Self Portrait

Burritown

Who doesn't love a Burrito? Like we all do, and I find it hard to believe that any two young-creatives-in-da-city love them more than Liz and I. So we been trailing around London town 'researching', and here are the results. 


Burrito Café
**
They just don't have a post code...
(Go up Caledonian Rd from Pentonville Rd)










So we're in the area. It's raining. I've just been propositioned with spending £40 to repair boots that I love dearly but barely cost half of that, and it's raining. Like a lot. So feeling wet and depressed, but £40 up, we goes for lunch.

I'm writing this to tell you just not to bother with Burrito Café. It's perfectly fine, inoffensive black beans and pulled pork, but I'm simply not in the business for dat. I want life changing burritos. Keep walking pass and pick yourself up an over priced sandwich from Drink, Shop & Do. 

Chipotle

***

Charing Cross Rd, but there's

another one in Angel. And everywhere else.

Now Jamie is a fan of Chipotle so naturally Liz and I are also fans of Chipotle. I like to think this is the healthy burrito joint, you can have like brown rice and they source all of their ingredients sustainability. Yes it's £8 for a burrito, but they were happy cows and you just can't put a price on a smiling cow. We've had many Chipotle experiences and when you turn 20, having just drank champagne in a Weatherspoon, the cynicism of 'your twenties' hasn't quite set in and you feel like the king of London, the little baskets they 'give' you make excellent hats for the bus ride home.

Whole Foods
****
The one in Kensington, just off of Picadilly.











So it's summer in London, the city is ablaze with plebian gentlemen with no tops on and it's beautifully silent because the little blighters* are still in school. We're scurrying down Picadilly because Liz needs a wee and we're late for a Francis Boulle lecture. Yep. We simply must eat. I am not meeting my second favourite cast member on an empty stomach, y'know? Feeling all W1 we nip into Whole Foods and pick up our favourite hot snack. 

Such fun to be had at the counter. What I think is high-larious is to use Americanisms to try and break the ice with the friendly authentic American serving you. Swap 'yes please I would like some corriander' to 'yeah sure I'd love some cilantro' and watch the vast chasm of awkwardness awaken between you and the kind man. As you fall into said chasm your friend (Liz) shall throw tumbleweeds at you whist you pay for your £9 burrito.

Not to be eaten with a red face, still scurrying down Picadilly, still needing a wee littering black beans and cilantro. 


* I love children, really I do, but all I want is to go to the Science museum in August without joining the queue at 6:15am.

Chilango

*****

We frequented the Chancery Lane branch but big up to the one in Angel.

We love Chilango! They give students actual free food. Like you don't have to sign up for shitty emails from NUS, go on a ski trip, give blood or anything, and every so often they give away free burritos on certain days after 5pm. Not to miss out on a free edible Mexican party, Liz and I arrived at 4.38pm so we could spend the next 22 minutes salivating and passing comments on the employed people with jobs going to their meetings in offices. I went chicken, Liz went pork. So delicious. That is all. 

That is the first installment. We are still researching whilst we continue to inch towards the next hole on our belts. When we hit the next wheaty jack pot I'll be sure to let you know what, where and how.  

BA (Hons) Fine Art

Elizabeth and I recreate great works of art to educate ourselves and the wider community.

The Creation of Adam 
Michelangelo 
c. 1511

THIRTY BEES: Making ravioli. Making friends.

Well friends we’ve had quite the carby week. We find ourselves at week 7 of our tenancy and we really are putting the time into our training to become the next Carluccio and Contaldo. Liz is Antonio. I am Gennaro. There have been homemade spaghetti and bread rolls, Paul and MaryBerry and wine and wine. Yesterday we done ravioli. Liz’s first time. Not mine. I am an apprentice-not-yet-master but yesterday we both came across pastas new; a pasta machine wot I got Liz for Christmas*. We were a-rolling and a-folding the whole way to a delicious lunch.

*Lakeland RRP: £21.99. Friends with former employee Greg: £21.49. 

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN RAVIOLI

Firstly make your pasta dough. 100g flour, 1 egg and a pinch of salt. In the middle of your flour, create a well with a finger and plop in the egg. DO NOT try to recreate Tracy Island with multiple wells, pools and lagoons. This will end in tears whilst your floury levees break. 

Continue to incorporate the egg into the flour. TOP TIP ALERT: Use just one hand to mix your dough leaving you a spare hand to write your dissertation or to fix a cocktail.  

Once you have incorporated all the egg into the flour, begin to knead the dough to get the gluten working in the flour which will make it nice 'n' stretchy like Beth Tweddle.  

Now it's important to let your dough rest, so cover it with some cling film. (Or 'food wrap' if you're poor like us and can't afford such luxuries). In the interim make a snack put your pasta machine together. 

Liz prepares

Once yo dough has rested for about 20 minutes and you've deciphered which handle goes where, cut the dough into quarters and SHOVE IT IN. Gently. 

Here it comes. 

Ta-da.

And then blah blah blah make a filling of ricotta, spinach, nutmeg and garlic, cut the pasta into rectangles blah blah blah fold them over and crimp them with a bit o' egg. More egg. And...

Just kidding. We made a bunch.

* Liz measures in at roughly 5'6" not the 4'8" as seen above.

We made two sauces to accompany. A tomato one and a stilton one, which were both yum. Here is guest Stef going wild for his lunch, whilst Liz grates. Cheese.

Such fun. We need little more than flour, eggs and mojito for an enjoyable afternoon. Stay tuned for more fun soon. 

In a cup

London

London is not a civilized nor a graceful city, despite the testimony of the maps. It is tortuous, inexact and oppressive. It could never be laid out again with mathematic precision, in any case, because the long history of streets and estates meant that there was a bewildering network of owners and landlords with their own especial claims or privileges. This is a social and topological fact, but it in turn suggests a no less tangible aspect of London. It is a city built upon profit and speculation, not upon need, and no mayor or sovereign could withstand its essential organic will.

Just read it.
London - Peter Ackroyd

Got My Favourites

Budapest, April 2011.

Wasp

This can be filed in the 'Nature' section. I've had a recent penchant for taking possession of dead things that fall into my bubble. It started with a daddy long legs, then a mouse and now a wasp. Like looking at your arch enemy square in the eye, I can now return to my place of work AKA CAPITAL OF WASPDOM, full of confidence without an ounce of nervousness. Maybe.

Returning To Work

Hello again. I have decided to start posting blogs once more. I have had a wonderful year, which I’m sure I will tell you all about in due course. Other than that there is not a lot else to declare. I shall endeavour to post entries of more substance but I simply can’t promise they won’t be lunch or pigeon based. That is all.

But for now.

Dear everyone in the whole wide world

Here I stand at the end of my tether. I have been boring, dull, irritating and selfish for several months now and I have decided to put an end to it. Long ago did I see my creativity dry up and I’m off to discover alternative resources. I’m going on an adventure which starts roughly Monday. I can’t guarantee I shall come back alive and well, but that is simply the risk involved. Don’t expect me to be coherent, giving or kind over the next indefinite-sea, you can just leave a message after the tone.

I have focused far too hard on what might happen, than what is happening right now, and as a result I have analysed and filed away absolutely everything into the appropriate mind-drawer and am now about to begin the process of obtaining new fodder for the next analysis appointment.

I am standing here on the edge, with one hand in the air and the other hand over my nose and mouth preparing to jump.

Farewell sanity. Into the abyss.