Chocolate Amaretto Tart

Today’s dessert offering at the staff restaurant. It’s a conundrum for me. I like chocolate, I LOVE Amaretto, I find tarts generally quite appealing. The whole combo tho’ doesn’t fill me with joy. Why is this?

Anyway, I can’t eat any of it as I have another couple of days of healthy eating before I can blow out hugely in Mykonos. Yesterday I had the most massive cravings for junk food. It’s been a while since I’ve thrown myself face-first into anything junky and I think my whole body was screaming out for a trip to the dark side of food. I admit, I strayed. I didn’t even attempt to use the force to resist such temptation, I just gave in. I ate chocolate digestives with peanut butter dolloped all over them (?) and then devoured a few super tiny snickers and bounty bars from a large box of Celebrations that has been lurking ominously around the kitchen over the weekend. TOH looked on in horror but wisely stood back, well out of harm’s way, lest he lose a limb in my feeding frenzy.

Today I feel no shame but I’m filled with new purpose and back to eating healthily again.

The weekend was a bit of a monster really and went so fast. Friday was a late night (well, early morning) affair with our friend Jon who’s staying with us. Jon is British but lives in Sydney lucky him (his partner arrived this morning too but I haven’t caught up with him yet - can’t wait, as it’s been ages). We went out in Soho and got completely lashed up. It was great. The only downer was that our friend David had his wallet stolen. He does admit that he made it quite easy tho, as when he checked his bag into the cloakroom of the club he asked quite loudly (he was slightly hammered) “will it be ok if I leave my wallet in this front pocket of my bag?” Short of saying “I’ll leave the zip open, will you be able to find it yourself?” I’m not sure how he could have made it any more obvious.

Saturday I searched fruitlessly in Covent Garden for a few items of clothing that I wanted. A few surprises along the way tho'… I found a cheeky bargain in a sale, which I’m already super fond of. Also, upon entering Paul Smith, a fabulously muscular chap bade me a cheery hello. He had the most bizarre moustache – kinda like a cavalier’s, without the beard – and whilst it was a bit mad, it was also strikingly cool and a bit sexy. He offered to help but I was so flustered I couldn’t really respond coherently. I was content to just watch him glide around the shop. Saturday evening we went to some friend’s for a BBQ and then went to an absolutely brilliant pub close to their house. It was nicely done inside with a great restaurant upstairs. The best thing about it was they had a pianist, a drummer and a saxophone player in the corner. The stand-up piano sounded so ‘east-end’ in it’s plinky-plonky way and they played such fun music. It was a total hoot. Sunday was Harry Potter day. I immersed myself heartily into the world of Hogwarts etc. Nerdy? Yes. Kids book? Yes. Enjoyable? Bloody hell, yes! I’m loving it. If you’ve read the last book, sshhh! As I’ve nearly finished it and don’t want to discuss until I do..

So… this week. Greece is the word. It’s only for a few days but I’m really looking forward to it. There’s a lot of lamb in Greece, which is a bit grim, but I think I’ll cope with all the other goodies on offer.

Now then. I need to consider my wardrobe for Mykonos. In the absence of ridiculously flappy linen (really not me), I need to work out what to wear instead – it’s 35 degrees there at the mo’, so I’ll need something to let the air circulate…

How Great IS Cake?

Now then. It’s been just over 2 years that I’ve generally blathered on about cake. Well. That’s the reason for this post. I started blogging about cake. Then it transformed into all ‘food’. That was followed by stuff about what I was doing at the time. Lately it seems to be a travel journal.

Do blogs grow up?

I feel I’ve strayed from my cakey origins but I don’t think that I mind so much.
I like the fact that I’ve made some blog buddies and I enjoy the interaction with them. I’ve now also met up with a couple of these people.
1. Muzbot in Rome – the glamour – trying to find someone you’ve never met in a foreign city… it was like a movie – all we needed was Meg Ryan and a bit more of a plot. (plus a little less jetlag for him and a little less of hangover for me)
2. London bloggers. It was a total blast.
CuteCTguy has already blogged about the evening – if I knew how to insert a link here, I would – but I’ll give a quick summary of events.

Introductions & champagne
Champagne
Chips
Champagne
Lairy chat and much naughty giggling
A short walk
Curry
GIL’s reluctance to drink more
CuteCTguy and I persuading GIL to drink more
Arrival of ma-hoo-sive beers
Arrival of curry
CuteCTguy dunking most of his sleeves in curry
Accidentally thrusting Ctguy from his chair – sorry.
Weaving our way outside
Hugging a stranger in street (he was hot! At least I think he was but I may have had beer goggles on by then…)
Carriages

T’was a splendid evening and I’m looking forward to ‘part deux’ v soon.

It was such fun that the two gents above should really be awarded some kind of recognition for their part in the shenanigans. Therefore, they are to become honorary Knights of Cake and their titles shall now be “Beef” and “Short”... -cake, obviously.

I’m off to Mykonos next week so I’m really only permitted to write about cake. Consumption of anything resembling a sugar/flour-based confection would lead to weight gain causing horror, maybe even terror, (possibly expulsion) in the streets and on the beaches of the island.

Sigh. I’m off to gnaw on a rice cake.

Foie Gras

En Provence there was lots of this

Beaucoup de these

A lot of sitting here

Tons of this around (including the bees!)

Lots of these

And a great deal of general (usually drunken) holiday merriment.

Sigh.

I feel like a goose who has been crammed full of stuff to make foie gras. Obviously, there was no funnel forcibly shoved down my throat, I did it all to myself quite willingly. However, I wish I’d shown a bit of restraint now and again. There is a worrying amount of trouser-tightening going on. (No rude comments please). I only have two and a half weeks to prepare for my next sojourn, to Mykonos, and the panic is beginning to mount as we’re meeting some lovely friends there. They’re old friends who moved to Sydney six years ago and whilst there have turned into “uber gays”, meaning they don’t have a single ounce of excess body fat and have literally everything trimmed, waxed, curled, dyed and tonsured. Sitting next to them makes me feel positively ancient and ‘under-developed’. I need to put in at least a little effort to improve. Actually, they’re great so they won’t be bothered anyway and it’ll be brilliant to see them - it’s been far too long this time and I kinda miss them.

I know, I know. “how many holidays do you actually go on?”

I can hear you all saying it. I do work in the travel industry tho. I’m NOT a trolley dolly however, so before anyone starts bleating on about that – cut it out!

My week away has flown by. I can’t believe I’m back in London already. The taste of croissants has diminished, the scent of lavender faded and the Provencal skies seem a beautiful, but distant memory. The weather here is still a pile of pants. It’s been so wet I’m almost convinced I’m beginning to grow webbed toes and fingers.

Bugger. Now where did I leave my brolly....

Baguette!!

Zut alors! I’m quite excited. My holiday to Provence has come around really quickly. I can’t wait – I can almost smell that Lavender.

My facial disfigurement is, thankfully, on the decline thanks to some whiz-bang antibiotics and I’m now thinking of such pithy issues as what to pack? What will I need? Do I need fancy shoes?

I’ve never been to Provence before so this should be quite fun. The other half has packed his French language CD’s. I imagine they’ll return from France in exactly the same pristine state as they are at present – unused. I need to brush up on my Francais so that I’m able to order the most ludicrously large lunches, buy vin by the case load and nibble on fromage until dawn. I’m actually not that keen on cheese but I’ll give it my best efforts as an Englishman abroad.

I’m looking forward to sitting by the pool, reading a small Alp of books, listening to a shed load of music and generally lounging about – glamorously so, of course.
There’ll be quite a few of us in our gorgeous villa so it’ll be great fun. There’ll be me and TOH, naughty David (see pic in my post about San Sebastian), lovely Adrian, hunky Mike (from Arizona – they make them well out there don’t they!) and some ladies – PC Jayne and Irish Liz.

I’d also like to mooch around a few Provencal villages, maybe try on a beret or two and learn to play boules. It’s obvious that I’m almost half way to being French already. All I need now is to devour Le Figaro every morning over a seething black coffe and e voila!

p.s. has anyone tried the new M & S rocky road mini bites? They’re delish!