Jessica's Blog

Jessica is a freelance writer of two non-fiction books, stories for children, articles, and screenplays. Her first novel, Luxury, is being published by Headline in 2009. She mostly spends her time writing in bed, reading cookbooks, thinking about what to eat next and perusing the net for foodie goodies.

Her favourite websites are Daylesfordorganic.com, Amazon.co.uk, Divertimenti.co.uk FineCheese.co.uk and FortnumAndMason.com.

Reasons To Be Cheerful

Published on Monday 17th November 2008

Doom and gloom, trouble and strife; at every turn there’s another story full of maudlin misery. The economy, the weather, colds and flu, the clocks going back – even the X Factor seems determined to depress us (Laura so should have stayed).

But you know, it’s not all bad. No, honestly. There’s plenty of good stuff happening as well. So turn off the TV news, make yourself a mug of hot chocolate (I can recommend Kshocolat’s Belgian drinking chocolate) and read my list of reasons to be cheerful. Then make your own.

1. Cold, dark evenings are the perfect excuse for holing up with a bottle of wine and something comforting to eat like a casserole, or a pie. I often make Gordon Ramsay’s Claridge’s chicken pie, but if you’re feeling lazy then Cook Food makes all sorts of good things, only using ingredients that you would use at home.

2. In the spirit of a) domestic goddess-ery and b) clever thriftiness I am planning on making my own crackers this Christmas, and am having fun finding diddy little gifts to go inside.

3. My nails are painted with glossy, cherry red varnish from Nails Inc. that makes me feel glam every time I catch sight of it.

4. I’m off to the BBC Good Food Show at Olympia this week, where I plan to sample all sorts of goodies and hopefully catch Heston Blumenthal talking about his own particular brand of slightly bonkers culinary alchemy.

5. Girls Aloud have a new album out. Perfect for post-dinner-party dancing around the kitchen.

6. PT Bakery’s biscuits. Someone sent me a box of these recently, with the promise that they were the most delicious biscuits ever – and I think they’re right. They’re a bit crunchy, a bit chewy, and a lot lovely. My favourite is the peanut butter and milk chocolate chunk, whereas my husband rated the white chocolate and macadamia nut.

7. I’ve just had a lovely weekend full of breakfast with friends and their delicious 5 month old twins, lying around watching Lost DVDs, and dinner with more lovely friends. Hurrah.

8. Ribena. I drink it by the pint when I have a cold, like now.

9. An awesome cheeseboard that I was presented with last night consisting of Waterloo, a soft, camembert like cheese, but slightly sharper, Ticklemore, a clean and fresh tasting goat’s cheese which was beautiful with violet jelly and Yarg, probably my favourite cheese.

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