food notes

The Thames Foyer room is the place for Afternoon Tea at The Savoy. The atmosphere is exquisite, but at the same time, very relaxing. On my 40th birthday, we booked a table for 5 pm. We selected traditional high tea because it consists mostly of savoury dishes. Another option, traditional afternoon tea, has more sweet read more

Ting Restaurant, which means ‘living room’ in Chinese, is the main restaurant at the Shangri-La Hotel London, and is located on level 35 of the Shard. The ground floor entrance has a Chinese art painting, which reminded me of Lost Horizon. I booked a table for dinner for my 40th birthday weekend. Luca and I read more

I’ve read that around 40% of Brits name lemon drizzle cake as one of their most-loved treats. A quick lemon drizzle cake often comes to mind as the first choice for Saturday baking, as I almost always have lemons and limes in the fridge. I regularly buy citrus fruit for juice, cooking and cocktail making. From read more

Homemade cinnamon rolls are truly the best. Today I’ve baked American-style cinnamon rolls with chestnut filling. They’re very moist, fluffy and flavourful and have creamy frosting on top. I adapted a recipe, The Best American-Style Cinnamon Rolls, by adding chestnut purée (about 100g) and a little bit of cocoa powder to the cinnamon filling. For read more

Initially, I intended to make Swedish cinnamon buns. I found a nice recipe and got some crucial ingredients: ground cardamom, cinnamon and pearl sugar. But eventually, I replaced the cinnamon filling with chocolate, as Luca does not like cinnamon, and he asked me to use Nutella instead. The recipe I chose was Swedish Cinnamon Buns read more

The last four months have been busy, settling down into the new apartment, teaching, travelling, and writing chapter drafts. I wasn’t in a baking mood, although I baked frequently until I moved out of the old flat. On Friday, I baked. The recipe I chose for my first baking session in four months was Donal read more

Luca and I had lunch at the popular local restaurant, Benedicts, on one Friday in July. Starting with some Prosecco and beautifully decorated petit fours, I had a two-course meal: Norfolk Dumplings and Ex Fen Farm Dairy Cow Aged Sirloin. They were beautiful and delicious. This might seem a bit of an exaggeration, but Luca read more