Autumn weekends I

A Northamptonshire weekend just as the air began to feel cooler, and the leaves began to turn. The structurally beautiful arches in St Pancras, leaving the capital past the canal and buildings and glimpses into other people's back gardens. Endless cups of tea. Nigel Slater's double hazelnut cookies, made with hazelnut butter AND toasted hazelnuts, so crumbly and nutty and delicious. An afternoon at the rugby, chips, cider, and a win. Walking with the dogs, blackberries in the hedgerows, teasels by the lake, geese.

A recipe reproduced below for my cookie of choice so far this autumn. I have taken them to WI meetings, to my colleagues at work, served them for dessert crumbled over Green & Blacks vanilla caramel nut ice-cream. They are so good.

Nigel Slater's Hazelnut Cookies, from Tender II

100g butter at room temp

50g light muscovado sugar

50g golden caster sugar

60g toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

100g hazelnut butter (this is like peanut butter but with hazelnuts - I find mine in Health Food Shops)

100g plain flour

half tsp bicarbonate of soda

half tsp baking powder

Set the oven at 190 degrees centigrade.

Cut the butter into chunks and cream with the sugars for several minutes until very pale and smooth. Mix in the nut butter and most of the chopped hazelnuts.

Mix in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder, stirring gently to form a soft dough. Spoon heaped tablespoons onto a baking sheet lined with baking parchment (no need to flatten). Scatter over the remaining hazelnuts and bake for 12-14 minutes, until the biscuits are pale gold and just dry on top. Remove from the oven and let them cool slightly before transferring to a cooling rack.

Makes about 12

I could get used to this

We are graced with another four day weekend, easy as you like, just after the Easter one. The three days in between at work aren't so bad at all, half of London seems to be away, the tube is deserted in the mornings and there are no crushes at the bar for post-work drinks. Tuesday night is boy-I've-missed-this yoga (used to go regularly, haven't for a good few years now) with WI, Wednesday finds us in a Bavarian beer hall, Thursday eating Mexican on Charlotte Street followed by late night at the Wellcome Collection and the Dirt exhibition, fascinating, truly. Friday we do watch the wedding, at a friend's, with blueberry muffins, Buck's fizz, bagels. I get sucked in, sort of, love the dress, love the English grown bouquet, but still do not wholly buy into the argument that Britain needs a royal family, especially when they start to bus in all the minor royals. In the evening M and I take ourselves up to Primrose Hill, sit and watch the city as the sun goes down, then dust ourselves off and head into town for dinner, cocktails, making use of the city's apparent emptiness to eat at Dishoom (no reservations taken, have had to wait for an hour one Friday night in the past) followed by drinks at the Experimental Cocktail Club (more soon). Saturday I head to Norfolk for Dad's birthday, eat cake baked by S, devour asparagus. Mini mojito cupcakes, dusted with lime sugar, for a friend's birthday barbecue back in London on Sunday, Pimms, the smell of charred meat. Monday is blissfully lazy, a late start, brunch at Latana with Anna, a mosey round Foyles. A wander through Soho and then, because my capacity to eat has done nothing if not increase since getting back from NYC, a cinnamon bun from the Nordic Bakery which M and I eat in the sunshine in Golden Square, golden indeed filled as it is with bright yellow flowers, bun still warm from the oven, crisp outside, doughy within, cinnamon drenched, sticky fingers. We head to Regent's Park, to embrace the last of the day's sunshine, a bit of a battle with the wind at this point, but heck, we're British, poke our noses into the wonderful, hidden, St John's Lodge Garden, all tea roses and white wisteria, before heading, regretfully, home.

I fear next weekend is going to feel horribly foreshortened after these last two.

Brunching and Blue Skies

The first week M is back he is both ill and jet-lagged. He sleeps and sleeps, blinds drawn, waking occasionally to murmur incoherently. It is like having a shiny new toy that I am not allowed to play with. By Friday evening he is feeling well enough to get up, eat a bowl of spaghetti, watch a DVD.

Saturday he is back to his usual self, and we rise early, jet-lag still present, head to the Southbank in the sunshine. Breakfast at Canteen, sunlight streaming in through the large glass windows, orange juice freshly squeezed, egg yolks golden. We wander by the river, aimlessly, stumble upon a practice session for a free running competition at the National Theatre. Lunch is pea soup, oatcakes, cheese from the Cheese and Wine festival at the Southbank earlier. M goes to watch the rugby, I potter about in the sunshine, happy with the light, the gentle warmth.

Later we meet, when it is dark, wind through the streets of Soho to Yalla Yalla, end up at the larger, newer branch near Oxford Circus, eat smoky Baba Ghanoush with chewy pitta bread, salty pickles from tiny bowls, crunchy Fattoush, feta filled Samboussek. It was delicious, I would recommend.

Sunday morning, jet-lag again, we journey across to Columbia Road flower market, take photographs, buy flowers, anemones, ranunculus, brown paper wrapped. Eat brunch at The Book Club, fat buttermilk pancakes, fruit, syrup. Come home and bake for a work bake sale, brownies, cupcakes, cookies, then invite Anna over for tea because the flowers bought earlier seem too beautiful to languish in the living room alone, they need us to sit around them, with a plate of warm cookies and mugs of tea, playing catch up as their petals open.

A slow, quiet weekend all things considered, but I am grateful that M is back, glad the sun is shining. Glad that we are round again to Friday too - hope you all have a lovely weekend chickpeas!

Birthday Tea

Sunday 6th March. A birthday afternoon tea. Cucumber sandwiches, cut into fingers, no crust. Egg and cress too. Scones, clotted cream, damson jam, strawberry jam, made with fruit from the garden last summer. Chocolate cupcakes, lemon drizzle, blondies made by a WI friend. Birthday cake, made and iced by Mum, sponge, buttercream, jam, thick white icing, nostalgia on a plate.

Tea, lots of it.