Went – Ate – Loved: January 2017

Went
January 2017 quite literally started with a bang. Or in fact successions of bangs as I enjoyed a spectacular panoramic view of the New Year fireworks from our hotel in Sydney.

Wow, doesn’t even come close to the incredible panoramic view we had. Mr D met each other in Sydney, and later got engaged on the steps of the Sydney Opera House (the location of our first date) and it was really fantastic to spend time back in Sydney.

The journey back to London from Australia to London was a bit of slog and we’ve concluded that a 14.5 hour flight (as ours was from Singapore back to London) is too long for all of us, not just the twins. In all we had a fantastic trip to Australia, despite the flight home; it was worth all the effort and jet lag to enjoy some sunshine and catch up with friends and family in Australia.

On the last weekend in January we went to Gothenburg, Sweden, a city which has been on my travel wish list for a long time. I really enjoy visiting Sweden and this trip did not disappoint. I’ll post separately on this in the next few weeks.

Ate
Meal of the month award has to go to my birthday dinner at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. This was my first time – knowingly – eating Michelin 3 star food. (Knowingly because we once ate at the El Bulli hotel restaurant outpost in Seville without knowing what it was. Ahem).

The food at Gordon Ramsay was, as you’d imagine just incredible. The different flavours and the pure skill involved in the cooking were sensational. Take this egg presented as a canapé. Still intrigued at how the top of this hen’s egg was sliced off so cleanly without breaking the egg shell.

But it wasn’t just the food which blew me away, the service was amazing. As a diner with dietary restrictions, nothing makes me happier than every single person who came to our table re confirming which items I can’t eat (gluten & nuts), explaining why and how my canapés were different to Mr D’s, important as these weren’t items I’d selected from the menu.

Special mention to the waiter who told me he’d be disappointed if I didn’t take more of the gluten free bread to mop up my meat juices. I loved this – who says 3 Michelin star restos have to be stuffy?! And the sommelier who we’d instructed to bring us wines of his choice by the glass to match our dishes. I really enjoy doing this when eating out in good restaurants as it’s a great way to balance food and wine but also we’ve been introduced to lots of different grape varieties in this way. “Any wines you don’t like?” He’d asked. We like trying new wine suggestions, but I asked for no German wines please. So you’ve guessed it…..he brought me a German wine. This wine was, of course, perfect.

I won’t be writing a review for my meal there (I was too busy enjoying my meal to take notes and subtle lighting in the restaurant equals rubbish iPhone photos), but I will add it to my gluten free guide to London.

Also this month I was invited to judge in the 2017 Free From Food Awards. This year I was judging in the Innovation and Veggie Ready Meals categories. This is a real highlight of the year for me; it’s fascinating to see the development of the UK’s Free From (not just gluten free) food sector.

In Australia I loved these gluten free and nut free Anzac biscuits.

I’m still a bit miffed that Mr D scoffed the last packet before I had a chance to bring them home. Not least since they would’ve lifted the boredom of endless gluten free meals of boiled fish on our flights to and from Australia.

Loved
On the long flight back from Australia I concluded that I’d like to give this blog some regular love by posting more regularly in 2017. So far this month I’ve managed to post weekly, on Fridays. However, I work on 5 days of the week and have two small children so time is always short for things I enjoy doing for myself so we’ll see. I plan to write a monthly round up at the end of the month (starting with this one!) and if that’s all I manage at points in the year, that would be just fine.

I’d like to say that I loved having the gluten free afternoon tea with Kelly and Rachel this month but unfortunately I didn’t make it. I have never met either Kelly or Rachel before but I thoroughly enjoy reading both of their blogs. If you haven’t checked out Kelly’s blog posts on visiting all the English counties you should for great photography, as well as gluten free recommendations. Rachel is due to move to Sydney in a few months, a city where she had also got engaged. I’m looking forward to reading her blog posts as she makes the move.

However, the night before our afternoon tea, I was eating gluten free pizza (hmmm) and a mishap occurred with one of my molar teeth. Cue a trip to the emergency dentist to have it seen to instead talking about travel plans over some delicious gluten free cakes. Initially I was told I’d need a crown fitted but now my sentence has been commuted to wisdom teeth removal – which for me means a hospital job. So looking forward to that! My dentist – who’s Italian – assures me it was the wisdom teeth which caused it, not the pizza! So this is definitely a not loved of the month but hopefully we’ll get to meet another time.

I managed to keep up with my blog feed this month and I loved reading these blog posts in particular:

• Gluten Free Las Vegas: I’ve been to Vegas a couple of times and although it’s the absolute antithesis of how I’d describe my perfect holiday, I really love it there. I very much enjoyed this post by Gluten Free Philly on the dining options in Las Vegas.
• 5 gluten free and vegan restaurants in Porto: Bookmarking this for future reference as it doesn’t seem as though gluten free options in Porto are plentiful
• What to do on long airport layovers: I don’t agree at all with the advice given in this post for London layovers but the rest of the article is interesting and there are heaps of airports listed.
• 5 ways to beat the heat in Brisbane: The post I wish I’d read before we went to Brisbane and wilted in the heat!

And finally, some of the moments I love most about having kids are the most unintentionally funny. Earlier this week I had to manage a 3 year old in an utter meltdown first thing on Monday morning before I left for work, and just as we were rushing to get them ready for nursery. Why the tantrum? Because we didn’t have any avocado. And this meant that Mini D1 wasn’t going to have her current breakfast of choice, smashed avo on crackers. The absolute absurdity of me having to placate an inconsolable child who couldn’t have smashed avo for breakfast by promising to go out on my lunch hour to find her some avocado has kept me chuckling for days.