March 26th, 2011

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?

 

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

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

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

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

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

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