The Sneaky Magpie

I do have a slight obsession with Audrey Hepburn. She was stylish, beautiful, waif-like and charming. I like her so much I am even able to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s without thinking how Truman Capote’s story was changed into a rom com with slapstick elements and still be absolutely in love with Audrey’s style and beauty.

Don’t get me wrong, Breakfast at Tiffany’s has got its charm and if I watch it without thinking about the novel it’s almost perfect (Mickey Rooney’s character is shocking though). I am not a big fan of rom coms and happy endings so perhaps it is Audrey and her styling that does it for me?

But yesterday I watched Two For The Road. This is one of her less known films. It’s not the greatest but she is wonderful in it and the styling is amazing: Paco Rabanne, Mary Quant, Foale and Tuffin.

It’s a story about a twelve year long relationship: falling in love, marriage, conflicts, boredom, unfaithfulness.

Great Paco dress…

As I said it’s not the best movie I have seen but definitely worth watching on a lazy afternoon.

Inspired by my trip to Petersham Nurseries I was going to purchase A Year in My Kitchen, Skye Gyngell’s first book but I was so busy and distracted I ordered My Favorite Ingredients by accident.

Not a drama.

The book is very good and covers some of my favorite ingredients too, like cherries, mushrooms, nuts, chocolate, pulses and honey.

I tend to try most of the recipes from cook books I buy but only few of them become regular dishes on our menu.

I am off to get some supplies from the shops and cook away. Here are few recipes I am going to start with.

Ribollita

Cherry Clafoutis

Hazelnut tart

Tomato and bread soup

Chocolate and hazelnut cake

The most beautiful salad ever!

Fish with tomato salsa

Yet another difficult project at work, they seem to come thick and fast nowadays.

I missed The Sartorialist book signing yesterday at Liberty as I was stuck in the office till 21.30!  Today was a bit better but still late.

Feeling tired and lazy.

I am going to curl my legs up on the sofa, have a bowl of pasta and watch Jamie Oliver’s new show which btw is pretty bad but hey, it is on TV and doesn’t demand any thinking.

If Jane made me smile with her post, thank you!

I have been catching up on reading and films this weekend. Due to the postal strike magazines arrived late this month, same goes for DVD rentals. Pretty annoying. The strike is still going on and nobody knows when this will end.

Vogue and ELLE made me wish for even more pretty things. No matter how few things I really need there is always something new to wish for.

I also went to All Saints just to have a look and of course spotted things that would be very useful, especially this great hunting coat, perfect for rain, outdoor activities and cycling (same material as Barbour jackets but better cut). Skinny black jeans are always good,  fitted shirt would look good with these. And I really need a good belt.

After our visit to Petersham Nurseries I decided to expand my cook book selection to two Skye Gyngell books. I have just ordered A Year in My Kitchen which is all about seasonal cooking – it has been my cooking philosophy for years so I am sure I will enjoy exploring her recipes. If the book is a culinary success I will also get My Favorite Ingredients.

Speaking of seasonal food, I got some fresh figs yesterday and prepared them for my lunch. I love figs: fresh, roasted, baked in cakes; in savory and sweet dishes. It is such a wonderful and diverse autumnal fruit.

For my lunch I made roasted fig salad, this is the recipe:

4-5 figs

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp honey

1 buffalo mozzarella

handful of rocket

toasted pine nuts

few mint leaves

Quarter the figs and spread them on a baking sheet, pour a little bit of balsamic vinegar and honey, roast in  190-200 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Tear the mozzarella into chunks, place on a plate, mix with rocket leaves and pine nuts. Place roasted figs on top but let them cool first otherwise the cheese will melt and the leaves will wilt. Balsamic, honey and fig juice will create a lovely syrup which can be dripped over the salad. Sprinkle mint leaves on top.

Serve with good sourdough toast.

This has been inspired by Jamie Oliver’s fresh fig salad with parma ham aka the easiest sexiest salad in the world. You can find his version in Happy Days with the Naked Chef.

The whole afternoon was spent on reading Generation A which is yet another great book by Coupland. I only read two contemporary writers religiously, the other one is Dave Eggers.

Watched a couple of films:

Me and You and Everyone We Know – Funny, uplifting and quirky directorial debut by artist Miranda July. I also recommend her short stories No One Belongs Here More Than You. This girl is very talented.

Meantime by Mike Leigh – A very good English film that I can watch over and over again, Leigh captured the Thatcher era and life in the east end of London spotlessly and shot it beautifully. Amazing performances by absolutely everyone, especially by Tim Roth, Phil Daniels and Gary Oldman.

My weekend ended in Hoxton, had Vietnamese food at Cay Tre. Authentic tasty food, the summer spring rolls are super delicious.

I woke up to an overcast sky but fortunately the day turned out to be very sunny and hot. The summer is back for a day I think.

We decided to go to Richmond Park on our bikes. It is my favorite royal park, it dates back to the 13th century and was loved by the Tudors, Henry VIII frequently went hunting in the park and Elizabeth I lived and died in Richmond Palace.

We entered through the Roehampton Gate and the first thing we saw was deer, a lot of them. No surprise really as the park is home to about 600 red and fallow deer. They are such nice creatures, so graceful and pretty.

We headed toward Ham Gate and saw more deer…

I wasn’t fast enough to snap them surrounded by ferns, it looked magical.

Feeling very hungry we decided to grab some lunch at Petersham Nurseries.

Good bread, chicken salad, cheddar tomato sandwich and lovely almond, polenta and lemon cake.

I really want Skye Gyngell’s cook books!

There is a restaurant within the nursery ground, it is amazing.

Being a nursery you can buy plants and seeds, and really good quality gardening tools, accessories, wellies, rain coats and interior bits.

We purchased some seeds, these will be given away as we don’t have a garden. I would love to have one.

On the way back we went down The Thames Path. It’s so nice, like a holiday resort but instead of the sea there is river. It took us ages to get back but it was worth it, we cycled through Richmond, Kew and Barnes and eventually got to Putney were we had to go back on the road.

Twickenham Bridge – a fantastic Art Deco creation.

There are a whole bunch of things to do in this area: Ham House in Ham on …..Ham Street, Hampton Court, Kingstone, Kew Gardens, Petersham, Barnes with its Georgian houses and the London Wetland Centre not to mention hundreds of good restaurants, cafes and delis.

A great place for a day out of town.

I have been very busy at work and all I wanted to do this weekend was to chill out and cook.

On Sunday I baked marble cake….

…followed by 2 hours of making dumplings. People always ask me why don’t I cook Polish dishes but they are so time consuming that I hardly ever have the time.

So the dumpling (pierogi) epic started with Sunday morning lecture of Chekhov’s stories. I started to crave Russian style dumplings, these are filled with quark, boiled potatoe and fried onion mixture.

I prepared the filling, seasoned it and put it away in the fridge.

The hard part is preparing the dough, it is tough, you mix flour with a pinch of salt, very little water and some egg (1 egg per 1kg of flour but it is optional). You kneed the dough till it’s smooth and elastic and leave it to rest for 30 min.

Next step is to roll it out thinly and cut out round shapes. Put a little bit of filling in the middle, fold it and seal it – my technique is to press it with a fork.

Throw the dumplings into a large pan of boiling water and cook for a couple of minutes after they come up to the surface. Now you can serve these just cooked with fried onions in olive oil and butter or the decadent way – in cream. Or you can fry them with onions and serve them with cream, I actually settled for yogurt.

After all this food I watched Allen’s Husbands and Wives which I didn’t enjoy that much and started to read Generation A.

Big difference to my last weekend however I have a hard week ahead so need to take it easy.

Last week, having managed to see all the exhibitions from my list I felt rather pleased with myself. Two days later the Tate magazine arrived announcing the autumn schedule, I scanned through all the galleries and here is my new to see list:

Tate Modern: Pop Life show will include Kippenberg, Koons, Warhol and Hirst to name a few. There will be also a John Balderssari show and Miroslaw Balka will take over the Turbine Hall.

It seems to be the season of Pop Art, The Hayward Gallery is having a retrospective of Ed Ruscha paintings, this should be good!

Tate Britain: Turner and The Masters, I am really looking forward to this show, it will include old masters like Rubens and Rembrandt. I would suggest to visit this exhibition bit later in the autumn as it will be packed in the opening weeks. The gallery will hold the annual Turner Prize show too.

Somerset House is hosting Norman Parkinson: A Very British Glamour, expect a visual feast of some of the best fashion pictures ever taken. I must admit, I have never been to this venue, it has been on my list for ages. Now is the time to go.

Victoria and Albert Museum: Maharaja show, I really hope this is good, the last few times I went the exhibitions looked tempting but failed to deliver. The last one that I really enjoyed was The Golden Age of Couture which I went to see twice.

Royal Academy of Arts, probably my least favorite museum in London, will hold Anish Kapoor show. Looks very interesting.

National Gallery is showing a major exhibition of Spanish painting and sculpture from 17th century, Velazques and Zurbaran are among the artists. The Sacred Made Real show opens in October. This is my favorite gallery in London, I often go in and spend hours looking at the paintings from their permanent collection.

The White Cube Hoxton Square and Mason’s Yard will hold Anselm Kiefer and Damien Hirst shows respectively.

Fashion and Textile Museum have got Foale and Tuffin retrospective. I saw few designs of this iconic company few years ago at the V&A and loved every piece they produced.

British Museum:  Revolution on paper, Mexican prints 1910-1960. This is a real highlight for me.

I did miss one exhibition this summer which was Banksy vs Bristol Museum however Purple Cloud documented it very well so I feel like I have been there. Have a look here.

On Friday, after work, M and I met in the Battersea Park for an evening stroll. The autumn is definitely here, the leaves started to turn brown and fall on the ground and you can feel the chill. Squirrels running around, chestnuts on the ground, summer is over.

The setting sun made the sky pink, Albert Bridge looked incredibly beautiful…

The book signing and the pop up shop will be at my favorite shop – Liberty, just a minute walk from my office.

London Book Signing
Monday Sept 21st
6 to 8 pm
Liberty of London
Great Marlborough St.

SartoraLUST Pop-Up Shop – London
Sept 18th – 30th
6 to 8 pm
Liberty of London
Great Marlborough St.

I went, I got an excellent service, I bought.