hibernation

Our Christmas choirmaster comes from sunny climes and said he didn't truly understand 'In the bleak midwinter' until he lived in the UK. 

It sure is bleak and dark and grey.  The cold is damp and pervasive, rather than dry as in Scandinavian countries. And January / February are the hardest, longest months. Crisp, blue days are limited, as are beautiful snowfalls to lift the spirits. But I don't mind: there is something necessary about enduring a winter in order to enjoy the spring. And if you don't fight it, but adapt and hibernate, then it can almost be enjoyable.

My native strategy for survival isn't original, but goes along these lines:

• Plan for social life to start in February: say 'no' to everything else.
• Only make plans with your very closest friends; cheering, low maintenance. An exhibition, coffee, Burns night. 
• Look forward to work: there is HEATING there.
• Bed early, every night. With blankets, films and mint tea.
• Eat well. Porridge, coffee, stews, carbs.
• I don't need to add exercise as my daily commute involves more than an hour of walking, but it does help
• Luxury item of the past 2 yrs: go away post-Christmas for a couple of nights. Ensure hotel has log fires and is insanely intimate and cosy.

This year is peculiarly isolated, with two of my favourite people overseas and other friends too busy to meet. I find a cafe quite the best antidote to being alone too much.

Yesterday I had a morning coffee in Watch House, Bermondsey street. Coffee in London has blossomed so much in recent years that I barely try to keep up, so I can tell you only that they were nice people, with great coffee and so cosmopolitan that they were unfazed by an off-menu request ('do you do a cortado or piccolo?' was met with 'sure, which would you like').  The blazing little fire didn't hurt either! It is tiny to sit in but very pretty; bare scandi-chic, hyacinth posies, plugs for phones.  Beautiful, young things were working earnestly at the other tables, two were setting up a new business. 

My other January cafés so far:

Arloe & Moe (of course)
Hej 
Canela: despite no longer making cheese bread. They do a lovely gallaou.
Frank & Taylor: though an outside cart, the friendliness of the boys keeps you warm!

After a solitary weekend I feel strangely purged and calm. Plus my boyfriend has a defrosted freezer, as a special anniversary gift. Lucky boy!

Knitting in Watch House

Metro Manilla

"Pork" we said. 

"Pork and rice... and juice?"

In a humid 30 degree, city heat, jet lagged and hungry, I liked the look of every single food stall at the market.  Cane sugar drink, barbecued or kebab meat, exotic fruit of every shape and size! The decision making was bewildering but Mel's cousin and his wife saved us, bringing: roast pork belly, fish stuffed with tomatoes and other vegetables, rice, semi- dried beef strips and fresh juice.

Pork for breakfast is easily the most triumphant start to the day.

Coffee adventures were less successful, but we did source a macchiato from Coffee Bean, and find that a Breve was "like a latte but more creamy". 

Jollibee was an immediate hit. Burgers were familiar, 'one piece and rice' (fried chicken) is a combination that should be served everywhere and the proper cutlery would almost convert my Mother to fast food! Sarsi, beloved by Mel as a fizzy drink of her youth, tasted like cola mixed with TCP. Strangely medicinal.

New (to me) fruit: custard apple, their armadillo armour pulled away to eat the snowy flesh inside; mangosteen, with their deep plum case and soft segments within; small, green citrus fruits, like baby limes with orange inside (calamansi) make delicious juice; sweet, clear lanzones with thin skins to peel away. And the sweetest, ripest baby mangos I have ever met!

Holidays with Mel are always delicious.

The flamingo has landed

This year has been the busiest ever, but sadly also my least productive in the kitchen.

Work is bursting at the seams and then I managed to finally completed on the little pink palace! Nicknamed The Flamingo by Herb, the joke is that I don't much like pink and used to avoid it: now I am turning into a librarian Barbara Cartland by some irresistible quirk of fate. 

So be it. It is my new home, even if it does look like Barbie visited.  After gaining possession, Jimmy and I sat at this table in my favourite cafe, Arloe & Moe.  What amazing salt and pepper pots!

Between the unglamourous state of the new kitchen, and the flat I was renting being turned into a building site for the last few weeks I was living there, I have not cooked properly, or regularly, for months.  Disproportionate joy, then, at this first stove-top supper in the Flamingo.

It will be some months before I have a fully functioning kitchen so for now I will be learning to cook camping-style. I hope my real cooking muscles don't atrophy!

chorizo cheer

Tonight's speedy, batchelor girl meal was brought to you by necessity, by way of fun: I needed to eat very soon after getting home, having been enjoying myself at choir.

Ever hungry, I get ever so anxious if I eat late; crotchety too, as my sisters will attest! I get home about 9.30 pm on choir nights and this is one of the zippiest get togethers of ingredients, thought up on the spot.

Chorizo sliced (using scissors to save washing up a chopping board), fried in a little pan for 4 mins; cold, leftover new boiled potatoes added and flash-sautéed in the same pan, and all dashed in a bowl with peas. The peas I put, frozen, in a cup and pour over boiling water from the kettle. 

All I needed was a Campari-soda to keep me sharp and some radio 4. 

Happy days!

Saturday brekker

Herb has raised the weekend breakfast to an institution. Not for her a mindless re-fuel before getting the papers, and she makes sure to spread the word. I think of her as the breakfast evangelist.  She often texts or emails a report of her weekend morning fodder, always with a question about what I am eating.

By contrast I can be found having left over curry, pork pie or kaya toast to tide me over while I decide what to eat on my leisurely mornings. The luxury of rising later and eating without time constraint definitely changes the menu options! Last weekend I had my first asparagus of the season,  with fennel lemon salad and sobrasada on toast. I sat in the sun, listening to bird song in the May-blooming garden.

This weekend there is a half-term break from yoga, so I headed to the market (more sweet, lithe English asparagus), then on to late breakfast and coffee at Arloe and Moe's. My favourite dish there is the savoury avocado and feta 'sexy toast' but today I was swayed by a nostalgia for the very Australian dish of French toast with berries, yoghurt and maple syrup. 

I wasn't wrong, it was perfect!

Today is Bert's birthday so I raised my flattie to toast her health, wealth and coming year.

simples

And then there are those soothing moments when, with the minimal effort that comes with habit, I knocked up a cauliflower yogurt soup and a couple of loaves of soda bread without even thinking.

Inspired by the gigantic, cream cauli's in the market, I bought one every week and made this. The coriander seeds give a fresh, lemon taste and the soup is somehow simultaneously hearty and light.  Bread, still slightly warm, is the only way I want to eat this.

17 April

spring

I just love the month of May. The garden is burdened with lilac scent and bridal May tree, and saturated with birdsong.  And then there are the Bank holiday weekends which creep up, unexpected. After a hectic year this long weekend has been such an oasis that I re-learnt the art of relaxing, thanks too to Jimmy.

Friday night saw a tired, hungry girl supper of bacon and cabbage stir fry with noodles. Speedy, filling and very Friday-night-slob this kind of dish is the very reason that sesame oil and soy sauce are in my essential staples.

After Saturday yoga - a welcome return to un-cranking my back and neck - I had an undeserved treat, of a trip to Arloe & Moe for coffee and avocado toast. My favourite dish at my favourite place. There followed two superb breakfasts involving eggs, spinach, toast, and occasional bacon; and two afternoons at a steamy, sauna-ey, swimey place, courtesy of Jimmy, which melted my brain and re-set it to factory settings.  Well, maybe not quite that slow, but very nearly. 

After steams, swims, coffees, lie-ins and lovely food, my limbs feel like liquid and not a headache on the horizon!

Tonight you can see that spring has permeated my pantry.  Roast lemon chicken wtih salad and rice, and a Campari and soda. Welcome, Spring! You are a tasty sight.