24/01/14

Looking back now, I think I may even be able to remember the feeling of that moment when my heart sunk, a solid weight in my chest that hung heavily for the rest of the day, maybe even the week. And what was it, I hear you ask, that has struck this fear into me so intensely? One word: pudding. It had been a nice gesture, a suggestion that I contribute something to the long-awaited dinner party that I had planned with new-found friends from work, the first of its kind. I had offered something culinary or monetary and while I would have been happy to chip in a fiver, I had already started considering tomato & mozzarella salad, perhaps some kind of tapenade with olives, even chancing a half price bottle of red from Sainsbury's. What I hadn't anticipated was pudding. Sure, I spend a lot of my time hidden in the cookery section & often moan about having to share the kitchen where I make my favourite recipes but those are all chickpeas & tinned tomatoes, pasta shells & sweet peas, certainly not pudding. I started to wonder, had I expressed too keen an interest in a workmate's birthday cake? Had they spotted me spooning that extra sugar into my morning coffee? I soon came to realise that neither of these were likely accurate & that neither really mattered - gracious guest as I was & (eventually) embracing the opportunity to be pushed out of my culinary comfort zone, I listened to my instincts & they called 'Muuuuuuum!' (pictured below, from our Liberty afternoon)

As mentioned in my previous post, I have inherited a handful of things from my mother, amongst them a couple of vintage knit dresses & a habit of talking to myself almost constantly, and the recipe for this pudding, albeit via Jamie Oliver (only serving to taint my romantic ideal of a generational family recipe book a tiny bit) was no different: peach clafoutis. Both symptomatic of my recent regression to childhood & suitable for the season, this typically French desert of baked fruit (traditionally cherries) in a sweet batter recalls my love of stodgy school dinners, of soaked suet jam roly poly & dense, sickly treacle sponge, while retaining some sophistication from its cosmopolitan origins. Having fixed up a clafoutis before as an indulgent Sunday afternoon treat with a mug of tea, I made my way through the backstreets of Haggerston on Friday night, baking dish & tins of peach slices intermittently *clink*ing together with every footstep, unexpectedly confident of my desert's destiny although less so of the location of my friend's flat. 

This recipe really is pretty perfect, especially if you're someone for whom the idea of dishing up desert is dreaded - a handful of ingredients, easy to put together & quick to cook, the latter particularly important as your kitchen is filled with the smell of peaches & caramelising sugar that seeps from the oven while it bubbles.

Peach Clafoutis

(Tweaked ever-so-slightly from Jamie Oliver's recipe)

Ingredients: 3 tbsps plain flour/

1 pinch salt/5 tbsps golden caster sugar/3 large eggs (beaten), 

450ml milk/50g butter/1 tbsp vanilla essence/400g tinned peach slices/

Method: Preheat your oven to 220 degrees./In a bowl, add the flour, salt & 3 tbsps of caster sugar to the beaten eggs. Mix well & put aside. Warm the milk in a saucepan until lukewarm, then stir this into the egg mixture, along with the vanilla essence.

Grease a shallow ovenproof dish with butter, put the drained peaches (Jamie uses halves, I prefer slices so they are more evenly distributed) on the bottom then pour the egg batter over them. Dot the remaining butter in knobs.

Pop in the oven to bake for 25-30 minutes, sprinkling the remaining caster sugar over the top five minutes before the end of the bake, until the egg has set but still has a slight wobble.

Serve up & tuck in...!

The pudding, you'll be pleased to hear, was a big success, so much so that I have been implored to make another for this week's fixture, gulp...! Faced with my main-course-heavy cookbook collection (looking at you, Nigel), I turned to the wealth of culinary inspiration on Pinterest to try & coax out my inner pastry chef. Here's what I found & what I'm currently trying to choose between for tomorrow evening: Blueberry Bread & Butter Pudding, Chocolate, Hazelnut & Raspberry Crumble & Butterscotch Pudding. All chosen for their ease of preparation, cost effectiveness & which photographs made me salivate the most during, err, 'research' for this post, I'm learning towards the crumble - what's your favourite?

from 'The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook' by Deb Perelman 

With increasing exposure to this type of cooking what with my near-on-troubling devotion to The Great British Bake Off (time for another Queen Mary, am I right?) & my recognition of talented cooks who can pull off both the savoury & the sweet (have you seen anything more tempting Deb Perelman's chocolate peanut butter cookies? (above) If you answered yes, you're lying), I have also come to realise that I lack many things that are required of pudding makers - the patience to wait for a cake to rise or dough to prove, the precision to minutely weigh out each ingredient to the milligram, & the persistence to make the same recipe again & again until it reaches perfection. It is for these reasons that I will likely never get around to writing my own cookbook & will stick to my slapdash approximations to chilli flakes & garlic cloves, although with a little practice & a lot of temptation, I might just find my fridge stacked with cooled pie crusts after all.

One step at a time though, eh? For this evening, I'll settle for what I do best - aubergine paneer &, err, sleeping. 

I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. 

Speak soon - O. 

19/01/14

I can't say that I've ever been a particular believer of fate. Some days, however, I do feel as if the universe may be trying to tell me something to which I should listen - Friday was one such day, meticulously organised, tube routes scouted out, scarf and camera packed in tow, I was anticipating an afternoon of exploration around Crouch End and Muswell Hill and their, the internet assured me, plethora of charity shops. A long, wind-bitten story cut short, my woeful lack of a sense of direction meant that I was headed home, bereft of bargains, a lot earlier than I had intended, disappointed at having expected so much & yet experienced so little (any N8 locals willing to part with any top tips, please feel free to do so!) 

Yesterday, scribbling to you in the rolled-up-sleeves warmth of a quaint coffee shop, 'Coffee is my Cup of Tea' , a few doors down from London Fields station, soundtracked by 1940s big band and the rhythmical rumble of trains overhead that made the teacups shudder, I felt determined to learn my lesson with a few tried-and-tested favourites of a Saturday afternoon - a long lie in under the weight of several bedspreads, an hour or so spent scrolling through Pinterest (find me here for scandi-inspired interiors, doodles from my best-loved illustrators & more baked pasta recipes than I could cook in a lifetime) & watching Lena Dunham interviews on YouTube, a fridge-supply busting lunch of fried eggs (the very first time I'd cooked them, for shame) on toasted followed by natural yoghurt & blueberries, & then a wander down to Broadway Market as the daylight fades for a flip through the rails of vintage skirts & the temptation of a fresh rye & walnut loaf.

Back when I was job hunting after graduation, a period that feels like a long time ago & yet one whose near-constant terror is still very real to me, I spent my days in the labyrinthe complexities of a conflict in which my lifelong dependency on structure & routine & my unwillingness & fear of entering into an adult life that threatened to allow my dreams to fall by the wayside, were set in direct opposition. Cultivating the creative aspects of my life by writing this blog, crocheting on park benches during my lunch hours and working towards my MA application (sadly more dread-inducing than I had counted on with the introduction of the two words 'personal' & 'statement' directly after one another) have been valuable ways through which I can feel in control of the path that I'm on & less at the mercy of the demands of my nine 'til six. 

If these past four months of change have taught me anything, it is not only that change is not something to be feared but also that one of the ways to help you adapt is to consider the constants on which you can rely, the anchors that provide stability in times in which it may seem to be lacking. Alongside the guaranteed pleasures of Saturday afternoons such as rifling through recipes for the week ahead (having had a broken oven for the past month has meant that I have had to be especially imaginative & committed to this particular activity) & catching the opening notes of Glenn Miller's 'In The Mood' tumbling from the top floor of a nearby terrace as I shuffle by, I have found myself thinking increasingly of my appreciation for my family of late, & not only since leaving home & embarking on my own adventures at the age of eighteen.

I must confess that I started to write what was, admittedly, quite a hyperbolic & gushing description of my home life at this point but soon abandoned it as idealistic & inauthentic (fine lines to tread in the world of blogging, as we all know) As I encounter more people & am introduced into their domestic lives - those of only children, twin sisters, mother/daughter rivalries - I realise the different & difficult relationships that we form with those closest to us, constantly shifting in their nature & intimacy but built on the fundamental foundations of family. I am closer now to my mother than I have likely ever been, we're often told that we look alike & I have, subconsciously & otherwise, collected a number of her habits: a love of the comforts of home - roast potatoes & the radio humming its way through the rooms of the house -, of dogs & a tendency to read the Sunday papers until they're two weeks out of date. I am also coming to treasure the relationship I have with my grandmother as I grow older & less selfish, taking an interest in her history buried in my hand-me-down opal ring , spending days at her house, bathing in the afternoon & having her pin my dresses for altering while my hair is still damp. 

I suppose I have become particularly philosophical about family life recently as the strength of our ties are tested, my father & stepmother having lived abroad for a number of years, my little sister becoming not so little any longer (the next birthday, she will be the age that I was when she was born which I can't quite believe) & my older brother finally being granted the visa he needs to move back to the States as soon as next week. The latter has always been more independent than I could brave to be &, although everything is finally falling into place for him & it is important that I let him know that that makes me happy, I know that perhaps the importance that I place on family does not resonate so soundly & won't feature so profoundly in his future. 

Our relationship is imperfect & disjointed at the best of times, not dissimilar to mine with my father although the latter has always been unquestioning in his providing for me for which I am forever thankful, but I hope that he considers, as I have done of late, that in times of change & uncertainty, family can provide an anchor that holds you steady in the storm & the guiding light that keeps you from the cliff-face.

'Everything seemed possible. Everything seemed right. Just now [...] just now she had reached security; she hovered like a hawk suspended; like a flag floated in an element of joy which filled every nerve of her body fully and sweetly, not noisily, solemnly rather, for it arose, she thought, looking at them all eating there, from husband and children and friends; all of which rising in this profound stillness (she was helping William Bankes to one very small piece more and peered into the depths of the earthenware pot) seemed now for no special reason to stay there like a smoke, like a fume rising upwards, holding them together. Nothing need be said;nothing could be said [...] there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby, so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that remains for ever after. This would remain.'

- From 'To The Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf

Speak soon - O. 

14/01/14

During the course of my inevitable existential reconsiderings that have come to be considered intrinsic to this time of year, I realised that I'm something of a cynic. Humorous self-deprecation and mental health instability aside, day-to-day I have noticed my tendency towards negativity and a kind of fatalism that is perhaps both predictable and uncharacteristic for someone at the tender age of twenty-one. It sometimes, however, does feel as if the universe is conspiring against me - I had intended to post this last night but I found myself stuck on a train in an underground tunnel between Regent's Park and Oxford Circus for an hour after work (seriously) 

This year I resolve to really try to choose to focus on the positive mindset towards aspects of my life that could be otherwise cast in shadow - one of these is the occasionally mind-numbing routines that make up our Mondays to our Fridays which I instead prefer to frame in the more meditative terms of ritual. One place in which I see this notion manifest is in the rise of magazines such as 'Kinfolk' whose recipe book 'The Kinfolk Table' I was delighted to have found beneath the tree just a few weeks ago. The book, which will no doubt feature on 'The Beet Generation' (previously 'Paisley & Peeptoes') again before long, places the much-neglected pleasures of small gatherings at the heart of its philosophy, incorporating the stories of the people & the ingredients that feature in the recipes to evoke the intimacy of rubbing butter into flour and staining wine glasses burgundy with burgundy. 

In the spirit of cherishing the cosy familiarity that comes with these creations of tradition, the beginnings of collections, I thought that I would share a handful of my own new year rituals with you.

Rifle Paper Co Vintage Blossom Notebook - £14.95 for two

Paperways Mini Notebook - £2.49 each

1. 

As many blogs' pre-Christmas wish lists show, the acquiring and christening of new notebooks and journals at the start of the year is a ritual in which many of us participate. Having finally caught up with the 'Liberty of London' series aired on Channel 4 lately (sadly no longer on 4od so you'll have to be, ahem, imaginative) & been duly reminded of my latent love of the London department store, it was to glorious 'Liberty' that I proposed a trip when my mum & sister visited the capital last week. Ordinarily harbouring the thriftiness of my student days  (I still make daily packed lunches), I decided to treat myself to these two lovely notebooks from Rifle Paper Co. Not only was I struck by their gorgeous prints, I have been keen to support the work of this small business so obviously overflowing with talent (one look at founder Anna Bond's Instagram will have you convinced) for a long while & they are a source of constant creative inspiration. 

Next up on our rainy pilgrimage was to one of my favourite bookshops, the 'Foyles' flagship on Charing Cross Road where I found it difficult to resist the unusually patterned pages of these little notebooks just itching to be filled with mid-week shopping lists & lunchtime doodles. Also accompanying me to the second floor jazz cafe at the bookshop for tea & a raspberry & white chocolate bakewell (yum!) was my trusty Frankie Diary - another of my favourite magazines and the second of their journals that I've owned, both so staggeringly unique & which have given me real comfort as crafted artefacts in a world increasingly dominated by emails & ebooks (boo hiss) 

Proudly pinned alongside my boyfriend's 'Yoga Kittens 2014' is also my calendar of William Morris prints, for which I have long had an affection and which, lucky girl as I am, also adorn the paper & envelopes of a writing set I also received at Christmastime.

2.

On the theme of my sentimental love of objects in which their craft & beauty is self-evident, I introduce my burgeoning collection of Persephone volumes. A small London press dedicated to the publication of little known or under-valued (predominantly) female writers, I first discovered Persephone as one of their dove-grey editions piqued my interest on the shelf of one bookshop or another; initially charmed by their strong aesthetic both outside and in, the latter pattern of the dustjacket hand-picked to relate to the content of the tale told, I was soon drawn in by their eclectic range of authors and eras too. Overwhelmed by the lush range in their shop on Lambs Conduit Street one gloomy afternoon, the room itself all free-standing lamps, vases of tulips and humming classical music, my local Oxfam decided on the first two that would find their way to my windowsill - 'The Wise Virgins' by Leonard Woolf & 'Someone at a Distance' by Dorothy Whipple. I may well scribble some full-length reviews once I've made some time for them but, in the meantime, subscribe to the press' brilliant (& free!) biannually & browse their ever-growing catalogue here.

3.

The last ritual which rolls around in January time is my being the recipient of a jumper from my boyfriend's sweet grandmother, Audrey. To join my navy number of last year (no reindeer or snowmen here, folks!) arrived this perfectly soft mustard yellow sweater (interestingly & unashamedly my fifth item of knitwear in this darling hue) that I cannot wait to wear over polka dots & tucked into waist high stripes. It struck me as odd & rather lovely that, in spite of all of the knowledge that might evade us in old age, the rhythm & ritual of knit one, purl one still endures.

& with that, I'm off to trim my fringe & make a start on some veggie bolognese.

Speak soon - O.

11/01/14

'Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, except what lay in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, on my return home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. [...] She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called "petite madeleines", which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me [...] I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting place and attempts to rise, something that has been anchored at a great depth; I do not know yet what is it but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can  measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed.'

- From Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (trans. C.K Scott Moncrieff)

The above is an extract from one of my favourite novels, the first volume of Proust's magnus opus In Search of Lost Time, the poetry of which I have always considered profound and spellbinding. This famous 'madeleine epsiode' in which the speaker unlocks the unconscious realms of his childhood memories with the scent and taste of a cake dipped in a cup of tea, feels especially resonant today and while I won't claim to have experienced anything quite as powerful as Proust's reminicence, this Saturday does feel familiar of a time in the not too distant past during which I would wile away the hours with a volume of twentieth century literature & a cup of tea (oh & most likely cake if I was lucky) The transition between these leisurely afternoon of essay plans and course reading and my current routine of working nine 'til six & collapsing into bed at the end of the day has been difficult although I try to remember how easy it is to forget the intensity of the stresses of tweaking my final dissertation draft.

This afternoon, however, will be one of leisure as I respond to my body's pleas to slow down and resist the stacks of washing up that await me two floors down - tired, bunged up and with a chest bruised from coughing, I am not planning on doing much beyond reading a few pages of my copy of Katherine Manfield's Selected Stories that I unearthed in my local Oxfam Books yesterday for £2.99, eating vegetable soup with a stack of buttered bread and perhaps making a start on another granny square.

The other sickbed companion I am grateful for this afternoon is the winter issue of Betty Magazine. Aside from its thoughtful and beautifully curated content, the central message of the magazine, one that encourages people 'to embrace who they are and celebrate it', is a vital one that I feel grateful for having grown up with the glittery likes of 'Mizz' and 'Girl Talk'. In our increasingly fragmented & disparate culture, I also delight in Betty's local focus on pioneering Broadway Market businesswomen 'Meringue Girls' and their proud commitment to small business. Pick up yours from your local independent today. 

I'm off to curl up with my copy now &, while I may nip out to post a letter or downstairs to par-boil some potatoes, today's mantra is most definitely: the world can wait.

Speak soon - O.

08/01/14

Red brick terraces on Heath Hurst Road - An ivy-smothered street sign for Keats Grove (man & nature seem better aligned here than in any other part of London) - Lines of wrought iron guttering & street lamps - Keats House, where the poet lived from 1818-1820.

By my own admission (and hopefully a few of yours too), I tend to lack a sense of perspective at the best of times. It is symptomatic, not only of the century we inhabit but also of city life that tends to engulf and consume: in the early morning commute nose-to-nose on the Victoria Line, the mid-afternoon queue for long awaited coffee, or the extra woollen brim of my bobble hat that I inch down over my ears in futile resistance to the wind wandering back from the supermarket. Considering the aforementioned wind, it could be said that the seasons tend to envelop us too, especially that of winter which encompasses and encourages more patterns than its summertime sister. I often wake up to street lamps still lit their unearthly orange from the night before and fall into habits of brewing daily mugs of hot honey and lemon to ward off inevitable illness, of drawing the curtains early & clambering into bed with a bowl of steaming pasta. While some of these are welcome home comforts, winter can weigh heavily, particularly the month of January, one universally dedicated to the nursing of empty purses and pot bellies.

This, I think, is why it is more important than ever to remember to find the time to appreciate a moment of calm and clarity as the nights draw in - flipping through an outdated newspaper with damp hair after a hot shower, contentedly seasoning a simmering sauce on the stove-top (Liv Purvis' puttanesca is a personal favourite) or, as was last Saturday's case, a soggy excursion on Hampstead Heath with cold hands and warm smiles.

- Another moss-speckled street sign on South End Road - Some of my favourite houses on South Hill Park, backing onto the duck pond, polka dotted with windows & balconies - Lunch & effective dog-luring tool...!

These photographs actually compile two instances of escape from the daily drudgery although in different weathers. One was a sunny, blue sky lunch break having overslept & dressed in all of my patterns in a futile attempt to look more awake, one that smelt like the oranges I peeled into my palms and was mostly spent scribbling shopping lists and attempting to lure dogs into my path with pretzel crumbs (pleasingly successful) The other was a more monochrome affair with my boyfriend's parents that was characterised by our breath hanging in front of our faces as we climbed Hampstead Hill, tip-toeing to see the tops of seven storey terraces, counting chimneys and read the blue plaques that pepper every street.

 - Attempting to account for still ploughing through the Christmas chocolate every evening - Muddy boots from adventuring - It's good to know that there are some constants in the hustle & bustle - Windswept atop Parliament Hill.

Lensecap nestled in my sheepskin pocket, I delighted in photographing my favourite things about this little pocked of London of which I am so fond - the patterns of the drainpipes, the rich tomato hue of the red brick, the old-fashioned street signs assembled from Scrabble tiles and the sense of history & days gone by that makes me feel obliged to dress up when headed north on the overground, as if Vita Sackville-West herself might be just around the duck pond, scattering crumbs.

Certainly after today's trials & tribulations (running late to work, falling up the stairs on the tube & being reduced to tears by a rude customer, phew) a few decisive measures (finally getting around to ordering my postgraduate prospectus, tentatively booking time off of work) have helped to stave off the negativity of which I am so familiar.

 Windswept boyfriend atop Parliament Hill - There're few things more photogenic than vintage cars on damp streets - The famous Creperie de Hampstead (alas too full of ramen to sample such delights) - A helpful hand to point the way.

Chin up & speak soon - O.

01/01/14

I am sat cross-legged in bed writing to the rhythm of the rain that has been insistently thundering on my window for most of this, the first of many, grey, January mornings. I'm not feeling too fuzzy-headed having been tucked up in bed by the time the fizz of fireworks gave way to the inevitable scream of sirens, choosing to spend my thirty-first in slippers in the kitchen with my boyfriend, assorted housemates mulling around cooking and cursing loudly in Italian, a few glasses of red wine & a game of Bananagrams, the complexity of which was only increased following aforementioned beverages.

- Car of dreams parked down the road - Crochet blankets for sale (I must finish mine for my Gran...!) - Almost sunset on Columbia Road - Boyfriend shaving accompanied by palm -

Occasionally I have felt that new year marks the very definite change that is manifested in the pinning up of new calendars (William Morris prints for me in 2014) & the ruthless reigning in of shoe collections, but this year the transition has felt ongoing since about September-time, the month that has historically always represented the start of a new school term - even-heeled shoes & freshly-sharpened pencils. During that leaf-smattered month of change, mulled over during glazed tube journeys & scribbled in the margins of notebooks, I decided to make a set of commitments to myself that I want to reassert as we begin another year:

- to take responsibility for my personal happiness

- to invest in the relationships I have with those closest to me

- to nurture creativity in every aspect of my life

- Our shy cat friend - The lines of 'Sivill House' against the sky on Columbia Road - My face on Columbia Road - Boyfriend in my faded denim jacket & his infinity necklace - 

Starting this blog represents a nod towards the third of these 'resolutions' & I hope that I will come to consider 'Paisley & Peeptoes' as a valuable means through which I can express myself. I read a lot of other blogs that I love & admire (a list of which may well appear on this page at some point soon) but my expectations in seeking to emulate their beautiful content & broad readership have proved previous attempts unsuccessful. I hope that in writing this blog, first & foremost, for myself (expect more documentation of the weather patterns, the bunches of flowers currently on my desk & the odd recipe) that I can be true to what I like to, & hopefully a handful of you, like to read too.

- Our moose friend in 'Drink, Shop & Do' on Valentines - Afternoon naps after lectures - Bread for dunking in soup - Tea at 'Drink, Shop & Do' on Valentines - 

I'm off to spend my afternoon reading up on some new vegetarian recipes, watching re-runs of 'New Girl' & very definitely avoiding the storm rattling the skylight of my bathroom next door. I leave you with some of my favourite photographs taken over the last year, both at home & adventures outside of it, which will hopefully continue to remind me throughout the new year, to appreciate the every day & to do small things with great love. 

Speak soon - O.