Saturday 23 June 2012

Flaming June???

Hmmmm - June's been a bit of a damp squid so far; let's hope that today was the start of summer proper. Worrying that midsummer's day is only 3 days away though.....! However, trade at Peppercorn has been better than ever so there's a lot to be thankful for.
The ice cream machine is on nearly every day now- and we have added apricot and cardamom; and raspberry, vanilla and white chocolate (very rich and very, very yummy!) to the pudding menu. We also tried a new middle eastern dish called Turkish rose pudding; it's basically a smooth rice pudding flavoured with rose petals and cream and topped with fresh raspberries.
The selection of salads is also going down a storm, we now offer a very colourful Greek salad (whilst the sun is shining) and sesame crusted halloumi slices topped with roasted vine tomatoes and home made pesto on a chilli couscous base. They really do look spectacular displayed in our huge white bowls.
The amount of fresh veg that John Skewes is delivering to us daily has now reached impressive proportions. Every day we arrive to a display of butternut squash, boxes of shiny purple aubergines, scarlet fragrant vine tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, huge red chillies and the usual carrots, lettuce and red onion for our house salads.
So - since writing the last couple of paragraphs we have made dark chocolate and cardamom ice cream which is extremely rich and fragrant and has a mousse-like texture.When I finally learn how to work this b..... blog I shall add a few photos of the dishes mentioned here, because they really are spectacular; but in the meantime please enjoy the over-sized  (why? WHY?) pictures of our cafe open sign and some figs ready to be baked