What Sophie Said

The beginning of a new month means it’s time for a new challenge, and this one revolves around food. When it comes to lunches, I’m really fussy. I don’t like a huge variety of sandwich fillings, or a lot of typical dressings like mayonnaise. This makes my typical lunches – I take a packed lunch to work each day - very uninspiring and repetitive. I want to try and break out of this trap, and cut down on the amount of bread I’m taking as lunches, in favour of other alternatives. Realistically, you can’t change everything overnight, so this month’s challenge is: Try out two new lunch options per week. This could be leftovers of different meals, salads, wraps… I’m currently on the hunt for inspiration! If I can do more than this, great, but the aim is at least 8 new ideas. As always, I’ll be taking pictures and filling you in at the end of the month. Do you have any tips? What are your favourite lunches? 

About a month ago now, Andy and I headed off to De Vere Mottram Hall Hotel for a night, on our five year anniversary. We stayed close to home, as it meant we could stay somewhere lovely without adding on lots of travel costs! The hotel is set out on its own, so we thought we’d have lunch in nearby Prestbury before going to check in. Although it’s near home, it’s a relatively small village, so not somewhere I’ve ever thought of popping to explore. I texted my friend Emily for food recommendations, as she used to live in Prestbury, and we jumped on the train just before lunch. We first went to the Legh Arms pub, right in the centre of the village. It’s a beautiful old building, and had a real ‘local’ feel to it. They offer a quite extensive menu at reasonable prices, and although there was some confusion at first as to whether it was table or bar service (it was half and half) we settled in to a nice tall table tucked in by a wall. Knowing we would be ha...

In December, for our work Christmas meal, I had my first trip to Olivers , a restaurant in Woodford. They were offering a festive menu, but as I ate from the normal menu I thought it was more than worth sharing even though we’re now well into January. Olivers is tucked away, just off a fairly main road, and is quite a small place. When we were there, there were multiple Christmas parties in, which meant the place was very full and very noisy. We had a drink at the bar whilst our table was laid. I opted for J2O, as I don’t drink alcohol, and the others had wines and gin and tonics. The bar doesn’t exactly lend itself to standing for a drink, as it means you’re completely blocking the entrance, but we weren’t there for too long. We had a corner table, next to a window, and it was subtly decorated for the season. Jenny decided to jazz it up a little with her homemade decorations, which she has had in the office and was taking home for Christmas… The se...

After a pretty boring lunch of ham sandwiches today, I remembered a few snaps I took at a recent Pizza Express lunch. The setting was Darlington, the occasion was UNIVERSITY IS COMPLETE, and I needed a simple, relaxing lunch with Andy (the boyfriend). Pizza Express is one of those restaurants you can always rely on: everyone has their favourite dish, and the restaurants and relaxed and friendly. I lived in Darlington for 2 years before recently returning to Manchester, and visited the Darlington Pizza Express a fair few times, with various friends and family members. Twitter has been busy recently with news of the summer and gluten-free Pizza Express menus, so we were tempted back for a relaxed and yummy lunchtime. The Darlington Pizza Express is right in the centre of town, and is a big space with high ceilings. It never seems too crowded, and the service is usually friendly and fast. On this particular day, it did take 10 minutes of standing being ignored at the d...