Weekly Love: Week 185
Busy, busy, busy. What is it about Autumn proper where we’re all dashed off of our feet? Perhaps it is because we’re all playing catch up because we all seem to have been sick this season (get well soon if you’re curled up reading this with a mug of tea, a hot water bottle feeling dreadful), but while I’ve had excellent fun, it feels like I can’t remember the last time I had the chance to just stop and do nothing. I’ve tried to carve out time to sit down with some new cookbooks, but it has been rather short lived. I’m making up for it instead with a weekend of comforting and exciting Asian food: Japanese inspired mackerel from Simply Nigella last night, a trip to Thai Time this evening, I’m cooking a beef brisket stew from Our Korean Kitchen tomorrow, and then I’ll make one of the Vietnamese chicken recipes in Diana Henry’s brilliant chicken bible A Bird in the Hand.
1. Herding escaped sheep back into their fields on a misty Sunday morning. | 2. Pulling carrots to accompany our Slow Cooked Gin & Tomato Beef Brisket. | 3. Stunning Autumn foliage out and about on the campaign trail for local elections in Dover. | 4. Delicious (and totally spooky/ adorable) Halloween truffles from Charbonnel & Walker. | 5. Spending a lot of time in Parliament recently and marvelling at how iconic the spaces I get to pass on the way to the office are. | 6. Instagramming our achievements before we eat at the Jamie Oliver Cookery School.
- So, this is the history of that little piece of plastic you find inside your pizza box.
- Here are 5 easy ways to make your carved pumpkin last longer. Also, this is how to turn a pumpkin into a Halloween party ice bucket.
- Ed has posted a great guide to the best breakfasts and brunches worth travelling for in London. Also, really great restaurants in Soho where you can actually book a table.
- More in London: Carrie has posted a great guide to Kentish Town and Tufnell Park.
- Yaya and Lloyd have put together a great list of everything you can’t miss in Copenhagen.
- Also from the boys, here are 7 reasons why you need to re-visit places you’ve traveled.
- And, all of the great pictures they took when we were in Sarlat. (You can find my post here!)
- Okay, so Blair and Chuck were never actually supposed to get together on Gossip Girl.
- Also, Refinery 29 breaks down everything you need to know about my biggest current TV show crush, Quantico, if all your friends are talking about it and you’ve not yet caught up.
- And Refinery 29 have done an in depth, early review of the new Google Pixel phone.
- The Kitchn schools us on dashi, and where you can use it beyond miso soup.
- Also, they’ve posted 5 little tips to instantly upgrade your bowl of soup. Oh, and have you seen my new Sensational Soups board on Pinterest?
- Sherrie has written a great guide to surviving a trip to La Vegas (with some great foodie picks far away from the strip) and posted a delicious (!) looking brussels sprouts recipe.
- Rose went to Germany to do Oktoberfest properly. She’s also taken a stunning road-trip through Barvaria, and some of her photos in part two are simply breathtaking. (Part 3!)
7. Sitting down (at least for an hour!) with my favourite Irish lambs wool rug from Avoca, the two latest additions to my cookbook collection (Our Korean Kitchen and The Palomar Cookbook), and a frankly delicious bar of Rye Crumb, Milk & Sea Salt chocolate from the Pump Street Bakery. | 8. Making an North Indian Thali at the Jamie Oliver Cookery School. | 9. Joining Scotch Beef who were sponsoring the ‘Best Sunday Lunch’ category at the Observer Food Monthly Awards.
- Basically, for all the delicious pasta head to Padella at Borough Market.
- Seven things Lucy has learnt over seven years of blogging.
- Emiko Davies on how she fell in love with Florence on her first day there 15 years ago.
- Kristabel has put together a great guide to buying nude tights for darker skin tones.
- Leslie has some great tips on how to cut costs decorating a new place if you’re on a budget.
- This review of Molly on the Range highlights why it is the one cookbook this year I am going to order the moment it comes out in the UK. (You can pre-order it here.)
- And this review of Anthony Bourdain’s Appetites shows why it is also one of the top three cookbooks I want this Autumn. (You can order it here, and the third is Simple, by the way.)
- Mani went exploring some of Kyoto’s beautiful shrines on foot.
- Amanda’s piece on how dinner changes when she moved in with her husband is an interesting study in how your kitchen habits change when you’re cooking for not just you.
- Lottie + Doof on why cooking with recipes is a good idea. Why is it that the internet wants us to all cook without a recipe all of a sudden?
- Uyen Luu on the geography of Vietnamese noodles.
- 11 things to do in the beautiful town of Porto.
- Wine geeks: there is a new, premium classification for Cava.
- The business of being an influencer during fashion week.
- What happens when you’re allergic to the stable foodstuff of your people?
- This is how you can DIY a pretty impressive Rainbow Gold Lustre Bath Bomb.
For more delicious links, as well as mini cookbook reviews, pro-tips, seasonal eats and a few other surprises, don’t forget to sign up to my monthly newsletter which goes out the first Sunday of every month. What have you been enjoying this week, and what do you have planned for the weekend? The Canterbury Festival is on at the moment, so I’m hoping to catch up with That’s Amore Pizza Co. who are serving up their delicious Neapolitan style pizzas in Kingsmead Leisure Centre car park, as I have not had one in simply ages!
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