Two years ago our Christmas got canceled on Christmas Eve — well the trip we had planned to Switzerland did anyway. It was our first Christmas with a child and you know how important they are! We were devastated. I think the only thing that saved us was Melrose & Morgan, our local deli in Primrose Hill (where we lived at the time). We turned up at 12pm to a packed store of everyone collecting their orders and they thankfully managed to make us up one of their ‘Christmas’s in a box’. It honestly saved the day.
But Melrose & Morgan is not just for Christmas, their fantastic home-cooked meals are perfect to take home, heat up and make you look like a domestic goddess. Sadly my better-half isn’t easily fooled – Melrose & Morgan’s food is just that bit too delicious for him to believe it was made by me whilst I had 2 children hanging off my arms.
Each day the kitchen prepares a different menu using seasonal, locally sourced ingredients. Additionally they have a range of staples including their home-made pies, freshly baked bread, mouth-wateringly delicious cheeses and sweet treats for every occasion. I keep one of their pies and some of their home-made ice cream in my freezer for those “its 6.45pm, there’s nothing to eat in the house and the kids are going crazy” evenings (of which we tend to have 4 a week).
I’m not big on branded merchandise but my one exception is Melrose & Morgan’s mugs, aprons and my favourite canvas shopping bags with their simple red font spelling evocative foodie words such as ‘picnic’, ‘cheese’ and ‘custard’ (I love that one in particular!).
Melrose and Morgan is at 42 Gloucester Avenue, London, NW1 8JD. Nearest tube Chalk Farm or Camden.
England is not known for its cooking, but sometimes that reputation is uncalled for. Sure, jellied eels, deep-fried pizzas and french fry sandwiches (aka chip butties) are not to everyone’s taste, but in a cold, wintery climate a warming dish cannot be beaten. There is one thing I miss in particular from my London days: a good savoury pie.
Every country seems to have its own variation on a baked crust with a savoury filling, but it is hard to beat a good English pie… ask my children, I think they would agree.
This is my version of a pie, but any suggestions or spins on the subject are more than welcome.
Chicken Pie:
- Left over chicken from a roast chicken
- mushroom or leeks (depending on preference)
- an onion
- a can of sweetcorn (I personnally am not a huge fan, but some people do get very exicted about sweetcorn)
- chicken stock
- about 150 ml of créme fraiche
- 1-2 tablesppons of flour
- a roll of puff pastry
Pre-heat the oven to about 180 degrees. Now fry the onion gently in some olive oil. When it is nice and soft, add in the vegetables and cook them them all together for about 2 minutes. Top the mixture up with some chicken stock so that the mixture is just covered and let it all bubble away gently until the vegetables are tender. By this time the stock should have reduced quite a lot.
Add in the left over chicken. Also add in 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour to thicken up the mixture and and the créme fraiche. Taste and flavour with salt and pepper until it tastes good to you.
Put the mixture in a pie dish and cut out a lid out of the puff pastry to cover it. Stick it into the over until it is golden brown on top.
Enjoy! I normally serve the pie with a salad. Traditionally, in England, it would be served with mashed potatoes, known as Pie n’ Mash for short!
I was sitting beside a Lebanese guy at a wedding this weekend and he could not help raving about the wonderful food from his country and the Mediterranean area in general. Since then I have not stopped thinking about great Mediterranean dishes. Don’t forget: eating a Meditarrenean diet apparently makes you live longer…
So this afternoon my daughter and I got busy and made up a dinner’s worth of felafel, which we had not eaten for the longest time.
Felafel are perfect for kids, easy to eat and perfect to accompany lots of different salads. They are very simple and a huge amount of fun to make. (I told my daughter that we were going to be making little round balls out of a sticky play dough-type substance and she was completely enthused by this.)
Above all, felafel tastes absolutely delicious and gets devoured at high speed here at our place…
Here’s the recipe:
Felafel
400 g can of chickpeas (you can also soak chickpeas overnight and then cook them; I can never be bothered)
-2 tablespoons of gram flour (chickpea flour), alternatively normal flour will do
-1 good handful of parsley
-1 teaspoon of dried cumin powder
-1 teaspoon of dried coriander powder
Drain the chickpeas well; you want them to be as dry as possible. Add all the ingredients together and mash. I usually do it in our food processor. The mixture should be quite sticky but firm enough that you can form little balls out of it. If you have a feeling it is too wet, simply add a bit of flour to it.
Form balls out of the mixture and fry them in about ½ cm of oil until they are golden brown.
I usually serve Felafel with hummus to dip them in, a tomato/cucumber salad and wedges of pitta bread.
For a printable version of this recipe, click here.
Seriously — so so so quick. Done in 15 minutes before dashing out of the house to kindergarten. The classic chocolate-crispy-cake but Valentined-up with mini marshmallows and the most adorable heart sprinkles from Etsy-shop Hey Yo-Yo (which I love for all things cake & kitsch). We dolloped our mixture into pretty pink paisley cases for our playdate in the afternoon, and then into mini-cases to fit inside this very pink heart tin from Paperchase (pictured) as a Valentine’s present for my son’s beau. Yes, my son is in love! His name is Elias and he has aptly fallen in in love with a girl called Grace — anyone who knows the store in Primrose Hill will appreciate his brand loyalty.
To make you need: 100g milk chocolate and 60g golden syrup (or 3 Mars bars work nicely), 75g unsalted butter, between 75 to 100g rice-crispies cereal, a handful or so of mini-marshmallows and some heart decorations. If you can’t get sprinkles then any heart sweets could work, or even love-hearts (I love their messages).
Melt the chocolate, syrup and butter over boiling water. When melted stir until smooth and remove from the heat. Add rice-crispies and stir, then add the marshmallows and stir again. Spoon into cases and decorate with hearts. Leave for a couple of hours to cool and set or put into the fridge to speed up the setting process. Yum!
With Valentine’s Day approaching I am thinking that a trip to the Suga Candy Kitchen might be on the cards. This lolly shop is my kids’ version of heaven. What can be more exciting, more mesmerizing than handmade, delicious rock candy made right before your eyes (to be honest, I can think of many things but my kids, I’m sure, they can’t!). The lolliologists (highly trained lolly makers… really… I’m not kidding) stretch, pull and twist the hot molten candy, then chop it into jewel-sized bites. Yum! Fresh from the cooling slab they then generously hand out samples, and if you want to you can personalize your lollies with names or cute messages like ‘I love you’ and ‘you are sweet’ and ‘be mine’.
Oh….in case you were wondering, here in Australia we call a piece of what is called candy in the States, or sweets in the UK, as ’lollies’.
It is a fun place to go and I seriously defy anyone, sugar devotee or otherwise, to leave without having bought a bag or jar of some type of hard rock confection… A great Valentine’s treat for the children or a loved one. For more mouth watering details and Suga Candy Kitchen locations click here.
How cute are these cupcake kits!!!! What a simple solution to make you look like a baking rock star! Meri Meri has something for just about every occasion and the quality is just beautiful. Now that the coldest months are rolling into the city I like doing cooking projects in the afternoon to deal with those often painfully long hours between the “end-of-school” and the “start-of-dinner”. There are tons of other really adorable and creative things on the website as well — invitations, thank you cards and notepads. And speaking of cupcakes… I want one.
With Valentine’s Day approaching soon, I couldn’t resist purchasing this amazingly cool heart shaped frying pan. I’m not yet sure whether I’ll serve the pancakes or the eggs, or maybe both… But I’m positive my family will love them (and me)!
I got mine from this shop here in the Netherlands, but it’s — among other places — also available from this UK website.
Cooking nutritious meals in a campervan in no easy feat. First, the kitchen is tiny, the utensils are very basic, and there is no oven. Secondly, it’s already hot and sticky in the van, so you don’t feel like cooking anything. So, for the sake of our sanity we’ve learned to keep it simple. We’ve made this pasta twice in the past two weeks, and it is so easy to make and yet really good. The only sign of it being a camp meal is the plastic dishware we’re eating it on! It is delicious, and the kids love it.
Another bonus of this pasta is that you can pretty much rely on your pantry cupboards (canned tomatoes, canned tuna, pasta, olive oil, etc.) You’ll only need a handful of fresh basil and parsley.
Here is the recipe:
Tuna and tomato pasta:
-4 cloves of garlic, diced
-olive oil
-2 cans of chopped tomatoes
-handful of fresh chopped flat-leaf parsley
-1 can tuna (in oil)
-handful of fresh basil (chopped)
-salt & pepper
-pasta (penne or farfalle, etc.)
Sauté the garlic in the olive oil. Add the canned tomatoes and the chopped parsley, then simmer on the stove for 15-20 minutes. Season to taste. (While the tomatoes are simmering, boil the water for the pasta and cook the pasta for specified time.)
At the very last minute, after the pasta is cooked and drained, add the tuna and chopped basil to the simmering tomatoes. Toss everything into a large bowl and serve.
Enjoy!
For a printable version of this recipe, click here.
On New Years Eve, during a major snowstorm, one of my daughters became violently ill.The timing, of course, could not have been worse and after a call to the doctor we were put at ease, told to stay in, to push fluids and to ride it out. “There’s a stomach bug going around and it will pass” — we were told. But “stomach bug” I knew this was not. This thing, whatever she had, was far more sinister. A day later and two separate trips to the emergency room we wound up in the hospital for seven days of pure agony. Not only were we quarantined in a room that we were not allowed to leave but my potty-trained daughter was back in diapers –- going to the bathroom up to 30 times a day and screaming every time (sorry tmi). The poor thing was finally diagnosed with Salmonella (it takes 3 days to show up in a blood culture), and even rarer, it had spread to her bloodstream.Where she got it – I still don’t know.Salmonella is one of those things that you can get from food, playing with a turtle, anywhere really – nobody knows. And when a kid gets it, especially if it gets into the blood, it is nothing short of terrifying.
After my own bouts with food poisoning in the past (I have been hospitalized twice for food contaminated illnesses from work, once with Salmonella from a CANTALOUPE!), I have been fearful of food and have become very particular about what I eat and what I feed my children.But you can’t be vigilant 100% of the time, and sadly, there is really no control over the situation.The food supply in the US is worrisome to say the least and unless you are shopping at local farmers markets or paying top dollar at Whole Foods you really have no idea where your food is coming from.
So where am I going with this? I guess after seeing my daughter go through such an excruciating situation I am on mega high alert which reminded me of two books that are worth reading. Two excellent books about the state of the food supply in the US are The Omnivores Delimma and In Defense of Food. I was lucky to have grown up with a mother who was a hippie so I was quite aware of what was healthy to eat, but these two books were eye opening to say the least.
And last week I finally watched the documentary, Food Inc. If you have not seen it – watch it now! Oprah just did a special on it. Buy it or rent it or get it on demand.It will blow your mind, make you sick and might even make you a vegan overnight.I hate to bring this up and scare people but I am worried and I don’t even know what to eat anymore — if you have ideas, please send them my way. I am pretty confident this is a US related issue but not sure. I just get the feeling that in Europe there are more markets and access to fresh food. Please let me know. I am just curious.
So someone dared one of my husband’s very conservative and straight-laced co-workers to grow a shaggy 1970’s style moustashe last month. I guess everyone chipped in $10 and pretty soon the guy was going to make a small killing — so he did it. Anyway, after a month or so the moustache was in full force and he looked, as predicted, ridiculous. So after the jokes were told ad nauseum the poor guy got his loot and was free to shave it off. As a parting gift, they took a picture and printed out his face on an M&M and gave tiny tin boxes to the entire staff. I thought it was a cool idea! Who knew you could print an image on that tiny thing? While I don’t advocate the eating of junky candy per se, I do like silly ideas. We just ordered a bunch with a picture of the girls to give out at their birthday party next month.
Most parents discover fairly early on that if they want to meet in a cafe with friends and have any hope of conversation (one that spans more than 10 seconds), then a distraction for the children in the form of a book/toy is imperative. It allows at least some semblance of communication between the adults whilst in the company of young children — where you can form a full sentence… in one go!!
Many cafes in Melbourne answer this need, providing crayons and butcher paper to occupy the kids. And that certainly helps! But Family Life Home & Café in Grattan Street, Prahran goes one step further. Not only is it a divine Balinese inspired space, incorporating a cafe and boutique, but it has a gorgeous imaginative play area for the children.
So… whilst you leisurely sip your cappuccino on a comfy couch, chat to friends, read the newspaper (without being interrupted every. single. sentence) and shop for hand-made toys, eco homewares, exotic recycled furniture and some great kidswear — the children are happily playing nearby in the enchanted forest or putting on a show in the gazebo! Happiness all around!
If you are visiting, be sure to check out the kidswear. Not only do they carry some great Aussie designers like Mill&Mia, Sudo and Jellyfish but they also carry a more obscure Balinese designer called Paul Ropp. His distinctive and vibrant pieces are truly amazing!
Family Life will also throw a fantastic kids birthday party, with every little detail taken care of!
I used to keep a picture in the front of my diary of an old-fashioned sweet shop. You know the kind: shelves stacked with glass jars brimming with brightly-coloured sweets. The Juliette Binoche in me always quite fancied being a ‘purveyor of splendid confectionery’. However these days there would be little point in me following this dream as Hope & Greenwood do it so perfectly.
They have stores in Dulwich & Covent Garden (which would be perfect if you happen to be taking a trip to Benjamin Pollocks as per my last post), but they are also sold in some pretty lovely other places: Liberty, Selfridges, Fortum & Mason (to name but a few) and of course you can buy them online from their site. I find the Miss Hope’s Jolly Mixture a very exciting treat and the Sugar free Gummy Bears a good one to ensure the children don’t bounce off the ceiling with too much sugar!
Nestled in a bend of the Yarra River, amongst the river red gum and paperbark trees (a very typical Australian setting!) is the Collingwood Children’s Farm…. a little slice of country life right in the heart of Melbourne, only 4 kilometres from the CBD. It’s a magical place for city children (and adults) and an absolute favorite with family and friends.
Here, children can get up close and personal with all the typical farmyard animals and immerse themselves in farm chores. They can get their hands dirty milking the cows, bottle feeding the lambs, waddling with the ducks, patting the rabbits, feeding grass to the horses and all the while marvel at the sight and smell of the pigs. They can also look for eggs — a great way to teach them that eggs and milk don’t come out of cartons (as I am lead to believe some ‘other’ children think is the case… not mine, of course! )
And, after all that exhausting animal frolicking, if you haven’t brought your own picnic, there is the delicious Farm Cafe where you can enjoy a decent coffee made with Eureka beans and a hearty farmer’s breakfast or lunch, always reliably good.
Needless to say, this is truly a hidden oasis for us Melbourne city dwellers. Every second Saturday of the month the farm hosts a wonderful farmers’ market selling fresh produce from the farm and from dozens of other Victorian producers. I am always gutted when I miss this. And despite a little mishap with an enthusiastic cow I was attempting to milk several months ago (I won’t divulge but it didn’t end so well for me), it really is one of my favorite places to take my children. We always have a ball.
ps. Should you happen to be a germaphobe like me, don’t forget this!
I can’t believe my daughter has just turned one — time has flown. Now I know a one-year-old might not appreciate a proper birthday party, but I can’t resist one. And in the spirit of being ‘girly’ there was nothing for it but a fairy tea-party, to be more specific The Toadstool Tea (for those of you unfamiliar with fairy-lore, The Toadstool Tea is a secret party for all the fairies, elves and imps to celebrate the Fairy Queen’s birthday. It takes place under the thicket deep in the middle of the forest (according to Mo)).
Toadstools, it turns out, are not only a really great theme for a party but also rather fashionable. In my month or so of preparation I saw them everywhere (I couldn’t resist adding a cute Toadstool money box from Cath Kidston (stores only) and this adorable Shinzi Katoh print to her presents). Toadstools also make for a fun theme because they are easy to draw and craft. Here are some other toadstool ideas…
I made felt toadstools for the invitations (super easy) and Fimo toadstools for decoration (super, super easy and fun — haven’t Fimo’d for years!)
The fairies ate Toadstool Cupcakes (vanilla cupcakes with bright red vanilla icing from the very brilliant Primrose Bakery Cupcake Cookbook decorated with white chocolate drops) and each got a Toadstool cookie in their goody-bag, made using this recipe and this Toadstool cutter. I did also make Toadstools using quail’s eggs and half a tomato perched on top, dotted with mayo but Mums and Dads seemed to go for these rather than kids.
We had a lovely day and who wouldn’t with their house all a flutter with 1 – 3 year-old girls and boys all dressed up as fairies and elves?
My family is in the grip of ‘Masterchef’ fever! My kids are so enthused by this reality television program that I practically have my youngest deriding me for not making the terrine for his school lunch. And while the downside for me is that the bar has been raised (my rather unspectacular cooking now looks even more… unspectacular), the show has reinforced the value of good eating, team-building and the importance of accepting constructive criticism. My daughter particularly has been caught by the cooking bug. This morning she made us a lovely, albeit slightly burnt dish of scrambled eggs, grilled tomato, and baby spinach — we devoured it… every char-grilled morsel!
A friend recently introduced me to a great children’s cooking website called Wholesome Productions which creates a fabulous range of children’s cooking kits. They also sell party cooking kits for those brave enough to host their own kid’s cooking party.
The Pizza Baking Kit (pictured) is particularly adorable because it comes in a genuine pizza box and includes an apron, chef’s hat, a pan, rolling pin and an easy-to-follow washable recipe book… a great present for this holiday season! I have also found a ton of kid’s cooking utensils and baking sets at Mini Whisk and these are worth a mention because they come in a range of cool themes (Australiana, love hearts, flying etc.) and they are really well-priced too. Alternatively, add a cute little recipe book to some mini-sized cooking tools, or a little chef’s hat to a pint sized rolling pin and there you have some practical and fun gift ideas for all the aspiring master chefs out there!
In our recent bread-baking adventures, my husband and I have stumbled across a recipe for the most yummy, scone-like raisin bread, and it is now a weekend morning favourite! Plus, it is dead easy to make, only needs a minute or two of kneading, and it bakes in 30 minutes (seriously easy in the world of bread making)!
The trick for creating moist and flavourful raisins is to soak them in whiskey beforehand. I’m sure the alcohol burns off while baking, but if you’re against the idea you can soak the raisins in hot water instead.
Here is the recipe:
Raisin Scone Bread:
-1 cup raisins (130 grams)
-½ cup whiskey or hot water (85 grams)
-4 Tablespoons unsalted butter (55 grams)
-1 cup all-purpose flour (150 grams)
-1 cup whole wheat flour (150 grams)
-3 large tablespoons sugar (40 grams)
-1 teaspoon baking soda (5 grams)
-¾ teaspoon salt (5 grams)
-1 cup buttermilk (200 grams)
In a small, shallow bowl, pour the whiskey (or water) over the raisins. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit for at least 30 minutes before draining.
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Cut the butter into the flour mixture and mix together using your fingers, until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the raisins. With a wooden spoon, stir in the buttermilk just until the dry ingredients are moistened and the dough comes together. Empty the dough onto the counter and knead it lightly about 8 times, until smooth but still a little sticky. If it sticks to the counter, use a scraper to gather it together — try to avoid adding extra flour, but you can flour your hands if absolutely necessary.
Roll the dough into a 6-inch round (it will be roughly 2 inches high). If it sticks, flour it lightly. Place it on a greased baking sheet and, with a razor blade or sharp knife, make a ½ inch-deep slash across the dough in both directions (to make an X).
Bake the bread for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
Enjoy when it’s warm with a cup of tea! Yumm….
-Courtney
For a printable version of this recipe, click here.
You may have noticed… we have started tweeting. Wow! In the upper right corner of our website, you’ll discover the Twitter logo, just click it to find our tweets…
I must say, I have to get used to tweeting, it’s not something I automatically do just yet! But I can see the fun of it – there are so many interesting things to be found on Twitter, I had no idea!
I just discovered twecipes. Twecipes are recipes posted in tweets, and of course the challenge is to fit all the ingredients and instructions into the maximum of 140 characters. Like these recipes by Maureen Evans:
Lemon Curd: zest,juice lb meyer or reg lem. Simmr in bainmarie+2c sug/c buttr; whisk+5btn egg. Stir 20m@low to set. Fill 5x c jars; boil10m.
Banana Fritters: slice,mix4banana/2T lem. Mix c flr/⅔c h2o/2T oil. Sit30m; fold+2whipd eggwt. Dip,deepfry bananas brwn@325℉. Srv w icecream.
Humus: Mid East. Soak c chickpea 8h. Replace h2o; simmer3h. Drain. Puree/season to taste+⅓c tahini&lem&olvoil/½t garlic&salt/cayenne. Chill.
Seriously….throw out that one that your grandmother gave you that’s forty generations old. On second thought, just burn all of your cookbooks because you will probably not want to eat anything but this particular banana bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the rest of your life.
I found this recipe in a lovely little book called A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg. I really do love books about food as I always find the recipes to be much more exciting than the ones I find in standard cookbooks.
I made this bread without the ginger (because I spaced on getting it at the store) but the end result was shockingly delicious. The warm oozing chocolate chips coupled with the spongey banana-ness of it all was a perfect combo. I pretty much ate the whole thing over the course of a day. It is also a fun thing to bake with the kids — we do it often. Time for Physique 57.
Here’s the recipe:
Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger: Makes 1 loaf
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
2 large eggs
3 large ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup well-stirred whole-milk plain yogurt (not low or nonfat)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Set a rack in the center of the oven, and preheat to 350F. Grease a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray or butter.
2. Melt the butter on the stove or in a microwave and set aside to cool slightly.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Add the chocolate chips and crystallized ginger and whisk well to combine. Set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, lightly beat the eggs with a fork. Add the mashed banana, yogurt, melted butter, and vanilla and stir to mix well. Pour the banana mixture into the dry ingredients, and stir gently with a rubber spatula, scraping down the sides as needed, until just combined. Do not overmix. The batter with be thick and somewhat lumpy. Scrape the batter into the loaf pan and smooth the top.
5. Bake into the loaf is a deep shade of golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 50 mins to an hour. If the loaf seems to be browning too quickly, tent with aluminum foil.
6. Cool the loaf in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Then tip out and enjoy. I ate it while still hot but it is easier to slice when fully cooled.
Enjoy!
For a printable version of this recipe, click here.
Cookie baking is big in our house, especially when the weather is grim like today, and as you can see from the picture we’ve started to collect quite a variety of cutters. My son loves picking out which ones to use (currently the bear and the lion are particular favourites). I pick cutters up from all sorts of places but I do find Cakes Cookies and Crafts Shop a corker — especially as they usually offer 4 for the price of 3. Cox & Cox also do some good ones (but more on them later as they definitely deserve their own post).
Today however we used our new kid-friendly cutters by Swiss cooking brand Kuhn Rikon. They are brilliant because they have handles for easy pressing, and the shapes are less fiddly for transferring from work-top to baking sheet. In fact the whole Kinderkitchen range is fantastic for young cooks and is a big feature in our letters to Father Christmas (I’m personally yearning after the Mouse Measuring Cups).
I’ve tried various cookie recipes that are suitable for using cutters on and I find most to be a bit bland and dry, so I usually stick to using Jane Grigson’s recipe for shortbread (see below), which is delicious, easy to ‘cut’ and particularly good splattered with melted chocolate. If you have a fab cookie recipe that works with cutters then please let me know!
Jane Grigson’s Recipe for Shortbread (taken from her book English Food):
Sift the flours together into a large bowl, add the butter (at room temp) and sugar mix to combine into a dough (a good 4 or 5 mins). Roll out, cut into shapes and then bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 12 mins (or until very slightly browning at edges).
How easy is that!
For a printable version of this recipe, click here.
(NB1: if you do decide to take a look at English Food check out the Parsnip Cake on page 318 (of Hardback version) – it has become a firm family favourite in our house).
(NB2: Again if you do have a look at the book I must warn you it is not very glossy as there are no pictures but it is a fascinating history of English recipes and every recipe I’ve tried from the book turns out great!)
Aren’t these personalised plates just fabulous? My kids get a real thrill from seeing their name on things so I think they will be super excited when they receive theirs. The perfect Christmas or birthday gift for someone special — personal, functional and a lovely keepsake for when they grow out of them. What’s more, they are BPA-free, made of a lightweight yet durable melamine and are dishwasher safe. So, they tick all the boxes in my opinion! I bet they could even entice the fussiest of eaters.
You can order them from BébéOnline or, if you are local to Melbourne, from ‘Bebe Boutique’ in South Yarra.
Two years ago our Christmas got canceled on Christmas Eve — well the trip we had planned to Switzerland did anyway. It was our first Christmas with a child and you know how important they are! We were devastated. I think the only thing that saved us was Melrose & Morgan, our local deli in Primrose Hill (where we lived at the time). We turned up at 12pm to a packed store of everyone collecting their orders and they thankfully managed to make us up one of their ‘Christmas’s in a box’. It honestly saved the day.
Mo in London
March 8th, 2010
3 comments
I was sitting beside a Lebanese guy at a wedding this weekend and he could not help raving about the wonderful food from his country and the Mediterranean area in general. Since then I have not stopped thinking about great Mediterranean dishes. Don’t forget: eating a Meditarrenean diet apparently makes you live longer…
Seriously….throw out that one that your grandmother gave you that’s forty generations old. On second thought, just burn all of your cookbooks because you will probably not want to eat anything but this particular banana bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the rest of your life.
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