What's in Your Lunchbox Cumbrian Style

The right diet is very important when you're tackling a long distance footpath. It was especially important on the Cumbria Way as we had some long walking days and needed a slow release of energy for up to 9 hours at a time.

Every morning we made sure we took full advantage of the cooked breakfasts that were on offer (this was not difficult!) These kept us going until lunchtime, but then we needed to refuel.


Our most satisfying lunch stop was after leaving Keswick, when we were en route for Caldbeck. Before leaving Keswick we'd popped into town and called in to the Keswick Pasty shop. This shops sells an amazing selection of traditional and more exotic pasties and, despite having only just finished a fine cooked breakfast, our mouths watered as we read down the list of delicious fillings. It was very hard deciding what we all wanted to try, but in the end we settled for a selection, so we could have a taste of each at lunchtime. In our photo you see us settling down on a comfortable cushion of heather to enjoy spicy vegetable, beef & stilton, and cheese, broccoli and sweetcorn pasties. Note that the smaller the bear, the more eager they are to get at the food. Just look at Yorkie & Dale!

Serious walking also merits a substantial pudding. Here you see us enjoying our favourite one of the walk. This was the tiffin we bought in Coniston (theory about the smaller bears definitely now proven!)


It tasted good and what a spiffing name we thought.

We'll be back with news of the final day's walking soon. Sorry to leave you in suspense!

Lots of love, walking bears with a hearty appetite xxx

What's in Your Lunch Box Returns

Our favourite blogging topic of 'What's in your lunch box?' is back, this time with a Polish flavour.

We are delighted to report that eating out in Poland can be very cheap, especially if you choose traditional Polish dishes - and who wouldn't want to do so? - after all you can't go to Poland and eat fish & chips!

Because it is such good value, there is no reason not to eat our for lunch as well as for dinner. As far as we're concerned, eating lunch out beats making sandwiches any day and provides a proper rest for aching legs (it also offers the opportunity to have a nice cold beer!)


We tried quite a lot of Polish lunch dishes but our favourite was bigos which we're eating in our picture. Bigos is Poland's national dish and is also known as hunters stew (quite appropriate for bears we thought). Incidentally, have we told you that there are bears in the Tatra mountains which surrounded us as we cycled? Sadly we didn't see any but this may have had something to do with the fact that we tried to avoid cycling too far uphill into the mountains.

Back to bigos! It is a savoury stew of sauerkraut, cabbage and meat, including lots of Polish sausage in a lovely tomato-y sauce and you eat it with fresh bread. It's simply delicious and as we have just looked up the recipe on the internet we can have a go at making it at home.

While we were searching for a recipe we found a bigos poem that we rather liked and thought we might share with you.

"Bigos is no ordinary dish,
For it is aptly framed to meet your wish.
Founded upon good cabbage, sliced and sour,
Which, as men say, by its own zest and power
Melts in one's mouth, it settles in a pot
And its dewy bosom folds a lot
Of the best portions of selected meats;
Scullions parboil it then, until heat
Draws from its substance all the living juices,
And from the pot's edge, boiling fluid sluices
And all the air is fragrant with its scent."

Adam Mickiewicz - Pan Tadeusz (1834)

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

What's in Your Lunch Box Returns

Do you remember our 'what's in your lunch box?' postings from the beginning of the year? We particularly liked these blogs, even though they didn't generate too many responses, so we're bringing the subject back today with a Greek theme.

Those of you with really good memories may remember the unusual sandwich fillings we enjoyed in Derbyshire did in fact come from Greece!

Anyway, today we see Eddie enjoying the perfect Greek lunch:


The key ingredients are some Greek salad 'horiatiki' with olives and feta cheese, a can of Mythos, a great view from your boat and some sunshine. Eddie can't imagine many things more heavenly.

Now that Eddie has shared with us his favourite Greek meal, George and I would like to share our Grrek favourites.

We agree with Eddie about the Mythos beer, although we like ours out of a glass, preferably a big one and a full one. We don't care if it's heavy, we just have to drink quite a bit before we can lift it. You can see what we mean ...


As for food, we bears have rather a sweet tooth and really fell for the Greek donuts with chocolate ice cream.


They taste even better than they look!

We'd better go now before we get accused of making all our readers hungry!

Lots of love Yorkie, George & Eddie xxx