Rainy daysIt was a grey and rainy day ALL day today in London, just the type of day that makes you want to stay in bed and drink a steaming cup of coffee or hot chocolate, pic is of one bought at Monmouth. The sun is due to come out tomorrow just as I am off to Geneva where the weather forecast predicts clouds, aargh! I will post more next week when I return, hopefully with some Swiss foodie finds.

She's baaackThe straw drinking coffee gal...remember this post in 2006? The straw drinking trend never emerged, I guess teeth whitening kits are becoming cheaper so people don't have to be soooo careful with their pearly whites...

Coffee granita

2 cups lukewarm espresso or strong black coffee
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons coffee flavored liqueur
1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest


Combine all ingredients and stir until sugar melts.

Pour mixture into 9 by 13-inch metal pan and place on level shelf in freezer for half an hour. (Mixture should only come about 1/4-inch up the side of the pan.)

Remove and use a dinner fork to scrape any ice crystals that have formed on the side or bottom of the pan.

Return to freezer and repeat scraping every 20 to 30 minutes for 3 to 4 hours.

Once mixture is thoroughly frozen, fluff with a fork and allow flakes to "dry" in freezer another half hour before serving.

When served, the granita should look like a fluffy pile of dry brown crystals.

Serve in a tall glass with whip cream or after a meal for a refreshing treat.

Ouma's Rusks

Ouma Rusks (Afrikaans: Ouma Beskuit - literally "Ouma Rusks"; "Ouma" is a brand and proper noun meaning "Grandmother" ) are South Africa's best-known brand of rusks.
They are dipped in coffee or tea before being eaten.

It is an iconic South African product that is consumed all over the world. It is usually marketed with the slogan Doop 'n Ouma (in Afrikaans) or Dip 'n Ouma (in South African English) (Dip a Ouma).

According to the manufacturer, the history of Ouma Rusks began in the 1939 in the small Eastern Cape town of Molteno, where the effects of the Great Depression were bringing people to their knees. During this time, a certain (grandma)Ouma Greyvensteyn and her friends attended a church meeting to find out ways to help.

At the end of the meeting, each of the women were given a half-a-crown coin and told to multiply it using their talents, as in the Bible. Ouma Greyvensteyn used this money to buy ingredients in order to make rusks using her family recipe. The rusks she baked proved to be extremely popular and orders continued to be placed for her rusks.

You can still visit the factory and Ouma's home in Molteno. They produce 37 million rusks a year. 12.4 tons a day in winter and 8.4 tons in summer.

The rusks come in different flavors like wholewheat, buttermilk, condensed milk, muesli and more...


pic of the factory and the original Ouma in the frame.

June Deadline
I have digressed from working on the cookbook and think I may owe someone 100quid/dollars in June if it is not done (we didn't discuss currency did we Daryl?)

...I have also not written about Sicilian food lately but here is a pic of two coffees lovingly made in Sicily last month - does this count?
Love the cinnamon heart detail...one of the cups has a mix of English and Italian writing and says 'Cafe Time'

A new trend in drinking coffee?
I had two lovely visitors from Canada here recently and they turned heads and made people laugh at the way they consumed their coffee....

Can I have a skinny latte please.... and a straw? Wuuut!?! was what the baristas would say or think - which was clearly visible on their faces when they saw the lovely girls put their straw in their coffee cups.

There are two reasons given for this:
1) Ro started this as she liked to get all the sugar from the bottom of the coffee cup at first and from then just liked drinking it from a straw

2) The reason that most people accept and do the nod and the ureka aaaah..is 'I just got my teeth whitened' and then people realise that beauty has its price and maybe isn't a bad idea after all.

They do have nice teeth though!

May have to do this when I drink red wine. And apparently they have some converted Torontonian's drinking coffee this way....

Thx girls it was fun having you.....xxx