These Sundays come around quickly... By the next one I'll be a different age! I'm spending my birthday giving two talks about chocolate. :-)
1. The very best thing I ate in Lisbon was a pastel de nata from Pasteis Belem. It's the oldest and most famous of all the pasteis de nata bakeries in Portugal. I also bought some from Manteigara which had similarly fabulous crispy pastry, but I found the custard slightly sweeter and thicker. The one from Pasteis Belem was truly the best I've ever had.
2. The second best thing I tried in Lisbon was a local fresh cheese called Queijo de Azeitao. We had it in a tiny bar where a Fado singer sang. My caldo soup was also delicious. Other highlights were breakfast at The Mill and at Comoba and lunch at Taberna da Rua las Flores. If you ever go to Lisbon message me and I'll tell you where to avoid as well.
3. On Thursday I went for dinner at Joey O'Hare's house. Joey was a finalist on Masterchef the Professionals and is a co-founder of High Mood Food, though she's left now and might soon be a development chef for an interesting brand. If it happens I'll let you know so you can seek out her food because it's wonderful. But in the meantime you can see her website here and her recipes for Great British Chefs. Everything we ate was delicious but everyone especially raved about her shepherd's pie which happened to be vegan. You'd have known it was vegetarian, but not vegan. There was also a particularly good pecan pie from Balthazar Bakery, too.
4. On Friday I went to Taste of London Winter Edition. By far my favourite thing I tried there was the cherry pie from Chin Chin Ice Creams. They're planning to bring it to their Soho store so keep an eye on their Instagram feed to find out when it arrives.
5. We had relatives over for dinner on Saturday and I made pizzas from scratch which were damn delicious if I may say so. We had Waitrose's pink champagne to start and a Greek Retsina white wine (Domaine Papagiannakos) from The Greek Larder. They were both excellent and I'd highly recommend. The Greek wine was quite different but really interesting. It smelt like honey and a hint of pine in the taste, with a texture slightly thicker than most wines.
As usual I've squeezed in more than 5 Things. :-)
I'm planning to switch off now and get back to Dr Jordan B Peterson's 12 Rules for Life: an Antidote for Chaos. It's written quite academically which is kind of refreshing for a title that sounds so clickbait-like. It's really interesting. You might be pleased to know the final "rule" is "Pet a cat when you encounter one in the street."
