Just like kneading bread, shelling peas is one of those simple pleasures in life that can bring undeniable peace. One of my favourite summer activities is to sit outside shelling peas, or broad beans. The process which can sometimes seem long, and in a society where often speed is valued over experience, ‘unnecessary’ holds within it one of the greatest pleasures in life, preparing food for people we love.
I think I am about two years late for this but Chia Seeds are very cool, who knew? Apparently a lot of people. So many in fact that one of my favourite cafe chains Le Pain Quotidian has its own chia seed pudding. There’s me chowing down on some baguette whilst my friend, who is clearly in the know, ordered a chia seed pudding. Of course having no idea what it was I had to have a taste. And I can confirm it was delicious. Don’t you love discovering something new. I do.
I have landed … in grey England. In my head I had expected to get back to Spring time, warmer weather, sunshine and the start of colour. Instead I felt like I was doing a dorothy in reverse, going from Technicolour to black and white.
So you might have guessed from the lack of posts over the last few weeks that I am not in my usual routine. Well if you did, you were right. I am in fact on Holiday! (hurray!) So for the next week or so it might be a bit quiet.
Now I know that everyone is after healthy recipes to keep that New Year, New You goodness going. But this week I could resist making a batch of ginger and oatmeal cookies. I don’t feel to bad about this because they are part of my whole spread the love through little things campaign that I am currently working on. And I only ate one. The rest were devoured by others. See I am practically a saint. So if you are trying to be healthy, why not make these as a treat for someone else, or just treat yourself because it is so darn cold and quite frankly they go down mighty well with a cup of tea.
What a great food week, Pancake day and Valentines all shoved into one gloriously spectacular food week. Last night after munching down on some chorizo, pepper and mozzarella pancakes I started to ponder the joy of food. Not only the fun of making it but also the joy of giving it as a gift.
Every year I always look forward to Chinese New Year. Firstly I love Chinese food and what better reason to feast on Chinese, secondly it’s a great opportunity to invite friends over and share a delicious meal.
So this year I thought I would give you a few ideas for your own Chinese new celebrations.
