Coastal Girl to City Girl

I tried to think of a food beginning with ‘Z’ but nothing came to me so I thought Zest would probably be a good ending to the A-Z challenge. I started on a dessert & I’ll end on an ingredient that goes into desserts. Ooh now that made me look clever & imaginative. At school I did food technology as part of my GCSE’s, most desserts I made listed the Zest of a: orange/lemon/lime. Zest seemed to be put in everything & I felt like I was always grating a fruit of some kind. Then it advised in the recipe that you could always decorate the dessert with a sprinkle of Zest. If you watch cookery programmes you can see that by grating or peeling the chefs always manage to use the zest of a fruit. I mean it does give the dessert an extra zingy taste & it does help a good dessert taste that little bit better. I wonder who came up with the brainwave of using the zest. ~~~~~~~~ Well that's it, the end of the A-Z Challenge. It has been a roller coaster r...

Ok again I had trouble with this letter & by doing a little search I came up with Xmas cake which I know is a little cheat as its technically called Christmas cake. But hey I always use the word Xmas so here goes… I have no idea why people came up with this idea. We now have birthday cakes, Easter cakes, Mother’s day cakes, Valentine’s Day cakes & of course Xmas cake. A cake for all occasions! To me it’s crazy & to be honest a bit of a con. I feel that the industries pray on people’s feelings etc to make us buy these things at special times of the year where they make billions. Ok enough politics ha! I have never eaten Xmas cake. I used to watch my mum making one every year for the whole family to enjoy, she would decorate it & alongside that she do the Xmas pudding with brandy sauce to pour on top which you then set light to. I would look at the cake & smell it but never wanted to eat it. I don’t know why, I guess it just never really appealed to me...

I was going to write about chicken but decided nope that for me wasn’t interesting enough. So I thought I’d write about something sweet… Chocolate. Yay! Let’s have a big shout out for chocolate. We probably all know we shouldn’t indulge in this deliciously sweet delicacy but we do & when we do it’s extremely enjoyable. Letting a solid piece melt in your mouth for a long time trying to savour the taste as it lingers on your tongue. Or even when you use it for baking & want to lick the chocolate covered spoon or bowl! The trouble for me though is that I’m a chocoholic. A few people know this already about me & we used to have great chocolate discussions about your favourite make or flavour. I would try & explain English chocolate while they would tell me all about the American chocolate…yes they seem to taste completely different. For me though I would happily scoff a whole bar of the sweet stuff without a second thought & I’d also probabl...

I have been given an irresistibly sweet award by Beth . I do not deserve this & I am blushing as I write this. Awards make me shy & nervous as I feel I should be more ‘on it’ when it comes to my writing than I have been of late. Anyways in order for me to accept this award I now have to tell you 7 things about me that you may not know…if you know them then pretend you are hearing it for the first time (ha). Ok so this first one is going to sound odd in this day & age or it may put me in a bad light but I do not & never will drive. I know I know you are probably going what??!! Right now but I dislike the roads, find that they are too busy & mad & that (sorry to all drivers here) drivers sometimes do not think when they get into their car. I walk everywhere & some of things I see drivers do amaze me! The other day I saw a woman with a child on lap in the front seat whilst her other half drove….crazy! It’s not right & makes me feel nervous...

  The Bakery Ok so I love cakes! I have a really bad sweet tooth & love the idea of nothing better than eating a freshly baked cake. Yum!! I also find myself having a grumbling tummy as I smell freshly cooked bread. What is it about warm bread that makes your mouth water & your stomach cry out for food? A nice hot roll filled with butter that starts to melt & a filling that just makes you sigh with delight… It was always a Saturday treat for me when I was a child to go to the local bakery & choose a cake. My mum would drag me around the shops to do bits of shopping & then voila the bakery would be the last stop before going home. I always knew this was going to happen but it still didn’t stop me dreading the shopping bit before hand. I would run up to the window & stare in wonder at the range of delicious cakes on offer tempting me with their fresh cream, running jam, soft fruits, cold custard, sticky sugars & wobbly marshmallow. My favourite ca...