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.

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

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.

An afternoon of tea and tennis for Wimbledon Finals Day

What calls for strawberries and afternoon tea more than Wimbledon Finals Day? As I wasn't able to be at Centre Court myself, I decided to throw a party and watch the match with friends at home instead.

I spent some time deciding on the right food to serve, something quick, which involved little on hand prep from me so that I wouldn't miss a crucial point, something that could also be picked up quickly during change of ends or set breaks and most importantly it had to include lots of strawberries.

I settled on quiche which I put in the oven during the pre-match, cold cucumber-covered salmon, potato salad, homemade tomato & basil salsa and various other dips & salads - and that's just the savoury.


For sweet I served a strawberry & fresh cream filled Victoria sponge, blueberry, strawberry and red & yellow raspberry Eton Mess. K had made some red velvet cupcakes and L brought along the yellow raspberries which were added into the Mess.


Drinks were Pimms (of course), good old Yorkshire tea to round off the sweet and cava to toast the eventual winner. Well done Djokovic!

Our flat makes cake

Our flat makes cake. We make it at any notice, at all hours. Between the three of us we can always manage to muster all the ingredients needed to make anything from lemon slices, to coffee & walnut muffins and carrot cake even cakes made for spur of the moment birthday presents.

We will be sitting relaxing, probably about eight o'clock on a Thursday night and someone will say, I want something sweet to eat, but I don't want to got out for chocolate. They will turn to the other two and we will put our ingredients together and 40 minutes later, a delicious cake will come fresh from the oven, with almost no effort at all.

When S was living with us, she decided to make a cake for a friend's birthday, it was eleven o'clock by the time it came out of the oven so there was no time to stay up to let it cool ready for icing. She was up early decorating it before work the next day.

This is how it is done in our household. We are dedicated to cake.