The Sneaky Magpie

The weather was glorious on Saturday, the sun was shining, the ground was covered with a film of snow and it felt chilly. A perfect day for a stroll down a market.

A friend  of mine and I decided on one of the less busy places, Broadway Market in Hackney.  This market is the perfect combination of food, fashion, antiques and books. You can flick through old copies of photography books while sampling wonderful infused olive oils and various cakes.

The street is full of cute little cafes, quirky shops and proper old fashioned English institutions like this jellied eel place:

And it was as busy as when it opened…

Fantastic vintage liquor cabinet.

I wouldn’t mind a picnic set for summer outings.

And some retro shot glasses (I am hunting for the perfect set).

Plenty of good quality fruit and veg. It’s a shame I live so far otherwise I would do my weekly shopping there.

Old fashioned candy – I don’t actually like them but the jars look so pretty.

We decided to stop for lunch in one of the cafes, it was called L’eau a la Bouche, we ordered hot chocolate to warm up and curried parsnip soup with pesto for my friend…

And ploughman’s for me. It was delicious.

Afterward we decided to stroll down to Old Street. There are some amazing buidlings along the way. They have so much character.

We headed to Leonard Street and had tea at The Book Club.

It serves as a cafe and you can play ping pong there, it also has got all kind of events like DJ nights, reading, fashion, discussion groups. A fun place and so laid back!

Then it was time to go home, I was exhausted as the previous night was spent at friend’s house for dinner which finished rather late. Btw did you see the amazingly bright Moon?? As explained by hubby it was the night when the Sun reflected off Mars and projected onto the Moon resulting in Moon shining like a mega light bulb.

I don’t like wasting food, I usually scan my fridge for goods on their way out and use them in a soup or stew. It really pains me when I do have to get rid of an odd bag of salad leaves at time to time. And I wish I had a garden so I could do compost (not sure yet what I would do with all the rats coming to munch on it which would be a major issue!).

Occasionally I find myself with one piece of fruit or veg left over. Sometimes it’s a challenge, sometimes the answer comes easily.

Last week I baked Swedish apple cake and was left with one huge Bramley apple. Fruit is easy, Bramley apples fall to the same category as rhubarb or plums – I don’t eat them fresh. So the simple and tasty solution is stewing them and using as a topping for my porridge.

Take one apple, a knife, a chopping board and veg pots as companions.

Chop the apple into large chunks. I didn’t peel the apple but I would advise you do as the skin is tough.

Place in the pot with one cinnamon stick and one star anise.

Add brown sugar (as much or as little as you like), a squeeze of lemon and a tiny bit of water.

Stew in covered pan until the apple chunks fall into pieces and cook nicely. Remove the spices and place in a nice Sylvac apple pot (or cucumber if apple is not available like in my case).

Enjoy chilled on porridge or hot with vanilla ice cream.

Yesterday I went to see a fun exhibition at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum: Foale and Tuffin and Made in England.

I first came across Foale and Tuffin 4 years ago at the 60s exhibition at V&A and loved their quirky colorful designs ever since. It’s easy to spot which contemporary labels got their inspiration from Foale&Tuffin, and nice to see that the company’s heritage lives on.

A classic trench I would wear now and a dress reminiscent of Eley Kishimoto and Marc by Marc Jacobs.

Kate Moss must have gotten very impressed by this flowery dress (yours truly in the mirror too). I love the frilly top of the second dress.

The Double D dress and a fabulous green summer dress. A breath of fresh air after New Look era.

Peter Pan collars were everywhere. The ‘Boyfriend’ jacket in the background.

It’s all about color and comfort.

Simplicity is the word.

There were pictures of Twiggy and Jenny Boyd sporting the brand often photographed by the young David Bailey as well as drawings of the designs.

The exhibition also had few hippie frocks but that’s not my cup of it, let’s leave it to Bill Gibb, shall we?

And this is the workshop of Sally Tuffin and Marion Foale, the queens of Carnaby Street. They loved Liberty prints.

If you have got interest in fashion history this is a major chunk of the 60s London.

It was time for M’s haircut in Spitalfields (who is now sporting a positively Orwellian look) so Diana and I decided to have tea and cake at Market Coffee House.

Banana, chocolate and pecan cake and gun powder tea accompanied by D.V. was a delightful hour.

Afterward we headed to Shoreditch High Street via Brick Lane popping to pick up some chai latte on route.

Visiting new places continues and this weekend it was Geffrye Museum which I enjoyed a lot.

The museum is housed in 18th century almshouse, it shows domestic interiors of English middle class in London through various periods starting with 17th century dining room and ending in a modern 90s apartment.

All the interiors are very well described, there are timelines of the crucial events that influenced design among other things. There are also notes on the domestic customs like doing the accounts in the afternoon and visiting Carnaby Street for fruit and veg in the morning.

Lovely wallpaper.

I live in Art Deco building so it was very exciting to see how our apartment should really look like.

This beautiful chair would really work well in our place.

My favorite period in interior design the 50s-60s. Pete and Trudie Campbell would feel here at home. I love the briefcase left next to the table, father is home, get the old fashioned ready!

Woolworth’s Homemaker cup and saucer.

Beautiful Art Deco coffee set from Shelley Potteries.

Art Nouveau vase from Royal Doulton…

…and ‘The Book of the Home’.

Funky TV and coffee set.

Great place, I highly recommend it. I will be back later this year to visit the garden.

Feeling hungry we decided it was time for lunch, off to Pizza East for portobello mushroom and egg ….

…and Margarita.

The day got rather nippy so I was glad to head back home, curl up on the sofa and immerse myself in more wisdom of D.V.

I was meeting a friend of mine for tea after work but the idea of a quick bog standard tea in a characterless environment of Starbucks, Pret or similar did not appeal to me at all. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good for a quick bite or a beverage on the go but for a nice chat I need something much better.

So instead of a £2 paper cup of average tea I decided to have a top of the range cup of white peony tea for £3.50 served in beautiful china pot and brought to my table by a smiling waitress. Sitting on a properly upholstered Liberty peacock print chair and resting my feet on perfectly varnished wooden floor obviously adds to the experience as does the whole decor and atmosphere of the Liberty tea room. I must consider the extra £1.50 as very well spent.

Of course I had to snap few picture of the windows of my favorite shop in the world!

My weekend started at Osteria Antica Bologna in Northcote Road, a nice family run Italian restaurant where I enjoyed delicious scallops with lentil, apple and parsley salad accompanied by good wine and fabulous company. I actually tried to recreate the lentil salad but it wasn’t as good, truth be told I used the wrong kind of apple. If you are ever in Clapham Junction area do go, it’s a fantastic place for lunch, dinner or drink. Beware of a slow service but the wait will be worth it!

Saturday was all about food shopping and a very early spring cleaning of the flat, we have thrown out a bagful of old papers and organised a lot of cupboards. We also visited the local charity shop to offload some stuff where I couldn’t resist buying F.Scott Fitzgerald collection of short stories for 50p.

After last two weeks of ebay madness I hardly have things to get rid of which feels so good.

Sunday was spent on cooking and playing with my little niece. I baked Allegra McEvedy’s Swedish apple cake which is more of a pudding than a cake, especially when served with good vanilla ice cream. Very easy recipe, it takes about 10-15 minutes to put everything together and 50 min to bake.

Got to read a little too, Vogue and ELLE arrived, The Sunday Times had a good article on Mad Men which btw won the best drama at Golden Globes for the 3rd year in a row, well deserved!

I am reading Chekhov’s stories and this weekend I enjoyed Ward no6. I also got D.V. by Diana Vreeland which I am very much looking forward to. Following the Norman Parkinson show at Somerset House I decided to re-read The Golden Age of Couture – the book accompaniment to one of my favorite exhibitions.

I watched the rather bad Breaking and Entering (a total waste of time) and the very graphic yet beautifully shot Antichrist.

Few things I am looking forward to:

a visual feast of A Single Man thanks to Dan Bishop

visiting V&A to see Quilts, Grace Kelly and Horace Walpole shows, and might even pop in to see a rather intriguing sounding The Metropolitan Police Service’s Investigation of Fakes and Forgeries

Foal and Tuffin at Fashion and Textile Museum should be fun, along with a stroll down Bermondsey Street

William Eggleston at Victoria Miro Gallery

Irving Penn Portraits at NPG

whole lot of good stuff at the Tate Galleries

buying some plants – I quite like the idea of mother-in-law’s tongue in nice mid-century pots, at the moment I own no plants whatsoever, even my basil died so this will be a challenge.

Soho is slowly changing for better, dated 90s places that used to be so trendy are leaving slowly, in come new good quality restaurants, the few I have visited recently are definitely worth mentioning.

They are added to my Soho Food Guide as well as listed here:

Barrafina in Frith Street – an amazing tapas bar, there is usually a queue but it moves fast and you can start your bottle of wine and snack on few nibbles while you’re waiting. Once seated you can enjoy a selection of meat, seafood and vegetarian dishes, all equally delicious. I had a couple of specials: razor clams and sea bream – great flavours, the tortillas are wonderful too. An absolute must go if you find yourself in the area.

Polpo in Beak Street – also tapas but this time Italian. Tasty and inexpensive for a quick bite when in town.

Bocca di Lupo in Archer Street – another Italian addition to Soho. A truly amazing restaurant specializing in regional dishes like grilled girolles from Lombardia, grilled squid with gremolata from Liguria or rather ghastly sounding sweet pig’s blood pate and chocolate with sourdough bread for dessert from Abruzzo. If you ever wondered where to sample all the dishes from Jamie’s Italian trip – this place is a good start.

Hix in Brewer Street – as the name suggests this is another addition to Mark Hix’s empire. A restaurant on ground floor and a buzzing bar in the basement this place serves excellent British dishes in great atmosphere.

I have also added Food Guides section on the right side bar, soon to come guides for East End, Notting Hill and Amsterdam.

Desperate to catch all the shows before they end I organised a tight schedule and stuck to it this weekend.

On Friday night I saw Ed Ruscha at the Hayward Gallery which was good but not mind blowing. Definitely few very good paintings. Afterward my friends and I went to BFI for some drinks, the new bar on the riverfront is so much nicer than the old setup and the chips are excellent too!

On Saturday I met another friend of mine at RA and saw Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska and Gill. A truly wonderful collection of sculptures and sketches. The most impressive being Bird Swallowing a Fish by Gaudier-Brzeska and Epstein’s Portrait of Iris Beerbohm Tree and the spectacular Rock Drill. Amazing show, really worth a visit.

We had a quick lunch in Soho and headed down to Somerset House to see Norman Parkinson: A Very British Glamour. Another great exhibition, a lot of pictures of Parkinson’s wife and iconic shots of Jerry Hall from the 70s. Well worth a visit, especially if you enjoyed Golden Age of Couture at V&A a couple of years ago.

Warmed up by the museum hopping we decided to end the trip at The National Picture Gallery to see the very entertaining Beatles to Bowie: the 60s exposed.

I watched very moving Wajda’s Katyn – a film about an incident from WWII and its aftermath that not many people know of.

And I almost finished watching Mad Men season 3, a thought of only 2 episodes left to watch is making me depressed. Drooling over Betty Draper’s outfits.

I have done a couple of New Year’s resolutions in the past couple of years and I must say I stuck to the biggest ones:

coffee – I haven’t had a cup of coffee for 2 years after I realised I didn’t like the taste of it and I hate milk, I was clearly addicted to it. All I liked about it is the smell and the culture of having a nice cup of coffee, looking for the perfect coffee house was my mission, I quit it shortly after I found the ultimate one

black tea – I quit it years ago, I really don’t enjoy the taste of it, It got replaced by green, white and herbal teas

meat – I quit meat the same day I quit coffee, I just stopped enjoying it, it had a strange smell even though I would always buy it from my organic butcher. It seemed my body didn’t like it. It’s only the end of this year when I started to crave it again, I had a chicken roast for Christmas and it was delicious. I am not going back on a full meat diet as I still prefer fish and vegetarian dishes but if my body needs it I will give in to it.

walking to work – sick and tired of the tube and feeling unfit I decided to walk from my house to Stockwell tube station which is about 40min walk and where I can always get a seat on the train. I did it every day rain or shine for year and a half till I started cycling.

This year I haven’t made any resolutions but I looked at last year and thought what I wish I did more of, there were 2 things that kept springing to my mind. First is to see more of England, 2nd is to go and see all the museums I never visited.

To start the year well we decided to go to Dover but the weather turned so nasty we quickly decided to postpone that trip. Instead we went to The Imperial War Museum in Kennington and it was fantastic. Obviously I am not a boy obsessed with fighting and machinery but I can certainly appreciate good design and have a huge respect for the past. The planes and an old wooden red double decker were really beautiful and I loved two soldiers’ busts by Epstein. There is also a small picture gallery where I saw some wonderful works of John Singer Sargent, Paul Nash and CRW Nevinson.

Here are some other places I must visit:

Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms

Geffrye Museum

National Maritime Museum

London Transport Museum

Dulwich Picture Gallery

V&A Museum of Childhood

Highgate Cemetery

Any other recommendations are very welcome!

I haven’t joined the sales frenzy on Boxing Day or any time after, I haven’t even ventured to town during the holiday break. But of course on my first day at work this Monday I couldn’t resist popping to Liberty and few other shops to check out what has been going on. I didn’t go as far as Selfridges but I did scan about 10 other shops.

And lucky for me (or my bank balance) there isn’t much out there, I couldn’t find a thing I would madly fall in love with. Not one.

But this morning an Outnet email landed in my inbox saying they had new Vanessa Bruno pieces in. How could I not look? And of course in 2 minutes I had three items in my basket. After a brief chat with myself I decided to remove one of them. But I couldn’t resist a skirt and a dress. There is a tiny little problem with the dress – it’s a very small size but I gathered I can always return it so we shall see in a couple of days.