To sample today’s pies, nine pie munchers, including Liz with her
new boots, Paul with his newly repaired boots and new muncher Kevin, set off for a very bracing pre pie yomp. We parked at Salhouse church and headed east along a footpath, spotting the first snowdrops of the year. Then heading north, we passed beautiful
white cattle before joining Salhouse Road. We then took a footpath to Wroxham and visited
St. Mary's church, finding no scratch dials. We could not explore it internally as a service was taking place. Retracing our footsteps we headed for the recreation ground to eat our sandwiches. The seating provided a fantastic view of the River Bure but exposed us to the gale force winds. After lunch we walked along Skinners Lane, following the route of the river, passing
Wroxham castle and
then Wroxham football club ground. Following tracks south west into the strong wind, we came to Dobb’s Lane that we followed a short distance east. We then took refreshment from the good selection of real ales at the Green Man. While the shelter from the wind and warmth was initially welcomed, we were not disappointed to leave this far too hot pub. We crossed the A1151 Wroxham Road to walk along Stonehouse Road before taking the footpath back to Salhouse church. As the wind was so strong, we had our tea etc. in the porch of
All Saints church. To accompany the tea we had
canapés from Paul: Duck liver, Sauternes & truffle parfait on oatcakes and French Saucisson sec with herbs! On to Sainsbury’s pies, these were traditional Melton Mowbray pies but when cut were low on aroma and revealed no jelly! The crisp, though lardy, crust pleased but the filling rather bland and need the help of mustard, despite this the pie was judged to have a score of 7.1 with a standard deviation of 0.56765. Josie provided Royal Edinburgh luxury shortbread – this was very good indeed and eagerly consumed.
We sample new pork pies this week: pies from A & G Butchers of Attleborough. To get ourselves ready to judge these porky delights we headed to Acle to repeat a walk we did four and a bit years ago. That walk was the first outing of Keith’s new puppy, Coffee, who had to be carried for the last half. Parking in the lay-by, by the bridge over the River Bure, we headed east down Stokesby New Road to Muck Fleet, to then head north. The Walk Master took us along the footpath on the east bank that became increasingly overgrown with brambles. After about a quarter of a mile we decided to turn back and then head north via the footpath on the west bank. We followed this until a footbridge allowed us to cross the water and then follow the south bank of New Muck Fleet a little way. Then we headed south by footpaths, reaching Stokesby. Here we headed up the hill in the biting wind to reach St. Andrew’s church. 
Here we sheltered in the porch to eat lunch. No scratch dials were found on this church, and the church itself was locked, so we made our way down to the river and along it to the Ferry Inn for pints of Adnams and welcome warmth. The route back to the cars followed the footpath along the north bank of the River Bure – we ignored the footpath closure notice, which had been imposed for health & safety while vegetation was being cut back – there was no work being carried out today. We returned to the cars by the busy road, and then drove to the War Memorial Recreation Ground to sample the pies. When cut the pie released little aroma and there was no jelly. The piecrust was soft, despite being stored in a paper bag, but the meat filling was tasty, with or without mustard. This pie was rated very diversely, resulting in a very high standard deviation of 1.33631. It did come through with a respectable score of 7.07143. We then had canapés: this week pickled quails eggs – very tasty. We finished with M&S Stem Ginger cookies. So a normalized score of 7 for A & G Butchers pies, from whose web site we see are supplied by Brookstreet Foods in Needham Market.
