And then we had a Sunday

Broad beans: nature's over packaging

 

Towpath: we had a drink and watched drunk people capsize. Literally.

 

And some nicer than usual street art.

The Snick Off: Test 1, Picnic

Dear Reader,

I am very excited to bring you a new Food, Shelter & Clothing feature!! In our house we are calling it "the snick off challenge" which will chronicle our tests of the hypothesis "there may be a chocolate bar better than Snickers." Luckily, we live in the land of candy or sweet counters. We will try every one and report dutifully back to you, dear reader. Also, we will rate these chocolates on the Snickers rating where 10 = Snickers, 0 = no Snickers. This is an independent self funded study.

Today, we chose to sample the Picnic Bar.

 Our Picnic Bar photographed upon several of the books I'm currently reading on the dining room table.

Before starting, we cleansed our palates.

Unwrapped, it looked somewhat less appealing. Yes, in case you were wondering, my knife does have a disco glitter handle.

The Snick Off:
The Mister: Despite its turd like appearance, the Picnic Bar is a deviation on the concept of a caramel nut chocolate concoction with an infusion of rice krispies and raisins. The flavor on first bite, not entierly out of tune wiht the almighty snickers, is quite pleasant. Unfortunately, on further chewing the Picnic bar doesn't deliver on its promise. It goes from chewy to gooey.  Snicker Rating: 5.5

FS&C: I would describe the Picnic bar as a Fruit and Nut Bar with caramel and rice krispies. I don't know what lepersy looks like, but this is how I imagine chocolate covered lepersy. It tastes much better than chocolate covered lepersy, but once you start thinking of lepersy your chocolate bar enjoyment isn't great. More seriously, I would pick a Fruit and Nut bar over a picnic because the caramel isn't salty enough and the rice krispies make it too textural. It is ok, but shall not be repeated. Snicker Rating: 4

Market Report: Nonsense

Breaking News!

My mother, a very wise woman, thinks the fight over water is the next big thing.

Pomme D'amour!

 

The Mister adores potatoes, so for Valentine's Day, we had beet root and parsnip hash, broccoli with worcestershire butter, and  HEART SHAPED POTATOES. All of this was topped of with Frankfurter Greuner Saus and washed down with a nice dry cava. And then we shared a whole bar of green and black's butterscotch chocolate. Delicious!

Rimbaud Shoe Shine

 

I was listening to this podcast and appropriately walked past this restaurant. Other news, I adore stacked compositions these days.

ERs

 

 

Me and some of the royal warrants on my food.

I LOVE SUGAR

Dear Reader, I'm knackered (or is that gnackered?). Anyway, I've been working the past 8 days straight and have another 7 or so more. Fashion, in case you are wondering, does not weekend. On the way home from picking up some patterns and samples from a manufacturer in zone 23 this afternoon, I stopped at Lidl and picked up some no name Wine Gums. As you know, I am from the usa, and we don't have wine gums, so these are a special treat for me. I was savouring them on the bus with my husband and pack mule (he was doing the heavy lifting) and thought how nice of them to label each flavor. How much like chablis this gummy tastes like, and 'oh i do love a nice port' and what not. Now that I'm digging into the bag again after dinner I've decided to research these amazing treats. Here is the wikipedia entry. It was purely the power of suggestion on my tired mind! There is no booze in wine gums! This research lead me to another interesting wikipedia listing of note:  British Confectionery! Check out the various entries.

Bechamel: my ode to hibernation mode

Alas no photo for you, dear reader, of either the snow or of our bechamel + cheddar and leeks coated ravioli and broccoli.  On days like today, when my toes are nearly frost bitten all day, sometimes I just want to pop some store bought (£1! package for 2 raviolis) in a pot of boiling water with some broccoli, cook, sauce, bake and eat. And that is exactly what I did. May I suggest it?

Whoa! Stop the Presses and sign the petition!

Dear Reader,

You should sign this petition because the building currently existing here is lovely, and the one they are proposing really isn't (see image above). Image from here.

The Southern Hemisphere is so Hot right now!

So, dear reader, I spend a lot of time reading other blogs, walking the mean streets of Hackney, and disparaging as much as possible. There seems to be lots of attention being paid to the graphic designs inspired by African and Latin American textiles-- in particular I've noticed the jagged, repetitive lines, geometrical shapes filled with gradated colours, compositions that seem stacked rather than grid based. Newspapers talk about African inspired fashion while blogs like Mr.Mort and Indian Summer Vintage and vintage stores seem to respond more to Latin American or traditional Southwestern iconography. Maybe it is a proximity thing for the blogs, American bloggers are more likely to see things or be nostalgic for an imagined imagery that is geographically closer (and Swedish vintage stores in London are more likely to be sourcing their stock from New England or Canada) while here in the UK, particularly in this neck of London, we are more likely to see African stuff (I pass how many wax cloth shops and money transfer shops to Nigeria on my 30 minute walk to work? 15?).  Or just African inspired fashion is yesterday's news and Latin American will end up SS2011?  I'm sure that, to some degree or another, you can read a bit of colonialism or post colonialism into all of this.  But I have a sweet little Godard dvd to finish watching right now, but if threadbared (my new favourite smarty pants fashion blog) were to write about it, I'd prolly agree with whatever they post.

Reimporting Export Strength Gin: A Taste Off

To know me is to know my love of the "off." Be it bug spray, or better yet, the cook off, dance off, sing off, etc. So this holiday, we decided to test 2 diet tonic waters. Personally, I drink gin and tonics not because they taste like delicious turpentine but because of their medicinal qualities, particularly their anti malarial and anti scurvy ones. If you saw the size of the mosquitoes that breed in my work's loo, you'd get your doctor to prescribe g&ts, too. I digress. So, we tried both the Posh Tonic Water Sainsburys and their Basics brand. What did our intrepid guinea pigs have to say? It was easy to id the posh tonic water as it had a much more pleasant aftertaste, but it certainly wasn't worth the £.35/100mL price difference.

Market Report: HAPPY EASTER!

Where was I this holiday season, you ask? The answer is depressing: sick in bed or at work. The week  before Xmas, the week of The Mister's Bday, I was suffering from horrific food poisoning. Projectile vomit was involved, alas. I believe it is libel to suggest where these things happen without it being scientifically proven (and perhaps, alas, even then) so I won't.  Then, I was in bed with a cold all of xmas! It was t otally, heavens to Betsy particularly as one of my cold remedies may or may not have induced hallucinations! After xmas I returned to work, as there are pressing deadlines that cannot not be met. Yesterday, in my copious free time we hit up our local grocery store looking for discounts on xmas puddings laced with brandy and realized it was time to get ready for Easter!