Week 2: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." -- J.R.R. Tolkien

Week 2: (mostly) Slow by our community manager

Monday 30th June 2014

A boiled egg with E5 Bakehouse sourdough toast and 1 cup of Tanzanian coffee with raw milk.

Lunch: 5 thin all-rye crackers with avocado, homous and plum tomatoes.

Dinner: used the last of the rice shaped pasta combined with fried courgette, a bunch of spinach, fetta, garlic, chilli and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

Some unremembered chocolate bar.

Tuesday

Boiled egg with E5 Bakehouse sourdough toast and 3 cups of Tanzanian coffee with raw milk.

Late lunch/dinner out: potato tortilla (tasteless, I had to rescue it with habaneros sauce, salt and pepper, I really hate paying good money for food I could have cooked better, and my friend said her chicken was not very good), sweet potato fries (good) and a Spanish bottled lager.

I realised I needed more food later in the evening back home, but didn't feel like too much, or cooking. So I had 2 flat peaches and 9 thin whole rye crips with butter, cheddar, Vegemite and sliced tomatoes. And x2 small chocolate bars.

Wednesday

Boiled egg with E5 Bakehouse sourdough toast and 2 cups of Tanzanian coffee with raw milk.

Lunch was a spicy Caribbean vegie pattie with chilli tomato sauce.

Quick and easy toasted sandwich with fried halloumi, homous, gherkin, tomato, mayonnaise, avocado.

A chocolate bar.

Thursday

Boiled egg with E5 Bakehouse sourdough toast and 2 cups of Tanzanian coffee with raw milk.

2 corn on the cob, boiled for about 4 minutes slathered with butter and salt, yeehah!

Delicious thin crispy base pizza with tasty options and craft microbrew beer. We ordered the sweet potato, Stilton and walnuts; potato, cheese and sage; and spicy salami. In the sunshine the draught Crate Brewery lager was crisp and refreshing. I laughed at their sign.

A chocolate bar.

Friday

Boiled egg with E5 Bakehouse sourdough toast and 1 cup of Tanzanian coffee with raw milk.

Out: iced latte. Love, love an iced coffee on a warm sunny day.

Late lunch/early dinner: home made quinoa salad with plum tomatoes, fetta, and half a tin of beans dressed with balsamic vinegar, good olive oil, fresh basil and seasoning.

I was feeling peckish as the evening wore on so I had 3 thin whole rye crackers dipped into hommous. Still peckish so out of the freezer came a wholemeal tottilla that I grilled slightly and ate with more hommous. In summer hommous is one of my all-time favourite stand-bys. I always have wonderful intentions of making it at home, which I've done before and it's easy. But back then I had a food processor and now I only have a stick blender which I'm unsure about. I will get round to it again one day.

It was a wonderful warm night so out came the icecream, quite a few generous scoops of the Cornish clotted cream and strawberry with 3 sliced flat peaches.

Saturday

A boiled egg and 1 cup of Tanzanian coffee with raw milk.

At Broadway market a delicious cold brew coffee and shopping for friends coming for dinner tonight.

Another coffee and a slice of fresh bread with butter and Vegemite as I prepped for dinner: macerating the nectarines, taking the puff and short crust pastries out the fridge, boiling the purple potatoes for a salad, Top Tip - wearing my swimming goggles while chopping and caramelising red onions. A bit of housework.

Dinner!

Kicked off with a bottled German wheat beer then a rosé fizz. I served a purple potato salad (mayonnaise, chopped chives, seasoning), fresh bread, and a caramelised red onion short crust pastry tart which is an old stand by that's easy, impressive and tasty. The filling is the onion, creme fraiche, milk and beaten egg.

We had a great game of speed Scrabble - you get to tell your friends to hurry up and put their word down - with single malt whiskey and nectarine puff pastry tarts with mascarpone.

Sunday

While waiting for the egg to boil I sipped my coffee while doing all the glasses and dishes, which didn't take that long. There's no dishwasher in this flat. I had another coffee to energise me ahead of a cycle to a friend's birthday.

Some glasses of home mixed Pimm's with a lot of fruit, I was joking that each glass was 1 of my 5 (9) a day. Then we had a pub lunch and I ordered fish'n'chips and enjoyed a couple of pints of lager. A chocolate birthday cake slice. Some more Pimm's back at my friend's.

Back home later felt like a light snack so buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes with fresh basil, olive oil and balsamic it was.

x2 small chocolate bars.

Week 3

By our community manager Georgie Knight @slowfoodLondon aka @mermaid99