Cake in the City

A flash of publicity for a new Edinburgh cafe! It's Vittles on Home Street, it's my place of work and it's where you should go next time you want to eat cake, listen to Mumford and Sons and sit down with a cup of coffee to watch the world go by. Plus at the weekend you'll have the pleasure of being served by my lovely smiling self - and who could possibly say no to that?

All the cakes are baked by Jemma at home in her kitchen and her mum bakes the shortbread biscuits you're given free with your cup of caffeine. If you know me and my ethics then you'll understand why I like the biodegradable packaging, the recycled cups and napkins, the locally sourced jams, chutneys, meats, deli foods, and the general 'freshly-made' system that the good folks at Vittles follow.

I'm also sharing my personal excitement over Perry Court Farm crisps as it is the first place I've seen them stocked since reading about farmer Charlie Fermor and his family business run from their farm in Kent in October's issue of Country Living Magazine. Visit the Perry Court website with a wee click http://www.perrycourtfarm.co.uk/!

Those of a feather

It really feels like Autumn. The trees are in a constant change of wonderful colours, the footpaths are littered with crisp fallen leaves and the bright cold days make you want to walk down country lanes. But now the autumn has brought with it the inevitable rain. With the heavens opening at regular intervals we wrap scarves toward our sodden heads and hurry on our way home. This afternoon I wasted much time looking out the window and as the kitchen was precisely where I wanted to be it meant we spent the evening eating scones, drinking tea, knitting and chatting away like four little birdies in our big cosy nest.

week two at ECA

I've been so busy running here and rushing there that I've hardly had a moment. So what is it I've been doing apart from learning that learning to become a designer is a stressful lot of work? Well... over the course of yesterday and today a workshop was held with designer and 'Smart Textiles' researcher Lynsey Calder.The idea was to explore surfaces and think outside of two dimensional. Lynsey, in her manic photographing of everything everybody was making, reminded me of my own humble blog. And because blogging and the internet is where it's at, we even set up our own tumblr site which can be found here at 3Dsoup.tumblr.com.

art is what you make it

c'mon and talk about the happy days

The mittens I started last week have run themselves up nicely and are nearing completion. I like this wool a lot, I think it's like a man with salt and pepper hair who is often more handsome than someone with a boring old grey colour...

Afternoon tea never tastes better than on a day when you've been busy running around the city and are ready to collapse for want of a good sit-down and a slice of something sweet. This little bit of heaven on a plate was one of the most amazingly delicious carrot cakes I've ever eaten.

I walk past this shop each morning and think of how some day I'll be an old lady with lots of time to do nothing better than knit silly toys and feel really chuffed about it. And I'll knit each of my grandchildren a jumper each Christmas like Mrs Weasely does in Harry Potter.

knit one purl one knit one

Our recent trip to the islands brought with it a reminder of the importance of heritage and tradition. Leaving home to live elsewhere always awakens my sense of identity and what it means to be from where I am from, so at this time of transition I like being able to keep a connection to my roots through our national craft - knitting! Once patterns woven into fishermen's jumpers for practical reasons such as identifying the family they belonged to, serve nowadays for more aesthetic reasons and while my family doesn't have a special stitch I still like to think that in a far-fetched sort of way I'm weaving a part of my forefathers into the present as it was my dear old grandmother who taught me the skill when I was a child. I myself have not the courage, nor probably the patience, to take on a knitting task as mammoth as an Aran jumper and have instead opted for the nice safe and satisfying project of another pair of mittens.

I was also taken out for tea by my lovely sister where we drank from china cups and looked out the window at the river flowing by. Ard Bia is one of my favourite restaurants in Galway for their food, homemade, local ethos, general rustic dining atmosphere, and bits and bobs on sale. In perusing their cookery book I stole a recipe which I made that very evening and have eaten every morning since. Please feel free to steal the recipe from me here because I promise it's really, really yummy. I do, however, recommend adding less sugar but more honey (same sweetness more crunch and chew) and it would be a good idea to remove the hazelnuts early (after the first 20 minutes or so, as the skins begin to burn) and they can be peeled and halved as the rest continues to cook.

The Galway Girls

 

Living on the coast we're privileged to have an epic landscape right on our doorstep and I think it's a pity we don't take advantage of it more often. This weekend as a sort of a last farewell we decided to do what more American tourists have done than any amount of Irish people and we took the ferry across to the Aran Islands. Yes we all felt seasick on the boat and yes it was raining a horrible mist all day and yes it was cold and windy but nevertheless we managed to have a great time cycling around despite the weather arriving home frozen and exhausted and feeling really, really good.

mittens