missiecindz.com | Missie Cindz

Someone recently asked me what’s my favourite thing to eat. I find that to be a really hard question to answer.

Do I pick savoury? {a good Sunday roast with all the trimmings}. Do I pick sweet? {I’d say apple crumble and custard, Victoria Made cakes, rice pudding with a dollop of strawberry jam, but then there’s also ice cream too! ~ oh dear, that’s FOUR!}, or do I pick a type of cuisine? {Japanese and Chinese was my instinct but I do adore Italian food too – that’s three!)….

There are so many amazing foods for all different types foods, and then, there’s also bread. From brioche to Italian loaves to whole wheat rolls to naan, I love it all ~ I couldn’t possibly choose one type! Even baking bread seems magical!

Eating is one of life’s greatest joys, so to answer the question. Why limit yourself? ~ What would you say? What’s your one favourite food?

(It’s really hard to pick just one, right?)

{Photo sources (from top to bottom): Victoria Made cakes photos by Jess Petrie Photography / Photos by Cindy Cheung – Fish and Chips at Holmes on Bakers St, London / Nonnas Italian, Sheffield / sharing sushi at Sushi Express, Sheffield / own-made meaty pie from The Broadfield Ale House, Sheffield}

The excitement of morning post with an abundance of locally sourced foodie finds from Brooklyn, NYC

Salty Road & Twenty-Four Blackbirds, hand-made artisan taffy

Falling in love with Brooklyn's finest chocolates

Personally, food has always played a big part in my life. It’s simple – I love food and it makes me happy!

And one of the greatest things about food are the delicious friendships it manages create. I can’t speak on behalf of everyone, but I believe food tastes so much better when it’s shared. Eating is definitely about connecting; whether it’s with the ingredients used, new flavours encountered or with people you eat with. Food creates new friendships and memorable experiences. It’s a fact.

I met Meng (twitter: @MengHe) over two year ago on twitter. Meng lives over in Brooklyn in the US of A. We’ve never met but we have several things in common and the biggest one being, local food – through our foodie tweets and musings we’ve manged to grasp a better picture of what we’re both like, we’ve found out what makes us laugh and cry, and shared some of the sweet stuff that makes us go ‘awwwwwwe’.

The excitement of morning post
The other day I received a lovely box of unexpected delights from Meng. A taste of ‘real’ Brooklyn NYC in a box – what’s so real about it, you ask? Did it talk to me? Sadly, no. But it was deliciously looking and hand wrapped by Meng herself with food gifts from Meng’s home town. All using fine, locally produced ingredients and they tasted a hell of a lot better than any mass produced soggy food stuff. Plus, everything was packaged and looked amazing too. Bliss. I highly recommend you checking out these local finds and products next time you’re in the area.

I had just eaten a piece of Brooklyn – that made me feel just that little bit more special, too….

Thank you Meng….. – Missie Cindz x

1 ~ King’s County Beef Jerky – made using only pasture-raised, grass-fed beef from local farms in New Jersey and New York. Handmade in Brooklyn, USA.

2 ~ Salty Road & Twenty Four Blackbirds Salty Caramel Apple Salt Water Taffy. Fresh homemade, hand cut and wrapped taffy – made in Brooklyn.

3 ~ Nunu Chocolates Beer Box – chocolates handmade in Brooklyn from exquisite single-origin fair trade chocolate

THANK YOU to Grazia Magazine for featuring us in the '10 hot things to do in Sheffield' article.

A massive THANK YOU to Grazia magazine for featuring Sheffield in the ’10 hot things to do in Sheffield‘ article.

The women’s fashion and lifestyle magazine this week presented to us a special ‘Local regional’ issue for the North, which features into a whopping eight pages of the best places to eat and drink, shop, hang out, party, and everything in between in Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle. Grazia asked readers a few months ago to recommend their favourite aspects of their hometown or City, and I was really happy to see they had included Sheffield in their round-up.

Claire from The Jazzpad (twitter: @jazz_pad) is Grazia Local’s Sheffield ambassador and you can view her page on Grazia to find out her view on our city here. We can still continue to tell Grazia why Sheffield rules by sending them a tweet of our favourite pictures of the city using the hash tag: #GraziaSheffield to feature on tomorrow’s Grazia Daily.

Well, I was born and bred in Sheffield – it’s changed significantly in the past few years (we all still remember the big ‘ole in road’ and Tinsley Towers right?) but all these changes for the better and more colourful. There’s still a lot Sheffield needs to do to compete over the other ‘big boy’ cities but we are definitely beginning to get seen and heard and this week’s feature in Grazia proves this.

The regeneration throughout the city has made it more vibrant and attractive than ever. I’m very proud to be able to say that I come from Sheffield – my strong northern Yorkshire accent seals a stamp on that. So, here is a whirlwind of photographs to some of my favourite places to home… (previously instagram’d, blogged and tweeted)…

Missie Cindz Sheffield Food Adventures in photos

Great life and work discovery: the Sheffield Food scene
It’s crazy to look back at old pictures and realise how much food discovering I’ve covered since this blog began; sharing my breakfast, lunch and dinner food photos along the way has played an important part in discovering what I enjoy doing. I’m a real-life example of how blogging has been a passport to lots of amazing new things. Sharing my Sheffield food experiences with everyone, whether I knew them or not.

From my first visit to a Sheffield’s Farmer’s Market up in Nether Edge, where I discovered a connection with food and my local community. I was touched and wrapped up in the variety of artisan food on display, and soon realised Sheffield had so many talented producers, chefs, hard working farmers and restauranteurs! I thought others should know about these people too and to cut a long story short, that’s how this colourful blog came about.

Fast forward 18 months and I have taken over 3000 photos of my food discovering adventure – sharing these on our Missie Cindz’s Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, twitter and this blog.

Welcome the Sheffield Egg with a happy fork – try it today!

The Rude Shipyard cafe and bookshop, Abbeydale Road

Decent food items at a picnic helps to make the event a memorable one

PJ taste scoffing a tub of Our Cow Molly ice cream

Eating to a Size Sheffield!…

• The Sheffield Egg – by PJ taste. It’s a proper good egg made by using a combination of local skills, businesses and ingredients to make it a true Sheffield egg.
• The Rude Shipyard Cafe and book shop, Abbeydale Road
• Endcliffe Park Cafe in Endcliffe Park, near Hunters Bar roundabout
• The vibrant Sheffield Farmers Markets:
  – Bradfield Farmer’s Markets
  – Norton Farmer’s Market
  – The Sheffield Night Markets
• Our Cow Molly ice cream and milk
• Cocoa – Ecclesall Road
  Home to the BEST chocolates and truffles in all of Brit-kingdom. This vibrant sweet shop is a converted student house filled top to bottom with kitsch interior design and baking gifts and books…Move over Wonka, there’s a new chocolate factory in town!
• The Broadfield’s homemade pies
• Craving a Burger & Fries? – The Harley

Sheffield's Peace Gardens

Great for a sit-down and think: Sheffield’s Peace Gardens
The peace gardens are the perfect hang out place for students, families and business people – you’ll find it difficult to find a green spot to sit on as soon as the sun pops out! The massive central fountains and large grass patches make the perfect place for shoppers to relax after walking all day, with lots of restaurants and cafes nearby for refreshments and the Gardens are also right next to the winter gardens, Fargate and the Moor.

Missie Cindz Pud Inn at the Rutland Arms

Great for an afternoon treat: Missie Cindz Pud Inn Clubs
Come have desserts with me and a room filled with pudding entusiasts at our favourite Pud Inn – the Rutland Arms, Brown Street. Pud Inn is a quarterly event which I organise serving a wholesome sweet five courses of locally made puddings with a different theme each time. Heaven! – we know.

Our next Pud Inn fest will be on 22nd September with a Party-puddings theme – so make sure you’re not left without a spoon and hope you can join us.

The Green City. Sheffield is one of the greenest cities in Britain

Cheers Grazia! (I'll drink to that)

Cheers Grazia and @jazz_pad for this week’s double page Sheff’licious feature – and I’ll drink to that.

Yorkshire has had many reasons to celebrate over the past few weeks. The Sheffield edition came out on Tuesday, and you can pick up your copy for just £1 this week. Finally, thank you Sheffield and its lovely people for teaching me lots of new things and inspiring me to cook up meaningful design projects. Exciting! — Missie Cindz :)

{photos by Cindy Cheung}

A small selection of my snaps from the Huddersfield Food and Drink Festival

Great Saturday afternoon atmosphere – even the sun came out to play!

More 'snaps' from the Huddersfield Food Festival 2012

To those who missed out on the Food Festival, it was a scorcher!
Food festival season is definitely upon us. So, being a massive food fan and giving myself a day off away from the Mac. Last Saturday, I (along with many thousands) flocked to the Huddersfield Food and Drink Festival at St George’s Square to sample produce at more than 70 stalls ranging from speciality breads and cupcakes; exotic meats, vegetables, olives, preserves, chutneys, savoury and sweet pies; from farm shops to gastro pubs, local breweries to cheesemakers. There was A LOT of food choice!!

Food festivals are a great chance to sample bites from your favourite restaurants, food producers and also try new ones. The Huddersfield festival’s programme also featured master classes from award-winning chefs but whilst I was there (Saturday afternoon 2-6pm) I didn’t get the chance to catch any cooking demos. There were also many activities for the little ones too, including circus skills with Darkley Circus and a ‘how to make pizza dough’ workshop with Pizzatainment which I thought were all nice family-orientated touches.

Oh, and this is a huge pork pie shaped as Huddersfield's Castle Hill by Hinchliffe's Farm Shop. Mouth watering!

We know where it's at: Huddersfield's Food and Drink Festival

Meet Kitchen, producers of beautiful breads, pretty pastries and supa-dupa meringues.

Timothy Bilton at The Butchers Arms with his tasty team serving Yorkshire puds and braised beef.

This was my first visit to the Huddersfield’s Food Festival and they certainly filled me up with treats. I was welcomed and introduced to a feast of the the best regional and local producers, many of which I’d never heard so it was fantastic to sample their food offerings. A handful of stall names I saw and met included the likes of; handmade meat pies from Andrew Jones Pies, Tim Bilton ‏of the Butchers Arms serving a traditional Yorkshire pudding topped with braised Yorkshire beef (the queue was huge for their meals), Villa Farm Shop, Yummy Yorkshire Ice Cream – I cooled off with a two scoop of refreshing mint choccy chip and dandelion and burdock (as pictured above in the tub. Yummy) – I couldn’t decide between their new sundaes or ice cream and I should’ve had both! There was also The Chilli Jam Man, Kitchen – whose stall offered beautiful own-made breads – being a huge artisan bread lover it was hard to ignore their freshly baked fayre, with pretty (too-good-looking to eat) pastries and supa-dupa meringues (as pictured above); Round Green Farm Venison Company also caught my lips with their humongous burgers, and just as I was about to leave, I couldn’t leave without tasting Just Jenny’s Ice Cream – I first came across Just Jenny’s creamy stuff from Blacker Hall Farm Shop; Lovely, creamy mint choc chip and banana flavoured ice creams (as pictured above in the cone), and finally I ended my day washing down the day’s cuisine with some coffee from the Grumpy Mule (how cool is their name!? it certainly made me laugh).

There were just so many interesting food and drink stalls to try, and when I got home, I felt one trip just wasn’t enough. A great atmosphere all round, the visitors were really friendly (I didn’t know my way around when I parked up and a lovely lady led me to the Square!), and it was great to see we had the sunshine booked in too! :)

The Sheffield Food Festival 2012
Let’s hope our own Sheffield Food Festival next month gets hungry visitors taste buds tingling and empty bellies filled. When our city’s tastiest food festival returns with a weekend-long menu of food-filled events of eating, cooking and growing on Friday 14 – 16th September. The sharing of good local food encourages me to want to share good feelings so without saying too much, look out for your Missie Cindz lurking around some of these tasty food stalls. Whatever your taste, you’ll be sure to find a food and drink event and stall to whet your appetite!

For more information on the Huddersfield’s Food and Drink Festival visit:
www.htcpl.org.uk/foodanddrinkfestival
Twitter
Facebook

For more information on the Sheffield Food Festival visit:
www.sheffieldfoodfestival.org

Sweet treats at the opening night of Sheffield's Showcomotion!

It was the Showcomotion’s Young People’s Film Festival opening night this evening. The Festival takes place in Sheffield’s Showroom Cinema between Friday 25 May – Sunday 3 June with a terrific lineup of film screenings for young people, schools and families. A big thank you to The Showroom for inviting me to your event. It was great to meet new people and to put faces to all those tweets.

My eyes were caught on something...amazing looking Croque en Bouches.

Sweet treats for all…
During the launch we were provided an array of delicious home-made sweets, desserts and soft drinks. Anyone who had a sweet tooth would’ve thought it was their birthday party! Just look at the photos above of their amazingly well presented ‘Croque en Bouches’  (thanks PJ taste for the correct name) – a traditional french dessert. The name comes from the french words meaning ‘crunch in the mouth’ – usually served with profiteroles but the Showroom’s version was piled up high with meringues and beautifully hand decorated amoretti biscuits. I was in utter ‘Awwwwe’ and ‘WOW’ all at the same time! It was definitely a sweet start to my weekend…

The white chocolate fountains were also lovely touches. Fresh strawberries provided our 5 A Day and the tray loads of homemade meringues (loved the chewy centre), along with good old fashioned cinema popcorn, cubed fruit jellies and amoretti biscuits all provided nice textures and crunch which complemented well with the melted chocolate. Their head-chef, Simon Ayres is certainly one talented chef! – I’m going to be eyeing up more of his savoury and sweet offerings from now on.

Showcomotion 2012 featuring the COOLEST cat around! Showing at the Showroom Cinema, Sheffield

The Young People’s Film Festival 2012
I was told that the ethos of the festival is to give young people the opportunity to see films they would not otherwise get to see, to inspire a new generation of filmmakers, but above all to create a fun and friendly festival. I find it all great what these guys do – educating young people and teasing their creativity subliminally through film and animation! I remember, when I was a kid I watched so much TV and cartoons after school (it was probably the only time when I sat still). Cartoon and animated films are definitely one of the main influences that encouraged me me to delve into a career of design and illustration. It’s a fact.

When I used to work for a design agency located in The Workstation (next door to the Showroom Cinema), there would always be a lot of vibrant and colour oozing from the film festival, capturing the attention of young children and releasing the Kiddiness in the adult (after all, do we really want to grow up!? :). The film festival brings in hundreds of children to the Showroom watching a truly unique array of films. I picked up one of their film programme guides and I can see films from documentaries ranging from about lion cubs, cheetah and lion (African Cats); to Kevin Clash, the creator of Sesame Street’s Elmo, documenting and providing behind the scenes footage in the film Being Elmo. Plus, there are also film classics such as Oliver Twist and a showing of the long awaited return of Top Cat and Dr Suess’ The Lorax!

Best of all, film tickets for under 18’s are £2! And only £3 for adults…so, who’s joining me for Top Cats!?

You can find out more details of this year’s film programme here or on their festival website www.showcomotion.org.uk. Plus if you’re a Twitterholic like me, you could follow @showcomotion for all the latest tweetful film offerings. Enjoy!

The Showroom Cinema
15 Paternoster Row
Sheffield
South Yorkshire
S1 2BX

What else are you guys up to this weekend? Wishing you a fun, long restful weekend! — Cindy/Missie Cindz

{Photos by Cindy Cheung}

Getting in the mood for a Sheffield Picnic

Decent food items at a picnic helps to make the event a memorable one

Picnic food – homemade quiche. Finger foods are the most comfortable to eat and serve.

I’ve always loved the thought of having and organising my own picnic. A small gathering amongst friends and family under the hazy sunshine. Having a picnic during the summer can be entertaining and a great social get together. A fantastic way to meet new people, eat some delicious food and play fun outdoor games. It would also be a great way for me to apologise to friends I’ve let down on dinner dates due to work commitments over the past month (sorry guys!) and to meet supportive followers and new foodies who have shown appreciation for what I do.

It doesn’t take more than a picnic basket, a few good food items, help from our city’s talented food producers, bakers and bakers; family members and friends to organise our very own tasty picnic! And we need to realise that it acts as a glue for community bonding.

I’ve never organised a picnic (so I’d probably need your help – hope that’s OK?) but surely they can’t be that difficult to organise?… These days I’m finding the most difficult thing is knowing when the sun will pop out to play. Now, I could go all out and prepare non-alcoholic fruity punch, bellini’s and cocktails. To me, the food plays a really important role to a successful picnic – the idea of tray loads of homemade finger sandwiches on Cat Lane Bakery granary, fruit scones served with Missie Cindz plum jam, PJ Taste Sheffield Eggs excites my taste buds. To enjoy for afters – Victoria Made’s light and wonderful fruity cupcakes, chocolatey Hash Brownies and light sorbets or Very Delicious Cheesecakes could all be sweet possibilities and finally, everything washed down with fresh pink lemonade or Sheffield’s Tea Box iced teas. Delicious.

So, what else would you like to see on our picnic food menu?

But in order to truly appreciate a good Sheffield picnic we need to find the perfect venue for our afternoon. This could be in a park (Endcliffe Park, Chelsea Park in Nether Edge or Hillsborough Park are all possibilities?), or near a reservoir, lake or creek or maybe we could venture out into the Peak District or Derbyshire? but it preferably needs to already have some people there just so a comfortable atmosphere bubbles in our surrounding area.

Missie Cindz Picnic Checklist
Here are just a few of the essential things we will need to make our picnic a success:

• homemade food and drink
• hampers or cool boxes
• plates, glasses and cutlery
• napkins
• wet-wipes for sticky mouths and fingers
• sun-screen and sun hats
• toys (e.g. bat and ball sets, hula hoops, football etc)
• chairs for people to sit in. They don’t have to be anything fancy just simple lawn or garden chairs
• blankets to lie out on the ground so that everyone will have a place to sit. Then we will be able to sit back and enjoy our picnic. Mats and cushions are also good (less awkward to carry than collapsible chairs)
• camera (strike a pose!)
• waterproofs (in case the weather decides not to co-operate – could be a good possibility!)
• bin bags for our rubbish
• music
• mobile phone (make sure we have all your guests’ numbers so that we can find each other and tweet about our delicious day for those who couldn’t join us)

Let’s make sure to have a good time and enjoy ourselves. After all, isn’t that what summer picnics are all about? I will have a think of a suitable date, time and location for our picnic in the next coming weeks. I’m looking forward to a game of rounders in the park (as long as I can be the bowler! :)

{Photos by Cindy Cheung and Meng He}