Chinese New Year

Kung Hei Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year! I went on a photo-walk in Soho and here are the results.




It is the year of the metallic rabbit.I hve mine already! And if I'm very good I'll get to enjoy it at Easter :-)

And it's all over

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Yep the England team have just arrived home, sneaking into Heathrow terminal 5, earlier than expected. Some Mars bars are suddenly beyond their sell-by date.


Yes I'm a sucker for hype and advertising! I bought my Mars bar before Sunday though - couldn't bear the thought of buying one after the defeat at Germany's hands.

But on the theme of chocolate - OMG! A Bailey's truffel bar! Oh my groaning waistband . . . what fresh hell is this?

Rabot Estate in London

.

London


I popped over to Borough Market this afternoon to buy some Jerusalem artichokes for a soup I’m planning to make this weekend (I thought it unwise to rely on our local Sainsbury's or Tescos). I was very excited to spot a new chocolate cafe and shop just at the beginning of Stoney Street: Rabot Estate. Apparently, it is the Borough Market ‘farm shop’ of one of the oldest cocoa estates in St Lucia, dating to 1745. The founders of the Hotel Chocolat chain of shops (and website) bought the Estate a few years ago and have invested heavily in new cocao plants and upgrading equipment and systems. Rabot Estate is taking the lead in reviving the cocoa industry in St Lucia.

The shop is pretty eye-catching and completely open to the street. It’s decorated in lots of chocolate browns, with reclaimed woods, corrugated iron panels and simple stencil-style typography and manilla labels. However the pricing is anything but basic - £8 for a bag of chocolate anyone?


I decided to play to safe and bought myself a small bar of their ‘Dash of Milk’ range (mid-way between classic dark chocolate and milk chocolate) to try. The 35g bars come in at £2.75 (however if you buy three they come at £2.50 each).


At the till I succumbed to temptation and had a hot chocolate (a more reasonable £2.50 per cup). You can choose between a 70% cocoa or a 100% cocoa, which you can sweeten to personal taste. I went for the 70% option.


This turned out to be very frothy and light - not particularly thick in texture but with a wonderfully thick chocolate flavour which coated my mouth and lasted a while. I think this might just become a Borough Market tradition for me.


They also sell something called ‘chocolate tea’ which apparently was big in 18th-century London before hot chocolate caught on. I need to try that sometime. Also available are chocolate-themed savoury snacks. This place is a great addition to Borough market.

Rabot Estate
2 Stoney Street
Borough Market
London
SE1 9AA

Opening hours: Mon - Sat 07:00 - 18:00

Check out my review of Rabot Estate - I am hedgiecc - on Qype

Birthday Cake: Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

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The time of year to think about birthday cakes has rolled around again. I know cupcakes have been all the rage ever since Sarah Jessica Parker visited the Magnolia Bakery in NYC in an episode of Sex and the City almost ten years ago - cupcake boutique bakeries have been springing up in every major city the world over - so I though I'd better embrace this trend before it was over (bound to be any day soon now).

In my internet researches I had bookmarked this recipe for Chocolate Mint Cupcakes - it looked fairly straightforward yet utterly tempting so I thought I'd give it a bash. Chocolate and mint are two of my favourite things. And I love combining them.

Here are the ingredients. All impeccably free range, organic, fair trade etc etc etc. I decided to take Nigella's advice on using 00 grade flour and I think it did make a big difference.



Basically, you sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. In another bowl, you whisk the eggs, sugar and peppermint extract. Melt the chocolate, butter and mix with cocoa. Then combine all the ingredients and spoon into cupcake cases.




The cake dough seemed far more fudgy in texture than I'm used to (but tasted divine). It was difficult to get an even loading in the cases, so I left the blobs pretty au naturel. But they rose spectacularly well - I would class this as the best result I have had from this oven (for some reason i really battle with baking in my oven - roasting meats though it takes in its stride, so I don't quite understand the problem. It may well lie on the other side of the apron).

Before:

After:


Cupcake display is crucial to achieve the right elegantly twee retro 50's teatime effect. Alas, storage considerations in Hedgie Towers preclude the use of a cake stand, but last winter I spotted a brilliantly improvised one in the windows of Zeitgeist on the Pavement, Clapham Old Town. You balance plates on wineglasses - and I have just the right decoratively shaped glasses! Hoorah!




I frosted the cakes with ordinary buttercream icing flavoured with peppermint extract. This was delicious. Prue Leith has a recipe for Crème au beurre meringue icing, where you beat egg whites with icing sugar over a simmering pan before adding soft butter and the flavourings. This icing gives a superlative result and if I made these again and I would try that.

I do recommend these cakes as they are easy, slightly unusual and very good. Lesley said they reminded her of eating an After Eight mint chocolate, so if you like those, you're bound to love these!

Last year's birthday cake: Chocolate Nemesis.

tweets of the year

This has been the year of twitter for me. I joined in January and rapidly succumbed to a severe addiction. Twitter informed me of breaking news faster than anything else, made me more politically aware and involved, made all my hobbies and interests much more interesting, turbo-charged the entertainment factor of television a thousand-fold, and helped me meet some great people. Here is a selection of my favourite tweets from 2009 - the good, bad, ugly, witty, profound, frivolous, and controversial: *

diamondgeezer RT @ElizabethRex2 : Dearest Charles, could you pop into the drawing room and explain how Twittering works? One needs to network...

jkottke How many innocent blogs have died so that Twitter may live?

jkottke I am now a locavore. I will only eat food located within an arm's reach of my mouth.

susanorlean No matter how many books you've written, if you're a writer your parents will always wonder when you're going to get a job.

susanorlean Mother's Day gift from 4 yr old son: I got to choose whether to watch Jurrasic Park 1 or 3 during breakfast. It's the thought that counts.

miketd It's my time. It's my time. My moah-ment. I'm not gonna let go of it

rolytaylor RT@DarkPianoIt took the universe billions of years to produce the moment you call "now." Strive to see the perfection in it! :)

edwardclarke It's heartbreaking in this day and age that at the funeral of a gay man there is zero acknowledgement of that fact.

thoroughlygood Is Patricia's dress "under construction" ? #eurovision

Wossy #eurovision I am with Peter Tatchell. Figuratively. Go on Graham, say it ! They are backward fascists. Dumb ass russians.

kvinnesland #eurovision UK has entered the wrong contest. Beautiful song, but do they expect to win without a stupid show and silly pants?

style_therapy The UK putting in a halfway decent showing at Eurovision? That's just not on. I feel kind of cheated.

davidschneider: The Norwegian boy might lose his virginity tonight. The Albanian dwarves have their eyes on him

owenblacker OMG Sookie. You have eight kittens upstairs, still blind. No, I am not gonna let you out so you can find more cock!

adventuresofboz Up in your spot like a tasty pastry treat, world!

edwardclarke Horrifying ENO surtitle fail - used 'discrete' when meant 'discreet'. We are truly living in decadent times.

frala_fontaine really need to stop opening Twitter and Facebook first thing. Though I did get distracted by some work..

AndrewOrange New life-as-a-writer progress report: Haven't actually written anything yet but at least I now have a printer in case I ever do. Baby steps.

AlextheFly @YHBW The 456 want our children. Are we sure it's not Madonna in there? #Torchwood

edwardclarke@sarahbrown10 RT @RedMummy: @edwardclarke Am bad person - I like veal. Ask SB to save her unwanted portions for me.

robfahey Every bit of pent-up nastiness from years of writing a show that's forced to pander to a kiddy audience came pouring out. #torchwood

dzhimbo Emphasis on medium draws attention to the structure of the piece, however, creating metadiagetic commentary on its meaning(s). #artchat

RedMummy@edwardclarke To Flybe I promised I'd always be true, but Virgin don't charge me for using the loo.

Shoq: We need public media; a BBC or CBC, or you can kiss the American experiment goodbye. Nice concept but the rat died. Sorry!

samuelpepys Sir W. Pen and I did dig another pit, and put our wine in it; and I my Parmazan cheese, as well as my wine and some other things.

stigblog Weather outside too horrible. Weather in bed too lovely.

mrjohnwilkes: My warm Congratulations to Mr. Van RUMPOY. I can't recall voting for you, Sir, but I may have been PISSED.

jenblower hurrah! You're all void of class, baileys coffee from the tester bottle it is then! :D

karmachord The world is so painfully beautiful. Every single atom is poised on the edge...ready to implode or explode with blissful agony.

stigblog@JamesMW78 hmm. Chocolate + alcohol are only two of your 3 food groups. Takeaway is 3rd. You need all 3 to survive and thrive properly!

jonreed #frankieboylecrackermottos we're all highly evolved monkeys clinging to a piece of rock falling through space, and the rock itself is dying

edwardclarke Well, according to wikipedia Portillo is still up to his neck in oil http://is.gd/5iPi2 Come clean, #thisweek?

zefrog: am with @Hampstead_Heath (who should know!): Vote George at #xfactor! (or have we got it wrong?)

AJ_Scroxton: How can this final be two hours long? Even accounting for 72 minutes of commercials it just doesn't add up. #xfactor

CherylKerl Joa's takin te bein a stah leika duck te woata! Ah cudden get inte his dressin room te congratalate im coza aall his mindaz.

tomsimnett: A sperm has 37.5MB of DNA information in it. That means that a normal ejaculation represents a data transfer of 1,587.5TB

jonreed actually, I am panicking slightly. one week to go and I still haven't gilded my pears (what would @KirstieMAllsopp say?)

jonreed oh the weather outside is frightful/& the planet so igniteful/but since #cop15 won't learn/let it burn let it burn let it burn!

EvilKimau "All those moments lost like tears in the rain... time.. to die" SO sad but so true... I love that moment #bladerunner

jonreed and Hamlet on Boxing Day? BBC, you are spoiling us with the Twelve Days of Tennant!

edwardclarke BBC headline: "Eurostar train leaves Paris"

edwardclarke RT @themanwhofell: I'm very pleased that Lady Gaga was Chanukah No.1

adamfishpoet@edwardclarke I too am pleased for Milady GAGA, Master CLARKE; but reserve my strongest sympathy for Mr MORELLO's band of BRIGANDS.

themanwhofell The worst thing about yesterday was that it struck another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of heterosexual marriages.

owenblacker:D RT @homotweets: When it comes to exploring the sea of love, I prefer buoys.

jonreed one can only hope that I shall be visited by three spirits in the night (gin, vodka and tequila pliz)

jonreed experiencing Tennant fatigue. God I hope he's not in the Celebrity Big Brother house...

* Tweets of the year © and ™ boz

cooking and tweeting is so competitive!

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Last month Anton Edelman awarded my summer pudding first prize in Nickie Philbin’s Twitter tweet cookoff. Would Clapham’s own top chef, Adam Byatt of Trinity, award me a prize as well, this time for my own choice of theme - “summer tart” ? (no sniggering at the back there!)

I chose as my entry Nigella Lawson’s Nectarine and Blueberry Galette from her Nigella Express book. I chose this because:

1) I have made it before and it’s bloody brilliant, as well as easy and quick.

2) It’s a tart with amazing colour and texture and photographs well (never underestimate the power of visuals, especially in a photographic based competition).

Well. I sabotaged myself immediately when I foolishly picked up frozen shortcrust pastry from Sainsbury’s instead of Nigella’s specified puff pastry. By the time I started cooking, it was too late to correct the error (shortcrust I can actually make; puff? - forget it, especially in the time constraints of the competition deadline).

I thought I could recover my error by skillfully edited photography and keeping mum. Ha. Not mum enough - I tweeted (privately, I thought) a pic of the sad remains of my ‘galette’ to a friend - this was immediately picked up by Maggie Philbin and my game was up! - even her mother commented:



maggiephilbin@edwardclarke: This is v. poor Edward. My 88 yr old Mum now sitting next to me and saying " Pastry is key" "You are nowhere without pastry"

maggiephilbin@edwardclarke: Ruined! Your reputation is in SHREDS. Did you remove bread from #summerpudding without eating?



Well, what would Chef think? Adam Byatt checks out our entries below:



It was so exciting having a behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a top restaurant as they prepped for Sunday lunch service. Sunday is huge for Trinity - their location just opposite the Common is just perfect for Sunday lunch, and the restaurant has a fantastic set lunch menu of three courses for £25 per person. For large lunch parties they will even cook joints especially for you if you order in advance. Heading up to lunch the weather was gorgeous, and all of Trinity’s large windows were thrown open to the Common.

Adam was amazing giving his time to judge the competition at such a busy and important time, but he seemed cool calm and focussed, as did his staff who were working smoothly and efficiently around him. A well oiled machine indeed.

He immediately clocked I used the wrong pastry, even from pics with the pastry (almost) edited out! I was hugely impressed at his preternatural skill in picking up the most subtle clues from our amateur photos about the cooking process - even down to oven temperatures!

Reviewing Adam’s comments on the finalists, it is clear that he totally agrees with Maggie’s mum regards the fundamental importance of pastry.


@EdwardClarke - Nectarine & blueberry galette

"Great tart to make with puff not shortcrust pastry. Dock pastry. Nice photos"




@Annraulston - (strawberry, raspberry' blueberry, blackberry glazed tart)  (1st Prize)

"Good pastry, good presentation. Looks well executed and most importantly…inviting"




@ruskin147 (lime tart)

"Significantly overcooked - pastry too short & a little over browned, aerated custard mix. Top tip: never whisk filling before baking"




@stu_art_ist  orange and oatmeal tart  (2nd prize)

"Quite nice - oatmeal base a little thick for my liking; apple sauce a nice idea. Filling well put together - good, clean attempt"



@caalie pineapple tart

"Nice idea! Needs a base though - coconut frangipane would have been brilliant. A base & glaze would have made this a great tart"


"Top tip:  dock pastry in middle with fork to prevent rising when baking"

@Nickiephilbin  - glazed lemon & almond tart

"Looks nice; slightly rustic pastry, slightly heavy with lemons. Good effort. Top marks for styling"





@nigs  Glazed strawberry & blueberry on a biscuit base  

"Very pretty; nice idea. Does tart have a filling? - Would need a dairy filling to balance out. Slightly thick case"



@TrinityRhapsody - 5 minute summertart strawberries on hobnob base

"Nice - good presentation. Good effort for a 5 minute tart, not enough effort for a winner"



@m4rydenovo - chocolate strawberries tart

"I'm sure this was great fun to make. Find concept slightly questionable."





@MaggiePhilbin - passion fruit tart

"A great summer tart, but overcooked. Oven should be at 110c. Stir custard, don't whisk. Otherwise, brilliant effort"




@JimAnning - lemon tart with raspberry coulis (3rd Prize)
Special Photo award - winner best photo for hashtag lemons shot (at top)

"Nice - lemon and raspberry a brilliant combination. Pastry slightly overcooked; slightly heavy handed on icing sugar garnish "

"Top tip: place blind tart in oven and then pour in mix whilst the tart is in the oven rather than transferring a filled mould across the kitchen"

@Andyqsmith apricot and almond lattice tart

"Great to see a lattice tart. Egg wash the pastry. Cook apricots before - otherwise they bleed & spoil pastry. Nice effort"




@Handbagpets -  local asparagus, bacon and goats cheese tart, served with watercress salad and smoked cod's roe.
"Adventurous idea, I’m not convinced the roe is needed and the flan looks a little heavy on egg!"



Thanks once again to Adam for his professional, insightful and very helpful comments.

Big claps for our winners @Annraulston, @stu_art_ist and @JimAnning. Jim also won the special best photograph award. Ann hails from the USA, indicating the power and reach of twitter! Thanks also to Nickie Philbin for organizing the competition.

Well done too to all our entrants; everyone is so brave having their efforts put up in public for critique! Can you do better? - enter next month's competition, which will be specified by this month's winner, Ann. Follow @Nickiephilbin for announcements. This month's competition can be followed on twitter on the hashtag #summertart.

The group photo album is at Photobucket


Trinity
Adam Byatt

4 The Polygon
Clapham
London
SW4 0JG

Follow Trinity on twitter - @TrinityLondon
Follow Adam Byatt on twitter - @AdamByatt

Next twitter cookoff competition: Summer Sandwich

Previous twitter cookoff competition: Summer Pudding

Artichoke Soup (or, Things to Do with Scallops)

In an impulse of curiosity, desiring to widen the culinary horizons, I purchased a pack of Jerusalem artichokes from Sainsbury’s. I think I last ate these at least ten years ago.

I also thought they were a good credit crunch option.

I consulted my recipe books. I hit gold in Simon Hopkinson’s “Roast Chicken and Other Stories”: Scallop and Artichoke Soup.

Now, scallops are definitely not credit crunch material - however, the project suddenly developed into a treat to boost the animal spirits in a recession! ;-)

Scallops would feature in my top three edible favourites; I would choose them as my last meal. I don’t think they are available in South Africa - the first time I ate a scallop was on a visit to my cousins in Vancouver. Instant heaven; the highlight of the trip!

Since then, I have eaten them whenever and wherever:from the deeply luxurious and classic French Scallops au gratin at Marco Pierre White’s Mirabelle Restaurant to the new Brit classic from Kensington Place, Grilled Scallops with Pea purée and mint vinaigrette.

Nigel Slater has a recipe where you wrap the individual scallops in bacon strips, dust down with parmesan shavings and grill. Yum!

But recently my fave scallop recipe has been Nigella Lawson’s Scallops and chorizo from Nigella Express - this counts as so fast and simple it’s hardly a recipe! - but soooo spectacularly delicious. Just chuck some chorizo slices in a pan, fry to release the oils, chuck the scallops in until cooked (timing is all; don’t over fry - literally a couple of minutes; just until the scallops are opaque); then toss with lemon juice and chopped parsley.

The salty, meaty chewiness of the chorizo sets off the subtle smooth sweetness of the scallops; and the lemon and parsely take the edge off the richness of the dish. Possibly this is my last meal request, and it’s so fast I might be able to have it twice in one sitting!

Back to Simon Hopkinson’s soup recipe. I don’t think you can go wrong with scallops. Ok, maybe not with chocolate.

The artichoke soup recipe trends in the opposite direction to Nigel’s and Nigella’s - instead of contrast it works on complementaries: piling one kind of semi-savoury sweetness on another.

The artichokes have a subtle, rich, complex flavour of their own. The soup is your classic French butter, milk and cream concoction (enriched with fish stock, onion, bay leaf and thyme). The artichokes are blended and strained to velvety smoothness and then the poached scallops are added. Parsley and croutons for garnish. Fab.U.Lous.



Maybe my last meal could be the artichoke soup to start and the chorizo and scallops for the main course?

Birthday Cake: Chocolate Nemesis

The lengthy process of auditioning cakes for my birthday finally arrived at a suitable candidate. A tough task, but it had to be done.
:-)

I abandoned my previous contenders when I came across David Lebovitz’s post about the chocolate cake recipe I found on a men's room wall. I had to try it, even though it involved translating from the original French.

The flat mate and I were duly impressed - me especially with the addition of a small glass of strong coffee - while the flavour of the coffee itself remains hidden, it dramatically deepens and intensifies the chocolate. Yum.

Thinking more on this theme brought me back to the ultimate flourless chocolate cake recipe: the River Cafe’s Chocolate Nemesis.

I first ate this at the famous restaurant itself. I remember our party of six admired the huge cartwheel of a pudding on the counter as we came in. However, I was the only one to actually order a slice.

My involuntary orgasmic gasp on my first mouthful brought 5 large spoons down on my plate - “for a taste” - leaving me with virtually no pudding left. The nightmare of maintaining a polite composure as I watched my nemesis disappear lives with me still.

So once Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray published their River Cafe Cook Book, I tried to do the recipe one Christmas - with disastrous results. I later found out I was not alone. In fact, this recipe had become pretty notorious in London: Julian Barnes himself wrote about the social phenomenon:

“Moralists know that Hubris inevitably leads to Nemesis, but never before had the theory been given such literal expression. Overweening pride in one's ability to cook led to chocolate disaster. The pudding - in case you need reminding - was a signature dish (as the vile phrase has it) of the River Cafe. People had eaten at the restaurant, discovered this most decadent of puddings (2lbs chocolate, 10 eggs, 1lb butter, 1lb 5oz sugar), and, when the first River Cafe Cook Book came out, decided to try it for themselves.

Why it went wrong we Nemetics never discovered. The paranoid explanation was that some key element of the recipe had been deliberately omitted, thus driving customers back to the restaurant for the authentic item. The more plausible one was that there is a difference between the professional and the domestic oven, that certain dishes exaggerate this difference, and Chocolate Nemesis exaggerated the exaggerations. But the failure was generally so spectacular that few got back up off the floor and tried it again.”

Well, I laid my nemesis ghosts and tried it again, from their River Cafe Easy book. It worked! - at least, it came out, stood up, and was deliciously rich and fudgy: but not quite the perfection that in memory lives forever fresh.

Starting to think about birthday cakes. Should I remake Nigella's Chocolate Malteser cake, above? Other contenders are the "Incredibly Easy Chocolate Fruitcake" from her Christmas book, or a carrot cake. I also fancy Nigel Slater's dried cherry and apricot buns (in last week's Observer Food magazine). Yesterday the flatmate made Anzac Biscuits to celebrate Australia Day; I took the overflow to the office where they were a smash hit. Perhaps I could commission him to make another batch?

Decisions, decisions. Weighty choices to consider.

In the meantime, Boz recommended this:



Every visit to Sainsbury's for the last THREE MONTHS has ended in disappointment. Clearly, the Clapham hordes are buying it just as fast as Sainsbury's can get it in. However, today, at long and final last, my very own jar of Sainsbury's Belgian Milk Chocolate Spread:


Yippee!

I have a feeling it won't last long. * Scrapes bottom of jar *

Thanks Boz!

Yum! :-)

more prezzies

My niece and nephew gave me a box of hand-made (by themselves) chocs - absolutely stunning. F made brandy-soaked chocolate cherries and T made whisky and champagne truffles. They are actually spectacular - far superior to shop-bought. I arrived in Cambridge to find T looking a bit like a truffle himself: covered in a light dusting of cocoa powder and with hands, face and t-shirt generously smeared in melted chocolate. His mother was beside herself, but determined he finish his task. Making boxes of chocs for relatives and friends seemed to be their Xmas party trick.

The History of Me in Cocktails: No 3: - Today

God what a week. Work; home, money, life - hassles, crises, disasters. Culminated in a sleepless night last night; finally dropped off at @ 5am. Took the morning off and rolled into work at 12 noon, no less. Thank the Lord for relaxed bosses.

Bad bad boy. However, I was v. good all afternoon; really did quite a surprising amount of work. Believe me, I needed to.

But now I'm home and blogging while drunk.

I have long wished to make my very own Brandy Alexander, instead of buying Sainsbury's packaged version.. Apparently, it's derided as a classic "Prom Cocktail" - however, anything sweet and creamy rings my bell.

The flatmate also confessed to liking Brandy Alexanders, so I ordered in the ingredients according to Diffordsguide, especially Creme de Cacao White Liqueur.

They arrived today from Drinkon, but imagine my horror when I discovered we didn't have enough ice to do the cocktail shaker thing! Aargh!

However needs must when the devil drives; necessity is the mother of invention, etc etc. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

The Chocolate Gin & Tonic

or, a

Fizzy Alexander


Glass: Collins
Garnish: erm - whatever u can find - use yor imagination
Method: Pour ingredients into ice-filled glass (or in our case, glasses with 2 cubes each)

1.5 shot(s) Gin
.5 shot(s) Creme de Cacao White Liqueur
Top up with Tonic water

Cream instead of tonic water and shaken would give you an Alexander; hence my fizzy version. Honestly, it's lovely - looks exactly like a G&T, but with subtle chocolatey flavas - you can never get enough chocolate!


The History of Me in Cocktails: No.2

Cy Twombly

Members’ private view at Tate Modern last night with Catriona. I remember being completely ravished by Twombly at the Whitechapel (I think) years ago – after this, I still like him, but there is a quantity of decidedly questionable stuff included in this show. The final “Bacchus” paintings disappointed me with their inflated size, reductive scarlet colouring and vapid brushwork – they seem totally devoid of the subtlety Twombly at his best so seemingly effortlessly achieves. Wincingly embarrassing too is the untitled series of nine paintings for the Venice Biennale – botched monochrome Monet lily ponds, some in 18th-century rococo formats which bring absolutely nothing to the experience.

The Quattro Stagione paintings in the room between these are hugely better; both versions elegiacally beautiful and evocative – Twombly at his best, creating a magically unlikely fusion of abstract expressionism with European classical reference.

Afterwards, we had dinner in the 7th floor café. This was my second time in a row to be given a window table with THAT view! Sublime! And the food was good too – a short list, but well selected which made it hard to choose, especially on the pudding front. I had smoked duck, salmon and an elderflower panna cotta with berries and a brandy snap. Catriona also had the salmon but started with mackerel pate and had a chocolate tart with espresso icecream. Yum!

We knocked back a bottle of Viognier and gossiped about our ex-company (now very ex). Very last days of the Reich. As it staggered towards its nemesis, with the writing on the wall for all to see, and the MD blatantly stealing commission money from the employees, it had a series of burglaries. All the macs were stolen. The police couldn’t be less interested. Ha ha ha.

Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons
Tate Modern
until 14th September

the lure of the east

I was feeling a bit blah about Tate Britain’s Orientalist exhibition, but actually it’s an extremely enjoyable show on a number of levels.

I have to confess I succumbed to the very un-PC chocolate-boxy exoticism of the largely Victorian imagery on display (although the exhibition does make the point that westerners were fascinated from the 17th century on – fantastic portraits of Charles I’s ambassador to Persia and his wife in “oriental” costume kick off the show).

But in a highly imaginative stroke (or perhaps in an effort to cover their backs ideologically), the Tate has invited Islamic scholars to comment on the paintings on display and their commentary is affixed next to the paintings along with the provenance labels. This is great, because a lot of it is very contentious and partisan stuff and definitely widens the scope of the exhibition.

Designer add-ons include a magnificent Islamic patterned fretwork screen running across the gallery containing ‘harem’ pics, and a large projected animated map showing the history of the region.

I thoroughly enjoyed this show, and will hopefully go again one quiet Sunday morning to have another look.

The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting
4 June – 31 August 2008
Tate Britain

what I did on my bank holiday weekend.

I love the wet weather. For most of the weekend, I stayed snuggled under the duvet, making sporadic forays to the kitchen for more te and chocolate biscuits.

It’s really the most amazing feeling there is, to be in bed listening to the rain patter down outside.

Unless it’s havinf a bank holiday extension – heh heh! Everyone has gone back to work but I have two more days of weekend left! Yippee! :-)

Boz recently blogged the seductive charms of a ‘me’ day in London. Here follows mine (although without the helpful illustrations, I still haven’t replaced my camera :-( )

Bank Holiday Tuesday - Slept in late. Eventually got up. Reorganised the packing of the Christmas decorations (don’t ask). Put sofa throw in the washing machine. Made breakfast – oats porridge made with filtered water in the microwave, topped with chopped banana, honey, Greek yoghurt and semi-skimmed milk. Followed by a cup of tea. Soundtrack: Madonna: Hard Candy; The Last Shadow Puppets: The Age of the Understatement; Hot Chip: The Warning; and the best bits from Hot Chip: Made in the Dark.

Made a jug of Java in the cafetiere. Drank it. Caught up on the newspapers. Read about a scandalous sex book in Germany – apparently sprouting avocado stones can be used as masturbatory aids?? WTF???! Need to google to find out more.

Put throw in tumble dryer. Put jumper in the wash. Showered. Got dressed.

Cycled around Clapham Common for a bit. Went up Clapham High Street to have haircut, stopping on the way to look at the menu at Trinity, where I’m having lunch tomorrow. They’ve just brought in a new menu! Yum!

On the way back from the hairdresser, decided to stop by Macaron for a half-baguette and Moens for four slices of herbed Italian ham, which I had with slices of perfectly ripe, juicy and tasty tomatoes already in my fridge. Absolutely the most totally awesome ham and tomato sandwich. Bliss. :-)

Then I caught the 137 to Sloane Square and mooched pleasantly up the King’s Road. Looked in Peter Jones, Oliver Sweeney, Ted Baker and Waterstone’s before finally buying a bottle of shampoo at Kiehl’s.

Then caught the bus back home for tea and chocolate biscuits. Napped.

Dinner was lemon, chilli and crab linguini, followed by a bout of The Apprentice on the sofa with the flatmate. At last! Michael Sophocles is fired! Result!

Perfect day. I would adapt so well to not being a wage slave.

the end of green politics?

Catherine Bennett, in last Sunday's Observer:

"We are what we do. The piercing wisdom of the Anya Hindmarch bag in relation, at least, to middle-class green consumers is confirmed yet again by new figures showing a decline in sales of organic food and, outside the home, by a general apathy in the face of Heathrow's third runway and the exclusion of airline emissions from the watery I'm Not a Climate Change Bill.

Events in Crewe and Nantwich illustrate the difficulties of politicians intent on doing anything, such as carbon-taxing to avert catastrophe since a) no one really believes it's coming, b) they'll be dead anyway, c) the recession has left them much too fearful and poor to care, and d) they won't vote for anyone who tries to make them.

So Brown won't make himself more unpopular by reducing airline emissions or introducing personal carbon allowances. Neither he nor Cameron nor Clegg will, to their collective shame, unite behind an effective carbon policy which, appearing identically in every manifesto like the nasty nougat in every box of chocolates, may put the interests of future generations before contemporary self-pity. And when Cameron, versatile friend of both glacier and motorist, finally prevails, his strategy for 'green growth' has as much chance of holding back the rising seas as did the Anya Hindmarch bag.

And fair play to the bag: at least you could carry stuff in it."

Love her line about Cameron's flexibitity. So true. Sigh.

The Orangery @ Kensington Palace

"Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea."

With these lines Alexander Pope forever linked in my mind Queen Anne and tea. So it is only appropriate that Queen Anne’s little palace conservatory extension at Kensington Palace (1704, Sir John Vanburgh designed, no less, and three times over budget) now houses one of London’s great places to take afternoon tea.

The Queen’s orange trees were housed in a sumptuous baroque space – soaring ceilings, windows and Corinthian columns; classical statuary and Grinling Gibbons carving. Apparently, she hosted al fresco summer supper parties here as well, hence the decoration. The all-white space works well for the modern café, with its rows of decorative metalwork furniture and dainty miniature orange trees on the tables. It seems to aim for the luxe tourist and/or well-heeled local; it is so nice to see this sort of thing being done well in this sort of location. The café certainly lives up to its elevated architectural surrounds. Service was very friendly and obliging but perhaps a little off-focus: but the place was hopping all afternoon (Anne and I settled in for a lengthy gossip over pots of tea and cakes; there was no pressure on us to move out)

We ordered the exclusive Tregothnan tea – the first tea to be actually grown in England (in Falmouth). One has to applaud the ambition – at 50º N it is the most northerly latitude at which a tea garden has been planted. However, great flavour requires high altitudes and – even as someone who prefers weak tea – I found this one slightly underpowered. Our cakes included lemon meringue (a generous slice with a tart lemon curd filling and just right crisp and chewy meringue topping), chocolate fudge cake, and an apricot and almond slice. A plate of prettily arranged dainty finger sandwiches included cucumber, smoked salmon and ham.

A very successful afternoon, and I am sure Queen Anne would approve of her Orangery’s modern incarnation. I’d definitely go again.

The Orangery @ Kensington Palace
(High Street Kensington tube)

Divinity

Advertising – how does it work? While I did quite like the M&S food ads before they got irritating and people started sending them up, I can’t say any one of these highly seductive and beautifully shot exercises in food porn really made me buy anything.

Last Friday Jonathan Ross ate (noisily and messily and very fast) an M&S chocolate pain-au-chocolat-and-butter pudding. The sight was gross, and Jonathan was careful to tell us this pudding was more dangerous to our health than anything Pete Doherty has recently ingested could be. So I rushed out the next day and bought my own Simply Divine Bread and Butter pudding. Not the pain au chocolat version, the ordinary one – I’ve made my own pain au chocolat pudding and definitely prefer a more classic approach.

I specially didn’t read the nutritional info on the pack until the next day. But it is fantastically bad – so bad M&S only gives the info “per half pack” – basically, if you eat the whole pudding (as Jonathan and I did, and you will if you get your mitts on one), the calorie count is just short of 1400. About 100g of fat and 100g of sugar.

Simply divine, though! – totally gets my award for the best bread and butter pudding ever.

Stats

A few months ago when I last checked my stats, people were curious about Dalek cakes at Marks and Spencer’s. At the time, I didn’t know M&S did Dalek cakes, but now I can confirm a sighting of a chocolate Dalek cake in the Clapham Junction branch. Woo! Very exciting, although I would have preferred a standy-uppy Dalek rather than a lying-down Dalek. Exterminate! Exterminate! Anyways, a possible contender for my very own upcoming birthday.

The fickle public has moved on and now the googling masses can’t get enough of bombs in Balham in WWII. You may remember the Balham tube bomb disaster features in the movie Atonement, and it is indeed based on a true incident, when a bomb damaged a water main and flooded Balham Tube station, where locals were sheltering from the air raid. They all drowned.
Celebrity-wise, my most hits are still on Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire (rather mysteriously), although the wonderful Keira Knightley is zooming up the hit rate chart.

Which brings me to this pic:



I papped the filming of Atonement on location in central London! From this distance, can’t tell you which one is Keira and/or James McAvoy.

Diet: week 19th November

. . . And the wheels fell off this bus.

OMG. Oh, the shame:

1 x apple Danish

3 x full-fat caramel lattes

2 x M&S cream slices
3 x chocolate bars (one of them a mars bar)

2 x packets crisps

1 x tube Pringles (the crack cocaine of crisps, and 750 calories a tube!!!)

4 x M&S custard tarts

1 x massive wedge carrot cake

1 x very large sausage roll

1 x M&S freshly baked chocolate chip cookie

I’m thinking keeping a food diary and noticing what I am eating is skewing the results: I am Schrödinger’s greedy cat. Diarising is forcing me to obsess; therefore I eat more!

This Sunday I shall bake Nigella’s nectarine and blueberry galette as a reward IF I manage to be good all week.

Here goes.

Bah! Humbug!

I am turning into a recluse – really must get out more. This weekend was a complete washout, in more ways than one.

Saturday turned into a duvet day – I barely made it out bed. I snuggled up with a book and copious mugs of tea. Usually, duvet days invlove packets of Sainsbury’s Belgian chocolate chip and hazelnut cookies but mercifully for my diet not this time.

The duvet day stretched into Sunday.

Basically, the most exciting bit of my weekend was washing my woolly jumpers and bleaching the bathroom. Actually, bleaching was exciting – who knew how effective bleach could be? Only one mold spot left standing and that is slowly being worn down by liberal applications every few hours.

It’s not as if I lacked options – I was invited out to dinner on Saturday (but passed) and even more excitingly was offered tickets to the Arcade Fire gig at Alexandra Palace on the Sunday.

Now Arcade Fire is my favourite band of the moment and I actually tried to get tickets earlier in the summer – all sold out. So I should have been really excited and grateful that the universe had opened its bounty to me. But not. Sorry, Universe.

So, instead of having an exciting write-up on the Arcade Fire gig, I am blogging about bleaching the bathroom.

Sad, sad and sad.