Weekly Love: Week 127

In my last edition of Weekly Love I was so excited to tell you about my adventures in Whole Foods I forgot to tell you about somewhere else I discovered on that particular Borough of Kensington & Chelsea adventure I found that I was so distracted by it made me late for my lunch date. Books For Cooks is an amazing little bookshop and cafe where they cook from the books (with cooking classes held upstairs) on Blenheim Crescent in Notting Hill with is stuffed full of cookbooks, books about food and anything else someone like me who compulsively hoards cookbooks could possibly ever want. It is well worth the pilgrimage to that part of town.

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1. The guys at new London candle company Harley & Co. were kind enough to send me their Blackberry & Vanilla candle (only £17, such amazing value with the same quality as a much more expensive one), and I must say that it has turned into my new favourite scent, both sweet and refined to burn while I’m typing away at my dissertation. | 2. As the sun has finally come out, I’ve been able to wear my brand new Boden Short Sleeve Breton with an old J.Crew cardigan and my favourite Hobbs statement necklace. Everyone asks me about it, and I got it at a sample sale for £1 a few years ago! | 3. Beautiful cherry blossoms snapped on a glorious Friday evening out doing house to house political things. | 4. Saturday is Sangria day. In case you missed it, you can find my recipe here! | 5. Beautiful frilly tulips snapped walking back to my car from a meeting in Canterbury. | 6. Beautifully sunny country walks in Kent to post letters and meet the new Spring lambs!

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Time for a little bit of me elsewhere. This month on the Borough Market blog I’m talking potato salads that are perfect for Bank Holiday picnics or Easter lunches. Here you can see my recipe for New Potatoes with Wild Garlic and Lemon, which is perfect hot or cold with your Easter lamb, and if you click through to the Borough Market blog as well as the recipe you’ll find a piece I wrote on wild garlic and my personal, chequered history with New Potatoes (quite a funny story, actually, which my parents like to embarrass me with!) Be sure to look out on the Borough Market blog over the next few days for my second instalment this month, again on the subject of potato salads, this time my White Wine Poached Salmon & Creme Fraiche Potato Salad. And on Monday, I honestly can’t say how exited I am to say this, but I’ll be make my Food 52 debut with a traditional family recipe which is rather unusual, and I can’t wait to share!  

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7. Obligatory Liberty’s flower shot while shopping on Regents Street. | 8. Innocent were kind enough to send me some vouchers to try out their new Super Smoothies, all of which do wonderful things for you. I can’t believe I am saying this, but for amazing flavour I’m recommending something that contains wheatgrass and flax seed; the Kiwi and Lime flavour. I’ve found they have been great to sip to refresh and refuel between meetings and appointments; I’ve been picking mine up from Starbucks. | 9. Yesterday I spent the morning cooking a Greek Easter lunch with Tonia Buxton and the guys from Total Yogurt. This was my delicious traditional dessert flavoured with Orange Blossom Water, Pistachio and Raspberries; totally delicious! | 10. Working hard on my dissertation, so many brands have been kind enough to send me some snacks to keep me going! I’ve been a particular fan of Cadbury’s new Ritz collaboration; the perfect balance between sweet and salty! | 11. Every time I have a chance to swim I’ve been adding two more lengths onto my total to try and get back up to my usual 100 now I’m not walking all over London and I’m driving everywhere now I’m back in the country. I’m on 56 at the moment! | 12. Juice boosts treating my Mummy to Wagamamas before going to see Endless Love, a repackaging of Howard Brenton’s In Extremis at The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. It was a truly brilliant performance of a play I love (I’m writing my dissertation on it!)

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In other news, do you remember the review I wrote of Big Easy in Covent Garden when it opened last month? They have launched a new lunch menu which is incredible value and looks simply delicious I wanted to make sure that you knew about. For £9.95 you can get either ‘Steak Frites’ and a slushie cocktail, glass of wine or a beer, ‘Lobster Roll Frites’ and a slushie cocktail, glass of wine or a beer, or choose two courses off of their set lunchtime menu which you can view here. I’d love to hear if any of you try these combos; I really want to go back to Big Easy (and, incidentally Burger & Lobster too) for their lobster rolls.

What have you been enjoying this week, and what do you have planned for the weekend? It is Daddy’s birthday today so my mother and I will be cooking him a special dinner tonight, but apart from that I just have the usual essay writing and work to be getting on with before I head off to France this time next week. I figured that I could get a big bulk of essay and dissertation writing done out there where I don’t have the internet to distract me! 

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