Category: England

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Notes on the Ultimate CEE Wine Fair 2024

Wine bottles from the Animaliens Castel mimi brand, with different colourful animals depending on the wine - a bird with big feathers, a cockerel, a minotaur? another minotaur

I attended this event dedicated to showcasing Central and Eastern Europe wines.

It took place on the 18th of June in St. John’s Church in Waterloo, a venue I had walked past many times and which I had never imagined being used for a wine tasting event!

There were many producers attending the event so I tried to be a bit selective with what I tasted, rather than aiming to taste the entire room. And despite tasting more than 50 wines I still missed entire countries!

But there was so much to look into in just one day…

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Hot cross buns

A tray with sixteen hot cross buns, close together and baked, on top of a silicon mat for baking

This is a revised version of the original recipe from Nigella.

When we made these last year, we faithfully followed the recipe to the letter, and while the result was very nice, at heart we knew that it could have been better.

So this year I decided to repeat the recipe and not go for better but for PERFECT. I printed the recipe so I wouldn’t miss a beat while cooking, but afterwards I did so many things in slightly different ways and added so many annotations that it almost is a different recipe (while still being a recipe for hot cross buns), hence I am posting it here.

Two hot cross buns, halved, toasted and with butter on top, melted in parts and showing the dates and raisins
Two hot cross buns, ready to eat
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In the soap shop of whimsy

The café in the soap shop

The rain was lashing the streets with violence (thank you for nothing, wind!). If you opened the umbrella, it was blown away and turned around. If you didn’t, you got all wet. It was all futile: whatever you did, you lost the battle.

It was putting me in a foul mood, so I thought maybe I should take my mind off the nasty weather by going to the shops.

I crossed this shop’s threshold —for there is no actual physical door in it, only an invisible wall of hot air separating the in from the out— and tried to gather all my layers in preparation of what was to come next: toiletry shopping.

My deliberate efforts to minimise the negative impact I leave on Earth had led me to conclude it would be a good idea to switch to soap rather than use shower gel, and what could be better than getting soap at a place where not only can you buy it by the weight, but is also made in an ethical manner?

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From Rinkoff’s Bakery to Floris Bakery in Soho

Detail of "Floris" sign on the Great Windmill Street side

The pictures in this fabulous article on Spitalfields life “at Rinkoff’s Bakery” caught my eye, as the owner was shown shaping a beautifully plaited bread.

One of my fascinations, as might or not have become evident by now, is the art of intricately shaped breads. Another fascination I like to indulge in is peeling off the layers of time.

This post combines the two!

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