Bath

Bath is where Jane Austen's protagonists went to endure stuffy society gatherings and, I assume, eat Sally Lunn buns, a yeast bun that looks like a gigantic hamburger bun, while listening to a gussied up, eligible young woman sing as her sister accompanied her on the pianoforte. We went there last weekend; aside from cars the city is quite charming and old-looking and it's easy to see why landed nobility would flock there.

The city's name, I learned, has its origins in the naturally warm springs, the only ones in England. The Romans started baths there nearly a couple thousand years ago and visiting them is one of the main attractions. When you tour the Roman Baths they also give you a complimentary glass of their natural water which tasted like (little "b") bathwater -- lukewarm and not very good, but presumably full of lots of healthy minerals. Another attraction was the Thermae Bath Spa, which has a nifty rooftop pool with a view of the city. Despite my high tolerance for heat (I wear pants well into summer) it apparently only extends to a dry heat because I couldn't sit in the wet, scented sauna for more than 30 seconds before I had trouble breathing and had to leave.

We ate lunch at Sally Lunn's House, which is now a restaurant and where they continue to use the original recipe. At the risk of being boorish, I wasn't too crazy about the bun and think some tinkering with the recipe might not have been a bad thing. Still, I was glad to try it; I have fond memories of scones and tea at tea house named Sally Lunn's during college so it was nice to learn that there was some history behind the name, and it wasn't just a quaint name invented to please gullible Americans like, for example, Haagen-Dazs.

We had an outstanding meal at Jamie's Italian, a Jamie Oliver restaurant. He's an up-and-coming British chef who just won the TED prize for his proposal to improve the quality/healthiness of school lunches. We stumbled onto it by luck early Saturday evening when the wait wasn't too long. We had the meat and veggie boards, the highlights being the prosciutto, mozzarella and eggplant tapenade. I had truffle fries and a vegetable tagliatelle with the biggest, most delicious peas I've ever had. Mary hit the prosciutto motherlode with her prosciutto and pear salad and Dave had a simple but well done sole. Since that was insufficiently indulgent we went for dessert too; Mary's ricotta and honeycomb was the most unique. Dave had apple, blackberry and lemon sorbet and I had lemon curd with raspberries and pistachio. I was so full that I had to take most of it to go but it made for an excellent Sunday breakfast.


The meat and veggie boards. Bliss.


Ricotta with honeycomb and lemon curd.