W&W is Back!

Hello friends!

I had an inkling that it had been some time since I updated Whisk & Whimsy, but I will confess to feeling a bit shocked today to discover that I was last writing here back in November! Oh dear, time does fly.

As some of you know, I have been busy galavanting around the UK with Mr W&W and the W&W family. We left on Boxing Day and we have only been back home for a few weeks. As you can imagine after such a time away, it has taken a little while to get back into a regular routine (although, typically, now that we're back in the swing of things the holiday is a distant memory!). I had grand plans before we went away to schedule posts for publication at regular intervals during my absence but with finishing up work for the year, Christmas and last minute preparations for the holiday, I just ran out of time.

My goodness, what a trip we had! I certainly did my fair share of eating and not surprisingly came back with a few extra kilos (and I don't just mean in my luggage!). A highlight which I intend to tell you about in more detail was the day my Mum and I spent at Rick Stein's Padstow Seafood School in Cornwall, a fantastic experience that I am keen to repeat some day. Mum and I learned both new skills in the kitchen as well as ways to do familiar things a little better. We worked with ingredients that were unfamiliar to us, like Cornish brown crab, mackerel and dover sole. We ate the fruits of our labour whilst sipping on a crisp glass of local wine, all the while overlooking the stunning Camel Estuary. This was a thoroughly enjoyable day, and an experience which I wholeheartedly recommend should you find yourself in Padstow at some stage. Once I get around to sifting through my plethora of photographs I will put together a more detailed report on our day at the Seafood School.

Otherwise, we had some extremely memorable meals in top places in London, Paris and Hong Kong, and we enjoyed simple food done very well in some cosy pubs around the UK. We ambled through markets and sampled fresh produce, devoured wedges of cheese with great gusto and washed it all down with (probably too many) glasses of fantastic wine. I came home from our holiday with so many ideas and so much inspiration - our trip really did recharge the batteries and gave me a lot of enthusiasm to try new things in the kitchen.

Of course it wasn't all about food - we saw all the sights, and I got to see my first snowfall - I was beside myself with excitement! I dragged Mr W&W to all the shops on the high street and we parted quickly with our pounds and euros. Overall, though, our trip was about a change of scenery and a time to escape the doldrums of everyday life, and we certainly did that.

I also did a reasonable amount of this:

(Sampling macarons from Ladurée and Pierre Hermé!)

Back to regular programming (and recipes) shortly.