London free love Day 3: Abbey Road

(Matt writing) Recently my friend Alistair, from SA, was in London for the day on a 24 hour stopover between flights and came to stay the night. The weather was nice enough so we stepped out the door on a stroll, to see what we could see ("It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to", Bilbo Baggins).


We started off heading down to Primrose Hill, to see the view, and Regent's Park, past the zoo and the ducks. Our plan was to find somewhere to stop for lunch. We picked The Volunteer on Baker Street, a couple of doors down from Sherlock's place, as we happened to be on that side of the park (the food isn't great, but they pour an 'ok' beer).

After lunch we decided to head to Abbey Road. 


Abbey Road, the famous album by The Beatles, also immortalised a certain pedestrian crossing in north London where the famous four posed during the 1969 photo shoot for the cover of their album. I'd seen this link, (http://www.abbeyroad.com/visit/*) a couple of days before, where you can watch tourists posing on the crossing. I'd been past it a few times whilst on a bus, but had never got off for a look around.

The crossing is adjacent to the Abbey Road Studios, the gates of which can be seen in the album photo.  Here is the album (via Wikipedia. I think it's ok to reproduce here. Does anyone else struggle when reading through image licensing laws?)

Not only is the zebra crossing still around, but it's free to visit so fulfils our challenge. 

London free love challenge Day 3: Abbey Road

From the webcam

After lunch we took a stroll home via Lord's Cricket Ground, which happened to be on the way.

It had been quite a long day with all the walking so we stopped for a much needed refreshment break at the Pembroke Castle in Primrose Hill. It's one of the four 'Camden Castles' dating back to the 19th century when construction gangs from the four corners of the United Kingdom, working on the 'new' railway through Camden, needed to be kept apart to stop the drunken brawling. The other castles are the Dublin Castle, the Edinboro Castle and the Windsor Castle - one for each nationality. 


All in all, a fun day out was made complete with a refreshing lager.


* The webcam is great because it's a live feed, so you could let people know that you're there and they can watch you. The footage from the webcam is also archived on the site for 24 hours so you can go back and save images from it, or tell your friends and family when you were there and they can check you out later on.

How to make pasta with one hand behind your back

About two years ago, Matt got into making pastas from scratch and he is a natural. He had an instinctive delicate touch to making pastas, even filled ravioli. We bought an Imperia pasta machine, and he was away.


Matt did a cooking course a few weeks ago with celebrity chef Valentina Harris, and she taught him a few tweaks that have improved his pasta making practice.


Here is how to make pasta from scratch. This is just the tips and techniques for the dough. We will go into more info on cutting, shaping ad sauces in another blog post:

Basic pasta dough for two

• 200 grams flour (50 % semolina flour and 50 % plain flour)
• 2 eggs

The basic rule of thumb is one egg per person, and about 100 grams of the flour mixture per egg. I also asked about flour strength. Matt said to use normal plain flour. You only use strong flour for breads. Also you need semolina flour, not semolina.

Make a well out of flour. Whisk eggs in separate bowl.

In go the eggs. Note the butter knife on the left here. That is there for a reason.

One hand behind the back. Show off.

The reason he keeps his hand behind his back is so he's not tempted to use it, so he can keep one hand clean. It reminds me of eating in Morocco.

The next stage is to just keep working in the egg and to form a dough. 

You just need patience here and eventually it starts coming together.

Mmm dough. Are you ready? Here comes the knife. Not the Swedish band, the butter knife. 

Scrape off all that doughy goodness.

It's starting to look like a ball now. What you are looking at is science. The kneading of the flour and the egg forms gluten, and creates elasticity in the dough. You can test this elasticity in action by pressing a finger in the dough. When the pasta is 'ready' the elasticity will cause the dough to gradually spring back so the finger mark almost disappears

Once the pasta springs back, Valentina recommends 'resting' the pasta for 30 mins before you start to cut it. Simply wrap in cling film and leave on the bench for about half an hour and you're ready to roll.

Nice dough ball

We did take photos for Part 2 of this tutorial, however our camera memory card corrupted so we lost them all, sadly. We will make pasta again soon and share the rest of the tips that Valentina gave Matt on how to roll pasta.

Fortean Blue Plaque

This plaque is just around the corner from where I work. I may have to pop along tonight.

Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena, such as Jedi mind tricks, UFOs, raining frogs.

From The Londonist:

"Tonight is his birthday and there will be a brief celebration outside Fort’s home at 39 Marchmont Street, which has a plaque above it dedicated to Fort, at 6.30pm on Friday 6th August. Fort would enjoy beer and cheese with friends so there will be a toast, a short reading. Then we shall write FORT across Bloomsbury in a pub crawl in his honour visiting the Friend at Hand, Old Red Lion, Rugby Tavern and Truckles of Pied Bull Yard. All but the worst fundamentalists are welcome."

London free love Day 2: Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross

I realised the folly of this challenge this morning, as I work full-time and have pretty busy evenings. How am I going to find the time in working hours? Anyway, just as I left for work this morning, Matt suggested I go to Kings Cross in my lunch break to see the platform 9 3/4 during my lunch break, the fictional railway platform that Harry Potter boarded the Hogwarts Express train to Hogwarts. Suspecting a prank, I got into work and did a quick Google search and Wikipedia check. Sure enough, there is a baggage trolley stuck halfway into a wall below a sign that reads "Platform 9¾"


Disaster. I went to Kings Cross at lunch but there is a lot of construction work going on, most of the walls were covered in scaffolding and boarded up. I couldn't find the infamous tourist spot, despite all the evidence on the Internet that it exists. I should be in this photo!

But all is not lost, I shall have to revisit this site and work up the courage to ask at the Information Desk. I know how Harry Potter must have felt when he was trying to find the platform. 


UPDATE: After a bit more investigation, i'm pretty confident I know where it is, and I was definitely near it, but I think it might be boarded up while the station is refurbished. I shall have to reinvestigate this, but may need something else to fulfill the challenge. Perhaps I can do two in one day tomorrow. Pressure! 

The London free love challenge: Day one

I have decided on a new challenge: To do something new in London every day for 30 days. Also, I want it to be free. In a way, I started this by mistake and have decided to roll with it.

Day one: Magnificent Maps at British Library

I work very close to the British Library so actually managed to squeeze this in on my lunch-break. However, I was so absorbed by some of the maps, that I didn't actually get to see the full exhibition in my lunch hour. It's well-worth returning to on another lunch break to see the other half.

Some of the guys in my office came along, and we decided it would be funny to buy a map in the shop, put Where's Waldo? on one of the maps and hang it in the exhibition to see if anyone notices. 

Jokes aside, maps are utterly captivating. In those early days of map-making there was no satellite or GPS systems, and maps were not objective. Most maps were made to make a comment about a country's wealth or status, or to boast of a king's reign, or ownership of space. Artists were commissioned by land-owners to reflect their wealth in these creations, cartographers were still experimenting with ways to represent the form of the world, kings used maps to intimidate neighbours. 

If you are in London, try to get down to see this exhibition before it closes on 19 September. 

Open seven days a week : admission free

Highlights:

• A HUGE atlas apparently the largest ever made, and it was published in 1660 (I think it's for giants)
• The world's biggest woodcut, an incredibly detailed map of Venice. I read it was by Jacopo de Barbara's and was made in 1500. "Sprawlingly wonderful, it's still the largest woodcut map ever created, so large in fact, as one of the helpful curators informs me, that they needed to construct a new paper mill in order to print it." 
• Henry VIII's map of Italy, where Venice is out of proportion and huge because it was a city of importance. 
• A gilded parchment of 1550 where Australia (my homeland) continues large underneath Europe, and the red sea is actually red.

© British Library Board

The oats with the most

On Saturday, I made Blueberry Oats, or Blueberry Porridge, inspired by Ashley at Edible Perspective with a few modifications because we didn't have any ripe bananas. 


Disappointingly, I used Tesco Frozen Blueberries, which turned out to be not very sweet and also had a strange texture compared to most blueberries. The skin was thick and chewy and the taste was not so great. 


Blueberry Stuffed Oats 

• 1c rolled oats
• 1.5c almond milk (I used coconut milk. It was on special)
• 1 banana (next time!)
• 1c water
• 1t vanilla
• 1c blueberries (we only had frozen, which weren't that great)
• pinch of sea salt
• 1-2T chia seeds
• 1tsp [heaping] cinnamon

1. Add oats, milk + water to a pot set over medium heat.
2. Stir in a thinly sliced banana.
3. Add in chia, vanilla, salt, + cinnamon and bring to a simmer until desired consistency is reached.  ~5-8min  [Ashley said she only stirs a few times during the process]
4. Take the oats off the heat, stir in the blueberries and then pour the oats into a bowl. (as I used frozen (left at room temperature and rinsed to defrost, I put these in a bit early so it wouldn't make the oats drop too much in temperature)

Chuck the oats, milk and water into the pan over a medium heat

Chia seeds!

The Chia seeds helps the porridge get nice and thick

The controversial blueberries.

I DO NOT recommend Tesco frozen blueberries. They mustn't freeze them on the day they are picked. Better to get fresh and freeze them yourself. Best to pick them, but we can't all be so lucky. 

After stirring through the blueberries, the oats turned a pretty blue colour.

Ashley recommends topping with Maple butter and maple syrup. Sadly, we don't have maple butter in the UK. I tried to make some myself and let's just say it ended up lumps of butter with maple syrup. 


Ashley also gives her fabulous looking recipe for almond maple butter. Yum, it sounds mad, I love it. But if you are feeling a bit lazy and you don't trust your food processor, you could just mix together a teaspoon of almond butter and some maple syrup. Just saying... 


It was nice, but the blueberries were quite a let down. It's not a fail, it's a first attempt. Next time I will make sure I use fresh blueberries and hopefully have a ripe banana on hand.