Our Easter holiday

Hello everyone! How was your Easter holiday? Mike says that we have rainy Easter almost every year. He was right again!

My Good Friday started with... organic almond croissant from Le Pain Quotidien!

Breakfast

 We took our dogs to Whitstable late morning, as I mentioned in previous post. We walked beach and peeked the harbour. It was sunny, but cold wind was blowing.  Walking beach was relaxing. There were lots of people and dogs but the pace was slow and atmosphere was peaceful.

We are going to beach!

Unusual smell on the beach.

Mike with two sniffing dogs!

A view from a fishing boat

Seagulls sunbathing

Fisherman's huts for sale

On rainy Saturday and Easter Sunday, I did a big tidy up. We also moved my office to a 'Finch room'. Moving furniture exhausted me so much so that I didn't want to have a glass of wine afterwards. That's unheard of in our house. I am 100% wine-person, and Mike is chocolate-person. I usually love to have a glass of wine at both lunch and dinner.I would love to reduce the frequency of drinking without pain! I realised that I wouldn't like to drink wine when I am physically tired but not mentally tired. Here is the opportunity to solve my problem! I will take dogs for long walks separately so that I get tired before lunch. I have to make sure that I will not be exhausted. I still need to work afternoon.

My Easter Chocolate! We opened the third bottle before Easter! Tut tut

Speaking of wine, we bought a half case of Black cottage, sauvignon blanc, Marlborough 2011. It is New Zealand wine. We got some bottles as a a mixed case before Christmas, and loved them. It is fruity, rich and delicious. According to a young man at Majestic Wine, where we buy, ordinary people don't spend more than £10 for a bottle, but those who tried it would come back fore more. Yes, we did. It is worth every pound we spend.

On Monday bank holiday I have sorted my books and files. I already returned to work in part yesterday. I am workaholic and I usually start feeling bored on the fourth day of holiday. Mike tells me that it is a withdrawal syndrome. I am lucky because I truly love my work.

Mike took Tuesday off to make it a longer break. He also believes Tuesdays after Easter holiday are often sunny! We visited Turner Contemporary at Margate. He had to prise me off my screens.

Nightmare and bargains

Mochachino, our youngest owl finch, on Mike's head

I had bad sleep two nights continuously. Last night I also had a nightmare, in which Mochachino, out last surviving owl finch whom I helped hatching by cracking his egg after his parents abandoned the egg, became ill in my hand. I was so upset. When I woke up I had to go to check on him. He was ok, but I found him on the cage bottom. Older birds often do that because they become weaker.

Late Couscous and late Coco, our first babies on my head.

Thanet Earth

Mike's trip to Sainsbury's at the weekend brought some good buys. First Tomatoes. They are from local Thanet Earth, and surprisingly they are sweet. Really sweet. We haven't had bought tomatoes this sweet during this winter. £2.50 for 2 was a bargain.

Lettuce bag

This is the bag for lettuce. I like it! It is a strong, simple and good design. 

Our chicken casserole, Rachel and Enzos' bread

 He also got a bargain for a pack of chicken thighs and drumsticks, three of each for £2.00! I cooked casserole with those. They are really tender and lovely. Mike bought a chunk of artisan Italian bread from Rachel at the University at lunch time.

This wine was so delicious. very fruity with a green note. Majestic wine

I recommend this wine. It is fruity taste with a green note, but not too light. We got a couple of them from Majestic Wine. It went very well with the casserole, but also fine as aperitif.

Over the holiday

A Happy New Year! I hope you have had a good holiday. We did despite we both had cold one after another. Mike caught cold on the first day of his holiday and took one week to get rid of. On the first day he fully recovered, I caught cold, and I am still with it.

Happiness is relative though. Last year we have had swine flu. So, common cold seemed to us almost nothing albeit annoying.

In the past years, we would invite people around, and usually a couple of people including one of us, couldn't make it due to flu, or retired during meals. This year, we decided to celebrate by ourselves, instead.

After gruelling six hours of oven cleaning during summer, Mike, understandably,  refused to roast at home. We were thinking to go to Abode for a Christmas meal, but Mike's cold stopped this. So we thought we would go out for a New Year meal. My cold was the hurdle this time. So we spent whole time at home very relaxed with our dogs, parrots and little Mochachino, the last surviving finch.(and Pumpkin, the chicken, in the garden, of course)
 
Over the holiday, we opened a champagne bottle,

Mike decorated,

we baked,

we cooked and drank,

we baked and drank again,

The first galette was sooo delicious. Mike baked it again on the New Year eve.

Mike's colleague, Dave gave us this desert wine that he bought a half case by mistake (he doens't like desert wine), and left them in the garage for a while. Still it was nice with the galette. Thanks, Dave!

we opened another bottle of champagne,

Mike had Parma ham and I had smoked salmon (responsibly resourced wild Alaskan kind...description is getting longer and longer.)

These better shaped parmiers were made by our patisserie chef Mike.

Mike's panettone became so large!

Panettone inside

I found a tub of chicken stock I made two year ago in the freezer. lol About 1.5cm thick fat was on top, to preserve.

A leek from our garden and mushrooms added. It became delicious soup.I hope I could beat my cold with this!

I also cooked Japanese celebratory Azuki bean rice. Beans were about two years-old (too old), and special glutenous rice was one year old (a bit old). Still it turned out delicious. It was nice to clear cupboard too. lol

Priggy on bathing costume, wine, and today's Pearl

I am Priggy.

Monster have got a new name now. His name is Priggy. Mike is godfather, I am mother, and pearl is his sister. He now wears his bathing costume.

I wanted to underglaze his costume, but the clay has dried too much. The problem in winter; radiator dries clay too quickly and too much. I have to bisque fire him before decoration.

Priggy's lion's tail.

We had a busy day today. After all, it is the last weekend before Christmas. This year, we decided to spend Christmas alone and creatively. To do that, we went to Majestic Wine, and stocked our cellar first (Em, just a cupboard).

Today's shopping

Although I am much smaller than Mike (clothes for 11-13 years old, or size 8), I drink more than him. Oh, don't take me wrong. I usually drink only a glass of wine or cider a day, and maximum two glasses a day. But I drink everyday. Sometimes twice a day at both lunch and dinner, dependent on the food I have. If the definition of alcoholic is based on frequency, I might be one. But I really know I am not when I saw one of my friends took the wine bottle we couldn't finish into the hotel room, and held at the neck of the bottle (she had never let the bottle go!), and drank it all in a teacup by herself, while another friend and I drank tea. That's alcoholic! 

My advice to her was when she meets a man at the first date, she should never keep holding the bottle of the wine in front of him.

Mike pouring Dom Villargeau Giennois

Now, I will go back to our story. I initially wanted to buy a case of Sancere and Puilly-Fume, and some nice red which goes well with roast beef. When I was looking at Sancere, Mike eavesdropped a wine adviser was telling another customer, that Domaine de Villargeau, Coeaux du Giennois is located between Sancere and Puilly-Fume. It is very similar taste to Sancere, but cheaper. So I dropped Sancere, and picked what he heard. To check on that taste, Mike had it with coley, I with Alaskan wild salmon this evening. It was round taste with a depth. But the best Sancere I had had deeper taste. We will try with different dishes.
 

Ovened salmon, Pea butter rice, spinach and broccoli

Last but not least, today's Pearl corner. She embarrassed herself when she found a cat on the road during afternoon walk. She squealed so loud that I saw several lace curtains twitched. But after dinner, she was like pictures below.

There is a doggy in TV.

But I am sleepy. ZZZ

Once I fell into sleep, Dad went to spoon-feed our parrots.

But this is more comfortable than being on dad's lap.

He came back and claimed his chair. Oh well.

Night night everyone.