Pesto’s Picks January 2012

The New Year is almost upon us, and with 2011 having been the second warmest year on UK records hopefully our New Year celebrations won’t be blighted by freezing temperatures and relentless rain. Or perhaps that’s just wishful thinking…

With many of us about to embark upon the mission of sticking it to a long-standing vice, enter into battle with excess Christmas weight or seek out a new career as part of our New Year’s resolutions, what better time to take your mind off all that stress-inducing good behaviour and enjoy watching someone else sweat it out for a few hours, bringing us to the first pick of the year; TNA Maximum Impact Wrestling IV at the Manchester Evening News Arena. (Friday 27th January)

According to the MEN “Wrestling legends Sting and Kurt Angle head up the roster of stars from TNA’s flagship television programme Impact Wrestling.



“TNA World Heavyweight Champion Sting will be making his first wrestling appearance in the UK for almost a decade alongside Olympic Gold Medallist Kurt Angle.

“Also starring at the Manchester event will be Gail Kim, Rob Van Dam, Beer Money, Crimson, Mickie James, Gunner, “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles, “Samoan Submission Machine” Samoa Joe, TNA Knockout Velvet Sky, Mr. Anderson, Matt Morgan, Bully Ray, Mexican American and many more.

“Speaking ahead of his Manchester visit, Sting says: “It has been too long since I’ve been back to the UK. I promise you there will be Maximum Impact in January 2012. It’s going to be Showtime!

“Fans will see lots of bodies flying through the air, broken tables, chairs everywhere. We call it professional wrestling. We call it IMPACT WRESTLING”.

Ooh er.

Next up from the North West we have something altogether more relaxing and a little more high-brow from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Beethoven’s Pastoral (Wednesday 11th January).

Conducted by Vasily Petrenko with Nikolai Lugansky performing Beethoven’s Overture, Prometheus, Piano Concerto No. 4 and Symphony No. 6 ‘Pastoral’ the evening is set to by truly magical, ideal for anyone wishing to wind down following the excesses of the festive season.

“One great composer: three incredible worlds. From blazing joy to blinding rage, no composer captured human emotion with more passion – or poetry – than Ludwig van Beethoven.”

Tickets range from £13 to £36, but there aren’t too many left!

Yooooooou’re gooooooorgeous! Probably words you’ve heard exchanged many times over the Christmas period if you’ve visited at least one bar with at least one over-zelous festive reveller. Well, if you’re in Glasgow this January 31st and would like to hear the song as it should be sung, britpop one-hit-wonder Babybird, or Stephen Jones as he’s less-commonly known will be performing at Glasgow’s legendary King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut.

Jones’s brand of off-beat pop will be sure to brighten up your post-christmas midweek blues, and at only £12.50 a ticket it won’t break the bank either. Support comes from the Sneaky Russians, who appear not to be Russian, but must have sneaky tendencies to have wormed their way onto the bill with their dire brand of long-deceased garage band indie-pop.

Well that’s it folks, our picks of the month for January. Next month, what with it being February and all, we’ll be doing a Valentine’s special – watch this space!

www.men-arena.com/?page_id=1867
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080355/Feeling-hot-2011-second-warmest-year-record-hottest-spring.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Angle
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Petrenko
lugansky.homestead.com/
www.babybirdmusic.me

Pesto’s Perfect Trees!

Carrie and Big. Bert and Ernie. Cookies and milk. Some things just work better together, and without a tree Christmas just doesn’t work. The festive aroma, the decorating ritual and above all, presents underneath are part of what make Christmas, er, Christmassy!

Now, with there only being one days left till the big day itself, we’d hedge our bets that some of you are still scrambling to find the time to even choose a tree, never mind get it dressed up in time for Christmas morning. This is where we’re on hand to help! Here are Pesto’s top five tips for choosing the perfect tree!

1. Size does matter. If, like most of us, every inch of living space matters the last thing you want is a monster Redwood Christmas tree eating up your lounge. If you’re struggling to squeeze in a Tesco pot-plant, steer clear of lavish big trees, however tempting! Pick the perfect space for your tree and measure it before going shopping to save yourself a world of hassle later in the day.

2. Age also matters. A recent Facebook post from a most unlucky festive relative served as an excellent reminder that choosing where you buy your tree is every bit, if not more important than the tree. The relative in question splashed out a rather decadent £75 at her local farm shop only for the tree to wilt and die within ten days. Finding out whether your local tree stockist buys in their stock weekly or if it’s one big delivery will allow you to gauge how ago the tree was cut and judge whether it’s likely to be a duffer by Christmas morning.

3. Hate hoovering? The Norway Spruce might not be the tree for you…Some trees emit that gorgeous festive aroma, others retain their needles long after they’ve adopted that delightful shade of brown. For best needle retention the Noble Fir might be best for your household, while the Norway Fir really captures that festive scent.

4. Shape matters. As most Christmas trees in commercial shops have already been stuffed into nets, it makes it nigh on impossible to guess whether the tree in question has a classic Christmas tree shape, or is in fact a Side-Show Bob bonsai nightmare. Short of ripping the net off in-store (and possibly being removed from said shop) all you can do is try to find a small platform from which to gaze down the top of the tree to assess how even the branches are. Or you could try grabbing a tree from a local seller, who tend not to net their stock.

5. Fake it. If all of the above just seems too strenuous for arguably the most time-consuming month of the year, pop into John Lewis and buy a fake. Buying a fake does have its upsides; no messy pine needles, no faffing with nets, no watering around hundreds of potential fire hazards and best of all you can shove it in the attic and drag it out next year saving you time and money in the long run. All that aside, fake trees are rather naff, and it might just take you all year to find one that looks anywhere near as pretty as a genuine festive fir.

Struggling for a last minute stocking filler? Pop into Pesto today and pick up a gift voucher!

Keep up with us on Facebook and Twitter for more frequent updates.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Bradshaw

http://goo.gl/xu0Cp

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway_Spruce

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_and_Ernie

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai

Cinepanettone & Cocktails

Think Christmas movies, think It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooged, Nightmare Before Christmas, the Snowman and countless other festive feelgood classics. On the other hand, think Italian Christmas movies, and imagine Carry on Camping with a festive bent.

Cine-panettone are Italian comedy movies released over the Christmas period often based in, or featuring characters from the salubrious city of Milan. They also happen to feature quite a lot of nudity and some exceptionally bad acting.

Despite poor artistic merit, garbled plot-lines, gratuitous nudity and lowest-common-denominator, fore-head walloping humour, the cine-panettone offerings continue to drive festive film lovers to the big-screen in their droves.

While seasonal blockbusters Hugo, Arthur Christmas and Puss in Boots dominate the box office in the UK and America, Vacanze di Natale a Cortina is set to take the Italian box office by storm following the official theatre release today. You can check out the clip below, but it probably won’t make too much sense unless you speak Italian.



Now, Italian festive cinema aside, the team at Pesto Deansgate have a Christmas cocktail treat in store for all the party-lovers out there! This week we’ve been filming the making of some of the brand new cocktails as concocted by our very own Bartenders Extraordinaire Marcus and Christian! The guys talked us through how to make a couple of their own creations as well as their twists on cocktail classics. We’ll be sharing our secrets on YouTube in the coming days, so watch this space!

What are you up to over the festive season? Have you got a cocktail recipe you’d like to suggest? Let us know on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pestorestaurants) or Tweet us @pestorestaurant