When sorry seems to be the hardest word

You know how this column incorrigibly eavesdrops, how readers may be regaled not just with meat and two veg but with tasty titbits, too? Last Tuesday evening the boot switched feet.

It was her fault, of course, as generally it is. An evening which had started amicably enough descended precipitously into unarmed combat.

We were at the Seven Stars in Shincliffe, a pub warmed - almost scumfished, as other columns might recently have averred - by a handsome coal stove in the bar and by gas fired impersonators elsewhere.

By 9.30pm, however, a micro-climate had established itself over table 3B, the atmosphere decidedly frosty. Three weeks to Christmas and the world in solemn stillness lay not to hear the angels sing, but because we were no longer speaking.

It was a right conversation stopper, and the neighbours must have loved it.

Shincliffe's between Durham and Bowburn, the pub by the roadside and the tranquil village behind it. Built in 1724, the Seven Stars has long been featured in both the Good Pub and the Good Beer Guides.

"It could well be described as a quaint old worlde coaching inn," says the promotional leaflet, though not by anyone with an original turn of phrase.

A year ago it was bought by Mortal Man Inns, whose portfolio also includes the Mortal Man (unsurprisingly) on Windermere, the celebrated Snooty Fox at Kirby Lonsdale and the floribundant and ever-excellent Dun Cow in Sedgefield. Feargus Ryan and Louise Swinburne, there four years, became joint licensees.

Wasn't it William Brown, scuff-shoed king of The Outlaws, who complained that Old Marky - his teacher - went on at him something mortal? In such manner the leading lady.

It should be said without further todo, however, that the Seven Stars burns very brightly. The bar has beams, cast iron tables, interesting stuff on the walls and four real ales - the Courage Directors in boardroom condition.

The candlelit restaurant has lots of little rooms, chandeliers to bang your head by, efficient service and little Christmas trees on the tables. Peace and goodwill, remember.

Though bar meals suggest way above average imagination, we ate in the posh end. The carte has nine or ten choices in each section, is changed every couple of months and was augmented by a specials board which among other things offered duck with fondant potato, a red wine jus and a plum and beetroot confit.

Confit is one of those foodie terms which over recent years has mysteriously appeared, like a sort of culinary crop circle. Since it seems to mean all things to all menus, we are wholly unable to explain it.

Though the Oxford English Dictionary demands 1,780 pages to define from "ca" to "Czechoslovakian", there is nothing in the confit zone. Nor does a link seem likely with confetti, originally little wedding sweets thrown by the excitable Italians. The cookery books which boil over our kitchen are no more accommodating.

This one, if the confits wear it, didn't work. It was much too sweet, almost cloying, the poor beetroot overcome by the plummy Triffids.

When the column's old dad grew beetroot, top prize in Shildon Show, it was boiled, served simply with salt and pepper and would have run a mile from a plum. The marriage - you know, between plum and beetroot - should at once be annulled.

The duck was terrific, though, deeply flavoured and carefully cooked, the jus no less rewarding. The menu, which quoted George Bernard Shaw's aphorism about the love of food being the sincerest form of love - not one of the old boy's finest - promised extra vegetables "appropriate to the meal." There were none.

We'd begun with a spanking good mushroom and chorizo risotto, contrasted on the top with a crispy parmesan wafer, she with Thai crab cakes followed by monkfish and mussels and things.

The non-organic red wine was bringing tears to her eyes, as periodically some things do.

The apple crumble, beautifully executed, arrived with cream and not the requested ice cream but by that time we were too disheartened to argue.

If today's column lacks any of its usual detail, delicacy or joie de vivre, therefore, we would simply like to apologise. It's something The Boss has never done in her life.

* The Seven Stars, Shincliffe Village, Durham (0191-384-8454). Open seven days; three restaurant courses for two around £40.

Word hurries down from Chapel Farm tea room in Arkengarthdale, jointly the column's Find of the Year, that following the rapturous Eating Owt review in July trade in the following two months more than doubled anything previously experienced.

"Joyce was on her chin strap trying to keep up with the baking, sometimes from 3.30am," says Chris Best, her hus-band. The tearoom is now closed until the Spring.

The other find of the year? Andrea Savino's gloriously idiosyncratic Sorrento-style bistro in Shildon, where the food is as great as the atmosphere.

John Robinson, old school friend and Timothy Hackworth Juniors all comers marbles champion, marked his birthday with a big lunch at the Cumby Arms in Heighington - carvery £5 a head, reductions for bairns, a big pub so utterly stowed out that they were turning folk away. And when there was no decent crackling, others please note, they went out the back and made some.

IN May 1998, the John North column wrote of Cornish nasties - "pale and puffed up pretenders to an English gastronomic throne" - and of Cornish pasties, which they usurped.

Eventually a lady in Richmond pointed us towards The Courtyard in Bedale, North Yorkshire, where Anne and John Laity still turned out the real thing.

They arrived from Cornwall over 30 years ago - "It was four years before I took my coat off," says Anne, her accent still clotted, like cream.

Customers are still likely to be addressed as "My love", "My flower" or in particuarly sweet-talking moments as "My sugar."

The restaurant's off the High Street, up a flight of outside stairs which puts it out of bounds for the inagile, the pasties filled with large potatoes, turnip, meat from the skirt of the steak bone, onions, black pepper and salt.

The bad news last Wednesday was that she'd sold out, the very good news that she now bakes pasties every morning for Jemmeson's, the shop across the road.

A simple lunch of very good vegetable soup and beef with horse radish sandwiches was followed, joyously, by true Cornish pasties for tea. They were utterly delicious.

Recent talk of footballers with optical problems - emanating, however improbably, from Costa Coffee in Ottakars, Darlington - reminded Ian Forsyth in Durham of a very old joke.

What's black and white and has two eyes? Sammy Davis Junior and Lord Westwood.

OUr note a couple of weeks back about the new Espresso bar on Durham railway station - where a machine offers "flavour" for an extra 25p - has brought a cheery reply from Devin McManus, the Puccinos franchisee.

"I suspect you were being slightly sarcastic," he says.

In January, Devin plans to open a cafe on the northbound platform - "same concept, only larger, where you can sit in relative warmth."

We wish him well. Like many of the trains to Newcastle, it is a long overdue departure.

The appeal in last week's Eating Owt for volunteers to help in Darlington Age Concern's Pop-In Restaurant somehow got its digits crossed. Their number is (01325) 362832.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you get if you cross a bottle of lemonade with an Irish masseur.

A fizzy o 'therapist, of course.

Published: 10/12/2002