Christmas Gifts - Jamie Oliver Style

Last Saturday I went to Jamie Oliver's Recipease in Clapham Junction for a cooking lesson, THE best present from James for my birthday :) I have blogged about this place before but I love it, homewares, food and cooking, some of my favourite things combined in one store.

My lesson was for homemade Xmas gifts and we made a stunning lemon curd (was told mine was the best in the class, not that I want to show off.....), a chocolate mocha mix for making hot chocolate, and florentine butter (chocolate, orange, almond and cherry butter for your christmas pudding). We received a glass of wine on arrival and our own little workstation with ingredients measured out, a lovely teacher and someone to wash our dishes afterwards. Why can't cooking be like this all the time?? This was followed by a little wrapping/decorating session to make our goodies "gift-ready". Highly recommend doing one of these classes if you're in London, so much fun! Am sure I will be back there soon.

Here are some pics of my goodies...

Venetian Birthday Weekend

This weekend we headed to Venice for my birthday. Was a little touch and go if we would make it after spending 8 hours at St George's hospital A&E...James had a stomach infection/gastro/food poisoning (which was the best explanation the doctor could come up with after the 8 hrs and numerous tests?). NHS strikes again. So after some medication and a sleepless night, we managed to keep breakfast down and so we were off!

Venice was very cold but lovely, lively but not too busy and lots and lots of tasty food! James claims he is ruined forever after having gelato, English icecream will apparently never be the same. And he ate copious amounts on the premise he was sick so it must be ok?

We found a lovely little family run restaurant for my birthday dinner which was the best food of our trip. Artichoke soup for starter, tender veal cooked in white wine for main, and THE BEST tiramisu for dessert.

I think we will definitely visit again one day and it was the perfect time of year to go.

We had planned a trip to Murano where Murano glass is made however, in true Italian style, there was a public transport strike and so no ferry was running on the Monday before we left for the airport. Next time!

We stayed at the Hotel Canal Grande and would highly recommend it. The staff were fantastic, even not charging us for water from the minibar and the cups of tea we had sent up to the room. And the Baci chocolates on the bed each day went down well too ;)

First night's dinner, a lovely woodfired artichoke pizza.

My lovely birthday tiramisu.

In the restaurant, which came complete with white and red checked tablecloths and a waiter with big italian style moustache.

Getting ready for dinner.

Our lovely little restaurant. We managed to avoid the tourist traps near the canal and went searching down a little side street and stumbled upon it.

View from the breakfast room in our hotel. What a view to wake up to! And the coffee.....perfection.

View of the Ponte Rialto from the vaporetto (ferry).

Some blown glass we saw in a shop window...very clever!

Mmmmm, italian pasticceria, my favourite kind of shop.

Shopping on the Ponte Rialto at night.

View from the front of our hotel.

Spot of shopping? (i wish!)

Some more blown glass animals, put my finger up so you can see just how small these were!

Playing in puddles in San Marco.

St Mark's

These massive blocks of chocolate were being sold in almost every shop. We couldn't resist getting some before we left.

Gondolas near San Marco

A flooded but beautiful St Mark's.

ATM for tall people! For some reason all the ATM's were at this height.

Parking controls, venice style.

We realised after walking across this bridge the archways you can see on the left of the photo was the fire station, again, venice style!

Our hotel room, only the italians could get away with this lavish decor!

Customer Service? Not in the UK!!

This week we have attempted to do something quite simple, get Sky TV connected. We joined online, chose a date and waited for the day....last Sunday. Do we have Sky TV yet? Of course not!!!!

We waited at home for 12 hours for the installation "engineer" to arrive. Who never showed up. And after 4 phone calls to Sky costing me a fortune they finally say "well you can probably assume he's not coming". Uh....ok.

So 3 days and 12 phone calls later, the earliest they can rebook it for is now the 17 December, 3 weeks after the original installation date. I have been officially defeated by the call centre staff who keep going around and around in circles reading off their stupid scripts. At one point I refused to hang up the phone until I got to speak with a supervisor, who apologised profusely, promised to get an installation date for this week and call me back. And of course didn't.

I GIVE UP!! Are you listening Sky? You've won!!!! :(

Winter and the NHS

I'm feeling like winter is almost upon us....it's dark by 4pm and very very cold, even though all the locals keep telling me it's quite mild for this time of year. Maybe for the initiated! The last week has seen me add an extra layer for the walk to the tube and leave my coat on for the train journey (has up to this point been too hot while sardined in with other commuters). We are also relishing the discovery of Sainsbury's home delivered groceries, particularly with the cold. The thought of pushing through the crowds, lining up then lugging everything home on the bus just doesn't appeal!

We now have a car for a little while, courtesy of James's mum and dad who are back in Australia until next year. Took me three months to get used to not having a car, now it feels like a bit of a luxury to have one again....especially knowing there are only certain places you can take it (congestion charge, parking issues and traffic mean you wouldn't go anywhere near central London or busy areas). Will be nice to do some trips out of London though.

Will also be easier for us to get to Bodyflight for James to make use of his birthday present - a lesson at the indoor skydiving centre outside of London which is essentially a massive vertical wind tunnel! Fun :) I'm sure there will be hilarious photos to come!!

Christmas is approaching, have all my Christmas shopping done which is just as well because the shops are soooo busy! Never thought I would say this, but shopping at this time of year here just isn't really an enjoyable experience. I know, shock horror. But the Christmas lights are up, shop windows are filled with fake snow and all things festive and best of all...they aren't playing Christmas carols yet :) (can't stand them!).

Christmas dinner this year will be a free range turkey from the local butcher with all the trimmings, am busy looking up recipes having not cooked one before, suggestions welcome! Also have a feeling that I'll need to find leftover recipes as there are four of us...and 5kgs of turkey! Will be different having a hot dinner with the cold outside rather than a cold dinner with the hot outside like back home. No firing up the BBQ this year!

This week also saw me register with a doctor. Can't just call a GP here and see whoever you like, you have to register at one in your area and then they have to accept you. The process was quite easy for James, being a Brit, and should have been easy for me. Except in true British NHS style they lost all my paperwork I filled in. All 3 or 4 pages of my complete medical history. Lovely! Then proceeded to tell me it wasn't an issue as I could just fill it in again. Hmmm! So I shouldn't be concerned my details were floating around somewhere? Ok, will just have to take their word for it! Then went into the appointment with the nurse, who you have to see before being allowed to make appointments with the GP, only to be asked every single question that was on the paperwork. That I filled out twice. Looooving the NHS. Although it is free so shouldn't complain too much!

Some shots of the last few weeks......

Bonfire night at Wimbledon Park.

Massive Guy Fawkes bonfire, could feel the heat from about 100m away. Good thing, was damn cold!!

Christmas lights at Regent/Oxford Street.

Christmas window at Hamleys toy store on Regent Street.

Colin Firth turning on the Christmas Lights at Regent Street, promise....it is him!!

Sunny but cold day in Oxford.

Oxford

Mmmmm pies in Oxford.

Wimbledon Common, only a 5 minute walk from our new house.

Beautiful Wimbledon Common (didn't spot a womble, will keep my eyes peeled next time).

Moving House, Jamie Oliver and Food Food Food!

Well last weekend was moving time....we are now in Southfields, just a stone's throw from Wimbledon tennis stadium (literally....can see it from the street). Long story but let's just say our previous flatmates weren't all there and we are very very glad to be out of there. Being abused at 10pm for making too much noise getting a drink in the kitchen was the last straw!



Southfields is also a much nicer part of London, nice and leafy and green and quiet. And we are also nice and close to Putney, Richmond and Clapham.



We went over to Clapham yesterday, my first venture to the area. Bought my first English winter weight coat and needed it already today....was only about 10 when walking to the tube this morning. And found my favourite shop so far in London (anyone who knows me won't find this out of the ordinary!). Jamie Oliver's Recipease!! They sell all of Jamie's kitchen equipment/crockery etc, as well as freshly baked breads and Jamie Oliver ready meals. But the best bit is you can book in for lessons to learn how to make pasta, bread etc, but also lots of Jamie's recipes. They give you the ingredients all prepared and the recipe, you cook and then take it home for dinner! They also have a great pizza making area at the back of the shop where you can walk in anytime of the day and make your own pizza. Fantastic idea! For anyone who wants to check it out - www.jamieoliver.com/recipease/index.html



We have also discovered Sainsburys online grocery shopping. Sooooo much easier than standing around the shop wondering if we can add in that extra bottle of beer or pint of milk in case we can't carry it home, standing in the line to pay and then lugging it home on the bus. They were 15 mins late with delivery today and so we even scored a £10 voucher to use next time, bargain!



And next week we are heading to Babylon restaurant in Kensington for James's birthday. Is supposed to be very nice with a beautiful view of the rooftop gardens. Keep those scales away from me....need to start back at the gym!!

Aussie Food Stash

Our boxes from Australia finally arrived in the middle of last week. So we have winter clothes (much needed as the weather has started to turn a bit colder), DVD's, CD's, books etc. But most importantly we have:

• Cherry Ripes
• MILO!!!!!!!!
• Twisties
• Fanta
• Mint Slices
• Rosella Pickles
• Beetroot - the real aussie kind!
• Butter Menthols

Yummo! Although I must admit it's a little unnerving knowing there's so much junk food just within reach and once it's gone it's not easily replaceable!! And we did already make ourselves feel a little ill eating a big bag of Twisties and a Cherry Ripe the first night we had them!

So....rationing is the order of the day from now on (yeah right!).