Got back to my hotel room to find that my room-mate Bob was in a bad way. I don't know much about fish doctoring, but I know enough to conclude that floating motionless belly-up on the surface of the water is a bad sign. I had hoped to ask Bob for his recommendations on local restaurants but he had nothing to say. So we just went out for sushi. Which is, I think, how he would have wanted it.

Our cab driver on the way home told us this was his first ever night driving a cab and we were his third fare. He said that he enjoyed the job because it gave him the opportunity to see 'the underbelly of human life'. Those first two fares must have been something special; Colman and I kept our underbellies well covered.

For our new Lurpak work celebrating the satisfaction and pride that comes from cooking meals from scratch, we wanted to feature the creations of real cooks, so we enlisted the help of food bloggers to make the dishes shown in the ads. Helen of the food stories blog tells the story of how her chicken pie was used for our Lurpak ad.  

She writes:

As a blogger you get approached by a lot of people wanting you to help them promote things;  e-mails ping into the inbox with the opening line, “I think this may be of interest to your readers.” This one was different though. For a start they actually wanted me to go and cook something which, you know, I’m quite keen on doing and secondly, well, I really love butter don’t I. Would I come and make a pie for the new Lurpak ad campaign? Damn right I would.

The idea was to make the pie look as ‘epic’ as possible. It had to be a beast – a tall, proud, epic beast. 

You can read the full story at the Food Stories blog and get the recipe so you can make your own pie.  Here's the finished thing:

 And, if that gets you in the mood, you can join the Lurpak Bake club here.

Bake Club Ingredients

1. Bunch of friends, colleagues or family members
2. A chosen day of the week (can also use fortnightly
3. A kitchen
4. Homemade treats, for eating

The site allows you to create your Bake Club, invite people to join, select a bake day, rate the bake and so on.

A bit like our very own agency muff-off.

 Yum.