iamafeeder.net

The world of Twitter has brought me into contact with many wonderful people. It has also brought me into contact with many porn bots, but thankfully Mardi from Eat.Live.Travel.Write falls into the former category and not the latter.

Friends for just under a year now, Mardi has become a great friend. She is well travelled and loves to eat and write, just as her blog would suggest, and I was lucky enough to share a meal (and a few drinks – or perhaps a few too many in my case) with her very recently when she was in London. This kind, talented and wonderful lady has pulled out yet another superb looking dish for her guest post, a fabulous chicken, goat’s cheese, tomato and rocket galette; my mouth’s watering again and I only just ate my dinner! Thank you lovely Mardi – so happy and honoured to host you here at my little blog and with such a wonderful recipe! Give her some love and hey, if you get to see Mardi more than I do, give her a huge hug from me, eh?

I am thrilled to be visiting my dear friend Jackie over here at I Am A Feeder. Not only have we been friends online for many months now, but I had the pleasure of meeting her in real life at the beginning of the month when I was in London for a conference and we went out to dinner with the lovely Sarah and Helen. A good time was had by all and you can read about some of it here!

When Jackie asked if I would like to write a guest post, I was stumped at first. After her two recent guest posters – Russell and Brian, I felt like I had big shoes to fill! Jackie told me to be inspired by what was around me – Paris right now (I’m on a bit of a work and vacation trip in Europe) – and so I present a dish that was born of late night blog reading (hello jet lag!) and what struck my fancy along the rue Montorgueil where I am staying right now.

(more…)

It’s not all that often that I find a place I’d be happy to settle down in, cast of the shackles of London life and find peace. Portland was the first of these, two years ago, and the reason why I keep on returning… but Canada may well be the second. As I write this I’m sitting in the airport, drinking a Vanilla Rooibos tea, and behind me the sunlight is streaming through the windows and in the not-too-far distance I can see three mountain ranges, all dusted with icing sugar snow. In front of that is a beautiful stretch of greenery and foliage, little West Coast houses, and then a little further over to the left is water. I’ve only been here a week and I’m finding it kind of hard to have to leave.

But. As with all destinations that steal your heart and call out to you… there is always the possibility of return. And so Canada I promise you this: I will be back. You’re far too alluring to stay away for too long… Photos can be viewed in a larger format (and I recommend that you do) on my Flickr.

(more…)

Photo credit: David Mason.

Hello from Galiano Island! Galiano is one of the islands just off the west coast of Vancouver BC, and home to one of my very good blog buddies, Dan from IslandEAT. Dan’s the second food blogger I’ve met this trip, and he is very kindly showing me around and looking after me whilst I’m in his part of the world. His hospitality is absolutely astounding, and I guess I’m so relaxed that I’m unfortunately not very well! Eep! My body seems to have decided to start breaking down! Hopefully lots of rest, fluids and drugs (the medicinal kind) will sort me out, but we’ll have to see how that one goes.

I spent the past few days on Vancouver mainland with one of my best friends David, whom I’ve mentioned a gazillion times on here before. Bad timing as he was flying out of Vancouver back to London, but he was an amazing tour guide and an even better friend, and I’m so glad I could see him, even though I feel terribly guilty for imposing at such a terrible time! Thank you David – love you uber amounts.

So what have I been up to, then? Read on and you shall find out!

(more…)

Mouth Orgasm, originally uploaded by jaxies.

Just a quick post – popped in to Mooli’s the other day for lunch with Catty and also because I’d received the rather intriguing (and bizarre) Tweet from the Mooli’s boys, “Come see our toilets. Bring camera”. With an invitation like that how could a girl resist?!

(more…)

I know, it’s almost unbelievable, an actual recipe from me?! Sorry it’s taken me such a long time, I’ve been super busy with recipe darevelopment of late, life and the mystery illness, and as a result haven’t been cooking much or taking any photos. Anyway, all of the food photos in this post were taken by the awesome David at a big dinner I cooked for him, but more on that later.

Baking is a very therapeutic thing, I find. I’ve probably said that before. Baking bread is the most therapeutic of all, getting to pound and knead your dough is a great energy release. But baking a cake is something that takes time, precision and thought. You have to concentrate on what you’re doing and give it your full attention, or what you end up with is a hot mess. This was exactly what I needed to do.

On Tuesday morning I took David to the airport to catch his flight out to Canada, pretty much permanently. It’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, let go of somebody I care about, but it’s the best thing for him and I am really happy for him, even if I am sad for myself. We actually didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time together in his last week, because I was working, he was working, and he had to pack up his gear and organise himself for the big depart, but we definitely had Monday evening together, and I decided that I was going to make him a special pre-birthday/leaving dinner.

(more…)