Day Thirteen – England, Slovenia, USA, Algeria, Ghana, Germany, Serbia, Australia

Finally, England’s day of reckoning had arrived. No more excuses, no more platitudes or attempts to apportion blame away from where it lay. It was time for a full English breakfast and a walk with the bulldog.

Having scoured the Internet for something suitable a la Slovenia, I came up with a jolly nice little dandelion salad, which accompanied the lamb kofte rather well. Somehow, it felt appropriate to offer pleasant, tempting yet ultimately sideshow dishes to accompany good solid English faye and so it was to be. Pecan pie bringing up the rear proved to be a leitmotif for the USA’s somewhat tardy name on the scorsheet for the day and whilst I was going to resist the temptation to quote, I could not resist – “The French surrendered early, the Americans arrived very late and we are left to fight the Germans”.

So the Eiswein met the Makroud el Louse, (see my previous entries for this delicious almond tease from Algeria), barbecued king prawns and tuna steaks shook hands with some excellent Margaret River Chardonnay from Western Australia and Serbian rich sausages did justice to the Marston’s Pedigree.

Well done, England, (and the USA, Germany and Ghana) – you will need all that true grit to face Joachim Loew’s pretenders on Sunday. (By the way, well done the USA for scoring. Better late than never as I can now watch the whole game on Sunday afternoon!)

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