Neal's Yard Party

My friend Sarah has recently started working for Neal's Yard. Yesterday she came over to Manchester and we hosted a Neal's Yard party at my flat. She told us loads of interesting things about the history and ethos of the company. Lots of their stuff is vegan friendly and Sarah brought along a list so I could check stuff. Because they are a herbalists they use a much higher concentrate of aromatherapy oils than a lot of brands so the products are therapeutic as well as just smelling nice!

We got to test out lots of lovely organic products and some of us had relaxing facials too!

The newest members of our girl gang are Robyn and Flo at 8 months and 6 months respectively. They came and joined in too and tried some of the baby products.

Of course the afternoon wouldn't have been complete without a spot of afternoon tea! Our sandwiches were cream cheese, cress and chive, mushroom pate and salad and humus with red pepper and red onion. Dessert was chocolate stout and cranberry bread, cherry and almond cookies and coffee and walnut cake.

It was a really fun afternoon and I'm going to host another one later in the year for my vegan friends. There's people who do Neal's Yard parties all over but if you're based in the Manchester/ West Yorkshire area and fancy hosting one with Sarah you can contact me to get her details by clicking on the word 'email' in my profile. As the host you get a facial + freebies and discounts. I worked out I spend £27 but got £90 of products!

Comments

  1. Elise The Vegan12 July 2011 at 22:56

    Did you get to try the SPF moisturiser? I've been trying really hard to find a vegan one here in the UK that I'm not allergic to and have thus far been unsuccessful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tea and Sympatico14 July 2011 at 09:47

    I think so, there was so much to try I can't remember the names of everything! Have you managed to try it? Sometimes companies will send you free samples of products to try if you have allergies. I get a bit of eczema and Dead Sea Magik send me samples of their range to try out before buying.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cola de Mono

Image
Colo de Mono (Tail of the Monkey) is a Chilean concoction traditionally drunk ice cold at Christmastime. Obviously their winters are a lot warmer than ours so in the UK it's more suited to this time of year. The Chileans use aguadiente an overproof cane spirit. I use Cachaca 51 which I have in for Mojitos and Caipirinhas. Traditionally made with cows milk, here is my vegan version. Colo De Mono Makes 1 pint Serves 4 2 cups of vanilla soy milk 1/3 cup of caster sugar 1/3 teaspoon of cinammon 3 teaspoons of instant coffee 1/2 cup of spirit* Bring the milk, sugar and cinnamon to a low boil in a pan stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Turn off the heat and stir in the coffee. Leave to cool. Once cool add the spirit and chill in the fridge. It will keep for 2 weeks. Serve over ice or straight up but make it cold. * Spirit - I use Cachaca but have heard that people use tequila too.
Read more

Interview With Lisa Goddard of Lily and Dilly

Image
If you've eaten vegan cake in Manchester City Centre in the last few years then chances are you'll have eaten cake baked by Lisa Goddard of bakery Lily and Dilly . We caught up with Lisa to find out what set her on the vegan baking path! So, Lily and Dilly? What made you set up as an independent bakery and where does the name come from? Having worked as a stop frame animator for 12 years, I was getting rather fed up with short term contracts, so the last time I was made redundant, I decided not to chase work round the country, and if that meant a career change, then so be it. A friend of mine had just set up The Cocoa Emporium as an independent Chocolatier, so I gave her a hand whilst navigating through the benefits system, mostly to get me out of bed on a morning! Doing baking for her farmers market was fun, as it was one of my main hobbies, so when she asked if I fancied getting a little shop  with her, it seemed a nice chance to start something new. We got the shop...
Read more

Growing your own, bargains and a breakfast recipe

Image
I've started sprouting again! In my old flat I used to do sprouting all the time. The flat was in an old 1930's building and had radiators run from a central boiler room and it was always nice and warm. The constant warm temp made sprouting pretty fail safe. Now I'm in a Derbyshire stone house where it's not as warm the results haven't been as great and I gave up trying  but with this very hot summer we are having I thought I would give it another go and I'm glad I have done. As I already have the seeds it kind of feels like free food too! I'm using these sprouts  from A Vogel. This week I've grown alfalfa but pictured is my first attempt from the week before which was a mix of radish, lentil and rocket which grew into lovely peppery tasting sprouts that we used to garnish our bowl meals for the week. These took 4 days to grow and I nearly gave up on day 2 because I could see mold. Luckily I googled and found out that it wasn't mold at all but r...
Read more