Shopping, cooking and books

Saturday was a beautiful autumn day with sunshine and blue skies but also a very cold wind! We had a choice of markets today as there was a Farmers' Market at Montacute House - always a good one and also one in town. We went to Montacute - this is the entrance to the old stable yard where the market is held beats the supermarket eh?!

I didn't take photos of all the stalls it was too crowded but amongst the usual veggies, jams and chutneys, bread etc there was one lady selling teas and one of these teas was called Monkey picked tea! I kid you not. When I asked if it was true she said that the monks in this particular part of the tea growing world used to use monkeys to pick the delicate leaves since their little hands were less likely to damage the leaves. Seems they just can't get the monkeys nowadays though and this tea is picked in the normal way apart from one branch picked by a monkey for good luck!

Another lady was selling chocolate which she said contained enough antioxidants in one small portion to provide 100% of your RDA and equivalent to 8 lbs of tomatoes! It would apparently strenghten the immune system, maintain heart function, improve the memory, nourish the skin and keep you feeling young and fit - why ever didn't I buy some I wonder! See for yourself here! I love being able to chat with the stall owners and just see what you can find out. It's amazing what you learn at a Farmers Market or as the French would say I go to bed less stupid tonight!!

Not sure what these ladies were doing but it looked as if they were preparing some vegetable soup - didn't stay long enough to find out. We did however buy a cauliflower, some broccoli and a bunch of carrots plus some local grown (must be greenhouse or polytynnel surely) strawberries and a loaf of crusty bread.

Easy supper tonight then - cauliflower cheese - I always think it looks a bit insipid just using cauliflower - all white with pale sauce - so I always make mine with some broccoli and carrots for added colour - forgive the photo it looks horrible but really it was delicious!

Served with a slice or two of the fresh crusty bread.

And fresh strawberres for pud Yum!

My weekend reading is from these two books I got from the library.

The landscape one has lots of lovely ideas for textiles including these lovely landscape postcards I'd love to have a go at.


And this interpretation of a photo of a cliff and beach - lovely isn't it?


I wanted the Free and Easy stitch Style one for its tips on free machine embroidery - something I want to master but so far without much success. These daisies are an exercise in controling the stitching...

... and this lady is supposed to be a self portrait again to master the stitching. Not sure if anything I might produce would be entirely recogniseable though! Might make me look better than I do of course!!

Hope you are having a great weekend and thank you for all your kind comments on my previous posts.