Introducing a Fabulous Cake Maker and Raw Food Wonder Woman

I recently met the lovely Nicola who makes the most delicious and healthy cakes under the name of Miss P's and divine raw chocolates as Kali Star. All wonderful. Cardiff based. Nicola is expanding her soon to be empire of delicious food. Currently looking for premesis, that need to be fairly central, holding raw chocolate workshops with her good friend Emma Jones, and working at raw food retreats, Phew, a busy lady. Nicola is interested in superfoods, and raw foods. Her blog has some wonderful, nutricious and delicious recipres, and is a jolly good read too. As soon as she has found suitable premesis, she will take orders for ready made meals, bake wonderful cakes, also she's also interested in taking orders for a food co-op. So many ideas. These are indeed exciting times for Nicola.

I sampled her lemon and poppy seed cake. Nicola makes cakes with ingredients that are naturally much better for you than with refined ingredients, that go into most cakes. So they're gluten free, sugar free, and vegan. Nicola used a sugar subsitiute for sweetening (can't remember what it's called), but it works well. The cake was a good size, so plenty to share around. It went down well with friends, and was very tasty indeed.
to find out more about Nicola's plans and latest endevours check out her blog or email her at lovelivelearndreamgrow@hotmail.com

Totnes - a nice town to visit.

I have just come back from a short mid week break in Devon and Cornwall. Because we left it late to book b&b's we had to juggle a bit, so the route went - Totnes - Looe - Totnes, a lot of travelling.


The reason for going to Looe was to visit the Monkey Sanctuary, which I had heard a bit about and wanted to visit. the staff at the Monkey Sanctuary are friendly, and they have a lovely cafe serving vegetarian and vegan food. We had a wonderful carrot cake and coffee, perfect for the start of our visit. The monkeys are all rescued from appalling situations, so it helps to keep this in mind, as they are confined to enclosures with wire runs, and it may on first sight seem a bit concerning, seeing them confined. One of the workers gave a talk about the Sanctuary and it's rescues. It was interesting to learn more about the history of the place, and it's future plans. The layout of the Sanctuary is well thought out, and they do as much rehabilitation of the monkeys as is possible. There are lovely sprawling gardens to relax in, and a pond which is a haven for wildlife. the Monkey sanctuary do admirable rescue work, and the woolly back monkeys are so very cute.
Back at Totnes we stayed at a wonderful  B&B called Dart Villas. It was a lovely, clean, fresh place, with an amazing view from the master bedroom. The bed was very comfortable. I recommend the fresh fruit salad and porridge of the day breakfast, delicious - I've never had banana and ginger porridge before, and it was very tasty.

Totnes is a quaint town, with quite an eclectic mix of shops and people.

We found a fabulous vegetarian cafe selling tasty vegan food, called Willow Cafe:

We had Vegan paella, which was interesting and tasty, and I must look up a recipe for it! this was served with a lovely mix of vegan salads. A very tasty, wholesome lunch! there was also a nice selection of vegan cakes. So nice to go somewhere where we can get vegan food easily.




Another funky veggie cafe was Fat Lemons. They had a basic menu, which was fine for a quick bite or a light lunch.






There was a fab wholefood store, which was a decent size and carried a good range of products, situated in the 'square'. later that day we bought a vegan 'ice cream', made of coconut and rice milk among other things, and sat in the square watching the world go by.

Later we found a beach, just up the road from Blackpool Beach, which was less popular, and paddled our toes in the cold, cold water, then sat on the pebbled beach, enjoying the sea air, and peacefulness.




Altogether a wonderful break, very relaxing and interesting.