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Pistachio Olive Oil Miniature Cakes

I once read an article about that strange feeling of returning to a city where you once used to live. To discover that this city has not been preserved in some kind of time bubble. That life in this city has moved on. Your friends have made new friends, filling that small hole your departure might have left. Shops have shut or moved. Restaurants have come and gone. How odd this is, whether or not this city has a special place in your heart or whether you were in fact glad to leave it when you did. It feels like I have spent most of my twenties either moving to London or moving away from London. After university and law school there I spent some time in Germany, working in a law firm to save up enough cash to travel around Argentina and Chile for a few months (which, incidentally is where I met Alessandro). I came back to London

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Double Rye Treacle Tarts

Alessandro and I have been travelling around Northern Laos and Northern Thailand for just over a week now. We have been getting up early to watch the hustle and bustle of the morning markets, wandered through the grounds of stunning temples, walked along the banks of the Mekong river, travelled on local buses so full people were sitting on rice bags in the middle of the aisles and swam in the turquoise water of one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen. While every trip comes with its own challenges, whether it be jet-lag, getting sick, over-hyped destinations, missed flights or buses – and this trip has certainly had its fair share of that as well – I am so glad we decided to go on this trip. Time seemed to have stopped while we are taking in our new (and temporary) surroundings with all their new-to-us sights, smells and flavours. Above all, it is so nice to spend

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Birthdays

The older I get, the more ambivalent I feel about my birthdays. Long gone are the days where I would run down the stairs excited to open my presents. These days, the highlight tends to be managing to take the day off work (though good presents are obviously still appreciated). However, August is my birthday month and even if I am not a fan of big crowds and therefore haven’t thrown a birthday party in years, a birthday is there to be celebrated in some form or another. And celebrate I did. Not with one, not two, not three, no, with four birthday cakes in total. First there was the box of cupcakes from Lola’s Bakery that my friend Verena gave me and that was devoured together with my parents. There was the Pflaumenkuchen, a plum cake common in Germany around this time of year (the plums are incredibly tart when baked so the cake is eaten covered in sugar

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