Since last November when I found out I was pregnant, food blogging has been a bit of a challenge. I’ve got some classic pregnancy symptoms – in short, everything tastes “funny” and I go from craving things for about twenty-four hours to never wanting to see them again. Red meat and fish are off the menu, instead it’s as much fibre as possible. Thrilling. I’m occasionally making up for it with ice-cream, because I might as well bow to a few stereotypes.

While I may not be cooking as much, I am reading. Conran Octopus sent me a copy of Christine Manfield’s Tasting India which is utterly sumptuous. The recipes are nestled amongst National Geographic-worthy photographs from Anson Smart. These combined with the travellers’ tips at the back create a more fervent desire than ever to visit India. My odd tastes make me want to drink vats of her Ginger Lime Soda and for when I’m back to eating normally again, I’ve bookmarked about a dozen recipes. It’s a beautiful gift book, cook book and travel guide rolled into one.

Lucky me got to go to lovely Leluu’s Vietnamese Cookery Class just after Christmas. Although it wasn’t on the menu that day, one of my main staples now is her Hot and Sour soup. It’s perfectly balanced like all her recipes and it makes prawns palatable for me at the moment – so thankful for it!

Some of you may have twigged that there’s something afoot this May. I’m very happy to say that I’ll be cooking with the lovely Meemalee and Food Urchin for the shindig hereby known as Stir Wars taking place at Tsuru on the 5th of May.  Given that I’ll probably be lumbering about by then, I’ve asked the lovely Arianna Halshaw from Bittersweet Bakers to help me. We’ve been having hysterically good fun coming up with recipe ideas and I’m looking forward to making them, even though I won’t be there on the night to serve them – sob! You can buy tickets here and I recommend doing so early…