beers, we spent many, many evenings trying various porters, stouts and interesting ales, we sought out curious bars, we visited hundreds of bars, a large number of which were shockingly bad… We had Virgin May, every week one of us had to nominate a pub none of us had been to, this anual festival soon exhausted all the pubs within 10 miles of Egham… He loved the absurd, porter with tapioca and jam, he had to try it, pizza with duck and foie gras (in S of France), gizzards (Yuck! also in S of France) he developed a taste for Pernod (double yuck!), so that he could appear sophisticated… As you see, for him it was not just rock up at some posh eatery for a seven course experience, – although we have all done that several times too, thankfully it was usually as Tommy’s expense, but the curious Indian restaurant, where the popadums were the size of Ritz crackers, and all the dishes served in small… too small… little plate-lets, and we had mini bags of Maltesers with coffee (although of course he didn’t have coffee, I think he stuck to several bags of Maltesers…)

He had many trips to Europe, where food beer and wine was always a must, Bruges was a favourite, where we went several times, and he also went with Nics, he just loved the variety of the beers, and on a brewery tour with Nics was very amused by the concept of their weaker beer (6.0%) being a “childrens” beer, where the proper beer was all over 8%.

We heard about a beer brewed by the monks of St Sixtus, the rarest and best of the trapist beers (Westvleteren X11)… We tasked Tommy with organising a trip (he wasn’t a great organiser…) we teased him repeatedly (Tommy’s law) about his inability to organise this, and ignored his pleas that it was closed to the public, in desperation, he tasked a G4S colleague to find some of this obscure brew and buy us all some, which he duly did, but we never did let him off the task, I daresay Paul will have to organise it now…

He loved red wine, the heavier and more complex the better, and developed an excellent pallate, being able to distinguish component grape varieties, he drove Nicola mad, he said she couldn’t have his good wines, as she didn’t appreciate them, whereas he willingly let us demolish them as we played drunken poker, I was drunk, and I knew where he kept them.. Nicola did start to hide them when she heard I was coming around…

We had a couple of trips to taste Bordeaux wine (Côtes du Blaye & Bourg), – the chance to combine unreliable cars and wine and food…Heaven! (His car did brake down every day, as we arrived at the hotels on the way down…but that is a whole different tale) we found a bijou hotel, literally amongst the vines, we were the only guests, and through the hotel owner planned which local producers to meet, and the best chateaux to tour, and roads to drive, the end of every day being a fantastic meal with the owner, and yet more wines to sample.

To look at Tommy, it was evident he loved his food, he did try and control his weight, he did start doing a lot of walking, and after his pancreatitis he stopped drinking, almost totally…even at cricket! but the food was always too tempting. Only a couple of weeks before he died he came to our house for dinner during the jewish festival of passover (he had joined our bubble and came over most weeks) and being his enthusiastic self had researched the subject, the stories etc, and when invited to play the Dreidel Game (a game with a die, where you win or lose, in our case chocolate coins) we were all intent on amassing a pile of coins, Tommy couldn’t resist and ate his…

As I said, he loved life, all it’s flavours and tastes, he wanted to learn about everything and to experience as much as he could, and he did.

I raise another glass in your honour, and shed another tear. Cheers!!