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.

Whoa, an interesting new blog

So Dear Reader, I am trying to expand my horizons. And I'm not talking about eating poultry (for some reason pate doesn't freak me out the way all other poultry preparations do). This new fascinating blog called threadbared discovery on my part (thanks Jezebel!) has some very interesting articles that I plan on reading one day when I'm not swamped with my own worries of samples arriving on time.

Here, when I say I'm from "Jersey," they sometimes think I mean the tax haven...

When I was 15 I thought I was pretty cool cause I already knew all of all of this. I was glad that they brought up Adams of suburban NJ, because I have been thinking of my old town's Adams Shopping Center recently. Not for Adams or it's equally sad WASPy sister store Madam's, but for the cupcakes available in the bakery in this shopping center. They were buttercreme concoctions of magicalness unseen in this cupcake boom. They were decorated like cookie monster, like this one.

Gluttony!

 

Usually, I am very smug at the checkout with my whole grains. But today's shopping was blessedly silly. 

Dear Reader, I married him

While googling myself today, I found my old blog. And this charming posting about when I first met The Mister. I think his height is more like 6 foot 3, or whatever 190cm is in inches. You, dear reader, can do the maths.

Oh yes. ICE CREAM CUPCAKES! MINT CHIP ICE CREAM CUPCAKES!

One only turns the age I turned recently once. And this is how I wanted to celebrate:
Rarely does my mental image of my cooking match the actual results. This how they ended up:

Delicious. I use the chocolate cake and cream cheese frosting recipes from this CUPCAKE BLOG. I froze 'pellets' of ice cream in my idli tray, assembled and returned to the freezer.

Seeking: Needle Point Loafer Kit

I want to make my own. Not with owls but with something else. Where can I buy a kit to do this?

Hold that thought...

So, the clever folks at Homerton Hospital's respiratory clinic have not yet actually decide if I have TB or not. Public health, in theory, is a good thing. Let me tell you, it is a pain in the neck to be at the receiving end of it. I spent 2 hours on Thursday trying to get the conclusive "purple box" blood test. Hypothetically, if I do have TB, I can't even go to the fancy Swiss rest homes (where I could work on my German while reclining) as the Home Office still has my passport.

update

I don't have tb. I've known this for months, but have been to lazy to update it. apparently, I live in a council with a high tb rate. Not because of the immigrants- we immigrants are tested and treated if need be- but because of our friends who visit us and bring their rotten tb germs.

my arm has tuburculosis

Hackney is a TB zone. Please see image of Mantoux test from wikipedia and then my own welt.



Lets hope my lungs don't have it too!