The Sneaky Magpie

I don’t want to moan but I was so fed up with work yesterday and came home in a really horrible mood.

To cheer myself up I made pink gnocchi, the pink came from beetroots, I probably should have added more of it as the color came out bit pale. The gnocchi was served with coriander pesto – they worked really nicely together.

Then I realised I won a good camera on ebay for peanuts. I am really looking forward to get my hands on it. It’s a Lumix with Leica lens, so hopefully my pictures will look better than the IPhone snaps.

Almost done with The Crimson Petal and the White, I can’t wait to finish it tonight, getting bit fed up with it. I am looking forward to few books that have accumulated on a shelf.

Especially rainy Mondays get me down. Can the weather improve please? I had to take a bus to work for the first time in a very long time and it took me over an hour to get to our office, half an hour Clapham – Oxford Street, half and hour on Oxford Street itself, and the bus didn’t even stop halfway so I couldn’t jump off and walk. Very frustrating. Anyway, Monday is almost over and the rain stopped.

My weekend was pretty chilled, went out for some tasty Japanese food on Friday night to Toro in Soho followed by few drinks at the Market Bar. Toro is an authentic Japanese eatery in Brewer Street serving some of my favorite dishes.

On Saturday I wandered (yet again!) to Northcote Road to meet my friend. We had lunch and then we did some shopping. There are few market stalls with some wonderful looking cupcakes, bread, fruit and veg. I bought some flat peaches aka doughnut peaches tempted by an article in The Guardian. Weirdly, some people have a problem with peach fuzz…..mmmm. They were delicious.

In the meantime hubby started to fix our old cupboard. Sides had to be glued, it needed gentle shaving and is waiting for linseed oil to give it a nice color. I am very happy to be rid of the dark brown color it had before.

On Sunday we went to the Battersea car boot sale, I was actively looking for Sylvac fruit and veg pots, saw an apple sauce pot however it was included in a lot with some stuff I either have or don’t like so had to pass. I managed to snap Lord Jim for 50p and that was it.

I ran out of food and had to improvise open sandwiches: Gail’s bread, Parmezan, courgette and olive oil.

Much of the weekend evenings was spent on watching Mad Men series 2, first disc. I know, I am obsessed with this show but I love it so much. All the characters, the interiors, the storyline, the styling. Absolutely spotless. Can’t wait for the next disc to arrive from Love Film.

The summer turned into a cold rainy one and this makes me yearn for autumn clothing. I have decided I need a good coat and a good pair of flat boots – all bike friendly. I also saw a fab hat By Malene Birger that I’d really like.

However, yesterday I got an email from My Wardrobe announcing new season’s clothing and I got bit too excited creating a new wish list. The black jacket and stripey dress are from  Jaeger, I never ever shop there but this collection is rather interesting however quite pricey. I don’t think I will be investing in it, just thought I would share. The tops with pearl neck detail and grey/pink coat are from Sonia by Sonia Rykiel. Beige dress is Anglomania, black is By Malene Birger. Grey military coat is Paul&Joe.

As the sun started to shine again in the afternoon I forgot about the cold and purchased this lovely top by Vanessa Bruno. It came from The Outnet and I saw it yesterday, sadly it was sold out, I checked today again and there it was in my size!

Today I really felt like I had to go out of the office and air my head. I spend way too many lunch breaks at my desk which makes me feel tired so my new resolution is to make myself go out. I know when a new project starts I will be stuck at the office from mornings to late evenings so I might as well take advantage of the quiet time.

As I walked out of our building it started to rain, I made my way towards Soho and decided to see the André Kertész exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery. I don’t like the new gallery building in Ramillies Street and I have not seen any good exhibitions there yet so I was very happy to see one of my favorite photographers being shown there.

The show is called On Reading and it displays a collection of book related photographs from 1915 to the 1980s. The pictures show people on a beach, in a park, on a roof terrace, homeless guy with papers from a bin somewhere in Manila, poor boy with a comic at a paper dump, nun sitting in a street – all caught in the act of reading. Even though they are in public places the act of reading is very personal, they are in a little world of their own.

The photographs are amazing, I might go back to take another look. I never understood why Kertész never got the same acclaim as Cartier-Bresson or Evans, his work is wonderful.

You can see the picture selection here, my particular favorite is Dog Walker from 1927.

Refreshed I went back to the office and am having a very productive afternoon.

All pictures by André Kertész.

I do get it sometimes and don’t really like it. To avid it I try to do something fun at the end of Sunday, it usually works.

Yesterday we went to the farmers market and got a great deal on basil, a massive bag for 2 quid since it was the end of the day. It needed to be processed very fast to avid wilting and after a brief deliberation I decided to make a copious amount of pesto. Since then I’ve been adding it to everything.

First meal was chickpeas with pesto dressing, tomatoes and French sourdough.

Followed by pasta pesto with buffalo mozzarella for dinner. Next is couscous with pesto dressing and veg for lunch. And I still have half of it left in the fridge.

In the late afternoon we decided to hop on the bikes and go to Tate Britain. We felt pretty confident we could do two exhibitions in 1.5h.

First was Classified, a selection of works by contemporary British artists. For the first time I saw The Great Bear – Simon Patterson’s spin on the London Tube Map. The same room had Mark Dion’s wonderful cabinet of items and objects, all found near the Tate on the Thames Bankside. Another room had some paintings by Gillian Carnegie, it’s so refreshing to see paintings. There are also some works by Damien Hirst including the Pharmacy. The last room has got a selection of tribal sculptures with heavy references to McDonald’s by The Chapman Brothers. The exhibition reminded me of a show from a couple of years ago when Tate did a retrospective of the Turner Prize winners. Overall, a selection of very good works, well worth a visit.

We spent way too much time at Classified and had 10 minutes to see the Richard Long show, it wasn’t enough. I had a look at some of the pictures and installations but was chased out of the gallery so will have to go back soon.

One of the best things I ever got was the Tate membership, we can go to all the exhibitions for free and skip the queues!

Back at home we indulged in Seinfeld marathon, must be my favorite comedy show.

Today, as planned, we went down to Northcote Road to have a proper look – the market stalls are not very exciting so I’ll stick to the farmers market.

Instead, we went to Gail’s for coffee and cake. I had cheesecake with blueberries, it looked so good I couldn’t resist but it turned out to be too rich, I should have settled on a pretty blueberry and pistachio cake or like my more sensible other half – bran muffin, much nicer. I also bought some French sourdough bread, they have a great choice of bakery goods.

Afterward we wandered down the street and came across Recipease, Jamie Oliver’s newish venture. It caught my eye because the outside is painted with horrible baby pink color. The shop sells cook books, crockery, kitchen accessories, ready made meals and some condiments. I haven’t bought any but I am tempted to go back as the jams looked delicious.

At the back of the shop there’s a cooking workshop. The recipes are really dead easy so I wouldn’t recommend going unless you wanna know how to make spaghetti with meat balls or fruit crumble. It does what it says on the tin I suppose…

Later in the afternoon I decided to do some baking (yes, I did have a savory snack in between the cheese cake and baking!) I bought some new baking accessories recently and was eager to use them. I wanted something simple and settled on tea cakes. The recipe I used is very simple and versatile – it’s also butter free:

2 eggs

100g sugar

180g natural yogurt

80ml olive oil

zest and juice of 1 lemon

40g poppy seeds

1tsp vanilla extract

205g plain flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

strawberries

Preheat oven to 180 degrees, prepare ramekins or molds.

Cream the eggs and sugar till smooth. Add lemon zest and juice, olive oil, yogurt and vanilla and whip, add sifted flour, baking powder and poppy seeds. You can exchange some of the flour for bit of ground almonds. Stir well.

Fill your containers half way as the cakes will expand in the oven. I put halves of strawberries on the top but seeing the result I would probably cover almost the whole top with them next time, they create lovely moisture that counterbalances the dry cake. You can use any fruit, seeds and nuts you desire, the basic cake recipe will work with everything.

Bake for 30 min or till golden brown. Enjoy!

A couple of weeks ago the lovely Karen from ReadMe announced that her husband, Peter Roseman, will have an exhibition of paintings near my office.

Yesterday I managed to have a proper lunch break and cycle down to Seymour Place to see his works. It was a wonderful experience, for one I got to meet Karen whose blog I read and admire, and also I saw Peter’s paintings. I have been curious about these for a long time. Photos don’t do them justice, it’s such a great experience to see them up close, the detail is really amazing, and the work that goes into creating them is incredible.

The exhibition ends on the 1st of August, do go if you get a chance.

We all admire Scott Schuman aka The Sartorialist. Each of us secretly dreams of being snapped. Here is the guide to How To Get Snapped. Enjoy!

PS I do have a feeling he is not very fond of London….

I was really good since the sales started and have not bought much, just two tops. But today I could no longer resist and I popped to Gap just for some basic vests, at £3.99 a pop it’s hardly any shopping. Then thinking how disciplined I was, I decided to walk down to Liberty just to have a look and see if things are even more discounted (I work about 2 minutes walk from Liberty and it is very very difficult to find an excuse not to go). Lucky for me, unlucky for my bank account, some stock went down in price. I ended up buying two black Vanessa Bruno dresses, one for summer like this one but in black and one long sleeved perfect knit autumn dress. Both were 70% off. Looking at the dress on Net in navy blue I am tempted to get it too. Anyway, back at the office, happy with my shopping I looked at the autumn winter collection and to my surprise at the end of the show it was the same woman that served me at Liberty! I found it strange that the sales assistant didn’t wear the shop’s signature black outfit, she had a French accent and complained to me about getting a headache from the drilling noise outside. I asked her if they had the dresses in different sizes and she briskly answered ‘NO’. Not very Liberty of London. So there I was being served by Vanessa Bruno herself and not knowing about it.

Usually I am really good with exhibitions and see most of them but summer is slightly different, there is always a picnic or an outdoor activity I’d rather do. I had a scan through all the events and there are few I definitely want to go and see:

The Popeye Series by Jeff Koons at The Serpentine

Futurism at Tate Modern

Richard Long and Classified at Tate Britain

Walking In My Mind at Hayward Gallery

Elizabeth Peyton at The Whitechapel Gallery

Cinema is a different matter, I was not attracted by any of the films so far this year apart from Synecdoche NY. I love Charlie Kaufman and his directorial debut did not disappoint, however it was bit too long.

This summer there are few films that I would love to see:

Coco avant Chanel, can’t wait for this one, out end of July

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, debut by Rebecca Miller, out now

Katyn by A. Wajda, out now

Antichrist by Lars von Trier, I am a huge fan of his work, out July 24th

So fingers crossed I will see them all!