Archive for the 'OK in the UK' Category

So the sneak peek preview sale has officially begun, and you can click yourselves on over to Amoretti to see the new line and the fun new webpage! The sale lasts until the 17th . . . and these items are all produced in limited quantities. So get your order in early for the best selection and the best price!

Note: Make sure that you notice before you order . . . this is a pre-sale, and your items will be shipped in early March. Just so’s you know not to be dashing anxiously out to your mailbox every day from now until then!

OK – prepare yourselves for a shock. I myself am still reeling from it . . . looking around in a sort of bewildered way, wondering how it all happened.

Here’s the big news: I have a goose in my (very miniature) fridge . . . which I am apparently going to try and cook on Christmas Day in my (very miniature) oven. Yes. I told you it would be a surprise. And not only that – my sober judgment has collapsed so completely that I not only have a goose in my (very miniature) fridge, but I also am the proud possessor of 2 cans (cans!) of goose grease with which I am going to prepare the roast potatoes!

I’m quite stunned about it actually. One moment of wondering if perhaps I ought to try and do the traditional English thing since it’s perhaps our last year in England and look where it’s gotten me! I’ll be pouring boiling water all over a goose and poking it full of holes with a darning needle and hanging it by open windows to dry and wondering if this is how goose is actually supposed to look when it’s done and dealing will all the emotional scarring that will result from the whole experience. And having succumbed so far (don’t you always have a horrible urge to say “succame” instead of “succumbed”? Or is that only me?) into the Traditional English Christmas Dinner Menu . . . I have gone the last and unalterable step and thrown in the towel completely. I actually have a Christmas pudding in all its raisiny, suetty, blackness sitting in my kitchen, waiting to be steamed for 2 hours in the oven and lit on fire for dessert. (Or is that the Christmas cake you’re Continue reading ‘Unexpected News’

I feel that I should share with you all a ripe little episode from my weekend. Just a gem of a situation.

It all started because we have my cousin Brooke living with us. She’s been just a fabulous help with things, and so we wanted to give her a gift before she heads home for Christmas.

There is a small village a few miles outside of Oxford called Great Milton. The manor house in this village was purchased by the French chef Raymond Blanc, and turned into a luxury hotel and 2 Michelin starred restaurant called Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons. So far so good. But also so far, irrelevant, because I am not in the market for either luxury hotels, or Michelin starred restaurants. It’s fun to know that they’re out there, and that’s as far as it goes. But then I discovered that Le Manoir offers day long cookery classes, and I thought what a fantastically fun gift that would make. So, I signed Brooke up for the Christmas Dinner Party class. It sounded completely spectacular. The class teaches how to serve a 3 course Christmas dinner party, and each student comes home with a chef’s jacket, all the recipes, and a tart that they made. Pretty fun, eh? She made guinea fowl confit, wild mushroom fricasee, reduction sauces, cream cake, and a whole slug of other things which I’ve forgotten. And they had morning tea served to them in the kitchen on the house china, they ate the guinea fowl confit etc. for lunch, and generally whooped it up.

So yes. I signed her up. She was supposed to arrive at the restaurant at 8:45 in the morning . . . so I was going to drive her out and drop her off. Ben warned me before I left that one of the tires was a bit flat and that I should fill it up at the service station right by the turn off to the restaurant. After protesting that I couldn’t fill up a tire to save my soul, and having him overrule my objections and explain how to do it, I sallied forth with Brooke to drop her off. When we passed the service station I figured that I’d go ahead and do it on my way home so that I didn’t make Brooke late for her class.

And that’s what I did. I passed by the service station and regarded it not. I found the village, and dropped her off. Pause here for a moment to show some pictures of the place.


Right. That’s where we leave Brooke . . . heading in to don her chef’s jacket and eat confit. Meanwhile, I, dressed very smartly in jeans, hoodie sweatshirt, parka, no makeup and my hair not fixed, (let this be a lesson to you . . . consider this a cautionary tale) got back into Continue reading ‘Suave Moments’