Salad Day

My friend Helen at Dixon Hill inspires me with her glowing health and her cupboard full of weird and wonderful  ingredients. When I went for lunch once she rustled up the most beautifully zingy lentil salad, apparently one that everyone wants to know how to make. So Helen being the creative that she is put together a salad workshop and invited a group of people to her beautiful home to learn how it's done.

Helen has eaten a predominantly raw diet for many years and is a wealth of knowledge about eating this way. She showed us how to make five salads, all beautiful to look and bursting with nutrition.

Let me see if I can remember what went in them. This green salad had lettuce and rocket as a base with goji berries, currants, fresh basil, mint and parsley, hemp seeds, sea salad (a mix of dried sea weeds) and a macadamia nut oil dressing. Not forgetting the marigold on the top of course..

Helen would normally pick edible flowers from her garden in season but for the purpose of the workshop she bought us some to play with. What a pretty thing. I didn't know you could eat pansies.

This was rocket, apple, fennel, sunflower seeds and an incredible olive oil and cider vinegar dressing with a drop of orange essential oil in. Amazing. She finished it off with roasted sweet potato chunks.

Raw cauliflower is the base of this one. She calls it cauliflower couscous because that's what it looks like. It was so fresh.

I can't say I liked the thought if the 'sea spaghetti' much but it was surprisingly good. It looked a bit like tagliatelle. Helen mixed it up with potatoes, spring onions, rocket and sun dried tomatoes, a dressing I can't remember and some borage flowers.

Time to dig in.

It was possibly the healthiest meal I've eaten, ever and it was so, so tasty.

Helen sent us home with a goody bag too (lime green of course to match her kitchen) with some ingredients to experiment with and some seeds to plant. It was an absolutely gorgeous and inspiring afternoon.

Thanks Helen x

My wallpaper is taking a trip to Paris

In all the excitement of going to New York I forgot to mention that my wallpaper and lamps are also taking a trip to Paris this week.

The lovely Suzi Garlick who works at HN headquarters is going to represent me at a UKTI curated showcase of Yorkshire products in the very grand British Ambassador's residence in Paris. Suzi speaks fluent French and she is very excited to be going on a little business trip to Paris in the springtime.

She has her new camera with her so we can look forward to  seeing some photos and hearing all about it when she returns.

That'll be London, Paris and New York then this year.

Where next?

Parcevall Hall

Today, an afternoon off and a trip to Parcevall Hall in Wharfedale (Sarah was doing some photographic experiments but you'll hear all about those in her blog very soon so I won't spoil it).

As usual I focused in on the tiny details like these awesome Fritillaries and Snowflakes so I can't share photos of the overall wondrousness of the beautifully kept gardens, the crystal clear freshwater lake, the immense views from the top of the garden or even the stunning hall itself....

but they were all really lovely and the perfect place to see spring springing up all over the place!

Sarah's friend Nick lives there and does a tremendous job of looking after the gardens and woodlands. After an explore we went back to his cosy cottage for a cup of tea.

It's a real gem of a place and I look forward to going again.

ICFF

I'm going to New York in only three weeks time. I'm a little bit excited. Last week my palette with my entire stand - lamps, plinths, wallpaper, toolbox and everything went off on a truck to make it's big journey across the sea. Today I am doing some planning and learning. Although I have sent many, many individual lamps to the U.S I have not done very much international wholesaling at all so I have a lot to learn.

What I'd really like is to find a distributor for my wallpaper. That would be so good. I would love to find some stockists for my lamps too but as they are made to order and it's usually craft galleries and small boutiques that like to sell them I am hoping that I can find a way to make the carriage costs reasonable.

It's all a bit of an unknown and I have three weeks to learn some stuff and polish up my brave girl boots before I take to the skies. If anyone knows anything that might be of help your advice would be most welcome.

The show is open to trade for the first three days and open to the public on the 20th. It would be amazing to meet some of my online American friends. I know it's a big place but if anyone should find themselves in New York City it would be an absolute pleasure to meet you!