From Sri Lanka With Spice (and Seven Stitches)

It’s Jeanne here this week. As you may have read from last weeks newsletter, Dad is away this week having fun with his chooff chooff buddies (model railway enthusiasts) in Cookham. So you have me this week and also next week! He’s decided to take two weeks off! This.. is unheard of and what he plans to do on his second week, I have no idea.

Maybe find ways to lock me in the cellar, so that I never leave the country again or specifically ever go back to Sri Lanka!

You may have read that I recently came back home from Sri Lanka with a big head injury, but I was lucky that it happened on my last night, so it didn’t affect my time there at all. How it happened, I will tell you next week. I am doing much better, but I did give myself a pretty impressive concussion, so I do have moments where I don’t feel 'with it', so I won’t make this email long and let some photos do the talking.

Speaking of Sri Lanka, it was beautiful. There were plenty of moments when I saw the 'not so beautiful' sides but overall, the country looks and feels stunning, a large part of its attractiveness was the scenery, but it was also because of the people. Everyone I met was so friendly, smiley, and extremely welcoming and so happy to see tourists. I could see how proud they were to show us their country and their way of life.

To Food
The food is just phenomenal. I had a lot of curry, generally without or very little meat, and it didn’t need it. They really know how to combine their spices and ingredients to make extremely flavourful and fresh dishes. There is a particular side dish/relish called Coconut Sambol. It’s made of freshly grated coconut, chillies, shallots, cherry tomatoes, and lime. It’s fairly spicy but my god there was something about it that I loved and would just pile it on my plate whilst everyone else in my group were adding a small amount to theirs.

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Here are some of the curries I had. In the first photo was veg curry, aubergine relish, coconut sambol, beetroot something and lastly a spiced dahl. The second photo was my favourite curry dish that I had in my time there.  There were poppadoms, green bean curry, okra curry, dried/fried fish, aubergine curry, mango curry, tabbouleh, coconut sambol and chopped cherry tomatoes and shallots. This, we were shown how to eat with our hands. It was an interesting experience, and I persevered until the end but when I went for seconds, I opted for a spoon. The third curry had dahl, aubergine relish, prawn curry and green bean curry.

Also, since Sri Lanka is a small island, they have a lot of seafood and with the abundance of fish they have, they dry salt the produce to preserve it. Sri Lanka is very well known for their tea, and we went to a tea plantation in Kandy and it was really interesting to see the production process. I don't remember all the information they gave us, as the tour was done a bit too quickly, but despite this, due to the fragrant Ceylon tea we tried (without milk), I am now a converted tea drinker.

A couple of days later we went to a spice garden and I definitely was very excited about this. Fascinating to see and smell the origins of many of the spices we usually only see on the shelves of the supermarket.  I wonder if you can guess what spice is in the 3rd photo? Did you guess nutmeg? Yes, it is just that! The red layer is something called mace. I knew that nutmeg was enclosed in mace but never knew what both looked like before it dried.  We learnt the health benefits of some spices and tried a specific black tea with a mix of spices and vanilla.  We even got to experience a neck rub with a custom blend of beneficial spices geared to whatever our expert masseuse felt was needed. 

I also had the chance to pick tea leaves and my camera and Black & Blum bottle bag were constantly glued to me. I definitely recommend this product for holidays. It holds your water bottle and there is a pocket for your mobile phone! Very clever. I had a 500ml Chilly’s bottle and there was still room for me to put my fan and a thin purse inside.  You can adjust the length of the strap and it has a waterproof lining so if the bottle did leak for some reason, then you can wipe or dry the inside very easily.

The last photos below are part of a scenic train journey we took from Kandy to Ella. I was told to pose, so I did, but I got distracted too easily wanting to take photos of the beauty that Sri Lanka had to offer.

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It must be in the genes as my English uncle is great amateur photographer and his love for photography came from his dad. It seemed to skip my dad, but he does appreciate a good camera, so not all is lost.

To Product 

Right, onto cookware or I will get told by Paul (our commercial thinking chap) that we are a cookshop and I can’t just talk about my travels to exotic and dangerous (only for me) places. ​ ​So, we've come up with a list of products that I'll be using in my attempts to replicate some of the fantastic curries I had on my trip, and thrown in some of my favourite travelling accessories too. Just click on one of the large buttons or use click here

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I trust you have a pleasant and peaceful weekend.
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Ta,