Becky Sundayshine

After a weekend of not actually talking to anyone apart from my clients (overhearing Jim having too much fun in his room doesn't count as interaction) I was gasping for Becky's company last Sunday evening.

As I thought she was just the antidote to lonesickness. We practically bubbled over as we caught up, chatting about boys, nail polish and the new 'compak Pearl'.

Had the usual vegelez speciale of spaghetti bolognaise fit to burst with mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and other goodness. Sprinkled with a hearty layer of parmesan.

Luckily Grease was on tv which married oh so happily with our meal. An Americanised Italian feast for the eyes and the mouth!

Mmmm. xxxxx

Eton Messy

My work day was lifted out of the duldrums when I had a lovely text from Marky suggesting we make a special meal together. If I hadn't been currently engaging in my 'nail painting' activity with the clients I would have replied brimming with enthusiasm immediately. But even I recognise that my iPhone surface doesn't need the addition of bubble gum polish.

It's no moisturiser or candle wax (thank you Alex and Sashy for that screen care advice)!

Anyway, I flew home via Sainsburys and in no time at all we were away.
We were making barley, garlic and tomato risotto. Well, Mark was. I mostly just chatted to him whilst he chopped endless amounts of garlic.

You probably want the recipe but it's in the kitchen and i'm in my bed so it's a bit far away. It was one of the Guardian weekend Ottolenghi ones.

It was really delish. The best bit was that Harrie had come round for dinner and she wasn't very hungry so I got to eat hers too!

For pudding I flung together a strawberry fool. Mostly all over the floor and surfaces but we salvaged some and everyone declared it delicious. Well.. more like posh fromage frais unforch after all that work but never mind. It was pulverised strawbs, mixed with melty lemony sugar mixture, swirled into beaten double cream.

No one wanted to have their picture taken for it. Dashy's face was too sunburnt to be put next to pink. Harrie's hair ditto. Marky had no excuse. He would've been the perfect backdrop.

After a night in the fridge it really was delish though. As I spooned it out of the bowl into tupperwear for my work lunch the next day I accidentally ate most of the spoonfuls!

Floats my boat!

Recently one of my favourite northerners came to sample all that London had to offer. Food wise, we stuck to what we knew. Didn't want to scare him off! The first night we got 241 pizza at my favourite SU bar in Angel, then frozen yoghurt from Camden passage before croggehing home wildly. Couldn't get the bus. That's a week's rent in Liverpool.

The next day we arose and stocked up on a pile of french toast, bacon,

bananas and maple syrup. Fully sugared up we walked to the British library to see Maps, before sauntering onwards to the Skin exhibition at the Wellcome collection.

Although I didn't believe I could keep any food down after some of the disturbing scenes in the latter my thoughts, and mouth, kept straying to the crusty baguette in my bag. But where to demolish what was left of it?

We decided to take to the waters and eat our luncheon whilst sailing round the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

I did the sandwich making (and most of the eating), Dave did the rowing.

When our tummies and our allotted boat time were full up we wriggled out and off to explore the meadows of Hyde park. Aside from the couples having affairs in the long grass the best sight we stumbled across was a field of teepees! I knew if I did enough boating round river bends I'd turn into Pocohontas eventually!

If music be the food of love

Last night I was watching an old Never Mind the Buzzcocks episode after I got back from Alex's and something very new happened. I guessed one of the songs from the section where they hum the tune. And not only that. Lauren Laverne didn't even get it. And I believe she's known for liking music.
I think this has started something. As such I've turned off my radio 4 and am listening to a 'cd' Dashy gave me recently cos he felt sorry for me.
I'm also going to make something nice for ro to eat for lunch as she's visiting.

Oh actually have just had word we're going out for lunch. The hoxton bar and grill can provide us with food to facilitate our loving sisterly catch up.

We had burgers and chips. I accidentally ate all my chips first and then couldn't eat the burger. My recommendation for the day can be don't order that and then go home via tesco to get knickerbocker glory ingredients. We had a nice sleep then I woke us up to a tall glass of chocolate ice cream, strawberry sauce and chopped bananas. Here's what our food probably looked like in the photos I forgot to take.

Dawson's Creek

Hopped on the Hot Stuff express last week straight into Croyden/Bob's arms. She'd dished us up fish pie with extra prawns (she knows they're my favourite) and green beans. The best bit was meeting in the kitchen after to finish it off. Sssh don't tell Alex and Chaz.

Obvs I made us have ice cream for pudding. Can't have a meal without it these days.

Luckily Bob lives near a 'Trim Trail' so we went for a right work out after. Did some gymnastics, had a slapping fight with Alex on the balancing beam which ended badly for both parties, zipped, swung, bounced and finally wound down by feeding the ducks.

Aah. I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,

I want to know right now what will it be.

I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,

Will it be yes or will it be sorry?

Whatevs Dawson.

From Beeston to the Eastern

Some people have developed their palates a long way since the days of breakfasts of NRG-1 in Nottz. To illustrate this we feasted on a sprawling platter of Mousaka the other night at Alex's. It suited the ever so tropical evening ever so well.
It had cinnamon, courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes and was topped with what is essentially a yoghurt omelette. We devoured this with a side of sweetcorn and something salad, and the traditional tear and share just to remind us we hadn't yet boarded the plane to morocco.

Complexie carbohydrates

When I heard a crash in the night I put it down to gang fighting or abuse downstairs and didn't bother to investigate, sleepily forgetting that I was firmly ensconced in the countryside. Come morning you can imagine my amusement on discovering that the noise had been Lexie knocking three bowls of crisps and pretzels off the side. He'd successfully licked every ceramic shard clean in the pursuit of crisps without even hurting his poor tongue or paws.

Later on mum found him chomping on something hard under the table. It turned out to be a large slab of Shropshire blue cheese he'd whisked away. Couldn't even get his mouth round all six ounces to eat it properly. What a waste.

Unlike him I did finish all of my food from this wonderful spread. There were homemade rolls, pie, saffron cous cous, roasted tomatoes and peppers. But watch out mum. Look who's under the table!

I was very careful to keep him out of the lake when we went for a walk. Didn't want him gobbling up another gosling for pud. He definitely wasn't getting any of our truffle torte.

Show and smell

It was the time for party games at Alex's BBQ on fri with pillow fights, "peg nip", "peekaboo ponytail", and a good sesh of "floral oral".

In between all that merriment we enjoyed rounds of homemade cheesy burgers layered with more cheese, bacon and tomato salad in one of a million buns we had invested in, spicy sweet potato wedges with sour cream, fran's potato salade, and the aforementioned tomato salad with moz and baz.

And as if I wasn't enjoying it enough I was rounded on and forced to down my cheap white rum.

A little less refined but still mixes well at parties. Well that's me alright.

But what did we have left to make our mojeetos I hear you cry. Well another blow had already struck. Not the cloud of pillows raining down on my tender face from the surprisingly strong sylph sitting next to me. Not being dragged backwards over the sofa by my ponytail (so proud of my ability to grow one I hardly mind)... Not accidentally buying cream of soda rather than soda water.. But that Alex had put his cigarette out on the basil! Well no one wanted an ash mojito did they?!

Whilst the boys are away fran can play

The boys had gone away for the weekend (well apart from Dashy, but I did my best to ignore his presence) and I leapt at the chance to do some entertaining in my very own flat. Meant to make it tidy and pretty for this occasion but accidentally fell asleep after work on Sat and only woke up in time to let Eleanor and Harrie and the dinosaur lamp in. Harrie has moved out of London for a bit so ducky and I get to dinosit her lamp.

Look how well they're getting on already. I think piggy's a bit jel that he's not in the shine club! Or in the photos.

Anyway, the recipe today is for a summery raspberry mojito. We muddled up white rum, ice, fresh mint, raspberries and soda water to create a perfectly drinkable drink. Mmmm. Look how much we're enjoying it.

I think I enjoyed them a bit too much, along with healthy measures of sun, as I fell asleep in a corner of the stag's head by 1am.

Scrambled legs!

After an afternoon consuming the contents of the National Gallery's tea shop, Bobbeh and I didn't believe we would ever desire food again. Groaning all the way to Chazzle's, we felt like a saturated solution of cake. However, we hadn't bargained on Chazzy's nimble little fingers whipping up such a tempting dinner and soon we were guzzling away again.
She played a twist on the classique carbonara and served us up with spaghetti mixed with bacon, egg, cheese and podded beans.

However, before this delight we had quite the scare! We'd fled the heat up to chaz's roof garden to admire the view and sample the wine. Alex was meant to be joining us but was a bit late. We didn't really mind this as that meant more wine for us. Suddenly I got a call from him sounding very strange. We couldn't really be bothered to come down but eventually forced ourselves off the roof to find the aftermath of an Alex bike accident! A bus had pushed him and his rucksac of a dozen eggs over his handlebars. Oh dear.

Talk about not putting all your eggs in one basket! Luckily for us our one needed egg and our always needed Alec wasn't too crushed and we could still enjoy dinner.