The Perfect Weekend

Those of you following me on Twitter will have figured out that I had a bit of an intense week with exams and revising and coursework and other fun tidbits. So it’s an understatement to say that it was a relief to finally make it to the weekend… it was well worth the wait. In fact, I might go so far as saying that it was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a very long time.

It started with quince cheese. A few weeks ago, my partner in chutney/pickle/jam/supperclub crime, Natalie and I were browsing through our local Turkish shop picking up ingredients for what was to evolve into the lime pickle.

Happily browsing through the vegetable section, we came across what I would describe as one of the ugliest fruits I have ever seen in my life. After a bit of rooting around the labels section we saw that the rather unfortunate looking fruit were quinces.

Tick tock went the brain. I have always loved quince jam, and, on my jaunts to Spain, the dusky membrillo (a form of quince cheese). For a long time too, fruit cheeses had rather appealed. 1+1= 2. And that was how the idea of the quince cheese came into being.

Brilliant as things are in theory, sometimes they are a bit trickier to execute in real life, as we found out on Friday night. The rudimentaries of making quince cheese are not that hard to get your head around. Essentially you peel and wash the fruit, deseed it, boil the hell out of it for a few hours, push it through a sieve, add sugar and boil the hell out of it a bit more before putting it into your containers of choice.

If only it was that simple. I’m never a fan of peeling things, however, it was the coring that proved to be a bit of a bitch, to put it politely. Somehow, it was only once that was done, we were a few glasses of bubbly down each and it was past 10pm that we realised that the rest of the recipe was going to take at least 4 hours.


Bubble bubble toil and trouble

What better reason to put on a soundtrack of eighties tracks and err air guitar to Toto – Hold The Line? None that I can think of. It totted up to around 5 hours in total. And at one point it looked like, well, like vomit...



But my goodness, I had a slice yesterday on a slice of Black bomber and it was heavenly.

That alone doesn’t a perfect weekend make. Those who have been reading for a while will know how forthcoming I can be about BAD dates. However, to balance the table a bit, for once I am going to tell you a bit about a good date (two to be precise, in one weekend).

The first involved True Grit and dinner at a local Spanish restaurant Galicia. Those that live within striking distance of Croydon would do well to make a beeline for this empire-sized restaurant who somehow manage to consistently serve up gorgeous tapas time after time in a convivial and friendly setting.

269-275 High St
Croydon CR0 1QH
020 8686 0043

The second involved (hold your breath)…. Leaving London. Well to get to Sussex, which isn’t that far but sadly, is a lot further away from the big smoke than I get most weekends. We went to an absolutely gorgeous place called The Hatch…..

It was delightful. Small, cosy and deservedly popular – you’d do well to reserve a table if you head down on a Sunday, as it was, we bagged the last available table arriving bang on the dot of opening. Though there’s quite a large menu involving quite a few fishy dishes that looked rather tempting, we’d come for the roast and that’s what we got…

The beef was tender, rare, juicy and saucily accompanied as you can see by the usual trimmings and lashings of gravy.



I did not take a picture of the sticky toffee pudding that rolled out for dessert but safe to say, the moment it ended was one of those moments. You know the ones where you honestly wish you could order the same thing right away and relive the unadulterated pleasure without a) feeling sick from being so gluttonous b) your stomach popping open and spraying everyone with the contents of your gut.

Colmans Hatch
East Sussex TN7 4EJ
01342 822 363
http://www.hatchinn.co.uk/

The rest of the day was spent tramping around Ashdown Forest, visiting Pooh Bear’s haunts and generally realising how overrated growing up is and how fun jumping in the mud with your wellies is. Maybe not quite enough exercise to burn off the luncheon calories but dammit, a pretty good way to start anyway.



And there we have it, the perfect weekend. Lets hope there are many more to come.

My Childish Hour - A Letter of Annoyance

It's been a while since we've had a rant. I'm a big fan of Austen's epistolary works. Letters are meaningful. Here's one I wrote earlier. Slightly adapted. Feel free to use.

Dear xxxx

I wasnt angry at the time but I am now I've received this lame-ass email. Too busy to pick up the phone or at least send a message (insert name here)? Too busy to bother cancelling the date that err you set up. I dont think so.

It will be awkward when we see each other because guess what, that's what happens when you act like a dick. We are all busy in life, that's what being an adult is all about. I'm sorry if I seem rude but I'm not sure what you expected me to say - that's fine, we'll hug next time we see each other and you can feel good about it all.

But we can come to an agreement, I wont interfere with your 'busy' life and you dont interfere with mine. Thanks. Bye.

Julianna

Ten things I hate about You

I've been on a couple of good dates recently so I knew, I knew that I had some bad date karma just waiting to come and bite me in the ass. Yesterday was the designated day. I'm not going to rant and rave, I thought it would be simpler to present this as a simple list of what was wrong. Ten Things. Not in a cute and irresistably gorgeous way like Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles either. More's the shame...

- You wore a heavy gold chain with three buttons undone on your shirt. I could practically see your nipples. Eew.

- You complained about the seat in the restaurant because it was by the door, even though it was a bright and balmy summer's evening and there was no space anywhere else

- You ordered the same thing as me on the menu, meaning I could only photograph one dish (pet hate, I never said all my reasons would be objective)

- You talked for 60 minutes flat about your boring life without pausing for breath. I dont even think you know what I do for a living. I know you don't care.

- You made me go dutch for both the film and the cinema when you asked me out (I think this is a big factor in who pays)

- When I went to pay on my card in the cinema, for a moment you thought I was going to pay for your ticket too after you'd bored me to tears over dinner. Snort.

- Your favourite film list includes Twilight, Eclipse, New Moon and Piranhas. I cant even describe how upset that makes me. In fact that was the moment I lost all respect for you as a human being.

- You asked if I had older brothers because after aforementioned film debate/ debacle, I was apparently very opinionated. The only explanation for this, according to you, was a lot of male influence in my life.

- You leaned over midway through the film and told me the plot line twist just as they were about to reveal it.

- You annoyed me more than any human has for a few weeks.

There we have it, the imperfect ten.

Unfortunately, because we only had such a short period of time in Ichiban before the film, I only got to try the one course so I can only say the following. If you are looking for incredibly fresh sushi and a fairly large menu to choose from in Brixton, you'd do well to head to Ichiban. No fear, I will return soon and write a proper review, but for now I'll just leave you with this lovely image...

Dateathon starvashathon... But I'll always have The Lavender

I used to be such an angry little ball of fire. There was nothing I liked more than a bit of self-riteous inner rage. Don't get me wrong, I was never the kind of person who would lash out, and I'd be just as likely to cry tears of pent-up frustration than shout at anyone else but I'd be lying if I didnt admit that there was a little, no, large part of me that actually quite enjoyed the ride.

I'd like to think that this has changed. That with maturity (don't snigger) has come a mellowness that definitely was not there before. It started when I left Dubai - not only was I travelling around some of the most beautiful countries in the world but I was literally living an almost stress free existence.

There were no taxi drivers refusing to listen to my directions and haring off to the wrong end of the city, no coffee baristas calling me mamsir or sirmam or (the penultimate sin) just sir (I am CLEARLY a girl), no twats telling me that they didnt understand my English because of the colour of my skin. Yes, I certainly became a lot calmer.

But once in a while, I feel the old self-riteous boiling of blood coming back and these days you can almost bet your bottom dollar that it is going to be boy-related.

At 24, there is only a limited amount of patience I can have with a right old numpty, which is quite a bit of a pain in the ass as someone up there has decided to allocate me a fair share of them over the last few months.

There's no conversation, no spark, no enthusiasm. I've never understood why boys go through the rigmarole and potential embarrassment of chatting a girl up if they are not going to at least pretend to be a normal human being with good conversation, emotions and a bit, even a bit of joy in their life. Patrick the moaner, Matt the twat, Tom the waster, Sean the genie (poof he's disappeared - magic). It's a roll call of wasted evenings and often bad conversation.

That said, all these deflated dates have given me the perfect chance to spy out some new eating and drinking locations, the pick of which has to be The Lavender on Lavender Hill. Quaint, small and serving stellar cuisine, this is one of the stars of Clapham Junction's dining scene and relatively off the radar. Perfect.

And so, here beginneth a period of self-imposed singledom or, as I've named it my dateathon starvashathon, hopefully leaving more time for blogging and training for that pesky little half marathon I've signed up for in September. I will be in imminent need of distraction (the one thing dating is apparently is time consuming) so feel free to send over any recipes you've spied. I'll be glad to try them out.

Off to The Ship in Wandsworth tonight - soon to be blogged, keep your eyes peeled!

The Lavender
171 Lavender Hill, London, SW11 5TE
Tel: 020 7978 5242

Anam: My favourite cocktail bar.

Courtesy of Shane Harrison.com
http://www.shaneharrison.com/site/

'All good things come in small packages' or so the saying goes. Normally I scoff at this age-old adage, dismissing it as a get-out clause frequently rolled out by short people. It's like saying I'm small so I must be good. Snigger.

When it comes to my favourite cocktail bar, tucked away on Chapel Market in Angel, I have to admit it's a point well made. With seating for only 15 people upstairs and around 20 downstairs, Anam is small but perfectly formed. This alone isn't anything special - what makes it my favourite cocktail bar is the amazing barman. Winter or summer, rain, snow or shine he will greet you with a smile, a friendly 'how are you', some excellent banter and proceed to make your favourite cocktail with minimum fuss and maximum efficiency.

Last week was a bit of a shocker; I saw the new SATC movie and it was awful. No matter how much I loved the series, even maybe the first movie, there is no escaping the fact that the second one is a shocker. I was heartbroken.

As if that wasn't enough, the boy I was dating mysteriously disappeared off of the face of the earth, which is always a bit gutting. What do you do in that situation? When you go on your fifth date, which you think went quite well and then nothing? Not even a courteous It's not you, it's me message?

So far as I can see, there are only a number of options available to you. If you give him a call and he picks up the phone do you say - err so I was just wondering what happened to you for the last 8 days?

If you call and he doesn't pick up do you take it a step further and call from a friend's number to see if he picks up then and quickly hang up the phone (in the manner of a semi-stalker) if he does? Or do you not call and instead blindly hope that he has been struck down by a bus and is currently in the throes of amnesia but is mumbling your name whilst in hospital and his mother is trying to figure out who this mysterious Julianna girl is?

I opted for the latter, and a catchup over cocktails - the best salve to love life problems I've discovered to date. There is nothing that a good gossip and a sip of something fruity cannot cure... So Anam it was. Browsing through the gargantuan menu is half the fun here - there are drinks on this list you would never have dreamt of as well as old favourites.

Dubious as it sounds, they also make the best Long Island Iced Tea, turning it from a horrible confection of gut-rotting spirits savoured by fake-burburry lovers in the local 'Spoons into a far classier (who'd have thought?) balance of flavours deliciously offset by a generous squeeze of lime. And there's an outdoor seating area in the summer, which is great for watching the rather random life of Chapel Market go by. Boy, what boy?

3 Chapel Market
Islington, London N1 9EZ
020 7278 1001

This is the first of three posts - watch out for the next two tomorrow!

Pretty pictures, bad chat

Why is it that bad food and bad dates seem to go hand in hand? I know I’ve talked about this in the Hot n’ Cold entry but it’s a genuine philosophical question that I demand to know the answer to.

It’s like the chefs can sniff a date of plague-like pestilence coming down the road for miles and think to themselves “Ha! I know what can really put the icing on the cake. I shall create a dish of such terribleness, such repulsiveness that whatever small shard of enjoyment these two people might possibly have got from this evening shall be completely obliterated into infinity and beyond”.

That’s how it felt last night anyway when quite frankly I was on the worst date I’ve ever been on in my life. No joke. It was bad. The food wasn’t far behind either. The culprits? Date-wise a German in a sulk, food wise fish and chips. Now the latter might be my fault. Yes I’m in Bali and I ordered fish and chips but I was driven to it by the bad date, it just made me a little, little crazy. But what I got I in no way deserved.

I got little bits of battered dark burnt fish and fried crisps. Yes, chips in the American manner i.e potato chips that had been fried until they too were burnt to a crisp. I only wish I had a photo to show you but I was so horrified that all rational thought went out of the window.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Aussie Rules was on the TV blaring right in front of us, I’d probably have burst into tears, but it’s just not dignified to be crying when there are so many cute guys in front of you, even on TV. As for the German, he barely roused himself to say a word throughout the whole meal (safe to say there won’t be a repeat). Except to laugh at my crisps, which was just too much. It made me feel a little like this.



This was going to be the beginning of my Phuket Thai food entry, but as you can see, I digressed. So that can wait until another day. And instead, here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks on the road. Just to remind me that along with the bad food and dates, there are some really not so bad things to balance it out...


Railay, Krabi Province, Thailand


Beach nearish Kuta, Bali