I stenoed chapter 18 more than 12 hours ago. I got up and finished writing the chapter before I even had the time to congratulate myself on my brilliance. Chapter 18’s subject matter, a restaurant, came to me this morning and wasn’t one of the original “patches”. The pile of Indian cookery books being sorted reflects one of many activities I either did or thought about doing between stenoing and writing this. Largely though, I was in central London, shopping, eating and drinking coffee.
Growing up, my parents only ever had a meal out for special occasions. It was only when I was older that I went out for meals with my parents. The only restaurant that I recall going to repeatedly was in Folkestone, as my probably-wrong memory recalls as being called The Ploughman, which then became, again as I remember it so possibly incorrect, an early Garfunkel’s, and is now The Pullman. The only reason we went there was because they had a salad buffet, which at first was eat as much as you like, which to my family was more of an eat as much as you can challenge, but then became one plate only (it amazes me how much you can pile onto a plate though). At some point, my mum announced we wouldn’t be going again as the plate became smaller and the food of poorer quality.
It really was another time, when a starter could easily just be a glass of fruit juice and any kind of eating out was a luxury. So chapter 18 is a restaurant with a salad bar, The Ploughman/Garfunkel’s/The Pullman, in Folkestone, which I ate at six years ago for nostalgia purposes but which bore no resemblance to the treat plate-piler restaurant of my early teens.