Going places - Berlin

Carrying on from a post I made a month ago, about a trip I took almost 2 months ago, I am now detailing the remainder of my holiday in Germany.  It was everything I had hoped it would be and then some. Before I divulge holiday memories that are only of interest to my Mum (she's been asking me to post this), I thought I should provide back-story explaining why I wanted to go to Berlin in the first place.

Let's take a few steps back.  When I moved to Ireland back in 2007, I made friends with a couple of German girls, my first real friends in a new country.  In particular, a petite, blonde-haired, blue eyed, slightly stand-offish girl named Franzi and I became after I had a mini breakdown in front of her.  During a rather stressful night at a new job, I dropped a tray of glassware, smashing it everywhere.  I went outside to be alone for a few minutes, she happened to be heading to the same spot I was, and while she wasn't overly comforting (in fact, not at all at that point, but when I told her I was finding things hard, she gave me some perspective and basically told me to harden up), it was nice to have someone there at that time just listening to what I had to say.  The moment I knew she was a friend for life was when, a good 9 months later, I convinced her to quit her job and come on holiday to Turkey for 2 weeks, taking over the booking for someone else who couldn't come.  We had an amazing time and it was, and is, so good to have someone in my life that would quit their job in order to make things better for me.  In fairness, it was a shit job that I had quit a few months earlier, but still. The gesture meant alot.


Back in October I visited Franzi and her boyfriend Jamie in Berlin.  It was the first time we had seen each other in over 2 years.  Besides seeing my family for the first time in over a year when I came home from Ireland, it was the most excited I had been to see anyone, ever.  She greeted me at the train station in Alexanderplatz and we returned back to her and Jamie's place for some home-made soup her Mum had made for us.  The first night was spent catching up on 2 years worth of gossip and drinking excessive amounts of German wine, which I adore.  I think its the high sugar content.  I was still pretty tired from the previous nights hardcore techno clubbing in Hamburg, so a night in with soup was a much appreciated change of pace.

The next morning we set out as early as physically possible (just after midday) and headed straight for the last remaining stretch of the Berlin wall, known as the East Side Gallery.  If I'm being completely honest, my knowledge of history is pretty pathetic. I know about the Nazi's and their involvement in World War II etc, but when it comes to the specifics of German history and particularly the East/West divide in Berlin, I was completely in the dark about what had happened, and why, well into my trip.  I put that blame mostly on my poor high school education, but the fact that it was a poor education can't be blamed on anyone in particular.  I remember not being interested in German history at high school, but the fact of the matter is I just went to a shit school, that's all.

Despite my lack of historical knowledge, I knew what the wall stood - and fell - for, and the murals and its physical presence make it  impossible not to have emotion wash over you.   It's hard to believe such a divisive creation was in effect until so recently.  It's been 21 years since the wall fell, but in the scope of history that is not long ago at all.  It's less time than I have been alive for at any rate.

The proceeding days were spent touring the city, visiting monuments (the amazing glass-lift-shaft-aquarium for one, pictured left for one), important buildings, and generally being hungover.  On my second night in Berlin, I had my first official German meal:  Bratwurst, with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.  I've said it before, and I will say it again:  I am not the worlds biggest fan of sausages.  Don't ask my why, they just weird me out.  But this was delicious.  So delicious that I had seconds, and possibly thirds, I can't remember.  Sadly, apart from other wurst and brötchen, I can't remember trying very much authentic German food so my holiday wasn't much of a culinary journey.  But to be fair, I am no culinary expert anyway. I do remember eating a lot of cured meat, a lot of nutella for breakfast, and consuming much beer.  So very much beer.



That night, after we consumed the feast Franzi had lovingly prepared for us, Jamie and I downed 4 x 500ml beers each and decided to have a boys night out, leaving Franzi to study for her test the next day.  The entire night, consisted of the two of us trying to one-up each other with our beer-consuming skills.      Our starting point, a cool little underground bar, and we then moved onto the Kunsthaus Tacheles, an abandoned mall that has been used as an artist squat for the past 20 years.  This place was cool at night, but most of the rooms the artists housed were closed off.  It was a Monday, afterall.  Franzi and I visited it again later in the week (pictured) and got to see a lot more and see the sun set while enjoying a nice cold beer in their sand-pit courtyard out back. I even bought some cool copies of one of the artists' pieces.  On my first visit, Jamie and I spent most of our time in the bar.


Beyond these 2 places, I remember beer, jager-bombs, smoking hookah for the first time, beer, and joining a gang of Scandinavian women, hot Australian men and the most embarrassing, homophobic, hillbilly kiwi men on an impromptu pub-crawl.  The pub-crawl was cut short when all but the 2 least desirable girls and the hillbillies decided we weren't cool enough to hang with them, and literally ran off without us (Jamie was convinced their desire for 4am McDonald's was what caused them to sprint away, not our lack of cool).  Jamie and I ditched the hillbillies and headed towards the aptly named 'AM2PM'.  We enjoyed a few more pints and got hassled by a Swedish guy who thought we were gay (me? gay?  How very dare he).  We made one last ditch effort to stay out until the sun came up - failed - and caught a taxi back to Lichtenberg.  We ended our night, as one must, in a Turkish kebab shop, where we purchased the most delicious kebab I have ever tasted. The deep-fried cauliflower we purchased was ok, but was more fun to hurl at cars than eat.


The next day Jamie and I were both incredibly hungover and particularly fragile, but Franzi (slightly agitated by our sluggishness) put up with our behaviour.  We meandered around Berlin once again, stopping briefly at the Reichstag to assess that the cue was too long and that it was far too cold to be outside.  We lunched on currywurst, (which I would advise anyone with the intention of going to Germany, to AVOID if you are hungover).  That night I took my hosts out for dinner to repay them for their kind hospitality, to a dark restaurant - literally a restaurant where you dine in the dark.  I'll detail that in my next blog post.

Going places - Hamburg

Earlier this month, I spent 8 pretty incredible days visiting friends in Germany.  After  2.5 months of London-living, the excitement of being in a new place had worn off and the hassle of navigating a far-too-big city had started to bring back emotions (read: stress) I thought I had left behind in Auckland.  A much needed break was in order, and armed with the argument that I wouldn't get another chance to use my holidays until the end of January, I pleaded my case to the Powers That Be at work.  In fairness, no argument was necessary and they granted my wish.

Germany has been on my radar for a long time now.   When I first decided to move back to this part of the world, a few days after booking my ticket to London, I booked a flight ticket to Germany for 2 days after my arrival.  Unfortunately, the plan was thwarted by employment, but I knew the opportunity would present itself again.  And it did!

I spent the first 3 days of my holiday in Hamburg, with my friend Sonja who I worked with back in Auckland.  I left my London flat at 4am and got a taxi to Gatwick Airport (which cost 55 pounds, more than the flight to Hamburg itself cost - scoff) and after wolfing down some McDonalds for breakfast, I caught my flight.  The minute I sat in my seat, I passed out, and woke up mere seconds before hitting the runway in Hamburg.  Which is hilarious, because I've travelled from one side of the world to the other 3 times now and have got no more than 15 minutes sleep on any of those six 12+ hour flights.

Side note: Long-winded holiday blog posts (and facebook albums, which I also have!) are essentially modern day versions of slide-shows, so I will condense my weekend as much as possible but still inflict it upon anyone who dares to read it:

I quickly navigated my way through the the airport and onto the train bound for the city centre (briefly stopping to check out a couple of German supermarkets - I LOVE supermarkets in Foreign countries!)  I met Sonja in the centre of Hamburg outside her work and after we had caught up, we headed to the Elbe and caught a ferry down a section of the river.  German observation #1:  The Germans are very trusting.  Too trusting?  once were any of my transport tickets checked on any of the buses, trains or boats I travelled on.  

 After taking in the sights, we stopped in order for me to have my first (of many) bratwurst in Germany.  The sausage options were seemingly endless.  Get your mind outta the gutter.  In addition to bratwurst, they also had knackwurst (a short and fat sausage containing veal and pork), weisswurst (a white version of the above but not so short or fat) and my personal favourite, rosswurst (containing horsemeat). German observation #2: They do love sausage.  To me, a sausage is a sausage wherever you go and however you present it, and in general, are not up there with my favourite foods.  Unless it has horse in it.

Then, after a rather lengthy attempt to hire bikes from what we assumed would have been a simple bike-hire machine, we cycled the length of an underground passage a couple of times before heading back to Sonja's, where her brother Sven joined us for another traditional German meal - frozen pizza and beer. From there, we decided it was important that I was exposed to the seedy underbelly of Hamburg and we ventured out, slightly drunk, to the Reeperbahn, known in English as "the sinful mile."  Sven and I faced our fears and ventured down a street that only men are allowed to venture down, for obvious reasons. As windows opened and girls started gesturing towards us, I started to move faster and hustled out of there. There's nothing I fear more than being confronted by a half-naked woman with one thing on her mind (ps: I'm referring to money). We had a few more beers, but I couldn't keep up and fell asleep on the train going home.  Shame.

 I spent most of my time on day 2 alone wandering the city, which in my opinion is the best way to take in a new place.  I recognized a few landmarks I had noticed on the previous day's ferry ride and mapped out in my mind which direction I was going to head in, in order to be back in time to meet Sonja. First stop was a huge monument dedicated to Otto Von Bismark, some Prussian/German statesman or some junk.  I high-tailed it out of there and headed to the dilapidated ruins of the Church of St. Nikolai, the tallest building in the world from 1874 to 1876, which was mostly destroyed during WWII but today stands as a reminder of the destruction of Hamburg during the war.  There was a war museum underneath and some amazing statues in the courtyard, and you could pay 5 pounds to go up a glass elevator to the viewing platform overlooking the city (I did).

I snacked on German "tapas" for lunch (pictured right) which weren't particularly good, nor was the service - but given they had to communicate with me in English, I don't really blame them. I hate ordering in English in foreign countries, nothing makes me feel more ignorant.  But if I didn't order in English, I would have to resort to pointing and grunting, and I hope I'm well beyond my caveman days.  Either that, or don't eat.  And for me, that's simply NOT an option.

 I met my host at 5 pm and we spent about an hour of indecisive ambling looking for a German restaurant, ultimately ending up in some hilarious German-steak-house chain where I ordered the biggest steak I could eat, and got to watch the chefs drink beer while cooking my dinner.  Beyond that, there was nothing about this meal worth mentioning except all the waiters were 40+ and had to hustle their asses all night, as it was an incredibly busy restaurant.  I don't know how they do it, personally.

Later that night we went clubbing in the other clubbing district of Hamburg that isn't the Reeperbahn.  I can't remember what it was called.  All I remember is techno, lots and lots of techno.  And falling asleep on a couch in the back of the bar while my company danced the night away.  And then going home to bed.

So, Hamburg.  Beautiful city, and best of all - the weather was absolutely incredible the entire time I was there.  My next blog post will be about Berlin, which was my favourite city in Europe so far.  But before I get ahead of myself, the journey from Hamburg to Berlin is one that is worth mentioning.  In Germany there exists a method of transport called 'mitfahrgelegenheit' which is essentially hitch-hiking, organised through a website, and which you pay a pre-determined amount for and get delivered to somewhere in the vicinity of your destination.  I decided to do this solely based on its blogging potential, and it didn't create the furor I was expecting, but it was an interesting and new experience nonetheless.  I travelled with 2 German men and 2 German woman.  The men didn't say a word the entire 3.5 hour journey, and the women I could literally not shut up.  After an hour and a half of talking, I had to put my ipod on and turn away as my neck was ceasing up and I had run out of things to say (and patience).  But it was an experience, and that it is what I'm looking for in life at present.  And then I arrived in Berlin...
.

Sidetracked by monotony.

My London life has gotten to a stage where I feel it is too closely resembling my Auckland life.  I am officially settled and unfortunately, all I have going for me at present is my job.  I need to shake things up, in a major way.  And I will gladly accept suggestions - but know this - I am super lazy.

My wholehearted attempts at keeping my London life exciting are as follows:

Watching Jersey Shore.  And the Golden Girls.  A lot.

Drinking.  Irregularly.  Inappropriately.

Eating ice-cream.  In bed.  Semi-regularly.  At 3am.

It's like I never left Auckland.  Please note that the above are all things that I enjoy.

I'm trying to make friends.  I think I may have made a few in-roads with some workmates, and have had a couple of good nights out with them, but they're busy people and I'm their boss.  And my current job does not really lend itself to a social life, what with finishing at 3am on any given night.

At least I have Clea and Claire. I wish I had a GBF, though.  That's Gay Best Friend, and it would be awesome.

My love life, if it has ever really existed, has hit the skids.  No attention.  Not that I expect it, but it would be nice.  So I've signed up for a dating website.  And I went on a date (with a boy - hi Grandma!).  He asked me quite quickly if I wanted to meet for a drink... and I like the thought of dating, but the act itself usually leaves a lot to be desired.  So I said yes, and went on the date.   We just had a drink, well - he had 2 to be precise, which he nursed for 2.5 hours while I made frequent returns to the bar to get drunk enough not to walk out during his boring fashion stories.  It was an experience, but one I do not want to re-experience with a random stranger any time soon.  I did go on a nice date early on in my London life, but since then the ol' love life has been incredibly flat.

I bought an iphone on Thursday.  Had a screaming match with vodafone over the phone on Friday, and again yesterday afternoon in the Oxford St store where said iphone was purchased.  I was told  to go back there after calling the help line on Thursday, only to find that it closed 45 minutes early in order for everyone who works there to go home at 5pm on the dot, I could have had everything resolved Friday if I had just spoken to someone else in the first instance, and that call centres in London literally make me want to rip my eyes out.

I'm probably gonna check out Grindr because I'm a dirty gay.

I leave for Germany on Friday morning.  So.  Butting.  Excited.  Before I go, i have to do a full 50-ish hour week in four days.  But it will be worth it to have eight days off.  UPDATE: Just got Thursday off.  HUZZAH.   Now I just have to do a 40 hour week in 3 days, which isn't so bad.

Peace.

Caramelizing my life

Approximately one year ago, I had an unhealthy obsession with caramelization.  It started with some onions I caramelized for French onion soup one night, and from there it snowballed out of control.  For some reason, everything just tasted better when sugar was added to it (whilst sweating in a pan).  Particularly onions, but from memory I caramelized many, many things that in my simple mind no doubt benefited from the oxidation of sugar, but according to my friends this fact is simply untrue.

On Wednesday night I based my dinner around the opportunity to caramelize onions, so I thought it was worth mentioning.  I should also mention that when I made the tortilla for my paella night last Wednesday, it took every fibre of my being not to caramelize the onions that went into it.  Every.  Fibre. Of. My. Being.

Before I get to what I had for dinner on Wednesday, I shall inform you of what I got up to on said day, which was a beautiful late-summer London day.  This is worth mentioning, because the proceeding days have felt like winter.  Blah.   Clea and I decided the night before that we would hang out today and try and make the most of a 'free day' in London.  I suggested we go to Cockfosters, because... Cockfosters.  I then decided at some point the morning of that it was too far and not worth travelling all the way to the top of the Piccadilly line just to laugh at the tube station sign, so I suggest we go to Spitafields markets.   This was a complete bust, because all they sell on Wednesdays is women's clothing.  After perusing lady garments that suited neither Clea nor myself, we decided to have cocktails for lunch, with simple salads on the side at some decidedly shit but trendy restaurant in Spitafields.  We then tried to walk from Liverpool St to Shoreditch.  We found Shoreditch High Street, but it is not much of a High Street.  We then walked to Old Street and caught the tube to Angel in search of more adventures.  We went to a bookstore, where I bought Jamie Oliver's cookbook Happy Days with the Naked Chef and then we ended up having another cocktail.  Clea went home at about 5pm, at which point I was sufficiently liquored up and got that familiar urge to caramelize.
On this night of nights, I also decided to cook dinner (and just for myself) as opposed to eat takeaways and go to see the Shout Out Louds with Claire.  Very unlike me, but I'm glad I did it.  You need to have those kind of nights every so often.

Post-cocktails, off I waddled to Waitrose, where I walked around for a while until I settled on cooking and eating stuffed portabello mushrooms filled with basil, pine nuts, hummus and caramelized onions, topped with Smoked applewood cheddar.  Side note:  Smoked applewood cheddar is quite possibly my new favourite cheese.  It is utterly delicious.  Smoky and cheesy?  Winning combination.  The only real preparation for this meal was the onions, which I sweated off with some garlic before adding white wine, balsamic vinegar and some muscavado sugar.   Simple.  The mushrooms turned out quite delicious, but my decision to serve them on top of a rocket salad smothered in a balsamic mustard dressing was a bad call.  Too many flavours that ended up clashing in my pie-hole.  It did look nice though and the mushrooms were quite delicious.

The finished product

The raw product

The caramelized product

Update:  I had these for lunch yesterday sans the overpowering salad and they were much more deliciousness.  I even offered up a piece to a chef.  He was a bit put off by the look of them at first because of the mushroomy mushness of them, but he said they were delicious and was surprised I made them.  Good work, me.

delicious gu

A much appreciated discovery from last weeks dinner party:  GU.  Some British dessert company whose specialty is chocolate treats.  Tara, one of the bartenders at my work rocked up to the dinner party with these shot-glass shaped cups filled with chocolate pudding.  HOMG.  Amazing.  There is currently an empty shot-glass sitting next to my bed.  An unfortunate result of a 17 hour shift at work on Monday night.  But I digress, today I discovered Gu chocolate souffle.   All you need to do is bake it in the oven for 13 minutes.  SO DELISH.  And super cheap.  I will never bake a chocolate souffle again.  Not that I've ever baked one before.

Finally, just because it bears mentioning:  Monday marked a first ever in my hospitality career:  a 17 hour shift.  I started work at 9am and left the building just shy of 2am.  Say what you want, but that's pretty hardcore.  I was so tired that at the end of it I called a taxi to take me to bed, got up in arms about them trying to charge me and extra 3 pounds, and walked home.  I am aiming to do a 24 hour shift one day.  My restaurant manager is currently on vacation so I have the run of the place, essentially for the first time.  It's going relatively well, I think.  I'm sure things will fall to pieces soon enough, check back on Monday when I recollect the carnage of the week that was.

A tourist view of London

My friend Akari was in London for 4 days and stayed at my apartment in Bow.  On Wednesday, we had a dinner party, which I chronicled in my last post.  On Thursday, we ventured into the city for a day of sight-seeing, which was something I hadn't done properly since my first visit to London in 2008.  We started in Liverpool St, where we looked at the architecture and perused the markets.  We then headed to Trafalgar Square and took some seedy photos with the lion statues, before walking to Bin Ben and going on the London Eye.  This was actually something I thought I would never do, not for any particular reason, I just didn't think it would ever be relevant.  It was interesting but I didn't learn anything about London.  We then headed to Portabello Markets (not that the markets seemed to be on - a recurring theme in my market-going experiences) and unsuccessfully tried to locate pivotal scenes from the movie Notting Hill - which was difficult for me, as I have never seen it.

We got back to my house at around 8pm and were both fast asleep on the couch by 8.30 that night.  The next day I went to work while Akari went exploring the places I didn't want to go the day before.  That night we met up in Paddington and went to The Providore and Tapa Room in Marylebone.  I friggin love this place.  It's tiny, but the food is really amazing (which is to be expected from Peter Gordon) and the whole dining experience exudes New Zealand, which is a nice feeling to have on the other side of the world.  I went into the Providores the day after I arrived in London for the most amazing 4 course tasting menu with Claire.  I don't want to detail every dish I had, but all 8 that we shared where simply divine.  It made me second-guess my decision to take a job elsewhere, giving up the opportunity to work with Peter again.

When I first decided I was coming to London, I had a job lined up at the Providores and Tapa Room.  I worked for Peter Gordon in his Auckland restaurant, dine by Peter Gordon (they've just taken my name off the website in the past 2 weeks - *tear*) for 2 years and just before I decided to come to London, had discussions with him about working as his personal assistant.  Which would have been fabulous, but it didn't work out.  He then offered me a job in the Providores but I couldn't get a concrete job description from anyone involved so kept my options open.  That's when I stumbled across Bistrotheque - and applied - and had a conference call interviews over the phone with the directors - and found out I had the job while in Malaysia.  I do still feel like I've missed out on something by not working for Peter here.  I think I could learn a whole lot from him, and above all, I respect the guy immensely for everything he gives back to various organisations, both in New Zealand and abroad.

But back to my latest Peter Gordon experience -  Akari, Kerrie and I dine in the Tapa Room for the first time.  The food in the Providores (the 'fine dining' portion of the restaurant) is much more complex and more in line with Peter's food that I know, while the downstairs Tapa Room (named for the cloth that covers the wall, not the tapa-esque portions of food) has a relaxed, much more casual vibe and service style and serves up smaller, less complicated dishes.  We were treated to a round of cocktails on arrival, a sharing plate of spanish chorizo, guindilla chillies, olives, bread and other deliciousness, as well as roasted figs with goats cheese and a basil and buffalo mozzarella salad.  Peter also took care of our desserts, which was totally unexpected but very much appreciated (as it meant we could spend more boozing it up later).

Once we were sufficiently full and drunk on NZ wine (The Providores only lists NZ wine.  Pretty cool for a London restaurant), we decided to hit the clubs in Soho.  As I was still recovering from tonsillitis, I thought it best if I left early - but this didn't happen and we ended up in gay bar after gay bar until we finally found a place that didn't close 15 minutes after we arrived - The Place That Shant Be Named.  Suffice to say, this is the gayest of all gay bars,  we stayed there til close to 4am, and somehow both straight girls I was with managed to pick up, yet I somehow did not.  I got asked for my number a few times, but What.  The.  Fuck?

The next morning I put Akari on the tube to go to Luton Airport to catch her flight to France.  All I could think of as she left was how jealous I was was that she was getting to go travelling, and how much I am looking forward to going to Berlin in 14 days.

How to throw a paella party

Wednesday night was my first ever official dinner party.

For me, it's always stood as a signifier of adulthood. Being of an age where I have a stable group of mature friends who won't just scoff at the idea and I can invite over for a glass of wine and a nice meal. Which I cook. And we eat. I've had small groups of people over when I've attempted to cook 3 courses, pot luck brunches, dinners and barbecues and I've cooked for my flatmates many times throughout the years, and those experiences have always been fun - but on Wednesday night I set myself a challenge and then sat down at the dinner table to be judged for my efforts.

It might not sound like the biggest deal, but for me it kind of was.

My former flatmate, colleague and good friend Akari arrived in London on Wednesday afternoon for a whirlwind visit, and her arrival was the main reason I wanted to have the dinner party. I invited another former colleague from dine by Peter Gordon, the restaurant we all worked at in Auckland and it was a nice, but brief reunion, which ended with Akari passed out at the dinner table before the end of the night. Another friend, Clea, has just arrived from the United States, so it was a welcome dinner for her as well. I also invited a couple of my current work colleagues, most of whom came, and it was nice to mix my old and new friends and meet some new people that Mario and Akari brought with them. The biggest relief of the night for me was actually having people show up. Towards the time it was supposed to start, I started receiving the "something's come up! I'm not coming!" texts and started to get a bit worried, but at the very least I knew I would have Akari, and she would eat as much as needed to make me feel like it was worth my time and effort. In the end 12 people showed, which was more than I expected, but a number I could easily accommodate.

I've watched a shitload of cooking shows since arriving in London, which has actually been a good thing for an aspiring food-blogger like myself and I got the idea from one of them to make paella. What really hooked me on the idea was seeing an amateur chef flame-grill capsicums on a naked gas hob in preparation for his paella. I love playing with fire, so this was a logical addition to my dish.

Before I even attempted that, I started with what turned out to be my (much needed) vegetarian option - a Spanish tortilla de patatas. I completely forgot that I had invited 2 vegetarians and thanked my lucky stars that I had this on stand by. A tortilla is effectively a frittata, except that it is Spanish... and it usually only contains potato and onion. I added spinach, as we could all use more vegetables in our lives. It was pretty easy to make - I Beat 12 eggs together with some salt and pepper. Cooked off a 500gram bag of spinach and drain all the water out of it by wringing it through a tea-towel (which was ruined as a result, but spinach juice is the worst thing in the world, ever). Quartered, par-boiled and sauteed about 12 baby potatoes with one large red onion, thinly sliced. When the potatoes and onions were softened and slightly sweet, I folded them with the spinach into the egg mixture. Once bound together, bake it in the oven for about 25 mins until the centre is cooked. The most important thing to remember about making a good omelette or fritatta or tortilla - season and

cook your core raw ingredients to their desirable form before putting them into your egg mixture. I cannot stress this enough. Once raw shit is in there - the damage is done.

Eggs cook incredibly fast, and so anything in there that isn't cheese or tomato is not going to get cooked thoroughly. Raw onion, soggy spinach, bland boiled potatoes - these items have ruined far to many egg dishes in my day, and they must be stopped. My tortilla turned out beautifully, so I let it rest for a couple of hours, as a tortilla de patatas is traditionally served at room temperature. This made my life much easier.

Next up was the big challenge: prawn, chicken and chorizo paella. I put this off as long as I could. Partly because I wanted it to be ready to eat just as everyone was ready to eat, but mostly because I was shit scared that once I started it, it would get out of control and get the best of me, and I was already in quite an emotional state from all the drugs I had been taking and all the Golden Girls I had been watching. I researched quite extensively and consulted a number of recipes, taking only the best bits. For example, despite their recurrence I omitted peas, because I find them weird. I also omitted squid, because unless served freshly cooked, it is incredibly rubbery and unappealing, and fish, because English fish is eww. I largely took my ingredient cues from one of Jamie Oliver's many paella recipes on the net, as I liked the addition of chorizo, and because he's a pretty respectable fella. However, methodology I got from elsewhere and I can't remember why or where - but I remember having good reason at the time. I didn't follow the recipe strictly, but kept checking back to see what order things needed to be assembled in. Quantities I guessed because it's paella, you can't do it wrong (unless you under/overcook the rice). One thing I DID forget to do, was to take photos of the paella in its various stages - at least ones that make it look like a delicious dish anyway.

My first task was to roast the capsicums, or red peppers if you will. I did this by sticking them straight on top of my gas hob. This worked a treat and gave them an amazing smoky flavour and softened them right up - the burnt bits just rubbed off. I then cooked the natural oil out of the chorizo, and added pancetta, onions, garlic and the diced capsicum. Meanwhile, I dusted 4 chicken breasts in flour, browned them in the pan and set them aside. I then infused 2 litres of chicken stock with 3 large piches of saffron. (This was fun, as I had never cooked with saffron before, and would now love to try something totally new with it. It is rather expensive through! Once I was organised, I added Spanish paprika and about 850 grams of calasparra rice to my chorizo and onion mixture. At this point, I realized that within minutes of adding the stock, my paella was going to double to twice its size. I scooped out about a third and placed it into a deep pot and carried on preparing - making sure to treat both parts of the paella as equals. With everything under control, and my guests slowly arriving I

started adding my stock and the paella began to take shape. It was a pretty wonderful sight - to see something that took quite alot of time, money and effort come together with minimal drama was quite a feat. Once the rice was cooked, I added the chicken and some 'fresh' prawns' and let the paella sit and soak up the rest of the liquid for about 20 minutes while I chilled out. Once everyone was sitting around the dinner table, I squeezed over the juice of 1 lemon, and sprinkled some chopped tomato and parsley over the top.

This is what it looked like just before the entire pan was demolished. I wish I had taken better photos but I will have to make do with what I got. The dinner, and the paella, were both pretty well received I think. It's something I will definitely do again soon, but perhaps with a much smaller group and with a more challenging set of dishes. Either way, I felt a great sense of accomplishment and had an awesome time cooking and sharing the meal with my friends. Despite doctors orders, I had a few beers and a glass of wine with dinner to reward myself for a job well done, and miraculously had no side effects from the penicillin. I guess it hasn't worked quite as effectively as I would have hoped, but they were some much needed beers, let me tell you.

It's high time for pie time

I feel it neccesary to begin by recollecting my first doctors visit in London earlier today. It all began when I started to feel ill on Friday morning, and ran out of drugs at some point on Friday night. At work. Which let me tell you, isn't a fun experience when tonsillitis is rearing its ugly head. I got home at 2.30 on Saturday morning (I asked one of the other managers to close as a favour to me, so technically, this was finishing early). Everything nearby was closed and I was too fragile to venture out of the way to get drugs. This was a mistake. Saturday was possibly the most agonizing day of my young life - I cry-stumbled around the house aimlessly looking for comfort and tossed and turned myself into various contorted positions in bed and on the sofa until 4.30pm. I had texted my landlord earlier in the afternoon to get the details of the medical centre nearby that he recommended to me when I first moved into the neighbourhood. Once I knew where I was going (and that it wasn't too far), I decided to venture out, to a) get coke - as this is the only thing that gives me any sort of relief when I have tonsillitis and b) suss out the medical centre. As it turns out, its about 3 minutes away, which is super convenient. But it closes at 1pm on Saturdays. And doesn't open on Sundays. Epic fail. So I waited until today and woke up later than expected - half an hour before I was meant to start work in fact, and ventured to the medical centre. I needed to register, which was fine. Even the request for a urine sample didn't phase me. But then, they wouldn't schedule me for a consultation until I had my medical check. They could onlyfit me in at 5pm. By this stage I was getting a bit emotional, so the woman assured me that they would likely be able to see me straight after my check. Not true. At first they refused me until I got emo and lied by saying it was an emergency. So she said come back at 5.55. I got seen at 6.40 and my appointment lasted approximately 3 minutes. It went something like this:

Me: I have tonsillitis.

Doc: Let's have a look, open up *checks swollen and puss laden tonsils*

Me: ?

Doc: Yup

Amazingly, the whole process was free. I'm guessing its paid for by my national insurance, but I still will expect a substantial bill just because. I now have this lovely pile of drugs on my coffee table. Don't worry, I don't have a problem I'm just a hypochondriac.

Once I was sufficiently drugged up and completely devoid of emotion, I decided that I would have McDonalds for dinner. Because that's how I roll when I am sick. According to GoogleMaps, McDonalds is on my street and is about a ten minute walk. On the way there, I had an attack of the guilts and decided that because there was a supermarket between my house and McDonalds, I should go there and get something healthy instead. I am sick afterall, and a large part of it is surely my poor diet of late. Healthy was my intention, but what I really wanted was a meat pie. Preferably a Big Ben steak and cheese pie, but they don't have those in the UK. Ironic, no? Big Ben pies are a kiwi institution. You can find them at every dairy, service station, supermarket and school across the country. Steak and cheese is my personal choice, delicious velvety cheese, melt in your mouth steak and that gravy, mmm. For something that only costs $1 (maybe $1.50 now with inflation) and doesn't come from a fast food chain, it's pretty amazing comfort food. The best come from those glass warmer cabinet things in the corner dairies - they get a bit sweaty in the bag and the pastry goes slightly soggy, because they're heated straight from frozen. But that's the way I like 'em.

It's always amazed me that only Australia and New Zealand truly embrace pie-mania. We go fucking nuts for them - we used to even have a pie fast food chain, which could explain the obsession. The Brits have meat pies (thank fuck for that) but judging by the number of Chicken Cottages in London, they are more inclined to inhale some fried chicken or make a trip to the chipper to finish off a night of drunkery. So the pies aren't particularly refined - at least the ones I've seen so far. Cue the Fray Bentos (pictured right) - a pie in a can, which I discovered on tv tonight as one was being smeared all over Dawn French's massive boobies (ps: it looked like diarrhea) My flatmate tells me is absolutely heinous. Really England? A pie in a can? I guess its a step up from the Americans, who only really consider 'pie' to be fruit based. What's up with that yo?

I didn't think of this until just now, but my pie-craving was a definite result of watching far too much Pushing Daisies today. They work in a place called the Pie Hole, which is a building with a PIE CRUST ROOF for fricks sake. It's not even subliminal, but I have my excuses for not realising. Anyway, I found a steak pie in The Co-Operative (a supermarket, but really I think it's a gas station) that was £2.19. That's essentially the price of 5 Big Ben steak and cheese pies in New Zealand. At this point, my expectations were rather high and I secretly prayed that I had haphazardly stumble upon Big Ben's English cousin in the chiller section of a gas station in London. Alas, it was not nearly as good - but it was not bad either. I would go into detail of why it wasn't as good, but at the end of the day it was a £2.19 gas station pie from outside NZ. Really, what could I have hoped for? Also: I ate the pie with lots of veges which were gross but made me feel good about myself. I guess being sick makes me homesick and nostalgic and Big Ben pies are one of the few things you can't get from the New Zealand shop here.

After this experience, I am determined to make a delicious pie in the coming weeks. Last year I made an awesome steak, chilli and 3 cheese pie last year that seemed like a crowd pleaser, as well as a chicken pie that went down a treat as well. Me and da girls have decided to have dinner nights so my first contribution will be a pie, methinks. Flavour to be determined, but it will probably be steak and cheese. I've never made pastry, so I will give that aspect of pie-making a crack. Of course, if Ned the pie-maker from Pushing Daisies weren't a fictional character, he could roll my pastry any time.

The first of many angry rants

And I'm sick for the second time this month. Which is extra lame, as I've got the weekend off. Lucky - I almost booked tickets to Copenhagen for 140 pounds, and now I am sooo glad I didn't. This is not just a cold, not just a flu, but some indeterminable, debilitating illness that is making me sweat like a beast in the middle of the night, draining me of all energy, making me sleep poorly and til 5pm and causing me to be crabby as fuck to anyone who comes near me. But since I won't be leaving the house this weekend, the only people who have had to endure my bad mood and general mopiness were my workmates last night.

It feels like tonsillitis. I hate tonsillitis. The positive? I get to eat ice-cream for dinner. I wonder if curry is good for tonsillitis...

I don't think my current work schedule is good for leading a balanced and healthy lifestyle. 2-3 days a week I am at work from midday to 2 or 3am. Everything they feed us is beige - not a vegetable to be seen in the place, well, for the staff anyway. I've started taking fruit to work, but when you start considering ketchup part of your 5+ a day, you know you've got problems.

Other things I hate today? BT, who just informed me that I contacted them to cancel my service effective this Wednesday. I just sent a scathing email (which I toned down slightly from the intial version because I don't want them to fuck over my account). It felt good because they have pissed me off far too many times, and I need to vent at SOMEONE today. They are such bastards.

Wah wah.

I shall end this incredibly negative post with some positives. My former flatmate and one of my absolute favourite people in the world is arriving in London this week. She's only staying for a week, but it will be nice to have another familiar face around. I am also about to book my flights to Germany from the 8th to the 15th of October. I will start in Hamburg, with my friend Sonja and head to Berlin on the 10th to see my other good friends Jamie and Franzi. I was actually meant to go to Hamburg and Berlin when I first arrived in Europe at the end of July. I had worked it out with my employer at the time, but then when I was in Malaysia, found out I had gotten a much better job. So I packed that one in. It wasn't until I got to London that I was told they wanted me to start on the 22nd of July - 2 days after I had arrived. Now I know most people struggle to find a job in London, and money is tight (I started working straight away and spent a good $7000 NZD in the first 6 weeks) but ... having major jetlag, no sense of orientation and nowhere to live makes things SUPER hard. But anyway, Germany! So. bloody. excited!

Beetroot and British hospitality

A quick post that I felt needed to be made before this significant event becomes so long ago that it is irrelevant. Last week at some point (it may have been Thursday) I attempted to make a bean, fennel and beetroot salad. When I got home, I realised I got the wrong beans (mexican chilli beans instead of broad beans) and the checkout woman, thinking it was limp celery, threw away my rather sad looking fennel without me noticing. I didn't know if these random ingredients would have worked as a salad but I was keen to try and was thwarted by fate. Regardless, the beetroot did make it back to my kitchen and came in a sealed plastic bag. I had never seen it this way, only completely raw or completely preserved in a can - but this was apparently 'fresh' - it required further cooking to unlock all of its beetrooty goodness. The options on the package were - 1) remove from packaging and poach in a pot on a stove top, or 2) pierce repeatedly and poach in the bag in the microwave on high for 3 minutes. I naturally went with the microwave as it involved the least labour.

The result?

CARNAGE. My meal ended up being some disgusting concoction that I'm sure my grandparents were forced to eat during wartime - except perhaps without the Mexican chili beans. I would say it most resembled borscht, but I really have no fucking clue what is in that.

Other than that which occurred last week, this has been a rather lackluster week. I have come to one conlusion, only earlier tonight in fact. And that is that I WILL be a contestant on the British version of 'Come dine with me' at some stage in my London life. For those of you who don't know, 'Come dine with me' is a show where 5 people, over the course of a working week, cook a 3 course meal for one another in their own homes and secretly grade each other during the cab ride home. At the end of the week, the host with the highest cumulative score gets £1000 pounds. Pretty simple premise, but its amazing just how cunty and cut-throat the contestants get. That's the UK for you - cunty and cut-throat. I want to be cunty and cut-throat! So I intend to apply. I will keep you posted on my application, I am far too tired to do it now and its well past my bedtime.

Okra and the angry lesbian

I had a couple of days off last week which were largely spent wandering around aimlessly in a flu medicine induced stupor. Despite this, I got quite drunk a couple of times and spent more money than I have in my bank account. Which is not surprising given I am in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and how quickly all the hidden costs add up. I invited my good friend Claire over for dinner as she cooked for me the night before - she made some weird pork concoction called uccelletti, which are essentially pork and anchovy patties wrapped in bacon, served with fricasse-style stew of fennel, carrots,mushroom, white wine and a shitload of cream. It was a delicious meal, to be sure. One that I knew I couldn't top given my lack of inspiration and internet to research recipes at the time.

Claire - one of my best friends and easily my closest confidante in London - is a name that will be bandied about regularly in this blog. She is a closet lesbian with violent tendencies and an affinity for oversized mens flannel shirts. Just kidding, she's not a lesbian. Since I've arrived in London, we've shared some delicious meals, many a bottle of wine, and the occassional night posing in a tiny alcove shelf on my stairwell. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of wine and puts me to shame in matters of vino on a regular basis, and annoyingly knows the lyrics to every song in the history of music. I recently also learned to never, ever take her to a gay bar. Ever.

After getting trapped on the tube for an hour and sitting in a never-ending management meeting at work, I came home to spend an hour on the phone to BT in order to sort out the internet connection. An hour and a half later and Claire was a mere 40 minutes away. Not really enough time to plan a meal andget to the supermarket and back. So I skipped the planning part and went anyway. As I stood in the checkout queue 20 minutes after I told Claire to be at my house, with her screaming down the telephone for me to hurry the fuck up, I realised I could have planned better.

We will shortly be joined by Clea, who is arriving next week after spending the summer working in some camp in the middle of nowhere in the US. I don't know Clea quite as well, but she did gift me an iron when she left NZ and the difficulty of making proper friends in London will no doubt bring us closer together. She will surely be part of our increasingly-difficult-to-schedule dinner nights, what with our busy London lives and such. Clea is what I like to refer to as a functioning clusterfuck - bad things always seem to happen to her, hilariously bad things at that. But to be fair, they are largely self inflicted.

So anyway, I decided that I would buy some steak, which I would attempt to cook medium rare, served on a chilli-butter bean mash, with potato gratin, steamed baby corn and ... okra. Okra, also known as 'lady's fingers' is a vegetable originating in Africa best known to me as a component of gumbo in the US. I saw the okra on the supermarket shelve, and decided it would be a fun new side dish to add to our dinner. It's something I've seen on occassion but have limited experience with. When I was in Malaysia, one of my travelling companions ordered it as a side on our last night together. It was served lightly steamed with a garlic and soy marinade. Pretty fucking delicious all in all. So I was confident that my version would be wonderful.

The vegetables were ignored until everything else was near completion as I didn't want them

to get over-cooked. I asked Claire to remove the slightly browning ends of the okra, at which point we commented on its unexpected furry and prickly exterior. I steamed the okra and corn in salt water for about 4 minutes, then removed the water and added some butter. The okra became mushy and the corn stayed particularly firm. The butter took on a disgusting stringy, gooey consistency, obviously a side effect of the okra being overcooked. Nobody warned me this would happen. Once plated and presented, Claire politely tried to eat the okra but then confessed, rather diplomatically, that it wasn't for her and that she really didn't want to finish it. Which I graciously accepted. The rest of the meal was delicious, if rather filling, and after eating a ridiculously cheap orange and carrot cake Claire and I watched some Golden Girls while nursing our bloated bellies.

I learned a couple of things from this culinary experience. 1) Try not to keep Claire waiting, as she is well scary. 2) If you're going to serve steak, spend the extra money on a good, fresh cut from a butcher, because supermarket stuff is incredibly plain, even when heavily seasoned and cooked moderately successfully. 3) Okra is fucking weird and best when not prepared by me. Finally, I learned I need to centre food on the plate when I am going to photograph it, and to balance the colours of my dishes, as there is a whole lot of beige going on here.

We finished the night off with some homemade raspberry lemonade that we had prepared earlier. I can't really remember why we made this, I may have seen it on a cooking show. We prepared this by pounding and simmering about 3 large lemons in a cup of water and a shitload of muscavado sugar, and then added a punnet of raspberries. When cooled, we strained off the lemons and bits that we didn't want in our drinks and I (sneakily) added half a bottle of vodka and a bottle of soda. The boiling of the lemons gave the lemonade a strange, medicinal taste but we drank the jug quite easily before Claire realised it had any vodka in it.

Moderate success!

An introduction of sorts

Hello.

Based on the enjoyment of friends who have recently partaken in the blogosphere, I have decided to give it a good Aussie go. There's nothing I like less than feeling like a bandwagon-jumper, but its not like anyone I know invented blogging, and I'm sure none of them will disapprove of me joining in. Not the ones who count, anyway.

I have contemplated writing a blog for some time now, but - and I can only assume bloggers will empathise with this - finding a focus to write about that will keep both the writer and the reader engaged is quite difficult. This has been quite a deterent for me.

That and the shit service of BT, which has delayed my internet service for what seems like forever. But I have had the internet for a day now, and 3 back-dated entries on my desktop that seems horribly contrite now that I'm re-reading them.

I'm a kiwi, but have recently moved to London. For no reason really. I lived in Ireland for a year when I was 21 and hated it, but decided after 2 years of being back in New Zealand it wasn't for me either. Not at this point in life. I've been in London for 6 weeks now, have a good job, a rather small circle of loyal friends, and Europe on my doorstep. But still - besides work, things feel a little direction-less and unfulfilled. And I don't want work to be the only thing I have going for me. In the past i've filled this void by being in destructive relationships, but not this time. Next weekend I am planning a very short trip to Copenhagen (budget permitting) and the second week of October I'm heading to Berlin to see one my best friends. Exciting! I've hit the ground running (so I've been told) and I'm trying to make the most of opportunities when they present themselves.

I do love food, and partly because this, I've stumbled ass-backwards into a hospo career. It's been 4 years now. I'm currently the assistant general manager of a place called Bistrotheque in the East London borough of Bethnal Green. We have a tranny cabaret theatre and apparently the 'who's who' of London art and fashion are our clientele. I really have no idea who any of them are, except the few celebs that have stopped by so far. Its a lot of hard work and long hours, and as a result I dont cook much. When I do get to cook, I like to have dinner parties and intend to have one next week where I will attempt to cook a shitload of paella. I also love cooking complicated dishes without recipes, and drinking. And drinking while cooking blind leads to some exciting and imaginative new combinations.

I'm still not 100% sure of my blogothesis (that's blog hypothesis, something I just invented), but I'm not really 100% on anything at the best of times. Ive narrowed its down to talking about food - something that has had a pretty big influence on me and the decisions I've made, my new life in London, and the fun things I am going to do involving both that will make this blog worth writing and reading. Let's see if it works.