exploring eating capturing
I LOVE tea! That is an understatment. I can’t start a day without a bucket of tea. I will spend good money on good tea like other people do wine. I particularly love black tea and notice all the subtle differences between ceylon orange pekoe, …
Now I think everyone may have gathered by now I am a little obsessed with tea. I am currently sitting in a guest house in the mountains in Myanmar writing this having got the owner to find me boiling water so I could have a …
At the weekend I met up with a couple of friends Emily and Amber who I have several things in common with. We all love to draw, we all love to make books and we all like to eat cake. Emily and I like to make paper to but that is another story.
It had been a while since I had seen them as I have been away so much over the summer. We decided to meet up for a drawing session at Hillsbourgh walled garden in our city of Sheffield. I had never been before so was intrigued what I’d find. It is quite small but perfectly laid out with different areas for different plants including some quite impressive veg patches sporting some great squashes on the go and different varieties of beans amongst many other things. There are a couple of big green houses full of plants, with some impressive red chilli’s that caught my eye.
The area that most drew my attention was the Dahlia beds. I have to confess I thought they were chrysanthemums but the nice people who run the garden put me right! I’m not an expert on flowers I’m much better with veg.
Anyway the structures and colours of these flowers were amazing. I’m not sure I’ve spent quite so long staring at these particular flowers before. The structures of the petals were so intricate and perfect like some kind of geometric three dimensional puzzle. I decided to have a go at drawing some of them and quickly got engrossed and the time flew by. Fortunately it was a sunny day so very pleasant to sit and draw.
When we had all done with drawing Emily had made us a lovely gluten free lunch. I am always so grateful to friends who go out of their way to make me something tasty! We had a quinoa salad but it was so good and we were so hungry that it was gone before I remembered to take a picture. But I did remember to take a picture of the delicious gluten free orange and almond cake with chocolate frosting that Emily had made for pudding.
I asked Emily very nicely if she would be happy for me share the recipe with you as it was so good, she said yes! So here it is in her own fair hand…
…and just to top off a perfect day I was asking her what spices she puts in her masala chai tea (I’m conducting extensive research at the moment!) and she made some just to show me, just perfect. In case you’re wondering she uses a half milk half water mix with cardamom, ginger and cinnamon.
I think there should be more days like that.
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I am british and I love tea. Its been part of life always. My dad had a pint mug for his tea and I seem to have his tendencies. As a teenager I tried to become a cool kid and drink coffee but never liked …