31.3.08 another day, another cappuccino

Mondays are hideous. I don't know why or how this came to be, but I don't like Mondays.

Cappuccino at Venetia's, my local, goes a long way to help appease the Monday syndrome.

More garlic bread at the Monday neighbor's meal - along with chicken and leeks, birthday cake, peas and salad. Yum.

ginger nuts and custard creams and tea with milk to make it through the afternoon.

humus, turkish bread, kettle chips, a peach and a tomato for lunch at the local organic farm (though I wish the peaches and the tomato were from there because a) they would have had flavor and b) we would be living in a totally different climate than this one!

almond croissant and cappuccino this morning...

30.3.08 We Sing, We Dance, We Dress Up

Actually, I just drink beer called Zywiec, which is the same as a fabulous looking Polish dance group in London. Maybe I should take up dancing to work off the beer...

Random wanderings through my day of food:
Having that beer now, after a small glass of Chilean wine at a meeting.
Beer goes well with Hobnobs.
More mac and cheese. One of maybe two leftovers I'll actually eat.
Sausage.
Cappuccino.
custard creams (3) why can you never eat just one?
coffee with milk
black tea infused with saffron
salad
chips, soggy with vinegar
Green & Blacks

can someone please tell me to make something from scratch and actually cook a meal, please?!

29.3.08 still but not if you count the time change...

I am so fat and happy tonight I can't even tell you. My friend C. is visiting from Canada and she makes the world's best mac and cheese. Oh, man. Cold night, cold beer, hot and cheesy stack of deliciousness on the plate. And made by a friend, no less. A perfect day.

I've also had two servings of baklava today. It is indeed the land of milk and honey.

lists keep me sane:
mac and cheese
lovely green salad (thanks, S.)
Green & Black's milk chocolate (thanks, K.)
tea with saffron!
coffee
salads from the organic shop where we helped H. build the gardens this morning (love that compost)
a raw foods bar

29.3.08 12:01 a.m.

No, I'm not eating anything right now, but I just had a lovely vietnamese meal with some friends. everything was so fresh and light that I just had to top it off with a magnum ice cream. Some guys we passed on the street going home remarked on eating ice cream in the cold, but I tell you what - it didn't melt and I could eat it leisurely and enjoy it. so there. Did I mention that I had pain au chocolat for lunch?

28.3.08 not enough chocolate

It's 9:42 in the morning and I have definitely not had enough chocolate yet. If I could wish myself a pain au chocolat right now, I certainly would.

Last night was the community meal at the Round Chapel where I work as a community worker. It's part of my job, in other words, to be involved in the meal. I got a bee in my bonnet to make a big pot of something and I found a great recipe for dal on the web. I've made it before, but never with black mustard seeds in ghee as the start to the spice mixture. What I like about dal is that it is flavorful, rich and creamy without any cream, warm and satisfying without being heavy. Perfect winter meal, perhaps? It did go over well and I have my friend Catherine to thank - we worked together in the kitchen at Iona two years ago and she happened to be flying in from Thailand yesterday. She arrived from Heathrow straight into the kitchen...nice one!

today's list so far is tiny, but I am looking for a great deal of expansion. Today is a food-as-comfort day. My feet and back hurt from cooking and serving til 10 last night; it's another grey and cold day in London town; it's Friday. Comfort, comfort, comfort.

so far:
lemon and hot water
coffee and milk
1/3 of an apple
tiny bit of muesli and milk

boring, though of course I'm grateful to wake up to food at all in world where so many have none...

26.3.08 more cobbler can't be bad

I made a quick rhubarb compote for H. tonight. She's wheat-free so I had to skip the muesli crumble topping - why does muesli need wheat flour?

lists keep me sane:from finish to start
apricot green and black's chocolate
strange winter veggie stew with ginger and lemon rice
olives
cheese
baguette
crazy peanut flips snacks
banana
tea
cappuccino
muesli and milk
coffee
lemon water

25.3.08 leftovers aren't so bad

Tonight I'm finishing up a rhubarb cobbler made from the fresh spring crop in my garden. And some homemade fried rice fried again.

I spent 2.80 on food today, and it was two items of 1.40 each. It's amazing how different the value of something can be. One lot was for an instant cappuccino at the Kew Gardens station because the cafe was so cute. Cute only goes so far. The other was for a beautiful baguette from L'Epicerie. If I were down to my last 1.40 and dying of thirst or a caffeine headache, I would still buy the bread.

listing keeps me sane:
lemon in hot water
coffee with milk and a little bit of cream
muesli and milk with the dregs of evil crunchy nut clusters
pumpkin seeds on the train
baguette
brie
gouda
dark, wrinkly olives
bad cappuccino
chocolate covered peanuts
tea
fried rice
czech budweiser
about to have rhubarb crumble and cream...

23.3.08 Sherry at Dawn

the first thing to pass my lips this morning was communion at St. Paul's at 5:45 a.m., the Easter dawn service led by the bishop of London. Not filling, but ful-filling.


and now on to the chocolate bunnies...

22.3.08 Leftovers: Pineapple

Leftovers and I don't get along. On the other hand, I love a challenge. What to do with a ziplock bag of leftover pineapple pieces and juice? Why, pineapple cake of course. Better than a pineapple hat, to eat at least.

Today, like yesterday, I didn't spend any money on food - a couple of raids on the back of the cupboard and fridge; some other food besides pineapple scored after clean-up at the community meal on Thursday.

Thanks to J and L for the dinner tonight. J made some great bean tacos with just a touch of cinnamon and L made a wonderfully garlic-rich salad with Italian flat-leaf parsley and cress. Can't get enough green. Speaking of which, here's stealing from my other blog, hackney daily photo:

21.3.08 I know I shouldn't...

I've never been one for the Christian practice of giving something up for Lent. Still, being that it is Good Friday and all, I might have showed some constraint in the indulgence department. But.

This is one of the most amazing chocolate things to have passed between my lips:



How can these chocolates be so buttery and rich without butter? Ah, coconut oil....yum. God forgive me!

20.3.08 you are who you eat with

13 things I ate today...

1. muesli
2. plain chocolate digestive biscuits
3. grapes
4. olives
5. pumpkin seeds
6. dolmadis
7. humus
8. dried mulberries
9. turkish bread
10. corn chips
11. carrots
12. banana
13. tea, coffee, wine, lemon juice in water, beer, smoothie with mineral water

It was a finger-food sort of day, culminating in a Maundy Thursday supper at a church. It was a community meal, with as much emphasis on who we were eating with as what we were eating. A warm company on a cold night.

19.3.08 What I like about London

Today's food adventure was all about what I like about London - a pub meal for lunch complete with bad service and chips and Indian at Brick Lane for dinner. With a visit to the Tate Modern stuck in the middle.

I was thinking today about paying attention to how much money I spend on food every day, in addition to what I eat. Eventually, I'd like to develop some simplicity on both fronts in order to live a bit more lightly. Well, maybe heavier in the pocketbook and lighter around the middle, as well as in my footprint on the planet.

At one time I used to parse out all the costs of food I ate per item per meal, even things I had bought at the grocery store and even down to the individual ingredients. Okay, TMI there.

Today's lunch was a work-related thing so the cost isn't direct to me. I won't count it, even though what I ordered didn't fit the simplicity principle entirely. There were three of us and we only ordered two mains, though, which is something. Right?

Breakfast:
muesli augmented with crunchy nut clusters (a recent shopping accident)
milk
coffee
lemon juice in hot water

Morning Tea:
a little fairy cake version of sticky date pudding which I had no problems bringing into the Tate Modern coffee shop in a silver plastic bag and eating with my
cappuccino
while looking out the plate glass window at a view of the Thames and St. Paul's that I could just about touch. Nice office, since that is where we had our work meeting. We made the obligatory pilgrimage to the Rothko room on the 3rd floor to let the coffee settle and clear the mind of all that scenic vista inspired brainstorming.

Lunch:
chips
part of a burger with stilton
part of a sausage and mash
part of a bruschetta
Young's bitters 1/2 a pint

Afternoon tea:
bad tea in a pub - no one to blame but myself - who orders tea in a pub?

Dinner:
after hearing Archbishop Rowan Williams speak inspiringly at Westminster Abbey
chicken korma
pappadums
lamb with pistachio sauce
rice
1/2 a garlic naan
Cobra 1/2 pint
after dinner mint

right now, 11:23 p.m.
detox tea

whew. my jaws are tired.
Cost?
12GBP for my half of the Indian food

18.3.08 not starving

No, I haven't been on a hunger strike for the last few days. In fact, on at least one of the days, I was so full I could have burst thanks to a fantastic roast at a friend's house.

But I managed to feel hungry again after a couple of days of afterglow from that great meal and today I made sticky date pudding in individual little muffin tins. Another fine use of golden syrup and absolutely perfect for the bitterly cold weather we've had for the past two days. I have nostalgia for this dish and never even had it as a kid.

Here's a great recipe I found for it. You're on your own to find two great little kids to help you cook the sauce, as I had when our friends came over for dinner and Finn, 4, and Queenie, 2.5, made sure I had just the right ratio of cream to syrup...thanks, guys!

14.3.08 Super, Not Tasty

So, here's a question: if the avocado that P. made guacamole out of tonight had no flavor, is it still a super food?

*Avocado: A superfood star no less. Providing the perfect ratio of fat, protein and carbohydrate all in one food, avocadoes are also rich in copper which will ward off stress-induced headaches at homework and exam time. Technically a fruit but treated as a vegetable, the avocado is a natural antioxidant. It contains glutathione which blocks 30 different carcinogens and, in test tube experiments, it has been shown to contain agents that can stop the AIDS virus from developing.

What is the deal with fruit and veg that has no flavor? Why are we putting up with this?

Here's a fun fact:

vegetables on sale in the UK have lost 24% of their magnesium, 27% of their iron and 46% of their calcium

If you want real food...

13.3.08 flapjack folly

I can't believe I've been back in the UK for three weeks and I haven't had made flapjack. Ah, today! Buying my first green can of Lyle's Golden Syrup and watching the beautiful amber liquid - and struggling to get a spoon through it - what joy.

To borrow from Einstein,

In the matter of physics (or flapjacks), the first lessons should contain nothing but what is experimental and interesting to see. A pretty experiment is in itself often more valuable than twenty formulae extracted from our minds.

In other food news today:
coffee with milk at home
almond croissant from L'Epicerie
cappuccino from the local organic shop
a couple of Halal snacks at the job fair for the 2012 Olympics
toast
curry from the freezer, rice
a single dolmade
Czech beer

and during our meeting at the house tonight, we'll crack into the flapjack.
sweet.

12.3.08 highbrow cheese

Not so many days ago I was writing about Neal's Yard Dairy and my adventures in cheese there. I think I know my cheeses well enough at this point to say with a fair measure of confidence that the cheese I enjoyed tonight was my favorite Stilton, the Colston Bassett. As a glass is to wine, so is the setting to cheese. When I try this one at Neal's Yard, whilst drinking in the heady smells of farmyard and stone floors and great wheels of all manner of cheese, it is bold and a real fighter, the flavors making sure they win my attention. Tonight, at the Paul Mellon Centre for the Study of British Art, the surrounds consisted of floor to ceiling books and well-scrubbed fellow alumni from my Ivy League graduate school across the pond. Swishy. Posh. Refined. The cheese had a completely different attitude, more haughty than competitive; more blue blood than farm hand. Instead of asking me to slather it on a torn piece of crusty rustic bread, it suggested, knowingly, that a bit would go nicely on that wholemeal biscuit, thanks ever so much. I would just like to say to the CB Stilton: you can take the cheese out of the country, but the country - I picture broad pastures of the greenest grass and earth you can smell with the windows rolled up - will never leave the cheese. I knew you when, CB, and I love you still.

11.3.08 Slow Puck

I've been a sucker for the Power Bar genre for a long time. Back when I was running long miles and otherwise manic about work and play and life in general, the idea of handheld meals on the go appealed to me. I'm not sure they did my insides any long-term favors, but there you go. I was happy living on three squares, or rather long and rectangulars for quite a while there. It's been some time since efficiency ruled over epicurean tendencies with me, but a recent trip to Whole Foods in Kensington saw me bedazzled with the breadth of selection in the bars collection. And I think I've found the best one, which my beautiful neighborhood deli also sells! Yippee! So...drumroll please...it is Slow Puck! check it out. I didn't know what slow fruit was, but I am a convert to this method of drying fruit "as nature intended." Today's flavor: slow fig and macadamia nut; waiting for a new day is slow pear, mulberry and brazil nut. Wow. Now that's a powerful bar. puck. thingy.

10.3.08 smells divine

It isn't that I didn't eat yesterday...in fact, we made a very nice leek and sweet potato soup and shared it with N. and H. over a short-listing session for a post we have to fill at work. No rest, but soup, for the wicked.

Tonight the house smells gorgeous as I'm cooking up onions in curry powder and coriander to stir through some plain rice along with chopped mint and lime peel finely diced. Just right for a cold and stormy night.

Maybe I'll look for a fire screen saver and we'll eat by the hearth.

8.3.08 but we earned it

Food experiences are coming so fast and thick that I can't keep up here. Skip the rest of Thursday and go right to today's! We road our bikes to the Broadway Market this morning along the canal paths. It was windy and cold...there were some hills involved...we so totally deserved this amazing treat of chocolate/butter heaven. Honestly. I'm not sure about the roast hog or the sausage and bacon roll. We bought leeks for something healthy. tomorrow.

6.3.08 Not Boring at All!

Yesterday, S's 25th, was decidedly not boring in the food department.

First stop, the best coffee shop in the known universe, Monmouth Coffee at 7 Dials.

Here's why I like Monmouth, in addition to the fact that I consistently enjoy the richest, creamiest cappucino I've ever had anywhere there:

When we find a coffee that we like, we want to know where it comes from and who grows, picks and processes it. We then look to establish a relationship with the grower and exporter of that coffee.

This month's coffee list.

Monmouth is reviewed enthusiastically by a fellow coffee lover on a cool site called WeLoveLocal.

Then it was over to Neal's Yard Dairy, for cheese tasting, drooling and spending too much money (everyone should have a "cheese" line in their household budgets).

Words cannot describe...hence the picture at the top.

This was all before 1:00 p.m. and remembering it is making me hungry. I'll have to come back and fill in more details later. Yet to come - more pain au chocolat!

5.3.08 what a bore

Well, I didn't write yesterday so I'm fudging on the date. Wish I had some fudge. Or some dates.

Anyway, how's about a straight-forward list since it was a boring food day.
muesli and milk
coffee

macaroni with olive oil, cracked pepper and salt
a little butter on top

swiss choc roll in the afternoon, as you do

popcorn for dinner

apple cake at a friend's house

polish beer
german beer

a kiwi
I love eating kiwi like a soft-boiled egg, take off the lid and dig in with a tiny spoon.
wow, nature rocks.

okay, feeling as vapid as this sounds.
off to a food adventure day so hold your breath for tonight's update...

4.3.08 today's pain au chocolat

Yep, it's going to become a habit, buying a pain au chocolat from L'Epicerie on Chatsworth Road (about a block away from the house...definitely not a safe distance). P is convinced that this is not the best p au c, but I think it's pretty darn good. We picked one up on our way to pick up the bus to the Bromley-by-Bow Centre, a fascinating place. But first I was deeply enchanted by walking along Chatsworth Road, taking big crackling bites of buttery pastry in search of the snap of chocolate somewhere within. Layers. Life is better in layers. I think I was skipping, golden flakes of heaven fluttering off me as I passed. It was a dream of city living, a moment to say, "Why London? This is why..."

Now beside my cup of Twinnings Earl Grey is a brazil nut, a bite-sized piece of Green & Black's 70% dark chocolate and a bit of candied ginger. A nice little tidbit after a tea of fresh homemade vegetable soup. I'm rather proud of my secret ingredient in the soup, another joint effort between me and P. I'll say what it is: Pastis de Marseille, an anise aperitif. Also a steeped tea of anise, lemon and fennel. It worked, giving some depth and a bit of sweetness and raising the hint of a question, "what is that flavor, I wonder..."

We had a lovely cheese from L'Epic, too. More research is required in order for me to say what it was. I lost touch with the name right after I tried it. It's a very sharp Gruyere.

cheese and chocolate, a very good day.

Leeks a Little Late

I've just come from a lovely tea with friends down the road here in Hackney. This family's hospitality is legendary and I bet if I gave you their address and you showed up on a Monday night, you'd be as welcome as a long lost cousin.
Rachel outdid herself again tonight with a yummy mac and cheese.
But the real standout item, in terms of St. David's Day back a couple of days ago, was the steamed leeks and fennel dish. Yum. Warming and just right for a cold night in nearly-spring.

Okay, so the leeks actually were trumped by desert: beautiful little fairy cakes by daughter Millie, complete with yummy, gooey chocolate surprise.
Or maybe it was the solid Mothering Sunday leftover cake from daughter Jess. Deep chocolate, cherries, nuts and marshmallows for a certain fabulous chewiness.

So a good night was had by all. And, fat and happy as we were, we pulled up the ichat and talked to a Monday night regular named Joe who has just moved to Durban, South Africa. He was happy to talk, sad to be so far away. That will become as much a feature of our dinners as the garlic bread that is always first thing on the table, piping hot.

I started the day with a strange breakky - a ham, cheese and red onion in mayonnaise salad on a dusty roll at a local cafe.
Don't you hate an overly milky cappuccino? Going back to the neighborhood favorite tomorrow, thank you very much. I think I can live without another one of those sandwiches for a while, but it was guiltily good and I have a strange feeling might find it's way into the crave category.

I wonder what the world's best garlic bread is like...
where is the garlic from
how is it chopped
is it roasted first
has it been marinated in something first
how much do you use?

what kind of bread is it on?
is is toasted first?
does it have anything in it?

what is slathered all over it - olive oil? what kind? any infusions? what about butter? what kind/brand/style/salted or sweet?

and what about bells and whistles - herbs? cheese? is it really garlic bread if there is cheese, too?

oh, the questions!

so many ways to skin a clove.

1.3.08: passionate about passionfruit

Seriously, is there anything more amazing than the passionfruit? The smell bursts with life, everything feels possible when one is eating a passionfruit.

As I did yesterday, in a beautiful fruit salad lovingly prepared by Shazz and Eleanor.
raspberries
blueberries
passionfruit
mint
orange
strawberry
apple
nectarine
with Green&Blacks dark chocolate on the side

It was perfect complement to the chicken curry Paul and I made from scratch.

While cooking it, I ate some popcorn with jerk seasoning and drank a polish beer.

I had muesli earlier in the day.

so, you see, it was all leading up to the passionfruit, nature's true pinnacle.
Sadly, no leeks for st. david's day...