I've read a bit of negative press about the Richard lll events and heartily disagree with all of it, my experience has been an overwhelmingly positive one. It all finished up on Friday night with a sort of festival of lights when thousands of candles were placed around the cathedral and down around jubilee square. They lined the roads, made patterns, hung in trees and on sculptural forms, smoked like crazy, and were beautiful.
Leicester isn't a particularly large or glamorous city, it's not a bad place to live and has some great things going on, but it generally feels like it suffers in comparison to Birmingham or Nottingham. In short it is not a place I associate with civic pride, or didn't before this week. When we were trying to put our collective fingers in what made Friday night so special what we kept coming back to was optimism, that and a general feeling of excitement in having something unique to take part in. I hope that sense of optimism continues, we need it.
Now I started writing this post on Saturday evening. I'd been up since 6 cleaning the kitchen ready for the arrival of a new oven, it duly arrived at just after 7am and by 8 I was slightly over cooking some croissants (it's the first fan oven I've had, I fear this is going to be a theme for the next few weeks). After that I was tempted out by friends so plans for cooking were shelved. By 7.30 pm I'd retired to bed with a cup of tea, a hot water bottle, and the intention of catching up on some reviews. At 7.55 a text reminded me I was meant to be in the pub celebrating an ex colleagues new job so I got up again. Sunday has so far not been as productive as it could have been so the shiny new oven remains an unknown quantity. As I have a couple of new cookbooks to put through their paces this is a state of affairs which has to be rectified...
And as for the distillery - it was Sipsmith's in Chiswick and there will be more on that soon.
You were stalwart in getting out of bed to go to the pub.
ReplyDeleteI should love to see a distillery.
It was worth the effort! And my hot water bottle was still warm when I finally got back 5 hours later. Distillery's are fantastic, definitely alchemists workshops, so we'll worth a visit if the chance comes up.
DeleteI deliberately chose not to get a convection/fan oven because I didn't wan to have to think too hard about how to alter cooking temps and times. Plus it was almost an extra thousand bucks in the case of the wall oven we got.
ReplyDeleteI went for the cheapest one in john Lewis's who now only sell fan ovens, it was £330, they fitted it and disposed of the old one for me so I'm pleased with the deal. It will be interesting getting to know how it cooks, so far it seems really steamy which bread loved but roast potatoes didn't.
DeleteCongratulations on the new oven - I expect great things!
ReplyDeleteI expect to spend a lot of time burning things at first!
DeleteLove your pics. I was in Market Bosworth on the Sunday, and thought it was a wonderful experience. Congrats on the oven - am envious!
ReplyDeleteI bet it was fun over there, I think the whole thing was done really well, and just a brilliant atmosphere everywhere I went. Long may it last!
DeleteI love my convection oven but it does take some getting used to! I think my instructions said -25 degF for most recipes. Yours is a really beautiful oven too - enjoy!
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be fun getting to grips with it!
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