12th February 2024

I love spices (as I am sure you all know by now), especially cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla and star anise.  I also love books about spices, my favourites being The Spice Routes, The Nutmeg Trail and, with Eleanor Ford’s latest release, A Whisper of Cardamon. I have a wonderful spice cupboard and use it most days so any wonderful book embracing that is a firm favourite with me.

I saw on insta a few weeks ago that Fortnum & Mason were hosting an event with Eleanor Ford called Love Potions and so, of course I had to go, she is my absolute favourite cookery book author.

The evening was absolutely wonderful, the Fortnum cook space is truly lovely, we started with a whisper of cardamom gin and sparkling wine cocktail which had a gorgeous cardamom note to it.  I usually don’t like gin but truly this was wonderful, it had a perfumed edge and just the right amount of cardamom.  Then Eleanor talked a little about spices, especially spices as an aphrodisiac and we ate Venetian chicken with aphrodisiac greens and then chilli chocolate brownie.  Eleanor also encouraged us to dust cinnamon over the top of the brownie to see how it changed it and honestly, it was amazing how it changed it and how delicious it was.

Then we all got to mix our love spice which was a huge amount of fun before Adam talked us through the Whisper of Cardamom gin made specially for the event and talked to us about distilling spices.  It was so interesting and then we got to mix our own love potion.

This was such a special event and Eleanor signed my book making it even more special.

What a lovely evening.