Did we mention we were treated to lunch at Jamie Oliver's the other week? Not actually Jamie Oliver's house of course, sadly, but the brand new branch of his restaurant in Manchester city centre.
When Little D was born I decided to make him a very special gift.
As you may have guessed food is very close to my heart and I love cookery books and read them like novels. Therefore it won't be any real surprise to learn the gift was a recipe book, but one penned by myself and including all our family favourities. Everything will be in there, from my special Spanish rice to great grandma's treacle toffee, interdispersed with stories and snippets of the family history.
It is still very much a work in progress and I have gone from planning a proper published glossy tome to wanting to produce something handwritten and heartfelt. I may yet do both, but recently I have been looking for off the peg solutions for my research. You would think that this would be easy. What's difficult in finding a plain A5 notebook? But to be honest it's been difficult finding one up to the job. I was looking for something good quality that could stand up to the odd spill, without lines so I could add little diagrams and pictures and things, and last but not least it must have a way of indexing entries.
Quite out of the blue I was very lucky to be given a lovely Moleskine Recipe book that was just the ticket from a lovely friend this Christmas. It has sections for starters, mains and desserts and a section just for wine. It is going to be perfect for my research and recipe development. It also has a handy little pocket for cut outs.
Another option I happened on by chance is Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks. I was sent an unlined A5 book to try and was really impressed by it. Again they have that handy pocket and a really useful section at the front of indexing. The paper is really good quality and a delight to write upon. Because it is plain it is perfect for including diagrams or pictures of items I have made.
I am really looking forward to using my new notebooks now that the kitchen project is almost complete. I just need to find the perfect kitchen table....
We were given Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks free of charge to review.
A while ago we heard about some lovely dutch style yoghurts called Twekkelo, they come in a variety of flavours in a nice big bucket style pot so just right for sharing.
We have to say us folks at Dormouse and The Teapot are big sweety fans, So when the lovely folks at Rowntrees offered us a taste of their new share bag range, well how could we refuse ?
As you know we like nothing but a nice potter in our kitchen, the problem is, that when you are sweating over a hot stove, is it's hard to feel the faintest bit glamorous even when you are whizzing up a prizewinning creation.
When the lovely people at The London Tea Company offered us a selection of teas to try how could we refuse? We have long admired their smart packaging, Fairtrade ideals and commitment to good quality teas so we were excited to see if their tea lived up to their excellent reputation.
Here at Dormouse and The Teapot we love lollipops and we love cake, so we were really excited when we heard about a new craze sweeping the nation, fresh from America, cakepops.
We have been trying out some more teas from Clipper Teas this week, and we have gone back to basics to see just how good their organic versions of Britain's fave's English Breakfast Tea and Earl Grey really are.
As you all know the Dormouse team just love afternoon tea and if you are looking for ideas for an afternoon tea with a difference then look no further than a Mad Hatters Tea Party.
It's been an eventful weekend on Friday after our first ever blog camp we went to the band contest. If you have ever seen the film Brassed Off it will give you a flavour of what it's all about. Little D loved the bands and was dancing along to the music whilst we had a rare pint of Tetley's best, well we were in a field, it was served from a tent what could you expect?
