Dear Lily,
Today I had tea, a scone with jam and cream, and a piece of cake at an Orangery. (An orangery is kind of like a Mousery, only it's for oranges, not mice). The Orangery was behind a palace with a beautiful garden.
I wish you could've been there with me!
Love,
Kim
Though I've been told I don't really have much of a sense of humor, I am still Gavin's Thalia, the muse of comedy. I can be goofy every once in a blue moon and I have that physical comedy thing going for me, unintentionally. Which sometimes means I'm flying through the air after tripping over a crack in the sidewalk. I'm also known as "Talia of the Shire" when I wear my hat. More importantly, I'm a pancake muse. Yesterday Gavin surprised me with a strawberry pancake and a chocolate cherry pancake. For dinner, no less. And speaking of chocolate, the other night I put Pink of Perfection's chocolate truffle recipe to the test with great success. You should try it.
In other news, I'm trying to find a cheap-n-charming b&b in Oxford for Wednesday night--so if anyone has a hot tip, please let me know! I have to skedaddle. Right now I'm caught in the middle of a really long break-up with Gilberte.
Image: Hyde Park, Saturday, March 8
What I've been up to lately:
* Seeing Aviv Geffen with special guest Steven Wilson at Bush Hall
* Having my first bacon roll (at Honest Sausage in Regent's Park)
* Walking around Fleet Street (see Twinings pic above)
* Exploring the Wallace Collection and having tea on monogrammed plates in their gorgeous courtyard
* Taking a Robert Burns day tour of the Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath and then having tea and a read at the Spanish Inn (pic of G. above)
* Seeing U2 cover band Achtung Baby
* Visiting Dulwich Picture Gallery for the "Age of Enchantment" exhibit featuring Aubrey Beardsley and contemporaries and as a bonus getting to see one of Joshua Reynolds two portraits of Sarah Siddons as The Tragic Muse (the other is at the Huntington in Pasadena)
Last night Gavin and I visited Japantown's On the Bridge, a Tokyo-style fusion diner catering to young Japanese hipsters. It serves "Western" dishes like spaghetti and pizza but gives them an Eastern spin. On the Bridge is reminiscent of a 1950s diner with its bubble gum pink accents and long counter, but the anime on two t.v. screens and the piles of stuffed animals behind the counter are clues that you're not in Kansas anymore. While Gavin practiced his Japanese, ordering the adorable candy pink cranberry cocktail (top) and vegetable curry, I sipped smoky oolong tea, browsed through the collection of manga, and had my first ever plate of Japanese spaghetti--Flying Fish Roe Spaghetti (bottom), to be precise. I'll definitely be back--I'm anxious to try a slice of Japanese pizza.
Yesterday after spotting a shop called The Candy Store while running errands, I abandoned my resolution to clean my apartment and do the dreaded laundry and instead bought a banana flambe bistro chocolate bar, recommended by shop owner Diane Campbell. Then I decided that I needed to eat said chocolate bar while watching the new Harry Potter movie. It all made for a delicious afternoon. Harry Potter was great fun and the chocolate bar, exquisite. So today--after I finish this post--I'll be (hopefully) cleaning my apartment like a speed demon and finish just in time for a Bastille Day picnic at Nob Hill Park with my favorite French podcaster and friends.
The only sure way I've found to survive economy class flying is to supplement travel with the right books and, naturally, the perfect tempting sweet treats for mid-air mini-snack breaks.
For this trip I had of course already read half of the books that I planned to take in the days leading up to my vacation, so remaining with me for the first leg of the trip were Alain de Botton's charming The Art of Travel and Rachel Cusk's The Country Life. Both were quaint and wonderful. (Nicki and my sister had both raved about The Country Life so I had very high expectations.) While awaiting the final boarding call (why do people queue to get on when we all have assigned seats?), I purchased Turkish Dried Apricots and a small beribboned brown box of Godiva truffles. Nothing is better than untying the bow on a box of fine chocolates when you could be eating a handful of peanuts.
For the journey home--when I wasn't dreaming of the picturesque canal view from the Pensione Seguso--I finished Henry James' The Aspern Papers, a thrilling mystery set in Venice, and started David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. I munched on Candied Ginger (I'd read it was a cure for nausea) and Edmund's Achilles heel, rose-flavored Turkish Delight, purchased en route to the airport via Victoria Station.
More on the middle part later.
Bangkok is "the city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra,
the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the
happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the
heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra
and built by Vishnukam". Harney and Sons' exotic Bangkok blend, a green tea with lemon grass, ginger and coconut, lives up to its appellation.
I'm sitting here drinking my second cup of the morning--my everyday tea, PG Tips, but in a pretty porcelain tea cup from Amy--and in between blogging, phoning in birthday wishes, and making travel plans, I've been perusing Portsmouth Tea Company's site (via Daily Candy). The site is designed beautifully and the teas are organized by type of tea, taste (creamy, bright, malty, bold, etc.), and color. You can even create a wishlist and there is, of course, a tea blog. Speaking of tea blogs, I can't remember where I saw this, but someone on my blog roll recently linked to Tea Birds, a photoblog of pretty girls drinking tea.
Image: Anthropologie's elegant Tuxedo tea set is now on sale.
I think I mentioned previously that I'm completely obsessed with Frog Hollow Farms cream scones. Last week when I stopped in for a scone and a latte (a tad pricey, but worth it), I was tempted to try one of their bite-size pear samples. It was so delicious that I decided on the spot to make a pear tart. Usually when I get a spontaneous cooking idea like this, I discard it immediately for various reasons: 1) I never seem to have enough time 2) the items I buy tend to spoil before I have time to use them and 3) I've most likely never made the item in question before and am therefore daunted by my inexperience.
I went ahead and bought five of the pears anyway. Predictably, by the time I actually got around to making the tart, 2.5 percent of the pears were almost unusable. But I powered ahead anyway, making the Caramelized Upside-Down Pear Tart, pictured above. It tasted much better than it looked. (And no, I did not cheat. I actually made the pastry dough myself.) I didn't get around to reading the comments section of the recipe, where several people explain that you need more pears than the recipe calls for, until after I baked the tart. This could have something to do with the fact that I usually combine cooking with novel reading (this time I was distracted by The Pickwick Papers) which, as you can imagine, sometimes causes problems.
