The Bittersweet City

Finally, I feel better about work.

2011-11-30T02:48:00.001-08:00

Here is the reason why.

Show your support for the public sector strikes happening across the country today by finding out more.

The Guardian has a page covering activities, with photos and comment from across the UK public sector.
Twitter: #strike #solidarity #righttostrike
The UCU website, for anyone working in Higher or Further Education, is a great source of information for those who are new to the sector or have just recently woken up and joined. (That's me, then).

I feel better already.

Hot Stuff

2011-10-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to say that last week the second of my foodie interviews for the hyper-local South Lambeth blog, Tradescant Road, was published. (I am mostly pleased that I managed to submit it, because it took me ages to get around to this one as a direct result of being a human incubator for the dreaded lurgy for the past three weeks.)

Anyway, this time, I interviewed Raj Dawood, the owner/manager of the area's premier BYO Indian restaurant and takeaway: Hot Stuff. He was brilliant fun and was a thoroughly nice bloke, even showing me around the kitchens and letting me take photos of chefs playing with fire.

If you've ever been to Hot Stuff, you'll know why it's a local institution and why the tiny original restaurant was always packed to the rafters, and so they've opened a second, thank goodness. You can read the interview in full here.

P.S. Hot Stuff food is an excellent cure for the common cold, it would also seem.

The Other End of the Northern Line

2011-10-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

What a spectacular autumn this is turning out to be. On Monday I had a bonus day, a special, gold starred kind of day when the rest of the world was at work, and I was off and the Mister was off, and it was 27 degrees. In October. We woke up and blinked our way outside into the sunshine, scarcely believing our luck.

All summer long the Mister had wanted to get up to his old stomping grounds in the frozen north (a.k.a Finchley). Hampstead Heath was also high on the list, but the weather hadn't played ball at all and we had been enjoying the new neighbourhood too much. Finally on Monday, we took the plunge - and the tube ride didn't seem so far as it had seemed in high summer (hah!) when the Northern Line was a seething, sweaty mass of tourists and commuters jostling for elbow space. We called my mum and she came up all the way from Orpo to meet us, and glad for the escape she was too.

It was so worth it. Yummy mummies, pedigree dogs, Japanese tourists, perroflautas*, the elderly, the young, partially clothed lovers, swimmers, the very wealthy and the unwaged alike had all descended on the Heath's verdant curves and sparkling (ok, some were a bit scuzzy) ponds. Empty cava bottles strewn along Spaniards Road signalled the excesses of the previous balmy weekend. Clearly a higher class of drunkard frequents leafy NW3 than in SW8.

We stopped and had a drink and a fish finger sandwich at The Spaniards Inn, one of London's oldest pubs and apparently the birthplace of Dick Turpin. John Keats is said to have penned 'Ode to a Nightingale' in the beer garden. We just had a Pimm's.

The leaves were just beginning to turn and the colour of the sky made me stop and promise to myself that I would go outside more. I was reminded of reading Thoreau's Walden, which made me acutely aware of the power of nature over us poor pallid city-folk.

"Let us first be assimple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over ourbrows, and take up a little life into our pores." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

And as much as I am in favour of more recognition for South London's charms (perhaps not full-on transpontine independence, but a hat tip to the lofty ideals that Free South London's supporters champion), North London's not so bad, is it really.

(Now can someone who lives in NW3 please write an equally nice post about South London?)

*NB Thanks to Lo-Sal for the amazing word perroflauta, which roughly translates as 'Spanish crusty with a dog on a string and an undercut and/or dreads.'

The Cure

2011-09-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

Who says there's no cure for the common cold?

For the first time in maybe nine or ten months, I'm sick. My nose is streaming, I coughed up at least one lung during the night, and I shocked even my mirror this morning. I look like a crack-addicted raccoon. A Crackoon, if you will.

I loathe myself a bit when I'm ill. This is mostly because - I admit - I do quite like having time to myself at home where I can do nothing but stay in my leopard print dressing gown and legitimately revert to eating instant noodles. However, I tend to get rather lost in the internet and I forget to brush my teeth and then usually have to run around like a mad thing 45 minutes before the Mister comes home to tidy up a bit and make the house look a bit less like my room in student digs.

Anyway, ignoring all that, today has been BRILL. I watched This Morning (it's been far too long - last time, Fern was still on it), Supernanny USA (wow, some parents are dumb), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which I've been meaning to watch for years, dosed up on lemsip, all wearing said favourite dressing gown.

It made me wonder if rather than looking for a cure, I should just enjoy another day at home. Perhaps the cold was actually the cure for the burnout I've experienced lately. So rather than spurn my unwashed self, I've come to terms with her today. I am a crazy-eyed skank with nutella all over my teeth and tissues strewn everywhere and I Am Proud. And why the hell not? It's just for a day.

It's quite embarrassing to admit one's complete lack of perceivable work ethic I suppose, but I could probably live every day a little bit like this.

Yee-haw.

Escape

2011-09-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

This time two weeks ago, I was waking up on a sunny morning in Bordeaux, looking for the first café au lait of the day. The Mister was across the road, buying pains au chocolat, and we were looking at one another sadly, for it was the day we were due to fly back to London.

We had three hours to kill before it was time to get on the airport bus; that most depressing of transport types. We had already walked most of the length and breadth of the city but we knew it was important to keep moving and not think too much about the holiday taking its last gasps of air, and light, before being consigned to a dusty suitcase of memories.

We walked around until lunchtime, as the students at the University streamed out of classrooms and onto sunny squares, as office workers took cigarette breaks and murmured covertly over cups of coffee, and as more new tourists streamed into the city, gaping up at the magnificent sea-horses at Girondins, and snapping the circus big top pitched at the Esplanade des Quinconces. We met a sweet German couple in their seventies who asked us to take their photo with their old 35mm camera. They beamed for the picture like two lovesick schoolchildren. The Garonne glistened and beckoned as children played in the fountains at the Miroir d'eau. I took a breath, on the tram back to the Gare St Jean, and held it, sitting very still, while I listened to that little voice inside, which said, why not stay?

Collecting our bags from the hotel, we had a minor argument, about something trivial, like luggage tags, or whose bag held the dirty laundry. It was only because we were both sad, and we had nothing to be angry with Bordeaux about. It was like it was something to do whilst waiting for the airport bus, because it was better than thinking about what we were doing; leaving this beautiful place which had enchanted us and made us want to stay and do anything just to have a little dog and live in an apartment with a balcony and raise French-speaking children.

We put our things underneath the bus and they got pushed to the back, as they always do. A family of South Africans sat near to us and talked very loudly about their cars and houses, their tannned blondeness and plentiful gold watchery seeming out of place on an airport bus. As we passed the Grand Theatre, and then the Piscine Judaïque, and finally the international school, I cried a little. I turned my head away to the window, so no-one would see, and I made a promise to myself.

One day, little voice. One day soon, I will.

Doing the (South) Lambeth Walk

2011-09-08T14:25:00.000-07:00

The summer is definitely on the wane, but with the start of autumn, a new project has begun - this always makes me happy. I'm now contributing guest posts to this great local blog, Tradescant Road, which covers happenings in and around SW8.

My first post went up yesterday and was an interview with Marco Rebato, the owner of a legendary and long established local tapas restaurant, Rebatos. You can read the full interview below, or on the site here.

***

“So where’s good to eat in Vauxhall then?” My mum asked, a few months ago.

I remained silent.

Ok, I hold my hands up. I’m new. I didn’t know before moving here in June, that Vauxhall, oft written off as an ugly intersection between the river and leafier suburbs, was going to be just quite as awesome as it is. And I certainly had no idea there would be so many gastronomic delights to sample.

Before living in SW8 I lived in SW2. (That’s Streatham Hill, for the postcodally challenged among us.) I wrote semi-regular reviews for the restaurants in the area, in the hope that more people would get out there and use them, because many were never very busy and I was frightened that once I found some I liked, they’d close down.

We certainly don’t have that problem in many of Vauxhall’s finest. Each time I’ve walked past Hot Stuff, or The Canton Arms, or the ever-popular Estrela, they’re fit to burst. People evidently like to go out and eat here – the strip of Portuguese cafés selling frango piri piri and calamares seem to have no shortage of takers despite their similar menus. And oh boy, am I looking forward to trying out everything in the vicinity that looks good. Recommendations are always welcome!

Rebato’s, 169 South Lambeth Road, SW8 1XW

Tel: 020 7735 6388www.rebatos.com
Twitter: @rebatos

In the midst of the longest strip of Lusophone shops and restaurants I have ever seen outside of Lisbon stands what I now understand to be an Institution with a capital I.

Rebato’s, which has been serving South London’s finest since 1984, is still offering authentic tapas to the locals of Vauxhall and Stockwell. I had the privilege of a chat with Marco Rebato, the owner, in the elegant back room of the restaurant, and tried to find out a little bit more about the story behind this SW8 foodie legend.

Marco’s father’s family hailed from Madrid and came to take over the site, formerly the restaurant ‘La Casina Rossa’, on South Lambeth Road in 1984. At that time, he recalls, Vauxhall was not such a desirable area. The restaurant was one of only around three serving tapas in London, and was certainly the first, he says, in south London. Tapas was something considered unusual, perhaps only eaten on holiday by many Brits, and so Rebato’s first menus were simple: tortilla, meatballs, cockles. At the time, sharing plates of food in restaurants was not altogether typical either.

Still, the lunch trade from local businesses flowed in, bolstered by office workers at nearby BT, Otis Elevators, and Freemans. As upper and middle managers at these businesses discovered the restaurant at lunchtimes, Marco says, and found no equivalents in the suburbs where the lived, the dinner trade grew as they brought back their wives and children. Some of these loyal customers remain and travel into town to visit still.

Marco is unashamedly proud of the food they serve, and his eyes light up when I ask him about his suppliers. Mostly they are London-based, and so he knows the provenance and ethos of the food. One of his oldest suppliers been providing pork to the restaurant for nearly 27 years; Pugh’s Piglets from Preston, Lancashire breeds the suckling pigs the restaurant has become famous for on Wednesdays. Specials in the restaurant are created based on the best buys from the market that particular day, which is why their vegetable and seafood dishes are ever-changing.

Having dined in the restaurant recently, I asked about the rabbit I had eaten. French rabbit, Marco grins. English rabbits are too tough, and need stewing, but these can be griddled with just a little salt. Clearly a lover of good food, I ask Marco what his favourites are from the menu. Prawns are always good, comes the answer – but the real measure of any restaurant, he says, is to try their calamares – if they’re frozen, you’re in for a bad ride. Clean squid, griddled with olive oil and salt is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Marco also has a soft spot for the food from home he remembers at Madrid dinnertimes: Spanish tortilla, salad, crisps, and a few anchovies, if you were lucky.

The goal of Rebato’s has stayed the same since its inception – to serve quality family food. I ask about the changing tastes of the clientele – is tapas more or less popular now, with the emergence of ‘small plate’ restaurants such as Polpetto and Spuntino, The Salt Yard, Caravan et al? Marco maintains that the menus change regularly, but that they are always looking for new ideas, especially in these times of austerity for all. The latest addition to the menu is called “Tapita & Chatito”, designed to get locals out eating quality food at lower prices. Sample dishes will be gambas al ajillo, tortilla, albondigas, and calamares, starting from £2.50 for smaller portions, all washed down with a chatito of wine for £1.50.

As well as being passionate about food, Mr. Rebatos is clearly also passionate about community. He is proud of the longstanding reputation of the restaurant and its 27-year history. Contributing a £100 dining voucher as a prize for a local street party raffle, doing cooking demos at a nursery in Streatham; Marco is proud of being able to give something back – all the more important after the recent riots. People can do a lot in their local communities if they look up once in a while, he says.

It’s getting towards 7.30pm, and the restaurant’s lovely panelled bar at the front is starting to fill up. I ask Marco, finally, what he feels the future of the restaurant is. He isn’t sure. Vauxhall is still changing; he feels there aren’t so many families, or businesses here anymore. He hopes that the area’s transient nature will not impact too heavily and will allow his family to continue his legacy. With a head chef, a manager and sous chef of 25, 26 and 12 years’ service respectively, it’s not just the local community that would be at a loss if this restaurant ever had to close its doors.

Aftermath (Or, Why I Love This City)

2011-08-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

true dat.

This past weekend, the Mister and I spent some of both Saturday and Sunday in Brixton. We don't live that much closer now than when we were in Streatham Hill, but somehow the bus journey or walk there seems easier, and it's our favourite place for many things: the amazing cinema; eating out in one of Brixton Village's many treasures; meeting friends; going to Morleys department store. I bloody love Morleys.

On Saturday evening we went to the Ritzy and saw Super 8 (if you want a review, I've not got time here - but this about sums it up). It was a lovely evening with a semi-sunset and we sat at the bar after the film and marvelled at how brilliant Brixton was. Each time we come here since the redevelopment of Windrush square we always comment on what a good idea it was to just turn those benches t'other way around, so that no more shady deals go on, out of view from the road. Now the whole area is teeming with life; the area in front of the Ritzy is a social space, with nice plants and funky lights and people sitting on the grass playing games. It warms the cockles.

image credit: urban75.org

On Sunday we came back for a trip to the shops and to have a look at Brixton Splash. It had rained that morning and so it seemed like things got going a bit later than expected, but by the time we were out of Morleys around 5pm it was all going off. The sun had come out and there was a large crowd on Coldharbour Lane, dancing to a badass remix of Amy Winehouse's Rehab. There were even dancing Elvises. Elvises, I tell you!

The Kings, dancing in front of The Prince - cheers @voicefromspace

Standing in the sunshine that afternoon, swaying with the crowd, and knowing that Tottenham had suffered riots the night before, I felt lucky to live in such a peaceful, awesome, multicultural melting pot of cool. I tweeted as much, feeling safe enough to joke that riots in Brixton were 'so last century'.

Then the next morning I woke up to see this.

I felt utterly devastated. As events unfolded throughout Monday and intensified that night, a wave of sadness came over me. Had we been completely wrong about the feeling in Brixton that day? Was the community really so quickly and easily on its knees, to be ripped apart by mindless thuggery?

The feeling that day was one of ever-increasing tension as reports of violence spreading to other areas multiplied. It was desperately scary across London on Monday with mass riots taking place in seemingly every corner of the city, twitter going crazy with chinese whispers of where the next mob would target, friends checking on one another via various mediums, everyone listening out for sirens, shouts, or the sounds of smashing glass. It was a dark night for London.

But here's the good news. In the days since then I am extremely pleased to report that the fantastic spirit I love about London and its people has been has been brought to the fore. In many cases, acts of mass care and kindness have been carried out with renewed fervour, matching any destruction and terror with peace and love, man. Especially in Brixton.

Some examples of this (and they are numerous) which have really warmed my heart:

The @riotcleanup movement, started by people bound by a need to do something good to counter all of the destruction
The Do Something Nice for Ashraf blog, which aims to help the Malaysian student who was filmed being mugged by youths who had initially helped him up from the ground after he was hit by a piece of debris thrown by rioters.
The free cupcakes offered by a shop in Brixton, the free tea, coffee and sandwiches offered by the Battersea Arts Centre, the free storage offered to flailing businesses by a secure storage company - and there are many other examples - all show a human kindness that goes beyond 'good PR' or 'effective marketing' to just plain, simple, old fashioned community spirit and loveliness.
Some MPs are out on the streets, doing their bit to reassure and comfort their communities. Some, like Chuka Umunna, do it even when there's no news camera rolling, because they're genuinely good people.
This photo. Says it all, really. God bless this town. May she recover quickly.

Polpetto

2011-08-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

Polpetto, 49 Dean Street, London W1D 5BG

The Bitter: Very small tables; seating for 28 in a space the size of a large living room; no bookings taken in the evenings; probable queues

The Sweet: Lovely small plates of cicchetti; friendly staff; fantastic people-watching opportunities; wine by the carafe; no bookings taken in the evenings

This is probably the thousandth review of one of either Polpo, Spuntino, da Polpo or Polpetto to be found on someone's blog, so I'll try to keep it short.

Polpetto is the first of these restaurants I have been to, and it came highly recommended by many. It's certainly a trendy place to say you're going - usually met with an appreciative 'Ooooh!' quickly followed by, 'you'd better get going, they don't take bookings in the evenings'. It's tiny, seating only 28 diners, although it felt like maybe they'd managed to cram in more than that last night. We walked in at five to seven and luckily nabbed the last table, sandwiched between beautiful Soho couples on the banquettes at the back.

Our waitresses were friendly punk rockers, some sporting a pierced septum, one with Ramones t-shirt, all with tattoos. There was none of this 'cooler than you' rubbish that you get at many a trendy London nightspot. The service was fast and unfussy, and we were left to pour our own water and wine. I enjoyed that. Wine, by the way, comes in carafes - brilliant - of either 25, 50, or 75cl. A 25cl small carafe (about 2 glasses) of house white was £5.50, which is unheard of in this part of town.

The menu is concise,with four main areas : breads, fish, meat and vegetables/salad. The Mister and I ordered one plate from each area, starting with brown shrimp w/braised baby gem and Devon crab with trofie (Ligurian pasta twirls, I now know). Both were tasty but the pasta dish won out, with a red chilli and parsley garnish, it was just the right side of too salty and managed to be decadent in a really simple way. Next up was our bread: baked ricotta bruschetta & grelot onions. Two pieces of toast arrived with a beautiful caramelised whole baby onion on top. They were oily and sweet and cheesy and soft and crunchy all at the same time. I used mine to mop up the remains of the sauce from the brown shrimp. Dee-lish.

We also ordered the chargrilled zucchini, pecorino and honey and a bistecca served with rocket and fennel. The steak was a very upmarket minute steak, soft and perfectly beaten out, free of any fat and entirely delicious, but a little small for the price of £9. The zucchini, by comparison, was a huge overflowing plate which was well worth £4.50.

Small plates do fill you up, it seems, and we were sated by the time we were asked about desserts, but I'd heard they were excellent here, and it seemed churlish to share a pudding (in Soho?! Never!), so we ordered both the tiramisu pot and the pannacotta with blackberries. Boy, was I glad we did. The tiramisu was about as authentic as they come, with a heavenly dark cocoa dusting and very alcoholic sponge at the bottom. It was gone in about four spoonfuls. The pannacotta was light and sinful at the same time, with the most amazing red topping from the fruit. Espresso served in a small glass was thick, rich and moreish, finishing off everything perfectly.

We enjoyed the the small plates, and the ambience, and couldn't fault the service. Still, it struck me that if you could get here by 6pm with a big group of friends and take over the entire place, it could be one of the best nights ever. As it was, crammed in next to Soho's beautiful people, it was still pretty good... even if those tables did make my arse feel positively enormous.

Aaron & Jane

2011-07-31T11:20:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remember reading about my colleagues Aaron and Jane (yes, their identities have been protected) who were getting up to all kinds of tricks last year, like going to parties dressed as Smurfs, or ringing each other up from adjacent offices to do the 'eh-eh-ehhh' noise from Little Britain and then hang up. You know the ones.

Well, we're coming to the end of an era. I feel an update is needed now, as I nurse a very sore head from going out to Aaron's leaving party at one of South London's 'premier tiki bars' last night.

The leaving party marked the dawn of an altogether unfamiliar new age: next week, the office is losing Aaron to Glasgow as he embarks on a career with the Civil Service. Lord help us. In fact, Lord help Glasgow.

Aaron's had a lot of ribbing about what a life-shortener it will be to live there, but I have rallied resolutely for its charms, telling him about everything from the amazing eateries like Stravaigin, The Left Bank and The Ubiquitous Chip and the lovely little watering holes there like Tchai-Ovna (they sell tea, not whisky, before you ask) and The Lismore (they sell some amazing whisky) to the general friendliness, wit and spunkiness of the people there.

Tchai-Ovna, Otago Lane

The Left Bank, Gibson Street

The Ubiquitous Chip, Ashton Lane

I feel nothing but love for Glasgow, it's a vastly under-rated place and at its best that way. I'm sure Aaron will feel at home in no time at all. He's full of tales of misadventure and craziness to regale the good people of Glasgow with. And if there's anything I've learned from living with someone who left their heart in that fair city, it's that Weegies love a good yarn. Also, any city whose statue of the Duke of Wellington is continually (and repeatedly) enlivened by the addition of a traffic-cone hat has got to have a wicked sense of humour.

I am going to miss their double-act though, Aaron and Jane. Just last week they came back from the Benicassim festival, and Aaron was predictably a fetching shade of cooked lobster, having fallen asleep open-mouthed in the sun on more than one occasion. He was also sporting a new head of hair, having sun-in'd his mop to within an inch of his life. Because said new hair has been stripped of its bounce and shine, and is looking rather straw-like, Jane has taken to affectionately calling it "Ken hair".

In a city that doesn't take itself too seriously, I think he's going to be just fine.

Sharing

2011-07-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

Today a momentous thing happened. The Mister and I opened a joint bank account.

Not so unusual, I know. We've been living together for over a year and a half. We share most things already:

Bills
Milk
Not toothbrushes. (well, ok, once. I was desperate and we were staying away from home.)
A really weird penchant for trying to guess the students' subjects on University Challenge before they announce them. (It's pretty easy to spot a Physicist. They usually look like Brian May.)
An annoying propensity to play 'the adverts game' even when in public, at the cinema. (This is when you try to name the company or product first, without it being mentioned or flashed up on-screen, for the uninitiated). He ALWAYS gets them. It's ok when we play at home, except that every time he guesses it's the Kindle advert correctly, I have to listen to him humming the annoying music for the rest of the ad's duration, whilst doing an annoying little victory dance.

We're both only children (with the exception of half-siblings we didn't ever live with), so you might say that we had to be taught to share in a way that I suppose those in larger families do not. Or maybe it's the opposite. Maybe if you had many brothers and sisters around you, clambouring to stick your prized lego up their nose, or eat your fingerpaints, you'd learn to hoard.

Anyway, I digress. This sharing is different. It's the first time in my life I've ever linked myself with another human being to this extent. It's not about the finances. It's about the trust.

I trust someone else to keep up their end of the bargain and pitch in. And that's a nice feeling.

We Are What We Eat

2011-06-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

We spent the past weekend in northern France, in the picturesque town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, with the Mister’s relations. His step-mother has a cousin in St.Remy Au Bois whose family have lived there for 20 years and now run a successful jam-making business. Their high fruit content jam is organic and delicious, delicately packaged up in little jars and sent off to the crisp white linen-covered tables of The Dorchester, Claridges, and St.Regis hotels, amongst others. They live and work in a lovely barn conversion with huge windows, open fires, and lots of dogs, in a bohemian whirlwind of paperwork, packaging and sticky jam spoons.

Long before this visit I had been itching to visit and see the jam farm idyll for myself. I was secretly hoping that we would be able to proffer our services in getting in up to the elbows in jam in exchange for bed and board for a summer (or longer).

This is something how I imagined our future might go: we’d prove ourselves to be confiture-confiseurs extraordinares, lending our marketing and new media savvy to the operation, and the distant step-relations would soon realise that we were utterly indispensable. They would start to plan for early retirement, knowing the business was safe in our hands. We could do all of the grunt work, thinking we were living the good life, and they could retreat to St. Barts or Martinique or wherever, living off the spoils of their genius idea to move to France and entice these poor overworked cityfolk to do their bidding and ensure a steady stream of income into their sizeable pension fund.

And you know what? I wouldn’t mind one bit. I would happily work my fingers to the bone to have what they have. Their peace, their independence, their knowledge of working for something they created and love and believe in.

As it was, the distant step-relations were utterly charming and had thrown their doors open to all of their friends that weekend, both local ones and those from their lives in the UK. They listened sweetly to our excitable chatterings about how well their jams would do in food festivals and markets across London, and nodded politely at us, even though I suspect they already knew what we were telling them. They blanched a little at the sound of an idea of ours to sell some jams for them in the newly revamped Brixton Village, but they took it pretty well, considering they probably haven’t visited Brixton since the 80s, and might still think of it as a hub of iniquity. They even invited us back to stay, so who knows? Maybe that pipe dream isn’t so far away. Of course, there’s still the learning how to make jam bit to cover…a minor detail, mind.

The strawberries I tasted there were the sweetest I have ever eaten. Maybe, just maybe, it was a taste of freedom.

VoHo

2011-06-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

This is a short post, which will cover the following points, very briefly:

1. Our new neighbourhood is, as suspected, awesome.
2. Proximity to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and the bars under the arches near Vauxhall station mean that we can refer to the vicinity as "VoHo", which tickled me when I read it.
3. Despite leaving leafy Streatham Hill's suburban enclaves, we do have a really cute garden with a pergola (not a pagoda, as the Mister told his mum on the phone).
4. Weekends currently feel like we're on holiday somewhere in the Algarve (see below - our first meal at one of the many cafes lining out street).

5. I can now leave my house at 9am and get to work on time.
6. I am considerably happy.

More to follow!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2011-05-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

I once had to do a Criminal Records Bureau check at work to be able to do volunteer work with some little'uns, and had to list my addresses for the past five years. I couldn't remember every postcode, of course. There were at least six or seven addresses - I'm sure every other London-dweller has a similar tale to tell.

I think it's gone something like this: Orpington (shudder), Southampton (university, a.k.a. many, many long days of pyjamas, films and the munchies), Balham (the first sweet taste of SW London and will always remain close to my heart), East Dulwich (lovely, green, but enormous 4x4 buggy central), Tooting (a near escape), Clapham (rah, happy singledom and bars, yah?), and finally Streatham (which brought domestic bliss, in an unloved area of SW2 that feels a bit now to me like a ratty old pair of shoes that are also my favourite and I can't throw away). And so it goes.

In less than 3 weeks, I’ll be upping sticks again to an area colloquially known as ‘Little Lisbon’, which is enough to make me all dreamy-eyed thinking about that fantastic city I love, with the beautiful horizon and the seascape and the trams and the elevadores and the fado and the inevitable pasteis de Belem.

All right, with that I fear I may be building it up a smidge, but our new flat will be a 15 minute walk from the river and the Tate Britain, a stone’s throw from the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, that queer institution of raucous comedy and drag acts (a local tells me that Lily Savage lived on our street once), and already, putting out the feelers for local community projects and hangouts is really coming up trumps. A search for ‘Pilates classes Vauxhall’ brought me to the Bonnington Centre, a Community association in a sweet little house in Vauxhall Grove which lets rooms out by the hour for classes, meetings and therapy sessions, hence they have a regular schedule of yoga, tango, acupuncture, psychotherapy and bi-monthly film screenings, plus a cafe.

image credit:http://www.vivavauxhall.org/

A stroll around the new neighbourhood a couple of weekends ago saw us find a unique venue which has been winning accolades for its café's food from everything from the Evening Standard and Time Out to May's Eurostar magazine, so it’s generated quite a buzz. This is the Brunswick House Café, located at the Lassco architectural salvage shop at Vauxhall Cross. Walking through its many rooms stuffed with antiquities, reproductions and oddities, it feels like a museum you can touch everything in - an appealing cross between John Soane's house, the Antiques Roadshow, and a very upmarket car boot sale. I swear I will never buy another mirror or door handle at Ikea again.

image credit:http://adorngirl.com

So, an exciting new set of delights to discover awaits us. But as with all new beginnings, something else must end, and so we have to say goodbye to Streatham Hill. I've come to feel a fondness for this area too, although unloved by many and considered to be on the periphery of what is an appropriate commute from our friends in North London to come and see us, it has a charm all of its own and the most diverse community cross-section I've ever come across, in any part of London I've ever lived. Good work is being done here, too - from the valiant efforts of StreathamPulse to both unite and inform to the laudable local work of our MP Chuka Umunna. There are so many new businesses here which are thriving too, from the gorgeous Earl Grey and Rose cafe to The Hamlet bar and Thompson's deli adjacent to Streatham Hill station. The latest addition which has drawn rave reviews is The Manor Arms gastropub on Mitcham Lane, serving up Sunday roasts at £15 a pop and pulling in the punters. Me? I'm just as happy at Bar 61, drinking cheap red wine and nibbling on tapas for under £4 a plate. The point is, there's variety, and it's a good thing. I'm sure there's more on the way for Streatham, and it will be a shame to leave just as it finds its feet. But good things await SW2 and SW16 - of that I have no doubt.

The Gods of Lust and Money

2011-04-16T05:09:00.000-07:00

So: the government wants to measure our happiness.

We’re supposed to be feeling full of beans in the midst of savage public sector cuts and rising unemployment for women and young people at home, complete chaos in Libya, more earthquakes for an already devastated Japan, predictions for catastrophe in Nepal and increasingly worrying world weather patterns, an indicator that we have really and truly fluffed our best chances of having a sustainable future on this planet. Oh, that and we’re all going to die next year.

Brill.

There was a time during the past winter when I thought: there must be more than this. Going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark, why would I do this? What am I doing here?

Now that Spring is here and the days are longer my thoughts are not quite so downcast. And of course I can appreciate the beauty of a British summer - I love Pimm's, Wimbledon, and have no problem with having a go at Making The Best of It. But as soon as it's not all Darling Buds of May I want to high-tail it out of here and my thoughts continually return to sunnier, more chilled out climes.

Sometimes I feel a bit like a mango in the fresh fruit section of a supermarket (bear with me here) - grown in a hot, tropical place, picked before being fully ripe, and flown over to sit in a chiller in grey old rainy old London-town. (I know, I know, there are better analogies. I can't find one right now though, so we'll leave that terrible one in.)

A Bad Analogy

Is it London that I'm getting tired of? Maybe if I was living in the countryside the seasons wouldn't be such a mystery and I wouldn't feel so disconnected. But it’s more than the weather – after all, it’s been warm and sunny for the past week and I’ve still felt like I want to run away and bury my head in jam.

No, part of the problem is the feeling that I'm toiling away in the big bad city for, well, not much really. I’m not managing to save, despite the laughable ‘London weighting’ portion of my salary. I’m not going to be able to buy property here. I’m disillusioned with my job and the unfettered change that seems to be sweeping the sector. I don’t believe in what I’m being paid to say anymore. But annoyingly, despite being paid more than ever, it’s doing nothing for my happiness (nor my savings – I just seem to spend more). Finally, I’m fed up with fighting elbows, armpits and women with big bamsies (as my dear dad would have called them) on the journey in and out on the bus every day. Let David Cameron commute for a bit (for REAL, Dave, not with the car carrying your briefcase behind you). You stand up among the many baby buggies Cammo, and get jostled for a space to stand, by druggies, whilst listening to EVERYONE ELSE'S MUSIC EVERY MORNING via their ridiculously loud personal headphones. Or worse, their phones, with no attempt to make their musical experience personal at all.

Not quite the overcrowded number 59 from Streatham, is it Dave?

Of course, I know I should be grateful for small mercies;

We’ve got a little bit of green space to plant things in.
My commute does not require taking the underground.
The new Spanish upstairs neighbours aren’t anywhere near as fat and stompy as the previous ones, and they seem to be much less loud and bonky than in the beginning.

Not to mention the big things, like:

We have great friends here.
I have nice colleagues.
London is still full of bloody brilliant sights and people and I used to love living here.

So what’s happened? If anyone out there is experiencing a similar crisis of faith, please share. Did you get over yours? Did you move away to run a knitting group or start a home school or pursue a long-desired career as a beekeeper? I feel I need some help falling in love with London again.

Especially as we supposedly only have 1 year, 8 months and 4 days to go…

PS. Speaking of crazy bus journeys - check this dude out.

Just Testing

2011-04-07T00:37:00.000-07:00

...The RSS feed thingy, for those who are using it.

Nothing much to see here just now, move along please. There's plenty of other interesting stuff to look at here and here.

(Come back soon though.)

Graffiti on a wall in Nicosia, Cyprus, in February

March 26th, 2011

2011-03-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

Clearly these Lambeth Teachers' Association workers aren't about to cause any trouble, but rather are discussing what to grow on their allotments.

Yesterday's anti-cuts, union-led march has already made the headlines for mostly the wrong reasons. 'Police battle rioters', 'Luxury stores targeted', 'Hundreds arrested and dozens injured' are just some of the less sensational announcements, designed to sell newspapers. My own experience of the march was completely different. It was a day when I saw the good in people again, where I felt I wasn't the only one despairing or suffering from the threat of savage cuts in public services, and I also saw the real potential for the 'Big Society' - a country united across the usual dividing lines of class, race, and status, against blatant injustice from their government.

Of course, there was always going to be a contingent of radicalised, angry young men and women who felt the need to smash things up and have a go at battering the police. But for the majority of the 250,000 (BBC estimates) to 500,000 (The Guardian estimates) people like me and my family members who marched to try and speak up for the common good, it was a day of peaceful protest, camaraderie and fellowship.

This feeling of togetherness was illustrated brilliantly in the pub we stopped into on Whitehall (yes, to use the facilities - but we also bought a drink, before you say anything about being heathens). The ladies' toilet queue was positively hilarious. People were striking up conversations over nothing at all, and discussing where they had travelled from and what they did for a living. We even got tired of waiting and -YES WE CAN- comandeered the gents' loo. What made me proud was how very un-British it all was. These people were actually choosing to strike up conversations - and how without fail, most of these conversations ended up with Cameron and Clegg really getting it in the neck.

Suckle Up Economics from our dear leader, the tit.

Whereas the downstairs of the pub was full of protesters, the upstairs was almost empty, save for a few groups of bemused-looking tourists, trying to have lunch. I asked two gentlemen if I could take a photo from the window they were sitting next to. "What is theees all-about?" came the query from one well-dressed middle-aged Italian. I explained that a lot of people were angry with our government, and that because we came from all kinds of backgrounds and had united today to protest, you really knew that the coalition was in trouble. "We can relate to you,"said his friend. I joked that however bad it was, we didn't have the same trouble as the Italians did, having Berlusconi for a leader. They looked shocked that I knew anything of Italian leaders. We shared a good-natured joke about Il Cavaliere. "Che cazzo, eh?" Ah, politics. Really warms the cockles.

Whitehall, yesterday

The march continued down Whitehall and began to slow as we reached Trafalgar Square. The atmosphere was electric. Not knowing what was ahead, the crowd began to get impatient and chants and cheers would break out every now and again, to keep the spirits up. No matter how ebullient we were, however, the pervasive feeling of malevolent surveillance was hard to shake. Sirens and helicopters were heard over our chants throughout. There was definitely an air of preparation for any trouble to be stamped out immediately, and we all knew how many pairs of eyes, both supportive and distrustful, were upon us at all times.

Reports of violence from Oxford Street and some parts of Piccadilly were certainly unnerving, and we knew something was afoot as we passed The Ritz with cracked windows - but for the most part, it felt like a peaceful, inspiring day that had the potential to spark real change. It felt like Britons from all corners of the country finally had a common cause to unite - something which I haven't felt in a long, long time.

Cameron may have had a different 'Big Society' in mind, but yesterday felt big enough to topple his government's shortsighted and irresponsible plans.

For those of you reading this who went, thank you for making it such an incredible day - you have my applause. Please feel free to share your comments below. It would be good to hear from others who had different (or similar) experiences of the day.

Now, let's all keep our fingers crossed for a similar outing planned for April 29th. Wouldn't it be a shame if the royal couple had to elope...?

Something for the Weekend?

2011-03-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

Just a short one, this. If you:

a) live in south London

b) live in London,

c) live anywhere in the UK, in fact,

d) know anyone likely to be using a hospital in the coming year,

e) know anyone trying to go to university in the next year,

f) know anyone who will be trying to get a graduate job in the next year

g) actually DO quite like libraries, thanks,

or just h) aren't a numpty, please try to get yourself down here, here, or here tomorrow.

We aren't going to have many opportunities like this one. Photos and march-commentary to follow...

Coming Out, Standing Up and Being Counted

2011-03-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

image credit: www.hannahnicklin.com

I have a secret. (Shh - it's this blog).

Ever since I began writing here in February 2009, I have done so under a pseudonym. I have shown it to maybe four or five of my friends and work colleagues, but I've never made my posts public on my facebook or my own twitter account. At first, that was mainly because I wasn't confident about my writing, but more recently, it's been about not wanting to be too public about my thoughts, especially as so many of them are about jacking it all in and leaving London behind. The blog was always intended to be a diary and an occasional account of events going on during a particularly turbulent time in my life, but more of a virtual notebook; a place to store my thoughts, archive them, and be able to look back on them. I certainly still don't really know whether this blog is a foodie thing or a self-indulgent ranty thing, or just an online space to store musings. But a few things are happening that make me want to publicise a little bit more, and address some issues I feel are important.

Firstly, work is totally bonkers at the moment. People are leaving and throwing their toys out of various prams all over the place. I am trying to remain somewhat indifferent to the upheaval because it fits in with my master plan to pack my shit up and leave in around 11 months' time to try finding sustainable work somewhere in France running a jam farm. But these relatively minor HR storms rage within a sector-wide squall - I work in higher education, you see.

image credit:www.globalhighered.wordpress.com

It's become increasingly clear to me that "this country" (as I write, I hear it being said in David Cameron's twattish little voice - shudder) has been, for the short term at least, monumentally buggered *polite term* by the Con-Dem government. All right, nothing new there; that's been going on since May. But specifically, I'm increasingly disillusioned with the prospect of talking excitedly about higher education to 17 and 18 year olds across the UK and EU this year knowing full well that they will be committing themselves, for the most part, to at least £27,000 worth of government- endorsed debt from next September onwards, not including their living costs. And that's my job, which makes things a bit tricky, really.

Thanks a bunch, Dave.

I feel like a bit of a fraud and a hypocrite, but at least part of my job is about trying to raise aspirations of young people who have the the ability to go to university but are facing barriers to progression. (It's also to help the university I work for increase their intake from as wide a variety of schools and backgrounds as possible.) But I don't yet know how we can really fix things to make university education more accessible to all, though. And I'm getting tired of feeling like we're all lying and just trying to make up the numbers to satisfy this government's guilty conscience.

But for the moment, here's what I'm doing. I'm trying to motivate a small team of people, keep my head above water, clear my own (relatively meagre) student debt, not lie to anyone (intentionally or not), get my bus commute down to under an hour a day, eat up all my greens, better my own personal best Scrabble high score of 420, and keep writing.

Oh, and given that influential people are leaving my workplace, I'm no longer worried about this blog being public anymore. You can find the real me on twitter here and here, and you can email me at the.bittersweet.cityAT gmailDOTcom. Holler at me and tell me what you think, or leave me comments and let's interact. And if you can, come and join me at this on March the 26th. It's important, for everyone, not just students.

By the way, I'm totally serious about the jam farm.

Earl Grey & Rose Supper Club, Streatham

2011-02-21T15:02:00.000-08:00

The Bitter: Portions too huge to finish.

The Sweet: Everything else.

Sated. That would be the word I would use to describe my first Streatham supper club experience a little over two weeks ago. I could also use satisfied, stuffed, satiated and replete. I’m not just talking about the food though. I’m talking about an evening spent in good company, with the warmest of welcomes from our hosts AND the bonus of some truly excellent, hearty cooking.

The day beforehand, I had been on the bus on the way to work, scrolling through twitter, and I had seen the supper club advertised by @streathampulse. Nothing escapes the all-seeing, all-knowing streathampulse feed, you see, and given that I always like to sniff out a good local meal, I made a mental note to investigate further. When I saw that it was just the next evening, I didn’t think I would be able to go along, although I thought I probably should try to get to the next one. Lo and behold, later that day I received a text from my friend Malcolm asking if I would like to take up a spare ticket he had booked for the inaugaural evening (his girlfriend was poorly). Naturally I jumped at the chance and soon found myself calling the Earl Grey and Rose shop on Leigham Court Road to see if I could snatch one last spot for the Mister to accompany Malcolm and I.

So the next day - a rainy, chilly Friday evening - we three found ourselves knocking on a grand-looking door on Gleneldon Road, and a blonde lady with a beaming face was welcoming us in to a spectacularly stylish house which was already full of people chattering and clinking glasses. Around 14 other dinner guests were already getting acquainted in the living room; an assortment of couples in their late twenties and early thirties, and several attractive, well-groomed women in their thirties and forties who were neighbours or friends of neighbours. I recognised another contributor to Streatham Pulse, @diddlysquat29, aka Alex, who was there with his other half, and was immediately glad I already knew others, although there was no need to be worried about striking up conversations – everyone was very friendly.

Our host, Lydia, gave us some ribbons to identify our bottles of wine, (BYO alcohol was specified) pointed out some canapés (smoked salmon blinis, mozzarella, basil and tomato bites, and some chorizo and gherkin sticks, amongst others) and went off to get us some glasses for prosecco. Her husband Mark, a jolly soul who also beamed at us, was soon filling up (and re-filling!) our vintage-looking glasses, encouraging us to nibble and enjoy the roaring open fire in the living room. It was a warm and inviting start, and we looked around, impressed by the tasteful décor and luxuriant furnishings. We chatted to a couple who had recently bought a home in Streatham and were seeking out a bit of the local scene. It was pleasing to be able to explain the beauty of Streatham in a nutshell to them, and the guests at the supper club embodied this: that Streatham is a fantastically diverse neighbourhood, that people are friendly and unprejudiced, and that although it may not have the aspirational pull of Clapham or the trendy edginess of Brixton, it has a burgeoning scene all of its own, and a much more organically-grown one at that.

Anyway, back to the evening – soon the last of the dinner guests had arrived and we were called into the kitchen/diner, a long room with two tables laid out with beautiful initialled serviettes and more vintage accoutrements, like silver salt and pepper shakers and butter dishes – slightly mismatched, charming, and beautiful.

Our first course was a hearty and warming Vincisgrassi – a lasagne of porcini mushrooms, parma ham and truffle oil, which could have easily been a main course. It was delicious – salty and cheesy, and crafted with egg pasta. It warmed us up nicely, and we could see that it was not going to be a night to watch our calorie intake – these hosts meant business with their portions!

Conversations flowed easily and the dining room was soon a low continual hubbub of appreciative noises. Before long, more ENORMOUS portions were being dished up. The main course was announced as ‘slow-roasted rare breed pork with dauphinois potatoes, cavolo nero and French beans’. Between us all we may have eaten two whole pigs sliced into thick chops with succulent white meat and proper crackling, with creamy, garlicky potatoes and some lovely greens, which I’ve learned are the same as that perennial Scottish favourite, curly kale. Green beans were served in little side dishes to share and were cooked perfectly. For a moment as we all began, the table fell practically silent, bar a few murmurings of pleasure.

At this point, our hosts relaxed visibly. More wine was poured, and they managed to share a portion of the meal between them as they grabbed a rare chance to sit down. By the time most of us had made a fair stab at finishing our meals, we were groaning from being so full. I liked that Lydia and Mark hadn’t skimped on the food. Their cooking was full of heart.

We were given a brief respite from the calorific onslaught before being presented with perfectly set, largeish portions of panna cotta, speckled with vanilla and served with raspberries. All were in shock when Mark announced that they had been lovingly crafted with no fewer than fourteen pots of cream. A glamorous doctor we were sitting across from had eyes as big as saucers and joked about heart disease. This was seriously rich stuff, and not many could finish theirs, despite it being delicious.

However, there’s always room for some cheese, isn’t there? The penultimate course had been sitting on the counter behind us, wafting a scent every now and then to remind us of it presence. A surprising number of us gave a cheese plate a go. Somehow a few grapes made the load feel lighter. And by then, bottles of wine were being drained and many of us were past caring about our waistlines. I was having a thoroughly good time. Lydia and Mark seemed to be too. And as the hosts relaxed, it all started to feel like we were at the home of old friends. They told us a little about their former businesses, and their holidays, and foodie inspiration, and it became clear (as if it hadn’t already) that they were lovely people who really cared about what they did. They also introduced their two adorable West Highland terriers to the table and won everyone over even more. I made a mental note to visit their shop on Leigham Court Road as I was sure it would be every bit as charming as their home was.

By the time Mark was offering coffees and petits fours it was getting on for midnight, so Malcolm, the Mister and I drained our glasses and decided we weren’t going to be those people who left last and kept the hosts up after an exhausting evening of cooking and entertaining. We paid the balance remaining for the £35 per head suggested donation. Lydia remarked that taking payment felt odd, and I saw that as a triumph – we all felt we had eaten with friends. We had eaten our fill, and more.

Before staggering onto a bus home, we still tried some homemade meringues in pretty pastel colours (the Mister declared these the best he’d eaten) and a couple of chocolates.

Well, it would have been rude not to, wouldn’t it?

Opening Windows

2011-02-11T13:41:00.000-08:00

Before I turn 30, I've promised myself, I'm going to see where all four of my grandparents and all four of my great-grandparents came from.

With 18 months still to go, I'm not far off. I've seen my maternal grandmother's tiny fishing village in the west of Norway, where her mother was raised, in turn, on fresh mackerel, sea air and goat's milk. I've stood on the spot where my paternal grandfather and grandmother built their little raised house with the corrugated iron roof on stilts in the verdant, wild bush of Trinidad (more goats here, too). I've walked many a mean street of Bermondsey, where my mother's dad knew every bus route going in Southwark (apparently this led to a degree of popularity with the young au pairs who happened upon his particular patch in Rotherhithe to go to the Norwegian church).

But there's one part of my heritage I've never been able to experience first-hand. A part of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother's stories I'd been desperate to see.

India.

When I was about seven or eight, I remember my father pointing out the northern and southern tips of the vast landmass on the map pinned to my bedroom wall. He marked two asterisks on this; his unmistakeable scrawled capitals marking the top: "MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS BORN IN KASHMIR" and the bottom: "MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER WAS BORN IN MADRAS." Both places sounded so exotic and so far away from each other, let alone from my childhood home in south Florida. My father had never been to these places either, but his dark face and poker-straight jet black hair belied his roots. He contented himself with Kipling and Naipaul's literary versions of India, and I never knew if he would have liked to visit his diverse family beginnings at the top and the bottom of our map, but the foods of my childhood were certainly squarely tied in with his original ancestry (as for most Trinis): roti, paratha, chana dhal, okra, curried chicken, and plenty of hot pepper sauce on everything.

My first visit to India, at the end of last month, was to neither of the places on our map. I'm not ashamed to say it was to a place set squarely in the middle of the tourist (and hippy) trail; a place that Thomas Cook flies to twice a week and a place many Brits flock to in search of sun, sea, sand, and sex. I was certainly looking for sunshine, but more than anything, I wanted to get the measure of the people, and open a window I hadn't ever been able to look out of before.

In most of the places we went while we were there, I was asked if I was Indian. And for once (unlike in other European countries this happens to me in - Greece, Italy, Spain), I could say with some conviction that this country was woven somehow into my family history. And I liked that.

I'm already planning for our return journey. Next time, we'll definitely see more than a holiday resort and I hope to be able to open that window a little wider, look a little deeper, and take the time to try to visit those asterisks on the map of my childhood. I hope, with my return visit, to see a little more of the people who can already see quite a bit of me in them.

I have no more words. Just pictures.

Keep Warm and Carry On

2011-01-08T08:45:00.000-08:00

As I started to write this post a couple of weeks ago, it was snowing heavily again. It's been hard to be warm in our Victorian terraced house, so we've taken to putting up extra sheets as curtains, stuffing old tights under the gaps in the doors, and I even clingfilmed our bathroom window in the hope of retaining some warmth. Look what I good job I did:

Hmmm.

With the ever-increasing need to hunker down and keep warm, we've been making lots of comfort food.

Kedgeree,

chicken noodle soup,

huevos rancheros,

and polpette con ragù

...are just some of the things we've felt compelled to make - our calorie count increasing proportionally in relation to the temperature outside decreasing.

One of my friends over at I Think in Pictures has been asking me for a dhal recipe for a little while now. I made it again this week and finally wrote down the ingredients. So, here you go, Neenen - this is a super easy recipe that has never disappointed.

Dhal

Ingredients:
half a packet of split red lentils
2 onions, sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 inch piece fresh ginger, chopped
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
half a tin of chopped tomatoes, OR
1 tablespoon concentrated tomato purée
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 tablespoon garam masala
1/2 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
5-10 whole cardamom pods, if you have them
fresh coriander leaves, to serve
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, butter, or ghee, for cooking.

Method:

Fry up the onions in a small pan until translucent, then add the garlic and fry together until they are starting to caramelise (read:burn). You really do want them to have started to blacken. Add the mustard seeds to the pan and let them pop away happily. Keep everything moving around the pan so you don't get major burnage, and then add the ginger and all of the dry spices you have from the list above, followed by the tomatoes or tomato purée. Once everything has mixed together and cooked for a couple of minutes, turn off the heat and set aside for later.

In a separate saucepan, wash and rinse the lentils a couple of times, then cover with boiling water and bring to the boil, then simmer. Keep skimming the bubbles that will rise to the top of the pan, and keep topping up with water if it is being absorbed too quickly. You're going for a thick, mushy consistency to the lentils, which usually takes a good 20-30 mins of simmering time.

Once the lentils are done, drain off any remaining water (there shouldn't really be any) and add most of the fried onion mixture to the saucepan. Mix well, and serve with steaming hot basmati rice as a base, and the remaining browned onions and chopped coriander as a garnish. Watch out for those cardamom pods if you don't like them!

Grandma

2010-12-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

My grandma, a woman of considerable character, an impish provocateur, a lady of substance who knew her mind until her final days, slipped quietly away on November 24th. It took us all by surprise that she decided to go so quietly. And decide she surely had, for she had suffered several falls, two small strokes and mild heart failure already this year, yet she hadn't given up in hospital. She had waited until the time was right for her to go, simply and quickly, at the nursing home she had lived in since August.

My mum asked me to say a few words at her funeral, which was scheduled for December 3rd,but the snow in Chelsfield, near Orpington, that town where all trains break down (and all who enter abandon hope) was about 18 inches deep and the town was practically unreachable, so the event was postponed to the 15th.

'A Remembrance of Grandma' was to be my section, after the vicar's introduction and history of her life - which made for some truly incredible listening.

Born on a small island off the coast of Norway in 1913, and raised to go to 'housewife school', she won a prize at said school for her goat-milking skills (the fastest goat-milker in the west... of Norway). In the early 1930s she came to England to work as an au pair for a rich Norwegian shipping magnate's family. By 1939 she had met my grandfather, a bit of a wide boy from Bermondsey, at the Norwegian Sjømannskirken (Seaman's Church) who apparently was a favourite with all the Norwegian girls due to an unparallelled knowledge of London's bus routes, and by 1939 they had a wartime wedding. She was unable to go back to occupied Norway during wartime and had no idea of how her family were for the duration of the war.

Making a life in Orpington in the 1940s as a foreigner must have been hard. Raising 5 daughters on a very tight budget, she excelled in making do and mending, cooking from scratch and tending to fruit and vegetables in her cottage garden. She spent her life mobilised for peace, too, after having been separated from her family by war, and was a vociferous supporter of Amnesty International and the WILPF.

Here are some of my other enduring memories of the fantastic woman I got to know over 28 years.

- Always in the garden when possible. I remember rows of hydrangeas, an archway of roses, and honeysuckle. Clothes were always drying on the line. Everyone remembers summers in her beautiful garden. It was her pride and joy.

- A very snappy dresser! Liked to look good, have her hair done and always wore perfume. A true glamourpuss, and true to her star sign - a veritable Leo.

- A firm but fair hand with children. She loved her grandchildren and her face lit up whenever there were children around. She was a stickler for good behaviour, though, telling us to eat up our ‘wegetables’ and had no problem with disciplining us if we were naughty. She will always particularly be remembered for chasing a certain couple of my young cousins, Peter and Jonny, around the house with a wet flannel, a story which has become family legend.

- This propensity for discipline was something that made her lack of success with her cat, Sandy, all the more astonishing – that cat weed everywhere! Oh, the smell! The other pet I can remember, Flossie the dog, was thoroughly pampered and had full run of the house as well. So we might say she was more of a softie when it came to animals...

- A true trailblazer of the modern age, grandma championed fair trade products, shopping locally, recycling and the make-do-and-mend culture which is seeing a massive resurgence now. If you ever needed a bit of 15-year old tinfoil, or a tin of baking powder from 1987, her kitchen drawers were sure to hold your treasure.

- Spirited and opinionated, even in her later years. She fought with nurses, argued about taking pills, told off carers and certainly didn’t mince her words when it came to a subject she felt passionate about. She championed the WILPF and Amnesty and we are a more politicised and outspoken family because of her - in the best way possible.

- She LOVED her soaps. The Eastenders, Emmerdale Farm and Coronation Street theme tunes were forever burned into my brain after living with grandma for our first year in England. The TV was always on VERY LOUD, so in order to speak to grandma you would have to shout. The best outings/ entertainment for grandma were VERY LOUD things. An amusement for some of her great-grandchildren in her later days, was that at her house, one was not only allowed but encouraged to shout. Endless fun.

- And finally, she loved men! She always liked to meet new gentlemen and always, always enjoyed attention from a well-spoken young man. Rumours abounded of a gentleman friend in her last weeks at the nursing home and we were all glad to hear it.

Grandma, you will be remembered and missed by us all, for being a strong and inspirational woman who was ahead of her time in so many ways. We are all so proud and lucky to have known you for as long as we have.

Borghild Margit Cooke (née Nielsen) 17.8.1913 - 24.11.2010

All Change, Please

2010-11-19T15:24:00.000-08:00

"This country's seen better days," says the old lady on the bus again, as she steps past us all to alight, tutting to herself. She is wearing a fluorescent shell suit and plenty of gold jewellery. We're speeding up Brixton Hill towards Streatham.

She's just witnessed the same altercation we all have: it's between an overweight, ruddy lady in her forties who clearly needs to cool off, and the small crowd of people (two Spanish dudes in their 20s, chatting away animatedly, an older Rasta man, and the aforementioned old lady) sitting on the back seats behind her who have been getting a chill every time she opens the window.

Whoosh.

The window opens. We all feel a blast of icy air. It's well after the Friday evening rush hour and the bus driver is going like the clappers, so it feels breezier than it is. It's open maybe a minute and a half before one of the young Spaniards sitting behind the ruddy lady closes it.

THWACK.

It shuts loudly. (Is there any other way of closing a bus window?)

The ruddy lady looks back in annoyance, but her neck is a bit fat and she can't really see who has closed it. The Spaniards stare back in open defiance. You can hear silent cheers from the others on the back seats.

She opens it again, but no less than five seconds pass and -WHUMP- it has been shut again. The window is cleverly positioned so that both she and the young Spaniard sitting behind her can control its opening and closing. This little pantomime happens maybe three or four times. You can almost hear the audience joining in.

"OH YES it is open!"

"OH NO it isn't!"

"Can you STOP closing the window, PLEASE?" The fat lady says, in a schoolmarmish way. The Spaniards look at each other for support.

"No," says one of them, in his singsongy Spanish way. "Eees cold." They look like they might have been a team at school, as well.

Fat lady huffs audibly. She reaches to open it again. She gets halfway and the other Spaniard reaches over and shuts it, fast. WHUMP. He can move faster than her. They are enjoying the game now. They can sense they have the support of the Rasta as well.

"ER ...EXCUSE me", she says, stressing the Errr. "I would LIKE it open!"

"Weeell too bad," sings the Spaniard, we would LIKE it closed!"

The Rasta chimes in. "Yeah, it's freezin' back 'ere, man."

One more time, the last time, the fat lady pulls the window open. A gust of wind blows into the old lady's face. The window is slammed shut by the hand of the young Spaniard, this time with no hesitation whatsoever. He looks ready to stand up and face her down.

"You're VERY rude," says the ruddy lady.

"There are three of us back here who would like the weeendow closed. ONE, TOOO, THRRREE," says the first Spaniard, counting his allies with his finger extended and finally pointing to his chest. Have some reespect for us."

The fat lady has given up. It's her stop anyway. She gathers herself and her things up and bustles past her neighbour to get off the bus, breathing heavily. The Spaniards look triumphant.

Their victory smiles are broken by a sudden outburst from the old lady. She tuts as she moves one seat away from the crowd. "This country's seen better days," she says. "Bloody got to get home." She stands, falteringly, to get off at the next stop, before repeating herself.

I look over to the lady sitting opposite me, on the other side of the back of the bus. She's stifling a giggle behind her copy of the Evening Standard.

"Is it a full moon?" I ask her.

"Must be," comes her incredulous reply.

Then comes the familiar announcement, in that strange faceless woman's voice, which is so incongruous in Brixton.

"This bus terminates here. Please remember to take all your belongs with you. This bus terminates here. All change please."

We all decamp to the very cold bus stop to await the next one.

Octobre/Ottobre

2010-11-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

What a bleeding crazy month. I'm so behind, at everything. I'm behind on this blog, on my StreathamPulse reviews, on my life's general meaning.

What the heck have I been doing? Well, here's how the beginning /middle of October went.

It seems like a long time ago, but it was wonderful to be back in Paris. It was for work, but I took a weekend there and enjoyed the sunshine. It was unseasonably warm and sunny for October.

Did I mention I'd quite like to live in France?

At the end of the month I went to Milan, also for work, and took a weekend off to stay with my friend Thea. Instead of staying in Milan all weekend, I asked her if she would come with me to Lugano (where I had a school visit) and then on to Lake Como. We stayed in a lovely little hotel up on the hillside, 1000m above sea-level, in a hilltop town called Brunate overlooking the lake.

Here was how we got there:

Here was what it looked like from the top of the hill.

Just incredible. The air was clean and fresh, my lungs were stronger and my mind was less full. It felt nice to shake off the city for a while. A year ago, I would *never* have said that.

This is a simple post to just look back at these photos, really. Just writing this has calmed my city-frazzled nerves and slowed my heart rate.

And to say that a lot of the time these days, I wish I was somewhere else.

I am really going to have to fix that.

Just Desserts

2010-10-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

I've been making a concerted effort to diversify my efforts, beyond the realm of one-pot cooking - soups, stews, stir-fries, tagines, ragus, curries - you'd be surprised how many variations on a theme there can be.

So I've started tackling the thing I'm really frightened of. Desserts. They're just so...exacting. I hate all the science-y bits. The measuring and the possibility of errors - mixing something in too early, or too late; the chance that the temperature might be too high or low. Oh, ok. It's just that I'm terrifically lazy and would much prefer the 'throw in a bit of this, bit of that' school of cookery.

Still. "Everyone can bake if they put their mind to it," says my mum. I should be able to stretch beyond chocolate-chip cookies (Thanks, Betty Crocker. It's because of you that I will nab myself that handsome husband someday).

Of course, she's right. Take brownies, for instance. What kind of doofus can't even follow a brownie recipe? Here's a foolproof one, that I adapted with my favourite Spanish product EVER.

Cola Cao Brownies
(adapted from the original Betty Crocker recipe)

Ingredients:
1 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup chocolate squares - a mixture of dark and milk is best

2 eggs

2/3 cup plain flour

1/4 cup Cola Cao (with this ingredient, they're officially good for you)

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees/gas mark 4. Melt the chocolate pieces and butter together in a bain-marie until velvety and gorgeous. Mix with the sugar, flour, Cola Cao powder and eggs. Stir in remaining ingredients until you have a fudgey chocolatey sticky bowl of pure joy. Spread out in a greased square pan. Lick mixing spoon. Bake until a toothpick pushed into the middle comes out clean 25 to 30 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

Oh, and share with everyone you know. Sharing is good.

NB: Thanks to Lo-Sal for the Cola-Cao, which you can source here, or here.

The Thing

2010-09-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

We have this great local fishmonger, Fish Tale, in Streatham Hill and the family who run it are friendly, chatty, and helpful. They're always busy now, which is a heartening sign of the well-deserved welcome they are getting from the local community. We don't visit as often as I'd like, but have been in there maybe four or five times and have always been greeted with a smile and a genuine hello.

Last Sunday we went in at around 5.30pm and they were almost sold out of the fish on their ice counter, but the proprietress assured me they had more in the chiller. In the end we bought some gorgeous cod and haddock fillets marinated in chilli and herbs (which were delicious, but we'll have to get to that another time).

As we were paying up, by way of conversation, the nice lady mentioned that they would soon be getting a lobster tank in store. Excited by this, I asked her how much a lobster would be (she didn't actually say, but looking at their website I can see they're normally £9.99) - and she said they would have live crabs, too. At this point, I exclaimed, "I love crab!" Quick as a flash, she was on her way out the back again."Wait there," she said. "I'll give you one." Catching our uncertain glances to one another, she added to the Mister and I, "for free!"

The Mister gave me a look that said, BONUS. I didn't argue, and before we knew it she was handing us a weighty carrier bag with a huge orange crustacean staring up at us with beady, dead eyes.

"I had a customer who ordered it," said the diminutive shopkeeper, "but she couldn't cook it live, so she asked me to do it, and said she would collect it on Friday. That was two days ago, and I can't sell it, so have it. Tell me how it is," she winked, "but don't eat it if it smells funny," she added, with a look of warning.

"But how do we get into it?" I asked. "And aren't there some bits we can't eat?" I was vaguely remembering something about dead man's fingers.

"Naaah, darleeen," came the reply. "Just put a sharp knife into it (she mimed a straight-down, stabbing motion) and it will be lovely."

Well. One hour later, we were staring at our new Cornish friend in the kitchen sink.

"I feel sorry for it," I said.

The Mister started to try to split it in half as per the instructions given, but succeeded only in dulling our sharpest kitchen knife. So we did what any pansy-assed, lily-livered city slickers who didn't know our crab's ass from its elbow would do:

We youtubed it. (You have to watch this. It's the least enthusiastic instruction video ever.)

Following our nasal young instructor's method step-by-step, we (well, I say we) dissected the primeval, alien creature, bit by bit. We had to keep stopping to rinse it, because it was pretty horrible and all covered in brown goop.

I documented the Mister's disgust, mild nausea, and sheer incredulity with great interest.

Eventually we got the hang of getting the meat out, using our ill-equipped kitchen implements such as chopsticks, knives, and our garlic crushers. After an hour of hard toil, we ended up with this much meat.

What a crock.

It did make a lovely crab linguine, though. But your bin doesn't half stink the next day.

I Can Totally Manage Another Year Older...etc, etc. Part 2 of 2.

2010-09-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

Image credit: Arno@www.eatwithyoureyes.net

So. Where were we? Oh yes. It was rainy and far too cold to be the end of August, and I'd worn silly shoes and my feet were wet. We'd just been to see Le Refuge at the Renoir, and were in the Marquis of Cornwallis having a drink to warm up before the damp journey home. I was wondering why we were in the pub and not just on our way home already, but it seemed important that we killed some time in the pub. The Mister was being twinkly-eyed and mysterious in that cute mischievous way he does so well.

Me: It's been a lovely day, but my feet are a bit wet now. (Cursing stupid sandals.) Shall we go home?

Mister: No, let's just stay here a bit longer.

Me: Why? The weather's not very nice. Let's go home and get cosy.

Mister: Are you getting hungry?

Me: Not really. Well, a bit. But I can wait until we get home. (Not wanting to appear to expect any other treats, like a restaurant dinner. Although of course, not wanting the day to just end there, all soggy and emotionally pummelled by enjoyable, but strange, French cinema).

Mister: Oh good. Because I'm afraid we're not going to a restaurant.

Me: Oh.

Mister: Sorry.

Me: That's OK! (A little too brightly.) It's been a lovely day. Thank you.

Mister: Let's give it ten more minutes here and then we'll go.

Me: O..kay. (Still expecting that he's pulling my leg and that we're going for dim sum or something. He knows I love dim sum.)

Mister: We've just got to call in on a mate of mine before we go home.

Me: What? Who? (mildly incensed)

Mister: Just a guy I know, called Arno. In Brixton.

Me: Really? I don't know any mate of yours called Arno...(smiling knowingly - thinking I've cottoned on to an alternative plan)

Mister: Yep. Sorry. (completely po-faced). I've got to pick up some weed for my friend Lila. Arno's a mate of a mate, if you know what I mean. I promised I'd stop by this week.

Me: Can we not go see Arno some other day? Surely Lila can wait?! It's bleeding horrible outside. In case you hadn't noticed, I wore terribly inappropriate footwear and I'm a bit cold and soaking wet all over. And I don't really want to visit some dealer! And... (bottom lip trembles a bit at this stage)...it's my birthday!

Mister: It's on our way home. I promise it won't take long. Just a quick 10 minute detour and we'll get warmed up with something lovely at home, I promise (flashes his winning smile).

And so we were on our way, deep underground until we got out at Brixton in the rush hour home, rain still streaming down,making the high street look like a watercolour canvas. We stopped at a cash point and I saw the Mister take out a small wedge that made me begin to question just how much weed we might be buying. And why on earth Lila couldn't buy her own. The twinkly-eyed thing had definitely worn off. By the time we were past the Ritzy, I was raging.

We turned the corner onto Saltoun Road and stopped somewhere near the middle. The Mister rang the doorbell. I muttered something bad-tempered about it looking like a drug-dealer's house. Gosh, I'm petulant. How would I know? Of course it didn't. Then the door was opened by a very salubrious-looking young man in an apron. He was all groomed in that East London kind of way - you know, brylcreemed and retro-cool. I had to admit I still had no idea what was going on, until he beamed and invited us in. "I'm Will," he said. "I'm filling in tonight. Do follow me upstairs." It was then that I began to twig (yes, I'm pretty slow) that this probably wasn't a drug dealer's house at all. Part of me did wonder if we were entering a den of meditation or some kind of new-age therapy; and given that I was being so mare-ish, I wouldn't have been surprised if it was a couples-counseling session we'd walked into. But the Mister's face told me everything I needed to know - that it was going to be fun.

We walked upstairs, past a few bicycles hanging up, past a few arty knick-knacks including a Gilbert & George swear box, a fluorescent Virgin Mary in the bathroom, and lots of books. And then we arrived in the kitchen/diner, which was absolutely gorgeous.

The room was impeccably turned out - romantic lighting, laid out for dinner with four tables, two seating two, one seating four and the largest seating seven. There were things to look at wherever you turned your head - woven baskets on some of the walls, butterflies and bits of fishing tackle on others, vases, flowers, just lots of bits of somebody's life who obviously likes to collect. Will offered to take our coats and I was still looking around,open-mouthed, taking it all in. The Mister explained that it was my birthday, it was a surprise visit for me, and that it was our first time here. Will saw the need to elaborate. "It's a supper club," he explained. "Twice a week we can seat up to 16 guests. Let me introduce you to the chef, Arno." Sure enough, there was Arno - stylish, moustachioed, nothing like a drug dealer - busy in the kitchen. He took time out to shake our hands and greet us before turning back to his work.

It was at that point that the Mister realised he had forgotten to pick up a bottle of wine (which would have given the game away), so he nipped out and I was left to explore the sensory feast that is the Saltoun Supper Club. We were the first to arrive, so I was free to explore the 'smoking room' upstairs, a large loft conversion that houses many of Arno's history books (there's a theme: if you visit, see if you can spot it). As guests began to arrive, and the Mister arrived with our wine, we chatted a bit to our fellow diners, asking them how they had heard about the place (one diner was Arno's downstairs neighbour, who had family visiting from Australia and wanted to show them his nearest great local restaurant - they hadn't realised just quite how near it would be, another had just google-searched 'supper clubs'). The atmosphere was quite different to that of any other ordinary restaurant, with everyone making a concerted effort to chat, much like at any dinner party - you could almost imagine everyone playing a game of cards or scrabble in between courses. I immediately fell in love with the idea of holding one: although I'm sure it would be much more stressful than Arno made it look.

Soon, the first of five courses was served - a fresh summer vegetable salad with blanched julienned courgettes, romanesco cauliflower and feta, served with a drizzle of lemon, olive oil and black sesame seeds. Everything was fresh, with the vegetables sourced locally from the market in Brixton. It was a great start to the meal and cleansed the palate nicely with fresh, summery, zingy flavours that made us forget the biblical rain outside. We were given a basket of fresh bread which helped us mop up the last of the dressing. Yummy.

The next course was duck rillettes served with cornichons, pickled onions and more of the lovely bread. We chatted and relaxed, with Will keeping us topped up with wine, and enjoyed the atmosphere. I apologised profusely to the Mister, who had outdone himself. I'd forgotten all about the rain, my shoes, the proposed drug deal, and was slipping nicely into an overindulgent cordon-bleu coma. He'd enjoyed the whole thing immensely and maintains that I'm just too much of a control freak to really enjoy surprises. He may be right. Anyway, that's beside the point.

The next course was the main: whole sea bass stuffed with herbs and served with sugar snap peas, potatoes and a creamy saffron sauce. I didn't get a very good picture of this, but you get the idea: charming and delicious. Arno's presentation is first-class. I learned by reading Jay Rayner's review of the supper club that he is also a food photographer/stylist, which makes a lot of sense.

The evening lazed by, with breaks upstairs in the smoking room to chat with others, browse the books, or actually have a smoke. How very civilised. The rain pounding the smoking room's velux windows actually began to sound terribly romantic and Parisian, that's how cosy (and tipsy) I was. Before we knew it, we were already at dessert. By then I was completely stuffed, and so I did my level best with the delicious homemade chocolate brownie with fresh raspberries, but just couldn't finish the homemade chocolate slabs with ganache. A shame, because patisserie and desserts are clearly Arno's forté.

Arno, bless him, came around to the tables once everyone had finished and was having their coffee or mint tea and petits fours with fresh fruit, to check on our enjoyment of the evening. Not in a militaristic way, but in a way that said, 'I love food, and I've enjoyed cooking for you tonight, so I hope you've loved my food this evening'. When he came to our table, Will had presented me with a tiny plate of square miniature sponge birthday cakes decorated with fruit and fresh cream, which I had to ask if I could take home in a box, just because my cake-intake levels that day were off the scale -see my previous post. They were delicious - we enjoyed them for an indulgent breakfast treat the next day.

It was all so lovely, and Arno and Will (or whoever usually helps Arno out) deserve as much great publicity as possible. I know that there's a birthday sheen on this review, but I'm definitely going back with 6 friends to fill up that big table.

You can read some other great reviews of the Saltoun Supper Club here, here and here.

I can totally manage another year older (if it comes with cake and Jennifer Love Hewitt's blessing). Part 1 of 2.

2010-09-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Birthdays are strange things. It seems that people want them less, the more of them they have. Like socks. Or jobs. Or reality TV shows.

I'm still within the commonly acceptable age range which is allowed to welcome birthdays, but I think I'll have to give up the right to annually self-worship in approximately 730 days. Unless, of course, I take some well-thought-out, cogent advice from the Femail section of the Daily Mail, which quotes that veritable woman-mountain of inspiration, Jennifer Love Hewitt :

Last year when Jennifer Love Hewitt was 29 she was quoted as saying: ‘I'm so excited! It's my dream age. I don't know why but, literally, since my 12th birthday I've wanted to turn 30. There's nothing more graceful or elegant than the beauty of a female when she has figured out who she is.’

So until then, when I've figured out who I am (?@!&$*) Love Hewitt, I've decided to go all out.

This year was all organised as a series of little surprises by the Mister, who deserves an enormous medal for not bowing to the continual pressure I subjected him to whilst trying to find out what we'd be doing on the day, and for managing to involve my mum as well, whilst keeping everything a delicious secret from me. Our conversations the week beforehand went mostly like this:

Me: Tell me.

Mister: No.

Me: Oh, go on.

Mister: Do you really want to know?

Me: No.

Silence.

Me: Oh, go on.

(repeat ad nauseum).

So in the end, the day went like this.

We met my mum at a secret Piccadilly location at 11am which turned out to be Fortnum & Mason. She and I had a treatment each - me, manicure, she, pedicure - in their Beauty a la carte rooms. It was heavenly. My nails have never looked so spiffing.

The Mister went and had a pint and read his book nearby. We reconvened in an hour, then we all went up two flights of stairs to the St.James's Restaurant for proper afternoon tea.

I know. I'm a fiendishly lucky woman. Look at the cakes!

We ate a lot of cake. And sandwiches. Delicious little sandwiches for rich people with tiny little hands that couldn't hold a real-sized sandwich. It was really quite illuminating. And lovely. Did I say lovely already? I think I'm still having sugar highs.

After lunch we went to Oxford Street. That was a bad idea. By then it had started to rain. But we persevered, for my mum's birthday promise to me was a new pair of shoes. I know! It's like I had died and gone to some kind of Femail-sponsored heaven. It almost made me want to buy something fashionable. Eventually the rain reminded me that nothing is worth Oxford Street in the rain, not even new shoes. Yes, I'm cancelling my subscription to Grazia as I type.

So then mum called it a day, because we were going to see a film, and because, in her words, 'the evening is for lovers'. Aw. Don't you love mums?

The film we went to see was called 'Le Refuge' and it was on at the Renoir, which is another brilliant move from the Mister because he knows I'm a sucker for those Frenchies and their art-house sexy addiction films about drugs and babies. Anyway, more about that another time. You can read a review of the film here.

Then, suddenly, it was nearing dusk and I thought the day was over. But oh no. There was more to come.

For that, you're going to have to wait, because it deserves a sparkling post full of joy and now it's a Monday night at 11.43pm a few weeks later and I'll have to remember every detail to do it justice because it was a lovely evening. Ok, so it rained. A lot. But that didn't spoil a thing. It was lovely and warm and sunny inside. Oh, did I mention it was lovely*?

*All, right, I'm aware this sunniness may be getting annoying. Just one more post and then it's back to food and grumps.

Last of the summer cake

2010-09-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

Its been bloody ages since my last post. But, just to prove I haven't slipped into a late-summer-early-autumn-birthday-cake-induced sugar coma, I present to you: my second restaurant review for streathampulse. Enjoy.

I shall be back with a self-indulgent dose of post-birthday loveliness as soon as I can move again for all that cake.

Chocolate Chip Heaven

2010-08-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

I made chocolate chip cookies the weekend before last. They are SO easy, and coming from someone who never bakes and has admittedly passed off Betty Crocker brownie mix brownies as her own work (sorry to my future mother-in-law), you know that means they're a cinch.

I have to pay homage here to the Betty Crocker website (and cool retro cookbook my mother bought me three Christmases ago) for the foolproof recipe it provides. With super-easy American cup measurements. Why, oh why, doesn't the UK use cups? Anyway, if you don't have a measuring cup with cups, use a normal sized coffee mug. With this recipe, you can't really go far wrong.

Chocolate-chip cookies (adapted from the Betty Crocker website)

Ingredients:

3/4	cup granulated sugar
3/4	cup packed brown sugar
1	cup butter or margarine, softened
1	egg
2 1/4	cups self-raising flour
1	teaspoon baking powder (only if using plain flour)
1/2	teaspoon salt, and 1 tsp almond essence

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5, or 375 degrees F.

2. Make sure butter is soft (I microwave mine for 10 seconds if it’s just come out of the fridge. Otherwise, use a sunny windowsill for half an hour). Mix sugars with butter in a large bowl and add the egg.

3. Mix in flour slowly until consistency of the mixture is doughy (if using plain flour add baking powder too). Add salt and the dash of almond essence. The mixture should be greasy enough to coat your hands with a glossy sheen, but stiff enough to roll into balls.

4. Cut up a chocolate bar (none of those pansy-ass readymade chips for me, I like to use a Cadbury's Bourneville bar or some fairtrade Co-op dark chocolate) into little chips, about half a centimetre squared usually does it. Add to the dough and mix well. At this point you can also add other things to personalise your cookies if you like; hazelnuts, pecans, or Reese's pieces have all been used in the past in my kitchen.

5. Roll into individual 2cm wide balls and flatten as you place them on baking sheets. Cook in the oven for about 7 or 8 minutes if you like them slightly soft and gooey, like I do.

6. Serve to anyone you'd like to make friends with. It honestly works. People go mental for freshly baked things. I now believe that thing about having bread baking if you're trying to sell your house...

Weekend Breakfasts...

2010-08-14T16:19:00.001-07:00

...Are the best.

'Nuff said.

Keen on Quinoa

2010-08-05T14:53:00.000-07:00

This week, I had been catching up on the blogs I follow and was reading a great post about bulgar wheat on Little Bit in London, a great foodie/London life blog I've been following for a while. In this post, Emm wrote about how she craved some quinoa (which I always have in my sundries cupboard, and I commented on where you can find it in London. It's really pretty common, and I get mine either online when I do an Ocado order, or in my personal favourite, Greensmiths in SE1 - a wonderful little independent supermarket I've blogged about on numerous occasions. You can also find it in some larger branches of Sainsbury's - they stock it in their 'free-from' aisle, plus it's usually stocked in health food stores.

Anyway, after reading Emm's post I decided to honour the wonderous Peruvian super-seed and make it the main feature of a crunchy, fluffy, deliciusly healthy salad. Usually I make my own version of a yummy cashew nut, sunflower seeds, pea and tofu quinoa salad with toasted sesame oil, a la the Crussh super healthy lunch chain's own healthpot, but I was looking for something a bit different - fresh and summery. Trawling the interweb I typed in 'quinoa salad' and hey presto, I found this amazing little recipe. I've adapted a bit, but I bet the original recipe's yummy, too.

Quinoa, Avocado, Cucumber & Radish Summer Salad

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa

2 avocados, peeled and diced

a healthy squeeze of lime juice

1/2 low-salt vegetable stock cube, dissolved in 2 cups water

10-12 chopped radishes (diced)

1/2 cucumber, diced

3 spring onions, finely chopped

Dressing:

3 tsp. lime juice

2 tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp. toasted sesame oil

salt and pepper

1 tsp. dried chilli flakes

handful fresh coriander, chopped

Directions:

Put the rinsed quinoa on the hob on a medium-high heat and bring to the boil with enough water to just cover the grains. Add all the other ingredients to a bowl and mix gently, so as not to break up the avocado too much.

Once the quinoa has absorbed all of the stock, turn off the heat and fluff up with a fork. Leave to cool for a few minutes and add the toasted sesame oil to help separate the grains. Add the chilli, salt, pepper and toss in with the other salad ingredients. Mix gently, and add the olive oil and lime juice one spoonful at a time until you get the desired dressing. Garnish with the coriander and serve with some grilled or pan-fried chicken breast for a very tasty and healthy lunch or dinner.

This is cool.

2010-07-31T04:14:00.000-07:00

I'm now an 'in-house food and drink reviewer' for a local online magazine called Streatham Pulse. It's got my real name attached to it, so I guess this is a bit of an unveiling of sorts (not many of my friends/colleagues have known about this blog previously). It's been a kind of diary and a space to put thoughts down, but now may be the time to say,in the eternal words of Diana Ross - I'm coming out, I want the world to know, etc, etc.

So here I go, with the first of a monthly series of restaurant/bar/café reviews in and around Streatham. Hope you like, and check out the Streatham Pulse website and twitter account, it's a great idea and very ambitious considering its creator is running it singlehandedly. Long live the Pulse!

You can read my inaugural review of The Hamlet here and you can follow Streatham Pulse on twitter @streathampulse. Cheers.

Wisdom (or lack thereof)

2010-07-24T01:43:00.000-07:00

Um...what the hell is this picture supposed to mean? I'm offended. My tooth didn't want to leave, and now my face is protesting its loss.

(Image credit:www.goodbyewisdomteeth.com)

I wake up and all I can taste is blood. The side of my mouth gapes open, palsied and floppy. My pillow is wet and stained with bloody saliva. It hurts to swallow and I can feel my cheek is swollen and tender. There's a dull ache in my jaw which makes me wonder if I can still open my mouth properly. When I try, I manage a fraction of its normal movement. When I sit up, the ache in my jaw moves up into the side of my head. I look in the mirror for some confirmation that I'm still me. A bruised chipmunk stares back at me.

This, my friends, may all sound to familiar to you. When you google wisdom tooth removal, you begin to think, jesus, they really should censor some of those youtube clips. Horrific. Oh, and funny. According to this very reliable internet source I found, around 80% of people will suffer some problems with their wisdom teeth at one time or another.

How can that be? I mean, why the hell do we still have these things? Apparently they're utterly useless as we don't really use them to chew anything, they push your other teeth out of alignment in most cases, and in some lucky people they never appear at all. Clearly they're not necessary in this day and age, so why haven't we evolved to lose them altogether?

Luckily some clever soul asked a similar question on amazon askville (what the hell?!) and I can pilfer the replies for a semi-intelligent quote (here it comes, just like 'the science bit' on a L'Oreal ad). In response to the query, 'Are people who don't have wisdom teeth "more evolved" than those that do?' the best answer, as voted for by the asker, was by bunchesofdonald, from Indiana, who stated:

"Wisdom teeth are like other vestigial characteristics such as the appendix and the tail-bone, they are remnants from detailing our common ancestry. Being born without wisdom teeth is pretty rare and it is certainly a genetic mutation, but in our current environment and with modern medicine it doesn't really make us more or less adapted, so it most likely will not be selected for or against. For now people who don't have wisdom teeth are mutants, just like everyone else."

Ha! So if you don't have them, you're a mutant.

Oh wait. Mutants are cool.

(I'm drooling again).

The Bitter Sweat City

2010-07-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

Image credit tompagenet via flickr

Wow.

It's been 17 months since I started writing this blog. Give or take. And I have to confess, I feel like a bit of a fraud these days. I mean, take the title. London held so much for me back then, and it always will, but now it holds memories, not promises. I waited a long time to find what I was looking for in London, then I found it. I found him, more precisely. And now, every day I'm here feels like I need to start looking for somewhere else.

I've only been home for five minutes and it's 6.45pm. I finish work at 5.30pm, if I leave on time, which is rare at the moment, and it's taken me over an hour. That kind of daily commute wears you down after a while. Just getting onto the bus today, I took a couple of elbow jabs in my ribs, but nothing terrifying; it's just the average midweek homeward rush excitement that everyone who takes the 59 from Waterloo to Streatham seems to get.

On the bus there are shrieking children, crying babies in enormous prams, a host of not-too-personal stereos, and people sitting at the back of the bottom deck who frankly could do with investing in much more rigorous hygiene protocols. The bus driver is pissed off with us, with the traffic, with the weather - heavy tropicalian downpours one minute, sunshine reflecting off chrome bumpers the next. The air is dirty and heavy and all too still on the bus, as we all fight for elbow room for the Evening Standard, which every now and again gets rustled, irritatedly, by my travelling neighbour.

Increasingly I feel this beautiful, dynamic, crazy city is wearing me out. Maybe I am just prone to feeling more tired more often these days. Maybe I'm showing my age. Maybe it's just the first full week back at work in about a month and I'm feeling sorry for myself.

But the drive to move, to see, to go, is pulling at me, hard. The urge to take a leap, break free, do something worthwhile, and all those other clichés, is stronger than ever.

Luckily the man in my life is feeling the same way. It's a good thing I don't have to convince him about any kind of adventure. He was born ready. "Let's go and work in Africa", he says. "Let's run a bed and breakfast. Let's do a road trip across America. Let's run a jam farm."

Any or all of these options are attractive (especially the jam. Yum.) But the need to do something productive, from which I can gain tangible results, is important to me too. So we get to thinking about VSO. Something, somewhere at the back of my memory, reminds me that a maths teacher of mine once did a stint in Eritrea for VSO. Facebook comes into its own. BAM. I've fired off a friend request and an email faster than you can say 'opportunist'.

Mr B, let's call him, after 17 years or so, remembers me well. I'm tickled. But I'm much more interested in what he has to say about his volunteer experiences. He says it was the two best years of his life. He also says it was bloody hard work, and could be very isolating at times. He is keen to stress that the organisation might be very different now to when he was a part of it, but that they were looking for people who fit their mould, who shared the values and ambitions of the project. That they were matching people to roles, not the other way around, and that there were a number of hoops that he had to jump through in order to even get onto their books, as it were. The process from initial enquiry to beginning his posting was one year.

So I figure the end of next summer can be our own timetable for action. Maybe in another 17 months, this blog will have ceased to be what it originally was. Maybe I'll have to change its name, or start a new one. Whatever happens, you'll read about it here first.

Zakynthos 1, London 0

2010-06-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

12 days on a Greek island, and I'm a changed person.

We stayed on Zakynthos, one of the Ionian islands, the next one over from (maybe) the more well-known Kefalonia, which attracts an altogether more middle-class kind of tourist. Zakynthos is definitely the smaller, poorer cousin who has, around its southern coastline at least, in the town of Laganas, decided to give up its day job and embrace a life of beer, football, sunburn and chasing tail.

We arrived not in Laganas, but in Alykes, on the north eastern side of the island, sandwiched between two holiday resorts very popular with Brits. Although vastly preferable to the resorts frequented by beer-swilling, strip bar clientele, sporting custom-made 'LAGANAS STAG DO 2010' t-shirts and surviving on a varied diet of both McDonalds fries and kebab shop chips, it was still not what we were expecting and was somewhat annoying to begin with. We had come to see Greece, not Blackpool on holiday. Although not as developed as other parts of the island, nor were there any fairground rides or penny-slot machines, it was enough to remind us that learning to drive, and the independence that comes with mobility, is important. Especially when trying to find The Real Greece and escape the package tour and 'egg and chips, please' Brits that favoured the island.

Luckily for us, the place we stayed was a delight - quite a haven in the midst of the resort of Alykanas, the larger and more brash of the two towns we straddled, complete with bars called 'D.N.A.' or 'Two Fit Birds' or whatever. Alykes, the smaller and more serene of the resorts, was still replete with full English breakfasts and more world cup screens and England flags than you could shake a stick at.

We managed to ignore most of that. We'd planned to see the best the island had to offer - nesting beaches for endangered loggerhead turtles (caretta-caretta), incredible blue caves made by the erosion of soft limestone cliffs around the island's north coast, framing perfect azure waters, and to try as much authentic greek food as possible.

Look! A real live caretta-caretta swam under our boat!

The studios we chose to reside in were called Anna Studios, run by a marvellously friendly couple from Dagenham and Suffolk, Ian and Sarah, (who met whilst working in the prison service), and were utterly unlike anywhere else I've been. Once you've stayed there, with Ian, Sarah, her son Fraser and their dogs, cats, chickens and geckos, you feel a little bit like one of the family.

We've certainly never experienced such warmth and hospitality that seemed so effortless. From our first email exchanges, to being met by Sarah at the airport, to being asked to sit and eat with our hosts at an evening barbecue, we've never felt so completely welcomed by any other place we've stayed.

The studios themselves were clean, well-appointed and comfortable. Ours was stocked with bread, some jam and butter, teabags and milk upon arrival. Sheets and towels were changed regularly and we were given a fan as soon as the temperatures started to climb. The rooms were suited to couples or small families - private but close enough to chat with your neighbours if you wanted to - and the pool was big enough for a proper dip, with pretty gardens surrounding it.

What we liked most about the Anna Studios, however, weren't the gardens, or the pool, (or the truth bar by the pool), or the fresh eggs from the roaming hens, or even the great location a 10 minute stroll to the wonderful beach at Alykes. It was the feel of the place, which encouraged you to do those things that we find are so often lacking in our busy modern lives - talk to other people, make new friends, and find the opportunity to truly relax.

In those last few days there, I felt my limbs lengthen, my heartbeat slow, and myself opening up to the many possibilities of alternative futures - that with 'one auspicious and one dropping eye' - no longer include London.

I'll let the pictures speak - they're better than words in this case.

More Salad, Please

2010-05-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

I'm really getting into this whole warm-weather-salad-for-lunch-dinner-and-tomorrow's-lunch-again thing.

Look: this was the beautiful beginning of a chorizo and chargrilled vegetable couscous salad also served last weekend in the sunshine:

I mixed the grilled ingredients with some couscous steeped in chicken stock and some Moroccan ras-el-hanout, (following the Moorish theme from the previous post) then served with a tuna, haricot vert and chickpea salad tossed in a coarse grain mustard and balsamic dressing, and a nice crunchy endive, rocket and tomato salad on the side. We had some homemade guacamole and some gorgeous olives from the local Turkish shop to complete our happy table.

Yum. Hooray for the summer and with it, the end of that daily craving for chips and soups and pies and all kinds of sweet comfort foods to get through those long nights. No, more greenery for me henceforth. This is when my heart really sings.

Summer. Finally.

2010-05-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

It's finally warm! And as I was in Paris and then Milan for work last week, I got to see spring taking hold on the continent too. Paris was buzzing and full of lovers walking the boulevards. Milan was a mixed bag, with some thunder, lightning, and an occasional downpour, but they were the tempestuous Spring kind of showers, like the heated arguments of young Italian lovers; fiery yet short-lived.

Now we've had a week of lovely sunshine-filled days and the temperature has been steadily creeping up. Of course my mind has turned to summery things - cocktails, holidays, fresh seasonal foods. So with the warmest weekend on record this year beckoning us to go out and finally enjoy our garden last weekend, I rejoiced in the resurrection (don't know why I've used such epic language here, apologies - the sun must have gone to my head) of salads of all kinds and simple grilled meats, along with mezze-type foods that seem to work so much better in the climate they were born in.

One of my favourite restaurants serving mezze-style dishes, and lots more besides, is Moro in Exmouth Market. Sam and Sam Clark's first cookbook inspired by the food of the restaurant has some great recipes with an Andalusian/Northern Moroccan feel. For our rather 'Moorish' feast last weekend, I made pinchos morunos, substituting halal lamb from our great local Turkish shop for the pork the recipe calls for. Looking further East, recipes such as baba ganoush are stupidly easy yet still give off that 'I'm a worldy-wise chef' vibe to your guests. Finally, from the same 'mezze' section of the Moro cookbook, we tried out the carrot and cumin salad with coriander (with some chickpeas added for good measure). The results were pretty ace, even if I do say so myself...

Baba Ganoush (adapted from the Moro cookbook)

Ingredients:

3 large aubergines (about 750g - 1kg in total) 

2 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste with 1 tsp salt

 juice of 1 lemon 

3 tbsp tahini paste 

4 tbsp olive oil 

sea salt and black pepper  

Directions:

Pierce skins of aubergines, and grill whole over hot barbecue, directly on naked flame of hob, or under the grill, until the skin is charred and flesh is very soft. Under our grill, 3 aubergines took about half an hour, turning regularly. Or place in a very hot oven (gas mark 7) for 45-60 mins until soft inside.

Remove from heat. When cool enough to handle, discard tops and peel off skin, scraping flesh from back of skin if necessary. Place flesh and any juices in a large bowl, and either whisk or beat by hand until almost smooth (I beat by hand, to leave a bit of texture). Add garlic, lemon juice, tahini and olive oil, stir and taste for seasoning. Serve with warm flat Turkish bread.

Carrot, Chickpea, Cumin & Coriander Salad

Ingredients:

450g carrots – organic ones are fit.

400g tinned chickpeas, drained

2/3 tsp cumin seeds 

1 garlic clove 

juice of 3/4 lemon 

1/3 tsp caster sugar 

1 tbsp olive oil 

1 small bunch fresh coriander leaves, chopped 

sea salt  

Directions:

Peel carrots and boil whole in salted water till tender. Drain, spread out to cook and dry before slicing them quite thinly.  Pan fry the cumin seeds, then grind in a pestle and mortar (or just crush with a spoon), add garlic and 1/2 tsp salt and pound some more.

Mix lemon juice, sugar and olive oil into garlic mixture. Now toss carrots and chickpeas in the cumin dressing with the coriander. Serve at room temperature.

Pinchos Morunos

The cookbook calls for pork filet for this recipe, but we found that 500g of lamb chunks did very nicely instead.

Ingredients:

500g lamb shoulder, diced

sea salt and cracked black pepper

Marinade:

1/2 heaped teaspoon each of coriander seeds, cumin seeds and fennel seeds, all ground

1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika 'pimenton dulce'

2 garlic cloves, crushed with salt

a good pinch of Spanish saffron, infused in 2 tsp boiling water

1 bay leaf

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

a slosh of olive oil

Directions:

Place lamb into a large mixing bowl and add the marinade ingredients. Mix thoroughly and add the olive oil and leave in the fridge for a couple of hours to allow the flavours to marry. Thread on skewers and grill on charcoal for best results (we haven't got a barbeque yet in this flat so we made do with a nice hot grill).

Serve with bread, natural or Greek yoghurt with cucumber and mint stirred through, your baba ganoush and salad. Sit back and enjoy the warmth. Sunglasses optional.

I ♥ Ramen Noodles

2010-04-22T01:28:00.000-07:00

This one is great for one of those spring evenings when it’s not too warm but not freezing either, and you can’t be bothered with really cooking, and you want something both warming but not stodgy and heavy and wintry, because you’re trying to move forward into spring, if the goddamned weather would just play ball, and you don’t have anything in the fridge except two salmon fillets and half a spring cabbage. Having said that, this particular recipe does rely on you, like me, having an unhealthy obsession with ramen noodles, and preferably a kitchen cupboard stocked with the bare essentials for oriental cooking: fresh garlic and ginger, chilli, some bamboo shoots, some water chestnuts, toasted sesame oil and of course, soy sauce. Some baby corn would also go down a treat, but I didn’t have those this time.

Salmon Ramen Noodles

Ingredients:

2 fillets salmon
3 cloves garlic, crushed

2x1 inch piece fresh ginger, finely chopped

1 tbsp clear runny honey

2 tsp dried chillies

half a pointed cabbage or 3 tops pak choi

2 packets ramen instant noodles

soya bean paste

toasted sesame oil

a few healthy dashes of soy sauce

1. Firstly get your salmon fillets marinating in a mixture of soy sauce, crushed garlic, chopped fresh ginger and honey (the runny kind works best, although soy sauce will mix with any kind). Leave them to marinate for as long as you can, turning occasionally, while you prepare your vegetables.

2. Chop your bamboo shoots and water chestnuts if the kind supermarket people haven’t already done that for you. The same goes for the cabbage. I like pak choi or spring greens best, although of course Savoy cabbage, pointed spring, or any other kind of leafy thing would work well.

3. Get a griddle pan nice and hot and throw in a dash of sesame oil. Fry your marinated salmon fillets evenly on all sides until they’re nicely charred and criss-crossed with black stripes with a hint of pink in the middle (maybe 4-5 minutes on either side). The honey will caramelise on the outside and make them look well fit.

4. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and add some flavouring to it. Now, you have a choice here. The minimum effort option would be to tip in the handy little sachet of flavouring that comes inside the ramen. But it's mostly MSG and tends to give me headaches if I use all of it. So, you could tip in a bit, as they do taste good, but you could throw most of it away and tip in some toasted sesame oil, some soya bean paste if you have any, some freshly chopped ginger, a little crushed garlic, some dried chilli flakes and a tiny bit of Chinese five spice.

5. Add your noodles, stir in your veggies (saving the leaves of whatever green leafy thing you have chosen to throw in near the end). Once the noodles are cooked, add the leaves and take off the heat. Place in warmed bowls and rest your salmon fillets on the top.

6.Take photos and send to your friends. Yum.

NB: After writing this, a nice lady called Helen who has just visited Japan told me that in restaurants there, if you pronounce Ramen 'rahhh-men' you're probably going to get tittered at when ordering it, so she kindly enunciated the correct way for me: 'ra-Men'. So now we know. Thanks Helen. This post is for you.

Operation Easter Bunny Pt. 2 - Escape From London

2010-04-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

The Thursday night...

I'm at The Albany pub in Great Portland Street, chatting to my friend who we'll call Birch. Birch has been living in Sydney for a little over a year now and hasn't been back in London since August. It's been ages, and he's assembled a group of lovely people, some who I've met before, some of whom I haven't. It's getting on for 10pm. I know that we have an early train to our secret Easter destination the next morning and it's going to take me at least 40 minutes to get home. I'm chatting away and trying hard not to check my watch, because I'm having a good time with all of these great folks, but I'm also keenly aware that at home the Mister is already packed, waiting to get an early night so we can wake up refreshed for our adventure, and that as usual, I'll burst in late, shattering any semblance of peace and throwing the house into turmoil, as I look for clean clothes and make myself instant noodles.

I say my goodbyes and rush to the tube, thanking the Victoria line for its efficiency (when it works, it's the best line. Really.) Without too much of a frenzy, I pack, shower, and we're in bed by 12.30. We're tired and fall asleep almost instantly. My body braces itself for the 6.30 alarm on Good Friday.

Good Friday...

We're up early and we have some pastries for breakfast warming in the oven. I've been instructed that our train leaves at 8.30am and that there's a taxi booked for 7.30 to collect us. We move around, fuzzily-headed, gathering our wits about us, and checking for the taxi at every 10 minute interval. All of a sudden there's a horn tooting outside, the pastries are hastily bundled into foil, and our bags are over our shoulders. We leave a little late, but finally, we're off!

Halfway to the station we realise breakfast is still on the kitchen counter. Bugger. Oh well, we're on the move! We'll get something at the station! Maybe even something fatty, sugary and loaded with additives in an international coffee super-chain! I'm giddy with excitement. The minicab sails through West London. I slowly come to realise that we're heading for Paddington.

'The West!' I think. Where could it be? It must be far, if it warrants such an early train. We pull up and it's nearing 8.10am. Perfect, I say. We've got 20 minutes to grab some coffee and a croissant. Then we can get the scrabble out and start this bank holiday as we mean to go on! So where are we heading then? Which platform is it?

The Mister gives me a sly sideways glance as he wriggles his bag out of the car. He smiles. He looks at his watch and says, "It's platform 8." Then with a giant smile, he adds, "We're going to Cornwall. We're going to St.Ives!"

I couldn't have been more overjoyed. St.Ives was one of my family holiday destinations between the ages of 12 and 21. The last time I had been there was my 21st birthday. It's a gorgeous seaside town of artists and surfers, famed for its incredible views, ever-changing light, marvellous seafood, beachside Tate gallery and quirky boutique shops. We'd discussed going back there a few months previously, as the Mister had some memories of being on a holiday there with some friends when he was 18 or so, all wide-legged surfer dude pants, badly-rolled joints and acid jazz records.

Then I noticed the information board for platform 8. The train wasn't due to leave until 9.20. We had a full 40 minutes. He'd allowed lots of extra time for me, and my notoriously late, lazy arse. Suddenly my early morning caught up with me all at once and I became very, very petulant and childish at having my morning begin earlier than necessary. Much earlier. I think I may even have said, 'You got me up this early to have 40 minutes to wait here in the station?!' How very ungrateful of me. I shudder a little as I write this. But yes, my sleep on a day off is sacred, I'm afraid. I sat down and faux-sulked a little next to the statue of Paddington Bear.

Well, after that little moment of infantilism, I saw sense. Paddington Bear sorted me right out. We went and got some fatty sugary goodness from Starbucks and waited it out.

And here is what awaited us when we arrived.

Of course, it was all totally worth it.

Operation Easter Bunny

2010-03-29T07:31:00.001-07:00

Easter weekend is coming up, and I'm buzzing.

Here's why - on Thursday last week I got this happy little message in my inbox from the Mister:

Operation Easter Bunny requests your presence:

Date: Friday 2nd April

Time:

08:30hrs

Location:

London Railway Station (need-to-know-basis)

Kit:

Wee suitcase containing enough clothing for 2 night stay, toilet bag (own toothbrush optional), scrabble, notebook, book, make-up, waterproofs (we hope these will not be needed), swimming gear (optional but I'm taking mine)

Rendez-Vous at [our home address] - ready to leave at 07:30.

We will be returning to above address late afternoon on the 4th April 2010.

How sweet is that? Never did I think that those casually-dropped hints would have been taken on board so readily by the man in my life. "Wouldn't it be great to be surprised with a call to say, meet me at the airport with just your passport and toothbrush, you've got the next few days off work," is a sentence that has passed my lips many times, but has never been put into action. Until now (well, within reason). Actually I don't know if I'd want someone else to sort out my holiday dates with work. Scrap that.

He's a special one, and I'm an extremely lucky girl. The only trouble is: I'm also an extremely sniffly girl. I seem to have come down with a cold just in time to be a bit worried about whether I'll enjoy being whisked away as much as I'd enjoy my own bed, my slippers, fleece blanket and the entire back catalogue of Come Dine With Me. So today I'm at home resting up to make sure that wherever we're going, I'm going to give Operation Easter Bunny my best.

It's quite exciting, though, isn't it? I wonder where we're going. Waterproofs? Well, clearly we're not leaving the UK. Swimming gear? Does that mean a pool? Or does it mean some crazy Scottish urge to throw ourselves into subzero waters to prove some kind of point about hardiness?

His 'own toothbrush' clause points to a long-standing discussion (debate would be too strong a word) about why I won't share a toothbrush with anyone, not even my beloved. I'm sure my mum won't mind me blaming this on her microbiologist habit of analysing the likelihood of bacterial growth on any surface at any given time. It took me a long time to be able to share a can of coke. I know, it's sad. I'm working on it.

Anyway, I'll write all about it, wherever it is we're going, once we're back. Here's wishing you a wonderful Easter break too.

Bill's Produce Store/ Sabai/ Pompoko / Brighton

2010-03-14T05:23:00.000-07:00

The Bitter: Lots of students (I'm only kidding, I love students!); the fact that this is my first non-London review

The Sweet: Three lovely eateries in 36 hours and a gorgeously sunny Spring day

7. All right, so they're not in London, but I thought they were worth reviewing

I love Brighton. It was where I wanted most to study at the age of 17 after a visit to Sussex University's rolling hills and because I had a distinct nose for anywhere or anything vaguely 'alternative'. It's a place that screams freedom - the 'screw you squares, I did a law degree because you made me, but gave it all up to work in a health food store and teach yoga on weekends' kind of freedom.

Now my cousin, S, studies there, and on a recent visit for work I took the opportunity to spend some time revisiting my own student days and admiring the town’s Laines, loonies, and the fine shops and restaurants that Brighton has to offer – as a working adult with a bit more than the dregs of my student loan to see me through.

First up was something of a Brighton institution: a shop, café and restaurant all in one – Bill’s Produce Store, on North Road.

It’s noteworthy for this blog in particular, because it feels like a little piece of East Dulwich in the town otherwise known as “London-on-Sea”. There are organic fruits and vegetables. There are lots of pretty jars of pricey, yet tempting sundries from around the globe. There's arborio rice in little sacks. There are yummy daddies (yes, it’s that fashion-forward) having lunch with their little cherubs in papooses. You can get a flat white there with not a hint of any disdainful glance from your server (I asked for one this morning in a Bristol coffee shop and was met with a dead-eyed stare). Look, it’s so London, I saw a yummy daddy with one of these there:

My cousin recommended it as a good place to take a family member who would undoubtedly pay for lunch. Smart cookie. The food was great, and our facially-pierced waiter was just the sweetest thing, calling us all 'madam' (there were four of us under 30 in our group), which went down pretty well. I had a smoked haddock pie with some cheesy mash on the top and a really fresh side salad. My cousin had eggs royale - basically eggs benedict with smoked salmon that actually garnered a resounding 'oooooh' from around the table when her eggs yolks burst out onto the toast underneath. Me? I don't like runny eggs much. Ah, well. That's what comes of having a microbiologist for a parent. I don't have any photos, sadly, but you can get a good idea of how it looks from this excellent post from An American in London, a cool blog I've just discovered. Sadly, she doesn't agree overall about Brighton's charms.

Next up, another good recommendation from cousin S for dinner - Sabai Thai Gastrobar. The name had me worried, as I pictured high stools, questionable music, expensive cocktails and weeny little spring rolls and satay skewers posing as dinner for birdy little stick-women. I was very pleasantly surprised. The restaurant did have a water feature, but was really tastefully done, and was packed to the rafters. We were lucky to get a table, and had to wait a while for our food, but the sweet, smiling waitress who was seemingly on her own that evening apologised, gave us lots of free prawn crackers and did her best to keep checking on us. I'd recommend it if you find yourself hungrily wandering by the Pavilion.

Lastly and possibly my favourite, we stopped for lunch at one of S's favourites - a student haunt that is as cheap and as cheerful as they come. Pompoko means a kind of dahlia, according to my friend Lo-Sal (this is not his real name), a quirky Spaniard who is studying Japanese Culture at Birkbeck. I simply had to take pictures for him, because it was right up his street. And mine. And apparently right up the street of most of Brighton's students. It was consistently busy, even at 4pm - snooze into your soup hour for most places.

What wasn't to like? The prices, the close-together-perfect-for-eavesdropping-tables, the quality of the food, the Japanese lucky cat on the counter, oh and did I mention the prices?! This lovely sesame prawn don with rice and chicken yakisoba were a little over £4 per dish, and were served hot and fresh within 5 minutes. Bliss.

Brighton, you have won me over again.

And I'm darned jealous of all those bloody students.

Fit.

2010-02-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

I'm beginning to feel a bit old all of a sudden.

This is mostly because of some of my colleagues in their early-to-mid twenties and their sometimes frankly puzzling colloquialisms. I work with a guy, let's call him Aaron, and a girl, let's call her Jane, who also happen to share a flat as well as work together. They also went to the same university and worked together in the student union. They also both have evening jobs in a pub down the road. They are inseparable, and although they sit in separate offices, are always calling each other or emailing to share some joke or youtube video or discuss some raucous thing that happened last night when they were out drinking dressed as Smurfs, or chatter away about how one of them fell asleep on the toilet and left their kebab in the bed, or some other kind of kerrr-azy midweek japery. Oh dear. See? I sound so old!

Anyway, I'm learning a lot from them - particularly as far as vocabulary is concerned. Because Aaron and I share an office, I often overhear their conversations. One of Aaron's common favourites is to dial Jane in the next office over and do an impression of Anne, the mental poo-smearing patient from Little Britain whose catchphrase is "eh-eh-ehhhhh".

Maybe three or four times a day.

Oh, the things I've learned! They have been gleaned from snippets of conversations carried out behind me in our office as I've typed away, pretending to work but really making mental notes of whatever strange, young-person speak escapes their filthy little mouths. If something was 'gash', it wasn't a wound, it means it was rubbish. Oh holy crap - I just checked urban dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/) and it actually means a girl...you can guess why. That's so stupid! It's like calling all men knobs.

Anyway. If someone is 'butters', they aren't trying to re-enact Last Tango in Paris, it means they're unattractive. Apparently this one is very commonplace - the Mister had heard this expression at his North London comprehensive. Where have I been? At my Kent co-ed I was only exposed to the concepts of 'kushti', 'pikey', and 'chavtastic'. My cousins tell me that if someone is 'hench' it means they're well-built and likely to win in a fight. If they're bare hench, you'd really better watch out. Oh, and 'elephant leg'? That's kebab meat. I dare not think of what 'kebab meat' means. Oh wait. I know what it means. That's disgusting.

Anyway. 'What is all this in aid of?', you may ask. What does this post have to do with musings about London or food or outings? These ramblings are nothing like the usual astute meditations I expect to find when I visit this site. (Hah.) Well, the best colloquialism I've learned from these two characters at work is this: Jane refers to food she likes, or likes the look of, as 'fit', in much the same way another person might refer to a good-looking individual.

And I love that. I've picked it up and am using it unashamedly, whether it's about my plate of chicken stew or a chocolate bar. And, because Jane also grew up in Kent, you have to do it like she does: drop the 't' and make it more of a glottal stop. 'Fi-'.

'That soup was fi-'. 'That chocolate cake was 'fi-'. 'Those chips were well fi-.'

This last thing we* made was bare fit, innit.

*(amendment made, props to the Mister for his idea)

Avocado and Manchego Garlic Toasts

Ingredients:

1 avocado, ripe

1 garlic clove, peeled

wholemeal, seeded or rye bread slices

olive oil

dried chilli flakes

salt and pepper

1. Cut up and partially mash a whole avocado. Add olive oil, salt, pepper and a shake or two of dried chilli flakes.

2. Toast some good-quality sliced bread (we used some hearty Polish sunflower 'chleb').

3. Peel a garlic clove and rub lightly over the toasted bread.

4. Spoon on the avocado mash and slice some Manchego on the top, as thick or as thinly as you like. Sprinkle with pepper and slosh a bit of olive oil all over that bad boy.

5. Eat while hot - flippin' gorgeous. Sorry - fit.

NB: Thanks to Shannoncita and E for the Manchego: see here for more of their talents.

Whisking Away the Winter Blues

2010-02-17T13:34:00.000-08:00

Mid-February, and it's still miserably, brutally cold.

Maybe everything seems greyer after our return from Marrakech two weeks ago. We bathed in sunshine there, our limbs lengthening, our skin shimmering, our eyes blinking, disbelieving - like puppies tipped out of a box, I believe is the expression. We lapped up our five days there. The feeling of shedding a layer of chapped winter skin, stripping to our sandals and short sleeves, was so welcome; like the faintest whiff of summer, the briefest whisper of days to come. We basked every morning in that glow, at breakfast if we could. We swam. We got pink noses. We marvelled at having to buy suncream. In February! How decadent!

Coming back to London, we hissed at the pilot who announced it would be 4 degrees when we landed. 'Damn and blast it all to hell', we cried. 'We're out of here. No more than another two winters here. It's bloody awful. How does anyone do it?' etc, etc. You get the idea. We started to look for jobs in the Cayman Islands and plot our escape.

To get over the shock of the return, we did what any shell-shocked and depressed couple would do: we ate. We tried to relive some of the holiday, recreating dishes similar to those we had eaten in Morocco. This was our first attempt, the day after we unpacked:

Moroccan Harcha (semolina flatbreads)

Ingredients:

2 cups semolina flour

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup milk

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

good pinch of salt

1. Mix together the semolina, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the butter, and blend well with your hands.

2. Add the milk, and mix until a moist dough takes shape.

3. Shape the dough into balls and leave to rest a few minutes.

4. Preheat frying pan. Roll, then flatten the balls into saucer-sized circles.

5 .Cook over a low heat, about 7 to 10 minutes on each side, until they become golden . Turn only once, and check regularly that the heat is not too high, so they have time to cook all the way through.

These Moroccan crumpety-biscuit type things were made by the Mister's fair hand, and were a warm treat for our first cold morning back, which was mostly spent cosying up to the radiators and catching up with our laundry. They were sunny little things, light and fluffy and great with butter melting on their doughy insides and jam or cheese jazzing them right up. We served ours with some typically Moroccan sliced oranges with orange flower water, cinnamon, icing sugar and as I didn't have strawberries, some reduced cherries from the Co-op.

Yum. After a few of these we were just about coming to terms with the winter again.

Greensmiths, Lower Marsh

2010-01-11T04:50:00.000-08:00

The Bitter: Cold (still less than 2 degrees Celsius outside and the UK continues to not cope very well)

The Sweet: Discovering the great little café at my new favourite shop, an independent supermarket made up of local food retailers - an idea I wish I'd put into practice!

Monday, 11 January 2010

7. The good, the bad, the café and the cold

Greensmiths on Lower Marsh is fast becoming my most favoured shop, ever. I think they already know me in there now, so numerous have my after-work trips been. The greengrocer guy definitely recognises me and his eyes light up, because I have often fawned over the endive or asked about where their samphire comes from. The staff are extremely friendly and clued- up about their produce, to the point that they can explain how to cook something or what other foods it would pair well with. And there's little pretension - it's all quite straightforward supermarket shopping, except there aren't ever any queues, the food is locally sourced where possible, there's a sweet café upstairs, and - fundamentally - the people at the tills aren't dead-eyed and devoid of any charm, or pushing reward card points like smack.

Tonight I went with my friend Dany to see if we could get some food there after work, before heading down to Scooterworks (see my previous post here extolling the virtues of this other Lower Marsh gem) for their regular Monday night film at 8pm. Sadly the café, although replete with people, was no longer serving food (they do excellent-looking breakfasts until 11am, and then serve lunches from 12-4, I think). So we went to Sino Thai down the street instead, where we had some fairly standard chicken with cashew nuts and some sweet and sour prawns with coconut rice. It was average food, but came with friendly service and was inexpensive. I felt sorry for the man in the restaurant as we were his only customers and it was a bitterly cold evening with little chance of him encountering anyone else.

Poor Sino Thai dude.

So next time you're on Lower Marsh before 4pm check out the Greensmiths café and let me know what you think. Their cakes looked mighty good and I'd love to know what one of their bacon sandwiches would be like. Pigs have died for less noble reasons, y'know.

New Year's Bastard Chicken

2010-01-06T14:29:00.000-08:00

The end of 2009, and the dawning of a new (very cold) year has seen a few structural changes take place, which may go some way towards explaining a shocking lack of regular posting ettiquette.

Here's a roundup of the major events of the last couple of months in quick-capsule format...

November

decided to move out of shared house in Clapham and into flat with boyfriend
began search for new replacement person for my old room and held viewings
found suitably nice person to take on room; started looking for flats
saw some horrendous hellholes advertised very unscrupulously by lettings agents (how do they sleep at night?!%@)
had some crazy dealings with insane neighbour in shared house - had police over on my last morning living there - fun!
moved out of old house; moved possessions into storage; moved a couple of bags to my mum's in Orpo
found a perfectly lovely flat on gumtree and arranged to view it
went to Leeds and Edinburgh for work
went to see boyfriend's mum in Yorkshire; got heavily rained upon and saw beautiful scenery
saw flat in SW2 - loved it; wanted it; took it
Went on a crazy work trip that took in Berlin, Warsaw and Vilnius in 4 days
came back and flopped with exhaustion; went back to work for 4 days

December

Spent 4 days in Switzerland for work
returned from Switzerland and went back to work for a day; attended work Christmas party - a predictably boozy car crash sort of evening that ended up with me hurling a camembert across the room (long story)
picked up the keys for the new flat; moved in with a hangover
adored everything about the flat and bought lots of little housey things to put in it
had a housewarming/Christmas/ farewell party for two good friends leaving to return to Europe; made blinis and quaffed cava
had nearly 3 weeks off work (but why no posting, you may well ask? - see next point)
spent maybe two hours of my life that I'll never get back speaking to 4 separate BT call centre workers based in Sheffield, who bless them, tried, but couldn't have plugged in a wireless router between them, let alone place one.bloody.broadband.order. Still, it was Christmas, so I was lovely and patient with each of them and wished them seasonal tidings.
finally manged to get into a a tight pair of jeans bought in the Barcelona sales in Feb last year and crowed at my reflection
then ate my own weight in Turkey and sprouts and promptly undid said jeans
started on the old one-pot soup and chilli routine, post-Christmas overindulgence and overspending
had a glass of champagne on New Year's Eve, danced to Song 2 in a Smithfields club and went to bed at 6am
woke up at 3pm, had breakfast (we called it 'tea' to make it less weird) at 5.30pm at Nando's, watched Avatar 3D and had possibly the most perfect New Year's Day in living memory.

Which brings us up to date.

So after the excesses of new year's eve and some fairly rich meals over the past couple of months, I found myself poking around in our fridge for something to inspire me on Monday - the first day back at work. We had chicken thighs, some reduced corn on the cob from the Co-op, some fresh chillies, red and green peppers and plenty of cupboard sundries. I thought about a gumbo type of thing because I figured it would be in one pot, bubbling away for a while and would take minimum effort. I also looked in the Levi Roots cookbook we'd been given for Christmas and looked at some Jamaican stewed chicken recipes, then bastardised them to make my own thing with my ingredients. And so New Year's Bastard Chicken was born. Here's the recipe, should it interest you to try it out.

NEW YEAR'S BASTARD CHICKEN (STEW)

4 chicken thighs

4 cut corn cobs

2 bell peppers, varying colours, chopped

1 sweet potato, chopped

2 carrots, sliced

2 fresh chillies, chopped (the long Thai kind will do)

1 piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped (thumb-sized)

2 large onions, chopped roughly

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

juice of 1 lime

1 tin chopped tomatoes

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup basmati rice

a handful of fresh thyme

2 tsp Madras curry powder

pinch of turmeric

pinch of dried chilli or cayenne

salt and pepper to taste

Marinate the chicken in the lime juice, and season with ginger, salt, pepper, turmeric and dried chilli. Leave for as long as possible to soak up the flavours.

After as long a marinade as possible, fry the chicken pieces with one onion until browned on both sides for at least 10 minutes (mine got burnt a bit, but that kind of works). Set aside for later.

In a large saucepan, fry the other onion in a little olive or sunflower oil. Add the garlic and cook until soft. Add the curry powder and fresh chillies. Leave to cook for 1-2 minutes.

Add the tinned tomatoes, sweet potato, carrot, corn cobs and thyme. Pour in half of the stock. Cook for 10 minutes on a high heat to soften the corn, carrots and sweet potato. Add the rice, peppers, the rest of the stock and the pre-sooked chicken pieces. Leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes until rice is cooked through.

Serve heaped in bowls while piping hot. Eat with fingers as necessary. Serves 4 very hungry people or makes 2 main meals and about 3 extra packed lunches (you'll be sick of it in 2 days, though). Beware - it comes out spicy, so ensure your constitution can take a bit of heat...

Happy January, folks.

Scooterworks Caffé, Lower Marsh

2009-10-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

September somethingth, 2009
(bless me father, for it's been a while since my last post.)

The Bitter: Telling anyone else about this gem - it's becoming a little too popular at lunchtimes for my liking...

The Sweet: Everything else, from the little suntrap at the back to the dusty vespas at the front; from the mismatched chairs to the ever-present cats sleeping on them.

6. A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi

So I have this friend at work who is Italian. She's innately chic, but in a way that seems to communicate that she hasn't tried at all; she just fell out of bed that way. She's arty and fun, and we have shared many a tip on the kinds of things we do at weekends - me, a band or film; she, a flower market or gallery opening. It's all very 'Stuff White People Like' ; which coincidentally (or perhaps not), encouraged us to go and see the author speak at LSE this week. It rocked.

But anyway, she recommended this place for lunch last month which is spectacular. It's called Scooterworks, and according to their website it used to just be a scooter repair shop that served coffee to customers having a bike or scooter fixed. Lower Marsh is peppered with little scraps of old London like that - it retains a real east-end community feel, from the Iceland that still manages to exist there, to the Job Centre, somehow strangely at odds with the burgeoning gentification in the area - "but surely you can get a job sir, there are two organic restaurants across the street looking for sommeliers!".

The place is achingly hip, in that same way that my friend just fell out of bed looking great. It's darkish, dingyish, and dustyish, but has fantastic faded Italian Vespa and French coffee posters everywhere and the mismatched tables and chairs all add to the beatnik charm. A sunny little patio at the back with plants and Moroccan-looking tiles attracts those hazy afternoons that ask to be photographed, and suitably attractive smokers.

I have it on good authority that this was Ethan Hawke's preferred hangout when he was working at the Old Vic down the road. I have no doubt about that - it's like an amalgam of all his characters' hangouts in each of his lo-fi indie films.

Five neon letters spell 'CAFFÉ' on the wall above the bar, and they certainly mean business on that front - their coffee machine is a vintage Faema machine from 1957, salvaged from somewhere near Bologna. It makes a mean cup - wouldn't you, if you'd had 50 years of practice? - but won't be rushed.

This is a place for slow-food activists, a cause they give the nod to on their website. No tall skinny caramel frappuccinos here, and your coffee will take as long as it damn well takes.

More importantly...they have several resident cats! Check out the one snoozing here:

I was both amazed I hadn't found it already, and exasperated that so many others had already been seduced by its charms. Each time I go I find out more about it that I like. On Mondays they have film screenings in their downstairs room - decent, arthouse or classic films, like Respiro, or Blade Runner. On Wednesday evenings they have live music and open mic sessions.

But best of all, you can bring your packed lunch and eat here, because they don't yet do any food other than biscotti and cakes. You're never hurried, and no one gives you stinkeye for bringing in your homemade ratatouille or leek and bacon soup (my friend and I have tested this to its limits, sloshing in our tupperwares and ordering the bare minimum - a coffee). In a Starbucks this would be akin to climbing up onto the little counter with the sugar, stirrers and cinnamon shakers, pulling one's trousers down, and pooing into the little hole that the used stirrers and napkins go into. Here, you're silently applauded for making your own sandwiches and not being tempted by the Greggs down the road. I bet that soon, there'll be lunch clubs held here, with pot luck dishes and people comparing recipes. Maybe.

Really, it's quite commendable. I highly commend it. But don't tell anyone else, ok?

Hakkasan, August 26th 2009

2009-09-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

I was surprised with a birthday dinner here in late August and had a stupendous time. I can safely say it was one of the loveliest London outings I've ever had...and I've had many a lovely London outing.

Mostly that was definitely at down to my company for the evening (gorgeous), but everything from the scent of the jasmine incense wafting up the stairs upon entry, the greeters at the front of the restaurant, the fresh flowers on the (incredible) cocktails, to the food itself, not to mention the dark wood and sexy low lighting everywhere - really impressed me.

We began with a drink at the impressively stocked bar (nice tactic, Hakkasan) and drank in the ambience along with a Purple Emperor and White Buffalo (both lip-smackingly good). The place was buzzing; some business types, some families, some couples - good for people watching!

We started with the dim sum platter and sweetcorn soup. The 8 dim sum were filling, each one better than the last. The sweetcorn soup was a far cry from the usual glutinous goop served in takeaways and lesser restaurants. Mains were wolf fish and claypot-cooked king prawns with taro and black beans. Seafood definitely seems to be the strong suit here, but next time I'd love to try out the dim sum menu.

We were far too full for dessert, and I was glad I'd plumped for a starter instead, although the sound of chocolate ganache, morello cherry sorbet and praline mousse did have me tingling...maybe next time I'll leave room!

A very lovely place with a spectacular vibe and memorably good food and cocktails. I would wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone with a special occasion coming up.