A Trip to the top of Haytor, Dartmoor

This is something to try with friends, family and kids.  The high winds of a few weeks ago made this treacherous, but a sunny day in late winter was perfect.  I stayed at the bottom (as official photographer - nothing to do with my fear of climbing or heights!)

This is the most popular part of Dartmoor.  Easy parking, nearby toilets and an ice cream van in the car park.  It is also doable with children and dogs.  Head to Haytor!

Penge Punch, First of the Month

It's true: I rarely leave Devon and Cornwall.  But for the hottest day of the year, with everyone heading for a bonus day on the beach, I ended up travelling to South London. Craziness.  What a good time I had .  A superb party held to celebrate my dear friends, J and L's 40ths.  J had invented two new cocktails, Penge Punch (in honour of the venue) which was lethal - a stronger version of Long Island Iced Tea (including laminated instruction sheets for novices on how to concoct the tipple - he is so anal organised).

There was also a totally delicious Southern Sangria (Spanish red, lemonade, a healthy dash of fresh lemon and lime juice and tons of ice and fruit).

Needless to say, a good time was had by all.  Hawaiian shirts, fairy lights, paper flowers, cocktail dresses, posh kebab canapes.  I spent a manic hour in the kitchen assisting these two strapping lads and generally dropping things on the floor.

A really great idea.  Wraps containing pre-bbqed meat, veges and condiments had been prepped the day before and our job was to bake them for 15 minutes and then slice them into 2cm slices and serve on trays as kebab canapes.  They were hungrily snapped up.

Later we moved on to genuine live opera singing (M and L were astonishing), a put-together-at-last-minute-band and then dancing, Shisha pipes with apple tobacco and fire baskets in the garden.

And after just a couple of hours sleep (there were about eight kids in the house) we were up and at 'em again.  I'd bought long some fab bacon from Borough Market (my first time at BM - WOW, what a change from Devon farmers' markets) from Sillfield Farm and we cooked up bagels,bacon and more pitchers of Southern Sangria in the sun.  

Finished off with some perfect hangover food made by the resident starlet, H, chocolate dipped peppermint creams.

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Penge Punch Yeehah

Like a cross between long island iced tea and mojito.  Kicks a fair punch

Quanitity makes a large pitcher

300 ml  cointreau

300ml vodka, 
300ml tequila
300ml dark rum and 
300ml white rum

125ml sugar syrup infused with mint

1 litre of Coca Cola

125ml freshly squeezed lemon and lime juice

Loads of ice

TASTE AND ADJUST TIL YUMMY!

Dutch Truffle Brie - The World's Most Delicious Cheese - go oranje!

A quick caveat:  I usually blog about all things situated in the South West of the UK, but this one is a triple import / cheese amalgam and has nothing to do with Devon let alone England.  This is a French cheese that has travelled to the Netherlands to a simply amazing cheese shop called L'Amuse just outside of Haarlem in Santpoort-Noord and then blended with Italian ingredients.   So while the rest of my family are watching Holland in their World Cup semi-final, I thought I would post about a Dutch cheese to show my support for their great football team (without having to watch any football = result!).


There are two branches of L'Amuse - the one in Santpoort-Noord, that I have been lucky enough to visit, and one in Amsterdam. They are a family-run, friendly business with an incredible selection of the best 400 cheeses from around the world, but this is the one that everyone goes there for, Truffle Brie:

Our wonderful, beautiful, kind, fun friends (yes, you can come again, A, D and A!) visited us from the Netherlands and generously brought us a wickedly ,melting slice of L'Amuse's truffle brie.

The cheesemongers take an entire round brie, slice it in half, spread it with a thick layer of rich, white mascarpone and thin shavings of black truffle, then replace the two halves and shave some more slivers of truffle on the top and leave to mature.

It is one of my favourite foods in the entire world.  It tastes like brie, only more so.  Pungent, earthy, creamy and melting.  You have to wrap it in several layers if it gets to your fridge as the aroma can pervade all your food.

I apologise to the unnamed pale orange whole cheese (with fern) that is fading into insignificance in the background in a very modest and unassuming way.  This was also really tasty - all I can remember is that it's from Corsica - but it cannot beat its upfront rival - Dutch Truffle Brie.  I enjoyed this cheese platter at the end of a lovely summery dinner at home, with four great friends.

1-0 to Holland so far at 20:05 - Go Oranje!

Oh no 1-1 at 20:10......Come on Holland!