Pinterest launches in the UK

I've been using Pinterest for ages, so I was a bit surprised to hear that it's only just launching officially in the UK. Being part of an international community with no borders is one of the nicest things about blogging, but it does lead to strange moments when you realise you've joined a fairly US-centric community - though I've never actually felt that location is a central feature of Pinterest. Anyway, here it is: the official UK launch. I was delighted to be invited to introduce the concept to any of my British readers who might have missed it; this post is mostly for the benefit of anyone who hasn't tried it out for themselves yet.

Pinterest allows you to "pin" images from across the web, collecting beautiful pictures onto "boards" which you can organise according to your personal preferences. You can also follow other users, making it easier to follow their pins and re-pin anything that appeals to you. You can also browse the general stream by category, or search on any terms you're interested in - which makes for a fun pictorial recipe collection.

Yes, for me, it's mostly about the food. Now and then I pin dreamy travel images or useful tips, but mostly I use Pinterest for recipes. There's a huge foodie community, including loads of food bloggers, so there's always plenty of great stuff to discover. I keep one board for savoury dishes:



And another for collecting a virtual sugar-rush:



I also have a separate board just for cake decorating ideas, allowing me to split off the recipes I might be interested in making, from pictures I just want to use for visual inspiration.

If you're already on Pinterest, follow me @rachelcotterill and I'll be sure to follow back. If you've yet to join, why not sign up here and join in the fun?

This post is part of the Pin It Forward UK launch campaign. The next link in the chain is another travelling cook, Jonathan Brown, who blogs at Around Britain with a Paunch and pins as @browners on Pinterest.

Bangkok Thai Garden, Ottawa

It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the Bangkok Thai Garden was just across the road from our hotel, and advertised a special-price lunch menu. So when our first choice of lunch venue turned out to be closed for renovations, on the day we arrived, we ended up here instead. And we enjoyed the food so much that we came back a couple of times during our stay in Ottawa.

The three-course lunch offer started with a "hot and sour" vegetable soup. Despite the 'hot' epithet this was far from spicy by Thai standards, but the vegetables were fresh and I enjoyed the light broth. The soup was followed (or accompanied, depending on the speed of our server) by crispy spring rolls with sweet chilli dipping sauce, another of life's simple pleasures.

For the main courses, there was a choice of several dishes, and the option to pick your own level of heat. My favourite was the deep-fried tofu & eggplant curry, with sugarsnap peas, bamboo shoots, and carrots (pictured above). I tried this as both "mild" (a bit spicy) and "medium" (quite hot) on different days - both good, just depending on my mood. Andy, on the other hand, was a fan of the sweet & sour vegetables.

Taken together, the three courses were very filling, and the hot food was a good contrast to the icy weather outside.

Weird Fashion in Montreal

One of the strangest and most fascinating exhibits at Montreal's excellent eco-museum was a very unusual fashion show. Several artists had been given a brief to construct dresses using a variety of waste products. From ammo casings to electrical wiring, the creations ranged from genuinely beautiful to simply provocative. The least practical of them all was made from fish skins... and had to be refrigerated.