Well, actually, Hurl Myself into London, might be a better description. A blast of Herefordshire swooshed into Ealing and I launched myself into the house of an amazing publishing consultant Guru. (If you want to know who, then you will have to contact me on the website). This brain storming ex-senior editor of a renowned publishing house is brimming with astonishing ideas for me to have another best seller! Her business is going so well that she has found publishers for everyone that has come to her. I departed, happy. This time I managed to get onto the right tube train and go to the exact spot that I wished to alight for my next meeting. This is usually pretty hit and miss and generally, it has to be said that I get off at the wrong station or onto the train that is going in the wrong direction. Triumphant, I arrive at the RA to meet with the Chief-Executive of a Fantastic Cancer Charity. We have a hugely wicked tea in the members room and tried not to be excited by the fact that we were going to allow ourselves an enormous slice of coffee and walnut cake. This has to be my ultimate treat as in 7 years, I have never made this, my favourite cake, due to the fact that The Pink Lovely hates both coffee and walnuts. A blessed relief to the waistline but emotionally deprived for years, this was certainly a super big hit! A dose of culture was also administered and then I flew onto the next rendez-vous and then the next and then the next! One of the things that I particularly look forward to, apart from seeing my dearest friends of course, are my gourmet experiences whilst in London. Dinner was mystical in it's deliciousness and the poached fig in rose syrup with home-made pistachio ice cream was sublime.
Feeling somewhat delicate the next morning, we went in search of both culture and edible delights and ended up at the National Portrait Gallery and after drifting round the galleries, swooning at various 18C oil paintings we discovered the top floor restaurant would let us restore ourselves whilst gazing at the most incredible roof-top view of the capitol. I almost felt the twitch of a paintbrush... but no...... back to the really important subject of food. Ladure Macaroons must be heaven sent.. who else could invent such bite sized morsels of sweetness, chewiness, subtle flavours and gory colours? Utterly weak at the knees, luckily we were sitting down, I did my best to try out most flavours but in the end defeated at last, we had to get up and go..... onto LUNCH.........
I waddled out of the restaurant to find that a parking ticket had firmly entrenched itself under my host's windscreen wiper. How annoying but at least the congestion charge has been done away with, so he definitely saved £8.00 there. Not sure he saw it quite like that...
Finally, the last activity in the day, a dinner party in Holland Park. I arrive only to be marched into the kitchen to rescue the pea and mint soup or should I say mint and mint soup. Luckily, years of "saving" recipes has taught me the three basic rescue steps of almost any soup.
1) Stir in plenty of freshly grated nutmeg-taste and go onto rescue stage 2) stir in some form of liquid chilli sauce- taste and go onto rescue stage 3)stir in freshly squeezed lemon juice-taste, adjust seasoning and swirl in fresh cream and a knob of butter and reheat. Never fails and the soup was yummy!
