A Warm Welcome After the Rice Spring 2015 Preview in Malmo, Sweden

Colourful, welcoming, bright, bold and a little bit crazy - not a list of adjectives you associate with Scandinavian crime drama. However Malmo, where we have been invited to preview Rice's Spring 2015 stock, is just over The Bridge from Copenhagen airport. Yes - the bridge from The Bridge. Øresund Bridge. For two Brits abroad it's an interesting start to the day, to be driven across the hugely long span between Denmark and Sweden, the low coast lines of both countries barely seeming to break out of the water amidst forests of eerily silent wind turbines. We islanders are not used to such international mornings - at least on the ferry to France there's time for a nice cup of tea.

Kristina's home near Malmo is full of
welcoming spaces for socialising

Luckily for us, the lingua franca between the Danes and the Swedes is English so we don't have to get too far outside of our comfort zone. Over dinner later that evening one Swedish blogger asks me if I'm Danish. I tell her that no, I'm English - did I look Danish? and she says maybe and that she just thought I had only been speaking in English for her sake - "we can't understand the Danes, they sound like they are speaking with porridge in their mouth". The Swedes generally seem to consider the Danes to be extremely laid back - a way of being which they think extends to their lazy way of talking - so many written sounds are dropped or half pronounced that, although the two languages are closely related, they cannot understand the way the Danes speak. Certainly the time we have spent in Denmark recently shows them to be a very informal. hospitable and friendly nation.

But if this Danish laid back and homely style is supposed to be in contrast to the Swedes, then the
particular Swedes we met have definitely caught a dose of the Danish. After the preview day we were lucky enough to be invited back to Kristina's beautiful home in the Swedish countryside together with about 12 other Swedish bloggers and buyers. Kristina works for Rice in the south of Sweden but definitely lives her work - her house is stylish, colourful, beautiful, eclectic, welcoming and just a tiny bit crazy, but of all these adjectives the most important for Kristina seems to be welcoming. To invite colleagues and customers to your house is one thing, Kristina was actually hosting 5 or 6 of her clients overnight and had decided to feed us all a beautiful feast too. "I just love to have visitors" she told us, as we helped ourselves to salads, pulled pork, dips and pita breads which she managed to conjure from nowhere. 

And her house reflects that welcoming hospitality - there are plenty of areas to sit and chat, with

An inviting, open and welcoming kitchen greets us after the preview day

The scene already set for us includes a warm and welcoming table

chairs facing each other, not solitary or facing a TV screen. Places which have been designed for chat and socialising. The kitchen is abundant and open, with dishes stacked high in vibrant blobs of Rice colours - inviting you to help yourself, to be happy, to eat, to drink. Visiting that house made sense for me of why we love working with Rice - that kitchen made sense of it. We have always loved feeding people, socialising with people, talking and eating together more than anything else. If there isn't food in the fridge and a drink in the cupboard to share with friends who happen past then home isn't home for me. And apparently this is a sentiment shared by all around the table that evening. It's a sentiment which Rice as a company is built on, from its strong ethical values to its bright and welcoming style. There are quirky and unusual finds including many lamps and candles dotted around invitingly and most of the pieces Kristina has chosen seem to be picked to make you smile. And that, in turn, makes you comfortable and relaxed. 

Below are some more pictures of Kristina's fabulous house and a preview of the some of the Spring
2015 finds from Rice. I hope you enjoy them.

by Mark Fletcher

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The Rice Spring 2015 collection is peopled with quirky, bright and colourful creatures. Living life in glorious Technicolor seems to be raison d'etre of all Rice products. The creatures on board this colourful life journey are fun and playful and bring a smile to your face. A full album of finds can be found on our Facebook page. 

But see the way Kristina styles her home with these colours and creatures and you'll see that as well as playful and fun, it can also be sophisticated. Below is a selection of some of the amazing lighting pieces Kristina uses in her house. The cosiness of using so many low lights and candles, together with her use of pattern, shows a great way of working with Rice and other designers to produce a colourful but sophisticated effect. Once again, a complete album of images used from Kristina's home can be found on our Facebook page.

Colourful Christmas Inspiration

Owl Candle Holder by House Doctor

I've become obsessed with my camera of late. In the Spring I treated myself to a Canon 70D and it has become my constant companion, my friend and my plaything. I may even be a little in love with it. Remember when you were young how certain presents at Christmas invaded your imagination with their newness and you couldn't stop playing with them? I was like that with every set of Lego Technics I was ever bought and I'm like that now with my Camera. And like Lego, it keeps it's newness because there is always another bit you can bolt on - lenses, lights, flashes and tripods - and always new things you can make with it.

Last week I had the opportunity to help style a Christmas photo shoot for a magazine with a friend of mine - Kirstie Young - an inspirational photographer. It was a great opportunity to combine the visual styling side of my day job with some practical experience and learning from a great photographer. The day left me inspired to put together my own Christmas shots for Fig1.

Below is a sneak preview of some of the Christmas table ideas I've been working on. We have a collection of more traditional decorations in the shop too, but this was a chance to experiment with colour. Working so closely with the Danish company Rice for the last few years has been a shock treatment in the possibility of quirky and unusual colour combinations - I love throwing different colours into the mix and seeing what combinations take flight in my imagination. Some combinations come alive when you put together, seeming to tug at you invitingly. So why not? While I have the chance to play with colour and experiment with my camera, why not build, make and create something different?

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by Mark Fletcher

In the pictures: I've taken some of the geometric and metallic influence from our other Danish companies House Doctor and Bloomingville and added in some crazy, quirky Rice-style colour combinations - mostly thanks to their beautiful ceramics - to get a non-traditional Christmas look. For me, a neutral background is essential to any bold use of colour to keep a sense of calm and to make the colours you want sing out. 

The presents in these pictures are wrapped in House Doctor double sided wrap, again with unusual quirky geometric patterns, the double sided nature of the wrap means you can turn back an edge to reveal a stripe of the pattern on the reverse of the paper. 

Character, fun and playfulness: characters like the Owl candle holder, bird and gnome candles add a sense of fun to an otherwise sophisticated setting. I like having something in the room which makes people smile when they see it. The photo below is my favourite from last years Christmas photo shoots and it still brings a smile to my face.

Keep an eye on our Facebook fan page for more Christmas ideas as we get closer to the big day and check out our Christmas section of the site and the Rice ceramics section for most of the products used in these photos.

Competition Coming Soon....

We have a competition to win 2 Rice kids storage baskets arranged with the Green Parent Magazine - out on 7th November - grab the magazine off the shelves or keep an eye on our Facebook fan page or our blog for more details around that date.

Frittering Time Away

In the world of retail, your annual calendar can go quite awry. January trade shows are full of
Christmas stock, we're about to take a trip to Copenhagen to buy spring and summer stock from Rice, and this week on Monday we put up a tree, had a feast and took it all down again in one day for a magazine photo shoot I was asked to help style with props from the shop.

In the here and now it is, of course, harvest time and whilst I was chatting to Kirstie, the photographer, and Lia, the journalist, on this photo shoot we discussed school harvest festivals. Apparently canned goods ready to be donated to food banks are "trending" at harvest festivals - a great charitable idea but canned goods rather misses the point of harvesting things to me. Harvest festivals are about the time of food abundance we get now as crops are bought in from the fields - about being in touch with the seasons; how food is produced, stored, shared and celebrated. All those things and, of course, making loaves which look like sheaves of wheat with mice climbing up them. And squashes. Lots of squashes.

But Kirstie, it turns out, isn't at all keen on the eating of squashes, claiming they taste of nothing whilst she does concede they look quite snazzy in an Autumnal picture. So in an attempt to convince her, I have written a recipe designed to make you want to eat those beauties as well as look at them. After they've adorned the harvest table at school, try taking them home and doing this to them. We'll skip over the fact that this recipe is designed to make them taste of mint and feta, rather than of themselves. And don't worry - if you go squash crazy and buy more than you can stomach - if the beauty of these beasts overcomes you and you strip the greengrocer clean of them - you can always spray paint them silver, tie a red bow on top and shove it on the Christmas table when we get there. You can't deny they look good.
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By Mark Fletcher

Squash and Feta Fritters

For the Batter

100g plain flour
Pinch of Salt
2 eggs
200ml semi-skimmed milk

For the Filling

500g squash, grated
125g feta, crumbled
25g mint, chopped
2 shallots, finely diced
1 tbsp sunflower oil or vegetable, plus extra for frying

For the sauce

200g Greek yoghurt
25g mint, chopped
juice 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, crushed.

Make the batter first as it's best left to rest for 30 minutes. Put the flour in a bowl. Whisk the eggs with half of the milk. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the egg / milk mix. With a balloon whisk or fork slowly pull the flour into the egg mix as you whisk so it forms a smooth batter. Add the rest of the milk to thin the batter.

Next make the sauce by simply mixing all the ingredients together.

Finally, add the filling ingredients to the batter and mix through. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat until it starts to smoke. Then add three or four table spoons of mix to separate corners or the pan to form the fritters. Fry for 2 minutes then turn and fry for a further 2 minutes. Put the fritters in a low oven to keep warm as your fry the next batch.

Fig and Goats Cheese Tart

It wakes me up at night, it's finger buns nudging my thoughts as I sleep, it whispers in my ears like the gentle sizzle of a frying egg, sometimes building up to something more like the shrill whistle of a boiling kettle when I'm really hungry. Food is definitely an obsession. I plan meals days in advance sometimes, thinking what I have in store, what is seasonal, what allotment vegetables need cooking, what will be good and healthy and what will be an indulgent treat.

These fig and goats cheese tarts tick the seasonal box, but probably not the good and healthy one. I'm a natural feeder too - I made the recipe first as a large tart (below) for a Friday night after work drinks get together, but the smaller versions picture above where made as an extra indulgent treat for my little sister's 30th Birthday celebration. Because food for me, is also about who you share it with.

The smaller versions were made with Paul Holywood's quick rough puff pastry - because you're littlest sister only turns 30 once. They also had a spoon of home made pesto in the bottom. The recipe below is for the larger version - easier to make because you can get the egg custard and the pastry all cooked more evenly on a larger tart, but the small ones were a particularly good indulgence with the lighter pastry.

Fig and Goats Cheese Tart

Ingredients for the short crust pastry:

250g flour
125g butter
60 - 90ml water to bind

This will make slightly more pastry than you need but I think it's always best to have more than to be desperately trying to find enough. Crumb together the butter and flour in a mixing bowl until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Put the water in a jug and using the fingers of one hand, bring the pastry together as you add a little water at a time until it forms a dough. Do not overwork the pastry. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Grease a 25cm diameter dish. Roll the pastry thinly and line the dish letting the pastry overlap the dish. Trim back but leave it overlapping as the pastry shrinks during the blind backing and you can trim off the excess afterwards. Prick the bottom of the case with a fork Fill the case with a layer of grease proof paper and some baking beads / dried pulses to weigh the pastry down. Blind bake 190 degrees 15 mins then remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before trimming back the pastry to the rim of the tin.

For the filling

3 medium eggs
75ml single cream
75ml milk
100g grated goats cheese
4 figs, halved and peeled if the skins are tough

Lower the oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Whisk together the egg, milk and cream in a jug and season with salt and pepper. Put the goats cheese in the base of the case. Lay the figs around the edge on top and place the dish on the shelf of the oven. Pull the shelf out a little and carefully fill the tin, then slide it into the oven. The tart isn't deep filled as the figs can over cook if there is too much filling. Bake for around 20 minutes, checking after 15 minutes. The tart is cooked when there is still a little bit of a wobble in the middle when you give it a shake as the egg custard will continue cooking for a few minutes once it is out of the oven.

Tartlet Variation

The tartlets took a little more goats cheese than this and weren't blind baked but instead were made with the lighter rough-puff pastry to help the pastry cook through. The were cooked until the pastry was golden, which also took about 20 minutes but was checked by running the knife around one and lifting it out gently for a visual check of the base. I also added some home made pesto to the base of each for a little extra flavour.