I've got some exciting times coming up over the next month or so.Firstly, Mr C and I off to the River Cottage Festival this weekend. Unfortunately the weather forecast isn't looking too good, but fingers crossed. I'm a bit fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his various television programmes and accompanying books.The week after next I have managed to get myself booked on to a Rowan beginners crochet course that is being held at a local John Lewis. I've been wanting to learn to crochet for ages and am really looking forward ... read more
Weekend with friends
Mr C and I have come back from spending a fantastic weekend with our friends C and P who live in Hampshire. It was great being able to spend time with friends (H and D also joining us down there for the weekend) and reminded me of just how important these friends are. On Saturday we were treated by fantastic weather and spent the afternoon outdoors. As we don't have garden ourselves eating lunch outside is quite a novelty. Time was also spent collecting apples from the many fruit trees in their garden. C's plans for apple chutney should certainly be met - although if she uses all ... read more
A birthday cook book
My parents have always been under the impression that I have no cooking skills what so ever. Whilst my skills in the kitchen may be limited I certainly don't think that Mr C and I are going to starve. Over the last few years I have been trying to extend my cooking repertoire and I have certainly been more adventurous in what I choose to try from cook books, as well as having more confidence when I try new things. For my birthday last month my gifts from my family seemed to focus around the kitchen. My sister H bought me a copy of Tessa Kiros' Apples for Jam: Recipes for Life which I have been ... read more
Land Girls and Lumber Jills
I'm always fascinated about the what life was like living in Britain during the 2nd World War, especially for those women left at home whilst their husbands and brothers fought in the military overseas. I was therefore pleased to see a couple of articles on the BBC News website today about the Land Girls and Lumber Jills receiving official recognition for the role that they played during the War. It is sad that they have had to wait for so long, but better late than never. The stories of some of these women are fascinating. I found this photojournal online, but I'll certainly be looking out ... read more
Fresh bread for breakfast
One of the first joint household purchases that Mr C and I ever made was a bread maker. As I recall it cost about £40 from the Woolworths down the road from our first flat. It doesn't get as much use as I would like it to, but both of us are rather fond of home made bread rather than buying a loaf from the supermarket. We're also not very adventurous yet and despite all my best intentions we only ever seem to follow one recipe: the one for wholewheat bread from Marjie Lambert's The New Bread Machine Book. The recipe is incredibly simple, but uses honey instead of any sugar and I find that I ... read more
Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer
I was quite excited last week when Amazon.co.uk delivered my copy of Jane Brocket's Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer. I've been reading Jane's yarnstorm blog for a few years now and have also thoroughly enjoyed her first book, The Gentle Art of Domesticity. Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer follows such an amazingly simple idea for a book that in a way I'm amazed that no one has thought of it before! Whilst on a family holiday Jane and one of her daughters, Phoebe, started talking about all the different foodstuffs in various children's books and soon came along the idea of a cookbook based on all these ... read more
First steps towards self-sufficiency
It's now over a year since I started to put much more thought into my life and how it wasn't at all green at the time. I also started to be somewhat concerned about the lack of skills that I had when it came to doing the things that so many of my grandparents generation, living through the war years, would have taken for granted to aid their survival and help the war effort. At the time I was quite a useless cook, only really did cross-stitch as any form of sewing and was generally quite useless at many practical things. I therefore started to teach myself (with the aid of many, many books ... read more
Friendship and childhood memories
After work tonight I met up with three friends at a bar next to the Thames. This was three women that I used to work with at former employer. I see two of them quite regularly, the third only every so often. This was the first time in three years that all four of us had managed to get together. It was fantastic! Catching up with and making time for people is so important. No one is going to write on our gravestone about how many hours we spent at work, or our dedication to our job, yet sometimes taking time out from work to do things like this can be more difficult than it should. One thing ... read more
10 Minute Tortellini
I planned something quick and easy for dinner tonight as I knew I would be late home after Knitting Group and Mr C was at a work function in central London. 10 minute tortellini is a very quick recipe from another of the BBC Good Food books, 101 Meals for Two. The ingredients list is incredibly simple: a pack of spinach and ricotta tortellini, cherry tomatoes, parmesan cheese and parsley. The simple addition of the tomatoes to the basic pasta makes such a difference and they are incredibly intense explosions of flavour in the dish. The fact the that whole recipe takes only 10 minutes from ... read more
Lunch in the sunshine
This weekend sees the end of the two week long St Albans Food and Drink Festival. There have been a variety of events around the city over the two weeks, but today was the first real chance for Mr C and I to see what was going on. Today there were a series of outdoor events and luckily the weather stayed dry for them. An al fresco food court was set up along side a stage celebrating World Music Day (which I thought was in June?) and some of the city's restaurants were serving up "outdoor takes" on their usual menus. When Mr C and I arrived, just after 12 noon, many of the chefs were still ... read more