That might even be an understatement.

Of course that’s not to say there’s been nothing good. I had an amazing birthday surprise. And I also went on vacation with my friend Sara, as I mentioned in my last post before I disappeared from the interweb for two months. I even put the pictures on Flickr. (You can look at them here.) It WAS actually quite a good holiday, it just got swept under a rug by the utter shit that followed.

Obviously, even in bad times, good stuff happens here and there, even if you can’t enjoy it as much. But it seems this year the universe decided I’d been happy and lucky for quite long enough and just started chucking stuff at me left and right. And it continues to do so. So the reason I disappeared from the internet was because I had to start cleaning up the mess.

I always believe that life is more important than the internet and whatever’s going on there, so I have no personal problem with disappearing. It’s just that everyone else is so used to seeing facebook statuses and the like that when one drops off the face of the digital planet, it seems one is expected to eventually explain it. Well, people, I’m back. And I’m not happy, but this mess isn’t one that’s going to be cleaned up quickly, so I may as well tell you about these brownies in the meantime.

I’m not a big coffee drinker, but I like a latte once in a while. And Saturday, I felt I needed a treat, because for the first time in a while I felt as though I could stomach one. So I went in search of coffee and cake. I decided to go to Wellington Coffee on George Street, because I knew their coffee was good, so I hoped their baked goods would follow.

They had a good looking carrot cake on the counter, but I took a chance and went with a brownie. Brownies are risky things to eat anywhere other than from your (or some other kind soul’s) own oven. Brownies you buy are so rarely any good, and yet you still buy them occasionally, because you can’t be bothered to make your own all the time, and you just want a brownie. And they’re always cut so big, which makes me feel like they’re trying to make up for the fact that the thing isn’t going to be all that great.

Despite all this, I paid my £1.95 for a rather large brownie and my £2 for a latte I at least knew would be good. Then I went to sit at one of the outside tables because the tiny interior was packed. (I managed to sit outside during the only 15 minutes of the day that it wasn’t raining sideways, so I guess I should count that at a victory. These days, I’ll take what I can get.) The coffee was nice as usual, and the brownie, well, I was pleasantly surprised.

People, if you’re in Edinburgh, and you feel the need for a brownie that you don’t need to make yourself, go get one at Wellington Coffee. I think it was the closest I’ve ever had to the kind of good only homemade can be. And it’s big enough that you could share it and still be satisfied. But I didn’t even resent the fact I paid nearly £2 for it. It was worth it. There wasn’t any extra crap like chocolate chunks or nuts in it. I was just nice and fudgy. (But not like raw fudgy, which I don’t think is that great when it comes to brownies. I have to believe it’s seen an oven.) The only thing I’d change about it would be to use a darker chocolate or cocoa to make it, but that’s fairly minor. I now know where I can buy a brownie I can love. And that may be another victory, however small.

And then I thought, quite rightly, ‘you know what would go well with that? KUMARA FRIES!’ But as I am not in New Zealand, sweet potato fries would have to suffice. So I stopped at Tattie Shaws and grabbed some sweet potatoes and sweet chilli dipping sauce ( I can’t make everything myself), then went home and got on with the fry-makin’.

Raison D'Etre and sweet potato fries. I'm pretty sure this is what they're talking about when they say 'just like heaven'.

People, it was the best idea I’ve ever had on a Friday afternoon. And I think I’ll be doing it more often (mind you, with different beer, because I don’t think I’ll be lucky enough to have my Dogfish Head all the time, but no matter). And because Scott decided to go to the pub after work, I will shamelessly admit that I ended up polishing off the whole lot of these fries myself. Something he was none too pleased about. But faced with the other half of a bowl of piping hot, homemade sweet potato fries, I think you’d do the same. Don’t ever make more of these things than you should reasonably be eating, because you will not ‘have leftovers’.

If you do want to make some of your own sweet potato fries, don’t think it’s difficult. You basically slice up a sweet potato into fry-type shapes, toss in some olive oil (and I like to add a ton of black pepper), and bake ‘em in one layer on a cookie sheet at full whack in the oven for about 10 minutes on each side. Adjust to your particular taste for slightly burnt (read: carmelised) outsides, and dip in your preferred stuff before consuming. I use sweet chilli sauce and greek yoghurt (in place of sour cream), because that’s how we had our kumara fries in New Zealand, and it kind of gives you two different taste options.

Saturday, the food goodness continued with a trip to the farmers’ market for lunch. We got some buffalo burgers from Puddledub and scarfed them down standing up. The only way to do it.

When we were back home, I made some bread in the bread machine we acquired from Scott’s parents when they moved to Canada. It’s a great thing to have, but it’s so big that we have to store it in the closet, so I don’t use it as much as I’d like to. However, I had the other half of a bag of malthouse flour, and I had big plans for this bread.

Sunday morning, I woke up and made some EPIC french toast with my homemade bread. Big, fat slices of the stuff topped with proper Canadian maple syrup and the tastiest bacon around (again, from Puddledub). Fresh coffee for Scott (from Italy even!), a cup of tea for me, and orange juice (unfortunately, not fresh from one of those crazy fresh squeezed OJ machines with all the moving bits, but we can’t have everything, can we). I love french toast, half because it’s so good, and half because I’m hopeless at pancakes, but french toast I can DO. I think next time, I need to explore making it with some kind of crazy bread. Maybe with fruit in it. Who knows. But the homemade bread was definitely the right thing to do.

I don’t really have a recipe for french toast. I just watched my dad do it and absorbed. It’s a bunch of eggs, some milk, a little sugar, and, for me at least, more cinnamon than anyone should have the business putting in anything. Dip bread, fry in butter, keep warm in oven, douse with more maple syrup than your mother would say was good for you. And preferably serve with bacon. I’ve also made baked french toast before. With Grand Marnier in it. It’s not quite as good as the basic stuff, but I think I’ll have to try it again sometime soon anyway. Perhaps at a breakfast-for-dinner party.

For lunch, we were at the Foodies Festival in Holyrood Park because we had free tickets. It was sort of lame. And by sort of lame, I mean not nearly enough free samples going on, especially as people who actually had to pay dropped £10 on admission. We did get some good sausages and I replenished my supply of citrus pepper and some other awesome blends from the Organic Blending Company, but that’s about it. We left to go to the pub for a beer so we wouldn’t haemorrhage any more cash.

I used the garlic pepper I bought on some lamb neck fillets for dinner and made potato salad with cumin and lemon, based on a recent recipe on Everybody Likes Sandwiches. We had no greens, so I cut up some apples to go with it all. Simple, tasty end to the kind of food weekend I wish I had more often.

*Cornelius is so good, it got me to join twitter. (Me! Twitter! Unheard of!) Solely to receive beer updates via text. It was so worth it.

Rosemary Raisin Pecan Raincoast Crisps

Scott’s parents are moving to Canada in about two months, so his mom went over to get started at her new job for two weeks at the beginning of the year. She brought all sorts of presents back, including a tin of Raincoast Crisps. And holy mother of snackyfood, they are REALLY good.

I’m a big fan of healthy snacks. Mostly because I’m pretty much constantly eating so I can appreciate a snack food that’s guilt free on some level. Happily, there are no chemicals in the ingredient list. They don’t even LOOK bad for you. In fact, they look like someone made some homemade brown wholegrain-type bread with loads of seeds and nuts running through, sliced it superthin, and baked it til it was crispy. They don’t even look mass-produced!

My tin had the original crisps, which are just nutty and grainy, and the rosemary raisin pecan crisps, which are like the original ones plus rosemary, raisin, and pecan. The latter were so good that I’m already scheming a muffin recipe based on them. In fact, I’m thinking I might try the rosemary raisin combo in other places as well. With meat, perhaps lamb?

I’ll also be testing the recipe for artichoke tapinade that came inside the tin. Too bad I won’t have any of the crisps left to spread it on. (They were gone in about 3 days. Would have been gone faster if I didn’t keep reminding myself that I couldn’t get anymore.)

Sadly, it looks like there’s pretty much no way to get these crisps outside of Canada. That means two things: I know what I’m asking Scott’s parents for for Christmas, and I have another thing to add to the list of reasons to go to Canada.