Tea and Sympatico

As I'm sure you know from previous posts I do like a competition and I entered several Veganuary ones. It was Matt who was the winner this time though. He won these ace cookbooks - Defensive Eating With Morrissey and Comfort Eating With Nick Cave in a twitter punning competition where you had to combine food with lyrics from their songs. I thought my Barbecueim Begins At Home entry was pretty good but he pipped me with Girlfriend in a Korma. They've only just arrived so we haven't made anything form them yet but I shall have to report back. I've blogged before about Glossop business The Pie Parlour . It goes from strength to strength and Diane who owns and runs it did herself proud with her Veganuary offerings. We managed to sample quite a range this month! As well as being vegan the following were all gluten free too. First up is a raw cheesecake. This had delightful fresh strawberry flavours and was nice and rich in that way that raw cheesecakes are. O

The small town of Glossop where I live is pretty good for vegan eats and drinks. There's some great places for coffee that offer plant milks like  Twig and Panaderia . Ayubowan and Pico Lounge have clearly marked vegan items on their menus. The Pie Parlour  bakery specialises in vegan and gluten free pies, breads + cakes and of course there is The Globe pub where famously all the food is vegan. Just before Christmas a branch of Pizza Express opened in a converted mill building and their PR people invited Matt and I along to sample some vegan menu items. We were joined on the night by Jane who writes reviews for the Vegetarian Society and her partner Simon who were sampling vegetarian items on the menu. I'm afraid our food pictures are on the dark side due to the low lighting! Matt and Simon both went for pizzas. Matt opted for the Pianta which is a cheeseless pizza with a spicy tomato sauce, spinach, mushrooms, pine nuts and artichokes. As you can see there was a dece