Come to Carnivale in Notting Hill

Notting Hill Carnival is this coming bank holiday. There are two big days of fun. Sunday has a kids and family focus, with a children's parade. While Monday the parade is more about the adult groups, but there are still many children taking part, so don't be put off by that.

I can only speak to Monday, but I performed last year and I'm performing again this year. Get there early if you're interested in the parade. Our group, Paraiso, tries to get close to the front, as it's first come first served for groups in the parade. Samba is energy intensive, so you'll want to see us closer to the beginning of the route than near the end. It often takes 2 hours of almost continuous performance to reach the end of the route, so everyone is rather pooped by the end of it all. Our best performance will always be nearer the start of the route. You can even follow us on GPS this year, woo!

We practice all year for this one performance, and I'm sure many other groups do as well. So everyone is putting their all into making a wonderful, exciting experience for you. Looking into a sea of cameras is flattering, but the real thing that you can give to the performers is a lovely smile and a bit of a dance yourself. I find it energizing to see the audience dancing along as we parade past. We're not just bashing away at our drums for the samba girls in their feathers to dance along to, it's meant for everyone, so join in. You can even get a preview of this year's song here.

Thanks to Felixtree at Flickr for this photo of Paraiso 2008.

Everyday Life: Ethelburga Tower

I popped into the Geffrye Museum this weekend, as you do. There's a special exhibition on at the moment, which had me transfixed. Mark Cowper has photographed the inhabitants of his tower block from the about the same spot in each flat, which are all about the same size & layout. Mark surprised the tenants too, so there was no cleaning of the house before he knocked on their doors. But each flat is so very different and I sat for a long time watching the slide show of rooms go past. Each go round the building watching for different details: what they put on their walls, how much clutter they have, looking for the focus of a room, the layout, the lights, what's on the telly. I was there a while.

Yes, you could breeze in and look at the room full of photographs very quickly. But if you're interested in how people live, which I am a total sucker for, then you'll really love this chance to explore other people's lives.

There is only one more week left, until the 31st of August. Get there while you can.

A dreamy read

I just finished Autonauts of the Cosmoroute today. I happened upon it at my local library, whilst perusing the travel section's shelves. It's my go-to section of the library, always visited even when I don't go there in need of a book. I'm the first person to check this one out, always an honour. It just caught my eye, but has turned out to be far more influential than perhaps even it playfully suggested it might be.

The book begins with a lengthy prologue which served at first to make me wonder what I had gotten myself into. Such formal language, such seriousness. But I grew to see it was all in fun. And then finally the voyage embarks. You could fly through this book, but take time to savour the vingettes. Each day becomes its own story, quite different from the last. Some stories continue days after they began. Postmodernism, I now remember why I like you so much.

It served to remind me of the importance of love, how wonderful the VW kombi is for travel, and that my need to travel may not always require me going so far from home in order to find another world.

I can't wait to delve into Cortazar's other works.

Linda Plaisted's Dreamy Photomontages

I have four small Linda Plaisted prints in my kitchen. October, the one above, is my personal favorite, especially if you get the metallic print. My cleaning lady is in love with the crows, particularly this crow, the town crier. There's currently a sale on in her shop, 20% off orders of $50 or more, about 35 quid. One day I'd really like to get a large print, so I could really see the shimmery depths in it.

I like her work, I just thought that I'd share.

Go take a walk

...with some young folk like yourself. The Metropolitan Walkers group of the Ramblers is set up for people aged in their 20's and 30's, which makes it rather different from I usually imagine a group of Rambler's folk to look like. Instead it's a bunch of people my own age, who like walking, doing just that. The pace was fairly quick on the recent walk I went on, we did about 9 miles, with a stop in the middle for packed lunches and a stop at the end for a drink at a pub. I guess I'd describe the pace as "you live in London and you're walking to work", in my case it seems that most of the people walking to the tube with me keep this pace in the morning. Perhaps they are all late, the way I usually am?

Funnily enough, the first time I went on a walk, the group had a publicist for the Ramblers, newspaper reporter and photographer accompanying us. The publicist was wearing a denim skirt and cowboy boot high heels, not your typical rambler footwear of tennies or hiking boots. She did just fine on the walk, but it was rather funny. Plus she carried a purse, while most folk were sporting backpacks or messenger bags. There was a sort of mixup, she hadn't actually planned to be accompanying the reporter that day. Poor girl, but she was sweet.

What I learned though, was that a lot of people don't think that the Ramblers are really needed any more. They were instrumental in keeping public footpaths accessible to walkers in Britain, but people think that well that's done, yay. It turns out that a fair amount of legal wrangling is still needed to keep footpaths open. I've seen it all the time in the US, where rich folk decide they don't want the regular people walking past their very expensive view. I heard Madonna was once trying to close a public footpath crossing one of her country properties in England. So, the Ramblers fight that sort of thing. And they do need a new generation to step up, you don't even have to step out onto the paths. So maybe think about supporting the Ramblers Association.

I think the best part is that all it costs to go on a walk with the Metropolitan Walkers or a regular Rambler's group, is the transport to get yourself there and back. The Metropolitan Walkers walk within London and within one hour of London, check out their weekend walks and weekday evening walks sometime. They're very friendly, and can usually be spotted by their comfortable footwear.

The picture of me was taken by Carlos Jasso on the day we did our walk.

Peach and Plum Cake is so good

Wow, I'm just over the moon with the cake I made today. I am not so over the moon with how much of it I know I'm going to eat. We're already at 3 pieces today in lieu of dinner. It's based on Nigel Slater's recipe for a "wonderfully moist fresh plum cake," but of course I didn't quite have all the ingredients so I made up my own version, "Rabbit's Summer Stonefruit Cake".

Where I differed, and I think in a good way, was that I had 12 teeny tiny yellow plums (you know, from wild plum trees in your neighborhood) and 3 ripe yellow peaches. I chopped the peaches into pieces about the size of a quartered normal-sized plum and I quartered the teeny tiny plums. I left the skin on everything. I used 100 g regular caster sugar and 50g light brown muscovado sugar (superfine white sugar and light brown sugar, respectively). Instead of walnuts, I used pecans (I'm from Texas, I had a pecan tree in my backyard. Walnuts will always be bitter and not sweet like a pecan to me). But I have to say, I think you could leave out the walnuts or pecans and the recipe would be fine. I would not leave out the ground almonds, those are vital (ground hazelnuts or ground pecans might be nice alternatives, if they exist).

Using a convection oven at 160 C, it took the full 45 minutes to cook. The top gets very brown and the peaches & plums caramelize in a very pretty way. Check out my photos for the yumminess. The skins also hold a tart bite which contrasts well with the sweet cake. All the fruit inside is just what I want in a summertime cake. But I must hold off and won't have my 4th piece of cake until breakfast time tomorrow.

Serving-wise, if you are generous, this makes 9 portions of cake. It would look lovely at a picnic or more casual do. It doesn't hold together quite well enough to be eaten by hand, though I'm sure any cake lover would be happy to deal with that issue. For me, it definitely makes me think "yum, this is the essence of summer".

And now for local food...

Sausage & egg rolls, yummo. See how in the far right of the above photo two people are eating them. Good choice.

Saturday found me wandering up north. I was heading to Abney Park cemetery (chock full of blackberries at the moment), but I hadn't eaten lunch. Wandering down Stoke Newington Church Street I happened into the weekly farmer's market. Voila lunch problem solved. Stocks Farm has a small stall selling your basic baps. I had a very tasty egg & sausage (3.5 quid), which is large and generous. Prices start at 3 quid for just one ingredient, bacon, sausage, etc. She'll cook your egg runny or hard, whichever you want.

While I'm sure I could get cheaper in Kentish Town, they use Stocks Farm ingredients, which makes this an organic, local bap and it's still less than you'll pay if you go into one of the local cafes. I really was over the moon with my bap that morning, something about the hp sauce, tomato sauce, egg, sausage patty and fluffy white roll was exactly what I wanted. There are tables set up or you can grab a seat in the shade along one of the benches surrounding the school yard where the farmer's market is held.

Service was a bit slow, considering there was only one person ahead of me and she was already cooking his order. But she's friendly, even offering to grind pepper onto your egg while it's cooking.

By the by, the Stoke Newington Farmer's Market is all local (within 100 miles of Hackney) and organic (I saw one stall selling bags of flour, they're in amongst the veggies). It's not a huge market, but people were definitely just hanging out there enjoying themselves, which is quite nice. It's a great place to go shopping or eating with your kids too, because there's a play area with things to climb.

And cheers to Healthserviceglasses who did remember to bring a camera when going to eat baps at the farmer's market.

Your local

... library is worth checking out. Sure they've got books, but these days they loan/rent out DVDs, CDs and books on cd, have lots of computers, print stuff in color or b&w, sell USB memory sticks, plus tell stories to your children at appointed hours.

I'm not sure how other London libraries work, but in Hackney DVDs are free if they've been in the library for a year, if it's been less than a year you get the DVD for 2 quid for 5 days. CDs cost 80p for 3 weeks if they're recent (and I'm just saying it's a lot cheaper than itunes and it goes to support the library and probably some tiny fraction to the artist).

I borrow a lot of travel guides from the library. They help me plan my trips and if I'm going abroad for a just a weekend, buying a guidebook doesn't seem justified. Often I can find a travel memoir related to my trip as well. (I'm currently reading Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Cortazar and Dunlop, good fun) And then if you're interested in learning a new language while you're at it, they've got books or CDs for you. I've found with the languages it's best to plan several months in advance and you'll likely have to order the CDs and it can take up to a month to arrive. But yeah, they're free. So if you decide that Polish is just too difficult, at least you haven't spent a whole lot of money finding out that you're useless at the language. (I really liked Poland, I just couldn't get my mouth to make Polish sounds. So I was lucky I had my borrowed guidebook with me to look up words from the menu)

I'm lucky, right now I live very close to my local library. That definitely is a big factor in my weekly visits. The free books/dvds/cds factor is also a big draw. Plus I have fond memories of my library as a kid. Shoreditch library isn't pretty on the inside and I don't enjoy hanging out there, but it's the books that count, not so much the way they're presented. Just this week I found a lovely Japanese film Fine, Totally Fine which is very Japanese and very much reminded me of my visit there earlier this summer. It's slow and gentle, rather different than a lot of anime.

And many thanks to La Tur for this drawing of the library in Hogwarts, a place I would very much like to hang out.

Stroganoff time

Firefly is away, which means it's time to break out the dairy and the mushrooms (he's intolerant of the first and is given eebie-jeebies by the latter). So in true decadent, time to cook fashion, I put on my 4" purple wedges (7 quid from Peacocks thank you very much) and pour myself a glass of wine (2005 Cab Merlot from McHenry Hohnen Vintners in Margaret River, good with goats cheese, a bit hard to drink entirely on its own). I also pull out my Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, basically just to see just how far I deviate from the proper recipe. Oh right, and I put on some tunes, today I'm trying out the Copeland album, You are my sunshine.

I consider stroganoff to be a braisy-stewy kind of dish, so I definitely vary from USLC, but then I'm also using frying steak, not something as nice as sirloin. I also think the onions and mushrooms are very important, so I tend to minimize the amount of steak relative to those other two. I sort of happened upon stroganoff eight or so years ago when I had mushrooms, beef and onions in a pot. I sniffed them and thought "stroganoff!!!" and ever since, it's been in my repertoire. Despite my using a bastardized recipe that is all about it smelling right, not so much about exact measures.

So, you definitely need lots of onions, I used three tennis ball sized ones, .4 kilos (a pound) of steak, and 350 g of mushrooms. That will get you to something that smells right. I also add about a couple tbspn of oil, a teaspoon of pepper, 1-2 garlic cloves, 1/3 cup white wine, and once it's all cooked some soured cream (you could add cream or yoghurt instead, I've done both). If you're a salt fiend, add some salt as well. Maybe even more pepper if you're me, I'm a pepper fiend.

I add the onions, oil and meat together for a few minutes on medium for 5 minutes, you should start to see a grey sauce forming from the onion and beef juices, then I add the mushrooms, pepper and garlic and then it gets very juicy. Keep it on medium until the juices reduce by half, then add the dry white wine. Again wait for it to reduce a whole lot, some juices remaining, but once you add the sour cream it will get saucy in a good way, not too runny. Take off the heat, stir in the soured cream to taste, about a cup, but this step is done to taste. Check the seasoning and adjust if necessary. I have to note that this time my cream sort of curdled, so went into little white bits (looks a lot like I sprinkled parmesean into the sauce). I think I could have fixed this by adding some flour first, or even after it happened. However, since stroganoff was never exactly a pretty dish, I was not bothered and ate it anyway.

Serve atop boiled potatoes or egg noodles (not the chinese egg noodles, something more like fafarelle). Yum! If you have any questions about this recipe, feel free to email me.

Something I never do

Well, rarely at least. I'm going to see a movie/film tonight. Work rang to cancel my shift, so I've got a free evening. Now, due to the wonders of modern technology, I usually wait for movies to come out on DVD or I wait to take an overseas flight. But heck, I used to project movies in university, on Friday nights. I like to see a film in big overwhelming colour and sound. My standard seat back then was third row from the front, dead center. You know, I never knew that Luke could actually see the burned bodies of his family when he returned to his Uncle's house until I was in university, because I'd always seen Star Wars on a teeny tiny screen. So there are definite advantages to a big screen.

But I also balk at paying a lot to see a movie. However, I love Science Fiction, particularly the not-quite-so-Hollywoody versions lets do something more than just shoot lots of people. So I'm striking out, I'm going to see Moon. And since this is England, I'm hoping that means I get to have a beer with my movie. Woo!

Edited: I had a link to the trailer on youtube, but that one was removed. So you'll have to google it yourself. It's definitely a good movie, not sure if you really need a giant screen for it, but a decent-sized screen would be nice. I went to a Vue cinema. I did not find beer. I did find the 2nd row to be optimal for viewing. A small popcorn and coke will set you back 7+ quid, but they are both very big smalls. Barbican, why did you only have one movie on this evening? You have beer though not popcorn.

Quick Meal: Tex-Mex Burritos

A burrito is a quick dinner or lunch, great for take-away meals and since you can modify the ingredients to what you happen to have in the kitchen, pretty darn helpful when your cupboard is almost bare.

I think your first burrito experience shapes your expectations of a tasty burrito. I had my first burrito in Texas, so it was served up without rice inside. This certainly is advantageous in London, as I can only find the smaller-sized flour tortillas (dinner-plate size). You can buy the Old El Paso or Discovery brand, or you can probably find some in your local corner shop (my Turkish corner shop sells Turkish tortillas). The slightly weird fact about tortillas here is that they are shelf-stable for months, and I am not going to think too hard about what is enabling that. So pick up a pack and keep it in your cupboard for dinner emergencies. (Once open use them in several days)

Frankly, I guess the only real requirement for a burrito is the tortilla. But my absolutely comfort food favorite is: beans, cheese and maybe some salsa. Wrap it up, then put it in a frying pan on med-low until it's brown on both sides and the cheese has melted (10 minutes tops).

The key to making an easy-to-eat burrito is to be careful on your filling of the burrito. It doesn't take that much before your burrito is full. You want your filling to be about the size of a Picnic chocolate bar. Fold up the ends of the tortilla over the filling, then wrap the right side over the filling, finally fold the left-side over. Place in the frying pan with the folded side down. It won't unfold once it's browned and toasty.

Try to mange the wetness of your burrito ingredients, so either drain your beans very well or use refried beans (one tin of beans makes 3-4 burritos). Cream cheese would be fine, but it gets rather runny when heated. A cheddar usually works well (see, in Tex-Mex we use cheddar). If you have a really runny salsa, use a fork to scoop it up, so that the juices can run out first. Or I guess, if you have runny ingredients, you could, possibly, use a bit of cooked rice (but just a bit) to soak up the juices.

A cheat for salsa that I often use is fresh or tinned tomatoes, sprinkled with some chili flakes or hot sauce. Sprinkle some fresh coriander on if you like it. Some ingredients that do not hold up well if you grill your burrito: sour cream, lettuce, guacamole.

Edited: Now with photos of my own stellar burrito creation.

Eighties music isn't dead

I'm in a contemplative mood today. Some of my friends are going through very difficult times and I wish I could do more to help them. Unfortunately I'm half a world away and skype still cannot deliver a proper hug. For me, music is incredibly powerful. It so easily toys with my emotions or enhances them if they sync up. I'm currently listening to the soundtrack from The Mission, a movie from the 80's, which always makes me sad but the end is redemptive, so I'm hoping that I will feel a bit better at the end of it.

The Falls used to stop me in my tracks when I heard it in the halls of my dormitory. The guy across the hall used to play the soundtrack often. Don't know what that says about his mental state, but Caltech will do that to you.

However, pop music from the 80's usually makes me happy and bouncy. I've recently discovered a song that could be an 80's song, except it was made a few years ago. So yay for the 80's pop scene living on in Nightmare of You.

The Albion, hmm...

Albion claims to be a caff, but it's really more of a café with all the pretention that an e accent aigu requires. But the waitstaff were very friendly and it's on a very quiet street which makes sitting outside a real pleasure. I find myself quite torn.

I took my friends there for dinner on a Monday evening, so there was only a 5 minute wait for a table. Nice! While we were waiting we had a chance to ogle all the bread, fish pie & baked goods in their deli; that certainly made us hungry. While the menu is quite short, it does not contain any descriptions of the named food, so we spent a while learning about foods we hadn't heard of like kedgeree.

Our order came out surprisingly quickly, but we were dining quite late. I had the welsh rabbit, £4.50. It was tasty, the bread was very thickly sliced and you get two pieces. I think they must use the white loaf I saw in the bakery earlier. I prefer a chewier white bread myself, this was very crumbly instead, but overall, good marks. Firefly had the kedgeree, a curried fish & rice dish, served with a homemade curried tomato relish. Frankly I thought that the kedgeree was very bland and the curry tasted like it came straight from a bottle of Bart's curry powder. It rather had the consistency of a risotto, though with a longer-grained rice used. Firefly was happy with it though, costs about £9ish.

CD had the celeraic & apple soup, £4.50. I quite liked it while he only liked it after adding rather a lot of salt. He also had the fish pie, £9ish. A creamy fish and other fishy foods covered under a thick layer of mash, finished in the broiler. It took a while to cool down enough so that he could eat it, but once there he was quite happy. I thought that it was ok, but quite comforting. We also shared a serving of the beef dripping chips, but to be honest, they are more like petite wedges skin off, they seem more like roasted potatoes. Served very crisp, they made 2 out of 3 of us happy with the crispness, but I was surprised at how little I tasted the beef on them, £3ish.

All the portions were quite generous and next time I would probably go for a bap or the giant bowl of soup (which does not come with bread, if you're curious). Sitting outside was nice and quiet, which made talking easy. The waiters were friendly and fetched biscuits and cakes from the deli for us for our dessert, when we decided that the Eton Mess, while lovely, was more than we had room for. The cupcake has a very buttery icing and is about half icing, half cake. The gingerbread lady was tasty and not too sweet. The brownie with almonds was so moreish I ended up stealing almost half of CD's.

CD and I agreed that it felt a bit like Carlucci's or Ottolenghi, that wide-open space, white walls, cafe tables, deli. But it is the closest to my house of the three. I'd probably go back for a pot of tea (comes with a cozy) and a sweet or if I wanted a bap ( £5ish) and the weather was nice. It's certainly casual enough a place that I don't think I'd get annoyed looks from the waitstaff if I did.

And many thanks to Purple_Cloud at flickr for the great photo of the cafe, she has more photos of the cafe if you're interested.

Getting crafty wid it

I often end up with a bag of clothes on my bedroom floor classified as: "destined for Oxfam". I gradually add to it as the months pass, and often go back to it to rescue a favorite sweater or shirt. Last week I decided to give that bag of clothes another chance. I put on some loud music, I grabbed the bag of clothes and I then headed to the living room with the bag and a pair of scissors.

I've ended up with two cardigans made from long sleeved shirts cut up the front. One was also cropped. Plus a skirt made from a sweater. I'm not sure what you will think, or if people will think "ahhh, look, she's wearing her sweater as a skirt". But I thought I'd give it a go. I lopped the arms off, so now I could wear it as a short-sleeved sweater. But I really do prefer it as a skirt. What do you think?

One day I'll have to tell y'all about my drunk sewing incidents. They're fun, but they don't necessarily end well.