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Hi again! Let's have a food post.

Radishes (recipe from "The Groundnut Cookbook" by Duval Timothy, Jacob Fodio Todd and Folayemi Brown)
Ok, it's a real stretch to call this a "recipe". This dish is what it says it is: radishes. Just radishes. The recipe book basically says: "Have you considered eating radishes as a side dish? They're great. Chop them in half and eat them." And, do you know what? I hadn't considered eating radishes as a side dish. In fact, I rarely ate radishes; they'd never really made it into my food repertoire (probably because I tried them as a kid and disliked the pepperiness). It turns out that radishes really do make a great side dish. They're fresh and crunchy, and I'm always fond of side dishes that don't require any cooking whatsover (after all, some evenings I just want to bung stuff on a plate then shove it in my mouth in 5 minutes flat). I am now a convert and have been eating radishes almost every other week since.

Sage pork with potato and apple mash
I cooked this on Valentine's day as a little romantic treat to myself. Alas, as treats go, this one isn't very indulgent or inspiring. Part of that is my fault: I don't cook pork often, so I'm not very good at getting it fully cooked without being overdone. I didn't want pink pork, so I fried it for longer than the recipe stated, but that led to the breadcrumb coating getting a little burnt. But then, part of the boringness of this dish is the recipe's fault too. You are told to cover the pork and let it rest after cooking. Resting I can understand, but covering it? For this recipe? Basically, covering the pork while resting it meant that all the steam made the breadcrumb coating turn from crispy to soggy. Does anyone want to eat a soggy breadcrumb coating? No they don't. And the breadcrumb coating wasn't even that tasty. I mean, you could taste the mustard and the fennel seeds, but I wasn't getting much sage. And when it came to the mash, I could barely taste the apple at all (I just used whatever apples I had lying about, so I obviously picked the wrong type for this dish). Plus the mash wasn't anywhere near as creamy as I like it. Basically, this recipe involves quite a lot of faff, none of which is worth it. I mean, the dish is ok; none of it is horrible. But if I wasn't following a recipe, I could have probably made something nicer :/

Indonesian baked chicken legs (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
Look, I'm not even going to attempt to blame this one on the recipe. This disaster was all on me. STOP LAUGHING. As I say, this recipe had all the makings of a really tasty dish before I got my hands on it. You marinate the chicken in this really thick sauce, which includes coconut milk, coriander, lemongrass, garlic and turmeric among other things. (By the bye, it's been long enough since I last cooked with fresh turmeric that I had entirely forgotten how catastrophic it is. Things that became stained yellow included my food processor, my fridge, my kitchen work surface, my chopping board, my hands, MY TOOTHBRUSH, and a long line of tea towels. I'm not sure I'll ever own a tea towel that's not yellow ever again, even though I'm using industrial amounts of stain remover in my washing machine.) The marinade also asked for candlenuts, which I couldn't find, so I substituted with cashew nuts. When it was all mixed together, the marinade smelled great. Alas, I wasn't thinking. The recipe calls for the chicken to be cooked for 30 minutes at 250°C. I know from experience that my chicken legs only come out fully cooked if I give them 50 minutes. The problem is, that's normally 50 minutes at 200°C (and even then the topping comes out burnt more often than not). 50 minutes at 250°C was basically incineration o'clock. I mean, my chicken was still nicely cooked inside, but most of the taste from the marinade was gone; it was just carbon (well, carbon and yellow staining everywhere).

The groundnut stew (recipe from "The Groundnut Cookbook" by Duval Timothy, Jacob Fodio Todd and Folayemi Brown)
Here we have one of the ugliest photos in this post to accompany one of the best recipes. This is the dish that the Groundnut Cookbook takes its name from. The cookbook was born from a supper club, which was called The Groundnut Supper Club. The blurb alongside the recipe tells us that this is a recipe from Duval Timothy's family and is basically the reason why the three of them started the supper club together. I CAN TELL WHY. This is a gorgeous dish and perfect for this time of year: warm, rich and comforting. That's not to say that it's easy to cook! The hardest part is, without a doubt, the chicken. You see, the ingredients list blithely calls for "1 chicken, skinned and chopped into 8 pieces". That sounds so easy! Unfortunately, if you have zero experience in butchery, plus a knife that's not really sharp enough, you are going to struggle. Honestly, there was one part, where I was busy trying to saw off a leg, that I felt like a living incarnation of Judith beheading Holofernes. It was carnage. And to have to skin it as well as butcher it; my God! I'm sure an experienced cook could do it in five minutes. It took me an hour. Then the recipe says that you have to sear the chicken before making the stew. Doing that in batches (because I have a small pan) took almost another hour. By this point I was worried that my chicken had been sitting at room temperature, half-cooked for a long time. I made sure to cook the final stew for longer than the 25 minutes the recipe says, because I wanted to make sure the chicken was fully cooked. (In some cases 25 minutes may be fine, but when I checked my stew at the 25 minute mark, parts of the chicken were still merrily oozing pink juices.) There are two more issues with this recipe, one of which is an error on my part, and one of which is an error on the recipe's part. My error was to take the scotch bonnet pepper out too soon. The recipe says to pierce the pepper and let it cook with the stew, with the caveat that you can take it out whenever the stew is getting too hot. I had never cooked with scotch bonnet peppers before, and I was worried they were going to be way too spicy for me. Fairly early on in the cooking, the pepper got so soft that it split open; I panicked at this and removed the pepper before the seeds could go everywhere. This left me with a stew that didn't have any heat at all. Note to self: leave the chilli in next time. The recipe's error is a typo: the ingredients list says to use groundnut oil, while the recipe instructions say to use olive oil. It was only once I'd used olive oil in the dish that I realised the ingredients list said something different. The dish still tasted great with olive oil, but the smoke point is too low if you're searing cuts of meat; I think groundnut oil would have been better. Ok, all that aside, this dish was almost worth the effort. It tasted so rich! Sweet onions and creamy peanut butter in this thick sauce with moist chicken (and I say this as someone who doesn't care much for peanut butter in normal circumstances). The groundnut stew is comfort food at it's finest. So so tasty. The only reason why the dish isn't fully worth the effort is because it would be so much easier to just buy a pack of chicken drumsticks and use them instead of all that butchery. But if you go down the drumstick route then it would be well worth the effort. Your tastebuds will thank you.

Figs with honey-cream and pistachios (recipe from "Nigellissima: Instant Italian Inspiration" by Nigella Lawson)
I wasn't sure what to expect from this dessert. 1) I'd never eaten fresh figs before, and I'd always found dried ones kind of lacklustre. 2) How exciting can baked fruit really be? But I was wrong. I WAS SO WRONG. This dish was easy to make and amazing to eat. My figs were small, so I used more than the recipe says and baked them for less time. I might still have baked them for too long, because you can see how one has just collapsed at the back there. Still, who cares if it doesn't look that pretty when it tastes so good? I felt like I was eating a fancy restaurant desert. The mixture of the olive oil, cream and honey on the figs made it so rich and creamy, and the pistachios were the icing on the cake. I am astounded that a dish that's 90% fruit can be this indulgent. It was gorgeous.

Here's the first food post of 2019! January evenings are dark and cold and bleh, so I've been cooking a lot to liven things up. I also treated myself with some new baking trays (one was faulty, though, and has had to go back to the shop...) and I defrosted the fridge-freezer. Woo! Productivity! (But mostly I just want to huddle under my duvet and sleep.)

Savoury biscotti
I'd never made biscotti before, but it turns out it's quite easy. Mix ingredients, shape into log, bake, slice and bake again. Done! And not a rolling pin in sight! So, cooking them was easy, and the taste was... Look, if you eat one of these on its own, it's a great punch of flavour: slightly sweet from the sugar, and then tonnes of salty savouriness from the sundried tomatoes, olives and parmesan. If you have one on its own, you're like, "Yes please. Thank you very much. Yum yum yum. Maybe one more for the road." If you (I mean me; I can't speak for you personally) eat more than, say, two, you will begin to feel a bit sick. I am not great with the greasy taste of cooked cheese, or with sweet and savoury together, which meant that I got overwhelmed when I ate too many of these. Basically, I only managed four of the biscotti in this photo, because I had to stop due to imminent nausea. But, you know, with the caveat of requiring strict portion control, these are a great little snack.

Green beans and sesame (recipe from "The Groundnut Cookbook" by Duval Timothy, Jacob Fodio Todd and Folayemi Brown)
These are so quick to make. You're basically just adding sesame oil, salt and toasted sesame seeds to cooked green beans. The only faff involved is in toasting the sesame seeds beforehand. Well worth it though. Do you love sesame? I love sesame. These are super tasty. (Where have they been all my life?)

Butter crispy chicken legs (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
Yep. You read it right. That's fried chicken topped with a sauce made out of butter (and evaporated milk)! As per usual with my chicken legs, I didn't deep-fry them as I was meant to, but instead shallow-fried them and then put them in the oven. I also had to change up the batter for the chicken, because the recipe calls for tapioca flour and wheat starch, among other things. Tapioca flour and wheat starch are complete strangers to my supermarket, so I substituted with cornflour and plain flour. The sauce contains curry leaves in with the butter and five (five!) whole bird's eye chillies. It was a hot sauce! I'm really excited, though, to have been able to purchase proper curry leaves. I've never been able to find them before and have always had to make do with kaffir lime leaves instead. Let me tell you; the two are not identical! I would put the lime leaves down as being citrussy, while the curry leaves have a more savoury taste (they remind me, oddly, of bacon-flavoured crisps). Turns out I love the taste of curry leaves to pieces. As a result, this was a tasty tasty dish (I couldn't bring myself to eat the chillies though; it was hot enough as it was).

Spicy chicken burgers
This burger was massively tall. It was almost impossible to fit it all in one photograph, which is why the angle in this photo is so weird. The burger tasted good, what with the chicken, and that great coleslaw, and the brioche bun. I have a bone to pick with the recipe, though, which told me that my chicken breast would be cooked through after five minutes on each side (lies!) The extra chicken cooking time meant that it got burnt on the outside a little, which actually added a nice smoky flavour to the burger. Woo!

Chicken fajita sweet potatoes
This recipe is so on-trend with those sweet potatoes. The only thing it needs to bring it truly into 2019 is to be vegan (use vegan cheese and replace the chicken with tofu perhaps? idk. I won't personally be trying a vegan version when there's a chicken option out there.) Now, I have even an even bigger bone to pick with this recipe than I had with the last one. The cooking time for the sweet potato was waaay out. I don't normally bake potatoes in the oven and I'm not used to cooking sweet potatoes at all, so I have no idea if the recipe was wrong or if my sweet potatoes were super huge mutants (but, to be fair, the recipe does call for large sweet potatoes). Basically, my sweet potato was nowhere near cooked after only 30 minutes (it was, instead,a big, hard, orange brick) and it needed at least 45 minutes to an hour in total to turn soft. Do you know how disappointing it is to discover that you will have to wait an extra 30 minutes for dinner when you're already hungry? (Very. Is the answer. Very.) Once that was all sorted out, though, the end result was good. The taste verged on being too sweet for me (I'm not a fan of sweet potatoes for that very reason) but the combination of the cheese, fajita-seasoned chicken, and lots of lime juice, really helped to make the sweetness bearable.

I've read a few books recently (three actually) that I wanted to talk about, so I thought I'd do it all in one post.

***

"Rivers of London" by Ben Aaronovitch

I got this book for Christmas 2017. Emma mentioned that she'd like to hear my opinion on it, so here goes:

I enjoyed it.

Wait. There's more. This book is a bit odd, because it's trying to do several things at once. First is an innovative supernatural story about the history of London. Second is a police crime thriller that is clearly gearing up to be a series. And third is something strange and tropey involving a posh guy with a cane and a Japanese-style vampire maid. While the mix is weird, it does at least make for a plot that is interesting to read.

I found the main character, Peter Grant, to be likeable. He's clever enough and fallible enough that you want to cheer him on. The other characters were enjoyable too. I particularly liked the supernatural ones (barring, you know, the bad guy).

The plot was a good read, if the resolution did leave a few parts unanswered in an unsatisfying way. But the best part was exploring the supernatural world (or should I say: supernatural London) that the characters inhabit.

This book loves London (modern London and the history of London) and it is so clearly written by a person that loves London too. The London in the book feels right. And there's a huge expanse of London covered in the book; it was so much fun to see multiple places I recognise show up in the plot. This is what makes the book so enjoyable to read. The setting is so well-envisaged that it could be a character in its own right.

And there's a set-piece near the end of the book, where Peter Grant chases the bad guy through the streets of London, that is worth the price of the book alone. I won't tell you what happens in that scene, but it is marvellous!

I do, however, agree with Emma's criticism of the book containing "endless performative heterosexual nonsense". This book is full of the male gaze. I think it's meant to make us relate to the main character more easily, but that's based purely on the incorrect assumption that all readers of the book are male. However, because the story is written in the first-person, the male gaze doesn't feel too out-of-kilter. That doesn't make it necessary, mind you (I actually don't care what that lady's arse looks like. SHE'S A WITNESS IN A MURDER INVESTIGATION.) Sigh. But it is a failure in 90% of modern media, so I'm not going to be too harsh on this one instance.

In summary: the book has its flaws, but if you want an interesting plot that revels in London and the history of London then this one's for you.

***

"The Angry Chef" by Anthony Warner

This non-fiction book is astoundingly good. I recommend it to absolutely everyone because it has the potential to make so many people happier in the long run.

I first came across the angry chef via his blog: angry-chef.com

For a good while before discovering the blog, I had become concerned by how much bullshit there is in the world of food. You come across a lot of it if, like me, you enjoy browsing food blogs, food videos on YouTube and food photography on Instagram. For a while, I thought I was going mad, because I was certain that things such as juice cleanses and low-carb diets and clean eating were all nonsense, but so many people seemed to be taking them seriously. (I should state here that I am no expert on diet, but my background in biochemistry does maybe make it easier for me to discount some types of nonsense.)

I was so glad, therefore, when I stumbled across the angry chef and found someone who was willing to stand up and denounce this bullshit for what it is: bullshit.

Now, the blog is good, but the book is even better, because the book is structured in a way that's easy to follow. Not only does the book systematically list some of the main pieces of bullshit and explain why they're bullshit, but it also gives guidance on how to spot bullshit and why we're tempted to believe it in the first place. That guidance is so great and really useful. Suddenly, navigating the world of food blogs becomes a lot easier when you can quickly spot if someone's spouting nonsense or not (say it with me: anecdotes aren't evidence!)

Honestly, I can't recommend this book enough. If more people read it, it'll be a lot harder for ridiculous (and sometimes dangerous) food fads to take hold. And if we, as a society, stopped following food fads we'd all be a lot happier (seriously, cutting carbs isn't the way to health, it's just the way to sadness); plus there'd be far less chance of even more dangerous fads (like chemophobia) taking hold.

***

"Lud-in-the-Mist" by Hope Mirrlees

I found this book on my parents' bookshelf and immediately picked it up because I remembered Emma having mentioned it on a list of books that inspired "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell".

Unsurprisingly, it's a fantasy novel, but where "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" is low-fantasy, "Lud-in-the-Mist" is very much high-fantasy. But here's the thing, in this instance the two aren't so very different when it comes down to it.

When we think of high-fantasy, we usually think of the whole faux-medieval sword and sorcery thing: there have to be elves and dwarves and trolls and goblins and stuff. This idea has all come from Tolkien, and I'm not knocking it at all, because I adore Tolkien, but you have to admit that a lot of fantasy published in the last 50 years has been very derivative.

How refreshing, then, to read a book that was published before "The Lord of the Rings" and so isn't influenced by it in the slightest! "Lud-in-the-Mist" is high-fantasy because it's set in the entirely fictional world of Dorimare (of which Lud-in-the-Mist is the captial city), but Dorimare is about as far from dwarves and trolls and epic medieval battles as you can get. In fact Dorimare is very domestic and has all the small-town politics and sensibilities that you might find in a George Eliot novel. This, in fact, drives a lot of the plot.

Now, the similarities with "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" are immediately obvious: Dorimare is a world that was once more magical than it now is. Centuries before the book is set there used to be a lot of interaction between Dorimare and neighbouring Fairyland, but since the rise of a governing middle class, that interaction has been severed so forcefully that even mention of it is taboo.

The plot follows the reintroduction of communication between the two countries by the smuggling of fairy fruit. There is also a long-lost ruler, the mysterious and almost-mythical Duke Aubrey, who might one day return.

The parallel between Duke Aubrey and "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell"'s Raven King is impossible to ignore. Both are integral to the history of their worlds and to the magic of those worlds, and both dance almost invisibly along the edges of the plot. That said, they're not entirely identical, because while both characters are morally ambiguous, Duke Aubrey most definitely comes down on the "utter bastard" side of the line.

Despite the similarities between the two books, "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" is a read that is thoughtful and humorous, but "Lud-in-the-Mist" is a read that is thoughtful and dark. I mean, it doesn't immediately come across as dark, but as you get into the plot, you get this feeling that not everything is right. Fairyland doesn't just seem to be a land of lost knowledge or lost imagination; it's a land of something else as well. The characters' reactions to fairy fruit and other items from Fairyland are like the reactions of people suffering from drug addiction or from mental illness. To encounter Fairyland is to open the door to the fanciful, but it also seems synonymous with strange yearnings, unfulfilment, and unexplained unhappiness.

This all makes the book very odd. "Lud-in-the-Mist" reads very much like a morality tale, but what the moral is, I'm not quite sure. It is clear that the placid, yet unequal, domesticity found in Dorimare, combined with the blinkered view of the ruling middle class (who would rather immerse themselves in legal fictions than acknowledge the world around them), is not a satisfactory one. But how embracing fairy fruit and the amoral world of Duke Aubrey can help this, I'm not certain.

Can someone please explain this book to me? I would be grateful.

Regardless of the confusion it generated, I found the book a very enjoyable read. The writing style, particularly the language, is wonderful. Despite how practical the Dorimarites are meant to be, they sit within a story that is both poetic and whimsical in tone. There is something rich in the language: round and bright and luscious. Part of it is in the names of things and people, like the rivers the Dapple and the Dawl, or characters called things like Dreamsweet and Moonlove. Part is also in the descriptive nature of the text. Here's an example:

And the Dapple itself, stained like a palette, with great daubs of colour reflected from sky and earth, and carrying on its surface, in autumn, red and yellow leaves which may have fallen on it from the trees of Fairyland, where it had its source - even the Dapple might be considered as a flower growing in the garden of the Chanticleers.

I've never read anything like it before. It's vivid and lush and captivating. It takes you to a different, more magical world. And for that reason I highly recommend this book. I'm still not quite sure what the plot was telling me, but I know that I enjoyed it very much.

Happy New Year! I hope you're enjoying 2019. It's the time of year when we all pretend that it's nice to get back into the normal routine of things. I suppose that's partly true, but I could easily fit in an extra few days of stuffing my face in front of the TV if that was an option (it's not).

This year I went to see my parents for Christmas. We normally go visit other family on Christmas day or boxing day, but we didn't this year because most of them had gone off and rented a cottage in Devon. From the photos, it seems like Devon was good, but I've a feeling that there might have been some cabin fever and frayed tempers if my parents and I had gone along too (that would have brought the total up to 14 people and two dogs and that sounds fun but incredibly exhausting).

So my parents and I kept up to date with Devon via WhatsApp and in the meantime had our fill of eating and watching TV (Kingsman was a really enjoyable film, by the way) and doing some of the puzzles from my Nan's house. My Nan used to love puzzles, and there's something really pleasant about sitting with loved ones while listening to music and working on something like that all together.

I also went to visit one of my friends on boxing day who had an awful Christmas because her little daughter was hospitalised with pneumonia. Thankfully the daughter was released from hospital this time last week, so here's hoping that the rest of her recovery is speedy.

For New Year I went to stay with Deborah in her new place. We did awful karaoke using Spotify and whatever lyrics we could find on Google. Then we watched Top of the Pops on TV with the subtitles on and karaoke-d that as well. At midnight we went down to the Thames to see the fireworks on either side of the river (this is in East London, I should add, not the big ticketed fireworks down near Westminster), which was great but the wind on the river was freezing. We also ate lots of food; my goodness. And the next day Deborah sent me home with lots more food. I've been eating chocolate cake solidly for the past week.

I got some wonderful gifts and cards this Christmas, so lets do a rundown (because I love looking back on these posts later).

My cards this year, including one drawn by Rene at school, and two with additional drawings (of knobs BECAUSE YOU ARE ALL CHILDREN) by Steve and Nick.

The most poignant card was this one, drawn by my Dad. He's still dealing with the loss of his Mum, and Christmas can be hard.

When it comes to presents we start with one from my late-Nan, which is that big box of chocolate biscuits there. As my Dad and Aunt were going through my Nan's stuff they found an M&S gift voucher that she'd never spent. There was enough money on the voucher to buy a box of biscuits for everyone in the family, so that's just what they did.

Other food-related presents include my very first garlic crusher (I am now an official adult) and a new apron (to replace my turmeric and pomegranate-stained old one). There's also even more chocolate (Green and Blacks this time) and Mariya got me that hot chocolate spoon when she went on a trip to Luxembourg. I drank the hot chocolate just a few minutes ago and it is A+. Rich and creamy with a great pear cinnamon flavour. Wow.

Books, including a notebook and "Friday Black" from Mariya, which I'm interested to check out. The other two books are from my parents, including sexy Victorians and the latest work from Ian Mortimer. I love Mortimer's "Time Traveller's Guides" series. They are so interesting. He writes in a really descriptive way, which you normally only find in fiction; it really helps bring the time-period to life.

Clothing and accessories, including a smart new cardigan and bobble hat from my parents. The hat has been so nice to wear this week while it's been cold. The banned books socks and the bracelet come from Mariya. The bracelet is from her recent trip to Morocco. How cool is that? I'm wearing it right now in an attempt to bring a bit of Moroccan glamour to this dull January day.

Finally, some other bits and pieces including a Korean face mask (from Mariya), a lint roller and an absolutely useless star-shaped slinky that came out of my Christmas cracker. The CD from my parents is the best hits of the Beatles. I didn't own any music from the Beatles, so this has been fun to listen to; my goodness, they created so many hit songs!

And I'm proving my age because I asked my parents for a new house phone (my old one was getting suspiciously warm at the plug). I have mentioned this present to a few people who have looked at me like I'm mad for wanting a house phone. Admittedly, I don't use my house phone much, but I grew up in an age where a house phone was a thing you absolutely had to have (because there weren't any other types of phone out there). In my mind, a home without a house phone is a home lacking something necessary. Besides, I'm paying for a landline connection, which of course does phone as well as broadband, so I may as well connect up the phone part. Don't look at me like that. At least I don't have a fax machine.

I'm really enjoying cooking right now. There's something about the cold weather (or the upcoming festivities) that just makes me want to load up on food. Nomnomnomnom.

Kale, mushroom and goat's cheese lasagne
I had mixed feelings going into this one. You see, I love lasagne. I really love lasagne. But it's traditional lasagne that I love: it is a thing of beauty. Why mess with it? And I'm pretty sure that kale, mushroom and goat's cheese counts as messing with it. Oh well; I soldiered on with the cooking (lasagne is always such an effort) and hoped it wouldn't be too much of a disappointment. When it came to it, however, the final result wasn't a disappointment at all! I had worried that the lack of a tomato-based sauce would leave the dish too rich and creamy, with nothing to counter it. Thankfully the nuggets of goat's cheese on top provided just the tanginess I was looking for. I mean, it still wasn't a traditional lasagne, but it was definitely enjoyable. One note: my pasta was still rather tough and chewy though. I'm not a lasagne expert, but I'm wondering if the lack of a tomato sauce meant there just wasn't as much liquid for the pasta to soak up and cook properly. Hmmm.

Sharon's cholla French toast (recipe from "The London Cookbook" by Jenny Linford)
I must admit, I had no idea what cholla was (or challa, as the loaf I bought was called). But then, I am not very familiar with Jewish cuisine. It turns out that cholla (or challa, or challah) is an enriched Jewish bread that's used for ceremonial occasions. Because it's enriched, it's a bit like a brioche, but I found that mine was less sweet. But, well, the unusual part of this recipe wasn't the cholla, the unusual part was that the egg was seasoned with salt and pepper before the bread was dipped in it. What? Salt and pepper in a sweet dish? Although, to be honest, the only sweet thing about the dish was the maple syrup drizzled on top at the end. I found the combination weird. It was less French toast, and more just eggy bread with syrup on top. In taste, it was like someone had just put maple syrup on top of a perfectly serviceable omelette. If, unlike me, you have absolutely no hang-ups with mixing sweet and savoury, then you'll probably like it. If not, maybe leave out the seasoning and add a bit more sugar instead.

Thailand Patong chicken legs (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
This dish does not look appetising at all (the picture in the recipe book didn't look appetising either). Boiled beige chicken with an addition of beige flavourings. But what all this beigeness hides is an absolutely wonderful flavour! This was yummy yummy yummy. One of the things that made this so tasty was the addition of tamarind paste. I've never cooked with tamarind before, but it's the reason why real curries always taste so great. It's also a very familiar flavour, because it's a key ingredient in brown sauce and Worcestershire sauce; it's sweet and tangy, just like the both of them. Add the tamarind to cumin and you get a match made in heaven. This dish smelled great when it was cooking and tasted just the way it smelled. In addition to the tamarind, you have just enough sugar to make the dish sing (not too much, as per the recipe above. If this cookbook has taught me anything, it's that the right amount of sugar can really improve the taste of a dish) and then you have the coconut milk, which mixes with the fat from the chicken to add a luxurious richness to the sauce. Ugh, this was good. (I should add that as always I cooked my chicken for 50 minutes rather than the 20-25 stated in the recipe, because I like my chicken cooked thanks.)

Aubergine and pomegranate (recipe from "The Groundnut Cookbook" by Duval Timothy, Jacob Fodio Todd and Folayemi Brown)
Can you tell that I mangled the pomegranate? I think you can tell. The thing is, I hadn't cooked with pomegranate for 14 years. All I could remember from the first time was that it was difficult. Great. So before I got started I Googled how to remove pomegranate seeds. Alas, the method I found (bashing an upside-down pomegranate half with a wooden spoon) just refused to work for me. So then I decided to just gouge the seeds out with a metal spoon, which left me with a lot of mangled seeds and an apron with permanent pink spatter-marks. As a wiser person, when I came to the second half of the pomegranate I decided that the bash with wooden spoon trick was definitely the better way to go. Alas, it still didn't work, and also ended up with the pomegranate slipping out of my hands and landing on the floor (oh, that got plenty of seeds out, let me tell you). So then I picked up the pomegranate, rinsed it, and furiously pulled it apart to remove the seeds with my bare fingers. Surprisingly, this last method worked the best, but in hindsight I can't tell if my success was due to technique or just the wave of fury that I was riding. Perhaps I shall never know. The rest of the recipe is less exciting: grind up spices, including a shed-load of cumin, and rub on aubergine with olive oil before baking. I think I fell down on the baking part. The recipe said to bake for 33 minutes, but my aubergine was definitely burnt by that point. When I made it a second time and took it out of the oven earlier, it was less burnt and much more appetising, but still not my favourite thing to eat. The large amount of olive oil made the aubergine really greasy, which is never my favourite thing. Also, I struggled again with the amount of sweetness in a savoury dish (I sense a theme). No. Why do I have fruit on my vegetable dish? Why?

Simmered chicken legs with spices (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
This recipe is meant to be called "Simmered chicken legs with beer and spices", but I left the beer out. (The recipe called for white beer. What even is that? Does it mean lager? There's a can of Carlsberg in the picture.) Without the beer, I thought the dish was going to be really boring. Thankfully, I was very wrong. The mixture of star anise, cinnamon, Szechuan pepper, garlic (that's broken-down garlic you can see in the picture) and soy sauce is perfect. It's a great flavour combination. And, like the last chicken leg recipe, the chicken is boiled in the sauce, which leaves the sauce rich and tasty. Two things though: The recipe said to cook the chicken for 20-25 minutes, and I went for 50 minutes as is my usual. Also, the recipe seemed to think that after cooking the chicken with a lid on for 20-25 minutes the sauce would be thick. How does that work? Is it something to do with the beer? Because even after my 50 minutes were up, my sauce was still runny. I then took off the lid and reduced the sauce down about an inch and it still refused to thicken. Hum. Did the recipe mean a drop-lid perhaps? I will never know, but I do know that this dish was delicious, regardless of sauce consistency.

A few weeks ago, when autumn was just beginning, my parents and I went on a walk.

The views were so lovely, I said to my parents, "I'm trying to take a shot of you pointing at the view and admiring it. You know, so it almost looks like a candid photo."

So candid.

A few weeks ago I went to Amsterdam to see Nick, who moved there last year. James and Eppa also came along with kids Rene and Jack.

Nick's flat is great: very modern (I loved the kitchen, even if the hob was too technical and confused me) and Nick's decorated it very stylishly (don't tell Eva I said that). Nick and Eva also did some great hosting and fed us very well. My favourite parts were the blackberry and apple crumble, the melanzane and getting to try Surinamese take-away for the first time (which is really popular in the Netherlands). A special mention goes to the stroopwafels that I bought to take home with me. I'd never had stroopwafels before and they are perfect. The hint of cinnamon with all that caramel? Oh my God.

On our first day we went sightseeing, and walked (and trammed) around the city centre. By the bye, I should add that we also took the bus a few times but I was not impressed. Amsterdam bus drivers drive like maniacs! On every single bus I went on I felt motion sick and had difficulty keeping upright (I have never been more glad to get on a London bus than I was on my journey back from the airport).

Here is the obligatory Amsterdam scene.

Amsterdam is exactly like you'd expect: full of canals, full of bikes, and with the smell of weed around every other corner.

Actually, there were two things I didn't expect, and I was probably an idiot for not expecting them.

1. Dutch gables. It had never occurred to me that Dutch gables would be such a significant architectural feature in Amsterdam. I mean, I knew they originated from the Netherlands (of course), but I never considered that they'd be on almost every single building! Look at all of them running down this street! Also in the photo you can see the hooks on the gables that allow loads to be lifted up to the top floor. The hooks are used so much that they're even built into modern buildings!

2. The language. English is everywhere in Amsterdam; half the signs are in English with seemingly no Dutch at all. Presumably this is for the tourists? But Dutch people all speak English perfectly too. That said, what Dutch I did come across was oddly like English in some ways. I had never realised before quite how close the two languages are. (Not that I could understand Dutch. But it was easier to get the gist of some things than if the language had been unrelated to English.)

Here's a closer look at that church in the last photo. This is the church near Anne Frank's house. (We didn't go in Anne Frank's house because the queue to get in looked crazy and we had two young kids with us.)

That night we settled in for a pasta party (including the melanzane) and started preparing for the real reason for this trip: the Amsterdam marathon. On the second day of our trip, Nick and James ran the half-marathon and Rene (with Eppa) ran the kids' run. The start and finish were in the Olympic stadium, which was very busy with a real party atmosphere. There was music everywhere.

Rene did really well in the kids' run: a sprint finish! For Nick and James' run, we left them to it and went on a boat tour of the canals instead. Then we returned to the stadium see them finish. Well, I say see them finish. I missed Nick crossing the finish line because I'd gone in search of a portaloo. I also missed James crossing the finish line because although I was actually in the stands this time, I completely couldn't see him amongst the crowds. Whoops. Regardless, both Nick and James did really well to finish and I was impressed by how well they were able to have a normal evening afterwards (I would have collapsed into a puddle as soon as the run was over). That's what a good training schedule does to you, I suppose!

I really enjoyed the boat tour. It was a great way to get up close and personal with the canals. As Rene said, "Amsterdam has hundreds of water!"

This was the view at the beginning of the tour when we pulled out onto the IJ. On the right there is Amsterdam Centraal Station. When you're in the station, especially the bus station at the top, the view over the water is impressive.

Below are the rest of the boat tour photos. I can't comment on what they show, because I have no idea where we were. The buildings were so pretty though. I can't believe how many buildings dated from the 1600s! So many were slightly crooked and charming. Plus it was fun to see all the old building signs up on the walls.

On our final day, after James and Eppa had already left, Nick and I went for another walk around the city. And I managed to take the most Amsterdam photo I'll ever take:

Canal? Check. Cyclist? Check. Windmill? Check.

That's a hat-trick!

It's been less than a month since the last food post. I am on a roll right now! (Actually, I'm not on a roll at all. I've got a cold today, and all I want to do is wrap myself up in blankets and sleep. Sitting in front of the computer and reliving the times when I could actually taste food is the next best thing.)

Golden crispy chicken legs in Cantonese-style (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
I couldn't wait to try this recipe. Cantonese-style roast meats are delicious. Even the recipe name sounds good. Here are the changes I made: I didn't use the Chinese rice wine in the marinade, and I shallow-fried then oven-baked the chicken rather than deep-frying it (you know me by now). Also, I couldn't find the malt sugar that the recipe calls for; it's used with rice vinegar and boiling water to scald the skin after marinating and before seasoning and cooking. I had intended to make do with white malt vinegar and caster sugar instead, but, alas, I forgot the caster sugar, so spent the rest of the cooking process wondering if I'd inadvertently left out an important source of deliciousness. Once the chicken is marinated, scalded and seasoned, the recipe says to "Hang up and sun dry for 1 hour." But no. a) I have no desire for my chicken to sit at room temperature for longer than it has to, especially after the scalding got it nice and warm. b) The weak sun in autumn in London at 7pm isn't going to dry anything. And so I put the chicken in the fridge and let it drip-dry in a colander. All these things might have made the chicken slightly less tasty, but a recipe like this can't be too horrible. OR SO I THOUGHT. It turns out that this is, hands down, one of the most disgusting things I've ever eaten. I made two chicken legs (enough for two nights in a row) but couldn't eat much of the second one because I honestly thought it was going to make me ill. Let me set this straight: the problem here is not Cantonese-style chicken. Nor is the problem whatever faff I had with the marinating and the scalding and the drying. The problem is that there must (surely) be a typo in the recipe because IT WAS SO SALTY. Perhaps I should have been alerted to this when the recipe asked me to use a whole tablespoon of salt to season just two chicken legs, but I wasn't and blithely continued on. What this recipe would taste like in normal circumstances I have no idea. All I could taste was salt. It felt like my internal organs were drying up. NO NO NO.

Veggie noodle stir-fry
This Jamie Oliver recipe sounded worryingly healthy (read: bland) at first glance, but it wasn't at all. It has a lot of flavour from the ginger, garlic, onions and lime. I've never had lime in a stir-fry before, but it works. The lime comes together with the chilli sauce and egg yolk to make the noodles moist, piquant and rich, and the toasted cashews add to the richness too. I'm not normally a fan of nuts in my food, but the cashews added a lovely toasted, almost popcorn flavour. I will say though that there is a lot of chilli in this dish, particularly in the fried egg, and I would have preferred it if the whole thing was less hot. Chilli aside, I would count this as a successful recipe. It is, however, exactly what I expected from one of Jamie's "easy 30 minute meals". Anything that involves zesting a lime and/or toasting cashews then putting them in a bloody pestle and mortar is not easy, my friend. It took me an hour and half to make it, and almost the same again to clean up afterwards.

Caramelised chicken and papaya satay noodles
More nuts in my food, which I'm not keen on, plus fruit in a savoury dish, which I like even less (I'd never had fresh papaya before, so I had to frantically google how to prepare it). All this plush fish sauce? And more chilli? Oh God. And I had to get out the damn pestle and mortar out again! All these things proved exactly why I like to try recipes that sound horrible on paper, because this dish was DELICIOUS. Absolutely lovely! I mean, sometimes you add ingredients you hate to a dish, and you end up hating the dish as expected, but sometimes they magically come together to make something really great. The marinaded chicken is yummy and that peanut sauce just takes things to the next level. Even the chilli in the noodles and the papaya on the side worked. Well, the papaya was a bit weird (perfumed and fruity), but it still tasted good with the sauce. In hindsight, I was so taken up with the ingredients I didn't like, that I completely forgot to notice how many ingredients I love are in the dish. Lime and coriander is a marriage made in heaven, and mixing them with soy sauce (yes!) and sesame oil (yes!) and basil (why not?) made for a super tasty meal. My only problem is that the recipe seems to think that 120g noodles will feed four people. How that's supposed to fill anyone up, I don't know; I hit the snacks afterwards.

Orange juice (recipe from "The Groundnut Cookbook" by Duval Timothy, Jacob Fodio Todd and Folayemi Brown, which was a birthday present from my parents)
This was less of a recipe and more instructions on how to prepare an orange so you can drink the juice straight from the top of the fruit (the book says this is a common way of buying orange juice on the street in West Africa). Basically: peel off skin, cut off top, use a knife through the hole in the top to poke the flesh a bit, then apply to face whilst squeezing. It was fun! And you honestly can't get orange juice any fresher. I probably didn't prepare my orange super well, because I couldn't squeeze loads of juice from it, but that doesn't matter, because I then pulled the orange apart and ate it.

Roasted tomato risotto
This is one of those recipes that proves vegetarian food isn't boring. The whole risotto is like an umami punch in the face. I love risotto, and this one is really tasty with the cheese and the tomatoes and the onions and the basil. Honestly, for such simple ingredients (I even left out the wine), it works well. Plus, it's not hard to make by risotto standards. The only issue I have is, again, with the portion size; the amount of risotto this recipe makes is disappointingly small. Otherwise, this one's a winner!

Here we go with another food post. It's taken me a long time to cook enough dishes to blog about, which has a lot to do with my summer being up and down (as you will have discovered from the last two posts). But it is also because I have been working my way through another jar of Thai shrimp paste instead of cooking new recipes. (Why more shrimp paste? Keep reading, my friends.)

Black pepper fried chicken legs (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
This dish is divine! The sauce is hot with pepper, tangy with Worcestershire sauce, sweet, salty and creamy. Plus the chicken underneath is crispy, so the mix of textures is wonderful. Perhaps I loved this dish so much because it reminded me nostalgically of chip shop curry sauce. Either way, it was a joy to eat. A note on the recipe: I was told to use plain flour, tapioca flour and wheat starch for the batter, but I couldn't find tapioca flour or wheat starch, so I just went with a mixture of plain flour and cornflour. As always, I didn't deep-fry my chicken as I was supposed to, but just shallow-fried it then shoved it in the oven. Also, the recipe tells you to use "a little cornstarch solution" to thicken the sauce, but doesn't say how much. I was maybe a little light-handed with the cornstarch solution, hence why my sauce wasn't quite as thick as it could be. But I don't care; it was yummy yummy yummy.

Vegan burrito
I decided to jump on the fashion bandwagon and try a vegan recipe, seeing as they're all the rage nowadays. It looked pretty good, with all the ingredients and flavourings, but there was something about it that wasn't quite right. I mean, there was a lot of flavour, but there was a lack of umami that made it less satisfying than it should be. Does this always happen with vegan food, or is it just this recipe? I could taste lime, onions, and sweetness (from the sweet potatoes and the peppers; in fact, it was too sweet for me; I'm beginning to realise I'm not a sweet potato fan), and the vegan cheese was creamy, but I don't know, it wasn't enough for me. Maybe it's because the tofu wasn't marinated at all, so it tasted unnervingly of wallpaper paste? Who knows? But it wasn't quite my bag. As an aside, the vegan cheese I bought was made of solidified coconut oil; it worked well, grated like this, but a word of warning: don't try to eat up the leftover cheese in thick slices, as you would with normal cheese. IT WAS LIKE EATING SOLID MARGARINE. Another aside: I bought an avocado that refused to ripen. I couldn't mash it and had to slice it instead! Have you ever eaten an unripe avocado? It tastes like sadness.

Indonesian chilli chicken legs (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
I'll be the first to admit that this dish doesn't look great. The sauce is actually meant to be a smooth paste, but I used a food processor rather than a blender, hence all the unfortunate chunks. That wasn't what worried me with this recipe though. What worried me was that the ingredients list called for large quantities of chillies as well as dried shrimp paste. Do you remember the last time I made chicken legs with shrimp paste and hated it? Let's do it again, but with more chilli this time! Ignore me, I'm being melodramatic for no reason. It turns out that shrimp paste is pleasant when mixed with chilli, garlic, ginger and all the other stuff in this recipe. Add in the coconut milk too and it almost tasted like a Thai curry. It was hot, yes, but it was also sweet and tasty and the shrimp paste added a nice savoury, salty note to everything; in other words, a success! A caveat though: I'm not quite sure if I was using the correct shrimp paste. The recipe said to use dried shrimp paste, but I could only find the wet stuff, so I toasted it up in a pan until it had dried off (who knows if that was the right thing to do or not?) Also, again, the recipe said to deep-fry the chicken, but I just shallow-fried it then finished it off in the oven.

Green goddess sandwich
Now for another fashionable recipe, only this time it's vegetarian rather than vegan (there's blue cheese in there). I doubled the recipe to make two sandwiches, because I was eating this for dinner rather than lunch (turns out it was quite filling though). Despite the photo looking terrible, the sandwich actually looked quite good with all the green fillings (including a ripe avocado this time; I'm crying tears of joy). Alas, it didn't taste very nice. Maybe that's because I couldn't find malted grain bread, which the recipe called for, or rather: I found malted grain bread but it was malted grain sourdough. Did you know that I hadn't ever eaten sourdough before? I didn't actually know that I hadn't had it before, but my ignorance was revealed when I found myself surprised that the bread is as sour as its name suggests (it never occurred to me to expect sourdough to be sour. Stop laughing.) The overarching taste of this sandwich was therefore sour. You have sour lemon juice, sour blue cheese, and sour rocket, all topped off with sourdough bread. I couldn't really taste any of the other ingredients. Disappointing.

Chilli cheese toast
This recipe really livens up cheese on toast. (Again, I doubled the recipe, because I was eating it for dinner rather than a snack.) I normally find cheese on toast too greasy, so I was happy to try it with some toppings. And it worked! The onions really cut through the grease and made it more palatable. I'm not a fan of raw onion though, so I found the raw spring onions on top a bit much. The chilli was a nice addition but there was so much chilli! I don't know if the recipe is heavy on chilli or if I was just unfortunate enough to buy a very hot red chilli. But I was in pain. In actual pain. My lips stung for about fifteen minutes after this, and they went bright red as if I'd put on lipstick. Not really the result I was going for. But, with some tweaks here and there, this could be a really nice cheese on toast recipe (one tweak would be to toast the bread for a bit longer than I did, because it wasn't quite as crisp as it should have been. ALSO LESS CHILLI.)

Crispy ginger and shallot chicken leg (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
This dish includes my least-favourite thing: juicing ginger, shallots and garlic ;_; Add to that a marinating time of two hours and this becomes a very time-consuming recipe to make. Don't do what I did and try to make it on a day when you unexpectedly have to do overtime at work, or you'll end up eating at 11pm. Still, for all the juicing, this recipe at least has a solution for what to do with the remnants of the ginger, shallots and garlic once the juice has been squeezed out of them (well done Hoe Yee for resourcefulness). So, the recipe asked for tapioca flour in the marinade, which I can't get, so I used cornflour instead. Also, the recipe wanted the chicken to be deep-fried, but I shallow-fried it then finished it off in the oven. I was supposed to deep-fry the ginger remnants too, but I shallow-fried them. All this shallow-frying was my downfall. The marinade on the outside of the chicken ended up a little burnt (as you can tell from the picture), and I also managed to burn the ginger remnants as well, because I was trying to fry them enough to get crispy. All that burnt flavour (especially because there was garlic in there) left it a little bitter. Even if it wasn't burnt, the fried ginger and shallots had a really strong flavour; they're hot and powerful stuff. Not the best dish I've cooked from this book by a long way.

Despite the horrible events that I mentioned in the last post, my parents and I went ahead with the holiday we had planned, which was a trip to York.

I had never been to York or Yorkshire before, except for zooming through it on the train. And because our last family break to Winchester was so interesting (during which time we were also grieving for the loss of a family member; for God's sake, we need to stop making this a habit), I persuaded my parents that our next trip should be to York. I have always wanted to go; I had heard that York was a boon for fans of history and, not gonna lie, I also wanted to see where the events in "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" were set XD

York lived up to my expectations fantastically. Everything there is so old and so interesting. As a result, this post is extremely photo-heavy. You have been warned!

For the practical parts of staying in York:
1. It's a fairly small city centre that's easily walkable. We stayed near Clifton, on the north-west side of the centre, so walked into town along Bootham every day.
2. Because York is old and interesting it is crammed with tourists, particularly large tourist groups and (on weekends) hen parties. Be prepared to fight with crowds. If it all gets too much, I recommend crossing to the west side of the river Ouse, where things are much quieter.
3. Because York is crammed with tourists, there are tonnes of attractions and almost none of them are free. Winchester had two great, free local museums, but not so York. I am unimpressed. We focussed on walking the streets and walking the walls, which are both free, and then we paid to go in the Minster. Having ignored all the other museums, I can't say what they're like, but the Minster is definitely a good one to choose if you plan to pay an entrance fee; there was tonnes to see, including a great museum in the crypt.

Right. This post is so long that I'm going to give you a table of contents:

1. "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" sites:
1a. Ye Olde Starre Inne, Stonegate
1b. High Petergate
1c. Lady Peckett's Yard
1d. Coffee Yard
1e. Coney Street
1f. The Minster
2. The walls
3. Everything else

1a - "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" sites: Ye Olde Starre Inne, Stonegate

Ye Olde Starre Inne, meeting place of the Learned Society of York Magicians. It claims to be the oldest pub in York, and for that we can forgive the sickeningly twee spelling in the name. How could I go to York without visiting this place?

Here is the sign on Stonegate proclaiming the location of the pub. This sign is needed because the pub doesn't face the street; instead, to get there you have to go down a tiny little alleyway. (Warning, if you get stuck in the pub during a torrential downpour, as we did, the little alleyway will turn into a swimming pool. Then a gutter will burst just as your Dad walks under it, which will be both surprising and hilarious, to you, in equal measure.)

The little alleyway opens into this equally-small courtyard.

This board is the only mention of Strange and Norrell that I saw in the whole of York (York, you are missing a trick there; get your act together).

Unfortunately, the interior of the pub wasn't anywhere near as interesting as I hoped it would be. I could be wrong, but it looked to me like a very generic Victorian/20th Century restoration job. This glass window was the only part that caused me any excitement. Despite the pub claiming to be very old (and 1644 isn't that old anyway), I have been in plenty of pubs that looked far older and more interesting. The Starre Inne is full of tourists, uninteresting on the eye, and overpriced. My recommendation: take a photo of the sign then get out.

As an aside, a far more charming pub in my opinion was the Blue Bell on Fossgate. This pub doesn't claim to be old, but the decor is Edwardian dark panelling, fireplaces and patterned carpets. It's really small, really cosy, and contains everything my mind conjures up when it hears the words "English pub".

1b - "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" sites: High Petergate

High Petergate, home of the Honeyfoots. Despite the huge numbers of tourists walking along it, I loved this street. We walked into town through Bootham Bar most days (see the walls section of the post for a picture of Bootham Bar), and it was so charming to see the street, and the Minster behind, emerge as you walked through the archway.

This ornate sign is at the crossroads between Petergate and Stonegate, which are (as I learned) the two main roads of the Roman fortress that originally stood on the site. How's that for ancient history?

I spent a lot of time trying to work out which house the Honeyfoots lived in, but I couldn't quite make up my mind.

1c - "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" sites: Lady Peckett's Yard

Lady Peckett's Yard, home of Mr Segundus (in some cold garret or other). Now this is where I really began to fall in love with York, and also where I began to think that Susanna Clarke only filled her novel with the streets she liked the best. How can you not be charmed by Lady Peckett's Yard? (Of course, to the 19th Century mind, it would presumably seem cramped and old-fashioned and not the sort of place that anyone with any money would choose to live.)

This gloriously-wonky building hides the entrance to Lady Peckett's Yard. The entrance is the little doorway on the right-hand side.

Here's a close-up of the doorway.

And here is the narrow, half-timbered wonder of Lady Peckett's Yard.

It was this that really introduced me to the snickelways of York, which are tiny alleyways that lead from one street to another. Some are long, some are very short, but almost all of them begin with what just looks like a doorway in an old house. (The word "snickelway" itself is sadly a modern invention. The alleyways, however, look very much like the sort of cramped lanes and yards that were a feature of many medieval towns and cities before most of them were cleared away in the 19th and 20th Centuries.)

1d - "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" sites: Coffee Yard

I was now clutching at straws and scouring my copy of Strange and Norrell to find other streets in York that were mentioned. After all, the streets I had found so far were so charming that I wanted to see more.

Coffee Yard is the site of Thoroughgood's bookshop, which Norrell was known to frequent (or rather, Childermass on Norrell's behalf, one imagines).

Coffee Yard is a really long snickelway. Halfway down is Barley Hall, a medieval house that's open as an attraction (for a fee, of course). Travelling down Coffee Yard is a fun piece of exploration. It also acts as a great shortcut if you want to cross town without running into too many crowds.

1e - "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" sites: Coney Street

Coney Street is where Mr Robinson, Norrell's attorney, has his business (I told you I was clutching at straws!) Coney Street contains a lot of modern shops (with a few old half-timbered buildings, which all York streets seem to contain) so there isn't that much to look at. However, I was really taken by the church of St Martin le Grand.

This church looks odd because it's a patched-up repair job after the church was badly bombed in the Second World War. The clock was apparently remade at that time, although the little figure standing on top of the clock is original. I can't get over the clock. It is so huge! I have never seen a clock that size so low on a building before. It gives the street a very odd look, as if you are dreaming and your mind is making up things that shouldn't be there in real life.

1f - "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" sites: the Minster

I have saved the best Strange and Norrell site till last because I took so many photos of it. For anyone who has read the book, the Minster is the place where it all began, where Norrell made all the statues move and talk, proving that magic had returned to England.

You can tell why Susanna Clarke choose the Minster for this scene. It is the most impressive building in all of York, and... well, let's just have it in her own words, shall we?

"And I hope that all my readers are acquainted with an old English Cathedral town or I fear the significance of Mr Norrell's chusing that particular place will be lost upon them. They must understand that in an old Cathedral town the great old church is not one building among many; it is the building - different from all others in scale, beauty and solemnity. Even in modern times when an old Cathedral town may have provided itself with all the elegant appurtenances of civic buildings, assembly and meeting rooms (and York was well-stocked with these) the Cathedral rises above them - a witness to the devotion of our forefathers. It is as if the town contains within itself something larger than itself. When going about one's business in the muddle of narrow streets one is sure to lose sight of the Cathedral, but then the town will open out and suddenly it is there, many times taller and many times larger than any other building, and one realizes that one has reached the heart of the town and that all streets and lanes have in some way led here, to a place of mysteries much deeper than any Mr Norrell knew of."

This passage holds true, even in the 21st Century. There aren't many tall buildings in York, so you can still see the Minster from miles around (you'll notice this in some of my later photos).

The west door, which I had to take a photo of because I recognised it from the TV show. "I will not sign." But no matter how much I loitered on the steps, I never managed to look as brooding as Childermass.

The interior of the Minster was full of people, but the building is so tall it just swallows them up. And there's so much to look at. We were there for about two and a half hours, and then had to come back the next day for another two and a half.

There's restoration work happening to the quire screen, hence the scaffolding.

When we reached the east end of the Minster, just behind the high altar, the heavy rain outside turned into thunder and lightening. Meanwhile, the organist decided to start their organ practice. There is something very special about sitting in the gloom of that place, hearing the roll of the thunder accompanied by organ music. Honestly, if all the bells had started ringing at once I wouldn't have been surprised; it felt right.

Which is an interesting thought to me. Doubtless, the grandeur of the architecture has something to do with the magical feeling in the place. But I think it also shows just how deeply Christianity is ingrained into our culture that I, who was raised an atheist, am still affected by the atmosphere in there.

Also interesting to me was that down in the crypt there were a couple of Roman ruins exposed (showing the ruins of the Roman fortress that was on the same site). The Roman ruins were lower than the ground level of the crypt, and when you looked down the holes with them in, you would sometimes see water. In every one of these holes were modern coins that had been thrown in. How is that for continuity of belief? It's a far older tradition than Christianity (it sounds like it's closer to offerings the Romans made, if you ask me), but if people see a bit of water like that, they have to throw coins in for good luck. It just goes to show how much religious ritual is absorbed rather than specifically learned. Ask anyone nowadays why they threw a coin in a well, and they would only be able to give you a vague answer. But in the depths of our culture, coins and water are linked with the supernatural, just as much as churches, extremes of weather, and the ringing of bells.

tl;dr there was thunder while we were in the Minster and it was cool!

Perhaps one of my favourite places in the Minster was the chapter house. I mean, just look at it. This is where the most important members of the clergy did their work, so of course it would be one of the prettiest places.

Look up in the chapter house and this is the ceiling.

Now, this wouldn't be a Strange and Norrell-inspired trip to the Minster without imagining what it would have been like if all the statues in the building began to talk. So I decided to take as many photos of statues as I could. (Of course I couldn't get anywhere near close to photographing them all. There are so many of them! They have colonised the whole building!)

Let's start with the chapter house. At first you don't notice the little statues, but when you begin to look closely you see them.

Every head in the chapter house is different and they all have their own personalities (some of them, not very religious at all). Look at this guy having fun!

Some of the statues in the Minster look new (there's an ongoing restoration project) but some look forlorn and neglected. There are actually many that appear to be headless on purpose, due to zealous destruction in the reformation. And when you look around you, you realise that there are many more plinths that once held statues and are now empty. You have to wonder what the place would have looked like in medieval times, with all of the statues in their places and most painted. I can't even imagine.

In the east end of the church are lots of memorial statues, many to archbishops, like this one. I like his style. So laid-back!

This is a much earlier version of the same pose. Not so laid-back.

It was actually really interesting to compare how statue styles changed over the centuries. Here's another old-style one, with the figures devoutly kneeling.

And a similar monument in a much more informal, later style.

This guy was presumably praying, before his hands were cut off.

Here we have the famous Kings' screen, all boarded up. Apparently it had only been boarded up for about two days, but the restoration work will last for months or years. I'm so miffed we got our timing wrong!

When thinking about statues talking, you have to wonder if paintings count too, because there were a number of those. This lovely renaissance one (look at that perspective!) was hidden away in a side chapel with no-one paying any attention. Note, also, that it's still surrounded by statues.

Would carvings count? Like these on the horn of Ulf down in the crypt? Honestly, this is one of the best things I saw. I can't get over it. Did you know it's actually a deed for landholding? A Viking deed. Made out of an elephant's tusk. Mind=blown.

And finally, there are all the statues on the outside of the Minster too. Note the row of heads underneath the window. Also note the many niches that no longer hold statues any more.

What a place. When writing the Minster scene, Susanna Clarke definitely knew what she was about.

2. The walls

Right, let's move away from Strange and Norrell and back into real life, because even without the book connection, York is such a fascinating place to walk around. On one day we decided to walk the walls (it's free!)

The city walls in York are in a ridiculously good state of preservation. I mean, I know that most of the path you're walking on is fairly recent, but for the walls to be tall enough for a path to be reconstructed is astounding. Plus, so many of the old gates still survive. In some towns you will get one or two gates; in York there are more than I can count. Well done to the people of York for not destroying them! (I mean, you have to wonder if their survival relates a lack of 19th Century industrialisation, so there just wasn't the commercial pressure to remove the walls as there was in other places. In which case, well done, stagnation!)

We started, as we did almost every day, with Bootham Bar. Remember, this is the gate at the end of High Petergate. (While we're here, a word on naming: "gate" in York street names doesn't mean gate, but is instead a Viking word for street, so most streets have "gate" in their name without having an actual gate on the street. Are you with me? Meanwhile, to avoid confusion with the street names (one assumes), the actual gates in the walls aren't called gates but "bars". Yes I still got confused with it, even after a whole week.)

On some parts of the walls you can see the moat on the other side. Like many city walls, they were first built by the Romans, and then added to and embellished in later centuries. The last time the York walls were used for defence was during the civil war.

So many times when walking the walls you would turn around and suddenly see the Minster looming above everything.

Monk Bar.

There's still an old toilet in the walls. The waste would drop down into the moat (or on your enemies if they were trying to invade, I suppose). I can't get enough of old toilets; it really helps to bring history to life to see everyday ordinary stuff.

The Red Tower. This wasn't one of the main bars, but was instead one of a number of posterns (I just learnt the word!) It's the only tower in the walls to be made of brick instead of stone (which apparently made the stonemasons so angry they went on a murdering spree).

Next to the Red Tower used to be a huge, man-made lake for defence. On the right-hand side of the tower you can still see the toilet (another one!) that used to empty into the lake. There's no lake at all there now, just a long stretch of road with no wall and the name Foss Islands Road.

Walmgate Bar. This used to be a very poor area of town (there's still council housing there now) so there was less commercial pressure to relieve the traffic, which is why this is the only bar to retain its barbican (an extra gate-y bit at the front to make it even harder for attackers to get in).

In Walmgate Bar it's really easy to see how it was altered to make it more comfortable to live in. Surprisingly, most of the bars were used as residential accommodation, even from very early days. It helped pay for the upkeep, I suppose. But can you imagine living in there? I love the thought of living in a little gatehouse!

Fishergate Bar. This one is so small against the others! I forget if it has been dismantled or if it was always that small. (Did it burn down at one point?) I can remember reading that lunatics were supposedly locked up in the towers in Fishergate Bar. Oh God the poor people!

Fishergate Postern. This is another one with an obvious toilet, but the toilet didn't make it into the photo. This tower stands on a road now, but the River Foss used to come up to its edge, I think.

On the other side of the River Foss was the Norman castle! Other than a few bits of wall, the only part of the castle that stands is the keep, known as Clifford's Tower. I believe the technical term for a castle that looks like this is "on the piss".

When we walked past the castle, there were two young kids on the grass having a big fight with plastic swords and shields. They were having a great time, fighting by a real castle, let me tell you.

Near Clifford's Tower the wall continues down to the next river, the Ouse. This is Davy Tower, the tower right beside the river, although at some point the tower got converted into a house. As with other towers on the river, a chain could be run from Davy Tower to a Tower on the opposite bank to stop people from entering York via the river (whether the chain was to stop attackers or just to stop traders from sneaking in without paying tolls, I don't know).

On the other bank of the river was once another Norman castle, built by William the Conqueror to help with the harrying of the north. I don't like that part of the story; it's too sad. The population of York was devastated, just like the rest of the north of England. (It makes it quite easy to imagine a fictional world where the locals would support a new invading king, because surely he's got to be better than the Normans, even if his army is made of fairies.)

Victoria Bar, built (unsurprisingly) during Victorian times. More interestingly, when they built the Bar they discovered the remains of an old, blocked-up gate that everyone had forgotten about. It is thought that the blocked up gate was the medieval Lounelith (meaning "secluded gate").

(As an aside, between the now-lost second castle and Victoria Bar, there is a tower that, I kid you not, is called Bitchdaughter Tower. Bitchdaughter. Tower.)

Micklegate Bar. This is apparently the fanciest of the bars because it faces south, so is the bar that the King would use to enter the city.

Just take a moment to appreciate how, like a number of the other bars, there is still a working road running through Micklegate Bar. Traffic has passed through there for centuries and centuries!

Back round to the River Ouse again and we get to Barker Tower. I loved this tower; it's so cute with its tiled roof.

Over the river from Barker Tower is Lendal Tower. As I've mentioned before, a chain could be run between both towers to stop people from entering the City via the river. The bridge connecting the two is Victorian; before it was built, I think a ferry ran between the two banks at this point.

Across the river you can no longer walk on top of the walls, so have to view them from the side. This is the Multangular Tower. The bottom part of the wall and tower, with the red stripe, is proper Roman (the tower makes up one of the four corners of the old Roman fortress).

After the Multangular Tower, the walls continue for a little way, but then disappear because a 19th Century road was cut through them. They start again with Bootham Bar, which is the gate where we began the wall walk. We didn't hang around for long at the end of the walk though, because it had started to rain.

3. Everything else

York was such a pretty place to walk around, so I took as many photos as I could. The place has medieval half-timbered buildings around every corner, with much of the rest of the architecture being Georgian. Compared to other cities, only a tiny fraction of the buildings in the centre of York are Victorian or later.

Continuing with the wall theme, very close to Bootham Bar you get this section of wall. These aren't actually the city walls, but are instead the walls of St Mary's Abbey, which sat just outside of the city. This Abbey was huge and very wealthy, until Henry VIII got to it.

On the other corner of the Abbey walls is this funny round tower. I have come to the conclusion that I love round towers with tiled roofs like that; it's like it's wearing a little hat!

Here are the ruins of the Abbey itself. The Abbey grounds are really quite big; we spent a lot of time walking through them.

Near the Abbey is the King's Manor, which is a building that looks like it's been in occupation for a long time. I love staring at buildings like these and trying to work out where old windows and doors used to be.

A view of the Minster from the Abbey grounds. I think the building in front is still the King's Manor.

Near the Abbey, but this time inside the old city walls, is another old religious institution: St Leonard's Hospital. Again, the hospital didn't make it past the dissolution of the monasteries.

Part of the crypt of the hospital is still standing.

This image was taken from on top of the mound that Clifford's Tower stands on. Being the old castle, this area of York has been used for law and order for centuries. The grassy area is called the Eye of York. The building on the right is York Crown Court. The other two buildings used to be prisons.

Not far from the wall walk, we found this old Victorian chimney. I forget what it was for; a waste disposal site?

Next door to the Minster is the church of St Michael le Belfrey. I haven't been able to work out if the church is related to the Minster in any way, or what the church's strange name means. If anyone could let me know, I would be grateful!

Behind the Minster is this lovely old building, which is now a conference centre. It's called St William's College, and like so much in York, was used for religious purposes. I think members of the clergy lived there?

Outside the Minster we also have this statue of Constantine the Great, who was proclaimed emperor while in York. I love this statue. Look at him. He doesn't give a shit. He doesn't care one iota about anything.

Micklegate. This is so clearly an old street. Look at that building with the projecting storeys on the right. However, this photo was taken at about 5:30pm on a Saturday evening. Already the street was getting a bit lary. Which was odd. 95% of the time York is quaint, pleasant and touristy, but on a Saturday evening the city lets its hair down and things get real.

We never went into the Golden Fleece. (By the way, the building next door to it on the right is the building that contains the entrance to Lady Peckett's Yard.) Apparently the Golden Fleece is meant to be really haunted? I don't know; I didn't pay much attention to that part, but look at the cool ghost cat statue above the window!

There are cat statues all over York. You can even follow a walking trail that will take in all of them. Of course we had to do the cat walking trail. It's a good little walk, and the cats are on some interesting buildings. One of my favourite parts was walking down a street called Bartle Garth, because the street name cracked me up; I insisted on calling it Slartibartfast.

The Shambles, as seen from the Shambles Market. I loved the Shambles. The buildings are so old, and so wonky, and they still contain period features! Unfortunately, the Shambles was always so busy that I couldn't really take photos of it. The busiest part was by a Harry Potter shop (is there some kind of Harry Potter connection to York that I don't know about?) and I have never been more glad that I am not a Harry Potter fan; the queue for that shop looked excruciating.

Merchant Adventurers' Hall. There were actually quite a few guild halls in York. That, coupled with the large number of churches, just goes to show how big and how busy York was in the middle ages. Of the guild halls, Merchant Adventurers' Hall was the best-looking from the outside, in my opinion.

Now for something a lot more Georgian: the Assembly Rooms. This building is currently an ASK Italian restaurant. I forced my parents to eat there so we could see inside.

The interior of the Assembly Rooms does not disappoint.

Goodramgate. Look at those jetties! Like most York streets, Goodramgate has tonnes of old buildings just hanging out and doing everyday stuff, as if their survival over the centuries wasn't exceptional.

Also Goodramgate. This row of houses is called Lady Row. They don't look as swish as the last photo, but apparently they're the oldest row of houses in York, built in 1316. 13 - bloody - 16! Behind them is Holy Trinity Church, which you can't see, because the houses were built in the churchyard, specifically so the rents could go to the upkeep of the church.

1316!

Finally, York contained lots of ridiculous, touristy shops, like this one that specialised in Viking-themed goods. I had to stop and take this photo, because how could I go to York without taking a photo of a raven? (Shut up, yes it might be a crow, but for my purposes it's a raven.)

In conclusion: I loved York. I loved it! So much history everywhere! We hardly scratched the surface. Since coming back to London, I've been watching nonstop documentaries about York's history and moping about the fact that my holiday is over.

When can I go back?

I had a birthday recently. It was, without doubt, the worst birthday I've ever had.

This year I worked on my birthday, which I don't normally like to do, but I don't have much choice in my current job. It was a stressful day. Still, I had lots of birthday messages to perk me up. I left work planning to go home and ring my Nan to thank her for the money she sent me. Instead I was greeted by a phonecall from my Mum telling me that my Nan had just had a major stroke. Nan never recovered, and died two weeks later.

So, I doubt you will blame me for wishing I never have a birthday like that ever again.

My Nan was a month and a half short of her 90th birthday (we were already planning a big party for her) so she had a good innings. And her health was never good for as long as I've known her, so this wasn't particularly a surprise. She had never had a stroke before this year though. Her first was a mini one a few months ago, and the angry part of me wonders why they didn't put her on something more preventative after that early-warning sign. Still, futile anger won't do much. Strokes come unexpectedly; that's their raison d'être. I'm just glad she didn't suffer for too long afterwards; she was confused after the stroke and wasn't comfortable.

Goodbye, Nan. You loved your family so much and always made me feel wanted. Not to mention, your love of food and of cooking has passed through the generations so clearly. Just ask any of your children or grandchildren what we had for dinner yesterday and we won't shut up about it. I certainly wouldn't have made any of my food posts without you <3

She was a warm and kind-hearted lady who will be missed.

In other news, I got some presents and stuff. Let's use those to lighten the tone, shall we?

Cards. The tallest one on the left is from my Nan xx

The most astounding card came from Nick. It was a little cat puzzle that you could put together into an ornament!

Cooking presents, including a tea-towel from Mariya that cracks me up. The cookbook apparently features photos from the daughter of one of my Mum's friends. The groundnut supper club are based near where I used to live in South East London, and most of their recipes are inspired by food from various countries in Africa. I've eaten hardly any African food, so I'm excited to see what it's like. And the Angry Chef book is my new favourite thing. I requested it after reading through the Angry Chef blog. It uses scientific knowledge to take down some of the many crazy diet fads out there (detoxing?? avoiding gluten without being advised to by a doctor??? juice cleanses????? keto??????????) I highly recommend the book (and the blog) to everyone because it cuts through the whole jungle of contrary advice out there (truly, a lot of the "advice" that comes from YouTube, food blogs, and Instagram sounds like orthorexia waiting to happen). One of the best things about the book is that it shows you how to understand scientific evidence and judge for yourself if any diet being sold to you is bullshit or not. Read it.

Food presents. My favourite tea (although they recently altered the blend to one I don't like quite as much). Yummy strawberry cat sweets. And strange Japanese sweets from Mariya. The Taiyaki and Odango kit in the top right was complex and messy but lots of fun (even if the finished product tasted unnervingly like medicine). Thankfully, I found English instructions for the kit here.

Everything else, including cute hair ties, notebook and face mask from Mariya. And CAT PANTS CAT PANTS CAT PANTS from James and Eppa. CAT PANTS. THEY HAVE EARS. I AM TERRIFIED. CAT PANTS.

My parents gave me the money for a new printer, because the HP one I had was awful. I had only owned the HP printer for six months before it decided that it didn't want to print anything without smudging parts and missing out others. It was truly terrible. I've had other HP products that work splendidly, but by God I'm never buying an HP printer again. Before the HP printer I had a trusty little Canon that worked solidly for 14 years, so I got a Canon again this time. I've used it once so far with no issues, so fingers crossed!

My Nan gave me £20 that I put towards a new pair of brogues. I normally buy really cheap brogues that wear out super quick, so I'm hoping these proper leather ones will last much longer. Sigh. I never got to say thank you to Nan for the money, but I did wear these shoes the last time I saw her (she was already unconscious by then). Thanks, Nan, for the shoes, and for 34 years of love and support <3 <3 <3

I've got quite a few photos to share with you today. I hadn't cooked any new recipes for ages, but then suddenly I cooked a lot in a row. It seems I was feeing optimistic, with mixed results.

Creamy vegetable casserole
After eating all that chicken in my last post, I was fancying something veggie and easy. This recipe looked to be just the ticket. The only problem is: it turns out it's not very nice. Oh, it's not horrible; just boring and badly-cooked. I say badly-cooked, because I found that the cooking time was not nearly long enough to cook such large chunks of courgette and leek. (Have you ever tried chewing your way through an inch of raw leek? You shouldn't.) Maybe I'm at fault for using a pan that was too small. Maybe. At the same time, the dish is boring because it tastes of shop-bought leek and potato soup and nothing else. Why go to all that trouble when all you're going to get at the end of it is leek and potato soup? You'd get a much nicer result if you just heated up the soup as per package instructions and then cooked up the potatoes and veg on the side.

Chicken legs with Portuguese sauce (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
I wasn't sure what to make of this recipe at first glance. (That's a feeling I experience a lot with this book, because it's a food culture that I'm not familiar with.) The recipe talks of "Portuguese sauce" like I'm supposed to know what that is. I've never heard of it! And potatoes? I've certainly not heard of a sauce that contains potato chunks before. It turns out there's nothing to be worried about. The chicken is deep-fried (or rather: pan-fried then baked in the oven, as I prefer to do it), and then topped with a sauce that's thick, rich, sweet and ever-so-slightly peanut-y. It was really really nice.

Chili and "Sichuan" pepper chicken legs (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
And another one I wasn't sure about! The picture that came with the recipe looked nice, but I'd eaten Sichuan pepper only once before. Would it be too hot with all that chilli as well? The cooking method was also a bit weird. In this one you steam the chicken legs for 20 minutes, then deep-fry them. I have never heard of steaming followed by deep-frying before. Of course, I didn't deep-fry mine. I steamed for 30 minutes (to ensure the chicken would be cooked by the end of the process) then pan-fried for 20 minutes. The other change I made to the recipe was in not adding the Chinese rice wine to the marinade. The result, however, was actually nice! Not only was the thin sauce sweet, savoury and fresh, but the chilli wasn't too hot either. Maybe the lack of heat was because the chilli was paired with the Sichuan pepper which has more of a cold mouthfeel, like mint. Speaking of mouthfeel: as I say, I had only eaten Sichuan pepper once before, and not in nearly as high a quantity as this. Which means I did not realise that Sichuan pepper not only feels cold, it feels tingly. I was almost halfway through the dish before I noticed the sensation, and I had to do some quick googling about Sichuan pepper to make sure that this was normal and that I wasn't dying (spoiler: it was indeed normal and not at all dangerous). In the end, though, the Sichuan pepper still defeated me (spiritually, rather than physically). The tingling sensation was pleasant, but this quantity of Sichuan pepper leaves the dish with a bitter aftertaste that I didn't quite like. Half the amount of Sichuan pepper and it would have been lovely.

Crispy fried chicken (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
Look at that chicken! This recipe doesn't lie: you certainly do end up with crispy chicken. It's all due to the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in the batter. Speaking of batter, the recipe called for plain flour, tapioca flour and wheat starch. Seeing how I could only find plain flour, I used a mix of plain flour and cornflour instead, which seemed to work fine. Oh, I also left the Shaoxing wine out of the marinade. Please bear in mind that this was not an easy dish to make. Not only do you have to deep-fry the chicken (I pan-fried it, then baked it in the oven; you know me by now), but the marinade also calls for ginger, red shallot and garlic juice. Ignoring the fact that I don't know what red shallots are, so used normal shallots instead, I. Still. Hate. Juicing. Things. It takes so long! But, then, I know that the taste at the end is usually worth it! And, true to form, this recipe did taste nice (if slightly greasy on the batter side of things), but it also tastes much like other fried chicken recipes in the same book. I'm not sure I'd bother with this one again, but it was worth trying once, if only to see how crispy that batter was.

Fondant fancies (recipe from "Mother's Little Book of Home-Baked Treats")
Be prepared for an essay here, guys. You see, the reason why I found that last recipe such a chore is because I'd already spent most of the day making these. (Cleanup afterwards was of nightmare proportions.) The recipe for these fondant fancies looks so daunting (the ingredients list alone is enough to induce a panic attack). And guess what: the recipe was just as daunting to make as I thought it would be! And then, after all that time and effort, instead of the beautiful cakes in the picture provided with the recipe, you end up with the wonky, lumpy fools above. Let's backtrack. Making these took two days. And it says it will, right there in the recipe. You bake the cake on one day, leave it overnight (to dry out? idk) and then decorate the next. I had thought that the baking bit would be easy (hence why I'd scheduled making fried chicken on the same day). Turns out it's one of the most convoluted cake recipes I've ever found. The cake mix contains almonds, lemon zest, lemon juice, and milk, as well as all the usual stuff, all of which has to be sieved or whisked or folded and then added to the mix a bit at a time. At least, after all that effort, I ended up with a cake that was a good height (even if I had forgotten to turn it while baking, so it was darker on one side than the other; and I had forgotten to loosen the sides before turning it out, so a little chunk was left in the pan). Next day, however, the fun really began! First I had to cut the cake in half to spread over lemon curd; then cover the top in marzipan, after a quick spreading of sieved, heated apricot jam (to act as glue). I had not done any of these things before! (My God was this a learning process.) Then the cake had to be cut into little individual cakes, and it turns out I neglected to trim off the crusts from the sides of the big cake, which caused me to get my maths wrong, which then resulted in unevenly sized individual cakes. Next fun job was covering the little cakes in fondant icing. Alas, the icing process was scuppered at the first hurdle when I discovered that the recipe had told me to buy fondant icing sugar rather than the normal icing sugar I had mistakenly bought instead (I hadn't even realised fondant icing sugar was a thing!) Turns out I wasn't going to make fondant fancies after all, but just... fancies. So, hating everything already, I made up the icing using the normal icing sugar, some food colouring, and far more lemon juice than the recipe stated (maybe because I had the wrong type of sugar?) Then I stuck a fork into the bottom of one of the cakes, as directed by the recipe, held it over the bowl of icing, and watched the cake immediately crumble into the bowl. I fished out all the now-gloopy cake crumbs that I could (while swearing) and attempted to ice the next cake; this cake also decided that it did not have enough to live for and promptly collapsed into the bowl of icing. By this point I was losing faith in the world, had definitely lost the pristine crumb-free shine on my icing, and had somehow managed to splot icing over a large part of the kitchen, despite having not yet iced a single cake successfully. So, I regrouped, remembered how much everyone had hated making fondant fancies on the Bake Off (I realised at this point that I had given myself my own Technical Challenge; why did I do this to myself? Why?) added a lot of water to my icing to thin it out, and started again. You see, the aim of the recipe was to use the fork to hold the cake over the bowl of icing, then to spoon the icing over the cake to coat it. The reason this didn't work for me was because the cake was so crumbly that sticking a fork into it broke it apart, and because the icing itself was so thick that it didn't coat the cakes but instead acted like a wrecking ball and blasted the cakes to pieces upon impact. My eventual response was to not stick the fork into the cake after all, but to only balance the cake on the flat part of the fork; then, carefully, with the thinner icing, I was able to slowly spoon icing over each cake. It was messy and tedious and sticky and I hadn't even used the right kind of icing and why would anyone spend the time doing this when shop-bought fondant fancies are so cheap and tasty? The problem with this recipe in particular is that the cakes aren't given a crumb coat of buttercream before they're iced, meaning that there isn't a smooth finish on the sides of the cake and meaning also that plenty of crumbs fall into the icing, which then prevents there from being a smooth finish on the marzipan-covered top of the cake either. Hence why my cakes look rather lumpy and ugly. After leaving the icing to dry for an hour (while I quietly seethed with pent-up frustration) it was then time to make some royal icing and use it to pipe patterns on the top of the cakes. By this point I was so done, and I think it probably shows in my half-arsed decorations. Never again will I be making these. My God! But, the silver lining is that these cakes ended up tasting superb! The lemon curd and the extra lemon juice I had added to the icing made them really lemony. Surprisingly, the lemon went really well with the almond from the sponge and from the marzipan (and I can't normally stand marzipan at all). The cake might have been too crumbly to have stuck a fork in it for icing, but this meant that it was really moist and wonderful to eat (presumably the moistness comes from the ground almonds in the cake batter). I took the fondant fancies to work and saw multiple occasions where people ate one, then went immediately back for a second helping. My boss even called them "the nicest cakes I've ever eaten", but she was probably exaggerating. Either way, they were a real success in everything except for the way they looked. Was the great taste and texture worth the stress of making them? Hell no.

Japanese style baked chicken legs (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
This recipe started with juicing some ginger. My favourite thing to do! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ Once done, though, the rest of the recipe was easy: marinate, bake, brush on sauce and bake a bit more. I baked mine for 50 minutes, so I waited for 40 minutes before brushing on the sauce, rather than the 20 minutes given in the recipe. I didn't add the rice wine or Shaoxing wine to this recipe, so it probably didn't taste as Japanese as it should have done. That said, it was tasty: sweet, and soy sauce-y with a bit of ginger. Nothing much to write home about, but pleasant.

Chicken Caesar burger
I could only find large ciabatta rolls, so this burger was a beast. Look at it! Eating it felt like a marathon. It was tasty though, and this is coming from someone who isn't the world's biggest chicken Caesar fan. You know, it was surprising just how accurately this burger tasted like a chicken Caesar salad. I think the mayonnaise sauce is the key (and I had been worried that the anchovies would make the sauce horrible, but you actually couldn't notice them; they just added to the overall Caesariness of the dish). My only complaint is that the recipe tells you to fry the chicken for 8 minutes, but mine was still really pink by that point. I cooked it for far far longer; it was still moist when it was done, but the garlic on the outside of the chicken had burnt, adding an unpleasant flavour. Maybe I hadn't flattened my chicken enough beforehand? I tried to flatten it as much as the recipe asked, but flattening a whole chicken breast is surprisingly hard. Oh, and I didn't use parmesan flakes on top of the chicken; just grated parmesan, but I don't think that affected the taste one jot.

I only have four recipes to write up for this food post. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been kinda busy recently. But, also, these recipes somehow left me with a lot of half-used ingredients that I wanted to finish up before getting stuck into too many more recipes and generating even more open perishables.

Grasmere ginger shortbread with ginger cream filling (recipe from "The Great British Bake Off Big Book of Baking" by Linda Collister)
Hmmm. I'm not sure what to make of this one. The original recipe in the book is just for the ginger shortbread, but then there's this little paragraph at the end saying how you can posh them up by sandwiching the shortbread fingers together with ginger cream. So I went for the cream version. Does this look posh to you??? Maybe it's not obvious from the photo, but these were the size of actual bricks. Dainty is one thing they're not. Plus the shortbread is quite hard to bite (while the outside of it is really sandy and crumbly, which makes it difficult for the cream to stick) and the cream is soft. Basically, if you try to eat these, you quickly end up with cream and crumbs everywhere. I should add that I had to alter the recipe slightly, because it calls for stem ginger in syrup, but the shop was out of that, so I had to substitute with crystallised ginger. When it comes to taste, the shortbread itself tastes wholesome as opposed to indulgent; I think it's the addition of wholemeal flour and oatmeal. It's not unpleasant. The cream, however, should be nice, but I must have used an ingredient that was past its use-by date, because the cream tasted stale somehow. In conclusion: if you fancy some earthy and not-too-sweet gingerbread then give it a go. Just, for God's sake, don't sandwich them together with cream; don't be that person.

Chilli bean crumble
This is one of those dishes that sounds better than it tastes. You have all these hearty ingredients plus the punch of vegetarian haggis. (I'd never had veggie haggis before; but it's full of salty and umami flavours, much like normal haggis.) Yet, despite all the ingredients, this dish has a very bland, same-y taste; every mouthful tastes like paprika and cinnamon and nothing else. It's boring and heavy and dry. If it weren't for the fact that the textures keep things mildly interesting (the green lentils added a nice bite) it would have been difficult to eat a whole bowlful. Speaking of whole bowlfuls, this dish is really filling; don't attempt to eat it with bread on the side like I did. In fact, don't attempt to eat it at all; it's not worth the effort of cooking it. Yet I can't help feeling that a splash of something sweet and sharp (balsamic vinegar perhaps?) would have made it 5x better.

Shrimp paste fried chicken (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
Look at that fried chicken. A tad burnt, perhaps, but so golden in colour! So crunchy! Alas, my friends, the picture can't convey how bad it smelled, nor how bad it tasted. (On the up-side, if you like shrimp paste, you are going to love this dish.) Basically, the recipe was originally called "Belacan" fried chicken. Belacan is Malaysian shrimp paste that is sold in big, solid blocks. I couldn't find any belacan (or any toasted belacan powder, as listed in the recipe) so I instead bought a jar of Thai shrimp paste, which is less solid and more wet. In an attempt to turn it into toasted powder, I then heated it in a frying pan until it turned dry and crumbly. So, I don't know how pan-toasted Thai shrimp paste holds up to belacan, but I have come to understand that Thai shrimp paste is an acquired taste. And it is very much a taste that I haven't yet acquired. Now, I had thought that Thai fish sauce smells bad. But, personally, I think the shimp paste is worse. It smells like a cross between fish food, cat food, and wet dog. And, joy of joys, it tastes exactly how it smells! This recipe really doesn't hold back when it comes to letting the shrimp paste take centre stage. The chicken tastes entirely of shrimp paste; there is nowhere to hide. So, not being a fan of shrimp paste, I found this chicken particularly unpalateable. (I have since discovered that I can eat shrimp paste quite happily, as long as there's only a small quantity of it and you throw loads of really strong flavours on top; it adds great depth to a Thai curry, and you don't even realise it's there!) A few notes about alterations to the recipe. I was meant to batter the chicken with tapioca flour and wheat starch, but couldn't find either so used a mixture of plain flour and cornflour instead. The recipe also calls for the chicken to be deep-fried, but that is too scary to me, so I side-stepped it by shallow-frying the chicken before shoving it in the oven. One more thing about shrimp paste. Your kitchen will smell very strongly of shrimp paste afterwards. For about a week. If, like me, you hang up your coats in your open-plan kitchen/living room, be prepared to smell of shrimp paste every time you leave the house. What can I say? It was a learning experience; I have learnt many deep and valuable truths.

Baked chicken legs with shallot garlic (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
And here we have the dish that looks the worst, but actually tasted the best ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Ah, yes, we come to that old chestnut: burnt garlic on the outside because I baked the chicken for 50 minutes instead of the 30 minutes the recipe calls for. (In my defence, the chicken on the inside was perfectly cooked and moist.) Part of the reason for the burning may be because the recipe says to blend the garlic and the shallots in a fruit blender. I don't have a blender, so I whizzed them up in a food processor, which left me with larger (and more burnable?) chunks. The marinade is otherwise fairly simple, including salt, five spice powder and Shaoxing wine (I left out the wine). And it works! The reason why I say this dish tasted the best is because the chicken really took up the taste of the marinade. I think the key to success here was that the chicken sat in the marinade overnight, so had soaked up tonnes of flavour. Very nice. Just don't eat the burnt bits on the skin; you will not have fun if you do.

Let me tell you about a trip I took recently, to Burford in the Cotswolds. I went there with Linda, Tom, Steve, Heather, Nick, James and Eppa. And their kids. That's six kids in total. All under the age of 4. Intense!

We used to all meet up in someone's house every Christmas, but it was beginning to be a bit tight for space, so this year we decided to rent a place together instead and have a mini winter holiday! It was great. The place we rented was huge. It had six bedrooms and three bathrooms, so we all fit in perfectly. (More on the house later.)

It was really lovely to spend so long with everyone all together. We were there for three nights in total and it was lovely. Now, obviously, doing anything with six small children is quite challenging, so we spent a lot of time relaxing at home. (Although we did have a couple of group trips out: a little walk terminating in a local pub; and a trip to the model village at Bourton-on-the-Water.) I personally really enjoyed the relaxed format; it was a good chance to spend some quality time together.

Well done to Eppa for organising an Ocado delivery that arrived just after we did. We'd decided to split the meals between us, so each of us only had to cook the once. The kitchen was really big, and it was great to have everyone gathered around the long kitchen table for every meal; plus, all the food was tasty (good job, guys!) In between meals our time was spent on outings and playing with the kids. After dinner each night, the kids were put to bed and the adults would gather in the living room to chat and watch trash TV (we all got addicted to "Celebs Go Dating"). It reminded me of when we used to live together back in our student days. There's nothing like watching trash TV in a big group, when you can all laugh about what's going on (and jointly get frustrated when the wifi signal is too weak for the Amazon firestick).

In conclusion: great quality time. A+++ would do it again.

Burford itself is gorgeous. Not only does it look beautifully Costwolds, it is so old! The newest buildings there are from the 1850s, but most of the buildings are older and have medieval roots. The place where we stayed used to be an old coaching inn, hence the many rooms.

This one was my room. (I really loved the way the whole place was decorated, by the way.) The two rooms (and bathroom) on the top floor were taken by Nick and myself, so it was a child-free floor. As lovely as it was to spend time with the kids, I appreciated having a quiet place I could go hide in when things got too noisy.

Here's the view from my bedroom window. Impressive, right?

This is the view from the back of the house. I took this photo on a Sunday morning when the church bells were ringing and the birds were singing and it was so lovely I nearly shed a tear.

Our place dated, I think, from the 17th Century, and had a lot of surviving features (including an uneven stone staircase down to the kids' playroom, which is a nightmare when you have a toddler who has only just started walking; thank God there was a stair-gate we could put up). This photo shows the big old fireplace and what look like original settles from the time when the building was an inn. The flagstone floor was gloriously worn in places, suggesting where a frequently-used door used to be. The big fireplace can no longer be used, and so we didn't have much reason to be in this area, but it's so easy to imagine a time when it was the real hub of the place, with the fire crackling brightly and all the locals sat around talking.

This was our entranceway, which was presumably to allow carriages through to the stables at the back. The stables are long gone and replaced by a lawn, but apparently the garden was once used as an ironmonger's forge as well.

I still can't get over how beautiful (and how huge) our place was. The rest of the town was just as gorgeous; take a look below. Walking around was an utter joy.

Welcome to the first food post of the new year! (Note that I didn't say "the first post of the new year"; that was posted yesterday, and is a Christmas and New Year summary which, admittedly, happens to contain lots of pictures of food.)

Baked garlic honey chicken leg (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
DO YOU NEED ME TO TELL YOU THAT THIS WAS A DISASTER? If you've read my earlier food posts, you may have heard me complaining that the cooking times given in the book were too short, leaving me with raw chicken. Because of this, I'd been upping my cooking times from the suggested 30 minutes to 50 minutes. In most cases this gave me cooked chicken that was occasionally a little on the burnt or overcooked side. Which is all fine if your marinade doesn't include tonnes of sugar and honey, in which case you end up with this severe... caramelisation (let's call it caramelisation). And, you know what, I can deal with a little bit of burnt chicken, BUT NOT WHEN IT'S COVERED WITH LITTLE NUGGETS OF BURNT GARLIC BITTERNESS. Ick. Ick. Ick. I peeled off the burnt skin and garlic and, thankfully, could still eat the chicken inside. God knows what this would taste like if it was cooked properly, because all I could taste was chicken, burnt chicken, and frustrated dreams. Oh, by the way, I left the Shaoxing wine out of this recipe (but who cares?)

Parmesan and poppy seed grissini
What better way to get over a cooking disaster than to attempt to make that notoriously easy dish: bread. BREAD. Like, with yeast and proving and everything. Also, in case it helps you to know, I'm not crazy over breadsticks (I've never seen the point of them), and nor am I keen on cheesy bread (too greasy for my liking). So, certain that I was onto a winner, I got going. Surprisingly, I was able to get the dough to rise, although I may have fallen down on the kneading (I always fall down on the kneading). The dough was very difficult to roll out flat like the recipe says, because it kept springing back (especially because it was on an oiled surface). Did I knead it too much? Certainly the finished item was a little on the hard side (transforming into rock solid the next day), but maybe grissini are supposed to do that? (I have no idea.) The taste was greasy, as expected from the parmesan, and maybe I added too much oil when kneading as well. But, do you know what? I ate these with soup, which was a perfect antidote to both the hardness and the greasiness, so they were actually very pleasant!

Vanilla macarons with peanut cream (recipe from "I ♥ Macarons" by Hisako Ogita)
I was so worried about making these. Not only did I make them shortly after the breadsticks (no rest for the wicked), but I attempted to use the Italian meringue method. Now, I've seen some people claim that the Italian meringue method for making macarons is far easier than the French meringue method, and that Italian meringue macarons turn out perfect every time. Allow me to scoff. Pah! The first and only time I'd tried the Italian meringue method, all my macrons ended up in the bin (after trying to dry them with a hairdryer, then underbaking them, I figured they would be unsafe to eat). And now I was (foolishly?) just about to attempt the Italian meringue method again. On making them, I was surprised to find that they turned out kinda ok. Not great (many of them cracked), but definitely edible and not destined for the bin! So, whether I did something wrong on my first Italian meringue attempt, I don't know. The fact that these still cracked after copious drying time suggests that the moisture from the syrup in the Italian meringue does not make these macarons suitable for a damp British climate (of course, I could be entirely wrong on this). Oh, and I put a tray on the oven shelf above the macarons, to try to stop them from browning, but that didn't work (the joys of a non-professional oven, I suppose). The peanut cream inside these macarons is unadulterated peanut butter. As an aside, have you ever tried piping crunchy peanut butter with a piping bag? DON'T. Just use a knife to spread it like a sensible person, otherwise you're going to have to stop every 60 seconds to perform piping bag surgery with a chopstick in order to remove a particularly large bit of peanut. I wasn't sure what these were going to taste like, but it turns out they're really nice. The sweetness of the macarons pairs really well with the saltiness of the peanut butter. (If you've ever had a Reese's peanut butter cup, you'll find the taste quite similar.) It feels like such a relief to finally make these Italian meringue macarons without a huge disaster. Now I've laid that ghost to rest, I can finally move on.

Vanilla icebox cookies (recipe from "I ♥ Macarons" by Hisako Ogita)
I made these the day after the macarons in order to use up the leftover egg yolks. I found the dough for the biscuits to be very crumbly. Even after refrigerating the dough, it still kept wanting to fall apart, hence all the fault lines you can see in the photo. Still, no-one cares if biscuits don't look perfect. They were light and rich and very nice to eat (even those that got slightly too dark on the bottom).

Baked kaffir lime leaves chicken legs (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
Can we just take a moment to admire the fact that I didn't burn this chicken leg to hell and back? (I don't think there's any reason for it not burning, just that there's less sugar in the sauce. I certainly cooked the chicken for longer than I was told to.) This recipe is meant to be called "baked curry leaves chicken legs", but I couldn't find curry leaves at all, and I read somewhere that you could substitute kaffir lime leaves. That, however, wasn't what I was worried about in this recipe. You see, the recipe recommends five birds eye chillies for two chicken legs. As a person who can't take much heat, I was scared that five of those little devils were going to make this dish inedible for me. I got a further scare when I added the two tablespoons of Thai fish sauce that the recipe calls for. I don't use fish sauce often, so I'm not used to the smell, and I've never used this quantity of it before. The smell when the chicken started heating up in the oven was unholy. Still, as all things fish sauce, the smell got better as it cooked, and the taste was not unholy at all; just savoury. Overall, the dish tasted very citrus-y, which is probably from the lime leaves and the lemongrass. Thankfully, the chillies weren't quite so astronomically hot as I thought they might be (but I still couldn't eat too much of the sauce with the chicken).

Korean style chicken legs (recipe from "Chicken Leg" by Hoe Yee)
This dish was a thing of beauty! Just look at that glossy sauce with the chicken all crispy underneath. My God, it was good to eat. But wait. I'm getting ahead of myself; let me describe the cooking first. Finding the ingredients for the dish wasn't easy. The crisp coating is meant to include tapioca flour, glutinous rice flour and plain flour; I couldn't find the first two of those, so I substituted with a mix of plain flour and cornflour. Also, I didn't add the Shaoxing wine to the marinade, but the dish didn't seem to lack in flavour. As on previous occasions, the recipe calls for the chicken to be deep-fried, and as on previous occasions, I am far too cowardly to deep-fry anything, so I pan-fried it, followed by a spell in the oven. Thankfully, the skin came out really crispy (the baking powder in the batter may have helped with that). And the taste was to die for. I was worried that the Korean chilli paste would be too hot for my tastes (having never eaten it before). It was hot, yes, but not too hot, and it has a really great smoky flavour (I am a convert). Along with the smoky flavour, you get the punch of the ginger, onion and garlic, as well as this sweetness from the sauce. Combine it with the wonderful crunch from the fried chicken, and you get something very close to perfect. If this recipe wasn't so involved, I'd make it all the time. As I'm lazy, however, there must be some place in London that will sell me some; I need to start looking!