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It’s hard to believe we’re nearly at the end of another year. As always in this household, there’s been a lot of eating over the year, from eating in to eating out, eating in the UK and eating overseas, eating alone and eating with friends. In fact, eating with lots of friends. So, here’s my year in eating:

January

Not a clue what we did in January. No photos of food. The calendar says we had dinner at the Red Lion, which is always a treat.

February

February

Photography by Mini Gourmet Girl, taken at Jamie’s Italian in Bath. Brilliant night out, great restaurant concept, great food, pretty stunning mojitos. Staggered back to our home for the night, the Queensberry, which I would highly recommend.

March

March

March brought the arrival of the breadmaker, and a whole lot of flour of all kinds. Dr T is busy supporting Whissendine Mill, I keep The Flour Bin going, ordering in all kinds of wheat and gluten free flours. I think we have to give the bread making honours to Dr T, yet to to turn out a decent gluten free one.

April

April

Easter brings a whole heap of chocolate, and also my first attempt at Simnel cake. I adore marzipan and so this is my idea of a heavenly cake. I’ll be doing it all over again in 2010. With perhaps more marzipan.

May

May

May saw me in one of my favourite cities in the whole world: NYC. Making news in the UK around the same time was the Babycakes bakery, so I headed down to the Lower East Side to see if they could make gluten and wheat free cakes good. You know what, not bad at all! Although later in the year I would discover that I preferred all the recipes in Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache to anything from Babycakes.

June

June

June was eventful. I took the plunge and decided to commit myself to writing The Foodie Gift Hunter, whilst letting Problem Presents look after itself. Right decision. I also helped cater for 150 for a surprise birthday party. I know slates have come in for a bit of slagging off recently, but I loved how these starters looked. They were a bit of a joke really, as the birthday girl’s husband is a builder, the slates really are roof tiles costing about 75p each, and probably are now on a roof.

July

July

As usual, July saw us decamping to France, to the Charente Maritime. So many great food moments, but I think my birthday lunch at Bistrot du Marin was the high point from a taste perspective. The mussel barbecue was the most unusual.

August

August

We were raiding some new to us local foodstuffs in the school holidays. Staffordshire oatcakes were interesting, especially when pimped up with black pudding and apples. Stichelton became a regular item in the fridge.

September

September

The end of the school holidays saw me convert MGG from her usual request for Chinese on our trip to London to some great Turkish delights at Safra. She just requested to go back next week. I’ve put my neck out to say I think Turkish food will be on the up in the year ahead, and it’s definitely got 1 vote from MGG.

October

October

With Halloween falling on a Saturday, MGG and I spent a fun afternoon creating trick or treat goodies from scratch. Kids seemed genuinly surprised and happy when they got dragon eye cookies, zombie eyeballs and crunchie bones in a paper cone.

November

November

Ah, November, month of memorable eating in Blackpool! To be honest, would rather remember making Osso Buco for the first time, although there weren’t so many laughs!

December

December

For some, December is all about Christmas. For me, I can’t worry about Christmas until I’ve created MGG’s birthday cake. This year involved less terrible language than usual, possibly due to reading the instructions in advance and buying the right kit.

So, here’s hoping that 2010 is just as interesting from a food perspective, with new recipes, new places and new experiences.

There are a few aromas that you cannot beat when you open your front door, and baking bread has to be one of them. Beloved trick of estate agents I know, but just such an amazing smell. So, as it’s National Baking Week, maybe bread is a great gift to give.

For bread lovers everywhere

If you don’t have one already, I cannot recommend the Panasonic SD255 Breadmaker highly enough. I would say it goes on at least once a day, it makes every loaf of bread we need plus dough for pizza. It is so simple to use, and there is such a huge variety of things you can produce from it in the bread and dough department. It even works for producing gluten free breads, although I imagine if you are very sensitive to gluten you’ll have to have one of your own.

There’s a reasonable recipe book comes with it, but I would recommend two others. My first choice is Fresh Bread in the Morning from Your Bread Machine, which pretty much does what it says on the tin. Useful, compact and so far I’ve always had pretty delicious results from the recipes I’ve tried. My other favourite is Dough by Richard Bertinet. You definitely don’t need a bread maker for this one, and it does always make me rue my gluten intolerance. This is a perfect book for beginners or for enthusiasts, and the photography is beautiful.

Of course, the ideal would be to go to Richard’s bread school in Bath. The Bertinet Kitchen offers a range of courses, everything from beginners and kids sessions, through to more specialist stuff like slow doughs and sourdoughs as well as non bread courses as well such as Mediterranean Festive Entertaining. A day’s course starts from £135, with demonstrations starting at £15. Sounds like a perfect way to brush up your baking skills. For those of you a bit further North, then check out the courses at the School of Artisan Food in Nottinghamshire. If you’re really serious about your breadmaking, then they have a 5 day Artisan Breadmaking Fundamentals course, which should give you an awful lot of experience in a short space of time.

For a bread-themed gift, then have a look at the vintage Hovis tins that Pedlars have. I am not sure if they’re not too beautiful to use in the oven, but then that is what they were made for. They do look lovely as planters though! And then you’ll be needing a good selection of flour, for which I would highly recommend The Flourbin, who have more flours than I thought there were in the world!

So, may your dough always rise, when you want it to, and may your daily bread be a good one! Can there be any better foodie gift?