Category Archives: Shopaholic UK
Kitchen Cheats: Pancakes for Shrove Tuesday (or ANY day of the year)
I am a full-time working woman with a full and demanding life. I know perfectly well how to cook pancakes from scratch, be they crêpe, American-style, potato or blini, but I’d rather get the fillings right than muck about with batter after a long day at work. As Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day/ Mardi Gras falls invariably on a weekday, that dictates the need to cheat if Monsieur and I are to do the traditional thing and dine on pancakes. This is how I blitzed it for us this week:
I bought ready-to-cook galettes, the savoury, Breton-style pancake. In the UK you can get them from the Reflets de France brand at Ocado. They’re sold in packs of six. 
Pop a knob of butter in a frying pan and, once melted, place a galette darker side down in the pan. Immediately start to place your filling ingredients on one half of the galette, wait for the edges to brown a little and flip the other half across the fillings so that you have a perfect half-moon oozing with deliciousness. Make sure both sides have been adequately heated (this involves a bit of flipping for the culinary gymnasts among us) then place on a plate and set aside.
In the meantime, heat the oven to about 150 Celsius. If, like me, you have an audience who will eat the galettes as fast as you can make them, and if you prefer to eat at the same time as those you’re cooking for, this is a useful trick – wait until about a short while before you want to serve the already-filled galettes, slip them into the oven for 10 minutes and they will be piping hot, as if they came straight from the pan, when they arrive at the table.
I have an entire book filled with recipes for galette fillings and the options are endless. Here are three surefire favourites that Monsieur and I enjoy, not just on Shrove Tuesday:
- The Classic Complète. Place thin slices of ham (honey roast is delicious if available) to cover half of the galette. Crack an egg on top and allow it to start to heat through, but don’t leave it so long that the galette burns. It can always continue to cook a little once in the oven. Sprinkle with grated cheese, and/or a little parmesan. Grind black pepper over the whole and close. When in half-moon shape, i.e. the fillings are covered by pancake, flip to ensure the egg gets heat from both sides. If you’d like to be a little more ambitious with the presentation, place all the ingredients at the centre of the galette, leaving about 5 centimetres uncovered around the circumference. make sure the egg is situated as close to the centre of the galette as possible. Fold in 4 edges, leaving the egg exposed but creating a roughly square shape. Serve.
- The Neptune. Arrange slices of quality smoked salmon to cover half of the galette. Dollop three tablespoons of creme fraiche on top of the salmon and spread. Sprinkle chopped chives (dill also works beautifully here) and a little parmesan cheese over all. Close as the salmon’s colour starts to turn pale but before the galette edges start to curl.
- The Vegetarian Italian. Put thin slices of mozzarella around half of the galette, dot with 5 or 6 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half. Sprinkle with parmesan and chopped or torn fresh basil leaves. You have to keep an eye on this one because if you leave it in the pan for too long the tomato juice will make it soggy and difficult to flip. One solution, if you have time, is to use regular slicing tomatoes and remove the juicy flesh and seeds beforehand.
Sweet pancakes are usually called crêpes in France, to distinguish them from the savoury galettes. To cheat for this type I used the following pre-made version, also from Ocado, although most supermarkets in the UK offer something similar:
Once again, they come in packs of 6. I am a complete traditionalist when it comes to sweet pancakes. If at all possible, Monsieur will do the French thing and fill his with Nutella, but I prefer to keep it simple:
As for the galettes, heat a knob of butter in the pan and place the crêpe darker side down in the pan. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of sugar across one half of the crêpe, squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the sugar, add a dash or two of cinnamon, fold in half and serve. An optional extra might be a squirt of chantilly or a scoop of proper vanilla ice cream. If I weren’t so convinced I’d set my head alight, I might attempt Crêpes Suzettes, but for the moment I leave that to the experts in restaurants like Les Halles, where they’re so practised that I couldn’t hope to compete.
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Dippy for a Clippy
Among my vices various, those who know me will tell you that I am a self-confessed, bona fide bag lady. It would be perfectly accurate to call me a bagophile or loverrrrr of all things bag. Ever since I was given my first small cane handbag with chocolate leather closure and handles and chocolate cotton lining at the grand old age of four, I’ve been hooked on handbags, mainly because of an irrational fear that I might get bored without some portable entertainment in my possession at all times. So my handbags generally have to be large enough to accommodate 1 x book to read, 1 x Moleskine journal, digital camera and pens plural (in case one runs out), on top of the regular paraphernalia of phone, keys, money, lip gloss and travel pass.
To be absolutely clear, I love bags of all shapes and sizes – suitcases, duffel bags, totes, evening purses, shoppers, and I even admit to having a vague interest in airline sick bags of the empty and never-used variety. (Please do note, however, that I draw the line at squeaky vinyl or Judith Leiber.) Much to the annoyance of crowded-out golf bags, shoes and evening dresses, the majority of one large cupboard at home is given over to this particular passion for bags, the collection of which was recently augmented by the addition of one large example from a London-based company called ‘Clippy’.
Monsieur will tell you that when I’m not growing my bag family, I love collecting bits and pieces from our trips – ready to stick into my journal, which is always with me (in a bag). He’s so accustomed to this now that before he bins detritus from his pockets, he’ll turn to me and say “do you want to keep this ticket/ card/ receipt/ brochure?” (delete where applicable); rolling his eyes with amused indulgence when I reply “yes, please.” (At least I’m predictable). What doesn’t find its way into my Moleskine will end up in albums various or treasure boxes filled with souvenirs. I’m a proper little squirrel with sentimentality issues; that much is certain.
So when you take one bag-lover-stroke-memento-hoarder and offer her the opportunity to review a clear plastic Clippy bag covered in clear plastic pockets just begging to be filled with bespoke decoration, including souvenirs, you are single-handedly responsible for making the Universe a much happier place for one particular bag lady.
The new bag was not a done deal. Yet. I had to order it online for starters. Here’s how it went:
First, I visited the Clippy site and found that there are two ways to order a Clippy bag:
- You can order the bag with empty pockets and fill them yourself at home, or
- You can upload your own photos and/or use the Clippy site’s stock images to fill the virtual pockets of your chosen bag, so that you can see how the finished bag will look and leave the hard graft to all those clever Clippy folk.
***Either way, you’ll be faced with a dilemma: pink handles or black handles? Now, THAT is the question.
I followed the instructions for option 2, doing everything possible online, and was quite unprepared for how much fun this would be.
The first part of the process is registering your details on the site (easy peasy) before choosing your bag. There are various styles – from pencil cases and washbags to totes and shoppers. Was this part difficult? Only for the bag-o-phile who has a hard time making decisions. In the end I tore myself away from the darling metallic ringbinders which would be oh-so-perfect for random travel jottings, to choose an eighteen pocket shopper (nine pockets on each side) just begging to be stuffed with excesses of sentimentality.
Bag chosen, I moved on to the next stage: uploading photos to the site. This was the hardest part of the process, only because I am that abovementioned indecisive bagophile. Which to choose? Should there be a theme? What about balancing colours? Should I go garish and clashing or keep it sleek in black and white?
In the end I uploaded a selection of photos (colour, in case you were wondering) representing two of my other passions: travel and food. The site allows you to move the photos around from pocket to pocket so you can see how they’ll look once inserted in the bag. Once you’re happy with the overall effect, you save and send your finished virtual bag via the Clippy site links to the Clippy people (who, for some reason, I imagine are adorable little pink oompa loompas – apologies if that’s not the case.).
This was the only time I had a problem. I’d save and send my bag, as per the on-site instructions, but the shopper repeatedly disappeared somewhere between my computer and the other end. Luckily, the brainchild behind Clippy, an accidental entrepreneur called Calypso, was there to talk me through the process. Neither of us could see why my bag design hadn’t reached her, but with some perseverance the system finally worked and my bag was despatched the following day. Hooray! NB I have to say that it would seem I’m the exception to the rule here. Everyone else’s online bag creations were behaving; just not mine.
And so, it was with calorie-busting excitement that I opened the grey plastic packaging to find my first Clippy bag. There were my images, all staring out at me from their designated pockets. A pretty gingham bow was tied around one handle and a Clippy badge sat in one of the central pockets – encouraging more multi-media insertions of my own. I took the bag for a spin around the office. The feedback from the girls was favourable, although progress was slow thanks to everyone wanting to know the story behind each photo.
Then it was time to get serious. How did my first Clippy stack up on the bagophilia barometer? Firstly, I checked out the quality of the photos in the pockets. Sadly, it wasn’t great. The whole concept is so eye-catching that quality photographic paper would definitely help make the images stand out more. As it is, the photos are on heavy stock paper such as I might use for a presentation document at work, with the result that they’re a bit flatter than they might be. In future, I’d probably opt for getting the photos printed myself and doing the DIY bag decoration at home. That way you have more control over paper weights and finishes.
Other than the image quality, I’m very happy with my Clippy. It’s sturdy, waterproof and versatile – equally suited for the likes of trips to the deli at the weekend or to the swimming pool after work. It would also be a clever carry-on bag for any holiday involving airports and uptight security guards, simply because it’s clear plastic. There are no secrets with a Clippy bag.
Having said that, on further exploring the Clippy site I found that there are optional bag-liners in case you’re a bit more private about the contents of your bag. If you really want to push out the bespoke boat, there are Clippy sticker packs and pocket liners to get you started, although personally, I wasn’t tempted. I’m good to go with a handful of metro tickets, postcards and restaurant cards, tokens, a good luck charm and a beer mat or two. And the best thing about my Clippy bag is that whenever someone notices it, there are automatically eighteen stories to tell. So, if an image is worth a thousand words, then I estimate that my eighteen Clippy bag photos and a couple of handfuls of mementos would fill a book.
Here’s what my bag looks like:
If you would like to try Clippy’s products for yourself, log onto the Clippy site here.
This is a review post. I was provided with the product free of charge for the purpose of honestly reviewing it. I have not been instructed what to write and my opinions are honest and my own.
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Epiphany
One of the most enriching aspects of being half of a Franco-Kiwi partnership is the opportunity to always have more to learn about the other culture. Monsieur definitely understands how dull his life was before meeting his wife and witnessing her Jekyll-and-Hyde behaviour during All Blacks games. Inspired by my passion for men in black, my dear, sweet husband now knows all the rules of the rugby (thank you so much, Mr Wikipedia) and tells me often that ”France is gonna kick your esssssss at the World Cup”. If you don’t follow rugby, shame on you. FYI the RWC is coming up later on this year with key matches (read: when The All Blacks thrash France) already entered into all calendars and is predicted to be an interesting stage in our fledgling marriage.
Rugby aside, I’ve learned a great deal about French ways since meeting Monsieur – most of which they neglect to teach you in French studies at school or university. I make constant gaffes (or so I’m told because I also now realise how blunt the French can be when trying to re-educate hopeless antipodeans like moi, who are used to changing their cutlery with every course) and struggle with subjunctives and reflexives, but at the end of the day it’s all worth it when I discover some new (at least new to me) French tradition, like the eating of Galette des Rois on Epiphany.
For those readers who are more sinner than saint and don’t remember your Christian feast days, Epiphany celebrates the visit of the three wise men to baby Jesus, bringing with them as offerings gold, frankincense and myrrh. In France, Epiphany is celebrated on 6 January each year. It’s a big deal. At your favourite patisserie, you must buy a Galette des Rois, a type of sweet pastry flan filled with almond paste. Somewhere in each Galette lurks a tiny ceramic feve or charm, but only the pastry chef knows where. The flan is cut into slices, then one of the party is blindfolded and will point at random people in the group to indicate who gets the next slice. This is supposed to ensure fairness because sometimes a certain bulge in the galette may show where the charm is hiding.
Once everyone has a slice of Galette des Rois, eating begins with great ripples of anticipation coursing through the air: who will find the charm? It’s not just the kids who get excited. Before long, some lucky soul will bite into something hard in the midst of the soft almond filling “C’est moi! C’est moi!” they’ll exclaim, and will now become king or queen for a day, wearing a paper crown kindly offered by the patisserie with every Galette des Rois sold.
I first encountered this tradition when Monsieur’s maman invited us to an Epiphany party one year. Monsieur won the charm that time, gallantly asking me to be his queen – what an old softie.
This year, I decided to arrange an Epiphany celebration of our own – just the two of us. I tracked down a Galette des Rois at Paul, raced across town after work to collect it (there’s no decent patisserie near where I work, which is quite the cultural desert, as opposed to dessert) then dashed home to create a Frenchified evening. We made another type of galette that night – the brown savoury ones so popular in Britanny - filled with smoked salmon and salmon roe, chives and creme fraiche, or lightly smoked slivers of French bacon oozing with golden melted cheddar and an egg. I always find galettes rather filling, even though we never have more than two apiece, so we lightened our intake and ingested most of our five-a-day requirement with a big helping of salad before finally approaching the Galette des Rois.
I blindfolded Monsieur (nothing kinky), then he chose a piece for each of us. The charm was in neither, so we had to wait until the next day to try again as there was no capacity for two slices in that one evening. Monsieur won. I knew he would. He cheats. This time, his technique was to play a mind game on his poor, unsuspecting, defenceless wife (sob, sniff), so that she would allow him to have the piece with the tell-tale bulge. What was the charm this time? A small, ceramic crown, just big enough for a mouse to wear. Where is it now? In the bin. By accident. On purpose. Monsieur isn’t sentimental like me and didn’t see the point of keeping it to turn into a Christmas decoration. Luckily, Paul sold spares, and pre-empting my husband’s attempt at ‘feng shui’ (better chuck the charm), I’d already ensured that my Christmas decoration idea was taken care of. In a little round box, shaped like a golden crown, I had 5 beautiful little ceramic charms, just waiting to hang on the tree in December.
Then, on twelfth night, January 6 2012, we’ll have another Galette des Rois, just as we take the decorations down.
Once more, we’ll have French treats. Once more, Monsieur will probably win the charm. The difference will be in managing to confiscate the charm the second the crown lands on Monsieur’s head. You see, I plan to make a tradition of turning every year’s charm into a decoration, and that will require sharp eyes and quick hands, to grab the charm and ensure that Monsieur goes nowhere near the bin.
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Reboundtag – RFID Technology Beats the Lost Baggage Blues
Everyone has at least one tale of woe regarding lost luggage. So far, I’ve been fortunate enough not to have lost a suitcase (touch wood), although they’ve often been ominously slow to come off the conveyor, or have mysteriously appeared on the wrong conveyor for whatever flight I’ve been on. With this in mind, it’s surely only a matter of time before my dirty socks wind up (without their owner) in New Delhi or Peru or in one of those unclaimed baggage auctions.
Thinking back, my first-ever holiday with Monsieur was largely interrupted by the hassle of waiting for his suitcase to arrive, which it eventually did following a five-day detour to some Eastern European country that bore no relation in name or location to our destination. We were in the land of spaghetti and mozzarella, yet Monsieur’s luggage was travelling through regions of dumplings and sauerkraut, pierogi and borscht. On a practical note, with Monsieur’s bag gone, so were his clothes and shaving foam, but thankfully Monsieur is wise to the foibles of baggage handlers and always has insurance in place, so he wasn’t stuck in his travelling clothes with facial fuzz until such time as the wandering luggage joined us. Instead, he went insurance shopping for essentials, but even that wasn’t straightforward because after 4 days without it, he had so little faith in his suitcase ever turning up that he bought a new one. Then, on the way home, the airline stung him massively for having two suitcases, more than the per person allowance, in spite of the fact that it was their fault his bag hadn’t arrived on time in the first place. The whole exercise took a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy to reconcile. Inconvenient doesn’t even begin to describe it.
The irony is that airport baggage security is supposed to be much tighter than this. Theoretically, a bag cannot travel without its owner, yet Monsieur’s bag managed to do so disturbingly easily. To add to this messy mix, it’s not always the fault of the airline that bags go missing.
Following that first trip together, during which Monsieur and I wasted an inordinate amount of time calling the relevant airline/s for updates and ever-changing e.t.a.s, Monsieur’s suitcase continued to go missing, to the point where the lost luggage people at Heathrow recognised Monsieur’s name. Once, it was picked up by accident by someone who thought it was his bag until he got home and started to unpack. Luckily, that meant the bag was in the UK so was delivered the following day. On another occasion, it was left behind at the airport of origin, so arrived a day or two later. On yet another occasion, I was collecting our bags from the conveyor while Monsieur went off to sort out landlubbing transport and had to collar a woman who once more thought that Monsieur’s suitcase was hers. I wouldn’t mind, but his suitcase is distinctive enough not to be mistaken for someone else’s so what is it with these people?
Sadly, we’re not alone in such frustrating moments – many of our friends and colleagues bemoan the loss or misplacement of their luggage on an ongoing basis. In Lost Baggage Blues Therapy, a handful of us can talk easily for hours about misplaced luggage, without changing the topic.
Heads in hands, we groan out loud. Whatever can be done to stop our luggage from going missing when we travel, apart from only packing carry-on? Cue the development of a product that could change all that waiting around for lost bags that may never turn up: Reboundtag.
The folks at Fuelmyblog know that I travel a lot so they sent me this clever little travel accessory to review. It’s simple, really; a bag tag with in-built microchip containing both Reboundtag’s and the owner’s details, including your travel itineraries so that when a missing bag is located it can be immediately forwarded to wherever you are at the time.
I’ve recently activated one of these sturdy plastic tags and it was easy peasy. You just visit the Reboundtag site, register an e-mail address, password and the tag number, then visit the Members’ Area where you store your contact information, describe your luggage along with any identifying features, and upload itinerary information, such as flights and accommodation. You can also take advantage of a rewards system, should you wish to forward Reboundtag’s details to your contacts. So far, so brilliant.
With the amount of travel that we do, I have to say that my mind already rests easier knowing that I have a Reboundtag. Should my luggage ever decide to take a tiki-tour of the world without me, it should find its way back once a baggage handler locates it, realises it’s travelling on its own and logs its whereabouts on the Reboundtag website. Then, wherever I am, I can find out where my bag is (New Mexico/ Indonesia/ Glasgow) and tell the baggage handlers where I want it to be sent and when. (It doesn’t even need to be a baggage handler who does this! One of those accidental conveyor belt kleptos could do it, too.) This is particularly useful if you’re on an extended break because you can arrange to have the wayward luggage forwarded to wherever you are. Then again, if you’re just away for the weekend and concerned about your bag arriving at the hotel when you’ve already left for home, you can tell the handlers/ finder to send it back to your hometown, even requesting delivery to a daytime address so that you don’t have to wait around for the delivery at home when you should be at work. And in case you’re wondering about the safety of your details, you can choose to make them anonymous, so that you’re protected against someone finding out that you’re away and deciding to pop over to ‘borrow’ your DVD player.
In short, when it comes to Reboundtag I’m a fan. I’ve tried it now on two international flights and both times felt a lot calmer than usual about bidding farewell to my luggage at check-in. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one day all new luggage comes with a built-in Reboundtag-type chip. It would certainly make a lot of people’s lives easier, considering that approximately 42 million bags went missing last year, many of which were never reunited with their owners. That’s a lot of unclaimed knickers being auctioned.
Should you decide to try Reboundtag for yourself, here are some useful details:
This page explains the RFID technology behind the tag. Personally, I’m not fussed about the tech, as long as it works, but you may be interested to read more about it.
- Each tag comes with three years’ membership.
- You can choose between one Reboundtag at £19.99, a family pack of three at £49.95 or a business executives’ pack at £149.99. (Whichever way you look at it, that’s a small price to pay compared with the cost and trouble of replacing lost suitcase and contents.)
- There’s also a corporate facility whereby you can order Reboundtags for all your travelling staff and have your company logo printed onto them.
Unfortunately, I can’t yet tell you how well Reboundtag works because so far, my Reboundtagged suitcase is safe and sound. Should this change, I will return here and add my experience. In the meantime, if you have a Reboundtag tale to share, please do let us know in the comments below.
An Emus-ing Review of Boots
October in London: it’s dark in the morning, a chill is in the air and at work the central heating isn’t working so we wear scarves all day long. It isn’t even Hallowe’en yet.
Cue a timely newsletter from the folk at Fuelmyblog asking for interested bloggers to review the snug boots made by Australian brand, Emu. I needed no prompting to reply. This sort of footwear is right up my street, having a reputation for being both warm and comfortable. I fired off an e-mail to say I would be more than happy to review a pair of tall, black, Bronte-style Emus.
The boots arrived yesterday, which was perfect timing as it was a cool 18 degrees Celsius in the office. With blue lips I skipped back to my desk, box under one arm, to try them on. Opening the box I pulled out the Emus and smiled. In smart black suede with merino wool lining, they have a sensible rubber sole with the sort of traction that should help me to stay upright in the snow this winter, a feat not easily achieved. The boots certainly looked warm and comfortable from the outside, but how would they feel once on?
I pulled on the first boot and – what? – my foot would only go so far. I wriggled my toes and felt scrunching. Ah. This doofus had forgotten to remove the paper ball keeping the boot in shape. Paper ball jettisoned, I tried again, this time with success. The boot fitted perfectly and my right foot had found its cold weather heaven. Until that moment on an early winter’s morning I had not realised exactly how cold my feet had been.
For some time I kept just that one boot on. I didn’t think I could get away with wearing my Emus to meetings; at least not yet, but while I was at my desk I could at least get a feel for them. Eventually realising how odd I must have looked with loafer on left foot and Emu on right, I reluctantly removed the Emu, wishing the day away so I could take my Emus for a test drive after work.
On leaving the office it was suitably cold, grey and dull, but I was now happily wearing my Emus, every step taken a delight to my spoiled feet which adore comfort such as this. It’s like walking on a sheepskin, with full support, especially in the arches, and on sitting down I had to stamp my feet a couple of times to make sure they weren’t floating above ground.
The verdict? I love Emus and may well invest in a tan pair in one of their different styles. But this is not the end of this tale.
Earlier in the day French Colleague had noticed my Emus sitting under my desk.
“Aaah, you have EEEE-mus!” she enthused, “I have them too. I prefer them to UGGs.”
“Why’s that?” I asked,
“Because they have better traction. Actually, I have two pairs of Emus now.” Quite the menagerie.
That can only be a good thing for me as long ago I stopped wearing heels in the street due to a rather nasty accident. I caught a heel between cobbles, resulting in a broken front tooth, severely bruised knee, grazed forehand and grazed hands. No, I didn’t call a ‘trip-or-fall’ lawyer, although perhaps I should have, given the size of the dental bill. Overnight I changed from no-pain-no-gain perpetual-heel-wearer to flat-footwear-afficionado. There’d be no more heels caught in cobbles or tube station grates for me. Heels are now reserved for work or special occasions.
On the travel footwear front, Monsieur and I will be visiting Portugal in a few weeks. Breton-Crêpe-Lover was giving me advice on Lisbon this morning when suitable footwear came into the conversation.
“In the streets there are lots of… what you call… stones, errr…”
“Cobblestones?”
“Yes, cobblestones, so you shouldn’t wear heels. Just flat shoes.”
Looking at my feet she noticed the Emus.
“Yes, those are PER-fect.” she said with a nod. “Wear THOSE in Lisbon.”
So not only are my new Emus comfortable, toasty-warm and soft on the sole, they’re also going to keep me safe from broken teeth. What a relief.
Useful links:
Fitness Footwear UK stockist of Emus with FREE UK delivery
Their homepage is here.
These Feet Were Made for Fit Flops…
I don’t usually write about feet or shoes, apart from the fact that I’d rather spend my annual footwear allowance on travel than on a pair of Manolos and I just might have set up a site called Clogblogger once upon a time. However, if you’ve ever worn Fit Flops, you’ll know why I’m writing about them today.
Last year, I invested in a pair of these flip flops with ‘the gym built in,’ that claim to help you tone and exercise muscles in your legs and back whilst simply walking. A couple of friends already had them and swore by them, so I bought a pair of rather unsubtle gold-sequinned Fit Flops with the suitably flamboyant style name of Elektra. By the end of last summer, including a full two weeks in Vietnam where I seldom wore anything else (on my feet, to be specific, because clothes definitely did feature. At times.), I didn’t want to take them off. No, it’s worse than that. My feet, a couple of particularly sensitive souls (pardon the pun), grieved the advent of autumn, for it meant that their beloved Fit Flops would be exiled to the back of the wardrobe. Poor feet!
Here’s the gold variety that stirs an alarming amount of interest from my male colleagues. Oo er, missus! Who knew they’d be such attention-grabbers?
And this is the black equivalent that I wear on more sombre occasions:
There are one, two, three, four more Fit Flop wearers within 5 metres of me right now. Most of my girlfriends are advocates, and when I went to a wedding recently, my feet were understandably NOT happy about abandoning the Fit Flops in favour of something high and elegant. No siree. In case of a Feet-Against-Heels uprising during the day, I stuffed a pair of ballet pumps in my bag, but as it was, most of the girls went barefoot in the grass at the reception, so the ballet pumps were surplus to requirement. Chatting to an acquaintance, I admitted being relieved not to have to trot around in my heels all afternoon,
“My feet are spoiled. They’ve been in Fit Flops all week.”
“Mine, too!” confessed the acquaintance, “and I have a pair of ballet pumps in my bag, for dancing, later.”
“Me, too!” I squeaked, so happy to have located a kindred spirit with high-maintenance feet like mine. High five, girlfriend!
Even so, I couldn’t wait to slide back into my Fit Flops when we got home.
The next question is inevitably: do they work? Well, it’s hard to tell, because my legs are the most-utilised part of me and are therefore pretty fit already. But a good test was during the recent 48-hour tube strike when I had to walk to and from work each day. That was a total of 4 hours and 40 minutes fast walking, in Fit Flops, over a two-day period, and boy, did I ache by the end of it. The aches were in unusual places, too, usually untouched by regular walking or hiking. (At least, that’s how THIS particular body behaves.) So the Fit Flop’s claims to give you a workout while you walk seem to be true. Having said that, for me it’s kinda like TV. I’m not interested in knowing how it works, as long as it works.
Long may the summer last, though, because in spite of Fit Flop’s foray into winter-weather alternatives, they’re lacking the funk of the spangly Elektra, and I’m not a big UGG fan. But I may have to eat my words soon, because this here high heel-phobe has been invited to an evening with Jimmy Choo. Help. I’ve never spent £368.00 on a pair of shoes in my life and I really can’t afford to start such an expensive habit now. Besides which, £368.00 could pay for a long weekend in Venice, in my Fit Flops, and that’s what I’d really rather do.
Donna Leon at Daunt
It’s no secret that I’m a Venetophile or that I have a mild addiction to all things Venice. Therefore it should come as no surprise that I trooped along to Daunt Books when I heard that bestselling crime writer, Donna Leon would be speaking there as part of their evening talks programme. So what if I had pre-booked three tickets in a rush of enthusiasm, believing I would be accompanied, only to find myself quite unexpectedly on my own? A girl behind me in the queue was very grateful for my abandonment, swiftly buying one of my spare tickets as the talk had been yet another Daunt sell-out, so I wasn’t very much out of pocket at the end of the day. It would seem I wasn’t the only one keen to see the famed Venetian crime writer and creator of the keen-eyed and affable Commissario Brunetti.
When Venice-based but American-born Donna Leon appeared on stage she was petite with a neat bob of grey hair and a tanned face that spoke of life in places warmer than London. It was hard to believe she was sixty-seven, such was her energy and spriteliness. Linking herself to the venue, Leon began by recounting her first visit to Daunt, when she didn’t realise that the bookstore had a travel specialism, causing her to ask an assistant why her books were in the section devoted to Italy. Then she moved on to explain some of the background to her current release, About Face.
The title should give us a clue – the emphasis placed by Italians on la Bella Figura, or good appearance is key to the plot. Leon explained that there is a strange phenomenon in image-conscious Italy, called La Superliftata. This is a woman who has undergone plastic surgery or ‘liftings’ on a number of occasions, so that she may come to resemble a Bride of Wildenstein-in-training. In fact, it is such a person once spied by Leon at the opera who inspired one of the characters in About Face.
The Mafia also raises its head in Leon’s latest; with particular reference to their involvement in the business of rubbish disposal . Leon told the aghast audience that the Italian government is burning toxic waste from the North of Italy and Germany without filtering it and the pollutant effects are visible to all. For instance, in Taranto, where the true Mozzarella di Buffala is produced, the sheep are thin and sick with toxicity. Poisonous waste is being burned in their immediate vicinity, great plumes of smoke evident on the horizon and suddenly a creamy ball of true Buffalo Mozzarella doesn’t seem quite as appetising as it might have been prior to this disturbing revelation. According to Leon, in Italy such scandals flare up, cause an outcry and are then relegated to the ranks of Il Domenticatore, a virtual or imaginary place where such things are sent to be forgotten.
As Leon put it, “Italians have always had an adversarial relationship with their government,” and according to her observation, they take delight in the relative innocence of countries who believe in the dedication of their respective governments, because their cynicism does not afford them faith in politicians, wherever in the world they operate. As far as the Italians are concerned, their own government is a bunch of dishonest crooks. This is something that’s difficult to dispute in a country where the Minister of Justice has recently been accused of collusion with the Mafia. We were certainly gaining a lot of unanticipated insight from Leon about her adopted home. This was developing into a superior event, easily surpassing your average book promotion.
On a more personal level, Leon admitted that yes, her books are becoming darker but that she is “genetically predisposed to cheerfulness.” Smiling at the thought, she continued: “I come from happy people. My parents liked one another. We were happy kids. My parents talked to us as if we were sentient beings.” Not surprisingly, they were all readers. However, when asked about her views on the current state of the world, Leon stated that “Intellectually, I really don’t see too much to be cheerful about.” She then referred to the increasing callousness that human beings show, including gratuitous violence, such sociological changes influencing the content of her novels.
Regarding Venice, a member of the crowd proffered that it is not a functioning community, a statement with which I would disagree, because once you get to know it , the community is most definitely there; it’s just well hidden from the eyes of stopover tourists. Leon’s take is that Venice survives as Disneyland and “lives almost exclusively on and off of tourism.” That part nobody can deny.
When someone asked Leon when she first started to write fiction, she quipped “on my application to university and many job applications after that.” Another voice asked if she had always wanted to be a writer. “No, I just wanted to be a happy person,” came her candid response. According to Leon, writing is not a passion; the only passion she has is for Baroque opera. However, she does concede that people have certain innate proclivities and she has always had a particular affinity with language, perhaps explaining why, at university, Leon studied English literature. This she enjoyed because in Leon’s eyes, all she had to do was “lie on the sofa and read for eight years and then they gave me a degree.”
Then, in 1968 Leon spent a year in Italy. Her boat sailed into the port of Naples and, as Leon explained it, “I knew that I was home.” As a result, she was keen to communicate with the locals, so she set about learning Italian “very quickly.” Initially, this involved the acquisition of the Neopolitan dialect. Only when Leon and her companion started to move north did she realise that “No lo satch,” was not the generic Italian for “I don’t know, but was instead the rather brutish dialect of Naples. She soon caught on and Italian now forms an important part of her linguistic repertoire.
Between ’69 and ’91 Leon visited Venice at least once per year. She’d been living and working in Saudi Arabia, but when things turned sour, she became a refugee of that country, a veritably disorienting experience. Where would she live now? Leon settled on Venice as her new home, as the former seat of doges was one place that she’d always been happy.
Many bestsellers later and still happily ensconced in Venice, when Leon starts work on a new book she cannot predict how it will end. She says she knows intuitively how her characters will respond to given scenarios and literally goes with the flow as the plot develops.
A firm favourite with Leon’s fans is the character of Signorina Elettra, whose traits grew as the result of my ignorance and laziness. Signorina Elettra is the person who can do all of those things that I’m sure I cannot do.” Nonetheless, it’s difficult to imagine this sparky woman not being able to do something. Until her writing gained international acclaim around ten years ago, Leon said that she had “never had a real job, that is, when you know you’ll have the same job next year.” In spite of this, Leon has adopted a new country, mastered its language, developed an enviable reputation in the world of crime writing and puts paid to anyone who says they’re too old to change their life. I would say that Leon’s literary success from the age of 57 (when she attests things truly took off) is nothing less than inspirational.
It was in Venice that Leon first thought of writing a murder mystery. She was with Sicilian conductor, Gabriele Ferro and his wife backstage at La Fenice when they started chatting hypothetically about how to kill and bury a conductor. Thereafter, a novel was born, but it lived for a long time in a drawer until friends encouraged Leon to set it free. Next, Leon entered it into a competition, which she won, and because she then signed a two book contract, she had to write another book. Leon is self-effacing about this part of her literary history; she claims she never had much ambition and just got very lucky. “I never strove for this,” she told us, “I just found it was something that I could do and liked doing.”
So what’s the Donna Leon secret recipe to success? Read a lot in the genre in which you are interested. That way you will develop a sample of good prose in your head.
The Germans were the first to recognise the film potential of Leon’s Venetian murder mysteries, but took the liberty of creating a livelier sort of mother for Commissario Brunetti from the Alzheimer’s sufferer originally created by Leon. Perhaps more exciting is the fact that Leon is currently in talks with the BBC who are interested in making her stories into episodes for TV. About this, Leon is confident that we should see something on our screens within the next couple of years. Now, that’s something to look forward to.
One question on everyone’s lips was why Leon has been translated into many languages, yet deliberately chooses not to have her books appear in Italian. She explained that those Italians who have read her books in other languages are pleasantly surprised that she understands their culture so well. They think she must be Italian, and her name certainly sounds Italian enough for this to be a probability. But Leon enjoys her anonymity in Italy too much and would like to remain “a nobody in Venice.” She is also actively avoiding the criticism from some who read ABOUT her books in the Italian press, so guards her low profile there.
Returning to the subject of the Italian Mafia, Leon tells the tale of a fellow writer who was published on this very subject in Germany. According to German legislation, you can’t write about the case of anyone who’s awaiting trial or sentencing, topics included in the friend’s book’s subject matter, hence the fact that she’d already been sued four times. One night, as she gave a reading from her Mafia book in a German centre renowned for its Mafia population, an Italian man stood up at the back of the audience. “You have such courage. Thank you,” he told her. Such praise is apparently a hallmark of Mafia disapproval; something the writer immediately recognised. She later told Leon that at that moment her blood ran cold. She knew that she was now under the watch of the Mafia.
The talk concluded and I joined the queue to have my copy of About Face signed by its author. “It was really enjoyable hearing you speak tonight!” I enthused. By return, the softly spoken Donna Leon said “We had a lotta fun, didn’t we? Thank you for coming!” Not only is Donna Leon accomplished, intelligent and inspirational, she’s also very polite.
The one where Epicurienne tests Aveeno
All winter long I’ve been complaining about dry skin, especially following a swim, when the chlorine from the pool leaves a nice, flaky beard on my face, in spite of slathering moisturiser all over it. It’s not just me, apparently; the Day Job office is so dry and full of static that we’ve all been experiencing unattractive skin this year, comparing dry patches with spots and red zones, all of which only flare up while we’re at work. In desperation, I’ve even tried wearing night cream during the day – unheard of! But, hey! It worked. For a while.
To coincide with the return of Flake Face, a package from Shiny Red PR arrived on my desk, as if by magic. Out of it spilled Aveeno skin products (bath salts, small tube of cream, large tube of daily lotion) and American Colleague was by my side in a flash. “Ohmigahd, you’ve got Aveeno!” she cried with what I consider to be excessive enthusiasm for body lotion in boring cream packaging with dull, hippy-green accents. “I always keep it in my drawer.” She pulled out a tube of Aveeno to prove it. “Do they sell it here now?” I, the Aveeno novice, shrugged. “I used to have to get friends to send it over from the States but it looks like it’s crossed the pond, so GREAT!” American Colleague is a super girl, always keen and bright as a button, so I was heartened to have this encouragement to try a product I had never once heard of.
The bad news is: the packaging; it looks like it walked out of a cream and green health food shop. In fact, it looks like it should smell vaguely of linseed oil and carob. The good news is, Aveeno is made by Johnson & Johnson so it should be safe. More bad news – the creams are marked ‘fragrance free’, something that I find off-putting because it’s one of those claims that don’t always turn out to be true and even if they do, ‘fragrance free’ makes me think of allergy sufferers. Then again, I suffer from stress-induced eczema at times, and having recently made the third round of redundancies at the Day Job, I was starting to believe that the Itchy & Scratchy Show referred exclusively to me. Anything was worth a try, especially if it was going to help my skin, but oh-oh, more bad news: the packaging uses the word ‘colloidal’. What on earth? Instead of sounding alluring and feminine, Aveeno was beginning to make me wonder if I’d just walked out of the local hospital’s dermatology clinic. Out came the trusty dictionary, to find out what ‘colloidal’ meant exactly (I was never that great at chemistry, but I can generally tell if a word related to that dreaded subject). The definition according to the Collins Paperback Dictionary is:
COLLOID n A mixture of particles of one substance suspended in a different substance. COLLOIDAL adj.
In this case the particles of one substance are oatmeal and the different substance seems to be a whole list of chem-lab ingredients, from allantoin and glycerine to Distearyldimonium Chloride. This wasn’t looking good, given that I prefer natural skin products made from things like olives.
Still, I promised to give the Aveeno range a test run and test it I have. Here are the results:
- 1. The Aveeno bath salts – unless you enjoy bathing in brown water, then I’d recommend passing on this product. Some of us still like sweet-smelling oils and bubbles. I got out of the bath feeling in need of a shower to wash off the good-for-you brown stuff.
- 2. The Aveeno Daily Moisturising Lotion – this has been showing some minor improvement on my elbows but remember that a little goes a long way and you need to give it a few minutes to soak in.
- 3. The Aveeno cream – looked and felt to me like the same product as the 24 hour cream (remember I’m not an expert), only in a smaller tube. Now, credit where it’s due – this is great stuff. In the three to four weeks that I’ve been using Aveeno cream as my daily moisturiser, it’s done wonders. My skin has returned to normal, smooth and flake-free. However, it does feel a bit gooey going on and the total lack of fragrance, even a no-fragrance fragrance is not a good thing in my book. I prefer things that smell nice, like olive oil face creams that smell fresh, not necessarily of flower beds or apricots, just fresh and that I do like very much.
So the result of my experiments with Aveeno is that I will be interested to continue using the cream to counteract post-winter facial flakiness but the jury’s out on whether or not to buy a replacement once I’ve finished the tube. The packaging puts me off a bit, as does the healthy look’s conflict with a rather off-putting list of extra chem.-lab ingredients on the reverse. If the packaging were a bit less oatmeal-y and the oatmeal particles could be suspended in a friendlier group of substances, you could probably count me in as a new customer. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if I miss Aveeno when I’ve used it all up. For the moment, however, not a flake in sight.
Useful links:
Around the World in Eighty Minutes with Michael Palin – Part 2
Click here to read Part 1.
In the course of the evening, we learned many things, thanks to Palin himself and a keen audience full of questions. Did you know that when making travel series for the Beeb, there are six in Palin’s typical crew, including a stills photographer, whose contribution is much valued because most of the time, the others are too busy to take their own photos. One unanticipated obstacle of this profession is getting the job title right. Whatever does multi-skilled Palin write in that space on the visa form? There’s an anecdote in answer to that particular question. Palin recounted a family trip to Sierra Leone, where he was initially refused a visa because he’d listed his occupation as ‘writer’ and Sierra Leone’s government was somewhat sensitive about journalists at the time. Nowadays, Palin lists his occupation as ‘actor’, giving him issues no more complicated than having to embellish his professional relations with the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis.
Palin told us that his travels started relatively late as he grew up in post-war Sheffield and there wasn’t much opportunity to explore the world at that time. Once Python took off, however, he started taking off himself, to mostly American destinations. Of course, if you look at the past twenty years, there can’t be many countries left in the world that Palin hasn’t visited. What’s next on the list, then? Calcutta (woops, I mean ‘Kolkata’), and the glint in the speaker’s eye tells us that he can’t wait to get his hands dirty again in the manner of a truly intrepid explorer. After that? Iran. You could almost see Palin conjuring up an itinerary as he pictured Tehran, Esfahan, the Caspian Sea and the open plains. Then and there I decided to find a good Iranian restaurant so I could at least learn more about the food. By Jove, I was giving myself homework.
One question from the floor concerned the current state of humanity.
“Having travelled so extensively, what’s your view of humanity as a whole?” ventured one fan.
Palin looked up for a moment before answering. “I’m a glass half full sort of chap and when it comes to humanity, you know what I think? Not half bad.”
“In all your travels, what’s the best place you’ve visited and what’s the worst?” asked another.
Palin replied that it’s almost impossible to compare his destinations because of the tremendous differences and there are good and bad things about everywhere you go. However, he did remark that Peru is a special place, with the vibrant Cusco and the mysterious and ancient Machu Picchu.
One question concerned identifiable differences between types of travel. Is it different when he travels with his family? Palin explained that his wife, Helen, isn’t as adventurous a traveller as he, so when they plan a trip together, it’s likely to be aimed at relaxation. Then, he added that “Helen won’t be coming to Calcutta,” Judging by the audience’s collective chuckle, there was strong support for Helen’s right not to travel to the more challenging destinations. That’s another reason we all watch Palin; he can take us to Timbuktu and back without us feeling any of the journey’s pain.
As for his manner of writing, Palin told us that he jots down his experiences in a notebook, writing up the notes once he returns home. “I can’t imagine travel without writing,” he exclaims with a sudden burst of energy. For this traveller, the two are inextricably intertwined. The writing process is a long one, though. Palin locks himself away in his study and says that by the time a trip such as Eighty Days is completed and the book is finished, another two years have passed.
The question on everyone’s lips now was what were Palin’s future projects. Without hesitation, he explained that he and Helen now have a grandchild so family time is precious to him. He suggested that there may be a few single episode documentaries to come but that he’d like to spend more time at home now. “London’s a wonderful place,” he continued, “it’d be nice to experience more of it,” besides which he feels that he’s travelled so much that it’s all right to stop for a while, and, as important as travel is to his life, so is the opportunity to reflect on and consider all that he’s seen.
During question time, Monsieur nudged me hard. “Ask a question,” he urged with twinkling eye. “No, I’m too shy,” I whispered. But then, towards the end, Palin pointed at the gallery where we were sitting. “One last question from the gallery,” he called, “does anyone in the gallery have a question?” Suddenly, as if by involuntary reflex, my arm waved above my head. “Actually, yes, I do.” I said. Palin looked up at me. “Actually, yes,” he repeated with a cheeky smile. “What would be your advice to keen travellers, based on your own travel experiences?” I asked, my heart threatening to bounce out of my chest and down to the floor below. Palin recommended the following:
· It’s very important to talk to the people. Find out what they do, where they eat, what their stories are.
· Don’t go to a place with a long must-do-must-see list and don’t expect that it’s possible to cram the entire history of Egypt into a four day visit.
· Look around and observe what it’s like to really live in your destination. Watch people in the street, at the market or taking coffee. Walk around and experience the place from the ground up.
And, soon after, Palin closed the talk.
I whizzed downstairs to buy the anniversary edition of Round the World and queued up to have it signed. What surprised me most was that the queue wasn’t particularly long or cumbersome that evening. It struck me that perhaps people weren’t buying books anymore because of the credit crunch and following a £5.00 expenditure for the ticket, they considered their evening’s budget complete. In any case, I wasn’t about to complain.
“You asked me a question from up there,” Mr Palin said as my turn came,
“Actually, yes,” I replied, echoing my earlier performance and silently cursing the fact that I use that word, ‘actually’ so much. “Good voice,” he commented, as he dedicated the book. I admit it had surprised me a bit, but I put it down to years of speech and drama lessons. My teacher would be pleased to know that I haven’t forgotten how to project in a large room. We chatted a bit about one of his kids, whom I met when I was interning in Venice. At the time, I’d asked Palin The Younger what his advice for new interns would be. He kindly shared with me a suggestion that The Palin Now Sitting Right Next To Me had given him: take a poem with you when you’re guarding the galleries and learn a few more lines each day. That way, the boredom subsides and you add to your knowledge of literature.
Before leaving Mr Michael Palin in peace, I had my photo taken with him. It makes my head look like a football as I’m leaning towards the camera in embarrassing eagerness. However, it was worth a red face because now I can show it to Epic Papa, a traveller in his own time but now, for health reasons, unable to travel anywhere unless vicariously through the likes of a Palin DVD. That’s another reason why I’m such a fan of these series; they allow people to glimpse the broad world beyond their homes, even if they can’t go there themselves.
So you see, that’s why I’m smiling. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening in the company of someone I admire very much. This card-carrying fan is now the proud owner of a book signed by Michael Palin, and is considering hanging the shameless fan photo on the living room wall at home. “Okay, you can stop it now,” said Monsieur when I was still visibly thrilled with the evening, even after we got home, “or I might get jealous.” That, too, made me smile. No need to raise the green-eyed monster from the deep, Monsieur. There’s plenty of admiration reserved just for you. Having said that, I happen to know that Monsieur is quite a Palin fan himself.
Gallivanting with Galler
Last week the lovely people at Splendid Communications invited me to go gallivanting with Galler at a chocolate tasting at Harrod’s. A group of keen foodie bloggers and Splendid representatives met at the concession for Galler, the luxury Belgian chocolatier founded in 1976 by Jean Galler (above) and the first chocolate company ever to be bestowed with the Belgian Royal Warrant.
Helen Heslop, Concession Manager, swiftly noted my interest in their Advent Calendar, explaining that the treats hidden behind each door were the Galler version of langues de chat, literally cat’s tongue, the classic French biscuit in a tongue shape. These langues de chat are not biscuits, however; they are confectionary shaped as cats poking out their tongues and they come in three types of chocolate – milk, dark or white. The advent calendar I was ogling, adorned in cute cat cartoons by bande dessinées illustrator, Philippe Geluck, contains milk chocolate langues de chat with a very special large praline-filled chocolate to be nibbled on the 24th.
Mouths watering, Rafaella Baruzzo of Galler UK joined Helen to talk about the history of chocolate making before teaching us how to fully appreciate the different flavour notes of chocolate through a blind tasting of their wares. Dark tablets chopped into squares were handed around as we were instructed to savour the aroma and take note of how the chocolate snapped or crunched as we bit into it, pressing the chocolate against the upper palate with our tongues so that it melted, the flavour dispersing through the mouth. To fully taste chocolate, we should use all five senses.
(Rafaella in action)
Each of the group had been given a list of what we should look out for when tasting each piece. How did the chocolate LOOK? Was it dark, matte, glossy? How did the chocolate SMELL? Did it crunch or snap when you bit into it? Was the texture smooth or crunchy? What were the flavours present?
The list of possible flavours reminded me of wine tastings where connoisseurs wax lyrical about apricot and honey notes. Our list was separated into groups featuring many different fruits and woodland tastes, from berries to pineapple and mushrooms to coffee. Then there was the group featuring cardboard and mud. I’m happy to say I didn’t have to refer to that one! It must be for the seriously gifted palates.
For each chocolate, we judged it from 1 to 10 according to different sense categories, plotting the results on a star chart, so that by the time we linked up the points, we’d created a web of our taste pattern. (These are currently being scanned for us so I may be able to post the image later, to help you understand what I’m trying to describe.) When we compared our webs at the end, it proved that every person’s taste is completely individual to them. One person’s sweet is another person’s sour. We were encouraged to always choose whichever chocolate variety is right for our palate.
Having moved our way through a number of tablets of chocolate (not too calorific; only one small piece each!) and having guessed the cacao content of each, we started nibbling on ganaches from the Elementaires range. Each circle of chocolate is emblazoned with a tiny triple stripe and boasts a deliciously melting centre. The first we tried (from the Marines selection) was flavoured with sel de guerande, a type of revered French sea salt, but only lightly so. We weren’t told what the flavour was until after we’d consumed the chocolate, so our tastebuds were going mad trying to guess the secret ingredient. The next in the Elementaires selection was floral. Was it rose? or hibiscus? The flavour was familiar and Chris from Splendid already knew what it was, encouraging me to try harder. When we were told, I kicked myself. It was violet. Of course! It had tasted of grandmothers’ dressing tables, in a very good, nostalgic way.
The last part of the tasting involved long pencils of ganache with little bottles of additional flavour into which you could dip them. Inspired by Japanese calligraphy, this range is called Kaori, from a Japanese word meaning ‘perfume, scent and fragrance’. The pencils came in 6 flavours (saffron, cardamom, yuzu, ginger, vanilla & coconut, strawberry & balsamic) and the dips were threefold (kalamansi, matcha green tea and poppy seeds, orange and cocoa nibs), so that the possible combinations of taste adds up to a staggering 54. I enjoyed saffron with kalamansi and green tea and the ginger with orange and cocoa nibs, but that was just scratching the surface of possibility. Meanwhile, the Food Hall had emptied and we enjoyed the rare experience of being in Harrods when it isn’t heaving with shoppers.
At the end of the evening, Galler gave each of us a little goodie bag with more Elementaires to try at home, and we trotted off in the rain to a nearby Knightsbridge pub to talk about chocolate, blogging, cooking and gaming, and many other seemingly unrelated subjects.
More importantly, if you like the sound of Galler, you can benefit from a 10% discount at their on-line store if you use this code: YQZ-JMW-N7Y. UK delivery takes 2-3 days with international to be confirmed on placement of order. If you want to benefit from this discount, then you have to order from this particular UK Galler site: http://www.gallerchocolates.co.uk/
For super-keen chocaholics I recommend you to visit the Galler UK Facebook page, where you can sign up for free samples, future events and competitions:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Galler-Chocolate-UK/34079031442
For my Belgian readers, here’s the original site.
For the US contingent, here’s your version.
**Also worth noting are Galler’s lactose-free and diabetic-friendly chocolate options.
