Sweet Heart Biscuits

They are what it says on the tin...For my sweet heart  Sweet Heart Biscuits.

Take 100g Pure Sunflower Margarine, or softened butter, add 75g golden caster sugar, the zest of a small lemon and beat together till light and fluffy

sift over 125g plain flour, add 50g ground almonds, 1tsp ground cardamon, and a few drops of panettone essence, if you have some.  You could vary the spices to your favourite.

Mix together till you get a smooth dough, then roll into 20 to 24 balls.  I weigh mine about 20g each.
Place them well apart on two large baking sheets lined with baking parchment.  I flattened mine with the bottom of a  glass, and then stamped them with a cutter, almost to the tin.

Bake in a preheated oven Gas Mark 4, check after 10 minutes and change the trays around if you don't have a fan oven.  Bake until they just start to turn golden, turn off the oven.  Leave them in the oven for another 10 minutes, and continue the cooling on a cake rack.  When cool dredge with icing sugar.

Sfoof Buns

I looked these up, and Sfoof from the Lebanon, seems mostly to be cake made of semolina, but this recipe came from Jane Mason's The Book of Buns.  Flavours are similar.  What I like about this book, is that there are well demonstrated/photographed bun shaping techniques.  I had made some other buns using this technique of winding two pieces of dough then forming them into a round.

For Bun weekend, I was leafing through this book, and decided to try something very close to the original recipe.  For one I had bought a small pot of Mahlab when Vickie and I visited Borough Market.  I did not have any orange blossom water, so used a little of my Panettone essence.  And in my bid to reduce my animal fat consumption and less saturated fat, I used Pure Margarine instead of the butter.

The dough with the turmeric is a rich golden colour, and the seeds, spice and essences give this bun a gentle aroma and taste full of eastern promise.

all these need now is a little glaze and a scattering of chopped pistachio nuts.  Fifteen minutes later there is a home filled with wonderful baking smells and a couple of trays of buns.

I think next time I shall try soaking the nuts prior to chopping, or may cover the buns half way to try to lessen the scorching, specially when  warming them up for breakfast.

Elif Shafak visits Kenilworth Library

Following my mood on leaving Morocco, and conversations with my dear friend Vicki, I realised that the reason was perhaps due to my not understanding the culture.  I therefore thought to expand my understanding or rather exposure to other cultures.  I think Literature can help a lot with this.  One of my friends on Facebook has been posting superb pictures of Istanbul, and fo some time we have also been thinking of visiting Turkey.  When there was a notice at the Library that Elif Shafak,  the widest read female writer in Turkey was coming, I knew this would be of interest.  

 Last week I borrowed The Architect's Apprentice and had started to read this.

There was a good crowd in attendance, with students and lecturers from Warwick and Coventry Universities, groups made up of Book Clubs, and assorted readers like myself.  There were some very interesting questions from the floor after her short talk, to which she gave insightful answers.  I was interested to hear that Elif writes in English and her books are then translated.

I bought a book which she kindly signed.  After hearing about her past studies, travels and ideas, I look forward to reading more of her books.

Third Port Day: Cadiz

Our first visit to Cadiz left us within just half an hour with the feeling that this would be a place to come back to stay in.  We were welcomed straight off the ship by smiling and friendly English Speaking people from the tourist office, with free map, guide and list of places open.

We walked around even though it was drizzling but warm enough, popped into shops,

visited museums, and when it dried walked along the Alameda Apodaca

through the Parque Genoves

 Fantastic large tree 

Amusing topiary

to the little Castillo de Santa Catalina which had the feeling of being like a set for a wild west film.  Or rather the small towns in Mexico must be based on Spanish architecture.

We found the Fine Arts and Archaeological Museum, which was really interesting, and included large ancient statues

Beautiful ancient glass and pottery

and a tiniest gold bee about the size of my small fingernail

and much more.  We popped our head into Centro Cultural Reina Sofia, again welcomed and invited to look around.  The building with its central courtyard and wells, grand staircase alone is well worth visiting.  In addition Sculpture, paintings etc to enthrall, and as usual I took a close up showing wonderful skill with the pen..

All around the old town there were areas of interest...

Second Port Day Agadir

Firstly I am so disappointed that our postcard still has not arrived back, so here is a collage of some of the ship specially for Izzi.  I loved the art scattered around the ship, on every landing, and alcove, there were different ones.  Even the way they arranged the loungers was 'photogenic'.

We opted for a trip to the City of Taroudant which is surrounded by ramparts.  This is a Berber Market town, and on the way we passed the famous Argon Tree Forests.  I would not compare them to a forest in milder areas.  This is a semi desert area between the High Atlas Mountains and the Anti Atlas Mountains beyond which is the Sahara Desert.  We could see the mountain ranges, and in between the trees parched areas.  Some of the trees were weighed down with several goats nibbling at the foliage.  Along the excellent motorway, ran a newish looking water main which fed water to the increasing number of banana and orange plantations.

In Taroudant our guide took us to a soukk...I just wish we have taken euro coins with us.

 We passed a street stall with delicious breads

 And this is a building site in the middle of the road with goat and sheep rummaging through dumped household rubbish.

 We passed a 'restaurant', where dishes were being warmed on portable charcoal braziers ready for lunch.

In the souk there were many colourful slippers, but no prices,

 and large tagines aligned outside a small shop

We were taken to a woman's co operative not far from the souk, where Argon oil was made, and after a talk and a 'hard sell' we made our way back.  I'd bought Argon oil on our last holiday, and after applying it to my leg, had a type of burn which I could not get rid of for weeks, so passed on this.

On our way back, our tour included a trip to a local farm.  This was not quite the sort of Farm I was expecting.  I thought we would have had a walk among the orange groves or get to have a peek inside the large plastic poly tunnels, which housed the banana groves...we could see them, but this was a 'Hotel' on a Farm.  There were caged chickens of rather lovely breed types, turkeys, and geese, a few prize sheep and a dromedary, and arab stallions all beautifully housed for the pleasure of tourists.

The grounds were beautifully manicured and 'oasis' areas prepared outside a row of tourist apartments.  I caught this..donkey and cart alongside large lorry.

The breakfast we had there at lunch time was really delicious.  Freshly pressed orange juice with a wonderful depth of flavour, various breads, dates and honey, and some mint tea.  The honey was particularly delicious, but I did not have the chance to ask about this.  We were led into the room laid out already, with only a person serving tea.

It was fun to see succulents growing outside to large proportions.