Peas in a Pod

When I was a primary school we sang a lot. It remains a joke with those I see from school we all remember the various songs we were made to sing in assembly, and though many of them seem too religious for schools today they do not fail to make me laugh. One of my faves was a song about vegetables, yes you read that right, I have no clue what the song in question was called, I'm gonna call it Cauliflowers Fluffy as i'm having a total memory blank as of the actual title. The line that was stuck in my head goes something like 'the broad beans are sleeping in their blankety bed', it makes me nostalgic, it makes me hum incessantly and most of all it makes me bloody hungry...

So without further adieu here is my recipe for a very tasty summer salad.

You need broad beans, lots of broad beans (about 200gms shelled weight). It's an utter pain to prepare them, the podding and shelling takes a while but they are definitely worth it for the short period of the year they're available. So sit down put on some music and shell away.

You'll end up with something like this.

Boil the podded peas, and then take off the shell to be left with perfectly boiled, shelled, podded broad beans.

Now this really isn't a strict recipe, it's more of an assembly job.

Broad beans go so well with a lot of summery big flavours, chilli, mint, basil, chorizo, smashed as a base for some grilled fish.

For my dinner I had some creamy mozzarella in the fridge, some red chilli, and some delicious parma ham. Dressed with a tangy olive oil, lemon, sea salt and pepper dressing. Delish! Try it while you can.

While you're at it please youtube 'Cauliflowers fluffy' see if you remember it from school. I guarantee it'll be in your head for days.
 

Forza Win

Pizza and Aperol Spritz in the Summer Time

I love pizza. Cheese, tomatoes, an excuse to put bacon on bread, there is nothing wrong with pizza. With this in mind I simply had to check out Forza Win, an event I missed last summer and was determined not to miss again.

I collected some good friends, and a very dear friend visiting from foreign climes, and we ventured East. Now i'm going to be upfront here, I am in no way edgy enough to make East London my stomping ground, this was again reinforced to me as we got off the tube near Aldgate and went to find the Forza team's new rooftop. However, all personal inadequacies about my lack of an undercut were swept aside when we saw the view from the roof...

Isn't London gorgeous? Now we were lucky because all day it had been bucketing down with rain, we came equipped with umbrellas, extra layers, and a sprinkling of hope. Thankfully we were treated with a clear night, if a little chilly. 

Now this is the second year in a row that the lovely Forza win have invaded rooftops in collaboration with the much lauded boys over at Pizza Pilgrims. Once you've tramped up more stairs you can count a beverage waiting in the form of an Aperol Spritz, current darling of the London drinks scene.

Just what you need to get this pizza-fest on a roll, delicious, refreshing and way too drinkable! I was bloody starving by the time the starters arrived, and I wasn't disappointed, I think that the starter was actually one of my favourite parts of the meal.

Delicious, vibrant courgette carpaccio was paired with creamy english ricotta and E5 Bakehouse sourdough bread, accompanied by frutti di mostarda a tasty sweet yet spicy topping, was a really satisfying start to the meal, flavours you want to savour. The crunchy bread offset the smooth ricotta in the best way possible. There was a lovely convival nature to this event that made the food even more enjoyable, and we're not even onto the pizza yet!

The main event was equally scoffable. Dough was kneaded to perfection and topped with a deep tomato sauce. Normally i'm not one for my pizza missing, what I view as the integral component, oozey, gooey cheese, yet it had a really fresh taste and made a great start. 

After it began the pizza came thick and fast, we were treat to the infamous spicy nduja pizza, smokey with sausage it left a devilishly hot afterburn which was more than a bit addictive. The other meaty additions were pancetta and fig (my personal fave), and Napoli Salami. Veggies were in for a good time too with artichoke and scarmoza cheese, portabello mushroom and smoked garlic, pizza bianco with courgettes and lemon and classic margarita offerings. The courgette pizza still lingers in my dreams. 

Being intensely English the initial akwardness of sitting with people you don't know is overcome by Forza's drink offerings, wine is given 'good', 'better' and 'best' categories. One niggle for me would be what is on offer for people who aren't wine nuts, we may have brought up a few contraband G&T's from the downstairs pub, only to be rapped on the knuckles by the staff. Maybe it would be an idea to expand the bar options by a little more, but that would be me being picky. 

Dessert was by the wonderful Gelupo, based in Soho but we all agreed that the flavour was a bit too far left of field for us. It was a mustard and apple flavour that was a bit too much about the mustard, but we were all so deep in a pizza hole that I don't think we minded too much.

Tickets are £30 and include entertainment, the tickets are all sold out for general purchase but 10 are released each week. Also just released are tickets to CUTS in partnership with the superior butcher The Ginger Pig are now on sale, and definitely high on my list of places to eat this summer. Check it out while you can.

Cape Town: The End

Haven't posted in a while... yada yada, excuse, excuse. Anyway here is the end of Cape Town.

So we went on an open bus tour, it was simply the best way to see as much of Cape Town as we could in the short time we had, we had hoped to combine it with a trip up Table Mountain but the mountain had been shrouded in cloud since we arrived.

 

 

 

 After driving past the Lion's Head and around the covered Table Mountain we got off the bus at the beautiful Camps Bay, it is the most perfect urban beach I have ever been to. Blue water, lovely sand and surf and rock formations. The day was perfect barely a cloud in the sky and lovely and warm. If you ever end up on this side of the world it is an ideal place to go. And stop for a drink. Trust me on this one. 

Han definitely enjoyed the surf. 

I enjoyed the tipple. A seabreeze for me helped quench the thirst of the afternoon. 

Have you ever seen a vista as gorgeous as that? 

And to top off an amazing day, the cloud finally lifted...

 

Cape Town: The Middle

On our first full day we decided to explore the V&A Waterfront, only a stones throw from our hotel it is a gorgeous area of Cape Town, in the shadow of Table Mountain it began life as a shipping port but luckily for us it was redeveloped in 1988 and is now home to local markets, a delicious food hall and so many beautiful boats.

Just have a look...

Raaaaarrrrrhhhhhhhhh...

These are the guardians of the dock, watching over the incoming ships.

But now we come to the good stuff, the food of course!! We found the best food market serving cuisine from all around the world, local, European, just about anything you fancy they had it. We had a hard time resisting it all, but our delicious breakfast kept us somewhat at bay.

Chocolates so good they have to tell us they are not tasters... darn it.

Samosas and spices of every kind.

But in the end we plumped for a refreshing homemade lemonade.

Then we continued our adventures around the waterfront.

We might just have entered a Children's Easter Egg maze courtesy of Lindt

Once we tore ourselves away from the markets (and the food) we went for dinner at 95 Keroom, and it was absolutely delicious.

We both had the most delicious meat, H went for fillet steak, rare obviously, whilst I decided to try the local meat and had a platter of Springbok, Kudu and Wilderbeast. I wish I had some photos to show you, but to be completely honest, I scoffed the lot before it occurred to me. It was just too damn good. However we did finish with a chocolate fondant, god knows how we had the room. It was divine. We went to bed very happy, if a little more rounded, campers.

Welcome to Cape Town

The One&Only Way

This Easter my gorgeous little sis and I decided to flee snowy Britain and take in the sights of glorious Cape Town.

After a 12 hour flight we arrived a bit weary but ready to take in the sights.

And wow what a sight it was...

We were staying at the lovely One&Only Cape Town right on the V&A Waterfront, with views of both Table Mountain and the Marina from the other window.

Needless to say we were both pretty chuffed and spent no time at all "exploring the room"

oh, and also the delicious red wine, with compliments of course.

And as the cloud descended on Table Mountain H and I decided to do what any sensible young ladies would do, head to the bar of course.

With a couple of delicious cocktails in hand we finally felt blissfully relaxed.

And after a few drinks got put away food is obviously the next thing on our minds. So we headed down to Reubens to get some sustenance. On the menu tonight Steak tartare with a slow cooked egg yolk, followed by Soy-Braised belly pork with tempura broccoli and ginger sauce. Mmmm what better way to end a perfect day, happy in the knowledge there is even more to come.

In the Beginning was the End? Somerset House

Picture from somersethouse.org.uk

In yesterday’s Siberian cold H and I hotfooted it over to Somerset House, via some of London’s busy shopping streets of course… What we were going to see was promised to be ‘mind-boggling, enthralling and truly bonkers’ with this in mind we wandered into the glorious courtyard of Somerset House, bathed in the twilight air, clutching tickets ready to be immersed.

I have loved this medium of theatre for a while now; I was in awe of Punchdrunk’s 2007 production of The Masque of the Red Death in the Battersea Arts Centre. The spectacular show allowed you to freely wander the venue, and if you were strong enough of heart, discover the production on your own terms. People emerged back into the night air having found entirely different sections of Poe’s works being performed, essentially creating their own play. It was with this, rather unfairly in mind that I entered the basements of Somerset House. 

We were led in small groups into the bowels of Somerset House and Kings College. We were respectfully asked as we left not to share too many of the shows secrets, and so keeping this in mind, I will leave some of the important details out. We were immediately put on edge being led into a sterile boardroom, like so many of those that litter London and sat in front of a screen. We quietly watched as a screaming match unfolded on screen, of which we could not hear a word. Then things began to get creepy in a fast-paced opening sequence as we were plunged into darkness. 

Photo by Elliot Frank

What becomes apparent as we are left to wander the sprawling rooms of decaying labs and experiments (including a man making light from lemons, yes really) was where is the world of technology taking us? Is technology adding or detracting from our lives? Based on a fragmented sketch by Leonardo Da Vinci entitled A Cloudburst of Material Possessions we are asked to ponder this question as we digest what we see around us. This is helped by the fact that the languages being spoken throughout the performance are anything other than English, I think this placed me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to focus on the visual elements of the performance rather than the words. 

Photo via National Gallery

During the great majority of the performance H and I felt a growing sense of tension and foreboding as we witnessed the inception of technology, the materialistic forms this technology took (the PetBot being my personal favourite), right the way through to the apocalyptic end that this technology delivered. There was moments of much-needed levity provided by some wonderful actors. But I hate to say it; overall I was left with no emotional connection to what was being presented.

Like Da Vinci’s sketch it was a performance of fragments, many of which seemed to deliver concept over substance it feels as though the loss of human spirit that Tristan Sharps is examining has permeated far too deep in this performance for me to really enjoy it. Coupled with a very bizarre ending, of which H said something which expresses it far better than I have here. ‘When life gives you lemons it’s just shit.’ Whilst I wouldn’t go that far to describe this show I do feel as though the early promise of whirling scientific experiments and eerily designed rooms gets lost as you progress. In the end I suppose this journey through Somerset House’s subterranean spaces is one that you can make yourself. I just hope you can unravel a little more than me. 

The production runs until Friday 29th of March and more information can be found here