My Three Favourite Cook Books.

I'm a bit of a foodie, well that is the posh way of saying that I love food and eating. I can't say I am one of those people who read cook books in bed at night but then again I do own quite a few. I would love to build up a collection of old cookery books, especially ones from the 70s because they are so bad that they are good! I also have my eye on the Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management that resides on my mum's bookshelf. When I moved to Nottingham I tried to hide it in a box of books I was taking, she knew me too well and before I went she rummaged through and repossessed it. So anyway these are my three favourite cook books at the moment: Gok Cooks Chinese by Gok Wan, The Vintage Tea Party Year by Angel Adoree and The Fat Duck Cookbook by Heston Blumenthal. 

My affections for these books are all very different. Gok Cooks Chinese is full of mouthwatering pictures of dishes that I would have been far too scared to attempt. I have a couple of other chinese recipe books and I look at the tasty pictures then look at the humongous list of ingredients and give up. But Gok's book is very different, his recipes are based on a meagre larder of Chinese essentials and if you follow the instructions the food looks just as delectable as the pictures and tastes better than any takeaway! Ed cooked salt and pepper pork from this book the other night and it was out of this world good. 

Now where to start on The Vintage Tea Party Year, its just perfect in my opinion. The content is superb, the layout is beautiful, the illustrations are treats for the eyes. Angel Adoree will aid you through everything you need to know to pull of an exquisite vintage gathering from decor to hair to cocktails, oh and the recipes are pretty amazing too! I own the Vintage Tea Party book too and I just love every page these books have to offer. If you love vintage and you don't own this book you are seriously missing out!

I will probably never be able to cook anything out of The Fat Duck Cookbook, not to its full extent of deliciousness anyway. I would like to have a go at the chilli in there one day though. I have wanted to eat at The Fat Duck restaurant for years, but it is a serious investment to go there, it being a couple of hundred pounds for a tasting menu. But a girl can dream and this book is the perfect aid for that. 

What cook books are your favourite? 

Nottingham Beer Festival 2012.

Yesterday we went to the Nottingham Beer Festival and it was a lot of fun! The festival is held over the whole weekend and this year there was over 1000 beers to try and over 200 ciders. Ed and I met up with a bunch of our mates there and it was a blast.

We were even in luck with the weather it was a lovely sunny day, it did turn a little bit cold as the evening drew in. There were some really yummy beers there, my favourite beers were Abduction from the Dancing Duck Brewery, Lord Marples from Thornbridge Brewery and I fell in love with Bee's Knee's from The Nook Brewhouse. This fine hoppy bitter is brewed with Yorkshire honey and it was like drinking beery sunshine, perfect for summing up the lovely day that I had... And obviously Ed and I made sure we drank responsibly hehe.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend.

Sunny Hunny & Crabs at Wells!

As we were nearish to the coast after the wedding we (Ed and I) went to we decided a little seaside trip was in order. We were lucky because it didn't rain all day! (for those of you not in the UK we have had a rather wet summer so far). We started our adventure in Hunstanton, which has some lovely sandy beaches to frolic on.

This is the state of our British summer this year (and this was on a good day). But we have to make the best of what we get. When the sun does shine here though it is rather special because of the West facing beach it means you can actually see the sun set over the sea! That is something I would love to see one day.

This is the Wiley the Wash Monster. This amazing beast is an ex military vehicle that was created in 1967 to be used as a landing craft by American forces in Vietnam. But now he is used as a 60 seater tour vehicle that chugs around the coast. Ed and I went on this a few years ago and it was so much fun.


We decided, after a look round Hunstanton to go to Wells by the Sea. This is one of my favourite places in the whole world. Its so lovely to so and have a look around and they have amazing sea food there as well. This was a very cheeky duck who wouldn't leave us alone whilst we had our lunch.

There are always people crabbing here and we have watched people many times filling their little buckets with the crafty crustaceans. So we decided to pop our crabbing cherry and have a go at it ourselves. We hurried along to get a crab line (the one we bought had no hooks just bait bags because we didn't want to hurt anything). We filled our meshy bags with bait and plopped them in the water... And waited... 

We didn't have to wait long. My favourite crab has to be the one covered in barnacles, we nicknamed this one Barnacle Bill.