Why not a cafe?

Tea houses versus cafes. What is so great about either? Well to be honest I've only been to two cafes in the UK, both in Edinburgh, so I don't have a lot of cafe reference. I did enjoy the two cafes that I stopped in during my time in Edinburgh, however they were two very different cafes, and both incredibly busy. I think the main difference between cafes and tea rooms is that they have different atmospheres. Both are very busy, but I've generally found cafes to be more noisy.

From what I've noticed here, cafes aren't as much as a 'thing' as they are in mainland Europe and North America (it could be that they are and I've just not noticed). Big coffee shops like Costa, Starbucks and Nero are starting to become a bigger thing here. From what I've heard they've just started cropping up everywhere in England and the UK over the last ten years, big chains that is, not little independent places. Now some people I've spoken to in passing and at work speculate that this could be because of the fascination with Americana. All things American here are fascinating, and occasionally looked down upon and hated, but fascinating nonetheless. You can't walk through a major city centre these days without finding some sort of American Sweet Shop. Ok, that might just be Leeds, but there is more than one of them which I think is crazy. It's a bit of a novelty, but the large coffee franchise has taken off. Starbucks here is just like backhome: overpriced and busy as heck. So if I'm on a weekend wander about the country side and fancy a hot drink, where am I going to stop really? It's not going to be an overpriced coffee shop that charges 3-5 pounds for a cup of coffee or a fancy tea. Heck no! I'm stopping at the quaint-looking tearoom that is going to serve me an afternoon tea including scones, jam and clotted cream while I sit at a quaint table in their quaint establishment -all for the same price of one beverage from Starbucks. Chances are it's also going to be more relaxed than a coffee house or a cafe too.

I found at the two cafes that I went to there was a very limited variety on the menu. Usually simple sandwiches (all containing mayo which makes them non-options for me) and soups. Sometimes, if you're lucky there might be a cold quiche or something on the menu as well. Now don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed my carrot, parsnip soup and hot chocolate at the Elephant House in Edinburgh, however it was noisy. It felt more like an eatery than a place to stop in and have a nice relax. That being said, I shared a table with an interesting fellow... and I digress.

Back to menu variety then. The menus at many tea houses I've visited have had a variety of things. Yes, a variety. Gone are the days where you walk into a tea house and can order only tea. You can also order, milk, coffee, expresso, hot chocolate and the really fancy ones also do milk shakes in the summer. In addition to scones with accompanying, fattening yummies, you ca also order, paninis, toasties, sandwiches, soups, sometimes breakfast, cake, and other goodies. Sometimes you can get different types of tea. And almost all of them serve it up on either fancy or quaint china (plates and such, not real china usually).

So why go to a tea house if you don't really fancy tea? Why not? Just order something else. I do the same thing every time I go to anything that resembles a coffee shop as I definitely don't drink coffee at all.

Almost every time I go a new place I end up finding myself a little tea room to sit and have a cuppa. It happened by accident at first. I needed a place to stop and look at a map and come up with a game plan. From there it has become almost like a hobby (although infrequent). Highlights of my tea house obsession so far:

Cooper's Cafe

Ok, so this is technically a cafe, if you must call it that. But I love the place anyway.  This place had only been open 10 weeks when I found it. Loved it immediately. I was just stopping in for a cuppa and a place to sit and found a gem while visiting Skipton!

Edinburgh. 

This was at Holyrood palace. It says cafe, but I'd say it was more like cafeteria style. It wasn't at all busy when I was there, but that could have been the time of year and day.

Hebden Bridge

 Look at this place. It's gorgeous. There are flowers everywhere. I might not have found this one on my own. The town crier told me about it. Great range of food on the menu too. http://www.tandcakes.com/

Afternoon tea anyone? 

Fruit scone with strawberry jam and clotted cream

Mmmmmm...mouthwatering. 

Skipton: Cooper's Cafe returns! 

Cute outdoors table right on the street! 

 It was so great the first time that I had to come back and bring a friend.
Clearly I'm very happy to be back at this little gem. Yes, even though technically it is called a cafe. I maintain it's more of a teashop....well maybe not if you see their menu. What was very quiet my first visit was absolutely booming my second. All of the tables inside were full. In full swing and now with support staff this place is a success!

Bowness-on-Windermere

 Great little place to stop. Since Bowness is a tourist town in the middle of the Lakes District there are tea rooms everywhere. In three blocks we found three! This one looked the best. It was really busy inside. We got the second last table outside. Luckily for me, it was also the table in the shade! Yes, I resisted the urge to take yet another picture of my afternoon tea.


So I guess perhaps I haven't been as picky about tea rooms versus cafes so far. Turns out I've been to four cafes, I've just been thinking of them as tea rooms. Who knew? I think it's just because I have been drinking tea a lot of tea. Well, when in England... Cheerio!

Ilkly

When you think of Yorkshire, what do you think of? Now answers could include Yorkshire pudding(haven't made that yet), white roses, pie and mushy peas (yet to actually eat mushy peas and will hold out as long as possible), and of course the moors.

The moors are a beautiful, wonderful and bit of a dangerous thing, dangerous because they go on and on. However I'm more concerned with the beautiful and wonderful part of it. Yorkshire is great because there is countryside everywhere. I get on a train into the city and half of my ride I see country side for. You take a train out of the city for ten, fifteen, thirty minutes and you can end up in the middle of nowhere very quickly. From the centre of West Yorkshire you can easily access Ilkly by train. Ilkly provides easy and beautiful access to Yorkshire's moors.

Now when one arrives in Ilkly it is a bit tricky to figure out where it is that you are going unless you've been there before. The Ilkly website recommends that you find a map or route booklet from a local bookstore. Well it took some doing to find a book store, but in the process I found a tea room. I have to say over the last several months I have become quite fond of tea rooms. They are lovely. There are so many of them that are so nice! This one started out nice and calm and quickly became extremely busy as the brunch crowd started to stream in.

 So the walking out of town towards the moors began.

And continued.

And continued some more.

Along the way I saw some pretty sights.


















Once again I am reminded of Miley Cyrus' song "It's a Climb." The funny thing is it's a good song, likely one of her best, if not her best. And yet it has so many applications to life.

















More climbing in my future...

Can you see it? Right there. I'm going there!

One of the many views that day.

Who knows what this plant is? I saw more of it in the Lakes District.

Cow and Calf Rocks. 

Even more impressive close up.

 Now just to be clear, the moors aren't a quick two minute walk outside of Ilkly's town centre. You do have to do a certain amount of walking to get there. If I recall correctly, it was about a thirty or so minute walk, mostly uphill, to get to. It's a great walk, but not for the unfit unless you're really going to take your time.

 Once you are there, and you have found the Cow and Calf Rocks, you discover that it is actually quite the popular destination. There are tourists everywhere. There is a car park for those who are afraid of a little public transport or walking. This allows people to come from all over to wander the moors and hopefully not get lost, have a pint or a meal at the nearby Cow and Calf pub, which I understand is very popular. I did not call in as I didn't have the time and went back via a different route. The Cow and Calf Rocks are also a very popular destination for adventurers who enjoy climbing. There were people doing free climbing as well as your more traditional rock climbing with ropes and protection.

Many people like to climb them. I could not -far too frightened of heights. 

 I didn't really get very far in my climbing. My fear of heights and wondering how on earth I would get down, or what it would feel like if I fell, prevented me from getting too high up. I walked around. Just to give you an idea of how massive and impressive the rocks were I had my picture taken beside one of the more colourful ones. They are amazing. It reminded me of...well I'm not sure really, but if you think about how old these rocks are, as well as how massive they are it's quite humbling. That and they just look really cool.

Look how small and insignificant I am compared to this rock. You can only see part of it as it is!

By walking around, I did reach the top of the rocks. Up there I was greeted by an amazing view. I wanted to sit there forever. But there was still far too much walking for me to do and moors for me to see. Not to mention more wind to brave.

 When you head out into the moors you continue heading uphill. As you hike the moors its like you never start going uphill. You begin to go downhill again as you head back out to head into Ilkly-proper again.

 As my hiking buddy and I continued our trek through the moors, we came across an interesting little construction. There is a little corner built just off the side of the walking path.

 The corner stone of the seat reads, 'Stanza stone poetry walk.' We sat there for a little bit. It was peaceful. You get a chance to sit and relax, be a little sheltered from the wind and just listen. It calm and quiet.

 After a little rest in poetry corner, we were back on the trail. Heading back into to town was a little bit easier than heading up into the moors. The views were just as great. After a while I started to get tired and just wished that I was home. To be fair that was after about four hours of hiking.

 This is actually a picture of Ilkly from the foot of the moors.

 There were some interesting things to be discovered in Ilkly other than tea shops and pubs and moors. I  found this little garden. It is the Millennium Gardens. It's quite neat. It's a bit of a maze around this little green space that sits on the edge of the town, just below the moors. Some of the stones have local businesses engraved on them. I'm assuming that means they are local sponsors of walks and greenspaces.

Here is another great thing about Ilkly, and much of Yorkshire as well, gardens and flowers are very well kept. It makes the areas beautiful. In Bradford you see it mostly in the parks. However, this nicely kept patch is just a little green space too small to be anything other than the little bit you see here. It's very close to being a round about  and that's about it. It wasn't a proper park, but it was beautiful

Would I go to Ilkly again? Absolutely. The only problem is that there are so many other gorgeous parts of the country to walk around and admire as well. 

Food Food Food!

It has been so long since I last blogged, that I actually have to look back at all of my pictures in order to deduce what it is that I have been up to. Well then, here we go.

Well, since I have significantly reduced the stress in my life and finally managed to choose happiness, I have been able to return to the land of eating food. Alright, that might be a little extreme of an introduction, let's say I've gotten a bit more creative with my creating of food. Regardless, food is fun -and alliterative - so let's start there!

Ever since I was a kid and the family used to cook supper together (they call it tea here, which can be terribly misleading), I have quite enjoyed fajitas. In order to keep myself from eating, literally the same pasta dish every single night, I began making fajitas during the winter months this year. Now, I found when I made tacos back in the fall that I didn't quite like the flavour of the packeted mixes here, so it became necessary (not to mention cheaper) to make fajitas from scratch.

Now, me being all keen and eager to share my exciting and tasty food with the world started posting these things on facebook. "Made fajitas from scratch for dinner tonight, aren't I clever!" Or something to that effect. Well it turns out that unless you raise, kill and pluck your own chickens, as well as drain their blood and butcher them then you aren't making the fajitas from scratch. So in order to continue boasting about my amazingness I had to start doing just that. So I set up a little chicken coop in the corner of my flat and started raising chickens.

No, in all seriousness, I instead made my own tortillas. They are fairly easy to make and taste fairly decent (although not like the store-bought ones). We'll talk about the homemade salsa later, don't worry.
So we're talking tortillas right now. I am a big fan of the internet when it comes to cooking. My friends around here are always telling me that it looks or sounds good, and then promptly ask either how I know how to make it, if I made it up, or where to find the recipe. Well, eight times out of ten it comes from the internet. I google things a lot. It is one of the fantastic things about living in the world of smartphones -there is now so much just at your fingertips. Gone are the days that you have to call every person you know trying to find out how long to cook your rice for. Gone are the days that you have to call the next door neighbour because your mother isn't home to pick up the phone when it rings to tell you the temperature at which to roast a chicken. And gone are the days where you guess and end up poisoning yourself by accident. Ok that last one hasn't happened yet, and hopefully never will. Anyway, I made tortillas from scratch. It is surprising simple, even if you don't have a tortilla press or a rolling pin. All you need is the ingredients, a pan and an empty (or full) wine bottle.

Please note that the only reason I bring up wine is because I don't currently possess a rolling pin and a chef friend said 'hey use a wine bottle.' Find the recipe I used here: http://www.food.com/recipe/flour-tortilla-recipe-204109
Side nore: I substituted olive oil for veggie oil since I didn't have any. I think that might be what accounts for the more yellowed colour of the tortillas. I think that may have also slightly impacted the taste, but they were still alright.

So I can now boast about having made my own tortillas. I haven't done it since simply because it's not the fastest of processes and buying them is more convenient, however I currently have more time on my hands so who knows what the next few weeks might involve.

Moving along the Mexica theme, I have also now tried my hand at salsa. This was an improvised and unplanned venture. We thought there was salsa hiding about in the fridge and it turns out that we were mistakened. In this case it certainly worked out in the favour of my (and other's) taste buds as well as our insides (no preservatives in homemade salsa!). I improvised a little bit since I don't recall having any coriander at that time, but here is a recipe that looks vaguely familiar:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/rawsalsa_81423

The salsa was super easy to make. I made it before making the fajitas and then popped it into the fridge for a little bit to meld. I think I used chilli powder instead of fresh chillies (again a supply thing). 

Here is the meal all put together and waiting to be devoured. I'd recommend leaving the salsa to sit in the fridge for at least 20 minutes before serving. It makes it just perfect!

Moving along in the food adventures we come to steak and ale pie. Now one cannot move to Yorkshire without hearing about this lovely food, and one simply cannot boast about enjoying food and cooking in Yorkshire without at least attempting to make a steak and ale pie. Please note it is possible, especially if one if vegetarian, however I am writing for effect here people. Right, steak and ale pie. Made with black sheep -hold it, Black Sheep ale. Black Sheep is a North Yorkshire ale (for more info go here: http://www.blacksheepbrewery.com/ ) that I do not like, however it is delicious in pie. I cheated a little with the pie as it was a Friday evening after a long week and I was hungry. I also had help preparing it. Turns out that this is a pretty easy recipe it just takes a bit of time. Here's your basic recipe: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8482/black-sheep-pie.aspx
I used store bought crust to go on top. It was great. It tasted just amazing. The crust was light and fluffy. The meat was tender and delicious and the sauce was mouthwatering. It was a great meal to make and share with friends.

 Hmm, it looks like we might have added a bit of extra veg to the dish I do like carrots. And as you can see below, we served it up with mashed potatoes and some gravy. Although to the perfectly honest, the extra gravy wasn't necessary.

Now for a random adventure I had late one evening. I decided one Saturday night that I was bored and would attempt to make my own caramel. It's just sugar right...and a few other ingredients, but how hard could it be?

 Well, really I had no idea what I was doing. So once again google got involved, and my friend Jan.

 So you melt the sugar in the pot; you can add a little bit of water to help it if you want.

 Slowly and carefully let it cook, but not too far. What you might start to ask yourself around this stage is....how exactly do you know if it's gone to far?  You can't exactly try it to find out if it tastes right. Add cream and stir.

 Taste test...I happened to have some strawberries that I thought I would dip.

 It tasted a little burnt...

 So I added more cream in hopes that it might make it taste a little better. It helped...some.

 All in all, this attempt failed a little. I definitely burnt the caramel. As you can see I was a little sad about this.

And now is the time to talk Easter Dinner. Living alone and with most of the cool people out of town traveling, I was left alone to my own devices for Easter Dinner. I found a cheap piece of stewing beef and some potatoes and veg and decided to try out some creative cooking. This is a pretty simple recipe. I stewed the beef in Jameson, chicken stock (I didn't have beef) and the veggies. I popped it all in the oven for a while. I can't remember how long, or really at what temperature since it was all guess work. I think I added extra stock at one point as well.

 In the end I was very pleased with the results. This last picture was taken before I actually tasted anything in there, but I have to say that the dish was absolutely amazing. I really enjoyed it. The only thing that could have made it better would have been having another person around to feed it too. I ate this meal for three days (one meal a day) and enjoyed it each time. It was so good if I do say so myself. Too bad I didn't have someone else to tell me how good it was too.

For those who know me well, it is no secret that I like food. It is also no secret that I like to take pictures of the food that I make and think is really good tasting. I will of course spare you the several pictures of my random pasta combinations and my soups and stuff. Instead I will leave you with one quick beautiful picture of some baking I did a little while ago.

Now this little gem I cooked up not too long after I returned from Edinburgh. This is a banana cupcake with strawberries and cream. Quite delicious and quite fattening. I enjoyed every minute of it.

There are many other dishes that I could dig up pictures of and natter on about, however I think this entry is starting to get quite lengthy and perhaps boring. So, if you are still reading -well done! And thanks! Quick last word: something I learnt since returning to the land of the eating is that it is easy to over indulge. I easily became carried away: enjoying the cooking and the eating and the flavours and tastes, the sneaky 'I'll just have one more spoonful' and the wonderful feeling of being full that I quickly forgot about proper portion sizes. Well when reasonable portions go out the window, so does the clothing that you had to buy when you lost so much weight that all your other clothes looked ridiculous on you. So I have had to relearn what a proper portion is. To be perfectly honest, I don't think me or anyone I've shared a meal with in years has been eating correct portions. I've started to do it just recently and it's shocking to eat proper portions when you're not used to it. At first you feel like you're cheating yourself out of half a meal and then once you're done eating you feel like you're still hungry simply because you're not eating the massive amount that you're used to.

The good things about eating the correct portions: your food lasts longer, you're healthier, it's easier to be active and you can then have those reasonably portioned between meal snacks. It takes some getting used to, but it's worth it. Pair it with regular exercise and paying attention to what goes into your food and you can still have fun with cooking and enjoy eating. So remember fellow lovers of food: have fun, enjoy it, but keep the portions reasonable.