Recipe: Summertime Lemonade

We have often said that we’re both incredibly impatient people. There are things we know are going to happen, things we know we will end up buying or doing, and we ashamedly haven’t the will to wait; we want everything right away. Food and drink often lands into the same pitfall. 

This impatience is a reason why we can only occasionally make ourselves endure the wait to relish the pay-off of the likes of slow-cooked pulled pork and rich beef brisket stew or ragu. Drinks are no different, and a cocktail recipe with four hundred steps is not going to quench our thirst in a hot second. On a hot summer’s day, and we all know how rare and quickly those jump upon us, you need instant refreshment, coolness and sweetening…

Review: Moka East

From the very beginning of living in the East End, and even before when researching it, we were always seeking out the little nooks and crannies, the nubs of that area that appealed to us most. We believe in seeing the best and finding local, independent businesses to champion in any area we’ve lived in so far, and Stratford was no exception.

Though in saying that, moving to a site of intensive regeneration and a somewhat complete facelift from it’s previous aesthetic in order to host the biggest event in the world doesn’t necessarily fill a person with the hope of finding little family-run pubs, community bakeries, vintage stores and front room-sized restaurants. We knew Stratford was a major work-in-progress when we moved to London a year ago, so we also knew to downplay our expectations somewhat. For the most part, we didn’t need to do that too much actually, and one café in particular has been the shining light of Stratford for us; the new Stratford…

Review: The Hackney Pearl

Hackney Wick wouldn’t be the first port of call for anyone seeking out impressively good dining. It’s still in somewhat of an intermediary stage. Not quite flourishing as flawlessly and fast as neighbouring Stratford is thanks to the Olympic push, yet still retaining it’s bohemian mixed with industrial spirit that it’s been brewing for the past few years. Lots of little cafés, restaurants and art spaces have opened up around the area in the past decade, and Hackney Wick is still treading the line between underground anonymity and Evening Standard-worthy gushing about it being ‘The New…’ something or other. The jury is out on whether that balance will tip one way or the other for us.

We’ve dined a lot at one of it’s best restaurants, The Hackney Pearl – a restaurant/café that has become one of our beloved beacons of the East and housed many a happy meal during our time so far in London. Here’s what we ate, once for dinner, and another time for brunch….

Baking With The Best

Earlier on this year we got the amazing opportunity to learn how to bake from one of the stars of one of our favourite food shows. The Great British Bake Off is an iconic show and the franchise is now happily cropping up across the world. So when an opportunity cropped up to bake with Paul Hollywood – a man who is at the top of his game and one of the best in the business to learn from – we both jumped at the chance.

Snapshots: May

It’s been such a great month for us! We’re inching closer and closer to the one year anniversary of our move to London and this month we also enjoyed our very first taste of national exposure by having our feature published in the Guardian. The digital version of that is still viewable here.

We’ve also had all three of our videos for Waitrose TV uploaded. We have a post coming on that tomorrow!

We’re busy preparing for a major move from one end of London to the other and our content hasn’t been as frequent as before but we cannot wait to show you our new place and we’re looking forward to making it our own over the next few months. It’s going to be fun to explore Peckham and report on all the amazing things down south for the next few years, after spending this year exploring the East End.

Thanks, as usual, for all of your support and for reading the blog. Do send us tweets, comments or e-mails letting us know what you like or want to see more of!

Check out some of our posts from the past month: 

Eurovision Feasting Part 1

Eurovision Feasting Part 2

A Quick Trip To… Exeter

Round My Hometown: Drogheda

Audioblog – Baking Bread and Paul Hollywood

A Quick Trip To… Exeter

A couple of months ago we ventured to Exeter to attend The Big Cake Show. The show was great, and what we found in Exeter was beyond expectation – fantastic architecture, an easy to navigate and clean city centre, as well as some top notch food and drink; we sniff that out wherever we go, naturally. Though it was a bit of a whirlwind three days, it was such a worthwhile journey and we cannot wait to return. Here’s our pick of the places we visited on a really quick trip, as well as some we spotted for the next trip we take.