Welcome to Issue 36. This is our 9th anniversary issue. Nine is not usually designated as a particularly significant anniversary – ten, or twenty or twenty-five, more so. But to tell you the truth, we regard every anniversary as significant - not just yearly ones – but quarterly and three-quarterly. For us, each issue is a triumph, a reason for joy and to celebrate.

These nine years have passed so quickly. It seems only yesterday that the chap giving the talk at the Independent Publishers Guild lecture kept saying, “If you’re thinking about having a web publication - Do it!” That was the inspiration. I came home and said to Nedra, “We’re going to ‘Do it!’” We didn’t have the vaguest idea how. But with Nedra’s help, we DID IT.

The first five years we had a webmaster locally, who then decided to move on. The Journal travelled on to India, where Expert Rating took over and have been doing a magnificent job for us ever since. We want to say a Big Thank You! And now after nine years we are known all over the world.

UP AT ANDY’S SHOOT AGAIN

Getting in practice for the new season. Those things that come hurling through space are small, and you wonder how you’re ever going to hit any of them. And, when you do, it comes as a complete surprise and you think, a pheasant is a lot bigger and maybe not as fast, so it should be easy – but it isn’t!

SPORTING TARGETS: tel: 020 8845 1377

WORLD TRAVEL MARKET

The World Travel Market, London, EXCEL, 2008, where you talk hunting and fishing, even if South Africa isn’t listening hard.

THINKING ABOUT THE GAME FAIR,2009

Are we thinking about the Game Fair? We are. It gives you a kind of warm glow. And don’t worry about the traffic. The last time we were at Belvoir Castle we drove right in, no queues, no delays. In fact, Nedra began to wonder out loud if we weren’t on the wrong road. We weren’t. Traffic management was superb.

Last year 150,000 people came to the Game Fair. It was a 50th anniversary year. Now we’re starting on the next fifty. We’ll see you there. No doubt we will have more to tell you in the next issue of the Journal, out 10 July.

Dates: Friday 24 July - Sunday 26 July 2009.

The CLA Game Fair is the world's largest country sport and national countryside event.

For full details on The CLA Game Fair please visit the website: www.gamefair.co.uk

For all enquiries please contact Fiona Eastman, Director of Marketing and Show Development: fiona.eastman@cla.org.uk

(Or) Marishelle Gibson, Senior Press Officer: marishelle.gibson@cla.org.uk

Tel: 0845 6122 050

PHEASANT PIE

Derek Crane sends a lot of people off to Albania – for all sorts of reasons. Now he wanted to talk about game shooting and fishing there. So we invited him around to lunch. The question was, what do we serve? How about pheasant pie. Good idea, particularly if the bird has been well shot. We had only made it once before, and it wasn’t bad. So let’s do it again. And we did!

It was pretty good, trying not to sound too immodest. When, a short time later, we received a thank you note from Derek, along with it came some flattering words about lunch, and a request for the recipe for the pheasant pie. Nothing could be more flattering than that. Much of the fish and game we prepare, we do on the hop, making it up as we go along. If it works, and we want to do it again, we’re not always sure how to go about it. It never seems to taste like it did the last time. But never mind, here is how we did it:

Marinate the pheasant:

The marinade consists of orange juice – enough to cover the pheasant

½ lemon

soya sauce

olive oil

½ cup cider vinegar

Cut the pheasant into small pieces, removing all shot, and put into the marinade over night (or for less time, if preferred)

• Next day, into the same container (retaining the marinade) add a generous amount of onions (frozen ones are just fine).
• Add garlic, fresh or frozen (also generous, particularly if you like garlic, less if you don’t)
• Add herbs: chives, oregano, any others that you like
• Add paprika, salt and pepper, coriander

(Leave anything out you don’t like, add anything that you do)

Cook it all in a casserole, either in the oven or on top, on a low heat for three to four hours until pheasant is soft and ingredients have blended

Make crust (we used frozen short crust pastry) or make your own pastry, which has to be better

• Line an appropriate pie dish with the pastry
• Add the casserole mixture
• Cover with crust

Put in the oven (see pastry package for time) usually about an hour, at gas mark 4

Serve when the crust is brown.

Enjoy your pie!

We hope to be hearing more about Albania. When we do, we’ll pass it on.

© Sidney Du Broff 2009