Advent Calendar 2016

3rd December

Today's window reveals a rather androgynous looking fellow, wearing  an elf's jacket carrying a basket full of rather gender specific Christmas gifts.

We're Back!

Yes we are back on this first day of December 2016 with an advent calendar and a recipe from the Tartist. 

This year we have bought ourselves a traditional advent calendar, not being big fans of the dodgy branded chocolate ones.

1st December 

Today's window reveals a couple of young bell ringers, presumably ringing in the season. Nothing says christmas more than a couple of roister-doisters ringing bells, sporting hats at jaunty angles. Except perhaps the birth of the messiah.

Now I'm no Delia Smith but...

I do know a thing or two about food.
Yesterday when I was having my haircut Nicky kept stopping the blow drying process to ask me what she could take to a friends for dinner party pudding. She wanted something she could make on Friday and take on Saturday night, straight after work with no hassle.
So we came up with Baileys Cheesecake and I promised to send her a recipe this morning. It's 5 am and I can't sleep so Nicky here it is:-


• You need about a 10" spring sided deep tin. I'm not sure what these are properly called but they are deep and have a hinge that opens to loosen the sides.
• Crush 8 oz digestive biscuits (or ginger, any biscuit really but I think chocolate might be a bit yuk with the butter ) Melt 3 oz butter and stir in the crushed biscuit. Use this to make a flat layer in the bottom of the tin. Stick this in the fridge until firm. 
• For the filling you need 400g cream cheese, 6 tablespoons of icing sugar, 2 cartons of double cream 
(I think they are about 300ml each) and about three tablespoons of Baileys. Stir the icing sugar into the cream cheese, pour in the cream and whisk until it thickens. It wants to be fairly thick so that it will set with the alcohol in it. Stir the Baileys in gently. Plop onto the biscuit base, smooth the top cover and pop back in the fridge.
• To make it look Christmassy you could make a stencil, with something like a margarine lid, and use edible glitter to write something or to do a Christmas Tree and holly.

Selfie ~ Daily Sketch 02/01/2014

Daily Sketch 11/03/2013 James

A Winter Trip To Orford

The tartist and I have just returned from yet another rather splendid few days away in Orford, a favourite nearby spot up in Suffolk. It's strange really as it is relatively close to home and very similar in it's landscape etc. but to us it seems quite far from our every day hustle & bustle. We stayed at the Crown & Castle which overlooks the old castle in Orford built by Henry 2nd in 1170'ish (the castle, not the hotel!). It is a great place for a few days unwinding with tastefully designed rooms plus an excellent 'unfussy' restaurant with a lovely menu on which there is always locally landed fish which suits us both really well.



Orford Castle through the bathroom window of our room.


Reed Beds at Snape

The bitterly cold weather, snow & ice was a feature of this particular visit and on a couple of days out I tentatively drove us on the icy road a few miles through Tunstall forest to Snape.
At Snape the old maltings have been converted into a concert hall and visitor centre with an art gallery, cafés and shops but one of the real beauties of Snape for me is the vast area of reed beds that surround the maltings. Despite the cold I went out walking with my camera (it really was too bitter for sketching this time) under very leaden skies between blizzards, meeting up later with the tartist for hot chocolate & cake. I'm pleased to say I have returned with some very interesting reference material of the snowy, muddy, windswept reeds.

On our way home we once again stopped off in Woodbridge and spent rather more than we ought to have on books in Browsers bookshop & café, where the coffee is pretty decent and the cakes are all homemade from recipes taken from books available for sale in the shop (a simple and brilliant marketing rouse on their part). As I've mentioned before in a previous post this part of Suffolk is really well worth a trip out even if it's just for the day. I can guarantee we'll be returning soon.

Theartistandtartist...Evil Geniuses!

Another first for us, Maggie discovered this very complimentary review today whilst googling something else online. It is from an online PDF magazine called 'All The Rage', the article is rather out of date, unfortunately, but it refers to us as 'Evil Geniuses' (love it!) and, we came away with a commendable 8/10 and a couple of buffed up egos.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

We have a very old fashioned Christmas in our house. The traditions of the family, whether from my parents, the artist's, or ones we have made up ourselves are written in stone and cannot be ignored.

1. No Christmas sweets to be opened before Christmas Eve.
2. Plenty of Crackers, that's vital (that's my one).
3. No washing machine action allowed on Christmas Day (me again).
4. Gifts are not as important as spending time together.
5. Christmas stockings are important however old you are.
6. Television to be restricted to a minimum.
7. We must make our own sausage rolls, mince pies and cheese straws but if short of time bought Christmas puddings and cakes are allowed.
8. We must have nuts even if we throw them away in February.
9. We must have fruit and try to eat it.

There are many more but you get the gist.

My mum always used to wash the kitchen floor last thing Christmas eve. I have decided that is a stupid idea, well I had last night. This morning I washed the floor at 6.30am, MAD!

And just one more thing. I'm really fed up that Father Christmas is the new Baby Jesus and presents are paramount. I may not go to church but I have a lovely relationship with god.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

One More Sleep!

The artist and tartist wishing you all a Merry Christmas!



We've always been big Muppets fans in the artistandtartist family and this happens to be one of our favourites.

Something I really enjoy each Christmas Eve amongst all the other excitements is the food 'prep' which for us includes boiling and honey-roasting a gammon joint. I also had to pop out to pick some bay leaves for bread sauce and Delia's recipe seems as good as most, to accompany our turkey tomorrow. Proper homemade bread sauce is not only completely wonderful compared to any 'packet' versions available but is also really pleasurable to make whilst sipping at a 'sharpener' (usually gin and tonic or whiskey mac in our case) whilst the bird roasts in the oven. It may well be 2009 before I get to post again...so in the meantime Happy Christmas!

We've been 'Friday Interviewed'

This morning the tartist and I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Juliet for her regular Friday interview and what a pleasure it was to be drinking coffee, talking food and art and also to meet Jonathan who has taken some excellent pictures for the piece.

The Tartist 'In The Wars'

Two Loaves


Fruit Soaking


More Loaves and a Couple of Victoria Sponges


My missus aka. the tartist has really been in the wars this past week. She cut the index finger of her left hand and then a few days later tripped over a sack of potatoes in the course of duty. Today with bandaged finger and strapped wrist she turned out eight (count 'em), eight loaves of orange fruit teabread. Sometimes I wonder what it would take to stop her baking each day, when the lure of packet/bought in product can be very tempting indeed. It really seems to both of us at the moment that the more adverse the circumstances become, the more important it is to us that we provide something genuinely handmade from 'proper' ingredients.

A Nice Lady From The BBC

A very nice lady from the BBC dropped by the Artcafé the other day and the result of her interview is here...

Our first post

Having deliberated for some time whether to blog or not to blog we (James the 'artist' and Maggie the 'tartist') have decided to blog, to share our thoughts, opinions, musings, rants etc. with the wider world just incase someone out there somewhere may be interested in what we recon about food and drink, art and design and almost anything else that may prevoke us to make a post on here.