Just another Bristol blog
As pumpkin spice latte season approaches and I continue to avoid Starbucks I thought it was time to get on with making my own coffee.
I followed the following recipe from foodnetwork.com but it basically comes down to the following:
1 or 2 tablespoons of pumpkin puree (can from Waitrose)
1 or 2 tablespoons of sugar
1 cups soy milk
1/2 tea spoon vanilla extract
mix them all up and heat them by either steaming with a frother or in the microwave.
Add a shot or two of espresso.
Voila!
Possibly the most perfect cup of coffee this year.
Park Row, Bristol
http://www.bristol-culture.com/2013/03/26/didnt-you-do-well/
https://www.facebook.com/DidntYouDoWell
Black Coffee at Hart’s Bakery
Sometimes Hart’s Bakery is the best thing about travel.
12-July-2013
Coming back from holiday
Here is where we were, it was a lovely place and we have a rather wonderful time – I forgot to take pictures of the coffees
14-July-2013
A Tuesday, last day before work
I feel like the luckiest person in the world to be able to spend four days a week with my daughter.
16-July-2013
“Now it’s early. It’s early in the morning. Early in the morning and I ain’t got nothing but the blues.”
17 July 2013
Thursday’s coffee has far to go
18-July-2013
Coffee that got thrown out
The coffee had been opened at least two-three weeks and it tasted of nothing so I threw it out after a quick taste. I like the picture though.
20-July-2013
Coffee at Wallfish Bistro
Most pleasant coffee. No soy milk on their first day but as they told me, they are happy to take suggestions.
A small piece on their breakfast which I thoroughly enjoyed.
20-07-2013
Coffee in Clifton
Second coffee of the day at a Clifton playground where I ran into another mum who was at my antenatal class. We met for breakfast with M’s dad before he left for a few days.
20-07-2013
(For consistency and flow 23-July-2013)
Coffee on the way to work
Golden Girls, knitting and a soy white mocha.
This is the knitting I’ve been obsessing over (free pattern):
24-07-2013
Coffee at work
25-07-13
Saturday morning coffee
Early to bed, early to rise and all that. This coffee preceded a day around Bristol starting on Whiteladies at River Cottage for breakfast and ending up at the Stable for pizza and cider. There was much rain in between and three hours spent at the Bristol Old Vic where M had a nap.
27-July-2013
Morning coffee
28-07-2013
At the Harbour Festival
A surprisingly wonderful Harbour Festival this year and here’s our last stop – at Cafe Gusto on the Harbourside for two machiattos (one with soy). M got to play with the toys. The paint on her face resembled a tiger for a while.
I was terrified of taking her out among hundreds-of-thousands of people but the rain drove most away luckily and her dad had a good plan for avoiding most of the crowds. We actually visited a fair few of the permanent non-festival things such as the M Shed, the Youth Hostel and Gusto (plus the Gromits at Aardman).
28-July-2013
Morning coffee with the winning cup
M and I both won cups from the Clipper stand. You had to spin a wheel which had a one in five chance of landing at the right spot. Mersina was so happy to have won something that as soon as we got home she demanded to drink her juice from it. This morning her cup held my coffee at about 6 in the morning.
29-July-2013
Second coffee of the day
My first coffee at Boston Tea Party was curdled so I took it back. My next one came with the information that the first was too hot which is why it curdled. I didn’t bother taking it back after discovering it too had become clumpy and lumpy. I just removed about a third of it and drank the rest. Not the most pleasant experience.
I ate my porridge while staring over at Starbucks across the way – there would have been perfect soy milk and porridge there but I chose to go independent instead. Good for Bristol but not for my taste.
29-July-2013
Two days ago, I had some black-looking thick and ugly mushrooms on toast at River Cottage Cafe. They were most unpleasant to look at with the grimy streaks they left on my place and weren’t exactly exploding with flavour. A week before that I had been served the most beautiful looking girolles on toast served with herby butter and arranged like little flowers around and top of a slice of sourdough.
The Wallfish in Clifton may only have started serving brunch for the first time last weekend but they were certainly miles ahead of the River Cottage on service and flavour. They were perhaps a little overenthusiastic with the drinks menu which I was handed as I walked in and all the cocktails listed on the breakfast menu are a bit daunting for 10am but nevertheless, I have become a big fan of their breakfasts.
Their baked beans are home-made and taste authentically country-farm (probably). They were lovely and smokey and have bits of bacon. I ordered them for my daughter but she was not impressed as they tasted nothing like Heinz.
I did wonder about the freshness of our bread as the delivery came in from Jo’s Bakery on Gloucester Road after we had been served but it was toasted and sourdough so I wasn’t surprised at needing a knife to cut it, it tasted ok. The water jug looked like a fish and glugged when you poured in a most pleasing way. I liked it. I’ll be back.
My coffee is in front of Maya, daughter of artist Luke Jerram, and now a pixelated sculpture at Bristol Temple Meads. The piece is made up of more than 5,000 photographic scans made into pixelated cubes.
I shared my attempt to find the little girl yesterday with Bristol Culture.
I drank my coffee while my daughter watched Mike the Knight* on Cbeebies. The show is on for about seven minutes. I also made toast for both of us, washed some dishes, made the coffee and then sat down to check my email. By then she’d finished with Mike and we were on to the Wiggles and Wallace and Gromit.
23 July, 2013
*Mike the Knight says practise is very important. I agree.
Today’s first coffee was in a hotel at the picturesque and quaint town of Painswick. In a garden, overlooking the Cotswolds, I poured black coffee from a small white jug into my white china cup. My two-year-old daughter was not happy at having to take second place to the men I was talking to. They were running through a crib sheet of things to look out for on my visit to the Rococo Gardens for a spot of secret filming. We had to pause until M’s auntie and cousin arrived to watch her as she was too upset.
I didn’t take a picture but see above, I visited the Exedra at the Rococo Garden a little later.
My second coffee was drunk at home. Made in the percolator and served with condensed milk. Every other train on the Cross Country service from Bristol Temple Meads through Birmingham seemed to have been delayed or cancelled and it’d been the hottest day of the year.
M and I were out of the house from 7.30ish until after 4pm. It was a very hot, sticky and long day. When we got home, we dropped everything near the front door and got into a cool bath for about an hour.
After barely getting dressed we sat down and relaxed. The cup of coffee was a bit of a sigh after a tiring day.
22-July-2013
This Sunday was a busy one as I sorted out paperwork that went back years. It took hours but it was very satisfactory.
21 July, 2013
Today I had decaf grande soy white mocha because the nice barista made it for me. He knew my order and I’m not sure why he thinks I have decaf but I don’t mind.
Also, porridge.
Grande, because I forgot my travel mug. It was so hot that m kept waking so I got maybe 3-4 hours sleep.
July 18, 2013
First day of holidays, even though I don’t work on Mondays anyway, and there was no soy milk or condensed milk anywhere in the house. My coffee was lovely regardless.
Coffee with cream #0013
This coffee was never drunk, not really. I thought I’d found a solution to my no milk in the house when I discovered a pot of cream that came free with a punnet of strawberries. I don’t drink milk so why I thought cream would be any good, I have no idea. It felt like drinking sludge.
Next to my failed coffee is the second book of the The Last Policeman trilogy. Published 16 July in the UK, I am currently reading it for a review.
July 8, 2013
