Rocky road, aka chocolate with everything in it

What better time to hold a bake sale than at halloween and for what better reason than for charity, Kid's Company to be exact. Each person in my office was charged with contributing in some way, be it carving pumpkins, designing posters or making cakes.

This week I was pretty busy so decided to make something that I could make over the weekend and it would keep until bake sale day. The answer: rocky road. Chocolate upon more chocolate, upon biscuit, marshmallow upon Rolos. I normally add in raisons too but they seem to be an ingredient many in my office dislike.

A (half) marathon lunch at Del'Aziz in Bermondsey

My flatmates are pretty keen on running, they've done quite a few 10ks but last weekend K stepped it up a notch with Nike's Run to the Beat half marathon on Sunday.

We went along to cheer her over the finish line and after watching probably a thousand identically dressed people pass us she eventually appeared and managed to high-five us all as she went past.

There were different levels of people taking part, some looked like they were hardly trying, some were limping and some were as red as beetroots, but it didn't seem to matter, each person was there to reach a different goal.

My favourite was a girl pulling her friend along by the hand and shouting "come on Becky, there's the finish line I can see it!"

Afterwards, we met up for lunch at Del'Aziz in Bermondsey Square. It's a great deli which does a good selection of food with a mediterranean twist such as burgers and breakfasts.

We all went for pittas, lamb, sausage and chicken which came with salad and yoghurt. We also ordered the Del'Aziz special fries which meant they were basically covered in garlic. Yum.

I ordered a large cappuccino to warm up after standing in the cold for so long but I didn't think it'd be as big as it was, it rivalled the Costa Coffee soup bowl mugs. It was huge.

K was fully intending on eating whatever she wanted on Sunday picked up a slice of plum tart from the selection of cakes at the front of the deli which looked absolutely amazing.

Lunch at the Photographers' Gallery London

On Saturday I had a few errands to run around the Oxford Street area but instead of grabbing a sandwich at a Pret or other such cafe I decided to stop by the newly opened Photographers' Gallery to see what they had to offer. I'd been for coffee before but they've also started doing hot savoury food too. This may seem like a surprise, given the name of this blog but I'm not a complete fan of lots of sugary things so I was really happy to see that as well as doing cakes, biscuits and brownies the Photographers' Gallery café now also has a selection of pastas and other dishes to be warmed up.

I went for the broccoli and mozzarella frittata which came with a very nicely sized salad and lemon vinaigrette for around four pounds. Sitting at the bar which runs around the corner of the building so that you can people watch through the big windows it's a little oasis from the chain restaurants and bustle of the crowds on Oxford and Carnaby Street which are very nearby. Another thing that was nice is that the cutlery was very nicely weighted - it may seem like a small thing but I'm quite fussy when it comes to it.

After the frittata I had a very nicely foamed cappuccino (my new coffee of choice) which came in a Lavazza mug. I'm never too sure about Lavazza coffee's mugs as I find they have very small handles but this one was one of the better ones.

Following lunch, I headed downstairs to browse the bookstore and see the book I've helped to edit over the last year, Occupy London by Ed Thompson. Occupy London is a photography book at heart with images taken from within the St Paul's camp but also includes essays and commentary about every stage of the movement from setting up camp to the final evictions and beyond.

Occupy London by photographer Ed Thompson is available from The Photographers' Gallery bookshop - you'll find it in a nice spot by the till next to The Selby's new book Edible Selby - or from Ed direct, contact him on Twitter

Just a little hiatus...

So I've not written about coffee or cake for a while, of course this doesn't mean I've not eaten any coffee or cake in that time, I've just been busy enjoying the coffee and cake.

Anyway, spurred on by some of my colleagues saying that I should start a food blog (unbeknownst to them that I actually have the shell of one already) because I talk about my individual tastes in food, places to eat it and the different quirks I have whilst eating it (I'm really not that fussy at all) I've decided to resurrect this blog and see how far I get.

This weekend has been particularly good for food so I thought now would be as good a time than any. Stay tuned.

Photo: Coffee cake and a latte at Daisies in the Park in Pinner on a Saturday in the sun this summer

The Breakfast Club - my not so guilty secret

I love breakfast, and I am more often than not caught saying that I could eat breakfast everyday, for every meal. So when D suggested that we go to The Breakfast Club for a Saturday morning catch up I was just so excited.

From the outside, The Breakfast Club in Spitalfields plays it cool. There is no flashy logo'd sign, just the clean white painted frontage with "today is going to be a good day" optimistically painted on it. You would pass this if you didn't know it was there. The only thing that gives it away is a large, train station-like clock, which has the name of TBC on its face and a glimpse of "Sex, Drugs and Bacon Rolls" written in neon on the inside wall.

Go through the door and it's packed, there's a queue of people waiting to be sat at the sanded down trestle-tables and ex-school-canteen chairs. There is definitely a club like atmosphere, you instantly know that everyone is here for one thing, that you are now part of that club and you all share the same guilty secret - except I totally don't feel guilty about it.

Looking at the menu, there's every kind of breakfast (obviously), it's so hard to choose because you know that, from the food coming out of the diner-style open kitchen, it will all not only look like it's out of a photo-shoot but it will taste amazing too. We went for American Breakfasts but had both decided after looking through only half the menu that we would have to come back again and try something else.

Whilst we waited for our food, we admired the design of the place - vintage, but not try hard - sipped at our wonderfully frothy coffees (me a latte and D a cappuccino) and discussed what we had been up to over the last couple of months. Good times.

When our Americans arrived they were just as good as we'd hoped. If The Breakfast Club did life-time membership, I'd be first on the list.

Where I win a trophy

For the second of my most summery explorations I have chosen a cup of coffee which came in a terribly seventies (but brilliant) glass cup and saucer. It is accompanied by the rose-bowl trophy and plate I received at my Tennis club's end of summer presentation barbecue. I think they go very well together.

My tennis club has very 'village hall' atmosphere and the membership is quite small, but the one thing they do well is barbecue - the two members who cook it actually went on a course, no burnt sausages here!


As a side note, in this photo you can also see my iPhone, which was robbed from me on this Monday evening just gone. Boohoo.

Recent cake explorations

I was trying to do this in 'real-time' but sometimes work and other things just take over so the next few posts may not be in any sort of chronological order. But what does it matter...

I thought I'd start with one of summery-est cake moments. As you can see it is a pot of frozen yoghurt, with brownie (yes that's the cake bit) and raspberries. I met D on Brewer Street for a quick catch up the day after I got back from Jersey. The weather was still amazingly hot so we needed a cool down and frozen yoghurt seemed the right way to go; you would not think it possible to be both delicious and healthy at the same time (if you take away the brownie), but SNOG can perform miracles.

SNOG is one of my favourite places to go, it's all electric pink and white. It's not just them doing frozen yoghurt though, when at work, we'll take a walk into Angel and drop by FRAE on Camden Passage, which is basically the same idea, less fluorescent maybe and more of the 'natural' vibe. They do strawberry flavour yoghurt, which is a must; almost as good as a pot of Häagen-Dazs.