Nineteen days of reason to move to the North East, beginning May 3rd. If you like food. Who needs the snooty, overpriced, and soon to be pulled down Borough market, with its oafish media types playing snazzy barista attitudes on a Monday morning after struggling through the tube. We’re free!

(Although you recognise all of that was tongue in the proverbial cheek. Every food market is to be relished, not ripped down for some travel connection.)

Particularly looking forward to the taster market and finding the local producers, which has not been easy. Even Abel & Cole don’t come this far east. And the Fish on the Tyne weekend, although we’ll only squeeze in a fillet of it on the Sunday, as we’re driving up from London with T’s truckful of belongings.

Endings, new beginnings… food fulfils such a philosophical need in us, as well as a carbohydrate requirement.

One: a home. As said in the last post (a subtle hint towards our moods tonight) we want to buy a home. We went to see a lovely five bedroom house down the road earlier, where the woman – absolutely lovely, a real inspiration in terms of her attitude towards the loss of her husband and getting on with life, particularly as I’d come home from the University feeling a real under-acheiver and fed up with things – had lived for 32 years, with her husband, who was no-longer around, but their dream of moving to France, well, she was seeing it through… anyway, money, to buy a house, and we don’t have enough right now. So T is going to earn us a packet with her internet entrpreneurial skills while I cheer myself up and try to write a world beating novel. If I could have a home with as much lived-in-ness as the one we just went to see, with the biggest video collection I’ve ever seen, all catalogued, of the world’s worst horror films ever… I guess I’d consider that some form of achievement.

And reason two for lots of money: eating out. We’d like to, if nothing more than to keep you interested in this blog (I don’t think I’m going to get picked up by Random House just talking about our mortgage desires… there’s a phrase put paid to by the credit crunch, and good editors everywhere). So. We’re on a budget, ergo tonight. Luckily “Night Three of Cooking at Home in Week 12 of 2008″ was as wonderful as ever, with T’s skill with the fish slice making a fillet of Jamie Oliver’s Fish Pie recipe. Cooked to perfection, with fresh haddock instead of salmon and some dijon mustard in the sauce. See the pic. See my smile. And my belly. A run tomorrow, down to discover Backhouse Park for the first time. Sunderland has its hidden gems after all, including a potential new neighbour if we manage to get the money for this property, a Dr Wheeler, renowned meteorologist. I wonder what it must be like to be a meteorologist in the UK – raining again…? He must dread dinner parties.

Anyway, T and I did our budget last night. We want to buy a house in the next twelve months, credit crunch and recession permitting. One of the outcomes (see our budget page) is a wonderful Easter cookfest at home, with £14 worth of vegetables, some Stork lard for pastry, a bottle of Saumur Brut (£8 from Nicolas) and a veggie pot pie in the oven. T is a superlative in the cooking vocabulary. I, a mere adjective. Roll on dinnertime.

Anyway, after a wander round the Shambles and YorkMinster and along the 2000 year old wall, and a discussion on the advent of archaeology (“what did people think of relics before archaeology?”), we came back to Foss Street, where we spent the majority of the weekend (I mean this literally) dining at Loch Fyne, a fish restaurant, and a chain, we know, but one with some commendable sustainability polices. Which stretched to printing their menus and marketing material on 100% recycled paper. More on this later.

First night, we had the Moules mariniere with frites, obviously, for starters; then six oysters, freshly shucked, tabasco loaded, chewed not swiftly swallowed, like some critic on Radio 4 who fancies himself is suggesting is the only way to oyst (and if that’s not a real word, there’s a problem with this world). They were chewy and fat, and we thought reasonably priced (£9 for half a dozen). Then I had the fish pie, a fine smoky texture not overloaded with potato. T had the fillet of bream with roasted fennel and seasonal vegetables with a rough mustard sauce. Lively, but well balanced. Which could also be said for the rock’n'roll waiting staff, particularly the guy with the chops (sideburns, not pork) who delivered the plates with a Converse-footed swagger and a lingering wink. Turns out he was French. Makes sense.

Second night we tried to find another restaurant we liked. York’s big on religion, small on cuisine, we found. If only Jesus had done more with the water and wine, imagine all the millenia-old restaurants we’d have now rather than those old houses of abandoned prayer (yes, we’d have sauce wars still, fighting in the name of plum jus rather than christianity or islam, but that’s hungry hippos (aka humans) for you). So second night we had a half bottle of the champagne to wash down a dozen oysters, this time (£16) followed by the Chablis (a bit light, really, for the food). T had the tiger prawns, which were finger-licking lushes out for a big pink party, except the tomato relish was tepid and a poor chaperone for the flaneurs of the seabed. I had the smoked salmon, cajun spiced. It was thick and meaty, some of the nicest salmon I’ve had recently. And I’ve had a bellyful.

So overall, a Fyne (haha) 7.5/10. But it is worth pointing out the very friendly, serviceable atmosphere, and the sustainable fishing policies (or as T’s brother Sean says, “it’s catching, not fishing”), as well as T’s successful negotiation of the tempting T-bone. She’s trying to convert to the church of pescaterianism. And doing well, god bless her cockles. Except for the hogroast sandwich for Saturday lunch from Dave’s. But getting there.