SC#37 | Wholemeal English muffins

I love English muffins so bad. I tend to forget about them for months, then get an absolute craving and demolish a pack of six in 48 hours. Sliced, toasted, with a little butter and jam, they are the best. I love them even more when they're wholemeal; brown bread just tastes a little better (unless it's a Banette 1900 which is the Perfect Bread in all its white flour glory).

Anyway, long story short: I had a craving, so I made them. And I made them good:

It was my first time making something bready. I had a fun evening of covering everything in flour and sticky dough (thanks to my housemate Laura for her moral support/giggles) with many a crisis of 'they're not rising!', 'they're burnt!' or 'they're not cooking!' I'm pretty impressed they turned out alright.

Served with my mum's homemade quince jam, they were fab. Make them too. I used this recipe from Savory Simple. Worked a treat! 

I hope you enjoy a bite of these. Homemade brekkie is the best! x

The (second) best care package that ever was

Man, life is busy... So for once I'll share a snippet of it almost as it's happening! I came home an hour ago to the first care package of 2014! Getting a parcel is always super exciting in my house because my housemate Meg gets one practically every other day, and the rest of us only get bank statements.

I was very excited to open it since I dropped some extremely heavy hints to my mum over Christmas about the things I would love to see delivered on my doorstep. I was a bit upset she didn't get hold of Gosling to deliver my parcel, but what was inside was still pretty good... ;)

Here's a picture of my mum to cover my French address, and a picture of Dumbledore to cover mine because of reasons. And yes, once I unwrapped the incredibly resistant protection, it was a wine box. It's always a wine box.

And here we go!! My mum is the best! Homemade chocolate chip and cranberry & walnut cookies, 48 Kinder bars, a block of cheese, a King cake kit and the basket my cousin got me for Christmas. But like, homemade cookies!!! I cannot stress how happy I am right now. Thank you so much mum! You are da bomb.

And a little bonus: if you're feeling a lil' bit hungry after staring into these babies' eyes, here is the recipe and here is Google Translate (tested it and Google did good on the translation, you're safe to bake!)

A little family promo

A little note to tell you I'm on my cousin's blog Folklore de Mode this week with some shots I took for her at Christmas. She has a fashion + illustration blog, a real gem! It's in French but really who doesn't use Google Translate these days? (Me. I don't. It's terrible.) Still, photos need no words so go check it out for bow ties and crazies. x

Postcard from the Pays Basque | Six spots to visit

I'm back to tell you more about the Pays Basque, and for this second and final post, I'm sharing with you the six places I liked the most during the holiday, as well as some more photos of the region. Hope you enjoy!

La Rhune
On our first day in the Pays Basque, we hiked up a mountain. A small mountain, alright, but still. We don't hike in the family, ever. Turns out it was really fun (at least for me, less so for my very much afraid of heights brother and my "oh my God this was a terrible idea" mother), and I felt incredibly proud when reaching the top! Just remember to bring a bottle of water PER PERSON (right mum?) and wear good shoes.
For non-crazy people, there is an old train going up and down the mountain. From the top, you can see all of the valley, with the Pyrenees on one side and the sea on the other... well, that's if it's sunny. By the time we got to the top, it was so foggy you could barely see 5 metres ahead of you! A must-do in the area.

www.rhune.com/uk

Spa Makila

This holiday was originally my parents and brother's golf holiday, and I decided to tag along on the promise of beach afternoons while they golfed... and a Spa day! One of the golf they picked had a Spa so I got to do a hammam/sauna/jacuzzi session (possibly the best 45 minutes of my life) followed by an an hour and a half long face and body massage + treatment (definitely the best 45+ minutes of my life.) If you're ever in the area, I'd definitely recommend it. The place is lovely with a great view on the golf courses from the jacuzzi, and the treatment left my skin at its very best. I don't know if it's related or not, but for the first time in my life, I came home after a holiday with a tan...

www.spamakila.com

Saint-Jean-de-Luz botanical gardens
After walking around the market and the town centre = doing the typical touristey things in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, we opted for something a bit different. We headed for the botanical gardens, which turned out to be a fantastic choice! The gardens are beautiful, peaceful and quiet, full of plants unknown to the public... and it has a beautiful view upon the ocean. A refreshing oasis away from the busyness of summer holidays!

jardinbotaniquelittoral-saintjeandeluz.fr

La Plancha d'Ilbarritz
I mentioned this restaurant already in the previous blog post because it was AMAZING. We chose this place on a recommendation from our host at the guest house and the whole family agreed it was like, the best decision ever. The restaurant is by the seaside, directly overlooking the bay, making it super popular to tourists and locals alike. No reservations, so v busy, but there is a nice outdoors bar with cocktails (A+ frozen margarita!) to help you wait. And then you feast. Plancha grilling is obviously this place's speciality, so you'll get to try piquillos (small peppers), chipirons (baby squid), chorizo, rib steaks and all kinds of fish grilled a la plancha. I'll say this again: best fish EVER. It had garlic crisps, man, garlic crisps! Stereotypically French maybe, but what can I say, I do love garlic.

La Plancha d'Ilbarritz, Bidart

Euzkadi
Another fantastic restaurant, this one being the best we found to try typical local recipes and products in a traditional setting; plus, it was in Espelette, a town nationally famous as it is where they grow the Espelette pepper. The staff was über friendly, the menu had no end, but mostly the dishes were flavoursome and generous, and I felt that this was the place we visited the most representative of the Pays Basque. Not high end cuisine, but hearty and moreish!

www.hotel-restaurant-euzkadi.com

Biarritz fireworks

Finally, I have to mention the "Nuit Féérique" fireworks in Biarritz. August 15 is a national holiday in France and most towns traditionally celebrate with fireworks of some sort. Biarritz's have the reputation to be exceptional, and they were! If you ever have the opportunity to see them, definitely go and get stunned by the beautiful spectacle of the fireworks blowing up on both side of the bay and illuminating the Grande Plage. Splendid!

Aaaan this concludes my postcard from the Pays Basque! I hope you enjoyed this little trip in South-Western France and that I made you think about planning a trip to see its beautiful sights. I'm now back in London, and after a summer of travelling... I just want to leave again! 

Postcard from the Pays Basque | What's it like?

Last year there was no real family holiday, as my mum and I headed off to New York without the men. This year, I came home just for it. I had barely been in France for 24 hours that we were off on a seven hours long drive South to the Pays Basque. Brits will maybe know it as Basque Country, but it sounds prettier in French so deal with it. 

Things you will find in the Pays Basque:
- White houses with mostly red shutters and doors; sometimes green, very occasionally blue. Nothing else, as the colours correspond to the three occupations of the locals in old times: livestock farming, agriculture and fishing.

- Delicious food that will make your taste buds sing. There is something for everyone down there. Meat lovers will enjoy rib steaks a la plancha, platters piled with ham and chorizo, grilled duck filets and the most adventurous will love the local black pudding. (I'm far for a meat lover but man, their black pudding!) If like me, you're more into sea things, you should already be on your way there because I ate the best fish of my life in Bidart (roasted hake with olive oil dressing and garlic crisps at restaurant La Plancha, mind blowing, seriously.) They're also incredible at seafood, make delicious cheese, and cultivate their own regional chili pepper in Espelette. What's not to love?

- A difficult thing to escape in the Pays Basque is... tourists. They are everywhere, as it appears the region is rapidly becoming one of the most popular holiday destination for froggies. We saw these beautiful fireworks on an absolutely packed beach, as in I barely had enough room to stretch my legs (totally worth it though.) We were staying in a village of barely 1,000 inhabitants and had to skip lunch one day because all three restaurants were full! It needs going into the land and avoiding the most touristic villages to find empty places.

- Street art, surprisingly! The small village we stayed at had its walls covered in stickers of old people...

- Tons of pretty and interesting places to visit. I'll tell you more about what we did during the stay in my next post, but really I want to insist on how beautiful it all was. The land is surprisingly green (we were told it rains a lot), the all similar houses create a beautiful landscape, with houses decorated with chili peppers and animals sunbathing in the fields.

That's it for my first postcard from the Pays Basque, but I have another one coming up soon...

Sea, sun and... pizza: a holiday in Sardinia

Today I want to share with you some photos of my holidays in Sardinia. If you're not familiar with the place, Sardinia is an Italian island situated West of the mainland, just South of French Corsica. It's hot, dry, the sun shines bright and the land is incredibly beautiful. I've never really been down to the Mediterranean before; I went to Madrid once, but apart from that, all I've seen of the South is the Alps. So naturally, I was pretty excited to discover what it felt like to go on holiday to an actual sunny place and swim in water that wasn't 18°C (yes I'm talking to you, Atlantic.)

Me and the man stayed at his family house all the way down on the Southern coast of Sardinia. The landscape was all mountains and sea, with a striking contrast between the perfect transparent blue of the water and the incredibly bright colours of the flowers that are grown in every single garden. We pretty much spent our days sleeping, either soothed by the lull of the aircon at home during the very hot afternoons, or lying on the beach with the rest of the town's population—me lying very much under the umbrella to make sure I didn't burn my whiter-than-white skin.

I was surprised to discover the Mediterranean way of life: the place is ghost-like for most of the day when the sun is too high to work, and as soon as it sets, everyone comes out. At night, the streets are crowded with tourists browsing craft stalls and eating ice cream. Ohhh, the ice cream. Sardinia is a great place to go if you like to eat. We had some delicious pizzas topped with local cheese and Sardinian sausage, all kinds of deep-fried seafood, and the best octopus salad ever. Also seadas (photo below), delicious little ricotta or mozzarella filled pastries that are fried and served covered in honey. Drink wise, Sardinia has its own national beer, the Ichnusa. 'Vorrei una birra nazionale' is definitely one of the tag lines of our trip!

Just so you know, this last picture hasn't been edited. The colour of the sea is 100% authentic. If with that you're not booking your tickets... One thing's for sure, I definitely want to go back!