Summer's lease

Well, according to Shakespeare it has "all too short a date", but this year it has been almost non-existent. Clearly, the lease is now up and we are on the brink of autumn, cheated out of even our usual meagre ration of blue sky and sunshine. At the start of what was supposed to be summer, I remember much talk of al fresco eating; we deluded ourselves that we would be sitting outside on sun-drenched pavements, shielded from the heat by bright parasols, sipping chilled white wine and generally living la dolce vita. Outside as I write this, the rain is hammering down yet again and water is running down the lane like a river. The back lawn squelches when I walk on it and the borders look more like the Somme than Yorkshire. My courgettes are rotting on the stems and the slugs have gorged themselves on my French beans.
So now we may as well stop hoping for sunshine and look forward to the cold crisp nights of autumn and the joys of casseroles, soups and comfort food, of wood fires and toasted crumpets.
Speaking of open fires, one great advantage pubs have over restaurants is that very thing. We all dream about finding a country pub with a crackling fire of aromatic wood, with scrubbed wooden tables and welcoming bar staff, and great traditional homely food. Meat pies made with proper shortcrust or suet pastry, silky-smooth, buttery mash, or home-made chips, rich deeply-flavoured gravy; honest substantial food that is a pleasure to eat. And preferably with a border collie lying in front of the fire. One such pub was the Malt Shovel at Brearton, now reinvented as a restaurant in the "Classic French" tradition. That's all very well but what about the classic British tradition? If I want to eat French food I can choose from dozens of restaurants but where am I going to get good pub grub at honest prices (and still be able to play with someone's dog) if not in the British countryside?
Having said that, pubs that are still pubs need to stop trying to be restaurants, or at least, stop charging restaurant prices for food that is definitely not restaurant standard. Last week I was in North Wales for a few days - not an area one associates with high-flying City traders or top earners generally - and every pub I went into was offering food at prices that simply did not represent value for money. A steak and mushroom pie in The Druid at Llanferres cost just under ten pounds (one of the cheapest items on the menu). It arrived in a small dish and consisted of four cubes of stewed steak, with four button mushrooms halves, in a nondescript gravy, topped with a disc of puff pastry. Chucked onto the plate on the side were a few florets of calabrese, overcooked and rather slimy, and some carrot batons. There was also a portion of new potatoes which actually tasted like potatoes and were the best thing about the whole dish. This might have been acceptable (given the great British tradition of putting up with disappointment uncomplainingly) if it had been sensibly priced but the total cost of the ingredients could not have come to more than £1. Where is the sense in that kind of mark-up on a dish that is so easy to prepare and made from cheap ingredients (especially as puff pastry can be bought ready-made from any supermarket)? Several other pubs in the area had menus with identical levels of pricing. What is going on here? Have all the landlords got together to agree how best to fleece the mugs who persist in patronising their hostelries? Or perhaps the legendary Kobe beef has made an appearance in North Wales and I just didn't twig?
Yet only the week before, I went back to Kendell's Bistro in Leeds for another crack at their Pre-Theatre Menu (£12.95 for two courses) - and found complete consistency of quality and service, and great value for money. OK, you might say, but that's a set menu and therefore not comparable. But I could have had a coq au vin from the a la carte menu for nine quid, which still comes in cheaper than my four minuscule cubes of beef.
But I am still hankering after that great pub selling real ale, good wine and traditional pub food to dream about at reasonable prices, which is full of happy customers and their dogs relaxing in front of a blazing fire.
And when I find it again, you can bet that someone comes along, buys it and turns it into a restaurant....