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Hello! How are you keeping in this Autumn?

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I must say, I’m actually doing really good – yeah, it’s getting too cold for standing long outside on Saturdays, but I wear TWO layers of Uniqlo ‘Heat Tech’ garments under my clothes, & I recently bought my first ever wool socks which won’t let the cold penetrate from the ground so much as cotton. (I just can’t believe I never had any before! I’m hooked… so if you haven’t got one, please, I recommend you go out get a pair too!).

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The cake sales are on the up (on some weeks it’s still down, but it’s mostly up). And I’m thinking: “… like, finally!”, after the rather unfruitful Summer period when it was almost not worth the time & effort to be there every week. (I put the blame on tightened purse strings due to the economy’s downward spiral.) Although, having said that it being not worth the effort, I WAS there pretty much throughout, my main drive was because I felt strongly that I mustn’t look unreliable to not be there regularly – I mean, it’s a sure-fire way of losing loyal customers right?

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So anyway, my Summer 2010 was spent moaning about the frustration of bad sales to any ear that would listen – well, the victims were mainly my dearest stall neighbours actually – so I’m sure they’re just as happy that my sales are up finally…! lol.

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Nowadays, it’s just great to be making chocolates truffles & hot chocolate drinks again, because I missed making them (I only sell chocolates during the cold season, from mid-Autumn to mid-Spring). Delicious cakes could surely give people great pleasure, but when I see people eat chocolates, it’s like watching a cat in a cream factory, y’know, really savouring it for what it is ~ there’s nothing like it, there’s a small dose of magic in chocolates.

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Recently I got to thinking that perhaps my children would be reading this blog when they are older. At first I couldn’t quite make up my mind on wether I liked the idea of it. Can’t explain well, but I guess I worry about what they would conclude out of reading this. Recipes to hand-down to them is definitely going to be a plus, but what about all the other things I have been writing here? The ups & vulnerable downs. Perhaps I might come across as self-absorbed? Or perhaps they’ll relate to my passion for what I do.

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I guess the one thing I am proud of conveying to them from this is that I NEVER write anything negative about anyone. And that’s the same when I talk to people in everyday life too. I might like my girly gossips but I hate speaking ill of anyone. Because if you turn it around & imagine somebody else saying that about you, you’d sure get hurt. I also believe what goes around comes around. If you sow the wind, you’d reap the whirlwind. On this note, it’s important to remember that it works the other way too – if you treat others with kindness & respect, IT WILL be returned to you. It could even start with just a simple act of smiling to people you meet. For example, when I work at the stall, I always like to beam my best-est smile. Real smiles. Not fake because a lie always catches you out. Anyway, it’s easy to smile & say thank you because I still can’t believe how great that anyone would want to spend their hard-earned cash on things I make.

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Our boy ‘I’ will be seven in December. Already. (Has seven years passed by that quickly?) He wants to be a footballer, artist & head-teacher (yes, all three in one!). He is very good with reading at school & what’s more important, he has good social skills. He’s amazing with dancing & is tall & very handsome too. I’d like to think he’d make a good pop-star but he absolutely hates the idea of it!

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Then ofcourse, there’s our little girl ‘S’ who is two & a half years old already. It still seems like only a little time ago that I wrote about her birth on this blog. And documented about the time when I was pregnant with her. She is so sweet, so gentle & very clever. I can see positive determination & good concentration skills in her. She’d like to be a school teacher too (actually it was her idea to be a teacher first & ‘I’ copied!).

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When they are old enough to start reading this, I wonder what great people they will be. And I wonder what I will be doing too – I have been thinking that this trading every week at the market thing, I’m probably going to stop in the next year or two. There’s one or two projects I’d like to get my teeth in to. And besides, with the family-life needing more of my energy & attention, the balance of work & family is not quite right anymore & it tires me out & the rest of the family members. Time for re-adjustment. I always think that my children come first in priority stakes, & work? probably third or fourth. You get just one-shot at being a Mother whereas you can re-establish work many times. What I need is a job that can allow me to stay at home & makes lots of money while at it!! lol. But doesn’t every mother want that?!

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About the picture above – that same day there was another blog reader, & she was also from just as far away: CANADA! It is just too exciting for words! The fact that there are people from out-of-country coming to the heart of East London of all places & to put seeing me as part of their journey…! Wow… really…, thank you!!!!!!! Isn’t it weird & wonderful – I sometimes find that there are certain customers who I think are suspect-blog-readers – they’re just taking more pictures than that of usual & observes my face more than the standard fair. Perhaps it’s all my wishful imagination but it makes me beam out a smile of all smiles anyhow. ^^

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It’s Monday late evening. The children are asleep upstairs & the house has a blissful hush except for the distant humming of the fridge. There’s still washing-up to do in the kitchen from dinner, but instead I sit typing this because I finally have a chance to share with you the exciting news I’ve been dying to tell you since the weekend.
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Tommy from ‘This is Naive’ has featured me for her ‘People at work’ series! It comes with a whopping 52 pictures of me & how I work at home & at the market. I’ve never had photographs taken while working in the kitchen, & I am so chuffed to bits – please check it out on her blog page!
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Tommy is a Super Woman. Fact. I truly dig her passion for photography, blogging, & honing in on sharpening ‘her very own’ style. I love people who follow through their ‘Passion’ & it was with pleasure that I got to spend time with her for three days in a row! We talked loads & loads – we seem to have similar opinion on a lot of the things!! ^^
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So on Thursday I piped, rolled & coated chocolate truffles in front of her.
And then on Friday, Tommy stayed on a bit longer to photograph the process of:
– lemon drizzle cake (which is her favourite cake)
– baked cheese cake
– lemon cream
– & tart bases filled with crème d’amandes. I didn’t get to show her any of the decorating because it happens at night after the children are in bed… Which is a shame because I would’ve loved Tommy to have taken beautiful pictures for those too!
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On Saturday early morning at the Market, Tommy came while I was still setting up. While taking pictures, an eight year old girl who often hangs out with me (her mum is another stall holder) was counting the truffles as she always does. She also told us a few jokes which made us laugh. Wanna know what the joke was? Little girl: “What do you call a blind deer?”
Me: “Er…, I don’t know, I have no idea…”
Little girl: “You silly! It’s No-eye-deer” LOL! “Here’s another one. What do you call a blind deer with no legs?”
Me:“Oh dear… er…, er…”
Little girl: “Still no-eye-deer!!!!”
Me: D’oh!
… Ah yes, a very silly joke indeed, but it still made us laugh okay?!
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Anyway, enjoy Tommy’s Coco&Me documentary!
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(All three photographs above taken by Tommy of ‘This is Naive’)

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Let me tell you about something special that happened last month that made me very very very happy.
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I was given a painting!!!!
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It was from the artist Christian Ward, in return for the wedding cake I had made for him back in mid 2008. The wedding cake was a gift from me to him & his wife A, one of my closest girlfriend. My friendship to Mrs.A go back all the way to our college days. We shared a flat for more than four years I think. And actually, Mrs.A is the one who initially started Coco&Me with me – she’s the one without whom I wouldn’t be doing what I do nowadays. So it was only natural that I make a cake for them as a gift, despite their offer of payment – I mean, how could I charge them when I owe so much to her for changing my life for the better?
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So that was back in 2008. Then just last month, I was told that he’d like to give me one of his paintings & I was like: Oh-My-God! Because I knew Christian Ward does amazing paintings. You’ll see what I mean – just check out his other works on the following gallery websites:
Max Wigram Gallery
Patricia Low Contemporary
The Saatchi Gallery
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I obviously felt as though my cake does not have the same value as his work. It is such a huge honour… Plus I’ve never owned a painting ever before…
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I’ve taken some pictures of it to show you, but perhaps my photos don’t do it justice. The colour is a lot more mysteriously luminous, & has the power to draw you in to the unique world. Me & my other girlfriend’s ‘personal take’ on this is that we think it maybe depicts the after-life, as the cherry blossom could mean ‘transience of life’. Yet it is in full blossom, in the glorious midst of beautiful life. And it has varicolored pools of aura. I find it very calming & spiritually cheering.
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.(Close up.)
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I really love the painting. Thank you Christian! It means a lot to me. I sometimes stop in front of the painting, & have a look, have a calm breather, & then go back to my busy day.
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(And here is a picture of the wedding cake I made for them. – Three tier wedding cake with white chocolate cigarette surround. Inside is a dark chocolate sponge cake with raspberry ganache layer.)(Close up.)
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So far I have made four wedding cakes. All of which went to very special people in my life, & I feel so honoured to be part of their special day. One was to a local regular customer, another to a special blog reader, & ofcourse there was one that was for my stall neighbour Ms.S that I documented here on the blog back in 2007. – Ms.S & her family still talk about the wedding cake to this day, so sweet, & makes a point out of always buying cakes from me for family get-togethers!
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PS: You’re all probably wondering what’s gotten in to me, posting stories on here three times in a space of two weeks!! ;-) LOL…!

(Image courtesy of T of this is naive. – I’m recently rabbit mad… The lemon drizzle cake has a rabbit motif too!)

(Flourless Chocolate Cake. – T of this is naive is so good with taking pictures I just HAD TO ask her to let me use her pictures on my blog!)
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How are you surviving the holiday? Got the “stuffed like a turkey with party-food” drab feeling like I have?
Now that the party season is officially over (my kid’s birthday, Xmas, New Year’s Eve & New Year’s Day parties in a short period of 3 weeks+ is way too much!), I am writing this in sparkly wishful anticipation of normal life to begin it’s cycle again. Monotonous simple life is sometimes the best for très-tired self I think.
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And oh, have you hit the winter-sales yet? Me? Not yet. I like going at the very end of the sales when retailers really slash-down their sale prices. Then again, nowadays I don’t buy clothes as much as I used to anyways. – Ever since I started to earn money by “cash-in-hand” literally “counting” my earnings & not by receiving some digits on a monthly pay-slip, I value “money” a lot more. I look at a price tag on a dress & think “but that’s almost ten cakes worth!” or “but that’s x hour’s worth of work!” & put it back on the railing. When I think about the number of times I shouted “end-of-the-day Saaaaale” on my stall, in the cold winter chill, just to get that extra bit more cash to take home, I just can’t bring myself to blow big money on a whim.
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Then again, maybe I’m writing make-believe. Because I spent 60 quid on a Christmas Tree & as for my kid’s birthday, God knows how much I splashed out to cater for 10 families that we invited. And I always have to buy organic when it comes to cucumbers & carrots too even if it’s more expensive (cucumber’s got high water content & as for carrots I eat them raw so for the benefit of mind I like em “safe”).

Er, so yess… just take the previous paragraph about value with a pinch of salt actually…
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Let’s swiftly change the subject back to about the Market as this blog is ought to be about…
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Trading on my last Saturday of the year was truly madness. Guess how many truffles I made for that day? SEVEN HUNDRED!!! Madness right? It’s because I read my blog-post about the previous year’s Christmas Market day & it inspired me to make that much for this time round. – I can almost hear all of you asking how I did with its sales. Well…, (drum-roll please!) it… (now hit the cymbals!) sold out! (Fanfare!) Alright alright, it took all-day to do it but it did. And as for the hot chocolate drinks, I made over 10 litres & sold out on those too. Madness! I am sooo relieved that waking up til 4am the previous night did the trick. As you can imagine, I topped last year’s figures. Whoo-hooo! GO GIRL!
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But just like last year I had lots of cakes left & I was calling out “saaaale!” near the end of the day. (I just never ever learn.) As I sipped Baileys that got handed to me by the cheese-boys from the stall behind me, my Christmas spirit fired up & I thought it best to just hand out those unsold cakes to the people who’d been kind to me. So off the cakes went one-by-one;
– to “Ladybird S” who gives me cookbooks & toys for my kids that she should be selling,
– to S of La Bouche for letting me use electricity from his shop to power my hot chocolate machine,
– to the fish-lady who gave me some fish in return,
– to the cheese-lady & the bookseller-man for being kind & for buying from my stall every week,
– to meat-seller R who gave me 3 packs of steaks to cheer me up after a horrible man grabbed a truffle & walked off with rude remarks (he was a type of man that would loiter outside pubs asking for a spare cigarette),
– to the Market boys for their good job & also for braving the cold weather (the temperature was on average 0 degrees centigrade that day).
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And ah, talking about the cold weather, again just like last year, I caught a horrible cold which confined me to bed the next day or two. (Like I said, I just never ever learn…!)
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Happy New Year Everyone!

And don’t forget to put away your Christmas Tree on the 6th (last day of Christmas)!

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In many occasions I feel blessed that I run a Market stall. It is because, not only is it a special time when I get to do a “me-thing” away from the house chores, it is also a time when I get to meet all sorts of people. Come Saturdays, I get to meet fellow stall-holders to whom I love chatting to, meet dear friends that come visit me, & then there are customers who drop by my stall who I love engaging in a bit of chat with.
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One such lovable customer I love talking to is E who is a regular face at my stall. After several visits & chats, we found out more about each other. She is a doctor, & bless her she would ask about how my children are doing every time, & if I tell her that ‘oh, baby S has a cold’ or something, she would always give me proper advice.
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Two weeks ago, on another of those across-the-table chats, she mentioned that her friend is the Chef Patissier of Browns Hotel. Browns Hotel?! Isn’t that where the reaaally famous Tea Room is?! When I expressed “Ooooh!” sounds amongst other words of excitement, E promised to get me in contact with the Chef.

Cut the fore-story short, Chef Patissier F kindly allowed me to visit him at the hotel. So last Monday off I went to Mayfair London, donning on nice pair of heeled shoes so that I don’t look out of place in the posh hotel.
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(Browns Hotel is London’s first ever hotel) 

(A blurry picture of the tea room that I took extra quick because I didn’t want to disturb any of their customers! It was 1pm, 2 hours before the tea service so it wasn’t crowded yet. On the left there’s a baby grand piano.)
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As I briefly wait in the reception for F, I see how grand the place is aswell as their clientele affluent & feel glad that I wore nice shoes. As I thumb through their leaflet I read that Queen Victoria & Winston Churchill often took tea here, Rudyard Kipling wrote ‘The Jungle Book’, & Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful UK telephone call from the hotel.

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(F is on the right)

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F turned out to be very friendly, & very generous. And we clicked right away. As we talked ingredients, merits of Italian meringue over French meringue for macarons, shelf-life of handmade truffles, he would hand out things for me to taste. Truffles made with single origin Varlhona & Amedei was truly divine. I couldn’t remember when I last ate a Criollo. I learnt that truffles shouldn’t be stored in a fridge as it’ll change the texture of the ganache.

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As he explains the ratio of fruit to sugar for jams (100 fruit: 80 sugar), I got given a table-spoon of homemade strawberry jam that was delightlful. Then on to tasting a chocolate macaron which had whipped ganache middle & I listen intently as possible to his recipe whilst I gorge on it. Hmm. I love chocolate macarons…
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This year Browns Hotel English Tea Room won The Tea Guild’s Top London Afternoon Tea Award & I can easily see why. F’s pastries are all made expertly, with the best ingredients & it tastes amazing. The tea room decor has original wood paneling, cosy fire places & it oozes sophistication & history. The location of the hotel is a stone’s throw away from Piccadilly Circus & it’s perfect for stopping by after shopping. Now, I don’t think I’ll ever get to stay there since it costs something like half-a-grand per night, but on hearing that F had already made the Christmas fruit cakes earlier this Spring & has been topping it up with brandy regularly ever since, well, my curiosity will likely take me back to the hotel this Christmas just for that…!

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It was super nice of F to meet me just before he gets very busy with the tea service. What also made me happy about all of this is how my stall customer have cared for me enough to think better for me & connect me to him. I feel blessed. And what’s more, now I have F to telephone when I have pastry questions!
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(Mass amount of plain & fruit scones)

(More pastries that I tried in the kitchen)

(Here’s even more that I took home! And yes, I skipped dinner that night.)

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