Peppermint and English Toffee Tea

You can blame a childhood spent poring over Enid Blyton books.  As a child, I was particularly entranced with her description of all the yummy things scoffed by Jo, Bessie and Fanny in the Enchanted Wood with their friends, the folk of the Faraway Tree.  Pop Biscuits which went 'pop' when you sank your teeth in and filled your mouth with honey.  Google (!) Buns which contained a large currant filled with sherbet which would fizz and froth when you bit into it.  Toffee-Shocks which grew larger and larger the longer one sucked on them, until it was impossible to speak whereupon the sweet would burst and disappear. Hot-Cold Goodies which once the chocolate-coated outside was sucked off, became incredibly cold - so cold you couldn't bear it, and then would became warm, until the heat was unbearable, upon which it would switch back to being cold.

So when I came across 'Peppermint and English Toffee Tea' in my local supermarket, I became all nostalgic for the descriptions of imaginary food which haunted my childhood, England in general, and its toffee and its tea, and the box quickly joined my basket of groceries.

Granted, Peppermint and English Toffee Tea is not as crazy or impossible as the treats of the Faraway Tree, but the combination of peppermint and toffee in liquid form borders on the slightly improbable.

In reality, there was a distinct lack of a peppermint tang to the tea.  Or if one existed, it was completely drowned out by the English toffee notes.  Which made for the rather odd sensation of drinking a warm, waterey toffee liquid.  Not unpleasant, but strange.

Just as the children felt when sampling one of the Faraway Tree goodies for the first time.  I'd prefer a Toffee Shock any day but in the absence of these, English Toffee Tea will do.

Sunday Lunch

You sure can't beat antipasti and a good solid round of sourdough, encrusted with olives for a light, satisfying lunch.

Below, a toasted green olive sourdough slice, topped with marinated grilled eggplant, marinated artichoke hearts. For a spicy fusion twist, I substituted the usual tapenade or tomato paste spread for crushed garlic and chilli oil beneath the eggplant and artichoke layers.

Orange

Mrs Woolf

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

- Virgina Woolf, A Room Of One's Own (1929)

Mrs Woolf's truism called to mind my tastebud tingling farewell London dinner.  It took place at St John Bread & Wine Spitalfields, a London restaurant specialising in back-to-basics, no-squeamishness allowed British dining.  A bottle of Moët, good friends and a fabulously no holds barred menu (ox tongue and rabbit offal, anyone?).  It's enough to make a girl salivate...