Friday 20 April 2007

Night on the Town

Our wander along The South Bank last night was fabulous. We crossed the river on the Millennium Bridge at St Paul's, and walked past The Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe, Borough Market, Hays Galleria (where we stopped for an overpriced drink in a very, very crowded bar), Tower Bridge, and ended up at Butler's Wharf where we ate at The Blue Print Cafe in the Design Museum. Mmmmmm, yummy food. Neither of the dishes I ordered were exactly what I expected but they were both totally delicious (once I'd pulled them apart and doctored them a bit). I had young garlic with goat's cheese as a starter - I expected it to be a salad with garlic leaves, but it came as a whole roasted bulb with the goat's cheese mashed onto a large piece of sourdough. I ate the sweet garlic with my fingers and scraped the cheese off the bread - P finished that off to mop up the juices from his razorclams. And then I had the baked salsify with parmesan, and an order of purple sprouting broccoli and an order of mixed leaves. The salsify came wrapped in crisp filo pastry - which I removed... it's years since I've had salsify and I need to eat it more often; it is divine, sort of like a white, silky asparagus. I could have eaten a whole plateful. We didn't have dessert (obviously) but even I was tempted by a hazelnut meringue with berries. We drank coffee and then wandered home, over Tower Bridge. I've got some fabulous photos I will download from my phone when I get home and post later on.

So, I didn't use CoM at all yesterday but I feel fine about that. The meal probably had a lot more oil than I am used to in it - dressing on the salad, I suspect there was some butter in with the broccoli but I'm not sure - and I definitely didn't get anywhere near enough protein, but I enjoyed every single bite I ate and I felt in such an amazingly good mood, what with the wonderful weather, the great company and London being as beautiful in the dark as it could possibly be.

Today I'll be eating more of my usual foods, my yoghurt with flaxmeal and brewer's yeast etc, more almonds and pumpkin seeds and gojis, lots of salad, cottage cheese, spinach. I've even got a bit of avocado. I've picked up some purple asparagus which I am looking forward to trying - it can be eaten raw, apparently - and I've got some pineapple to assuage an odd craving for the stuff.

And I'm still feeling in quite a good mood!

3 comments:

HkGrace said...

I'm so happy for your good mood and hope that it continues long enough that you cease to think of it as a "good mood" but rather a great state of being! I'm just re-emerging after several weeks away but I wanted to thank you again for my wonderful dinner at your home. I'm so glad we had a chance to meet. Now when you write of things I can truly picture them. Much love.

Arturo said...

Hi Sara
I'm wondering if the Gojis you have access to over there are soft in texture. I bought some a while back, but they were tough to chew on, so the bag is still half full.

The description of your London jaunt sounded so nice.
Cheers
Arturo

Sara said...

Hi Arturo
No, the gojis are dried and chewy. Ms M suggested soaking them once to plump them up a bit but I've never got round to it; I really like the chewiness of them now.