Guest Post: The Perfect Marriage by Jo Thomas

Today it's our stop on The Honey Farm on the Hill blog tour and it's my pleasure to welcome Jo Thomas back to the blog to talk about The Perfect Marriage...

Honey really is the perfect partner. Honey can be married with so many different foods. It’s used as a replacement instead of sugar in desserts, drinks and baking. I use it on grapefruit in the mornings, or with greek yoghurt for breakfast. I’ve always used it with hot water and lemon for sore throats and colds, but it can also be used in tea, particularly herbal ones. I think it works best in the most unlikely of partnerships. They say opposites attract and honey can often taste at it best when married with a unusual bed mate.

It can be the basis of sticky marinades for pork and chicken, like sticky honey and soy chicken wings or sweet and sticky pork ribs with rice. What a fabulous Saturday night supper. 

I like to cover cocktail sausages in runny honey in the oven and serve them as a tasty snack when I’m having a drinks with friends or maybe a birthday party. Everybody, young and old loves them.  I also use it on the roasting parsnips with the roast beef dinner on a Sunday and at Christmas as a glaze on a gammon joint with mustard and cloves. 

But my new love is honey and cheese. Honey contrasts so well with the saltiness of cheese. Drizzled sparingly over cheese it lifts flavour of the cheese to another level. According to The Spruce website, soft and creamy cheese like brie, blue cheese, tart cheddar and goat’s cheese are all fabulous partners with honey. And I read that honeycomb itself is being sold and served on cheese boards. A dramatic effect as well as a tasty companion! Cheese and honey...just gorgeous and with a few fresh figs on the side, who could want more?!

Sometimes you have to go back before you can move forwards...

One magical summer Nell fell in love in the mountains of Crete and her life changed for ever.

Eighteen years later, Nell is ready for a new beginning. When she sees a honey farm in the same hilltop town has lost its bees, the opportunity is impossible to resist. Welcomed back to Greece by the warm sun and aroma of wild thyme, Nell finds memories of her past at every turn. But much has changed since she's been away.

As Nell throws herself into restoring the honey farm, she starts to unlock the truth of what happened all those years ago. She soon learns that the course of true love - just like Cretan honey - can be wild and sweet. And well worth the wait...