Table manners

IT may not widely be known that Alfred Nobel, the man who instituted the peace prize - this year's laureate will be announced on Friday - was also a hugely wealthy armaments manufacturer and the man who invented both dynamite and gelignite.

Perhaps even less well known is the reputed reason that the Nobel gesture was first made.

In 1888, eight years before his death, Nobel read his own obituary, mistakenly published in a French newspaper. It was headed "The merchant of death is dead" and continued in similarly unflattering manner.

"Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."

For Nobel it was like meeting Scrooge's ghosts on the road to Damascus. When finally he did blast off, in December 1896, he left almost $5m to fund the still-coveted prizes.

What the following day's obituarists made of it all is, sadly, unrecorded.

Goodness knows why we'd fallen to discussing Nobel Prizes over Sunday lunch, save perhaps that the pub was called The Monks' Table and monks, by and large, seem pretty peaceable sorts of fellows.

The Boss thought that Bill Clinton had won one, which he hasn't, though Jimmy Carter made his peace in 2002 and Henry Kissinger 30 years previously.

David Trimble, John Hume and Yasser Arafat are among other recent winners. Mr Tony Blair and his good friend in the White House are not thought likely to be on Friday's short list. Al Gore is.

The Monks' Table - or Monks Table as probably we should call it, since they opt to abandon the apostrophe - is in Welbury, a hamlet five miles north-west of Northallerton, or off the main road from Darlington.

Formerly the Duke of Wellington, it had been closed for nine months before being bought earlier this year by Mike Oldroyd and Carol Nelson, his partner of 32 years. "We just haven't got round to it," he pleads.

He'd owned a shop in Middlesbrough, retired, grew bored - "within a month" - and looked for something else to do. The pub's not so much relaunched as reborn, £150,000 spent on the monastic makeover and £2,200 on skips.

"That's how much rubbish there was," says Mike.

It's attractively transformed, tables in the bar check-clothed and flower decked and with Pedigree or something organic from Brakspear's on hand pump. Behind the bar there's also a mute television screen offering in-house messages ranging from the genial - "This pub may contain nuts" - to the more business-like, that swearing won't be tolerated. Hallelujah for that.

Two or three dining areas - all light and cheery, not hair-shirted or penitential at all - sit off it. We'd tried to book the previous Sunday and were told it was full. It was almost certainly a good sign.

On this occasion, the pub became fuller as the afternoon wore on. "If this were in Co Durham," said The Boss, who has a theory about the great divide, "they'd be wondering what was for tea by now."

The little 'un, also in attendance, noticed the absent apostrophe and thought it "disgusting". He is given to a certain querulousness; he must get it from his mother.

Mike reckoned the new name was partly because of the proximity of Mount Grace Priory, at Osmotherley. Most monks of the column's acquaintance do indeed have something of nip and Tuck about them; jolly, too. It's the sisters, bless them, who always look ascetic.

Two courses were £14.99, three £16.99. For that price Sunday lunch needs both to be very good - which by and large it was - and served impeccably. Suffice that the staff's confident friendliness compensated for some rough edges.

There should also be greater menu choice than the standard beef, lamb or chicken, however great the quality.

The Boss raised a verbal eyebrow. Only meat? The very helpful waiter said he'd ask the chef if he could knock up something vegetarian.

"No fish?" asked The Boss and was in turn offered red mullet and scallops. Like Mary, she finally had a little lamb.

The boy thought his duck and fig terrine very impressive, his mother equally happy with some succulent crevettes. The roasted red pepper soup, enticingly aromatic, arrived without the advertised herb crouton, prompting the waiter to bring a free pint by way of the chef's apology.

We'd told him to make sure it came out of his wages.

The lamb, locally sourced, was excellent and abundant, the mint-scented gravy complementing some real flavour. A large, communal bowl of vegetables was carefully cooked but unadventurous.

If the boy thought his beef rich and tender (which he did), he was ecstatic about the sticky toffee pudding which followed it. "Exquisite," he said. The rum and raisin brulee was crisp atop, a little too fluid beneath. Pity the coffee arrived five minutes before both of them.

If not quite dynamite, it still went off with a bang. Worth getting the feet beneath the Table.

The Monks Table, Welbury, Northallerton (01609-882404). Early bird specials Tuesday-Saturday 5.30-7pm. Not open weekday lunchtimes; closed all day Monday. No problem for the disabled.

FREDERICK Stehr, long-time owner of the popular Crombie's restaurant in Darlington and frequent borough council critic, has sold the building but is leasing it back. Encountered in the transformed town centre he reports that queues the previous Saturday - and by no means only at his place - were just like Christmas. "Everyone's talking about it," says Fred. "The council may have got it right."

IT is to the great credit of Leyburn Ladies Probus Club - the nicest audience for years - that their Thursday morning meetings are held in the Methodist church hall, and that the Methodist church is next to the Sandpiper. After an hour's waffling, it would have been almost improper not to pay the neighbours a visit.

The Sandpiper's in the 2008 Good Food Guide, just out, run by Jonathan and Jo Harrison and described as a place where food is taken seriously.

Lunchtime specials included croque monsieur, steak sandwich and beer battered fish and chips. For £12.95, the blackboard offered crispy duck leg with fried potatoes and a plum and orange sauce, accompanied in a side dish by some very more-ish spicy noodles and other vegetables. The whole thing was very good.

Beer included Black Sheep and Voluptuous Vicki, which wasn't particularly the column's cup of V. We asked if Vicki were local. "More like from 'ull docks," said the genial barman, who had also fallen into a discussion with a visiting American about gentlemen's underpants.

It's not the sort of thing which gets into the Good Food Guide, nor likely to be talked of at the Ladies Probus Club, either.

THE North-East's top-rated eating places, according to the Good Food Guide, are the Black Door ("enormous flair") and the long-lasting Fisherman's Lodge - "still the best in the city" - both in Newcastle.

Co Durham's best-regarded restaurant is the White Room at the Seaham Hall Hotel ("subtly inventive food"), matched in North Yorkshire by the Star at Harome, near Helmsley, described as "the very model of the English country pub". The Star may shine more cheaply.

Co Durham entries also include The County at Aycliffe Village - "quality ingredients, carefully handled" - and the Oak Tree at Hutton Magna, in Teesdale, where much is said to be made of local sourcing.

In North Yorkshire, the GFG still enthuses about the Crab and Lobster at Asenby, ("French shabby chic with a maritime tang"), the Blue Lion at East Witton ("what choices") and Samuel's restaurant at Swinton Park, near Masham, which may yet offer the best Sabbath day lunch on many a month of Sundays.

The Good Food Guide can be ordered on 01903-828557 (£16.99, postage free) or at www.which.co.uk/books or through bookshops.

THE North West Yorkshire branch of CAMRA stages its sixth beer festival from Friday to Sunday this weekend in Richmond Town Hall - 5-11pm Friday and Saturday, 11.30am-6pm Sunday. More than 30 cask conditioned beers, live music on Friday and Saturday evening. Admission free.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we'd heard about the skeleton which went into a bar. It ordered a pint of bitter and a mop.