Well, hello there! It’s been awhile and we apologize for the radio silence…happens when life gets in the way eh?

So we’re back to tell you about our foodie excursion to one of London’s newest places for some greasy grub with line-ups as if you were waiting for a ride at Disneyland: MEATliquor.

I was warned of the wait times but if you get there early enough which we did around 6:30pm – the wait time is not bad at all. About 10 mins really. Make sure everyone in your party is present or they will show you to the bar and when the rest of your peeps get there they will have to join the back of the line and only when they make it to the front of the line will you ALL be seated.

When you enter the restaurant, you are greeted with graffittied walls and ceilings, dim lighting and a lot of red and black for the color scheme. Definitely trying to transport you to a gritty American diner-esque kind of place. Placed on every table is a bottle of ketchup, mustard and roll of paper towel (no frills here!).

Some ceiling art

View from the bar

 

The restaurant has a lively buzz to it and when we were dining there was a bartender yelling “Becca!” every 5 mins over the music and conversations. Our server (maybe Becca?) took our drink orders as soon as we sat down and with cocktails at £7 each (same price as most of the burgers) we ordered 2 to go with our meal.

Some liquor to go with our meat

Being typical girls and aware of the amount of calories we were about to inhale, we decided to share an order of chilli cheese fries, fried pickles and an original Meateasy cheese burger. Our food all arrived all together and the burger definitely lives up to everything fellow foodies have been saying about it and the chilli cheese fries were delicious.

Oh my...

Check out all that meat

Chilli cheese fries up close

The fried pickles were a slight disappointment as we prefer fried pickles in sliced widthwise instead of lengthwise and slightly less greasy (but they are friedpickles, duh!…yes, I know but still…you know what I mean).

Fried pickles

Overall, the food was good and satisfies any calorific food cravings you may have. It was also a very affordable meal with our total bill coming to about £28 for the two of us. As we left the restaurant the line-up was still wrapped around the outside of the building and growing by the minute. Needless to say we decided some post-stuffing-our-faces-walking was much needed!

See ya later burger fans
xoxo

I’m on a new year resolution to save money and that includes NOT wasting food in my fridge that sits there for weeks until the stench of the fridge propels me to do a purge of its contents.

So when left with a large bag of spinach close to its decay date, I needed a way to use it quickly and easily.

I did a quick scan of my pantry/fridge and unearthed a bag of pine nuts, garlic and parmesan cheese. And because I love my new kitchen aid blender, I decided to make a spinach pesto.

Here’s the thing – you can’t really use a full-sized blender to make pesto because the blade and container is just too big.

First mistake.

Secondly, make sure you taste the pesto repeatedly to make sure the flavours are correct. And if you add too much garlic (second mistake) then try and offset with more pine nuts and salt.

In the end, you have a very bright green pesto, perfect on top of freshly cooked spaghetti and some hot pasta water to thin it out a bit.

Sometimes when I chat with good friends, we scoff at that friend of ours who had a “functional” childhood. It’s as if having fighting and divorced parents, the black sheep sibling, heck being that black sheep of the family is a badge of honour we wear proudly.

Being dysfunctional has become the new normal.

Which is why I love this book so much. It’s a woman in her late middle age. She’s gone through one divorce and has fallen out of love with her second husband. Yet she isn’t pathetic and embittered. She holds onto the magic of Christmastime, even with all of the absurdity in her life.

Something which, I think, is good to remember at all times of the year.

At the start of the year, everyone seems to be quite keen on getting their vacations planned out for the year. Probably to help cope with post-Christmas blues. I could do with some sun right about now…there is nothing like relaxing on a beach, soaking up some sun and splashing around. Absolute bliss.

And how cute is this carry on to meet all your travel needs?

Jeremy Scott for Longchamp

Many years ago, before I knew how to cook. When my idea of cooking was making sandwiches and heating up pasta sauce from a jar. WAAAYYY back when, I remember an old co-worker telling me that she loved cookbooks and would flip through them like magazines.

I remember thinking she was crazy at the time.

Fast forward to present day, and I now regularly walk past the jarred pasta sauces at the grocery store AND I’m steadily adding to my cookbook collection.

For any cookbook aficionado located in Toronto, The Cookbook Store is a must-visit. Easily located right in the heart of the city, this small store carries the popular to the obscure books ready to please any foodie.

Every so often, I stay up late and go through itunes, finding Genius recommendations and looking up bands that friends say I might like.

My taste in music tends to be…well, fairly eclectic I think. I have a love of Glee (obviously), but also indie bands, classical, folk, jazz, UK top 40… the list goes on.

Below is a sample of what’s currently on repeat on my iPod. Enjoy!

Ok, so it doesn’t take much for me to get distracted. That’s why I have to hide my blackberry under the mess of papers neatly stacked folders on my desk.

BUT.

I was at lunch with a friend today and his girlfriend who told me about pinterest. Get it? Pin + Interest = pinterest.

It works kind of like a cross between Reddit and a really cool Tumblr page. You sign up and then you can start pining things that catch you interest.

Get it? Pining + Interest = Pinterest!!

(Ok I’ll stop)

Seriously though, check it out, it has everything from recipes to funny sayings, cool fashion hairdo’s, wedding photos and home decor.

www.pinterest.com

Yup, I am home for the holidays! Wishing you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas! Be safe and enjoy the festive season.

Lots of love to all,
Suey
xoxo