This is my 300th post, wahoo, that’s tons of writing, and for this post I am going to tell you about a friend of mine. Its been a year all about whats going on with me and my little family moving and I really miss my lovely friends I made in Pembrokeshire so here’s a blog about one friend called Anja.

A few days ago when we arrived home from our holiday, we were greeted by the post man why I suspected he was delivering something very special and I was right.

In 2005 I was working in Wales and this is where I met Anja. Shortly after meeting we got to know each other pretty well when we both went on a photo shoot for howies who we were then working for. From the shoot I have lots of great memories and two distinct memories that stand out.

1. Sitting chatting to Anja like we’d known each other forever on the beach whilst the photographers and models all did their thing

2. Cooking on a small camping stove for everyone back at camp

Actually I’ve just thought of another, driving through the fog on the side of a mountain in the middle of Wales looking for a small town, with a small pub with the company founder inside but that’s another story.

We have several things we like in common, cooking, good food, wine champagne or cocktails, camping, adventures, travelling, art, shopping, especially food and cooking I think, and we spent quite a few evenings cooking together, eating, drinking wine and having a good old chat. Anyway times change, Anja gets married, has two children and starts writing a book and I get married, get a dog and move over to the other side of the world. We keep in contact over email and letters and share things like blogs or other interesting things we like along the way.

Anyway, back to the postman, the parcel he had for me was Anjas’ book, finished, printed, bound and posted to me from Sunny Wales. I was very excited, a book is a big thing to share, such a lot of hard work and love gets wrapped up inside. Its called ‘free food for rats’ by Anja forrest dunk, an intriguing title and inside there is a specific recipe by this name where she tells the story of where the recipe came from.

‘Anja was born to a German Mother and a Welsh father and while she considers Wales her ‘home’, she has spent chunks of her life living in different countries. In all countries food has played a central part – from street-vendor pancakes in Indonesia, to noodles in China, from chorizo and bean stew cooked on an open fire in Spain to her Grandmother’s dumplings in Germany. This collection of recipes gives an insight into the life of a family where food has been at the heart of everything they do.’ From the Inside cover of ‘free food for rats’ by Anja Forrest Dunk.

I especially like…..

 

The love really shines through this book, I love reading the stories along the way. I shall treasure and cook from it for years to come.

Anja now has a blog too which is fantastic as we can follow her and her cooking as she cooks and here there’s a link to a Welsh shop which is currently selling her book on line, here’s the link to the page to save you hunting around.

Now I’m off to make a cup of tea with a slice of banana bread and make a shopping list for this weekends cooking.

Have a great weekend everyone xxx