Food Heaven

This place can't be real! Am I really here, on earth? Or have I died and gone to heaven?

An extended London visit took us to Whole Foods Market in Kensington High Street, after a sleepless night's stay in Hammersmith, following a fabulous night out at a Björk concert.
We were still very hungry after the Holiday Inn Express breakfast, which to be frank, wasn't up to my standards. I hate sliced bread and I detest it even more when it goes through the conveyor toasting machine, only to emerge as dry hot floppy bread. I want proper toast and decent jam and marmalade to spread on it. Tasteless mini sachet portions of preserve will not do!

We came to Whole Foods Market in search of skyr, a delicious, yoghurt-like product from Iceland. On first tasting it, on one of our holidays there, we were seduced by it's creaminess – a creaminess which is not sinful as it's very low in fat.

Although we were on our mission, the rest of the shop could not be by-passed, so we made a grand tour.
I have never seen anything quite like it – everything you could possibly imagine, artfully arranged in piles of temptation. Everything is so fresh, colourful and enticing, that I fell into a state of culinary rapture!

Calming down after much excitement we bought our pots of blueberry skyr and ate it outside, (thankfully it comes with a spoon) our appetites now sated and bliss achieved!

For more information about skyr visit: www.skyr.is

So far, Whole Foods Market are the only stockists of skyr in the UK: www.wholefoodsmarket.co.uk

Photo taken from Skyr.is website

Roots and Shoots

It's been a while since my last post – three weeks, in fact – and a lot has happened in the kitchen garden since then. My tomato, pepper, courgette and pumpkin seeds have germinated and are well on their way to becoming good strong plants. They have produced their second true leaves, except for the peppers, which are slower to germinate and have only just popped out of the soil over the last couple of days.

As you can see from the photos, the plants are going so well that they're nearly ready to be potted up and put outside for a few hours each day to harden them off.

Two weeks ago, I also sowed some beetroot, carrot, radish, chive and spring onion seeds, directly into large containers outside. Nothing has happened yet, but the weather has been cold so I shall have to be patient.

We've also been to the garden centre and bought some thyme plants, which hubby and I put into some attractive galvanised metal troughs. I used to have some thyme in the garden, but it slowly disappeared – not due to any over zealous clipping on my part – I think it just got worn out of its own accord!

We also purchased some additional sage plants – not only are they useful for cooking but they make lovely fragrant shrubs.