Kettle's Yard and other Cambridge delights

This weekend I returned to my educational homeland of Cambridge. It's three years since I graduated and there have been times where it's just confusing to go back there because not a lot has matched Cambridge since I left. But this time I felt all the youthful optimism and a proud territoriality I had in that blissful naivety of student days.

king's college, cambridge

I went to visit Kettle's Yard which is an art gallery and exhibition space. It's an amazingly tranquil and relective place, great for students and weary tourists alike. It was donated to the University of Cambridge byJim and Helen Ede. Kettle's Yard house was their house and that's what makes it so special. It has the feeling that you're in someone's house as though everything lays untouched. As well as their art collection it houses their home including trinkets and treasures collected along the way. The art collection includes Alfred Wallis, Christopher Wood, David Jones and Joan Miro, and sculptures by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Constantin Brancusi, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. It's fascinating to see the art in a 'real life' setting and it adds a dimension to it that is lost in so many galleries. It shakes off the austerity of formal art spaces.
Museum staff were some elderly ladies who looked rich in stories and wisdom and added to the quaint charm. I was dutifully informed we could sit in any of the chairs and read the books in the library. I also went to see the current exhibition by Tim Head- Raw Material.

Gaudi Brezka - 'The Dancer'

kettle's yard

bookshelf in a chair

chair, kettle's yard

There's also a captivating piece of willow tree, it was hit by lightning on the river cam and the singed remains resemble an old man.

I recommend Local Secrets if you're heading to Cambridge for recommendations of cool restaurants, shops and things to do.

My personal recommendations include:

1- Trockel Ulmann und Freunde A german cafe just out of the centre, amazing hot chocolate with fresh cream, coffee, home-made cakes (like blackberry, chocolate and nut and orange and almond) and soups.  And the cherry on the proverbial cake is some sumptuous decor.

2- The Zoology Museum see some of Darwin's samples from his time in Cambridge to the Beagle voyage, also see fossils and skeletons of a giant sloth, ichthyosaurus, elephants, antelopes etc etc.

3- The Rainbow Cafe great veggie and vegan restaurant

4- Punting along the river cam, take the lesser travelled route to Granchester...

5- The Orchard at Granchester ponder under the apple trees like Rupert Brooke, Virginia Woolfe, Watson & Crick, Wittgenstein, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath

6- The Empress pub go to feed the miniture pet pigs in the beer garden and enjoy the year round countdown to Xmas

7- Mill Road The road less travelled, great international supermarkets, restaurants like 196 meze bar, cafes like the black cat cafe and CB1, and other weird and wonderful things

8-Jesus Green Lido the longest lido in Europe, good for a summer dip if you're scared of wild river swimming in the Cam

9-The Round Church it's a church, and it's round.Pretty cool.

10- The Wren Library. I've said it before I'll say it again. It is amazing. See some original Winnie the Pooh manuscripts alongside Newton's Principia and Wittgenstein's notebooks. All housed in the Library designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Literary Heaven.

I could go on and on. But I won't unless you're interested. I'll end by saying it is way better than Oxford. Obviously.

The Delicious Miss Dahl

I watched Sophie Dahl's new cookery programme on BBC 2 last night. And I actually really rather enjoyed it. It felt like a fun frolic with your ever so-slightly rebellious friend. It's had a bit of so-so media coverage and unfair comparisons to Nigella-the-godess-Lawson. She's not trying to steal her crown but yes, it's a bit similar, a bit sickly sweet and a bit pretentious. But in a way, that is all the things I love in a cookery show. There'll be 6 shows in all, each emotionally themed, this week was food for when you're feeling Selfish.

http://www.quentinblake.com/index.html

The title is unashamedly Roald Dahl. But actually, Sophie Dahl is an enchanting story-teller in her own right. And she was the muse for Sophie in the BFG. She had a excellent way with words, scripted or not, and this was the best feature of the show to me. She oozed enthusiasm in this respect but I couldn't help but feel that this didn't quite cross over in the food. It was good-looking wholesome food. I took some ideas from it, but it wasn't earth-shatteringly good. With the plethora of whimsical women donning our screens with 'new' cooking ideas I think the food in The Delicious Miss Dahl could have been better.


I did like the interludes, of Dahl in little shops musing and lusting over items. I think she tried to appeal to all the classes and all the viewers, careful not to emphasise her generous upbringing and probably sizable fortune. I think she liked food, but if anything I wanted a bit more Nigella-based indulgence.


All in all, a nice tuesday night drift into dreaming of the good-life, the good food and the good-times. I might not be buying her cookery book, but I'll be watching next week, Romance, and I may indulge in her novella.

In particular one quote that I liked was this,

 "Be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend."
Katharine Hepburn

Je t'aime, le cool

Le cool says it all in the name. Le Cool offer a refreshing group of guides to the coolest cities in Europe. Somehow, they feel quite anti-guidebooks actually, they're pretty hotch-potch and not designed to tell you the big touristy monuments. Le Cool cover Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, London and Lisbon. If you're a bit sick of Lonely Planet and like the independent feel, these are a great option.

You can get your hands on really awesome guide books which are super pleasurable to read and look at or you can go cyber and virtual-click your way through weekly magazines (also including Istanbul, Dublin, Moscow and Budapest). The weekly features are nice because it's obviously really up to the minute, and often you'll be visiting a city for a long weekend, and want to see the most hip-happening/hot-off-the-press/just-opened/one-night-only stuff, including gigs, cinema, festivals, talks, protests, clubs and museums.

This week it tells you where in London you can Make a Dress in a Weekend (Prescott place if you're interested), or go to an Alice in Wonderland inspired Manhattan Tea Party and Underground Markets. It is bursting at the cyber-seams with le cool stuff to do. It's even le cool if you live there.

What other people say,

“The guidebook for people who hate guidebooks”
The Guardian

“The travel guide for the been-there, done-that set”
New York Times

“Your hippest good friend”
The Independent

“Get your hands on one ASAP”
Grafik

I Heart Joni

 

Excerpt from A Case of You ~ Joni Mitchell. Love reinvented by Laura Marling.

A poem by Hugo Williams

A few months ago I heard this poem by Hugo Williams whilst he was in the running for the TS Eliot Prize 2009. I really liked the close observtions he made. It's quite a power to turn the mundane into something so touching like this. The poem is from his collection, West End Final.


Marital Visit ~ Hugo Williams

The odd thing put away
in the wrong place – cups and plates
back in the cupboard
that I always leave out,
curtains open on the street
that I always keep drawn,
remind me of your recent brief
progress through here,
looking for something in the attic.


How could I forget:
butter in the fridge, but never eggs,
burnt matches everywhere,
in spite of the gas lighter,
jam jars soaking in water
to get the labels off.
How typical of you
to give the Chinese teapot a last chance
to prove itself in company.

And look at that tea towel
slung like your signature
over the back of a chair.
I could weep for the small spoons
lying down with the forks,
the corkscrew with the tea strainer.
Leave them where they are forever?
Or harden my heart
and put them back where they belong?

Mexican Food Made Simple

 

Having been to Mexico and experienced the food there, I am infactuated to say the least. However, I am now a foodie snob and scoff at many popular references to so called 'mexican food'. Food in Mexico is not just a commodity it is a huge part of their culture, history and pride. Tex-mex- It. Is. Not.

The food is rich and sumptuous. Offers at Day of the Dead, often include food- a sign of the most precious thing they can give. From the chocolate and chiles in Mole, to the  guacamole, corn tortillas, tamales, churros, horchata, tinga and esquite. The list is endless and a veritible feast for heart and soul. In Mexico I didn't manage to bring back a cookery book and looking here in England I thought I'd have to make another visit just to do so.

But Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers has come to my culinary rescue with Mexican Food Made Easy. Having spent a good deal of time in Mexico and now opening the slightly unfortunately named Wahaca....why it is not Oaxaca, I do not know...in London to rave reviews, she's now bought out a Mexican cooking book, Mexican Food Made Simple. When amazon faithfully delivered the hardback brick, I was amazed at how interesting and Mexican the recipes were.

They're also, true to the title, easy to follow and have some nice stories and musings to help it go down. A few of the recipes use a master-recipe of roasted tomata salsa. Using this I made the chicken and corn humble pie. The sauce has a good punch to it, the recipe is really quite flexible and good for left over chicken and it has a light corn-based topping. It went down well and 'pretty mexican' with my Mexican guest. Tlayudas are high up on my next-to-try list.

Mexican food made simple seems like a real winner for anyone who loves the authentic mexican food. Perfect for dinner parties too, which I like because Mexico is such a friendly interactive place and food is really central to social and family life. There's also a section on the types of chile and herbs to use and a directory of Mexican food shops in the UK. A long over due Mexican cooking book that allows me to lust after mexico once more.

Ñam!
8/10

Happy, sunny days

Win a round the world trip with Lonely Planet. I've just uploaded a travel photo of some taxis I saw in Taxco, Mexico,  to Lonely Planet's new competition and subsequently spent about half an hour browsing other peoples, getting inspired and dreaminig of sunnier climes.

Taxco Taxis in Mexico