Father's Day's Box

This Sunday will be Father's Day and I don't know how we will celebrate it this year. I do have an idea on how we could have done it though: Bean & Brew in Wallingford has made a special box for Father's Day. You can see it on this picture. It has fancy cheese, artisan bread, cured meat (though I hate ham), scones with clotted cream, other stuff not on the picture (they mention lemon cake and finger sandwiches, but not the brownies) and, according to their promotion: "A Bottle of Beer for the Man Himself ". All this for £32.50, a true bargain. Sadly, I think we might be a bit far for home delivery and apparently they are already sold out. I'm very sad.

Brownies avec crème

Je sais que je blogue souvent sur de la bouffe ces temps-ci, enfin assez souvent. Peut-être que je n'ai pas d'inspiration, ou alors je suis un obsédé de la bouffe. Dans tous les cas, je voulais depuis partager cette photo rien que pour le plaisir de faire de la food porn. Ce sont deux brownies que j'ai mangés lors de mon atelier de création littéraire. Avec de la crème. C'était vraiment pas mal décadent.

"Brownettone"

Is it too early to think about Christmas and thus to blog about Christmas stuff? I tend to think so, yet I will do it right now. Because, for my wife's birthday, we went to Zizzi, a restaurant I don't like much generally, but this time the food was decent enough. They already had their Christmas menu, and in their dessert a hybrid between the brownie and the traditional Italian  panettone, the "brownettone". I thought it was an intriguing mix, so I ordered one. It tasted weird, but it was a nice mix overall, with the chocolate sauce and the moist of the brownie counterbalancing the dryness of the panettone. And I loved the chocolate pine cone on top. Anyway, so this was my first Christmas experience this year.

Un brownie (pour PS)

Bon, vous ne l'avez pas remarqué si vous lisez son blogue car il peut envoyer une douzaine de billets par jour, mais Prof Solitaire a repris sa guerre de la food porn, alors comme il a relancé les hostilités, je riposte avec cette photo de brownie sur une nappe de chocolat avec crème glacée. Comme pour mon dernier billet lors du dernier conflit, j'ai pris cette photo dans un pub à York. Le même pub, en fait, pas le genre de pub que je fréquente d'habitude, trop moderne à mon goût, mais ils avaient un bon menu je dois dire. Le brownie n'était pas aussi original que la pâte à biscuit, mais c'était quand même décadent comme il faut.

Un pointe de gâteau au chocolat

Ceci est un dessert que j'ai mangé au restaurant végétarien The Willow à Totnes. Totnes est une petite ville du Devon particulièrement hippie et dont le charme n'a pas encore été massacré par les touristes. J'ai déjà plogué le restaurant dans ce billet en anglais. Je n'écris pas ce billet pour re-ploguer le restaurant mais dans la guerre de photos de bouffe que je fais à Prof Solitaire. Le gâteau au chocolat dans mon souvenir tenait plus du brownie et il était vraiment décadent. Comme premier dessert (et repas) dans le Devon, je commençais mon exploration gastronomique du bon pied.

Blueberry brownies from Sugar Moon

I blogged before an enthusiastic "review" (more like a plug) about Sugar Moon's brownies, made by Mozart's Girl (well, Rachel is her real name). On Sugar Moon's Facebook page, she asked for suggestions about new brownies mixes, and I immediately came up with fresh blueberry. It was mainly out of pure regional pride: the blueberry is the emblematic berry of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. I also knew chocolate and blueberries make for a delicious mix. Rachel I think was skeptical at first, but she baked the blueberries brownies in the end and was generous enough to send me some complimentary samples. I was unworthy of this generosity, but here they are. I can only repay this by saying that I had my first one last night and it was even better than I thought it would be. I say it with some pride, as I came up with the idea. I just knew it. She blogged on her own blog about them. All I can say is that I hope she will make more of them.

The Brownies of Sugar Moon

Well, tonight is the full moon, and today is Saturday, and as it is a weekend tradition, I am going to plug a piece of local food from a local producer. This time it is the brownies from Sugar Moon, a new online business. It has been brought to my attention as it has been created by... Rachel Lucas, Mozart's Girl in person, who is not only as her internet name indicates a die hard admirer of my favourite composer, but also a baker. And what a baker she is! I knew already because my wife and I had tea with her and her husband three years ago and we had the chance to enjoy their hospitality and her cooking. I blogged about it of course.

So I discovered that she had changed her second blog's name  Baking Brownies for Mozart into Sugar Moon Brownies and in one post that she had this new bakery. I was intrigued, I wanted to try them, so I visited her website. I could not choose so decided for a sample menu. And the brownies arrived yesterday. Of course, Rachel does not do things in half, I mean you don't nickname yourself Mozart's Girl when you are a baker to do anything short of amazing, so the presentation was in itself worth the purchase. They were elegantly wrapped in packages, as you can see form the top picture. I almost felt guilty opening them. Then again, I could smell the fresh brownies, so my hesitation lasted about thirty seconds, but I had time to take a few snapshots. There were also a postcard with a kind word from Rachel (don't know if this comes in every package) and a piece of paper with another kind word and a tip about the brownies: try them heated in the microwave for 20 seconds, accompanied by a bit of ice cream. I just might do that. And then brownies themselves are delicious. I think my favourite is salted caramel. But it might change with my mood. So anyway, for those living in the UK, you should try it for a sugar boost.

The coffee van is gone

I was expecting it, but not so soon. Last Wendnesday, when I bought a brownie at Café2U, I thought the van looked empty and there was barely any of my colleagues there. Today we learned about it in an email: a lack of demand means they are not going to show up anymore, not on mornings, not on afternoons. I am partially to blame, but I am kind of sad. I simply stopped having time, maybe I stopped taking the time, to go there and order something to treat myself. So no more fancy warm chocolate croissants for breakfast on a whim. No more brownies for dessert. No more hot chocolate with all the trimming (marshmallows, whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles) on cold mornings (and there are plenty of those, even now in July). No more impromptu Italian lessons. It is sad. When they first came, I was not even interested and I snubbed their free coffee. I have learned to appreciate them, because of the croissants, the hot chocolates, the staff and the bits of Italian. Well, now they are gone and the days will look a little bit more grey.

Wednesday treats

Wednesday is maybe the day I like least in a week. it is too... Too much in the middle of the week. It often feels bland, whatever the weather is, however busy or not I am at work. I treated myself today: right after lunch I bought a brownie from Café2U. I hadn't done such a thing in a while, mainly because I am always buried in work when the van comes (and it comes less and less these days). There was barely anything left in the van, but there was this brownie which was absolutely yum. I was glad I could buy something from the van, just because I think they are struggling. Which is sad, as every time I eat or drink something from them it is always enjoyable.

And tonight, I had as dessert blueberries. It is not quite the right season for them, not from my experience anyway. Where I come from, it starts at the end of July. Blueberries are a treat for many reasons: they are light enough for an evening treat, they are full of goodness, antioxidant and what have you, but they are also, and maybe it matters more than anything else, the emblematic fruit of my region. I blogged about it before. Anyway, it is fitting that a Blueberry eats blueberries.

The sugar junkie

Well, that sure was a boring first day of the Summer, cloudy and rainy. I spent a lot of time reading and watching tv. I also almost finished the Betty Crocker brownies I made yesterday. I am sometimes, like today, a sugar junkie, craving sweet things madly. This is one of the first things people notice about me: my mother-in-law knew very early that I had a sweet tooth and I was nicknamed by my former boss "the cookie monster". Two years ago, I was almost 20 pounds heavier, probably because of my sugar craving. I don't know exactly how I managed it, but within six months I lost them, eating more fish but still having big evil decadent desserts. That's my kind of diet: modify your eating habits, but avoid any sacrifice.