Choco-hoop!

Harvey Nichols are on the lookout for a little Scrap to be the face of their Chocolate drink and have launched a competition. The chocolate-coated winner not only gets to grace the tins themselves but also wins a family trip to the Valhrona chocolate factory in France. We like chocolate factories in this house so I might have a go and enter our Scrap. If you fancy it, click here: Choc Competion

Lemon

I filmed an episode of Food Uncut with Merrilees today and to be honest, I made a bit of a pig's ear of it. I was making a lemon tart and when it came to the bit where I'm meant to produce the beautiful one I'd made earlier from under the counter I saw that it had been completely flattened by a big mixing bowl I'd flung under there. I had no choice but to say 'ta-da' and slice it. I blame the Whiskey Sours. It's on UKTV Food on Tuesday.

My Lovely Lemon Tart
Serves 6 –8
200g plain flour
50g ground almonds
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp icing sugar
125g chilled butter, diced
2 egg yolks
2 – 3 tbsp cold water
1 egg white, beaten
FOR THE FILLING
200g golden caster sugar
4 eggs
Grated rind and juice of 2 unwaxed lemons
150ml carton double cream

Put the flour, almonds, salt, sugar and butter in a food processor and whiz to make fine crumbs. Add the yolks and water and pulse until the mixture comes together to make a firm but moist dough.

Lightly shape the pastry into a ball then roll out on a floured surface and use to line a 20cm fluted flan tin. Chill for 30 minutes or so.

Preheat the oven to 190C / gas 5. Line the case with greaseproof paper, fill with baking beans and bake for 10 minutes. Lift out the paper, return to the oven and bake for 5 minutes until the surface of the pastry is dry. Brush the inside of the pastry case with egg white and return to the oven for 5 minutes until the egg white has dried and the pastry is shiny – this will prevent the pastry going soggy once the filling is poured in.

Lower the oven temperature to 150C / Gas 2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until foamy then beat in the cream and then the lemon rind and juice. Pour the mixture into the tart case, and return to the oven for 40 – 50 minutes until just set– don’t worry if it’s a little wobbly in the centre as it will set as it cools. Leave to cool before slipping out of the tin.

Bloc party: Who knew?

OK, loads of people knew. But I've thought of them as the sort of moaning indie-types I could happily live without.

Well, that was, until now. I got this mucked about with mp3 player in the post yesterday. It has their new album on it. And here's the kicker, it's really, really good. It's romantic and scared and proud, it revels in hangovers and new love and all those sorts of things that, say, The Smiths used to do (apart from the hangovers).

There's a track called Kreuzberg that is particularly good. I get the feeling singer and songwriter Kele Okereke is really trying to tell us something - can you guess what it might be? - but whether the legendary grump is willing to reveal it remains to be seen.

I'd post one, but a) the record label would have me killed before lunchtime and b) I can't work out to get the tracks off (NOT THAT I WOULD ANYWAY WICHITA PEOPLE BECAUSE I WAS JOKING, THANKS).

Gastropub

I ended up having one of those unexpected nights out tonight. After spending the day in a chocolate factory in Winchester (I love my job!) I called Angela on the way back and it just so happened that we we’re in the same part of town at the same time. So we met at 6 for a glass of wine in St John in Clerkenwell. Having only eaten chocolate all day, booze was a bad idea. From there we went to the launch of Trish Halferty’s new book Gastropub Classics at The Eagle in Farringdon where she used to be head chef. It's a nice-looking book and sure enough is packed with Gastropub classics like Shellfish Risotto and Lancashire Hotpot . There was a big round of applause for the photographer Jason Lowe who had forgotten to attend. On leaving, Angela called Jason to berate him for his lack of appearance. We then stopped by Moro for one for the road, it was after all, only 8.30pm. We'd just settled ourselves on the last two stools at the bar when in burst Jason who orders several rounds of Whiskey Sours and the Jamon plate with Padron peppers, takes a bit of flack, and picks up the bill on the way out! Thank you very much. I'm going to regret those Whiskey Sours in the morning. And all that chocolate.

Tea Tonight: UPDATE

Wow!

*Loosens belt*

That was bloody delicious!

*Burps quietly*

Thanks, sweetheart...

Basement Crates: Discovery 10

Marxman: All About Eve (Talkin Loud, 1993)

This is a real joy to share. As I have said earlier, I used to collect everything on Talkin' Loud (and the rest), but very little of it has aged well. This, on the other hand, is as beautiful now as it was 13 years ago.

Marxman were that rarest of rare beasts, a multi-racial Irish Marxist rap crew. This makes them sound bad when, in fact, they were absolutely bloody brilliant. Great, conscious lyrics, hugely melodic samples (this one written by Stevie Wonder's co-writers, Cosby and Moy) and all back-lit with a sense of dynamic purpose.

Marxman meant it. You don't see many - hell, you don't see any - hammer and sickles on rap sleeves these days. You don't hear anyone with much to say that isn't pretty much like everything everyone else is saying. But not here.

All About Eve is a wonderfully subtle song about love and abuse and the way people use shame and deceit in their relationships and the more I listen to it, the more I feel sad that Marxman were never taken up by more people. But then, I listen to it again, how the voices dip in and out of each other, how they deconstruct destructive male behaviour and question compliant female behaviour and then I realise that maybe I'm expecting a bit too much of people.

Anyway, happy ending coming. Six or seven years later I met Marxman's Oisin through his new project, First Born. We sat in a pub in Camden and got a bit drunk and talked about the band and I wrote up it up as a big interview for Melody Maker.

We still see each other. Which has no bearing on how good this is.

Tea tonight

It's cottage pie for tea tonight. I'm going to be home a bit late though, Robert, so you'll have to put it in at 180C for about half an hour to warm it up.

Cottage pie
Enough for 6
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 carrots, diced
1 teaspoons caraway seeds
2 tbsp plain flour
750ml beef stock
1 kg minced beef
2 tablespoons brown sauce
150g frozen peas
handful fresh flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
1 kg floury potatoes, peeled and cubed
100ml (1 /4 pint) milk
knob of butter
150g mature Cheddar
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the onions, garlic, carrots and caraway seeds and cook for 3 – 4 minutes then add the flour and cook for a couple of minutes.

Pour in the hot stock then add the mince and brown sauce and simmer gently for 30 – 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil the potatoes for 15 – 20 minutes until tender then mash well and stir in the milk, butter, cheese and seasoning. It’s a good idea to warm the milk first as it blends in more easily.

Preheat the oven to 180C (fan oven 160C) gas mark 4. Stir the peas and parsley into the mince and add salt and pepper. Spoon over the mash then bake for 45 minutes until bubbling and golden.

This sort of thing ought to be banned

I object to this sort of exploitation actually.

Please don't watch it.

Basement Crates: Discovery 9

Lakim Shabazz: Getting Fierce (Tuff City, 1988)
There's a theory that we are so inundated with media, so flooded with outlets and opportunites to hear and experience stuff that, very soon, everyone that isn't The Beatles or Elvis will, if they're lucky, have their catalogue boiled down to one song. With footsoldiers like Lakim Shabazz, of course, this all happened years ago.

The title track of his debut album, Pure Righteousness is the only time you ever tend to hear his voice anymore and that's a fairly rare occurence as Shabazz's moment in the sunshine was a pretty brief one.

I bought this album 18 years ago - that's a bit of a shocker to start with - in the HMV shop in Guildford. I had just started working there and found this amid the piles of Godfathers' singles and early acid house gear - of which more later. There wasn't much hip hop to be had in the autumn of 1988, at least, not in Surrey, so we were glad of what we could get, be it My Philosophy or, y'know, the She Rockers.

Anway, listening to Getting Fierce, you're reminded of how Lakim did himself few favours by setting out his style at pretty much the exact point where Big Daddy Kane meets Rakim, but you're also reminded how raw and basic hip hop was. 45 King runs one loop, one brass sample, one vocal sample and a couple of drum sounds (seemingly pilfered from Funky Drummer) under La and that's it. No backing vocals, no scratching, no replayed, um, "licks".

Lakim barely registers on the internet these days - though You Tube has a couple (thanks Steve) and La's not released a record under his own name for sixteen years. I just hope he's out there somewhere, looking after his kids, arguing with the missus, driving a station wagon and trying to make it to the gym, but more often making it to the sofa.

Wherever he is I hope he's still laughing his ass off about the time he wrote a rhyme called The Posse Is Large while wearing a dashiki 'n' kufi combo and pulling a fantastic I'm-A-Serious-Guy face.

Carving for Christmas with Johnny Scott

There are only six places left at the Divertimenti Cookery School for Johnny's class on the 28th!

Feasts

Peck’s brilliant bookshop review held a signing this evening for local food writer and my near name-sake Silvena Rowe. I had a little shot of Silvena’s delicious home-infused cranberry vodka (recipe on p32) while Scrap tried hard to resist pulling all the books off the shelves. I also bought two copies of the new book, Feasts and a copy of Clementine and Mungo for Scrap. I shall let you know how I get on with my new book once I get a proper read of it, but it’s very beautiful and has some lovely recipe titles in it like Basil and caraway dumplings and Blackberry and buttermilk tart. Yum.

Breakfast in bed

Me and Scrap were feeling a bit under the weather this morning so we watched the movie Cats & Dogs in bed. And then we got brought breakfast on a tray! Feeling a lot better now.

Basement Crates: Discovery 8

Jimmy & Carol Owens: Hallelujah! (Light, 1973)

I am no great collector of the religious LP genre. I mean, I love this stuff as much as the next man, but I'm not about to start giving up my Sunday mornings to perform dawn raids on obscure West Country record fairs in order to secure more of it so, compared to the true believers, I'm not even a beginner.

But, like the sceptical man confronted with Tracey Emin's unmade bed, I may not know much about it, but I know what I like, and I love this Jimmy and Carol Owens LP.

A perfect slice of early 70s post-acid evangelism, Come Together came to light in an otherwise deeply uninteresting Scope store in Penge (no, really). I was, naturally, going somewhere else, but felt the urge to pop in quickly and have a root and turned this up. It was, perhaps, the best 50p I ever spent.

From the deeply groovy Light label logo to the Biblical cover to the song titles themselves (Freely, Freely is good, Greet Somebody In Jesus' Name is even better) this is one of those LPs that make trawling through all the South Pacific soundtracks and James Last abomnations worthwhile.

Think of it as Screamadelica-era Primals without the heroin but with the real ecstasy of Jesus Christ. It's the soundtrack to a thousand swinging Jesus Army parties where giggly girls from Godalming get tapped-up by bearded Lancastrian geography teachers filled with Double Diamond and a desire for the cleansing fire of the Lord.

Oh yes.

Yes please!

Those Cheese people at Leadenhall have got loads of special cheese nights coming up. Tomorrow evening, there's tasting and history notes on 12 special cheeses and on the 22nd, it's Raclette night with a mountain cheese supper and wines and on the 29th there's a Port and blue cheese tasting. Hooray! I'll go if anyone else will?

Ganapati

It's all go at Fork today. Jenny, Katie and I are all in upstairs typing away like the clappers. The office / studio is in The Bellenden conservation area and it really is a lovely little pocket of London. We've just taken a walk out to Ganapati and chosen from the set lunch menu. I picked Onion Rava Dosa, Jenny, Idli sambar and Katie the Cheera Parippu (dal and spinach curry). As soon as I'd walked through the door, I felt happy - it's cosy, there's incense burning and we're welcomed warmly by the chef in the kitchen at the back who waves us in. We have to wait longer than we'd like but the food, when it comes, is just delicious. And it costs under twenty pounds including their juices and my Coke. We walk out with a glow of well-being, back to work with light feet. Unlike a visit to another of my Peckham favourites, The New Sunsplash Bakery, which always leads to an afternoon nap, with the phones off the hook. But that's another story.

Angela's birthday

We've just rounded off a fair few weeks of celebration (book launch, hen weekend in gorgeous location house in Whitstable, lovely wedding in the lakes, drinks in the Nun's Head) for my friend Angela with a special 40th birthday party at her house. And very special it was too, as well as good company, there was fizz, a disco zone and platters of lovely food from the deli. Robert drank a tiny bit too much and embarassed himself in front of the babysitter with his impressions of the cement mixer and dumper truck from Bob the Builder and literally shook the foundations of Landcroft House with his snoring. Despite that, it was a very enjoyable night indeed. Angela's fantastic new book Pie is out now.

Basement Crates: Discovery 7

John Barry: The Spa (United Artists, 1965)

The papers are full of Daniel Craig and Casino Royale. The new James Bond film already feels like one of those events that you're quite happy to leave to the papers, like there's nothing left for the rest of us, so I was particularly pleased to find this while trawling through the piles downstairs.

I picked up this Thunderball soundtrack in a record shop next door to Metro in Chicago. I was there to interview Luke from Sleepy Jackson. I think this LP cost two dollars, but I can't remember as I was so transfixed by the cover I just stuffed some money in the bloke's hand and wandered out.

It's not a rare record, it's not a collectable record, but it is a beautiful record, despite the presence of Tom Jones. Now, in 2006, we can only wonder just how exotic and exciting Cafe Martinique and Bond Below Disco Volante must have sounded. Scuba diving seemed wildly exciting to me and Silvana in Thailand in 1999, so God knows how this must have looked in Solihull or Baltimore or Cologne or Brisbane 41 years ago.

The Spa just reeks of expensive tobacco, hair oil and barely dressed woman of exotic descent. It's pathetic how affecting this stuff actually is really - shouldn't we all be over this sort of thing by now?

A Boy. A Bike. A Reason To Live.

The Scrap enjoys a "paddle" on his Like-A-Bike: Sunray Gardens 06/11/06

Wash Day Blues

Will my work never be done?

*Picks up toothbrush*

*Starts crying*

The Equals: Funky Like A Train(er) (Mercury, 1976)

Cauliflower pasta

I've noticed that cauliflowers are looking really lovely at the moment – I guess they must like the cold weather. I thought I’d make a Franco family classic for tea tonight. It always goes the same way. Robert calls me at 11am and asks me what I'm going to be making. He wants me to say steaks or roast pork. I say in an encouraging voice that it’s cauliflower pasta and he quietly says 'oh'. Then when it's tea time, he clears his bowl, says how much he enjoyed it and goes back for more. You see, it tastes a lot better than it sounds.

Anyway my mum has made this forever and me and sister and brothers all make similar versions of it.

Serves 4
1 cauliflower
500g packet chunky pasta shapes such as penne or conchigle
1 tbsp olive oil
2 rashers streaky bacon, chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 ripe tomato, roughly chopped
freshly grated Parmesan, to serve

Cut the cauliflower into small florets adding the smaller tender green leaves too. Cook in a large pan of boiling salted water for 5 minutes then add the pasta and continue to cook for 12 – 15 minutes according to packet instructions.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a small non-stick frying pan and cook the bacon, onion and garlic for 5 minutes until golden. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a couple of minutes until softened and pulpy. Add a ladle of the cooking water, stirring to moisten the tomato mixture then season with salt and pepper.

Drain the pasta and cauliflower quite loosely so the cauliflower retains some of the moisture then return to the pan. Stir in the bacon mixture and divide between bowls. Top with crispy crumbs, if you like.

FOR CRISPY CRUMBS
Heat a splash of olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook a handful of fresh white breadcrumbs over a medium heat, shaking the pan until crisp and golden. It's important to do this at the last minute so the crumbs sizzle as they land on top of the pasta.

I came across this great website today Streats of London that features London roads with food or drinks in their name. From Artichoke to Wensleydale - fantastic!

Green Peppercorns

I bought some fresh green peppercorns from SMBS the other day. I didn’t really have a plan for them but you don’t see them everyday so I bought a big handful. I put some into a bottle of white wine vinegar and thought I’d have a go at drying the rest into everyday black peppercorns. I’ve eaten one a day so far and they are gradually turning from a sort of sweet, perfumed flavour with a bit of warmth into a pretty fierce heat this morning. I wonder if I keep it up I might develop a resistance and will be able to eat them by the spoonful by the time they’re dry. Anyway, I read that it was hard to dry green peppercorns at home without them turning mouldy, but so far, so good.

And vine not...

Yesterday morning we chopped the vines back to the roots. Unless you saw it with your own eyes you would not believe how much those bastards grow in a season - on the right day you can see them unfurl in front of your eyes.

So, we got the secateurs out and I waved a few vicious looking fronds at Silvana and made a few Evil Dead gags and spent a bit of time up a ladder wondering whether my life insurance was up to date. In 30 mins the garden was covered in thick leaves and crushed grapes.




Next year we will make wine. We will! We bloody will you know.


Oh yes, and can we talk about how brilliant it is in Dulwich Park at the moment? Me and The Scrap had the time of our lives there this weekend. Football, swings, ducks, geese, secret Mini Milks we DON'T TELL MUMMY ABOUT. Oh...

This weather - it can't last, can it?

The glory of eBay

A few months ago - actually, I think it was a year ago, which is a bit shameful - I started a new round of buying THINGS I REALLY, REALLY NEED, OH YES, on eBay. I decided, having chanced across a copy of Goal! magazine with a cheeringly youthful George Best cover from September 1968 - to collect magazines (any magazines) from the month Silvana or I were born.

So I've ended up with about 50 things I'm not sure what to do with. I'd like to get a lot of them framed, but that seems like an expensive way to enjoy a tiny circulation Flying Saucer Review from Cambridge, some theatrical reviews, a guide to Midlands buses, a curiously coy Playboy from May 1969, various model railway enthusiasts noodlings, a publication dedicated to Banjo, Guitar and Mandolin, a couple of fantastic aeronautical trade mags amazing Concorde covers and a huge stack of this brilliant old kid's magazine called Tell Me Why, among many others.

This one - featuring a double page spread showing the life of the Arabian prophet in swashbuckling cartoon form - is a particular favourite.

I wonder whether they're planning a re-print?

PS: The eagle-eyed will notice this doesn't come from Sept 68 OR May 69. It came in a job lot, OK!

Chicken and chorizo rice

I know we’re not meant to prick sausages anymore but I nearly always do, especially fresh chorizo. I want all the lovely smokey juices to come out and mingle with the rest of the ingredients. For lunch today, I pricked the sausages Robert came home with yesterday and sat them in a big tin with six skin-on and bone-in chicken thighs and a few chunks of fresh tomato and roasted them for 25 minutes. While that was going on, I boiled the kettle and made up some chicken stock with a Kallo organic cube and a couple of teaspoons of smoked paprika. I tipped a couple of mugs full of basmati rice into the pan and then poured in enough stock to come about 1 – 2 cm above the rice then put it back in for about half an hour until the rice was fluffed. A quick squeeze of lemon juice and it was ready to eat.

Basement Crates: Discovery 6

Spiritualized: Run (Dedicated, 1991)

Me and Silvana went to see Spritualized's Jason Spaceman doing an acoustic show at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last week and he was, well, brilliant.

The last time I'd seen him, we had only just met and afterwards I fell in a cab - properly gig drunk - and raced straight round to her flat in Camberwell where I got her out of bed and we drank vodka and smoked cigarettes and played records loudly.

This time I drove and we went back to our house, paid the baby-sitter, watched a bit of telly and went to bed. That's life, right there, that is.


I didn't think I'd actually ever see this clear vinyl 7" again. I was convinced I'd lent it to someone, or just lost it in one terrible move or other. But there it was, hidden behind a Blood Uncles LP.

I interviewed Jason in a bar in Shoreditch once. Mindful of his reputation as the needle-slinging wild-man of space-rock I put on my best Serious Rock Bloke demeanour and prepared for the worst.

In reality, he couldn't have been any nicer. We laughed our heads off once or twice and smoked fags and talked about wives and work and all that sort of stuff. I actually had to tell him to shut it, get up and leave because I was off to a gig in Brighton - The Avalanches, not really worth it in retrospect - and, like the charming bloke he clearly is, Jason said we'd catch up on the phone another day.

Of course we didn't. But it doesn't matter.

Bonus Post

Tortoise: Whitewater (Soul Static Sound, 1995)

I heard this on a CD compilation recently, but [*assumes achingly dull nerd persona*] this original Soul Static Sound vinyl version is actually improved by its collections of soft pops and clicks. They are perfectly in context.

I went to see Tortoise the first time they ever played in England. It was upstairs at The Garage. I remember it being incredibly good, but upstairs at the garage was also doing some full-on drinks promotion that night, so my strongest memory is of a room full of jazz-bearded nonces bobbing their heads to Ry Cooder and me not being able to see straight.

Next week in Things I Did Fifteen Years Ago I'll recall the hilarious time I had a haircut inspired by a film starring Keanu Reeves.

No, really.

Tales from the butcher's shop

How does paella sound for lunch? That's what I thought. So I've been to William Rose (proudly displaying its AS VOTED FOR ON UKTV FOOD stickers - I know someone who's on UKTV FOOD) for these fresh Spanish chorizo sausages, some chicken thighs and some totally unnecessary bacon I just fancied the look of. I did nearly buy a pie, yes.

Anyway, enough about food already. More misty-eyed vinyl reminiscence to follow...

Sparkler

Brockwell Park, last night.

Moon Rock

By Fabio F Fitzpatrick (21/2)

Rock cakes

This Morning

This morning, I was busy cooking 'winter warmers' on This Morning. I made a pasta bake and a fluffy fish pie in 7.5 minutes.


CHEESE AND BACON STUFFED PASTA SHELLS
200g conchiglioni rigati (large pasta shells)
1 tbsp olive oil
4 rashers of rashers of smoked streaky bacon, roughly chopped
1 small onion, chopped
50g crusty white bread, whizzed in a food processor to make crumbs
240g soft cheese
4 tbsp roughly chopped parsley
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
700g jar of tomato passata (sieved tomatoes), or sugocasa
150g ball of buffalo mozzarella cheese, drained

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/gas 6. Cook the pasta shells in a large pan of lightly salted boiling water for 8 minutes – until al dente (just tender, but with some bite). Drain in a colander and cool. While the pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a saucepan over a moderate heat, and fry the bacon, onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, or until golden.
In a medium mixing bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, soft cheese, parsley, and the bacon mixture. Season with black pepper.
Pour the tomato sauce into a heatproof casserole dish, and stir in the rosemary. Using a teaspoon, divide the bacon and breadcrumb mixture between the pasta shells, and sit each one tightly together on top of the sauce.
Tear the mozzarella cheese into rough pieces and scatter over the pasta shells. Bake for 30 minutes until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is crisp.

FLUFFY SMOKED HADDOCK AND POTATO PIE
1.5kg floury potatoes, such as King Edwards or Maris Piper, peeled and diced
600g smoked haddock fillet, un-dyed
300ml milk
1 bunch Spring onions, finely chopped
200g crème fraiche
100g Emmental, or Leerdammer cheese, finely grated
1 pinch salt and fresh ground black pepper


Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7. Cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling water for 15 minutes or so until tender. Meanwhile, place the smoked haddock in a pan, pour over the milk and sprinkle over the spring onions. Cover, bring to the boil and simmer for 5-8 minutes until the fish is cooked and flakes easily.

Lift out the poached haddock and discard the skin and any bones. Pour the warm milk and spring onion into a jug; you’ll need 200 ml and there should easily be enough.

Drain the potatoes well and mash – ideally with a ricer – until smooth. Beat in the warm milk and spring onion, followed by the crème fraiche.

Gently fold in the flaked fish and half the cheese then check the seasoning; you’re unlikely to need much, if any, salt, but grind in plenty of pepper.

Spoon the mixture into a large, shallow heatproof dish and scatter over the remaining cheese. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until golden and crunchy on the surface.

Is this the best lunch hour ever?

Silvana is in Don Zoko (Rock Bottom) just down the road from the Liberty arch. I know this because she keeps phoning me up to tell me. "I've got a newspaper and an hour to myself!" she just yelled.




Apparently, she's going to eat miso soup and pork belly yakiniku don.



And then she's going to drink this sake. She's still sending me pictures, but one's just crashed my phone, so I can't get at them.

Meanwhile, I'm eating some warmed-up supermarket soup :(

Can this be in any way fair?

Young Tiger: Chicken & Rice (Honest Jons, 2006)

Look out!

There's a massive ball of fire in the sky!

Just look at that bugger!

Suggested soundtrack:
Raul de Barros e Brazilian Serenaders: Sunny (Big, 1968)

It gets dark at 3pm

I was doing a food shoot for an American book today. We were pretending Landcroft's garden was California. Vines and grapes looked good but the weather let us down a bit.

Lunch

Soup, cheese, bread and carrot cake from East Dulwich Deli. Yummy. Not very detox.

Independence Day: 1

This little chap is all over the internet like some sort of bike riding rash...

Human / Guinea Pig

Look what - and, indeed, who - I found on You Tube!

Detox Day One

Before bed, mix together 20g porridge oats, 40g Alpen and a handful of sultanas or plump raisins. Pour over 300ml semi-skimmed milk. Cover the bowl with cling film and pop in the fridge. In the morning stir in some live natural yogurt ( Yeo Valley is my favourite) and some halved red grapes. Very good for spooning into a pot and taking to work if you are late. Enough for 2.

Old Nun's Head

Can't keep away from Nunhead this week. Especially this place. The Old Nun's Head has stood derelict for as long as we've lived round here. It has a great story - it was built in the 30s on the site of an old convent. For some reason the Mother Superior was executed and her head displayed on the green beside the pub, which is where the district of Nunhead gets its name. Anyway, those nice people from The Gowlet , just round the corner, have recently done it up very nicely despite the fact it is still haunted...

Last Saturday we were invited to a 3rd birthday party in the function room upstairs and had great fun with the The Tickle Monster. And tonight I was in again to join celebrations for my friend Angela's birthday. It's warm, friendly and wood panelled. The bar staff smile and the menu is fine, if a bit limited. We had a lovely time with Prosecco, bruschetta and home-cut chips. Detox definitely starts in the morning!

Basement Crates: Discovery 5

I'm (still) reading Colin Harper's none-more-exhaustive biography of Bert Jansch (it's Jansch like jam, apparently, not like Yansch) and the British post-war folk movement (stick with me, it picks up). Now, while there have been moments where even I've found it a little too in-depth - 200 pages in and he's only just formed Pentangle - it has delighted me on many occasions with its attention to detail.

This evening, for instance, I found out that Bert lived for a while in Putney, a town I worked in for four or five years. I also learned he used to play darts in The Bricklayer's Arms, the exact same pub me, Billy and Justin used to swill Guinness in when we were younger if not quite as wise.

I was vageuly aware of the band then (about 1992), but, like Neil Young years earlier, I had written them off as Elder Brother music and ignored them (unlike Young, the same still goes for Led Zeppelin, a band I've never seen the appeal of).

One day I heard the following and it all became clear. The 'Tangle were folk, but they also had a laced-up jazz groove and it was easy, in my mind at least, to draw parallels between what they were doing in 196-whatever and what, say, Stereolab were doing much later.

Anyway, I promised this would pick up, so here goes. This Pentangle track is brilliant. The end.

Pentangle: The Trees They Do Grow High (Transatlantic, 1968)

BONUS POST

Except it's not the end! While there may have been no Pentangle, there was a lot of Nick Drake. And this is one of the finest covers of one of his songs I've ever heard. And, rather predictably, I've heard loads. Walt Mink, I've just spookily discovered, split up nine years ago today.

Wooohh!

Walt Mink: Pink Moon (Quigley, 1992)

Hoa Viet

Scrappy and I met Jenny for lunch in our favourite Vietnamese restaurant Hoa Viet on Camberwell Church Street. It's not so much a restaurant as a cafe but they take a lot of pride in their food. They make everything from scratch including the rice noodles - they grind the rice into flour then mix it with water (and nothing else) to make a paste then they spread it into thin discs which they steam before rolling up and cutting it into ribbons. Scrap had chicken rice, most of which came home in a box for Rob's tea tonight. We shared some mini spring rolls and I chose Pho Vit, roast duck noodle soup. It was simple and yummy - good-flavoured broth, fresh noodles, generous amount of tender duck breast and a handful of spring onions. Jenny has begun a pre-Christmas detox and chose healthy Pho Xao Chay, noodles with tofu and aubergine and that too was delicious. We need to go on a detox in our house. We eat too much meat and we could both certainly do with losing a few pounds. From now on it's a minimum of five portions of fruit and veg every day. And 2 litres of water.

The Sun's Gone Dim - Johann Johannsson

Johann's dad brought the first IBM computer to Iceland. I imagine it was a bit like Klaus Kinski dragging a boat towards the Amazon (or woteva), only with more snow and whale pie.

Anyway, young Jo has now written a really incredible album that uses (amongst other things) some of the ghostly moans old man Johannsson coaxed from said beast.

This makes them both cleverer than we could ever hope to be. But this is great.

Basement Crates: Discovery 4

Or: Why The Internet Is Great

A few months ago I watched a clip of Lightnin' Hopkins on You Tube. Inspired, I moved straight to eBay and put in a bid on a 44 year old jukebox 7" blessed with a title I thought would make Silvana smile. A few days later it landed on my desk. Now I'm posting it on our blog so the whole process can start again.

It sort of works, doesn't it?

Lightnin' Hopkins: You Cook All Right (Prestige, 1962)