The Hope Street Feast 2010

Food The Sefton Park event begins the Liverpool Food and Drinks Festival, the Hope Street Festival concluded it. Many of the same stalls were in attendance today and before work I yomped on a giant prime pork sausage sandwich with, for fans of the Danny Baker Show, red sauce, brown sauce and yellow sauce. It was a very long sausage. It was also raining heavily though given the number of people I met I actually knew (which is surprisingly rare even in such a small city) attendance was still reasonably high.

There was also a tombola, in a caravan, at the junction of Hope Street and Hardman Street. Not one to let an opportunity for failure go to waste, I stepped up, paid my pound for a ticket, turned the barrel and went for a rummage. I asked the lady what I should be looking for. "It'll tell you" she said as I pulled out one of the small, rectangular paper wallets. I tore it open. "You're a winner!" It said. "I won!" I said. "Ha ha ha" At which point I realised what she'd explained beforehand. "You can choose any of the prizes. They were donated by the stall holders."

Which is were my trouble began. I'm a foe of choice. I spent three minutes trying to decide which sausage to have out of the four choices as the stall holder waited for a decision and in the end I just picked the prime pork sausage because it was at the bottom of the menu. I was watching The Special Relationship tonight and for once admired Tony Blair for taking a proper decision on Kosovo (or at the least the heroic Michael Sheen version of him). And we've already discussed the glories of the near random film selector, Lovefilm.

So as the hostess (for this was my own private game show) listed the prizes, which were sitting on a set of wooden shelves at the back of the caravan, I simply couldn't decide. Should I take the family ticket for a cathedral tour? No, that seems like a gluttony since I've already been. Two tickets for the Everyman Theatre? No, because at present, who am I going to ask and what about empty seat syndrome? She held up some photographic prints of places in Liverpool. Handy gifts perhaps but I wanted something for myself.

On to the food. Pasta, liqueur, wine. Flowers (empty seat syndrome again). Round and about it went, the indecision looking more embarrassing, she looking more pensive. Meanwhile, outside, a man selling programmes says "More content than the Lib Dem Conference" which throws me off my stride somewhat and all along I'm look at one item, entirely unlike the others, at the back of my mind thinking "I can't have that. Not that, surely. From all of these goodies. I'm the first winner, I have to send a clear message."

"I can't believe I'm going to say this. Um, can I have the bag of muesli?"
The brown paper bag is handed to me with some relief.
"Well" I said, "It'll last the longest time."
"Enjoy." She said.

And here it is:



Yum.