I love living in Surrey. Historic villages interspersed with pockets of verdant countryside. Houses huddled around village greens. Busy cobbled high streets with hills rolling in the background. The best of town and country. Over and over.
One of the brightest jewels in Surrey’s crown is Shere, near Guildford. Every corner is beautiful.
Continue reading Shere Hollywood in Surrey
Sometimes it’s the little changes in beauty that can make all the difference. Unimpeachably uplifting time savers and luxury skincare champions, gather around my camera and pose/poise to be snapped.
Continue reading Beauty Pick-Me-Ups
Your new favourite Autumnal dessert is here.
It’s a delicious double whammy of chocolate: the most perfect chocolate sponge covered in a silky creamy chocolate sauce. You make the sponge like a tray bake and watch it rise (cake rising in the oven is my favourite show) as it becomes a super springy chocolate cake with an air-whipped, spongey centre. So it’s incredibly light, yet naughtily rich. Super simple and divinely decadent.
If you bake this for friends, pour the chocolate sauce into a jug so everyone can serve their own. A nostalgic nod to childhood days of sponge pudding and custard served at indoor teddy-bear picnics.
Just get ready to divulge the recipe afterwards! (To teddy bears or friends…)
Continue reading Dreamy Chocolate Sponge and Sauce
I last visited Polesden Lacey in Surrey a couple of years ago in the middle of Summer, when the gardens were heaving with the smell of pink and white roses and the sky was a potent Azure blue.
Continue reading Polesden Lacey
MmmmlettheCLATTERINGofplatesprovidethemusic.
This pasta bake needs little introduction. It’s best described as the most delicious and nutritious macaroni cheese you’ll ever eat. A sort of macaroni cheese-verde. I use elicoidali pasta shapes, which are like a giant version of macaroni, making every mouthful extremely satisfying and substantial, covered in a thick homemade cheese sauce with finely chopped bacon, leeks and spinach. It’s very straightforward and wonderfully indulgent, perfect for an Autumn dinner.
Continue reading Very Special Pasta Bake
I went to visit The Medicine Garden in Cobham for a bit of a rest and relaxation.
Continue reading The Medicine Garden in Cobham
Everyone needs a good pie recipe up their sleeve (probably folded like an origami jester’s hat – because why not). There’s nothing better than a comforting homemade pie for Sunday lunch in the colder months that sets you up for the busy week ahead. Continue reading Steak Pie
When I open my wardrobe I can feel a bit lost.
It’s organised into sections and subsections, but sometimes that’s not enough. Short of installing actual sartorial signposts (does & Other Stories have a homeware section?) I’m left gripped by indecision and amused by the narrative my fashion choices chronicle. Continue reading Preppy Fashion
Call off the search – the hunt is over. Here is the recipe for big, chewy cookies. You know, like the ones you buy in the bakery? Except better, because you will have made them, with generous chunks of chocolate instead of little chips. And better still, they’re SO easy to make. I’ve tried baking with both white chocolate and milk chocolate because I wanted an excuse to eat loads of cookies thought it was really important to do proper research for this blog post and I’ve come to the conclusion that both kinds of chocolate work extremely well with this recipe. I also found out that these cookies are washed down perfectly by a homemade vanilla milkshake. Never let it be said that I don’t work for this blog.
Continue reading Chewy Cookies Recipe
My favourite word of the moment is ‘Mountweazel’. My curious fingertips stumbled across this short article in the New Yorker from 2005 which explains Mountweazels more succinctly than I ever could. Did you know that dictionaries often add in fictitious words as a copyright trap? The article states that the 2005 edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary contains a made-up word beginning with ‘E’ and a shortlist of six possible Mountweazels surfaced and the list was sent to various lexicography experts and they (correctly) agreed that the word ‘esquivalience’ was the imposter (I admit, of the list, that’s not the one I would have chosen!). I summoned my Dictionary programme that lies in the dock area of my Mac and typed in ‘esquivalience’ and there lies a definition consistent with the false entry from the NOAD:
Continue reading The Adventure of English
