Yellow and blue comfort bake

I've just realised - well, not just now, M has been telling me for years, put I've just not put it into words/writing until now - that whenever I want to put things off for a while, or feel a bit low, or have a lot on my mind that need to be sorted out and dealt with, one of these days, not right now though...

Well, then I tend to either bake some old goodie-cake or try out some new recipes for cakes and pastries. Never cooking, just baking. And when they're fresh from the oven I always shoot a picture or two or more, just to make sure there's some photographic proof I actually made that cake, bake, bun, fun thing to keep thoughts from getting too close to the truth. Whatever that truth might be. Or perhaps it's just a figment of my imagination. Whatever.

I might sample a piece or two of the thing fresh from the oven, but mostly I just give it away or put it in the freezer for days when the longing for something sweet for teatime is overwhelming. Which happens now and then.

And when I sample I just have to have that matched with the perfect tea, and as you all know the perfect tea, if you want just the teaish tea-taste and no flavoured stuff, is without hesitation Yorkshire Gold.

M has a colleague in England who always is kind enough to bring me these XL-sized packages of the stuff that make my tea-addicted heart to beat a little faster. he hasn't been here for a while though, my stash of the it-tea was quickly running out. And well, let me tell you, I wasn't exactly pleased with the fact that M for some mysterious reason found suitable to help HIMSELF to the LAST teabag of the tea-Gold the other day...

My when one is ready to pull ones Yorkshire Gold-addicted-hair off, then there's actually help to be found. At The English Shop they sell all those must-have English food stuff, mainly for expatriates I'd guess, but also for us, the others, the ones who really can't live without a certain brand of tea, a certain kind of jam, a certain kind of biscuits etc etc.

The prices aren't really comparable with what you'd pay for it at the superstore in the UK, but hey, do I want my hair to be still attached to my head or or not...?

So, yesterday I had the opportunity to stock up on the Golden tea, as well as finding som new one I hadn't tried before, raspberry flavoured - will get back to you on the consumer analysis on that one.

So opening up a brand new package of the golden stuff, that really deserves a brand new cake bake I think. So right now, waiting in the oven is a very Swedish indeed-cake - blue and yellow, like the colours of the Swedish flag, poppyseed and lemon cake. The recipe I got from The Garden Café at Rosendal Cookbook - a lovely book, mainly for its pictures and the sentiment I think. Perhaps not always the recipes themselves... Or perhaps, very perhaps, it might have something to do with the baker P, the cook P, not being a good baker, cook enough. Sometimes.

By the way, I found a fun little piece in The Washington Post, on three places to eat when in Stockholm. I don't necessarily agree with the journalist's oipinion about the places, but still, it's always fun to read what a visitor to Sweden chose to eat and appreciate.

And just so you know, this is the time of lilacs in bloom in Sweden. This should also be the time of lilacs in bloom in my garden. It isn't. I dressed the lilac hedge just the way it should be dressed right after blooming last year. It should bloom this year just because of that. It doesn't and it won't. And I'm not really happy about that.

It has grown very dense, very green, very leafy. No lilacs to be seen though. The air should be filled with that sweet, lovable scent of lilacs in bloom. But in my garden it isn't. Alas, I just have to enjoy the colourful teatime without any lilacs in my arbour.