oatmeal, tiffin tin, anchovies, picnic gingham, interior design in Chelsea, ballet, Anne Hathaway, milfs
Recipe:
Healthy Oatmeal cookies for my dad and a tiffin tin for hospital
Ingredient:
Anchovies
Anchovies are a marmite ingredient, you either love them or hate them. They can be great on a pizza, but they can also be overwhelming, especially if the quality isn’t great. A bad anchovy experience can put you off for life.
The anchovy lowdown:
buy good quality anchovies. The best are from Cantabria in Italy and packed in olive oil. These are firm not mushy and not overly salty.
you can buy them preserved in salt. You will see large open cans, they never seem to go off, at Italian markets, where housewives buy a small portion. How to use: remove the backbone and tail and soak in cold water for 15 minutes.
(if you really can’t stand them whole) use them in small quantities mashed in a sauce or dressing. The Romans used anchovies in the form of garum, rather like a Thai fish sauce. Anchovies are essential really for a good puttanesca spaghetti sauce and in a Caesar salad dressing.
Boquerones are pickled anchovies, something you’ll find at Spanish tapas bars. These aren’t particularly salty.
In Sweden they use anchovies in that wonderful dish Janssen’s Temptation, a concoction of potatoes, cream and the aforesaid anchovies. Except these aren’t actually anchovies, but a kind of small herring.
They provide umami and flavour to any savoury dish.
My favourite olives are anchovy stuffed. Sometimes I make ‘bandaderillas’ – cocktail sticks jammed with a belt of tiny pickled onions, red pepper, olives and folded anchovies – a favourite accompaniment for a cocktail.
Inside:
Picnic ware
I usually use proper china and glass for picnics but this melamine range of Red and white gingham picnic ware from Tiger, Tiger is gorgeous and well priced. Here are scalloped cups £5, a picnic basket £18, but the gingham serviettes seem to have sold out. But will we have the weather for it this summer? Endless rain. But the next couple of weeks don’t look too bad.
By the way are any of you coming to my Midsummer supper club on June 22nd? Click below to book. Tickets are £50 for a whole evening and you can BYO.
Please book because frankly if people don’t book then I’ll stop doing them completely. I am the original, the OG supper club host, help me out! I love cooking for people, trying out new ingredients and recipes and I need the money. Assuming the weather is good, we’ll eat in the garden and light the bonfire. It’s magical.
WOW! House
I’ve never heard of this before but this week I was invited to the press opening of the WOW! House at the The Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour. It was set up during lockdown to display the best of British interiors design.
I rarely visit Chelsea because it’s just too far and awkward to get to. But I keep forgetting that the overground train now goes regularly (before it was only during rush hour) towards Imperial Wharf, which is literally around the corner from The Design Centre.
I used to love visiting IKEA and seeing the rooms, the ideas and the set-up. It’s ‘world-building’, similar to fantasy/sci-fi literature. You can imagine the fictional lives.
The WOW! House is like a much posher, more luxurious version. I cannot afford the designers and their wares but it’s inspirational. Here are a few of my picks:
the mash-up between The Rug Company and Ken Fulk, beautiful rugs based on Delft tiles. Also in his dining room, inspired by William Morris, I liked the chandelier made from recycled plastic bottles, you would never be able to tell, it looked like complex crystal, by artist Thierry Jeannot. I just love a set dining table.
the dark, luxuriant, textile rich and antique filled room by Alidad Home, sponsored by Watts 1874 had the most complex passementerie and trimmings. It had Middle Eastern, Victorian, back from a trip to the colonies vibe.
the living room by Tissus d’Helene, with a gorgeous painted ceiling, ceiling fan, stencilled? pillars, and lattice-work antique desk.
the elegant bedroom with a crenellated four-poster bed by Jamb London, and a painted cane chair
the House of Rohl and Michaelis Boyd bathroom which was both beautiful and practical. I liked the curtain around the sink and the chinoiserie mural around the round bath tub. The floor was checkerboard but the tiles changed in size depending on the space: going from bathtub area, to shower to toilet. This was a cute trick. It had a shower that wasn’t too high. I’m a short woman, I don’t want the shower to turn to mist by the time it gets to me. I also want the shower lever to be outside the shower, so I don’t have to get my hair wet, I have a choice. (Feminist interiors rant: you can really tell what stuff is designed solely by men, it’s all minimalist and dark and brown and non-flowery/non-pretty and in public places like gyms and hotels, men never put mirrors at the right height or provide conditioner. If you have long hair you need conditioner mate).
the Asian-influenced study by Anahita Rigby, with a large soft pink lampshade, comfortable little swivel ‘castle’ chairs and a shoji rice paper screen, backlit with leaves. It felt warm, yet fresh and feminine.
the kitchen by Martin Moore in conjunction with Studio Vero, with a green marble counter top, a chunky brass hot water tap for filling pots over the hob (this is a thing in the States and I’m here for it), and the combination marble/brass sink.
the ceilings in general were fabulous. We need to make more of ceilings.
the people watching was extraordinary: very upper class women and men in wonderful clothes. I saw a couple of women wearing exquisite puffed sleeved Anna Mason blouses. I went up to her shop on the second floor. These gorgeous blouses cost £450 so out of my price range. I asked ‘when is the sale?’
Here is a little video of what I saw:
Going Out:
Romeo and Juliet, by the Northern Ballet at Sadler’s Wells
My mum and dad were supposed to go but neither felt well enough so gave me a ticket. I haven’t seen a ballet for decades. I did ballet as a child and I think it’s brilliant training. You never totally lose it no matter how old and fat you become. My mum used to take me to see ballets regularly for birthdays and Christmas. I remember a shocking pink velvet dress I proudly wore to the theatre. Shocking pink is still my favourite colour.
I love dance, but this is the first Shakespeare play I’ve seen in dance form. At first I wondered, why aren’t they talking? Then I recognised the music ‘The March of the Capulets’.
The first act dragged a bit. I have to admit that once the lights go down, my brain announces to my body ‘time for sleep’. So I had a little snooze. But the second and third acts, where the story got dramatic, were gripping. Still, the whole story is ridiculous and a bit frustrating. Why did nobody step in to stop these teenagers being so silly?
Staying In:
The Idea of You on Amazon Prime
Anne Hathaway stars in this rom-com along with Nicholas Galitzine. (He and Jacob Elordi seem to be the new generation of young leading men).
Anne Hathaway: why isn’t she liked?
Officially, she’s beautiful. Her eyes are enormous saucers like a ‘Big Eyes’ painting, perhaps a little too big, with puffy eyelids. I like her nose, her delicate diamond-shaped nostrils, the way it is slightly red at the end, like Madame X, the painting by Sargent.
But I never believe her in any role. I can see she’s acting.
In the film she’s a 40 year old MILF who falls in love with a 24 year old member of a boyband, which is softened from the original novel where she’s 40 and he’s 20. It’s reportedly based on the Olivia Wilde/Harry Styles romance = older yet beautiful mum and young famous guy. The fan base want to kill her because she’s stolen their heart throb.
It’s not unknown for young male stars to be attracted to older women. Think of John Lydon/Rotten with Ari-Up’s (The Slits) mum Nora. Or of 33 year old actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson with 57 year old Sam Taylor-Johnson, the director. When I was going out with one of Madness, I remember our collective surprise when Suggs dated then married Bette Bright. I don’t know how much older she was officially but I reckon around a decade. She seemed so sophisticated compared to the rest of us. All these marriages lasted. Although in Johnny Rotten’s case it meant he didn’t have kids.
That’s a bit of reality that is never mentioned in the film. Especially as she is 45 in the end and kids are no longer an option.
It’s an okay watch. Lots of soft sex scenes. Again Anne Hathaway may be beautiful but she’s not sexy. And the white see-through outfit she wears when they finally shag is horribly unflattering.
I’m very interested in the difference between beauty, prettiness and sex appeal. Sometimes when you think why is that person with the other? It’s because of sex appeal. J-Lo with her second husband Marc Anthony, for instance. He’s so not good looking. He’s short. But he is incredibly sexy. He’s just got ‘it’. He’s also talented as a singer. Unlike her.
Eric on Netflix
Veteran telly writer Abi Morgan wrote this short series which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a Jim Henson type puppet master who loses his son. The first few episodes are quite good then it gets a bit forced.
I find it weird when people who weren’t adult in the 80s write about the 80s (like in that dreadful film that everyone else raves about, All of us Strangers). They act like the 1980s were really backward. As a denizen of the 80s, I don’t remember people in big capital cities like New York or London being prejudiced against gay people. Half the people I knew were gay - it was just normal, especially if you worked in the arts. Maybe I’m remembering it wrongly.
Ophelia:
I’m travelling at the moment, going to Switzerland then Poland. I miss her. I like to see every moment of her growing up, every new word, every new gesture. But at the same time I’m getting older and need to travel the bucket list.
