things we eat and drink, at home and out and about
This week has become a bit colder and rainy, which I suppose means we’re getting full on into the summer!
Continue reading “Self isolation, week 12: we get a very special brewing kit, the cast iron pan is brought back from exile, we have a very Valencian Sunday, some shops reopen, and I am also really fed up”
On this 10th week of being trapped at home we’ve experienced HOT temperatures, which caused us to eat lots of salads and other home remedies. We also got a fishmonger delivery so we ate a lot of fish-based dishes, and finally, we gifted ourselves a very fancy take-away! 🎁
Continue reading “Self-isolation, week 10: it’s HOT…! (plus the fanciest take-away)”One of my favourite things from this week is, without a doubt, Devvers’ fabulous inventiveness with all these random groceries that have been delivered to us in “Surprise boxes”. We’ve been eating delicious dishes that I would not have thought of eating with those ingredients, it’s great!
We’ve also been channeling our inner Persian, which is fabulous as well, and makes us think of our Iranian friends and the magnificent feasts they host at their house. We miss them 🤗
Continue reading “Self isolation, week 7: Persian-fusion, and Devvers is on a ROLL”
This is a sweet cake that is produced around Easter time in the Valencian region, and it’s also one of my favourites!
In fact, I like it so much that I learned to make it, because it’s impossible to source it in London, and I was missing it lots each time I spent Easter in the UK.
One of the defining features of this bun is that it uses eggs both in the dough and in the decoration, which has many variations: you can brush the top with beaten egg, or whisk the egg white with sugar until it stiffens and use it to decorate the top the bun, or you can even place an egg on the bun before baking, which makes it look like an egg nesting on the bun (this is most typical of the smaller, individual pieces). Often, the eggshells are dyed with food colouring, so this makes for very colourful pieces that you’re sorry to eat.
Tradition has it that you should take a mona with you on a country side walk on Easter Monday, to celebrate the arrival of Spring. Then, when you find a nice and calm spot, you sit down and eat your mona outdoors, while enjoying the early warm weather and the sight and scent of flowers (hopefully without too many insects!).
And if your mona includes eggs, it’s quite traditional to ‘crack’ them on the forehead of your family members or friends… preferably by surprise! 🤪
Although local shops are starting to stock things again, they are still quite unpredictable, plus going to them is really unnerving, what with people not respecting any distance or being considerate of others, etc. So we have been trying a bunch of different grocers that do home deliveries; the quality is also higher than what we get in the nearest shops, and we seem to be finding who our favourites are in terms of speed, quality and reliability.
It’s good to be able to establish some sort of predictability after all these weeks of uncertainty.
Continue reading “Self isolation, week 6: masterful repetition”.jpg){kind=link}