This is possibly the poshest/most pretentious salad I’ve ever invented. But it’s really tasty!
Quinoa is – unlike other pulses – a complete protein. It’s also rich in iron and fibre so it’s really good for you and a nice veggie option.
Ingredients:
1 aubergine
1/3 mug quinoa
a handful of kumquats
a handful of cherry tomatoes
about 10cm of cucumber (or one small Lebanese cucumber)
a few leaves romaine lettuce
For the dressing:
olive oil
1 tablespoon tahini
juice of half a lemon
Pre-heat the oven to 140C/285F/gas mark 1. Cut tomatoes and place cut-side up on a baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper. Bake for around 90 minutes. You can add sugar and salt or balsamic vinegar but I think their flavour is good enough on its own.
While the tomatoes are baking, rinse the quinoa well and put in a saucepan with double the amount of cold water. Add a little salt (and half a stock cube if you like), put the lid on and boil for 10-15 mins – the grains should lose their opacity but don’t over-cook or the quinoa will become gummy. Once cooked, fluff with a fork and leave to cool.
Finely slice the lettuce and cube the cucumber.
Slice the kumquats finely being careful to remove any pips
Combine all these ingredients together in a bowl and mix well.
Slice the aubergine lengthways and drizzle with olive oil. Grill on a hot griddle pan until soft and smokey.
For the dressing, combine ingredients and shake well. Drizzle over the top and serve.
It would have been better to make headway on this challenge in the winter; now the clocks have gone forward and I’m no longer getting up at 5am for my job, I can feel the call of London nightlife grow louder.
The opening sequence of this film hasn’t dated at all. There’s something clean and modernist about the block colours and the silhouette horses running across the screen.
As someone who loved earlier Westerns like High Noon and Stagecoach as a child, it took me a while to get used to the long, slow shots and lack of dialogue for the first five minutes. Also everyone looked blatantly Italian and it was hard to remember we weren’t in Sicily. But why shouldn’t they look Italian? If the characters in earlier Westerns look more northern European (ie blonde haired and blue-eyed) that probably says more about Hollywood than it does about the immigrant population of the Wild West.
But what’s really interesting in this film is the dynamic between the characters. Whereas earlier Westerns (although I’ve hardly got a comprehensive knowledge of the genre) made clear who was good and who was bad and relied on action, the power balance – and audience sympathy – in The Good The Bad And The Ugly is constantly shifting. In a lawless desperate place, it seems to say, even the notion of being good is relative.
Despite that there is a highly symbolic, almost Faustian scene near the end where one character is balanced on a gravestone, hands bound and noose around his neck next to a pile of money. It’s beautifully agonising to watch.
Also, I actually never believed anyone who said Clint Eastwood was once good-looking until I saw this film.
I’m not the biggest fan of rom-coms. Despite Meg Ryan being the go-to-girl for seemingly most rom-coms of the 90s I managed to avoid them. They’re so predictable. I know that’s part of the charm but when you watch characters so two-dimensional they’d fall over in a strong breeze making mistakes that even someone who’d lived in a cave with no human interaction wouldn’t make in a social occasion, it’s hard to care.
The type I particularly hate are the ones where a ridiculously awful and unattractive male character ends up getting off with a fit, dumb girl who forgives him his awful behaviour and doesn’t seem to mind that she’s way out of his league. Not that it doesn’t give men hope but it would be nice to see some films the other way round (and I don’t mean transformative rom-coms where the ‘ugly’ girl just takes off her glasses and hey, presto! she’s a hottie.)
Fortunately, When Harry Met Sally is none of the above (apart from featuring Meg Ryan). Yes, Harry is boorish and shallow at first, but Sally is uptight and neurotic: they’re as bad as each other.
Anyone who’s been to the cinema in the UK lately will have seen the spoof of the famous orgasm scene:
Which kinda stole the thunder of the original scene:
Thankfully society is a little more enlightened about women’s sexual pleasure than in 1989 so maybe the fact women fake their orgasms isn’t so surprising (although there are probably still some men out there who don’t want to believe it).
But even without this scene the film is great: the characters really develop and change over the years but you also see their friendship develop. The dialogue is snappy – the characters actually converse instead of driving the plot forward – and you really care what happens to them.
There’s an amazing steak restaurant in Toulouse called the Entrecote. When the waiter takes your order, all you say is ‘well done’, ‘medium’ or ‘rare’. You get a salad on the side and that’s it. If you like steak, brilliant. If not, you should go somewhere else.
Woody Allen is a bit like the Entrecote. Although I haven’t seen loads of his films, it’s easy to spot common themes without much variation: wealthy liberal types angsting about art and relationships with good dialogue and the backdrop of (usually) New York.
I recently watched Midnight In Paris which seems to embody everything I hate about rom-coms and Woody Allen in one film (plus it stars Owen Wilson as Woody Allen’s mouthpiece which is massively irritating).
So I was pleased to discover Hannah And Her Sisters actually has some charm to it.
There are some awful overbearing men in this one: the arrogant Elliot driven purely by desire, the tortured, controlling artist Frederick whose wounded pride forces him to say at one point when he’s being dumped “I should have married you, years ago, when you wanted to!”
The bond between the three sisters is fantastic – the dialogue crackles when they’re together – and it’s interesting to see how the bonds between characters contract and expand throughout the film.
What should I watch next?
I’m using through this IMDB list but if anyone wants to suggest a classic film for me to watch, I’m all eyes!
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a woman’s femininity is bound up with her hair. It’s one of our most defining features.
If you don’t believe me, just think how Britney Spears’ head-shaving incident was used to prove what the press wanted us to believe: that she was stark-raving bonkers.
What self-respecting all-American beauty queen would shave off the very thing that made her so beautiful?
Even though she was clearly struggling to cope, it was an act of conscious defiance.
While my haircut is nowhere near that extreme, it nevertheless says something about me. For years I’ve had long blonde hair, following some crazy years of braided, pink, blue, and green hair which I sadly gave up on when I got a ‘proper job’ (although given I work at a radio station this was probably self-imposed – I don’t think anyone cares what we look like really).
The desire to change my look and seem different to how I did five years ago (plus the offer of a free haircut at a very posh salon) led me to emulate this (sadly the pink dress not included).
It was the first time I’ve ever taken a photo in and it definitely helped. I left feeling slightly like a very chic French politician and swishing my hair in the breeze.
Sadly, at my next haircut (at a different hairdressers) I showed them a photo of my last successful haircut and not the photo of Kristen Wiig.
Unfortunately it ended up more like this.
The most coveted hairdo about 20 years ago. Not so great in 2012.
It felt like the time to ask for changes had passed. I left the salon feeling uncertain and self-conscious. What had I done wrong? Had I not been specific enough? Was she deliberately being spiteful, or did she actually think she could give me a better haircut than what I had specifically asked for?
Soon despair turned to anger – I’d paid £50 for that haircut and left a tip! What a waste of money. I should have gone back to the last place even though it would have cost 3 times that at full price.
After 3 days (in which several people said ‘oh, your hair’s nice… you look like Rachel from ‘Friends’!') I picked up the phone. Could they, if it’s not too much trouble, and sorry for not saying so at the time, but would it be at all possible for them to re-do it? (British people are not very good at complaining).
Of course they understood and said yes straight away. I was dreading the confrontation with the hairdresser but she was really nice (despite the fact she had to hack through clouds of dry shampoo as I’d assumed they’d wash my hair first).
Negotiating and complaining politely are pretty valuable life skills: it wasn’t just my haircut that ended up more grown up.
There are few more evocative parts of London than along the River Thames. From the splendour of Hampton Court to the Southbank arts complex to the docks and wharfs of the East End, it’s a constantly changing landscape. I’ve done … Continue reading →
A prolific duo with an amazing live setup, SBTRKT and Sampha continue to amaze me. Last year’s self-titled album has to be one of 2011′s best.
Supported by the excellent Disclosure, the headline set opened with the stage obscured by a huge print of an African mask – like the ones SBTRKT and Sampha wear onstage to. It was part rave, part jam and being on the top balcony gave us a great overview of thousands of people going nuts in an old theatre.
The live drumming sounded amazing and it was incredible to watch them creating beats and loops whilst juggling playing drums, keyboards and singing. The highlight of the night was when the awesome Roses Gabor came onstage to perform this:
OK, I confess, I’m not that into indie. But seeing the response to this band in Brixton Academy (another former-theatre venue) was magical. There were plenty of indie couples holding hands and cuddling to ‘their’ song, but there’s nothing like thousands of kids belting out lyrics. My highlight was this one:
Ditto the Black Keys performing at Alexandra Palace last month. I’ve not been to such a massive rock gig since I was about 15 but the vibe was great considering how packed it was. Being 5’1″ I didn’t get to see much but me and my similarly tiny friend had a good bounce around in the armpits of tall men.
At the aftershow party I spotted Michael Kiwanuka which isn’t surprising considering they had just finished a collaboration (scroll down for the audio).
A 24 year old Londoner with old-soul style voice and style, it seemed appropriate to see him at Islington Town Hall which has an old retro vibe.
Support came from The Staves, a close-harmony trio who had lovely voices and very funny banter between songs which didn’t go with their nice girl image: “would you rather have only forks or knives instead of hands?”
Kiwanuka also has a great stage presence, his voice and guitar playing sounding note-pefect most of the time and backed by a tight band.
Here’s the Black Keys collabo, which is the B-Side to current single ‘I’m Getting Ready’.
And finally some indie-punk. Having grown up listening to NOFX, Rancid and Green Day, I was slightly disappointed to see that the image of the band (rather clean-looking) didn’t match the Aussie band’s scuzzy sound.
Yes, it was a Vice party so I should have expected all the hipsters taking photos of themselves but it all seemed a little tame. There was definitely no danger of anyone cutting their knee on broken glass.
Fortunately it improved greatly as they got sweatier and they had a brilliant infectious energy. There were even crowd surfers towards the end. A proper knees up.
Where can you get live improvisation from Soweto Kinch, a Chinese art installation, a tropical garden and The Artist all under one roof? In the Barbican of course.
I’ve been going to The Barbican Centre since before I could walk – literally. On rainy days my parents used to take us to the sprawling concrete complex to let off steam. I’ve seen everything there from Tony Allen to Matthew Herbert and a full choir making percussion with copies of the Daily Mail to interpretive dance. I even performed with school in the foyer once (electric guitar and cello since you ask).
What better place to seek some culture and hide from the pouring rain and howling wind then?Soweto Kinchwas first in the foyer – an amazing saxophonist as well as MC and producer. He asked the audience to write words they associate with London onto cards and drop them into a tombola, and he then did a freestyle based on these words. He’s a charismatic performer with a great stage presence, making the audience feel at ease with doing soul claps and shouted backing vocals and incorporating everything from the guy taking pictures (“we’re brothers cos we’ve both got afros”) to a blank card that someone had dropped into the tombola into the piece.
Song Dong’s Waste Not was next up in the Curve Gallery. It’s an exhibition of over 10,000 objects his mother collected over five decades under the Communist regime in China, all neatly arranged into categories – a fleet of empty toothpaste tubes, an army of broken flowerpots, faded stuffed toys leaning against battered boxes; it was all there.
I alternated between amazement at the sheer volume of objects and wanting to go home and throw everything I own away. It seems dismissive to call the objects junk – although many of them are dirty and broken – since the exhibition gets its name from the idea that everything in the collection might come in useful one day. There’s a certain beauty in arranging what must have been bags and bags of stuff into an order, and their very presence in the exhibition gives them a use.
It made for an odd parallel walking into the gift shop – more household objects arranged neatly in categories. Everything was clean and nicely designed but was also more or less unnecessary (how many mugs or notebooks do you really need?). It made me question how materialism differed in a capitalist society instead of one born of necessity. The communist regime scorned acquisition but through controlling it (either through intention or inefficiency) led to a hording that rivals even the most enthusiastic collectors in the West.
Next up the amazing Conservatory:
Unlike Kew Gardens this is a very urban space – concrete walkways covered in tumbling creepers. There was even a man reading his bible high up on the second level… If you look in the top right of the photo you can see the puddles of rain outside the greenhouse!
Finally The Artist.
It seems daft to write too much about the film that’s been talked about constantly for three months. But I found it funny and cleverly shot – without speech the use of other techniques to convey meaning was essential (the Escher-like scene with Valentin’s descent down the staircase as Peppy is going up was highly symbolic).
But – maybe predictably for a film where silence is the crux of the plot – the sound was incredible. Soundtrack aside, we hear what he hears. When he becomes aware of the potential of sound we hear the glass clinking but not before; only when he is ready to accept speech do we hear words. It’s the only time I’ve experience subjective sound in a film and The Artist proves that the second sense is equally powerful and emotive as vision.
So screamed my driving instructor numerous times over our lesson. Actually screamed is unfair. He was very patient. Everything was fine when changing gear after starting, but ask me to indicate, turn at a junction then speed up and I would forget the speedometer, whizzing off at 20mph while the engine rattled around like teaspoons in a biscuit tin.
In just over 3 months, the most popular post on the blog so far is clementine cake. I’m thrilled – re-discovering baking to complete the 30×30 list has been a joy, especially as others seem to like it. But sometimes even something that’s fun is really procrastination, taking away energy from one of the things I love the most: music.
If you live in the UK you’ve probably read and heard some of the debate around the Channel 4 show My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. A lot of it centres around whether the show represents the Traveller community in a poor light by focusing on big wedding dresses and over-sized cakes.
Whilst I can’t claim to have a particularly in-depth knowledge of the issues faced by Travellers and Gypsies, I do have a longstanding love of gypsy music, particularly Balkan, which has led to a curiosity about the rich culture that produces it. Naturally I watched the first series with anticipation.
I’m ambivalent about whether it’s necessarily voyeuristic to watch something about a community you are already interested in. However, now into Series 2 (there’s been 1 full series and some one-off specials), it is starting to feel over-simplified. For example, the only regular non-Traveller talking head is a dressmaker, so obviously only sees those who seek out her business. That the show continues to focus on weddings and holy communion – celebrations which don’t necessarily represent anyone’s every day life – sprinkling in some more ‘serious issues’ between dress fittings.
There’s been little about Roma Gypsies in the show – something which The Guardian questioned last year.
Billy Welch, a spokesman for Roma Gypsies, says that while Channel 4 should be praised for at least differentiating between Irish Travellers and Roma Gypsies, the first three episodes have in fact focused exclusively on Irish Travellers and their traditions: “They called the show Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and you’ve yet to see a Romany Gypsy in it,” he says.
So far in series 2, the only Roma Gypsy has been a non-speaking appearance by a girl who wins a beauty contest, so I’ll be keen to see if this changes.
There are Gypsy communities all over Europe. Delores (in the photo above) has travelled round Spain – she and her friends are shown hanging out on the beach in Barcelona; whilst the last thing I’d like to do would be to conflate Gypsy communities, it would have been an ideal opportunity to explore the Gypsy communities of Spain, whose flamenco music and dance must surely have influenced the ruffles at the bottom of Delores’s palm tree dress, and to delve deeper into the breadth of the Roma community outside of the UK.
Slightly disappointed by the lack of variation within the show, I wanted to share my love of gypsy music with anyone curious enough to read this post…
Here are five of my all-time favourite gypsy acts. They’re from all over the world, showing a diversity and richness that defies categorisation.
Fanfare Ciocarlia
From a village in Romania, I first heard this incredible 200bpm brass 12-piece live when stood outside their sold-out concert in the snow in Berlin. Even from outside they sounded terrific, and when I finally saw them last year in a soundclash with Boban & Marco Marcovic Orkestar they didn’t disappoint. If you’ve watched Borat you might have heard them on the soundtrack (no, they’re not actually from Kazakhstan). This is the DJ Shantel remix, but it’s great and from a highly recommended compilation.
Django Reinhardt
Minor Swing is one of the most famous jazz standards of all time. There’s an entire festival in France dedicated to him (and several in the US). He was one of the most incredible guitarists and, following a fire in his caravan, only had the use of two fingers on his left hand.
Pata Negra
A modern flamenco duo of brothers from Seville. Unlike some of the cheesy stuff you might hear in tourist bars this stuff is bluesy and raw.
Taraf de Haidouks
Another Romanian band, but strings-based rather than brass. There’s a wonderful melancholia to their sound which has lent itself well to remixes by the likes of Tuung, DJ Dolores and DJ Shantel of Bucovina Club. Their fans include Johnny Depp and Cate Blanchett.
Esma Redzepova
A powerful and incredible voice, this prolific Macedonian has made over 500 recordings and fostered 47 children. Here’s a live performance, I think from the excellent film Gypsy Caravan.
What do zoo animals, bumper cars and pound coins have in common?
They all formed part of my first driving lesson.
Everyone else, apparently, just sat in a quiet side road. Not me. Terrifyingly, I actually drove round the block, which was very exciting. My first thought was “this is nothing like the bumper cars at fairgrounds!”
Ridiculous, sure, but it’s surprising how easily the pedals respond, particularly the accelerator.
