winter sun | grapefruit, honey + almond mini muffs

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We lived in England years ago, when I first started school. Thinking back, I feel like I watched a lot of TV. I spent a fair bit of time in class, a lot of time playing in the garden and mucking about outside generally, reading too, but it was then that I watched the most TV I ever have. Maybe because I had the most free time I ever had, but either way, TV was a pass time for dark, wet days. For the most part it was those kiddie cartoons, with animated animals that teach things like to be truthful, to embrace differences, standard lessons that may or may not be relevant as you grow up. Later I also liked wildlife and art shows, but from even when I was very young I could watch the travel channels endlessly. In those days (I'm talking 13-14 years ago) the big tour operators had their own channels - Thomson, Thomas Cook, the whole crew shot footage of their hotels and cruise ships. If you read this blog now and then you'll know that we adopted some kind of semi nomadic lifestyle (kidding) and in those years those of movement my travel channels disappeared, perhaps with the high street travel agents themselves.

At age 5 you could've quizzed me on the Balearics, The Canary Islands, the Spanish costas, north Africa and the Caribbean. I could've told you the main resorts, the nearest airports and the hotel chains operating in each area. It's funny because these are pretty much the exact places and types of resort I'd scorn now, but through the eyes of a curious 5 year old who didn't quite understand package holiday crowds, these places were dreams. There's no denying many of them are beautiful. I have the most vivid footage of Fueterventura etched in my mind - a white stone house with purple shutters under a clear blue sky, dusty desert grounds, a wooden chair with a straw-hatted man dozing. That stereotypical Mediterranean music playing in the background - you know, the gentle acoustic guitar that leaves you lusting after cobbled plazas and stone buildings covered in bougainvillea, an evening breeze ruffling the leaves of palms. I knew that Rhodes had the best water parks, I was fascinated by Lanzarote's black sand beaches, I knew which cruise ships had skating rinks and climbing walls, the Dominican Republic had the bluest sea (and you call it the Dom Rep). I wanted to see them all, to swim in all those pools, to stand on the balconies, to climb onto the flights with blue tail wings, to run barefoot on the golden arcs of sand.

The tour operators sold packages at all times of year - Easter, summer, but their biggest campaign was for the winter. 'Winter sun', they called it, and if you've ever lived somewhere that is hit hard by winter, the power of that name is really something. With the sun setting by 4pm and not rising till 8am, the thought of going anywhere with blue skies, sand and long sunshine hours is like a magnetic pull. We did eventually make it to Fuerteventura when I was about 12, to a sprawling resort where I played beach volleyball most of the day and we walked to an Italian restaurant on the promenade in the evening. We'd visited Malta and southern Spain, I'd taken on playgrounds and raced through hotel corridors, there had been mild sunshine and warm winds, I remember glasses of fresh orange juice on a Maltese pier, and being sent to the bar by my dad to ask for the bill for the first time. The year we went to Spain, my mum and I were down with chest infections, but there was just enough dry air and subtle heat that our lungs remembered to breathe and I could eventually shed my sweater. I learnt to ride the swings standing on the seat, how to climb up a slide and not use the staircase, how to read a map and bus timetables. 

We made friends with other kids, from similar families, with parents who worked hard and liked to take their little ones traveling as much as possible so they'd be part gypsy all their lives. I remember driving around Spanish hillsides, looking at property, since my parents were considering a small second home, so we could easily leave northern Europe to dry out. As you've probably seen, we don't holiday loads in Europe anymore, nor do we tend to go with all four of us  (ever since we became a family of six). We visit France often, driving from village to village, shopping in local markets, I try to speak French and we stake out a small village in the big French countryside to rent a charming place. Very different to the European trips growing up - no pool, no restaurants, no waterslides, no one my age.

It's funny to think I'll never go back to those places. I'll never see most of those islands or coastal towns that were my daydreams all that time ago. No Carribean cruises on the horizon. But in a way that's ok, the pools and the slides, the pizza dinners and the boulevards can stay, as they are, in my head. Sometimes on rainy days in February I'll think of them, and they'll bring light and warmth, just like winter sun.

Does anyone else feel like winter's just dragging its feet now? It's not properly cold anymore, just vaguely mild and sooo wet. If it's not going to be winter, it might as well be spring. Anyway, I made these muffs as a crossover, the citrus still at its winter prime, but bright and light. Grapefruit are at their best at this time of year and we tracked down these beautiful ruby fruit, but pink or white would work too. Equally if you're not into grapefruit, blood oranges would be lovely but even regular oranges or lemon would work. The thing with grapefruit is it gives this occasional bitter edge that goes so well with the sweet honey, almond meal and mild oat flour. It really gives them a little lively kick that is kind of sophisticated - think tahini in something sweet. If you would like to make regular sized muffins, that would work well too you'd just need to add a few minutes to the baking time - I haven't tried, so just keep eye on them. These muffins are also totally gluten free and dairy free depending on which yogurt route you choose, so I hope you try them. Either way, hope that you have a lovely weekend with a little bit of sunshine and maybe a muffin. Hugs xx

grapefruit, honey + almond mini muffs

makes 18 minis or 9 regular // gluten free

1 cup (100g) almond meal
1 cup (90g) oat flour, certified gf if necessary
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon (15ml) extra virgin olive oil
2 free range eggs
6 tablespoons (120g) honey
1/4 cup (60ml) natural/plain yogurt (I used goat yogurt, regular or coconut would work too)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of one large grapefruit, about 2 teaspoons 

1 large  grapefruit 

Preheat the oven to 180'c, 350'f. Grease/line a mini muffin pan, or a regular one. 

Prepare your grapefruit. Cut the two ends off the fruit, then keep cutting the skin so that the flesh is in a rough block. Use the knife to remove as much of the pith as possible, and slice the flesh into small chunks. This is called supreming the fruit, fyi, in restaurant speak. 

In a large bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, beat together the oil, eggs and honey till well combined. Add the yogurt and grapefruit zest and stir again till well combined.

Add the wet mix to the dry mix and stir gently with a flexible spatula. Fold in the grapefruit pieces.

Portion out the batter into your prepared pans of choice, filling minis to the top and regular muffins 3/4 full. 

Bake for 19-21 minutes for mini muffs, till the tops are golden, spring back when touched and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow 5-7 minutes more for regular muffins.

Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely. They'll keep in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 days or will freeze and defrost well. 

Notes

As I mentioned, if grapefruit isn't your thing, this would be amazing with blood oranges, or even a regular orange or lemon, so have fun with it. 

I started of filling the tin with two spoons but used a medium cookie scoop in the end and it was sooo much cleaner, if you're using mini muffins and have a scoop now is the time to use it :) 

more winter recipes

30 hours - Bangkok

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30 hours on the clock. Standing in Bangkok airport, waiting. A quickly filling memory card, blistered feet and one pair of impractical flip flops, an Iphone metaphorically set to count down. A delayed internal flight, a long wait for baggage. Tactical discussions in the taxi on covering as much ground as possible, a reconnaissance of Bangkok's sprawling metropolis. The traffic moved in stops and starts, freeways and flyovers criss crossing as if an ambitious kid's lego creations; sharp edged high rises sprouted like thickets of concrete and steel along the road. A place that was the very defintion of urban - fast moving, dynamic, slightly harsh, ever evolving. 

The Chatrium was tucked away in the leafy Riverside district of Bangkok, a cell of calm inside a growing, pulsing body. The hotel was fronted by quiet bamboo gardens and paths flanked by white stones, green fountains and granite edging. I have a thing for a design hotel and floor-to-ceiling glass facades with sharp lines make my heart flutter. I liked what I was seeing. Inside were high ceilings, a slick lobby and slightly dark, cushy rooms big enough to live in. There was a balcony framed by thick curtains, with views over the Chao Phraya river and the roof tops, more high rises piercing the blue-gray sky, the overlapping flyovers a tangled rope in the distance. We left soon, ever conscious of ticking clocks, to wander in the neighborhood. Layla had stayed at the hotel years ago for a sports tournament and had fond memories of the area, for good reason. There were hundreds of narrow shops with red and gold lanterns strung to tiled ceilings, swaying in the evening breeze. Each one was a 'mom and pop' store of some kind - local tailors, hardware outfits, metal forges, fruit sellers, lantern makers, a garage, a speciality noodle place. Kids sat at rickety plastic tables, still in uniform, slurping thin noodles from steaming bowls of spicy broth as their grandparents lay on fraying sofas watching Thai soaps and their parents endlessly swept the storefronts. Commuters, walking from place to place would bow their heads at delicate shrines decorated; in memory of the king, the bell on the door of the local 7-11 never stopped ringing. Hawker owners fed the stray animals and school girls popped in and out of buses on their own, we stumbled across temples hidden in dilapidated courtyards and passed only one other tourist.

I thought of dad a lot, because of the river and the boats. I was surprised - the Chao Phraya is like an artery, flowing, keeping the city alive. We stood on the Chatrium's private jetty, waiting for the hotel boat to take us to the public pier a few blocks down, and it was a throwback to Rotterdam, dad's hometown. The working river with its tugboats, barges, the slightly industrial veneer, the scruffy sailors and their dogs, the quietly competent boatmen who steered us alongside a containership. I liked Bangkok already. Alongside the grit was - glamour, maybe, and a slightly rogue edge. Bangkok would be the one who managed to bluff their way into a super expensive, exclusive club they could never actually afford - and take the party by a storm. There was electricity, everywhere, and there was no way I'd be in bed on time tonight.

14 hours. A riverside breakfast, eating papaya, watching fish jump in the murky water of the Chao Phraya. Little birds flitted among the tables, out of the hotel's bamboo garden. Messengers, telling us to hurry, this day would wait for no one. We drew up our battle plans and studied the terrain, jumped onto the Chatrium's boat, climbed up to the metro station. The trains were futuristic pods, running entirely on tracks elevated above the city. They were crammed with daily commuters, men in suits and pretty women with perfect manicures and nice dresses, a handful of other tourists who looked, as I did, shamefully shabby in comparison. I felt even scruffier in the shiny malls around Siam Square, each tiled with wide, white marble slats. At Siam Paragon - the most instagrammed place on earth - the entire top floor was dedicated to sports cars. You could not help but stand and gawk as you came off the escalator and stood face to face with a shining black Lamborghini; next to an Aston Martin Store, across from the Rolls Royce store... there was a Mini, too, which made my car at home seem like a budget option. When London tried these stunts with super expensive cars, it just felt... pretentious. Bangkok pulled the enterprise off with natural flair.

10 hours, and nowhere near enough. The sweaty, pulsing streets beckoned and we abandoned the sports cars for the roads crowded with tuck tucks and motorbike taxis, lined by hawkers selling every type of noodle imaginable. There were fewer other foreign faces, the more you wandered, and the few you did see were hustling, like us, covering ground without skimming over it. A stopover destination in a city that was already constantly moving, echoing with the footsteps of its own people and visitors.

We lost the afternoon somehow. In the maze of streets where we wandered for the obligatory Chang beer t-shirt, at the stall where we bought a mango for under a quarter of a dollar and the lady threw in a second for free. Waiting at the pier for a boat back to the hotel, watching a man who looked like he was barely scraping through feed the remainders of his own dinner to a local stray, and the dog lay his head on the man's hand. Sitting on the boat alongside some school kids, who seemed to use the hotel boats as shuttles from place to place.  Again we looked for sleaze, found nothing, it had either headed underground or been concentrated into tiny pockets that were far out of the way. I was charmed by the Thai culture; the courtesy and respect they had for their own people. Taxi drivers bowed to the staff in highway toll booths and friends genuinely met each other with the traditional greeting. They were hardworking, tolerant and humble, preferring to just look away and pretend I didn't exist when I pointed my camera in their direction. The youth hung out in mixed groups, I was jealous of the girls' straight, light brown hair and manicures.  Bangkok's locals were proud, too, of their city, that was clear. The public spaces were well maintained and immaculate, temples had been recently painted and most neighborhoods were safe enough that primary school children were sent home on the back of motor bike taxis. As the older kids poured out of school, you got the feeling that they worked hard and did well; enjoyed it, but also knew where the fun would be on a Friday night.

The second hand flew around the face of my watch, our battle plans fell away, we failed as generals, but made pretty good foot soldiers. We packed up in a flurry, having sat out too long on the balcony watching the party boats light up the Chao Phraya. Still scruffy, still sunburnt, out of battered flip flops and into jeans instead. Into the taxi and out of Bangkok, into a dark, steamy night, where every building illuminated and burst through the horizon. There was nothing like it, no other feeling, it had been like starting a race or sitting an exam, pure adrenaline. It was unlike India because the chaos didn't leave you feeling drained; it was more satisfyingly more gritty than Kuala Lumpur, strikingly less hedonistic than Dubai. Every electric billboard suspended from a glass and steel building, each sports car, all the towering office blocks showed progress, they were arrows pointing forward, screaming this is the way the world is going. With each step we took on Bangkok's streets, it was clear, it's these cities that are leaving Europe behind. Bangkok had grown up, pushed its misspent youth behind it and there was no stopping it now. Thousands of cars on the roads, but the traffic still flowed fast; each road had four lanes and flyovers laced the arteries together, so the blood would never clot. Oh hell, Europe, you have no chance. I'd visited European cities so many times, but never had done anything like this, there I'd slept like a baby and my heart rate remained constant.   Our cab rolled onto the freeway, leaving the glittering buildings behind us. Zero hour.

I am again going to direct you to this post on Layla's site for a really good guide to Bangkok with all the practical details you may want.  She writes much more... coherently than I do, without making all the info boring... she has a great sense of humour, and I am always fascinated by how we perceive the same places. She doesn't write in the way she acts, if you know what I mean... I mean in real life she's into anything fun/whimsical/live for the moment, preferably involving heights, speed boats or long haul flights, but she has a retrospective, thoughtful style of writing. Anyway. I hope you gathered from this that I really, really liked Bangkok - I surprised myself by how much I warmed to the place. It's an amazing city and so worth a visit if you're ever in the area/passing through. 
I plan to (finally) bake a little something in the coming few days and have a recipe up on the blog end this week. Hope that you all have a lovely weekend xx

Phuket

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The elephant was having a bad day. It charged the same man twice, by mistake or by design, hard to say. I watched them, holding my camera in one hand, shielding my face from the sun with the other. Futile. It was 33 degrees and no semblance of cloud, little cover where the mismatched group of tourists stood with six rescued elephants. My sister’s dream. The closest to ethical touching a wild animal could ever be, she’d singled out this sanctuary in an obscure corner of Phuket. We’d been picked up early in the morning by a white jeep, with plastic awning and some rudimentary benches strapped into the boot. Our first taste of the island, just as it was coming to life. 

 We were thrown around in the back of that pick up, taking hairpin bends as if partaking in a car chase. The roads were winding and rugged, hugging the sides of craggy hills in a spectrum of green. It was like a frustrated painter's palette, he kept mixing shades to find the right one; ferns, palms heavy with coconut, rubber plantations. You’d go round a bend and down the sheer cliffs the sea would peak at us, sparkling like an Alpine lake, somewhere between blue and white in the glare. The village houses were tidy, most with a Toyota, a water buffalo anda satellite dish, banana leaves drying outside, for the thatching. The towns smelt of breakfast congee, made sweet in the morning with sticky rice and mango, cheerful kids in starchy uniforms climbed onto the back of daddy’s motorbike, open top trucks moved groups of construction workers from place to place. The ride in the boot of the pick-up jolted me around, shaking me out of my jetlagged grogginess and forcing me out of my sulky disappointment . I'd been reluctant to take this trip at all, being so busy with school work, and a week out of it all would only set me back further. A week to a place that initally seemed so... familiar, like I'd been there before. An amalgam of places I'd already visited, pictures I'd seen in magazines, I imagined grotty backpackers everywhere, nothing 'real' about it. And in a way, I was right. It will be like places you've been before, but with a touch of Thailand, and not too many backpacks. Phuket was adventure made easy.

Sweet familiarity. Less polished than Malaysia, less crazy than India, sitting nicely at the crossroads of tantalizingly exotic and easily palatable. Like adding a dash of curry powder to your favorite leek soup, or cardamom to carrot cake. No doubt Phuket was touristy. At every turn, every market stall you’d stumble across another foreigner, themselves stumbling through reading Thai signs. Another of my reservations about this trip, knowing that it would be much more leaflet-toting tourist heavy than our usual destinations. But there was a charm in the mingling of Australian accents, French flair, Thai politeness, Chinese brusqueness and Malay spice. I could see what brings people to here. All along the beach, there were colorful stalls selling pineapple chunks on sticks, banana pancakes and whole coconuts, kids ran in and out of the green Andaman Sea with buckets and spades like it was the local pier. There is no 'other' Thailand; nothing more ‘real’, the whole of Phuket is a tourist’s playground. No sleaze, almost disappointingly so, locals were cheery, tolerant and genuinely welcoming.  Layla and I were almost tripping over ourselves to find a more dubious character but met no one remotely strange. Phuket was quickly shedding its reputation as a tacky backpacker magnet, fading to a more family-orientated island with a leisurely pace and long curves of saffron sands. 

We paced the old streets of Phuket town, bumping into multi-generational Scandinavian families and backpackers who’d also come to gawk at the intricate pastel facades of the Portuguese houses. It was like that frustrated painter couldn't decide what color he wanted for the town, so each house was a different shade - pastel pink, coral, teal. Cameras were out everywhere, the tourists were sweaty and red in the face. But then so were the locals who stood, smilingly tending giant vats of burning hot oil as they fried batches of banana fritters and ladled out noodles into the bowls of regulars. The tourists wandered among them, a welcomed part of the scenery, a mutual understanding that Thai life would carry on all around us, without us having to really seek it out. And that was what we came for, some with backpacks, most without; it was enough to make even the most reluctant warm to Phuket.

There is a charm to a place where you can wander out of your hotel, right into a Thai village, where chubby toddlers with their weathered grandmas would wave chubby hands, and grandma would look on through slightly suspicious eyes. A charm to a place where your taxi driver helps you negotiate with your boatman so that you get the best deal on an island trip, a charm to a place where you can charter a long-tail boat for just two people, because the boatmen know they'll find enough tourists the whole day. The boats are iconic Phuket, and another line on my sister's Thailand must-do list. Again, I was doubtful, because we'd been so spoilt on a recent trip to Corfu when the two of us had skippered our own speed boat in the Aegean. We didn't need someone tagging along, I moaned, Layla said it would be fun, I sulked, she won. It was so Thailand, to have someone doing it all for you for little more than the cost of a taxi to the train station back home. There were vertiginous slabs of dark granite that fell into the sea, waves bashing rythmically onto rocks, twin palm trees swaying as if to a beat. Our skipper mentioned sea turtle sitings, salt water ate at our sun burnt skin, turned our hair wild and brittle; a lone diver paddled by the shore.

There was a California beach-club-style rooftop terrace in our hotel. The place itself was a startup, shiny and new, not well established, totally unpretentious but somehow sleek. Lots of white stone, wooden decking, color blocking bean bags and fake grass in clean lines. We sat on rattan chairs in the shade during the insane heat of the day, looking out over the sea at white yachts skipping over the waves, beat up jeeps rolling through the village and dogs bounding up to peeling iron gates, meeting their owners. In the evening too, we loved that terrace spot, we'd sit with our feet up on the chairs, scratching mosquito bites and peeling sunburn. Somewhere between being polished resort kids with expensive cameras on the fancy furniture, somewhere near boho veteran travellers with tousled hair, flip flops and printed shorts. The strongest desire to ditch the crowds and total inauthenticity, far too rational and perhaps too arrogant to even fathom backpacking. A sticky point on the bridge between veering off the beaten path and staying with hotel transfers and tiled lobbies. Forever lusting after far flung destinations and new scenery, too often reminiscing about places we'd like to revisit. Luckily, we found Phuket. 

Details-wise, I am going to be lazy and direct you to Layla's site itself where she's posting a really in-depth guide in a couple of days. I was honestly blown away by how much research she's done about Thailand so she's really in a much better position than me to give any advice. 
After Phuket, by the way, we spent a day and a half in Bangkok. I have a few photos I'll be sharing in my next post, after my week of work experience, which I shall proceed to start with a nose peeling from sunburn and some very red skin. I'm great at first impressions, you don't have to tell me.
A lovely week to you all, and hopefully a beachy adventure sometime soon. Hugs xx