Day 91

I can't believe we're already in the second week of November. I love going to afternoon teas in the UK, and it has actually become a sort of tradition for us as a family in December to go for a Christmas afternoon tea in the week before Christmas. Every year, I look for and book a different place, and then we compare it to all the ones we've visited in the past. Apart from our dinner experiences, we would like to start doing a few festive afternoon teas too. We had our first trial afternoon tea a few days ago, and it seemed to go quite well. It's a kind of "afternoon tea" with a difference, a little different from the ones we usually go to. Instead of sandwiches, I opted for various small savoury bites, and instead of scones, I'd like to serve stollens with clotted cream and homemade jam. And the cakes and desserts will have both my German and Persian twist.  It will be lovely to see how it takes off.

The smell of dried fruits, nuts, rum, and vanilla is wafting through the air in our kitchen. Yes, I've started soaking all the ingredients for the Christmas Stollen. I will also make another trip to the flour mill in Redbourn soon to stock up on more flour for baking at Christmas time.

We had a full house again with both our boys and Rhiannon.

We were fortunate to have a sunny day, so we all spent time in the garden clearing the fallen autumn leaves that have started to drop, collecting them in one area in the garden.

The rest of the beautiful weekend was spent celebrating our son Rayan's 27th birthday.

I had asked him what his favourite food would be, and he said, "something from the Middle East." And when everything was ready, he said, "Oh, you asked what food I would prefer mum, it's Italian." 😂😂 And as requested by him, the cake had to be none other than a chocolate one, and that's what he had. It doesn't matter how old our children are; we love spoiling them.

1. Clearing Away Autumn Leaves

2. The Birthday Boy