Now Lizzie is a crazy foodie. I mean like crazy. The way that girl talks about food, recipes, and the meals she has made, or eaten, is like poetry. So when she told me she was coming to Europe for 2 weeks I booked the first flight - through ICELAND (what, what) - to London and made sure I was there to spend precious and much needed quality time with Miss Lizzie.
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| The Girls back together again |
The first three days were filled with me seeing every sight that I could possibly see, as well as a couple of shows in the West End and managed to take my own little musical theatre tour and went to Convent Garden to see where Eliza's flower stand was. I saw the Old Globe Theatre, I wandered along Fleet Street and blissfully sang Sweeney the whole way, I saw where the Who's Tommy was written and where Mary Poppins was filmed! Yes, I am a HUGE musical theatre dork. Don't you judge.
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| Covent Garden Food Market. Instead of Eliza's flowers, it is cupcakes. |
I knew when Lizzie met me in town the trip would change from tourist town to food, vintage, and habadashery town. The first night we set-up an itinerary, snacked, and slept head to feet because the bed in my hotel was so small! We woke up and had a delightful breaky. Then off to shop!
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| Fascinators! |
We went to Soho, and Leicester Square, Oxford Street where we scored some amazing commemorative Tea towels, Covent Garden, Bond Street, and... All the while stopping for snacks.
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| My new favorite word |
The first, a hilarious little cupcake with the soon-to-be married - in one day - royals:
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| A commemorative cupcake in front of Buckingham Palace. Perfection. |
Then there was the english sauage with cornishan and picallily for Lizzie and olive tepenade and other delightful mediterranean treats at the food market at Covent Garden:
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| The English Sausage |
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| Mediterranean Deliciousness. Yes, please! |
Then there was the spectacular bakery in Soho that had pretty little royal cupcakes and incredible looking merengues.
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| These discs were made with white chocolate. Gorgeous. |
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| Hormone induced merenges. I have never seen such a thing! |
Then there were the pasties. No, no not pasties a la Coco Riche the opera singing burlesque dancer, but Cornwall pahsties. They are made mostly with meat, but I have to say we have nothing like it in the states. It has like a pastry crust and is filled with meet and potatoes and the one we shared was indian spiced vegetables. Yummers.
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| Mmm Pasties! |
Then there was the amazing little bakeshop I told you about in my last post which happened to be two blocks from where the now Duchess of Cambridge, then the commoner, was staying the day before the wedding. They had the most amazing little royal cakes.
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| Celebrate with a cake. Traditional fruit cake with royal icing. Absolutely precious. Notice the marzipan crowns dusted in gold luster dust. Positively exquisite. |
After that we wandered to the Palace and took a couple of photos.
On our way to Victoria Station we happened upon another AMAZING souvenir shop where I procured a commemorative plate (pictured above), a tote bag, and some other ridic royal wedding kitsch. We aslo saw these cakes which we thought should be submitted to cake wrecks:
Once we got out to the country it was curry, crumpets, pudding which is actually not pudding according to American standards anyway, crisps - chips, chips - french fries, digestives, some super delicious licorice treat, and of course Jamie Oliver's restaurant.
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| I was fascinated by this. Hash, a hard-boiled egg and pastry. Hmm... |
Food! Yummy food! We also managed to do some major shopping damage. I mean I had to buy new clothes after all of the over indulging I did that week.
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| Puddings Galore! |
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And we did manage a bit of baking ourselves because when we are together we laugh, eat, shop, cook, and bake. As it should be!
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| Not bad with limited resources |
A wonderful and much needed vacation with my dearest friend.
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| Bittersweet goodbye. |
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