Food, fun and a prize to be won in your Heyday Friday newsletter
Celebrations galore, tasty treats aplenty, a wise and worldly aristocrat and the chance to win a yummy prize in this week's newsletter
Hello!
I’m delighted - and relieved - to report that the planned surprises for my lovely fella’s birthday all went swimmingly. They included a splendid lunch in the lovely Piazza restaurant at the Royal Opera House overlooking Covent Garden. Do go if you get the chance, the food is fabulous and really reasonably priced, and the view is glorious - look
It also has a wonderfully stylish bar. Find out more and book at table HERE
He’s been talking about wanting to learn to cook (his default dinner is a ready meal from M&S), so another of the surprises was a pasta-making cookery class at Pasta Evangelists which he applied himself to with impressive focus, producing a very fine tagliatelle which he thoroughly enjoyed eating afterwards.
What turned out to be a three-day celebration (and it wasn’t even a zero birthday) started with a weekend away with friends in a delightfully compact, historic city with a mighty gothic cathedral, lovingly preserved Roman city walls and an array of inviting independent shops and eateries (eating featured heavily on the birthday agenda as you can tell). Find out where it was and why we had such a terrific and tasty time there in this week’s blog by CLICKING HERE.
I’m turning the tables on you in this week’s
FRIDAY FUNNY
because I’m inviting you to come up with an amusing caption for this memorial in the cathedral mentioned above. Write yours in the comments and, in a nod to THIS WEEK’S BLOG, I’ll send a bar of outrageously good Montezuma*s chocolate to the person who suggests the one that makes me laugh the most.
One of the highlights of our weekend away was, unsurprisingly, food-related. The place we ate was somewhere that looked so tempting and quirky that we popped in for a reviving cuppa and loved it so much we went back the next day for brunch - which was every bit as scrumptious as we hoped it would be. Find out where this fun foodie mecca is by CLICKING HERE
One of my go-to things for brunch/light lunch at home is a tuna sandwich, and I’m always looking for tasty ways to jazz it up a bit. This is a version I tried recently courtesy of my friend and super-talented chef Hannah (that’s her in the blurry background). And very delicious indeed it was too.
PICKLE PACKED TUNA SANDWICH
These quantities will make one sandwich so increase the amounts accordingly depending on how many people you’re sharing it with. Also feel free to adjust the quantities of the ingredients if there are some you especially love or leave out any you’re not keen on.
Drain a 150g tin of tuna and tip in a bowl. Add half a pickled cucumber chopped, half a stick of celery chopped into small pieces, a couple of pickled onions or 1/4 of a red onion chopped, a handful of dill finely chopped, 1 and a half tbsp mayo, 1 tsp wholegrain mustard, a good grind of black pepper and a pinch of salt, a generous squeeze of lemon and a splash of your favourite hot sauce (I leave out this bit). Mix all the ingredients together well, adding more mayo if needed to make sure the mixture isn’t too dry.
Toast two slices of whatever bread you prefer (sourdough every time for me) and lightly butter.
Generously spread the tuna filling, top with sliced cucumbers and shredded lettuce cover with the second piece of bread and, says Hannah, “indulge in all the pickle crunchy goodness.”
You can find lots more lip-smackingly good recipes on Hannah’s excellent website Building Feasts and follow her on Instagram under the same name
THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN….WATCHING
I’m always wary when a book I’ve loved is turned into a film or TV series, and equally hesitant about recommending a series when I’ve only watched a couple of episodes, especially when it’s on yet another streaming service. So the fact that I couldn’t suggest more whole-heartedly that you join me in watching A Gentleman in Moscow as I eagerly await the third of the eight episodes to be available today, Friday, (tantalisingly it’s being released weekly) will hopefully tell you just how much I’m loving it.
I wrote a review of the best selling book by Amor Towles on the website, you can read that HERE, so I won’t go into detail about the plot, other than to say it concerns a cultivated Russian count, Alexander Rostov, who is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal and placed under indefinite house arrest in the Hotel Metropole in 1922.
Forced to lodge in a freezing, sparsely furnished attic, the charming Count determines to make the most of his circumstances and sets about, with what we come to realise is typical focus and quiet, intellectual determination, to adjust to his newly-limited life. Which turns out to be not nearly as limited as he, or we, imagined it might.
As you so often do, I had a very clear idea of what I thought the Count looked like when reading the book and I’m delighted to say that Ewan McGregor is pretty much his twin, both in appearance and character. In fact I’d go so far as to say all the characters that teem through the pages of the novel are being brought to perfectly realised life in this beautifully made, elegantly entertaining series.
You can watch A Gentleman in Moscow on Paramount+
And see the trailer HERE
WHAT’S MADE ME HAPPY THIS WEEK
This could well be the signature tune of the pragmatic, resourceful Count Rostov. At the very least it must have made the journey for the commuters on this New York subway a whole heap more enjoyable.
Staying in the company of my mate the Count for these typically insightful
WORDS OF WISDOM
That’s it for this week. April is a packed month for birthdays and next up - on Saturday - is my eldest gorgeous girl (she’s followed later in the month by both my sisters, my cousin and my partner’s brother. My bank account is as exhausted at the end of the month as I am), so there are more celebrations - and predictably more meals - to come over the weekend.
There’s no newsletter next week because I’m off on a little road trip with my lovely sister-in-law to a bit of the country I’ve never visited before and always wanted to. Fingers crossed the weather is vaguely kind to us (it’s a destination with lots of outdoor stuff to see and do).
I look forward to telling you all about it in two weeks time.
See you then
Give me strength!
This week’s newsletter has made me very hungry 😋 thank you x