A day late! Our brunch with Georgie went later than I expected and then I rushed back out the door to attend the RAF 100 Year Gala Variety Show. It was such a treat, so many mesmerising performances. I had grand plans to send this email this morning but life (work) got in the way… But finally here is a time-sensitive dinner you must know about and – apologies in advance – some of these are going to be just a tease, but at least things to look out for in the future?!
1. Of course Georgie’s meal! Though I actually only managed a few bites of each thing she made in between running around. I think my favourite was the Cypriot lentil dish faki moutzendra, but everyone raved about the halloumi with honey butter (and just the honey butter, to be frank, with came from Jake’s London. Because of incredible donations of time, food, drink, space and prizes we were able to raise around £2500! I’m thrilled. Georgie is a phenomenon. If you haven’t got her book Stirring Slowly yet I would recommend it. Her next one is out in April.
2. The meal I tried that you can still get to (in theory) and you cannot miss (if you can be in London next week) is the tasting menu collaboration between Adam Handling and Paul A Young. I cannot recommend it highly enough based on the preview meal I was treated to. Every course was a flavour explosion. It’s only on October 15-22 but it will be on lunch and dinner. You just need to book and it’ll be an option that week.
3. Apparently Thursday was #NationalCinnamonBunDay (there’s a hashtag for everything!). While normally these days don’t change my behaviour, my local cafe Tromso added four extra versions of buns that day and the apple and cinnamon special was delicious! [Sorry I keep mentioning places so far east!]
These were the chocolate, orange zest and pistachio buns. Also amazing!
4. During the Academy of Chocolate conference Barry Callebaut’s introduced us to their reduced sugar milk chocolate. It was 1% sugar and the rest a combination of milk and cocoa mass. It was good even on its own, but particularly good turned into a chocolate with hazelnuts and dates. Ideal for the cocoa-addicted, like me. Definitely one to watch out for!
5. My final highlight for the week (though trying the table full of Gold Award-winning chocolate bars at the conference was pretty fabulous!) was tasting LAND’s new caramelised white chocolate with cocoa nibs. It would be very easy to eat a lot of this.
See you this weekend?