Hackney Wicked Festival - This weekend

Well, I had a very busy weekend planned, but work just rang to cancel my shifts. Wicked! Yes, I could use the money, but it feels like I've just been given a free day off from school. Plus, I get to bring out all my old valley/surfer girl slang which I picked up despite being a total nerd. So guess where I'm heading? Hackney Wick, with apparently the highest concentration of artist studios anywhere. That means yay for creativity and a little sketchiness for flavour.

The Hackney Wicked Festival is this weekend Friday July 31st to Sunday August 2nd. There's a ton of interesting stuff to get into, I'm listing just a few. Tonight there's something called Salad Days which could be worth looking into. Perhaps they will also be extolling the virtues of the humble beet and cabbage? There's a fete Saturday, and who doesn't like a fete? Keep an eye out for a pop-up stall run by a blogger I like, Bitching & Junkfood. Sunday it all ends with the burning of a wicker man, the burner in me is made happy by this.

Dude, now, like, you totally have to go to this.

Thanks to Ewan-M from Flickr for the photo of the Lord Napier

Yellow peach time

Please keep eating yellow peaches and ignore the interloper, the white peach. I think the flavour from a yellow peach is just amazing, it is the flavour of summer for me. A white peach is just too sweet, with none of the tang that makes a peach special. I want the juices that run down my chin if I choose to not cut up my peach, forcing me to eat it standing over the kitchen sink.

Peaches are certainly not convenience food. I like mine peeled and juicy-ripe. I know a peach is ripe if I can peel it without using a knife. The skin just pulls away in strips, it only takes a minute or two to peel a peach. You wouldn't want to put a peach in a lunch-box, it couldn't hold up to the banging. You also can't buy just any old peach, nope, you need to find a green-grocer who knows what temperature peaches should be stored at. If you ever get a mealy peach, that oh so awful mushy, mealy texture. Don't blame the peach, point the finger at improper storage temperatures. Or so I was told by my farmer, and he knew a lot more about these things than me.

Sure, white peaches unpeeled have a similar flavour to a peeled yellow peach, but it's still too mild, not tangy enough. I worry that everyone will forget the wonderfulness of the yellow peach, because yellow peaches have to be juicy ripe before they are worth eating, where you can eat an underripe white peach. But why would you want to?

So it's summertime now, head out to your local farmers market. Smell the peaches, they smell like a peach when they are ripe. Quite likely, you'll have to bring the peaches home and put them on the counter for a day or two so they fully ripen. Smell them daily, they'll start to get a bit softer, there will be a little give. A bruise or two might show itself, that's ok, just cut it off after you've peeled the peach. Then bite into little pieces of summery heaven. Yum!

Thanks to Priscilla1295 from Flickr for the great photo of the peaches.

Get thee to the berries

Your local London berry bushes are currently bursting with fruit for your enjoyment. According to a friendly Irishman wandering past while I was picking, he never thinks about berry picking until August. But I've been twice in the past couple of weeks and my local bushes look to be at their peak at the moment, so don't delay.

I pick blackberries, since that's what seems to be round these east-end parts. I've found some bushes poking out from someone's untended garden and some along the canal. The friendly Irishman reckoned that for *real* picking, you should head out to your favorite country-walk to get kilos of berries. I usually come home with about a punnet. And since I always forget my camera, the photo is courtesy of markhillary on Flickr. If you search for "blackberry London" on Flickr, the photos often list their locations, so it might give you some ideas for places to search for your local berries.

I'm storing them in the freezer until I get enough for a cobbler or to make jam with. I've just finished the damson jam I made last year, so it's about time for some more jam making. I really enjoyed the damson jam, so I think I might make more of that rather than blackberry jam. And my last peach pie was so delish, I might even try to make a blackberry pie.

Polish Food: Yum!

I went to Poland for a friend's wedding this weekend. I've come back a total convert to Polish food. I went over thinking that it would be like Czech food, tasty, but heavy and not very appropriate for a hot summer. But oh no, I tried many lovely dishes that were light and tasty. No worries about getting your daily fiber intake either. There is often both a cabbage dish and a beet dish usually in salad and or soup form. Ok, I admit I might be weird for getting excited when I see cabbage and beet dishes on menus, but they are very accessible dishes.

Coleslaw? Yep, they have it in spades, often without mayo, instead in a vinaigrette. I had a soup with sauerkraut in it, and it was not weird. The beet soups I had varied greatly. First there was a borscht which was very chunky and creamy, served cool. It was perfect for the hot weather. Another was a beet broth with some small meat ravioli in the broth. Great stuff. Really worth trying if you have a chance.

Sure, order the pierogi or potato pancakes, but why not have a salad or soup on the side?

And then there's the roasted pork knuckle, Golonka, that we had for lunch one day. It's gargantuan, but wow, if you ever get a chance to have one, they're very tender and covered in crunchy skin. But the price on the menu is per 100g, but they'll be bringing you the whole knuckle, which can weigh up to a kilo. It's still totally worth it though. Just maybe split it with your friends.

And as far as beans, I didn't see them on any of the menus I saw. And I hear that if you're a vegetarian, many of the soups are made with meat broth and there is often bacon hiding in the vegetables.

Dalston wheatfield and mill

It's rather like Dalston is returning to its farming roots. Remember how this used to be considered far from the city of London, that's why the Geffrye Museum was set up for the old folk to retire to the countryside. As part of the Barbican's Radical Nature exhibit, there is now a wheatfield and mill hiding in Dalston.

The Mill portion is hosting a number of events, plus the Mill is a cafe, so grab a cup of something and have a bit of a sitdown. Contemplate the original piece, which was a wheatfield in New York City and the differences/similarities with this one. I personally find this one a bit lacking, it's smaller and it's not in as much contrast as the original with it being next to skyscrapers. I think it's also that I do a lot of walking in the outskirts of London (Thanks to TimeOut's country walks) and there are wheatfields bang up against the outskirts of this city, where New York isn't quite so rural at its outskirts.

I do think it gives you some interesting ideas to ponder on your own at later times, but when you experience it, it feels like something is missing. Instead of blowing you away, it generates a feeling of "oh, okay". But the wheatfield is free, though you do have to get yourself to Dalston. If you combine it with a stroll through the Ridley Road market and and then finish up at London Fields Lido, you could make a good afternoon of it. If you're coming from further afield, head up to Stoke Newington Church Street for a wander and then pop into the Abney Park Cemetery.

I did like the Mill, it's not at all what I was expecting, and that delighted me. Here are a few commentaries on the exhibit to help you to decide to visit:
A down to earth commentary
An artsy commentary

1234 Shoreditch Festival

Wondering what to do this coming Sunday? I realize it's early on in the week, but some of us have to make plans. Especially with the added bonus of cheaper tickets.

The 1234 Shoreditch Festival is happening this Sunday July 26th... in Shoreditch Park, so it's close to Old Street Tube. It runs until 9pm, with three stages. 50 bands, and they're more up-and-coming, which means that they try harder.

Bonuses: music, outdoors :) , only 15 quid (Lovebox I'm looking at you), and you'll be able to get waaaay closer to the stage than you could have at Lovebox.

There's a Co-op grocery store in the Gainsborough building which overlooks the park should you need any supplies. Otherwise pick up snacks/drinks on Pitfield street as you walk over to the park.

Why the title

I feel I should clear up the title of this blog. So "beans", we won't really be talking about where to find coffee in London, unless I drag ol' Firefly into this as a guest reviewer. He's a coffee drinker and can help you coffee drinkers out. I hear Monmouth is good for coffee, there is one on Monmouth Street and one in Borough market.

Just so you know, despite being mostly from the US, I do not actually enjoy coffee all that much. I'm a tea fanatic though, drink it all day long. I'm not all that particular about my tea, I like black tea with milk, turkish tea with sugar no milk, green tea plain, oolong plain and I guess those are my favorites. I'm not a huge fan of the fruit-flavored teas or herbal teas, but if I'm sick I'll drink a lot of ginger and lemon with honey that I make from scratch. I've tried rooibos, but would probably only develop a taste for it if I lived somewhere where I was offered it often. I cannot turn down an offer of tea. I love the ritual of offering a cuppa to a visitor and taking the time to chat over a cup.

If all you have is coffee I will say yes, because that's part of the ritual. I'll just have a hard come-down 4 hours later. And yeah, a good cup of coffee is preferable to a wretched cup of tea. I've had some awful teas served to me in England, mostly in train stations, but it has only happened a couple of times.

But really, in addition to tea, I love beans. The photo for the header has 8 different cans of beans that I found in my cupboard the day I decided to start this blog. So this is my general bean-stash. I'm not a vegetarian, I just like beans.

But I also don't know beans about London, since I'm so new here. So this blog will also be exploring my ideas for fun things to do around town. Plus some recipes, which may include beans. Wow, I bet you're really excited now!

A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down: review

I happened across A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down in the library the other day. I didn't think that it would be an intriguing read, but I thought that despite my love of tea, milk no sugar please, I probably have a fair amount to learn about the English biscuit. I'm very well-versed in the shop-bought Aussie biscuit and to a lesser extent, the US cookie market, but I'd really only ever come across the Rich Tea, Digestives & Jaffa cakes.

So now I've got to head out to find some Penguins to compare to the Tim Tam. I love Jaffa cakes, they're just *so* moreish. But my own leanings at the moment are for home-baked biscuits. Basically so I can put butter in them, rather than hydrogenated vegetable oil (Crisco, I'm looking at you). Now there are many home-bakers from the 70's whose recipes rely on HVO, and I realize that fried chicken is just not the same without it. But somehow, I really dislike what HVO does to the texture and taste of a biscuit. It coats my tongue and somehow doesn't melt. I think its lack of flavor means the biscuit lacks a butter taste plus I can usually taste the bicarb soda because there is not the mask of the butter. And finally, well, they crumble incorrectly. It's too stiff a biscuit. Sure now the biscuit will withstand shipping cross-country and still sit happily in your cupboard for weeks, but because it does not taste that great it will remain in the cupboard for weeks. Poor dear. Why create a biscuit that is only going to be ignored?

And why haven't other biscuit-eaters noticed this weird taste/mouth-feel issue?

I know as a kid I Looooooved Twinkies. But now if I have one, all I taste are preservatives. I was wondering how my taste-buds have changed. Not sure if it is education, or sugar losing its ability to mask the flavor, perhaps my sugar receptors don't go wow! they way they used to?

Well, the book does not cover these issues of HVO, but it is well-suited to reading in little pieces, biscuit by biscuit, while you wait for the kettle to boil. If you're interested in a walk down memory lane, or perhaps you're new to the country and want an overview of the tea and biscuit landscape, then this is a worthwhile read.

First up

Hiya, this blog is about the interesting bits and bobs that I come across in London. This will mostly have to do with food, restaurants, baked goods, walks, and performance art goings on. I really do like beans, a lot. I am not a bean purist either, I will eat all comers. Though since moving to London, I eat far fewer pinto beans that I used to and now spend a lot of time with the butter and cannelli beans. UK Heinz baked beans are hands down superior to US pork and beans.

Oh, right, a bit about myself. I'm Australian and American, but have been in London about a year. I'm really loving it, particularly the summers. They're far warmer than San Francisco summers, not so sure about sunnier, but warm is good.

Anyhoo, welcome to my world. I hope you enjoy your tour.