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...

I love Yogurt especially Greek style yogurt but unfortunately I can no longer eat it unless I want stomach cramps for days. Recently there was a new Greek style yogurt that appeared & I wanted it badly, each time I saw it advertised I thought yep I’d love that, it would taste divine but I knew I’d be risking my poor stomach. I’m quite good now at knowing what I can & can’t risk eating. My normal chicken kormas are out because of the cream & so now is yogurts. Which is a shame but it’s better that way than to suffer 24 hours down the line. Obviously I miss eating good things like yogurt & I wish the companies made alternatives for those who can’t eat them. I’ve tried searching the shelves but there is no alternative out there. Maybe I need to write to them & pass on my thoughts then if they made an alternative I could finally enjoy a nice yogurt again. 

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...

Wine. Ooh how I love that word & even more so the drink itself. I do enjoy a nice glass of cold dry white wine occasionally. I do not drink red wine or sweet white wine but I do also like a Rosé wine again when it’s cold. I’ve tasted some really nice wines & some really awful ones. But there’s nothing better than on a warm summers evening having a glass of chilled white wine, extremely chilled, in fact so chilled that the glass becomes wet. Savouring the taste, allowing it to slide down slowly & to do the cliché thing of going “ahhh” after each sip. Then you have champagne to put into the mix. At Christmas I drank champers with orange juice which was delicious & a perfect drink to have alongside a good turkey! Yes the good old wine, something that supposedly gets better with age…is there anything more I need say? Ha. 

Vegemite. It’s like Marmite. Or a Marmite alternative. The slogan for it (& Marmite) is you either love it or hate it. For me I hate it. Vegemite I believe you can only get from Australia. You can’t get it in the UK, thankfully! My sister loved Marmite. She used to spread it on toast; in sandwiches & to be honest it stunk! It was thick black/brown goo in a jar. I can’t even really describe the smell, the minute she opened the jar I was out of that kitchen. I really cannot stand the stuff. It looks like grease, smells vile & would never be in my cupboards. Nope I’m not a fan of either & never will be. Instead I’m a hate it fan!

Ok yes I was stuck for a food beginning with ‘U’. A quick search on my phone produced this word: Unagi which is Japanese for eel. Well what can I say about it…I do NOT like eel. Full stop. There… They are slimy, rubbery, long, curly, horrible looking, smelly, just gross really. You get the picture. Would I ever eat eel? Urgh nope! No way! Not in my lifetime. Do I admire those who can stomach it…yes I guess I do because to me it looks chewy & tasteless. If anyone has tried it please tell us all what it tastes like & I hope they don’t say “it tastes just like chicken”! 

Tea. I am a tea-oholic. I love my cuppas. They can’t be too strong & definitely can’t be too milky. They have to look medium in strength & then it tastes divine. I used to drink too many cuppas in a day; I would constantly have my cup topped up & think “ooh I’ll just have one more”. I could never get enough of tea but then I suffered from not sleeping because of the caffeine. Catch 22. You love a good cuppa but have too many & you can’t sleep. I’ve cut down my consumption but sometimes I do crave just one more. I am never bothered as to what tea I drink; I have a cheap branded teabag or a nice PG tip. To me it doesn’t matter & it seems to taste the same. However the other day we got a good bargain on Twinning’s tea. Now there’s a brand that tastes wonderful. Yes I can tell when I’ve had a Twinning’s but normally this brand is so expensive hence this bargain could not be missed. What’s the point of spending £3-£4 on a box when I can get more in a box of a...