Hey Tweedy, I’ve been watching your Tweedy Pubs videos for 6 months and I just recently found your Tweedy Country videos. This is awesome!! My wife and I are binge watching them right now. If I saw an English gentleman wearing a suit cooking a meal in the Texas countryside I would probably think I’ve seen a mirage. I would then join you for some of that wine and have a nice chat. Thanks for all of the entertaining videos and please keep them coming.
Hello John. One of your best videos to date. Almost 50 years ago I did an A level geography field study on Chinnor Hill. We had a great time, especially in the local ABC (Aylesbury Brewing Co) pub. 🍺 I know the area very well yet have never thought to walk the high route that you have shown above Chinnor. (and yes that was the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Heritage Railway you saw..) What a magical place you found. Your cooking was so entertaining and the final sunset was sublime. I’m definitely going to take my wife to that same spot, being less than an hour from home. Thank you for the inspiration. 👏👏👍😀🍷
fun video - maybe a little Gewürztraminer paired with that Sag Paneer next time for something different - a little bit of wine always seems to make it just that much nicer 🍷😇
Hi Tweedy Enjoy all your videos ...informative and entertaining...Im retired in Kenya many years , some great walks here, especially the rift valley.... good luck
Thqt is one of my favorite things about beach camp and fishing the occasional goofball dog that runs up in need of a few smooches and scratches from a stranger 😁
Ah my old stomping grounds! Beautiful part of the world and you can understand why they fought so hard to stop the M40 cutting through there. 50 + years on, it has become a part of the scene, though. I have long thought that deeply sunken track you took up from Bledlow might be the real ridgeway. Its profile implies great age. There’s also a lost white mark in the woods above it. I also concur with you about the metalled lane leading up to the T-junction with the A40. It continued pretty much straight on there, before the motorway. In fact, on the other side of the motorway cutting, you can see the remains of it, before it rejoins the straight hilltop lane that runs through, and beyond, Christmas Common. I’m convinced that’s on the line of an ancient ridgeway. I got close with my guess on your “Where’s Tweedy” post. Well, one of my guesses. On the subject of wild camping, there’s an excellent spot the other side. Off the beaten track and beautifully wild. We used to “wild picnic” there frequently!
Very good to hear I'm not alone in my thoughts about the route of the Ridgeway along this section! Especially as I know you're less easily led to fanciful conclusions than I perhaps am! It is indeed a beautiful part of the world, and I feel I saw it in a particularly good light on this trip. When I originally walked the Ridgeway I actually had a blog (remember those?) about waking, and in the entry for that section I commented that it was perhaps not one of the most interesting sections in terms of scenery... but I think that's because back then I didn't have the wherewithal to plough my own furrow, as it were, and forge my own route. I stuck to the route of the Ridgeway National Trail doggedly, and as mentioned in the intro to this video felt a definite sense I was missing out on something as I looked up at the ridge above me. So it felt very good to have scratched that multi-year itch finally!
I found my way here via the Wessex Ways podcast. Hello. The painted white arrows on the trees seem to be very common in this part of the Chilterns, showing ‘the way’. If it is a public right of way (particularly at junctions) sometimes the local number for the footpath or bridleway is also painted on the tree. Don’t know who is responsible for it, but it is useful and not something I’ve seen done so thoroughly elsewhere. Also, saw you quoted from The Green Roads of England near the start of the video. I ordered that online a few days ago and it is on its way to me through the very unreliable postal system. It was referenced in a book I re-read last weekend: “The Prehistoric Ridge Way: A Journey” by Patrick Crampton. The author was a dentist living in Goring who (in the early 1960s) walked the 40 miles from Avebury to Goring along the Ridgeway with companions and a donkey who carried their kit. The book is old (no photos, just a few line drawings) so I can’t prove this, but I like to think he did it wearing tweed.
What a beautiful view from that hill ❤ the Sag Paneer looked stunning and I am going to attempt to cook it soon. Ahem. Always wash your rice, until water runs clear. If you don’t wash your rice before cooking you have lost the battle already. Put 300 grams of (washed) rice in a pot. Add 600 ml of water. Season it with a bit of salt and pepper. Mince a little ginger and garlic into it and stir. Throw 2 star anise in (or 5 or 6 cloves) . Crack a few cardamom seeds in if you like. Bring to a boil. At the point of boiling immediately Turn heat to lowest setting and cover with a lid for 15 mins. Don’t open the lid during the 15 mins. After 15 mins remove from heat. Fluff rice up with a fork, serve and impress your friends. ALWAYS WASH AND SEASON YOUR RICE BEFORE COOKING!!
Thanks Seán! This was kind of precooked / pre-prepared rice, so it's meant you let you skip a lot of that preparation work, but I think I was obviously doing something a bit wrong still... Should have brought a microwave with me!
That was a magical end to the video, (well not the sign off at the bus stop but you know what I mean!!). You cooked up a nice meal there. I would have been tempted to bash the rice whilst it was still in the bag to break it up more easily. Often when I cook my version of Spanish dishes, the garlic goes in with the inner skin still on, works very well. I like how you've morphed this trip into three videos and a quiz and I agree the ridgeway would have stayed high up, unless of course there was a decent pub further down!! Thankfully you found a decent path to get down off the hill. Great video, well done!!
Thanks David! I've had similar "easy cook" rice in pouches before, and that's much easier to work with - but this one is in a fairly solid plastic container. Not sure I would use the same one again for cooking outdoors!
Thank you. The sunset was spectacular, The sag paneer looked delicious, although I am unsure about the rice :-). You provided a real sense of exploration of both possible routes and past lives.
Thanks Chris - I should have just brought along a nan bread and sidestepped that issue! I don't know what it is about me and rice when cooking outdoors - I never have a problem with it at home. It actually tasted OK in the final dish but it certainly wasn't "easy cook"!
Great video, enjoyed your cook out, perhaps a more typically English dish next time, Bangers and Mash perhaps. I suspect the pits you found were old chalk pits, chalk extracted for spreading on the land to balance the pH of the soil, they are of no great age.
I have a whole playlist of outdoor cooking! ru-vid.com/group/PLDFRyCbKJfZUmoWiejL9we3gfTwXcF_GC (I have done sausages and mash at some point...) Thanks for the suggestion about those depressions being chalk pits - that would make sense. I was probably grasping at straws a bit there!
Sag Paneer goes well with Fixin burgundy? ..I learn culture here ...I thought everything from macaroni cheese to a plate of chips would go well with Gevrey Chambertin. I'll keep watching avidly.
Agree with you that probably most of what you walked was the original route of The Ridgeway. In pre-wooded times it would have enjoyed good visibility as well as minimal gradients. Great video!
You can just empty those little packs of microwave rice straight into the sauce. The Lidl version works ok, in the past have used a similar version but pasta.
In these outdoor situations the pre-cooked rice in the soft plastic pouches can be squidged up by squeezing it thoroughly before the packet is opened and tipped into the pan for reheating. It doesn’t need cooking. The VeeTee package in this video can’t really be squidged in the same way. Thumbs up to another non-meat eater cooking outside.
I've had a lot of luck cooking rice using Delia Smith's method. Few drops of oil, add the rice and stir to coat each grain. You don't need much oil. Add twice the volume of water, salt and bring to a boil. Simmer with the lid on for 15 minutes. You need a tight fitting lid and a very gentle simmer. Take off the heat and let the rice absorb the remaining water for 5 minutes. It will remain piping hot. No chance of burning if the heat is low. Works for me every time
Thanks for the suggestion! I think the very gentle simmer is the thing I struggle with when using my gas stove - as I think I mentioned in the video briefly, it's hard to get the flame down to the lowest setting without turning it off.
@@tweedyoutdoors That's why I made my own alcohol stoves. Gas can be too fierce at times. You could experiment with boiling for a short time, say five minutes then let stand off the heat for fifteen. The residual heat should/may finish cooking the rice. Just a thought.
Love the videos. Also the slight sense of embarrassment that is often present. It's an endearing quality. You might inspire me to do something similar. But I'll wait for better weather. It's a shame that anything we do like this in a group is fine but a solitary gastronomic wanderer sitting in a field might be considered with suspicion.
Thank you! Yes the slight embarrassment is practically a perpetual feature! Quite a few people passed by while I was cooking this time but actually nobody had anything negative to say. In fact I had a couple of quite nice comments actually. I think I might be too paranoid that somebody is going to come along and question what I'm doing - as long as you're not leaving litter, spoiling other people's enjoyment or otherwise causing any damage to the landscape I really don't see why anyone would complain.
@@tweedyoutdoors When I was 12 (1970s) I posted a letter to school explaining my absence (carbon copied mum's signature). Surreptitiously visited the sweet shop every morning to stock up and spent the rest of the day in the middle of the local woods sitting on a blanket reading the Lord of The Rings. Luckily the weather was good. I got away with this for a week until a friend knocked at my house to ask mum where I had been. It was a wonderful week. I think it no surprise that I love your videos. I hopefully left no trace.
You’ve done the public a service here, Tweedy: I feel your instincts are right, a ridgeway needs to be ridge-y. Having set this matter right, the shades of the ancestors might start to forgive your indiscretions of the past and forgo melting your GoPro in future. I hope so. I look forward to the next one.
Do you have any sense / guess of the relative ages of the names Ridgeway vs Icknield Way? I do wonder if people like me get a bit too hung up on the ridginess of it, and if "ridgeway" is a comparatively recent name then maybe it's misleading...?
@@tweedyoutdoors Both are Old English names: Icenhilde Weg and Hricg Weg, so pre-AD1000 (and documented not hypothetical names). In the vale of the White Horse, Hricg is on the ridge and Icenhilde is at the foot of the hill. I don’t know what Icenhilde means though it looks to me like a woman’s name and there are many A-S toponyms that are women’s names. I think it is kinder on our forebears to accept their judgement, though they don’t live here anymore and we need to do stuff like rename roads. However, the trail name certainly gives the impression of trying to be authentic and rooted, therefore it should strive to be so, in my view. The antiquary in me wants Icen- to be the British, Celtic tribe but the other side of me is asking me to stop thinking that way. I have never found a place called Icknield, do you know of such a place?
