As we depart Leeds I have been thinking about our food experiences here. I don’t think Yorkshire is particularly known for its cuisine, with the exception of its pudding and some great Indian restaurants. When we first moved to Leeds we had some terrible food experiences, so we feared we were in for a year of pain, but we found a few very good restaurants. We became regulars of Hansa, a Gujrati vegetarian restaurant—we must have eaten here at least six times over the year. The food is delicious and the staff are friendly. As foodies do, we managed to sniff out a few others including Diva Italiana, a stylish and tasty Italian restaurant, which sells wine by the carafe, and Sukhothai in Chapel Allerton, which has a great tofu hot pot (amongst others).

What Leeds lacks in restaurants it makes up in fresh food, with fabulous farmers markets almost every weekend. We became regulars at the Leeds farmers market and we volunteered at the Oakwood Farmers Market. It was exciting to watch food change over the seasons and to try new things. We also had a weekly organic box delivered by Love Organic, a friendly and efficient organic store in Chapel Allerton. This also helped us get into seasonal cooking.

Our time in Leeds has definitely made us more adventurous with our cooking and has helped to fine-tune some of our basic skills. For instance, for lack of a decent pizza place, I have learned how to make a pretty tasty pizza. As you can see in the photo, though, I am still working on the shape of the crust! I have to give credit to Alton Brown for his reliable crust recipe; although we were never patient enough to let it stand for 18-24 hours, it still worked very well. All this home cooking would be a little lonesome without a good bottle of wine and lucky for us Roundhay has the biggest Oddbins I have ever seen. I recommend a Peter Lehman Shiraz with the pizza (actually with any dish… or by itself!)

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