Fancy Hotel of the Week – Melenos Lindos
Ha! You thought you’d got away with no more Greek holiday snaps. Unfortunately it remains my intention to bore you all into submission. After all, what else is a blog good for?
I mentioned that we liked to stay in little unassuming hotels while in Greece, but we decided to break that rule for the first few days by booking into the Melenos Lindos, high in the acropolis of the ancient town of Lindos in Rhodes. This hotel gets so many fabulous mentions, that it seemed churlish not to try it out.
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Images from hotel website
Unfortunately they contacted us a few days before we left and said that there had been a double booking and they had no space for us. They pulled out all the stops to secure alternative accommodation (which, thanks to its enormous swimming pool and spacious grounds was actually much more suitable for the Minx) and offered us a free dinner on their beautiful outdoor dining terrace.
Architect Anastasia Papaioanou and Australian artist-designer Donald Green worked together to recreate a traditional multi-levelled, multi-terraced Lindian mansion, decorated in a timeless way using traditional local crafts and antiques.
Here are some of my photos from our dinner, supplemented by the couple above from the hotel’s website, as I didn’t have my wide-angled lens with me.
Enjoy the spectacularly pretty.
Beautiful British Food
Funnily enough, given that I was brought up by, and learned to cook from, an Italian woman and cook in a very Italian way myself, I have found myself being a bit of an unofficial ambassador for British food here in Seattle, where it’s as much maligned as it is everywhere else on the planet.
I tend to make classic British dishes for potlucks and gatherings (people are so surprised that British food can actually taste good) and really want the Minx to grow up understanding her culinary heritage in the land of mac ‘n’ cheese and pumpkin pie.
New Zealander Joel Penkman moved to the UK and started painting beautifully detailed portraits of classic British foodstuffs which make me want to weep with nostalgia.
Every British kid grew up on these biscuits.
No trip to the seaside was complete without a stick of rock to take home.
My favourite ice lolly. At least until they invented Magnums.
No kid’s birthday party was complete without Fondant Fancies, though my mum had enough of a fear of food colouring that we never had them at home.
Custard tarts. Always hated those.
And pork pie. One of the top five things I miss most about the UK here in Seattle. I think I would cry if I had this picture on my kitchen wall.
Joel’s website is here. Buy her prints here.
The Story of the Cake – Part II
The day before the party the Husband and I set to work assembling all the various cakes I’d been making and freezing over the previous week.
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The top tier was a classic Victoria sponge filled with chocolate buttercream. The rainbow cake filled with vanilla buttercream formed the middle tier and the bottom tier was yet another Macrina Bakery ‘Mom’s Chocolate Cake’, which I’ve been using for birthday cakes ever since the Minx was two, as it is very moist and forgiving, and much beloved by the grown up kids in attendance.
Stupidly I’d made my cakes in 9”, 8” and 7” sizes which didn’t really make for enough of a tiered effect and also left nowhere for my fairy cake toppers to sit. Fortunately I’d made a big batch of cupcakes ready for a cupcake decorating activity at the party so we used a few to create plinths for the fairies to sit on.
Here is the whole edifice covered in its crumb coat. (Please ignore hideous green kitchen countertops).
And here is the finished article, covered with easy moulded flowers and chocolate bunnies, made using candy melts; vines and leaves iced on in green buttercream and a set of five Disney Fairy cake toppers. The Husband has asked me to point out that he is the person who actually wields the icing bag (under my direction) and he certainly did a fabulous job.
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I was however nervous for the final piece de resistance. Would the central rainbow cake be sufficiently lurid and rainbow-like?
It seems I needn’t have worried.
And the kids ADORED it.
I am indebted to my father-in-law for the last two photos. Note the careful styling in this bottom pic, it took me ages to get the mustard bottle just so.
The Story of the Cake – Part I
Yes, it’s that time of year again, where I get to make my daughter a crazy cake for her birthday.
Actually it’s a different time of year this time round, as we couldn’t actually get our backsides in gear to organise a winter birthday party for her, so this year we’re celebrating her half birthday. And she gets a summer party and her grandad gets to spend it with her, so it’s all good.
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But I digress. This year a Tinkerbell cake has been requested and I thought I’d go along the lines of the Nemo cake I made a couple of years back – three tiers, green icing and then an assortment of fairies and flowers rather than fish and shells.
I wanted to add an additional surprise though and make the middle tier a ‘rainbow’ cake, as has been demonstrated all over the internet. Yes, it’s going to be ridiculously tasteless and OTT, but if you can’t get outrageous for a six year old’s birthday cake then when can you.
So I set to work. A friend of mine in the UK, who has made a beautiful version, had success using a classic Victoria sponge recipe so that’s what I used. I doubled it (8oz butter/sugar/flour + 4 eggs), weighed the mixture, divided it equally by six (the indigo layer seems to get missed out of these cakes) and worked out I had about 150g per cake to play with.
And then I set to work with my paste food colourings, as you can see above. I ended up with some thin but still springy sponge cakes as a I wanted, so that I’ll end up with a not too steep middle tier. Here’s hoping that the more subdued colours of the outside of the cakes end up looking suitably garish when we cut into it.
More cake madness to follow.
Fancy Hotel of the Week – L’Auberge Del Mar
We wanted to go to Southern California this year to a) escape the miserable Seattle ‘spring’ (I use this term loosely) b) visit my elderly aunt in Dana Point, an hour or so’s drive south of LA and c) take the Minx to Disneyland.
I was told by friends on Twitter and Facebook that Del Mar was fun and it was suggested that we try the newly-refurbished L’Auberge Del Mar. When we discovered that my very favourite discounted fancy hotels travel site www.luxurylink.com was offering a deal, our fate was sealed.
And we had the most wonderful time.
L’Auberge Del Mar is a historic hotel overlooking the Pacific Ocean and right on Del Mar’s attractive main street.
The hotel was completely refurbished in 2008 by interior designer Barclay Butera who has done a great job bringing a historic building bang up to date.
We were lucky enough to have a room overlooking the main courtyard of the hotel, which was been designed as a series of little ‘rooms’, cabanas, terraces and courtyards centered around the small but luxurious pool and jacuzzi area. There’s the kicking Bleu Bar, a scenic terrace for breakfast and informal suppers, cosy hidden cabanas and even space for weddings, all with an ocean view.
The themes of the décor are soft and muted sage-y greens, brown and white stripes and the most breathtakingly lush white planting – white roses everywhere you turn, undulating seas of fragrant jasmine, and hedges of rosemary and box.
To be perfectly honest we hardly left the hotel all week. The place comes into its own at night, when the surfers come in from the beach and le tout Del Mar comes out to party. We dined one evening in the hotel’s top notch restaurant Kitchen 1540, where the cured meats, golden beet salad and frozen key lime pie will live on in my memory. We drank superlative cocktails at the Bleu Bar every night. The hotel is beautifully lit with fires and burners everywhere to take the chill off the evening air as the sun sets over the ocean.
The internal décor is luxurious too – all sage greens, soft browns, seashells and comfy seating. I loved the ridiculously rococo shell-encrusted side tables, the beautiful mother-of-pearl smothered lamps, the green toile cushions and the enormous shell planters full of orchids.
There were little touches of wit and humour everywhere – the wait staff had foodie quotations printed on their tee-shirts and Sofie, Kristy the Marketing Coordinator’s pretty little dog, had a sign at the front desk telling us when she was ‘working’ and available for cuddles.
Finally, and most importantly for us, L’Auberge trod that extremely fine line between being super relaxed and kid-friendly (with unbelievably kind staff and a great kids’ menu) and sophisticated and happening enough for grown-ups – thanks to a fabulous bar, gorgeous spa and secluded lap pool. The Minx adored it and the Husband and I are longing to return.
Truly I can’t recommend this one highly enough.
Things I Am Loving – Alessi Tigrito Cat Bowl
I promise that I’ve completely stopped buying expensive cat accessories, though I’ve been horribly tempted by the Tigrito Cat Bowl by Alessi, mostly because, with its grey fur and white paws, it looks so much like Flora.
It does however cost $90. so let’s just admire it from afar, shall we? (Though it appears to be on sale via Amazon in the UK).
Instead, here is a picture of the real thing, looking rather nonplussed by the fake Tootsie Roll cat poop we made to play an April Fool trick on the Minx. It worked like a dream, particularly when the Husband ‘cleaned it up’ and started licking it. Never have you seen such a grossed out six year old.
Truly if you ever need to make fake poop, Tootsie Rolls are your friends (sorry, I don’t think there’s an equivalent in the UK). Just a few seconds in the microwave and a bit of sculpting required.
KK Outlet Wedding Plates
There’s twenty four days to go until the Royal Wedding, so I’m continuing our round up of rather brilliant souvenirs. In fact you’ve all been sending through such fabulous links I’ll put together a proper round up post in the next day or two.
In the meantime, these plates are extremely special and deserve a post of their own. London-based communications and creative agency/gallery KK Outlet commissioned up and coming designers to create a collection of unofficial commemorative china for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. They’re available online here and they’ll ship all over the world.
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Related posts
Soraam Cushions, Mats and Cupcakes
Last week I did my first ever paid photography assignment. Soojin, the graphic designer behind Etsy shop Soraam saw my photos with Uncle Beefy’s cupcakes and asked me to do a little product shoot with her.
Here are some of the results. Her pre-washed linen placemats and cushion covers – hand-printed with her own beautiful designs – really are stunning. I particularly love the placemats, which are designed to look equally good with or without plates.
The cupcakes are again courtesy of Uncle Beefy, as I’d fortuitously frozen some of the previous batch (cupcakes freeze really well by the way).
‘Soraam’ means ‘take a look with a smile on your face’ in Korean. You really can’t help yourself can you?
Pirates Ahoy!
I’ve been receiving lots of lovely comments and emails – thank you all - about the Minx’s new loft bed and slide (it was featured on Apartment Therapy’s Ohdeedoh kids’ site yesterday – hi Ohdeedohers!) and had been feeling smugly pleased with myself.
Until a week or so ago, when a friend posted a link on Facebook and my smugness instantly evaporated. Now, this is what you call a loft bed and slide.
WARNING: Don’t read this with any trainee pirates, or trainee pirates at heart, anywhere in the vicinity of your computer.
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The pirate ship was custom built for the six-year old client and features a rope bridge leading to a specially built ‘jail’. See that rope to the left of the crows’ nest? Slide down it and you end up in the closet below.
And as a final piece de resistance, see that intriguing orange hole in a secret hallway closet?
Well that turns out to be a DOUBLE. STOREY. SPIRAL. SLIDE acquired after the refurb of a local community centre.
Full details of the design and construction on MyModernMet.
Please don’t show this to the Minx.
