We have just spent the most idyllic week in Mauritius – a true tropical paradise in the Indian ocean, full of the friendliest people I have met, and some of the most delicious food I have eaten. Whilst I was sad to return to freezing London, it has been nice to be the only tanned […]
Author: Tracy
Foodie penpals – October 2013
Foodie penpals seems to come around so quickly each month, and it’s such a pleasure to put a parcel together for others, and to receive a parcel which someone else has caringly shopped for and packed. It’s even more of a pleasure when you get to ‘meet’ really enthusiastic penpals, especially as that enthusiasm matches […]
Happy birthday dear blog
Wow – thanks to a notification from wordpress I just discovered that this blog is a year old! My first blog post was on 27 October 2012, and here we are, one year and 76 posts later (this one will be number 77). If I am honest, I didn’t believe I’d still be posting blog […]
GBBO challenge week 10 – pretzels
Oh woe is me – it was the last GBBO of 2013, and the last GBBO challenge blog post for me. I might have been feeling more sad about the end of this era of the blog, but I have been distracted by boiler problems, accepting a new job, and going on holiday. Well, after […]
Survival of the fittest
Finally our two weeks of annual leave has started. It hasn’t come a moment too soon as we’re shattered from rushing around at work and rushing around at home. We’ll be going away to Mauritius for a week, but are also enjoying spending some time in London. And a very nice way to start our […]
GBBO challenge week 9 – savoury canapes
I can’t believe there’s only one episode of the Bake Off left! I have really been enjoying my challenges (except the evil choux nuns) and I have even managed to get to my Weightwatchers goal weight – I am pretty impressed with myself considering the amount of cake and pies I have been eating over […]
GBBO challenge week 8 – vegetable cake
Find out more about by Great British Bake Off challenge. Okay, I admit it, this week is a complete cop-out. The technical challenge during week 8’s GBBO was a dacquoise – a layered cake of hazelnut meringue, coffee cream, chocolate ganache and crushed hazelnuts. I did seriously plan to make this cake, until my lovely […]
Sour grapes
Andrew and I detest gardening … not only because we are extremely lazy and are quite clueless about plants, but also because this year there are supposed to be poisonous spiders crawling amok in the gardens of the UK. If ever there was a perfect excuse not to garden, that was it. However, because we […]
GBBO challenge week 7 – Religieuse
Find out more about my Great British Bake Off challenge. If I wasn’t already an athiest, making Religieuse this week would have turned me into one. These little choux bun towers, named for the nuns they are supposed to resemble (you’d have to be on drugs to mistake mine for nuns), represent what I dislike […]
A is for AUSTRIA – Kipferl
Charlotte, Jo and I did of course have several options for the first letter of our Alphabet Adventures (AA), but we wanted to choose somewhere a bit less obvious than Argentina or America. I remember visiting an Austrian deli in Smithfield called Kipferl, and when I googled it I was pleased to discover that they […]