Come On Up To The House

Saturday was the birthday of Simone. Huzzah! I arrived in the world 26 years and two days since, and I am now a year nearer 50 than from being born. I am old, creaky and quite definitely balding.

This year’s celebrations (how my birthday became such a deal I’ll never know) were bigger and bolder than ever. Firstly, the much-vaunted Paris trip, with its many varied gourmet delights, was just out of this world. More recently though, the Delightful Day was spent in pretty much everything ideal.

Starting in Marmalade (with the most wonderful tarte tatin you are ever likely to have), the day continued with lunch in Muswell Hill’s semi-legendary Crocodile Antiques, followed by a pile round a couple of charity shops (emerging with Paul Theroux’s My Other Life) then on to Highgate to blitz the cemetery. We did the west side (previously I’ve only been to the Marx/Adams/etc. East), to see Litvinenko, Faraday and some other cool stuff. Not to mention the awesome, megalithic vaults and the Circle of Lebanon. Photos to follow on flickr, no doubt.

After a swift caffeine in Highgate, back home and then to La Kera for a mighty Keralan feast. A very fine restaurant indeed, with a nice line in pink decor.

Charity shops, cake, cemetery, curry - my life is filled with happy C’s.

Somewhat randomly, I spent Thursday in Paris, savouring the cafés of St Germain-des-pres and the bold hawkers of Montmatre. I returned laden with fromage, saucisson et pain, which extended the joy. I very much respect the gallic food ethic, and thusly this morning was spent at the Stokie farmer’s market, a result of which is a looming, and deeply exciting steak dinner.

But a very interesting part of the last few days was actually spent far closer to home. Spending time in Tottenham has become considerably more attractive with the arrival of Marmalade, a Crouch End type cafe in Tottenham, if you will. all stripped floorboards and shabby chic, and with absolutely, stonkingly delicious food, it’s certain to become the meeting point for N17’s more select set, and even rope in out-of-towners such as myself. It’s at least, ooh, 20 minutes wal from my house.

Is Tottenham on the up? It’s an interesting thought. In the last twenty years, N17 has been suffering in the reputational aftermath of the Broadwater riots, so it’s certainly due a revival in fortunes. The tide of gentrification has spread out in waves from central London: the former ‘hood of Islington is now the select and increasingly homogenised Upper Street, with its boutiques and cute caffs. The aforementioned Stoke Newington is a further case in point, a shabby high street becoming today’s delightful Church St, with its farmers market, glam shops and artisanal bakeries. Witness also (to varying degrees) estate agents herculean efforts in Harringay, Holloway, Crouch End, Stroud Green, Walthamstow, and so on. Why shouldn’t Tottenham flourish?

The only reason most people have heard of the area is Spurs, of course. there’s precious little else to endear it to the outside: numerous chicken shops, grocers, and so on. But look deeper: here a yuppy cafe, there all the amenities you need, the edginess so beloved of the type of resident that made Shoreditch so popular, the multi-ethnic food angle (always going to popular around COUTTH Towers). Here a Tudor mansion, there an ancient park, here an overgrown cemetery, there a 20 minute train ride from the City.

I’m actually hoping that most people don’t read this post - as soon as I’m grown-up enough to buy a house, I’m looking at Tottenham. Preferably around the back of Bruce Castle Park, where I can roam the dog on the green and stroll down for a coffee and carrot cake in Marmalade. I’m a little bit jealous of my future self.

It’s the final of Masterchef tonight. That’s pretty exciting. I don’t why but I’m captivated by Greg Wallace’s shiny head and John Torode’s kooky accent, and the food they think up is dead impressive. How on earth does one get that level of knowledge by age 18 as per one contestant? Freakish. Charming though the fat Irishman is, I kind of want the young’un to win, just because that level of innovation is intimidatingly impressive.

I love to cook, me. Last night I stir-fried up some chicken with coriander, ginger and lime, and very nice it were too. The other night, chicken and lemon tagine, and so on. But while I can knock up a decent home-cooked dinner for two, I’ve got nothing on the skill and artistry of these fancy types. That’s why I loved Maze, that’s why I respect Ramsey, hurray for food!

My day so far seems to have been dominated by Christmas pudding. The one on my desk, as discussed yesterday, left from a Christmas hamper, was consumed by myself and my colleague this morning - no spoons, no custard, no cream, but it wasn’t not worth it.

That came after spending my commute delving into Peter Carey’s Oscar And Lucinda. It’s a richly written book, so far, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s based around the concepts put forward in Edmund Gosse’s Father & Son, which I read a while ago and thoroughly enjoyed: both writers have a sound grasp of the written language and a distinct knack with a well-turned phrase. The book so far revolves around a similarly Devonian childhood gripped with religion and botany, so the similarities are plain, but this can only be expected to diverge from here on in.

As my desk is now tidy of both pudding and paté, my attention turns to actually doing some work, in this case VLE-based fun with Moodle. This’ll mean something to the pitiable fools in my line of work, but thankfully to noone else. I say work, what I actually mean is I’ll be rehearsing some basic Polish in advance of my course starting in April. So all together now: Czy Pan mówi po angielsku?

Stoke Newington Farmer’s Market - A Fine Place

There’s no such thing as a free lunch hmm? Tell that to the kindly Hare Krishna who just gave me a free mung bean curry and piece of cake and hot fruit tea. Healthy, tasty, filling and free: that suggests free lunch to me. As a pre-payday snack, it’s certainly good.

That said… the poster next to it said: “please don’t eat my friend!” with a picture of a child hugging a cow, and the slogan “Why vegetarianism?” Why indeed. You could:

• deny yourself delicious meat
• be scorned in every fancy restaurant in the world
• never be full up again
• have to supplement your diet to achieve a proper mineral intake
• condemn thousands of already poor farmers to abject poverty

But why would you? In order to pursue some sort of crazed, utopian ideal that bears little semblance to reality? Check. To assuage your easily-manipulated guilt functions? Check. To be a hippy? Check, you hippy. Certainly the meat industry is as corrupt, tainted and and evil as, ooh… the music industry, but to live a truly healthy, careful life you’d actually have to cut out the majority of what you veggies eat anyway, at least the ones I know. Unless you have grown your produce yourself in complete organic isolation, you’re never going to have food which reaches its full nutritional potential, or is ethically- or chemically-sound. Your average paddy farmer is in at least as dire straits as your beloved cow, with it’s complete lack of human emotion.

That rules out quite a lot, and leaves you looking like one of those barking raw food loonies (best line: ”I love to give myself an enema - a coffee enema in the morning is great.”). My advice: eat the meat. Eat it, you know you want to. You think vegetarians are inspiring? How about the woman who was been veggie for 15 years and came back in order to eat Gordon Ramsey’s cookalong steak?

Eat meat, it’s great. But do it right: treat your food with the respect you’d give to your homegrown carrots. Buy meat from farmer’s markets, from trustworthy butchers, know where it came from, treat it well, knowing that an animal bred for that specific purpose died to feed you.

I’m in the meat mood, I made a stew that averaged at a pound of beef per person over the weekend - I got it from Tom Clarke’s family butchers in Tottenham, he was proud of his meat and enjoyed selling it to me. And I enjoyed eating it - it tasted delicious, it was real.

Mmm, meatilicious.

My childhood was quite far from a mung munching hippie tropicale, gastronomically-speaking. In fact, it was substantial distance from anything vaguely approaching the cosmopolitan approach to food that I now am able to enjoy. My exposure to international food was the occasional watery spaghetti bolognese, or better still the sort of legendary mum’s curry, containing everything from boiled eggs to raisins and slices of apple, with the which I’m sure many non-city dwellers of my tender age are familiar.

As such, I’m not really familiar with the world of lentils. Is there a difference between brown and puy? I think so, is my conclusion after having a go (cleverly, on someone who doesn’t like lentils). The spice was right, but the texture, not so much. I’ll be back (sorry in advance to the offended party…).

Mix together: 1 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp cayenne pepper, 1+1/2 tbsp ground coriander, salt, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 75 ml water. Mix together and add chicken for four, cut to bitesize. Marinade for a bit. When it’s ready fry some mustard seeds til they start to pop, add one chopped onion and three finely sliced cloves of garlic, fry til golden. Add the chicken and marinade, fry for about 8 minutes, then add 330ml coconut milk and simmer for another 10-12.

Serve with lemon rice (boil with a little turmeric, add juice of 2 lemons when finished and leave to sit; fry mustard seeds, chana dal, curry leaves, dried chilli and cashews in some oil, then when hot mix into rice).

Scorchio! I love my cooking sometimes.