Ladurée Raspberry-litchi-rose Ispahan

I seem to be going through a Ladurée phase at the moment and luckily my friend’s are more then happy to join me in my current addiction. 

I generally run in, buy a box of macaroons and run out again, but Ladurée at Covent Garden has the seating area upstairs and we can then indulge in these lovely delights and sit in lovely surroundings and eat a little piece of heaven.  

I also bought some delights home as treats and today, as it’s such a horrible, drizzly and very grey day, I have decided to have a bright, colourfull and tasty pick me up (well that is my excuse).

Look at the gorgeous colouring.  So bright and cheerful, tasted darn good too.  I thought at first, hmmm, rose, litchi, raspberries, but it works, it really does and I throughly enjoyed every bite.  The macaroon biscuit of the Ispahan was lovely and chewy and you had the crunch that you get with it, then the taste of rose came through, which was not overpowering and the litchi really came through as an individual flavour and you had this swirl of rose crème nice and thick and held it all together and then you were hit with this sharp, tart taste of the fresh raspberries which I just love.  I always love it when the fruits in desserts are tart, to me that gives it a bit more oompf. 

This dessert is named Ispahan because it’s named after a fancy rose that grows wild in the city of Isfahan in Iran (my father’s home town).   Whenever I smell roses or taste it, it takes me back to my childhood, to my grandfather’s rose garden in Shiraz and also the amazing parks and gardens that I explored as a child in Iran. 

Fancier still is that the guy who invented the Ispahan pastry was none other than Pierre Hermé, from back when he worked at Ladurée.  Interesting bit of info eh...

I want more!!

Sugar and spice and all things nice

I have a very sweet tooth and love most desserts (the list is endless) the same applies to food, but that I will leave for another day.  I love finding new and fabulous restaurants and if I’m travelling, I try to find where the best restaurants and pastry shops one can go to for fantastic food or dessert.  All waiters must think I’m mad, as I always ask for the dessert menu before choosing my meal as I have to plan what I will eat if there is a fantastic dessert on the menu.  Hey, I have my priorities.

The good thing is that I have quite a few friends who share my passion and one friend in particular is my ‘ultimate dining buddy’.  Our friendship grew over many lunches and dinners out, trying out fabulous restaurants and treats (not to forget our cocktail sessions).   She is a very passionate baker and has an amazing knowledge when it comes to these sugary delights (and all other things come to think of it).  Check out her amazing blog: The Caked Crusader

The other day we met up in town for lunch and a catch up and for our dessert, we decided to go to Ladurée at Covent Garden.  For those who have never heard of Ladurée, this is a luxury cakes and pastries brand based in Paris, France, its history dating back to 1862.  The first picture in my blog today is of their pastry counter, is there anything more wonderful then that?  Ladurée is known as the inventor of the double-decker macaron.  They produce  fifteen thousand of these which are sold every day. They are still one of the best known makers of macarons in the world.  

Look at this box of the little gems, such beautiful colours, look at the gloss on the outside, like a treasure trove of sugary delights.  

My firm favourites at the moment are pistachio

Coconut

Vanilla

Madagascar chocolate

Caramel

The list is endless.  But not only do they produce macarons, but also the most amazing pastries.  We had a ‘pistachio religieuse’ which was our afternoon treat (one each of course, we don’t share).   Look at this little beauty. 

A bit of background, the ‘religieuse’ was created in the mid-19th century, it comprises of two round choux pastry cases – one large at the bottom and one smaller one on top – with a delicate buttercream or Chantilly cream topping reminiscent of a nun’s wimple - hence the name.

Look at the inside, every mouthful was a piece of heaven

  

Is there anything better in life then this?

I also wanted to show you my lovely present from Mrs. CC and her hubby Mr. CC who also dabble in making their own liqueurs, check out their potables blog.  

Last year one of the liqueurs they produced was a crab apple one and I fell in love with it.  The aroma of this liqueur is amazing and the taste is just divine.  Because they used crab apples, it has this tart but also sweet taste and I have become hooked on it.  So much so, that they kindly gave me their entire crab apple production of last year and this year when they went foraging, they made me another stash for this winter.  How amazing are my friends.  Here is a picture of the 3 new bottles beside my half a bottle of last year's production, look how it has aged - beautiful.  Its like this golden elixir.  I know what is going to keep me warm this winter (unfortunately not Richard Armitage).  

Calvi, Corsica

First picture out of the plane window

Last year my friend, Miss K and I decided that we had a rather horrible year (another one) and needed pure relaxation on a beach, doing nothing whatsoever, but sit in the sun, swim in a sea, eat lots of good food and drink and be merry and ogle the talent.  

So off I went and started to investigate in Calvi, in Corsica.  2 years back I had wanted to go there for my big birthday bash holiday, but when you are trying to get 10 people together from oh so many different continents and dates, times, costs etc. it’s impossible, so that didn’t happen, but Miss K and I had fallen in love with the looks of Calvi.  

New destination for me, never been to Corsica.  I’m also one of these people who although I love travelling, I like to stay at hotels where I don’t find hundreds of horrible tourists from my own home country (although I’m one myself).  I like to stay where locals would stay, I like to eat in restaurants where you only mainly find locals or tourists like me.  That is very important to me.  I think this is left over from the days when I worked in the tourist industry in Dubai and after many years in this job, I had grown an aversion to these stereo type holiday makers.  The ones who travel to foreign countries, but still want to stay at their generic hotels with their own nationality, to still eat their fish and chips or their wiener schnitzel and think that if they shout in their language, it means they are actually speaking the country’s local dialect.  Or if they are not happy with certain rules of that culture or country, hey, the government should change it because they are not happy.  I shudder in memory.  

View from our balcony

Our pool

One of the many views of the duplex's garden

Another flat

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia.  Calvi is situated in the north west coast of Corsica.  A busy port during the Roman era, Calvi takes its name from the Calvus – ‘bald’ rock that would come to form the foundations of the Citadel, a thirteenth century fortress which offer some magnificent views across the bay to the mountains of la Balagne.

View of the citadel from our beach

Closer view with one of the ferry boats

View from near the citadel towards our beach

Calvi harbour

Beautiful little bays all along the coast, with the clearest water you have ever seen, lovely temperature, no strong currents whatsoever.  Also it’s one of those beaches, that when you get in, you have to walk out a fair bit to get to deep waters, so for anyone who wants to take the rug rats, a safe beach.  No rough seas, no waves, only in the afternoon when the ferry boat came in to harbour from either France or Italy, did we have for about 30 seconds ripples which I suppose you could say were waves, otherwise, just smooth and just simply gorgeous.

Along the main bay close to town where we went to every day for our beach sessions, there was the public beach and then restaurants that had their own private beach section, closed off with sun loungers and sun brollies.   As it was our holiday and also because I wanted a sun brolly as living in the UK, my lilly white skin can’t take 8 hours of sun non-stop after not seeing it for a whole year and I don’t want to end up looking like George Hamilton.   Being very sensible here…

Pictures from within town and the citadel

Walking into centre of Calvi towards Citadel

Part of the citadel

Doggy in one of the homes in the Citadel

Up in the Citadel

cobblestone road in the Citadel

According to legend Christopher Columbus came from Calvi

One of the many cobblestone streets

Now, rule of the beach in these private beach club sections, there are 3 rows of 30 loungers spread out behind each other and the Frenchies, the annual holiday makers, all book a year in advance for their sun loungers in the front row.  That is the place everybody wants to sit.  Little did we know of this beach rule.  But Miss K and I found out with a vengeance.  

The first day we went to the beach after our arrival, it was a rather overcast day (the only one) and so the weather wasn’t that great and the regulars weren’t out in full force, so we chose a beach club, went and sat on 2 loungers in the front row and no one said a word to us that this was booked, or wrong etc.  A lady owned this club.  So later on the day, when the sun did come out, the regulars turned up and we were wondering why we were being glared at.   I just thought, silly bints, what are their problems.  Miss K and I just closed our eyes and snoozed, or stared out to sea and switched our brains off.  

We then realised also that you have to book your sun lounger for the next day.  So when we left at the end of that day, we spoke to the owner, booked it, told her the front row, she said yes, and all was good – or so we thought.  

The next day we went back, but no, we were not allowed to have those front loungers, those are for regulars and were booked.  Ok, we’ll take the second row.  Booked the second row for the following day too.  Came back the next day, no, again,  we had this whole spiel of no loungers being available and we were starting to feel like outsiders at our club with the regulars glaring at us.  No matter where we tried to sit, no loungers.  Then we spotted two free, and sat down and proceeded to enjoy our day.  All of a sudden I started hearing this voice scream out from the restaurant, Madmoiselle, Madmoiselleeeeeeeeeeeeee and on and on it went.  At one point when I looked back I realised this old lady was waving her stick at Miss K.  So I mentioned that to Miss K, she turned around and it turned out that this old lady who is a regular, only turns up at lunchtime for her beach session and we were sitting at her two loungers.  So when the stupid owner turned up after the old woman sent her over, she made out to be as if it were our fault and explained, this is the same lounger that the woman has sat on for years every summer and we cannot sit there.  Errr hello, you are the one who sent us over to this.  I couldn’t believe it.  So we then had to move yet again even further along.  

Right, next day, we, on principle, refused to go to this beach club, we boycotted it completely.  Chose a new one, slightly more expensive, but we realised, it was the one to sit at.  So, David, our beach boy and waiter, pointed us to the second row and we booked that place every day for the rest of our holiday.  We actually preferred the second row, because that meant the people in the first row were also our entertainment!  Great stuff.  

We had these blond identical twins in their sixties from our boycotted club that were funny to watch.  They were the only ones from the original club to actually say bonjour and smile at us, the rest were awful.  

They would come in, by 11 start their drinking, playing cards served with lots of glasses of pastis (which is an anise flavoured liqueur and aperitif from France).

We had a bunch of French ladies who knew each other and would get together in front of us and gossip about each other, very amusing.  Eventually this group started to say hello and goodbye to us, we were slowly but surely becoming one of them.  

A mother and teen daughter, with the mother thinking she was in her teens too and had the same bleach blond hair, tiny bikini.  Of course the people who would walk up and down the beach.  No talent I’m afraid in our age group, you either had teenagers or men in their 50’s and older.  So instead, we started eyeing up the teenagers – just eyeing up I said, no need to get your knickers in a twist.   We are not cougars!  Well, not yet…

A lady selling beach wear and her advertising method was by modeling her bikini’s herself and walking up and down and telling us about it, so a bit of a fashion show every day and watching the young and the old in trying on her wears, and then buying it, very funny.

The praline lady coming round in the afternoons selling her pralines – calling out ehhh shou shou  de praline (well that is what I heard, have no clue what it actually was).   There was this hippy guy with very long dreadlocks who would go snorkeling along the rocks and swim out quite far with his trusty companion, this gorgeous dog.  This dog loved the water and for as long and as far out this guy would swim, he would swim along with him.  

Another dog would turn up, go for a swim on his own, and then amble off home.  I loved that this beach was so doggy friendly and lots of people had their dogs there.  But it was totally clean, every day a cleaning crew first thing in the morning when we were sleeping would clean and comb the sand and get it ready for us.  No littering, nothing, very clean.  I liked that. 

So there we were, Miss K out full in the sun, whilst I’m hiding under the brolly and would only come out to swim or towards the end of the day when the sun was at its best and not so strong.  We started to build up a beautiful tan and it was bliss.  

The only complaint I had really was the food.  Now I thought it would be like the rest of France, with all the goodies, but unless you were into steak et frites (chips), fish – which considering that we were right there at the source was fair bit expensive, boars paté, boars sausage, hams etc.  Ok mind you, we didn’t actively seek a local restaurant, the ones we had read about in the guides were not cheap and both Miss K and I had spent a fair bit on this holiday, although a package deal, it was main season.   The trick with Calvi, is that, like the rest of the French, you shopped at the local ‘tesco’ version, massive one there and everybody would cook at home and only go out at night to drink and party. 

Out of our lazy regime we went one day up the coast to a town called L'ile Rousse, named after the islets that blush a deep russet red in the sunset.  L'ile Rousse is a laid back seaside town with a central square, lively cafés, restaurants and ice cream parlours. With one of the warmest microclimates in Corsica, thanks to the sheltering Balagne hills that surround the town.

The market

Cute dog waiting outside the patisserie

View from the bay

Our travel mode was this really old, but very charming train that chugged away slowly all along the coast to the other town.  It is the best way to see the coast and luckily I have my very own personal photographer, Miss K, who takes all my holiday pictures from all our trips away.  There is no mountain high enough or any place difficult to get to, in order to capture the best view or pictures - K is the girl!.  I love it, she takes the most amazing pictures.  Yeah!!  Here are but a few. 

Inside the train

tracks were right along the beach

On our arrival to L'ile Rousse

The view from the train station at ile Rousse

Some of the landscape from our train

Very lush

Tiny little coves dotted along the coast

Look at the clarity of the water

Lots of different beaches along the way

After our day out and a rather scorching trip back in the cute little train, we ended up at our apartment complex’s many pools to cool down.  

We actually had real luck with our accommodation choice.   It was a five minute walk down to the beach.  But set within beautiful grounds, you had 3 small, only 2 floor duplexes and each duplex had its own pool so the pools never were that full and it was very quite and quite peaceful.  Our apartment had a big balcony, where we had breakfast and dinner out every day.  I was very spoilt during this holiday, it seems when Miss K goes away with me, she seems to take my qualities i.e. the habit of waking up early and I took on hers in that I slept past 8am.  So my lovely friend left every morning to walk to the local boulangerie, bought our daily breakfast of croissants and local sweet pastries and we would be so full until dinner time.  

Now, although Corsica is a French island off the coast of France, it is actually closer to Italy in its location and over time the Corsican food has picked up some of the Italian influence, so fabulous pizza’s but instead of using mozzarella, they used gruyere cheese, strange at first but they tasted delicious.  We had one of these take away pizza restaurants right in front of the entrance of our duplex, so on the nights when we weren’t out at the restaurant having dinner there whilst watching footie, or cooking, we would pick up a pizza.  Can you believe, I actually lost weight on holiday, what with all the croissants, pastries, pizza… good stuff.  

This whole holiday was organised through Corsican Places (a company started up by an English brother and sister team) and I can highly recommend them.  I normally book my own hotel and flights, but with Corsica if you did this on your own, it was a lot more expensive flight wise and during the main months they then have charter flights direct  to Calvi which was our preference as I really didn’t fancy a 2 hour bus ride from the next airport, hence the travel agency.  The staff were brilliant, uber friendly and helpful and everything went so smoothly, I would definitely book through them again.   

Au revoir Corsica!   A last sad glance at our beach loungers, we promise to be back one day!

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I went with a friend to the cinema today to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  This is a spy story, set in the bleak days of the Cold War.  George Smiley, who is played by the brilliant Gary Oldman, is a semi-retired espionage veteran who is forced back to work in order to uncover a mole within MI6 - a Soviet agent. 

I had read the book by John Le Carré many years ago and honestly couldn't remember who the spy was.  The casting was great and we really enjoyed the film.

But I have a huge complaint, not about the movie, but rather about the people who do go to the cinema.  Could you explain to me why people go to the cinema if all they want to do is chat to their friends during the film, or why they cannot sit still for 1 to 2 hours tops.  They also arrive late for the movie and then after sitting down for 10 minutes, decide, oh, I need popcorn, a drink .... 

I love watching films and especially love going to the cinema, or should I say I used to.  Nowadays I prefer to download them from itunes and watch it in the privacy and quiet of   my home without horrible mannered teenagers or adults in the crowd.

We had this family in front of us, where the mother was eating popcorn, then she decided to pick all the corn pieces that hadn't popped and crunch and make silly noises, shaking the bag around and crunching the hard corn, if you are that bored, GO HOME.  This went on throughout the entire film and you could clearly see the bag was empty.  I wanted to go up to her and slap her upside the head.    

What has happened to consideration to other people?

Stress galore

It has been a crazy 7 weeks and unfortunately I wasn’t able to sign on and update my blog as I would have liked to.  The internet in this suburb is one where probably a mouse is sitting in a box, up on a telephone pole and turning the handle so that it works.  Very, veeeeery slow.  The city haven’t decided to lay the digital cable all the way out there (which actually isn’t far from the city, but there you go).    

My time instead was spent taking my mother from one specialist doctor’s appointment to another, trying to tick off this enormous list of doctors, scans, MRIs of the head, also of the shoulder, heart angiogram process to but name a few.  We were also house sitting my mother’s ex boss’s house (mansion with I don’t know how many 100’s of acres of private land) which included two lovely dogs and a mad cat called Mini Max which you might have read about in one of my earlier blogs.  

Of course, for the ones who know me personally, should know, that nothing can be straight forward or happen in a normal manner.  So there I was thinking that my mum would have her final operation on her skull to close the hole and be done with it all (she had a brain aneurysm last May, emergency brain surgery which had some quite serious lasting effects, then in June the body rejected the piece of skull they had drilled to get to the brain and so we had to have another op to remove the piece of skull and then months of antibiotics to get rid of the infection) do you see what I mean…..

Instead we spent 5 weeks ticking off the list: cardiologist, pulmonologist et cetera et cetera.  The worse part of doing this is then finding out she has a lot more problems, a heart attack waiting to happen due to a constriction of one of the main arteries in the heart (now we know where my brother has his problem from as we didn’t know of any existing family heart conditions) – so that was a stent procedure and now of course more medication – last count, about 16 a day… and of course with smoking 30 years, her lung capacity is not good which of course gives her breathing difficulties.  

Now in between these appointments which ended up being every few days, our four legged friends were also not feeling well.  Lha Lha, the female dog was rushed for emergency surgery as she collapsed with puss coming out her mouth, nose and eyes, as her owner (and I use that term loosely) doesn’t bother taking care of her animals and she had rotten teeth (animal inbreeding doesn’t help either) and as it was ignored, turned into this massive infection.  So she had practically all of her teeth pulled bar 8 of them – the rest might also go at some other point.  So every other day we had to drive 30 mins to the vet, for her injections, check etc. and of course she hates travelling in a car, so you can imagine that whole scenario.  

Tensing was also off to the vet, to their local animal hairdresser for his haircut as he (also Lha Lha but the owner refuses out of her vanity to have the hair cut short) had extreme eczema.  

Before

After

On top of that, a few weeks later, the cat was sick, so was Lha Lha again, so back to the vet we went.  The vet wanted a stool sample of all three animals (even though 2 were sick) and of course Lha Lha had to give a urine sample.  Don’t forget – it has to be fresh, same day as delivery!!

So picture this, choosing a time that the dogs go for their constitutions first thing in the morning, I went armed with surgical gloves, jars, lots of paper towel  and one small lid as I would have to slide it under the female dog whilst squatting as she has a very strange way of peeing and not to forget, has body to floor fur (Lhasa Apso race).  

Also, if you are a dog owner, you might be aware that some of our pets do also not liked to be watched or viewed whilst doing their business and needless to say,  Lha Lha is no exception.  

So there I was walking closely behind her but at the same time pretending I’m not looking at her, just as she squatted, I slid the lid of an old honey jar under her best bit (well, where I thought it would be, don’t forget the long hair, I had to guess here) and managed to catch most of the golden rain, the other of course went over my hand – thank god for the surgical gloves.  So that was no. 1, now  for no. 2.  So off we continued on our walk and one by one my little furry friends deposited their little nuggets along the path and I scooped samples of it up.  It’s like an Easter Egg hunt!

So, both dogs done and a cat left to go – thankfully here, only a stool sample.  So off I went to his in-house loo and there, thankfully he had kindly left me a present.   

Right, outcome of the stool tests, they had a parasite and if one has them and they eat and drink out of each other’s bowls, they all had to be given these horrible tablets for a week – the cat got them for 3 days with double doses.  Have you ever given a cat 6 tablets in one go. What a kafuffle. 

  

The vet did the first lot and I must say it was a very upsetting process for the cat and also for me.  With 3 people we were holding this cat and with every power in his little mouth, he refused to open it.   I ended up with cat’s hair, tablet  swallowing gel, cat spit, vet spit all over me and a very, very upset cat.  I was not amused how unsympathetic this vet was and how harsh she grabbed him – through all this trauma, Mini Max was as good as gold in that he didn’t bite nor scratch any of us.   At one point he escaped and then went and shoved his head in the vet’s glass of water – she wasn’t amused, made me laugh though.  Good, I hope she got the parasites too!

So off we went home, with 2 very upset animals and then the drama of us having to give the cat for the next two days these blessed tablets.  Dogs, no problem, they always get their tablets in pate so they were uber excited as this treat ended up being every day and so often.  

The cat was a disaster.  I thought I was being clever by giving him tuna which is loves and never eats slowly but scoffs, well, what a mistake, I ended having to follow this cat around for a few hours to make sure he ate every bit of this tuna – he knew what I was up to – this is no fool people.  Is this the face of a cat that you can fool, no way matey!

That evening I had cooked loads of schnitzels for our dinner and Mini Max was like possessed to eat this.  So I had a clever plan, I saved a piece of schnitzel (good thing I did as my brother ended up having a midnight snack and no bloody schnitzel left for us the next day) and in the morning I then made an incision in the meat and squeezed in the tablet and then compressed it all in one little ball and gave it to him, half a tablet at a time x 12 – Mini Max thought it was his lucky day! – Done and dusted, kippers and custard!  All sorted.  Look at that belly!

But I created monsters, after those schnitzel treats, paté and lots of Wiener sausages (Lha Lha’s favourite – well sausage in general), every day, at certain times, I had three animals staring at me, tapping their little paws on their watches and looking at me as if to say “well, our treats, where are they?  You are slacking!”

  

The funny thing about Lha Lha and her sausages are as such, this dog pretends to be hard of hearing, totally ignores you when you call her for walkies and her favourite place of late is to hide and sleep is in my bedroom by my bed, out of sight out of mind is her motto.  

But through thick walls of around 5 rooms of our apartment to the main kitchen of the main house, when I happen to be handling the sausage bag, this madam hears me and all of a sudden she comes charging into the kitchen, eyes bulging out, hopping up and down on four paws and trying to knock me down.  Is this our hard of hearing dog?  She makes me laugh every time.  She has such a character, so eccentric but such a sweetheart, I love her to bits.  Look at my little girls face after her consumption of two entire sausages (she would have eaten more had I given it to her).  Just 3 front teeth also...

Tensing, the male dog, has never been greedy, even when it comes to his paté treat.  When you say to him it’s all finished, he will burp, wag his tale and walk off.  


This picture is evidence that Tensing isn't a greedy boy, look at Lha Lha and Mini Max watching my mum eat her dinner: 

There is nothing better in life then your pets I tell you!    

So, every day I woke up, having to check our diary, and one by one we ticked off the appointments for the two legged and four legged lovelies.  I was so exhausted, that I didn’t do any shopping, didn’t bother (apart from our birthdays) to go out to our favourite restaurants for meals – but what I did find time for naturally, was to bake one recipe after another from my dear friend Mrs CC’s blog: http://thecakedcrusader.blogspot.com/ – hey, I have my priorities right you know!  Also, I hit up my cousin (she is a great baker too) for my favourite cakes and it was a baker’s fest on most days.  I have to have my very strong coffee with cake for afternoonsies you know – very German thing you know...  

I have a very sweet tooth, as evident with my super fit, stealth six pack, lean mean cake machine body,  so sue me.  


As Virginia Woolf put it so well: "one cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."

I got back 2 weeks ago and decided that since mum’s op has yet again been pushed back for about 9 months, that enough was enough and it’s time I - UNFORTUNATELY – have to get back in the work flow and start looking for a new job ‘sigh’.  


Where oh where lottery buddha are you?  Have you forsaken me?  Or are you still determined to have people win it, who then decide, “you know what, I still love working at Tesco’s supermarket and living in my crap council flat and will not spend a penny but buy a new Vauxhall model car and maybe have two instead of one holiday this year at Butlins” – WTF – are you kidding me!!!  

My friends and I have over time, perfected our list of ‘what I would do if I win the lotto’ and we would really be good at living our lives to the fullest and also take care of their nearest and dearest with anonymous cheques so they can all retire and have fun too.  

So, lottery buddha, from my mouth to your ears – I am well worth it!  MAKE IT HAPPEN, I’ve got places to go, people to meet, shop till I drop with no limit, holidays in Bora Bora with my peeps, with gorgeous male slaves catering to our every needs (female salves for my male friends – I’m all for equality).   

Meanwhile, I am temping as I want the flexibility in case mum needs me, or my brain and body needs a holiday as I haven’t had one since last year when my beach buddy Miss K and I went to Calvi, Corsica.   What a holiday – Miss K, same again next year?

Until next time!