odd paradox.

left a warm and sunny london for a chilly and rainy united states.

totally worth it.

WE WILL BE IN THE AIR ON OUR WAY TO THE STATES [WAY TOO] EARLY TOMORROW MORNING!!!

WOOHOO!!!

another quite good recipe before I forget.

ben was not so keen on the beetroot I simply cut up and put in a salad, too bitter or something, he said.
but then I made this a few nights ago.

last night I came home to find him making it again, all on his own.

recipe = deemed a success.

so without further ado:

Beetroot and potato gratin

Ingredients:
-500ml double cream
-3 cloves of garlic –finely sliced
-sprig of fresh thyme
-3 medium beetroot
-2 large potatoes

Directions:
1. Place the cream, garlic and thyme in a pan and bring to a simmer. Then remove the pan from the heat and leave the ingredients to infuse for 10 minutes. Then put them through a sieve.

2. Peel the beetroot and the potato and slice them into very thin slices, (you can use one of those mandolin things if you have one) you are trying to get slices about the same thickness as a £1 coin. Then place the beetroot and potato slices in alternate layers in a baking dish – top each layer with a little of the cream mixture and some salt and pepper.

3. Place in a pre-heated oven and bake at 170C/gas mark 3½ . It should take about 45 minutes.  You can check to see if it’s done by  sticking a knife in to the middle – it should go in without resistance.



trust me[us]. it's yummy.

we now lurve beetroot.

[recipe via]

Cooking Day, Ben's Birthday Edition!

first up:

 Whole Baked Brie with Honey + Pecans

Ingredients:
-1 small, whole brie (about 300g)
-2 springs thyme
-2 tbsp honey
-a handful of pecans, toasted and chopped
-crusty bread to serve

Directions:
1. Heat the oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6.

2. Put the brie in an oven-safe dish, make a few cuts in the top, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle thyme over.

3. Cover with foil and bake for 5-10 minutes until gooey.

4. Sprinkle with pecans, drizzle with honey and serve with warm crusty bread.

Also in the picture, some really nice goat's cheese from Whole Foods, courtesy of Dani and Mike, simply sprinkled with some black pepper and served with more bread.

Delish.

Blackberry + Apple Crumble Cake

Ingredients:
Cake:

-175g unsalted butter
-150g golden caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp
-4 eating apples, peeled, cored and cut into 8 wedges
-3 large eggs, beaten
-200g plain flour
-2 tsp baking powder
-150g creme fraiche
-150g blackberries
-3 to 4 tbsp clear honey or maple syrup

Crumble Topping:
-50g unsalted butter
-50g soft brown sugar
-1 tsp ground cinnamon
-75g flour
-50g blanched hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

Directions:
1. Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line a 20cm springform tin with baking parchment.

2. To make the crumble topping, melt the butter, then mix in the soft brown sugar, cinnamon, flour and chopped hazelnuts.

3. Heat 25g of butter in a large frying pan. Add 1 tbsp caster sugar and the apple wedges. Cook for about 10 minutes until the apples are tender and golden. Cool.

4. Beat together the remaining butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually mix in the eggs. Using a large metal spoon, fold in the flour and baking powder. Add the creme fraiche and mix until smooth.

5. Spoon roughly 2/3 of the cake mixture into the tin, spread level and scatter over 1/3 of the crumble. Top with the remaining cake mixture and level again. Scatter on another 1/3 of the crumble and arrange the apple wedges and blackberries on top. Finally top with the remaining crumble.

6. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours. Loosely cover the top of the cake with a sheet of parchment paper or foil halfway through the cooking time if it is browning too quickly.

7. Cool the cake in the tine for 10 minutes and then transfer to a serving plate. Warm the honey or maple syrup and drizzle over the cake. Serve warm.


and finally

Fresh Strawberries with Sour Cream and Brown Sugar
Ingredients:
-fresh strawberries
-sour cream
-brown sugar

Directions:
1. put strawberries, sour cream and brown sugar all in separate bowls.

2. Take a strawberry, dip it in the sour cream, roll around in the brown sugar and then eat.

3. Enjoy.
[simple, no?]
[was too busy eating to take photos...]

woo hoo!!

take that icelandic volcano whose name I can't pronounce!

the planes.
they're back a flyin'.
saw one fly over my office not an hour ago.

the good vibes for our flight friday just got a hell of a lot stronger.

also, anybody else think that Lord Adonis is a really funny name for a transport secretary?
or for anybody, for that matter?

excerpts from a photographer's blog, who was booked to fly to nyc last week to shoot a wedding this weekend.

we can identify.

and her sense of humor is spot on.


thursday 15th april
Wake up, terribly excited. Check flights, flights cancelled. What the hell? Something about a volcano. Flights still leaving London so hop on a train. £300 and 4 hours later we're in London and flights from Heathrow have been cancelled too. Fuck. Call N's brother and beg for food and shelter. Plea granted. Brother in law suspects bed bugs in his bedroom so we sleep on the living room floor. Flights rebooked for tomorrow. Iceland cursed thoroughly. 

friday 16th april
Wake up. Check flights, cancelled again. Decide we might as well enjoy the day. Go home, check flights. Flights pushed back for another 12 hours. Fall asleep in a ball on living room floor. Wake up, now have flights for Sunday evening. Curse Iceland to hell. 

saturday 17th april
Wake up. Skies still dusty. Flights pushed back more hours, Mum's flights home from New York cancelled. Begin to wonder what exactly the point of Iceland is because really, it just seems like a giant fucker to me. Call flight people and change flights to Thursday. Thursday is last chance time. N uses the phrase 'when the volcano has chilled out a bit' on the phone to flight people. Flight people respond 'Sir. I do not understand what you are saying.' Flight people have limited sense of humour. Suggestions are made that Iceland be nuked. Decide the people can probably leave first, I don't hate them, just their fucking country and its fucking volcanoes. 

sunday 18th april
Arrive home, check flights. Times pushed back further still. Starting to worry very much about missing the wedding. Speak to mum stuck in new york city, she is slightly hysterical. Am more sympathetic than expected considering she is having our holiday.

monday 19th april
Wake up, get self and N ready to leave for the seaside where we plan to meet Cate and Nate and Talia for lunch and squidging and a little nibbling. On they way home, silence ensues as we pass through Croydon. As bed time approaches news reaches our ears that British airspace will reopen in the morning. We go to bed happy. 

tuesday 20th april
what a fucking joke. British airspace will never reopen. Oh sure, a flight went from Glasgow to Stornoway but big fucking deal. Stornoway's shite, and you can get there on the ferry. We decide that if our flights don't go on Thursday we will give up and go home. So we book bus tickets. I'm strangely enamored by the thought of being back in Glasgow. My spirit is clearly broken.

(later)

Well bugger me with a bunch of bananas. A plane just flew over the house. 

 

 

the only thing that can distract me from my volcano woes?

neil patrick harris and jason segal battling it out.

les mis style.



glorious.



also glee.

discovered on a fellow Fellow's (hee) blog, the most recent impact of that damn volcanic eruption in iceland.
[and if ben and I aren't flying to dc come friday morning, that volcano's gonna get a piece of my mind.]

from The Guardian:
"Air freight problems arising from ash cloud over Europe could leave supermarkets short of perishable products within days. Britain's supermarkets could soon run short of perishable goods including exotic fruits and Kenyan roses as the ongoing ban on UK air travel brought Britain's largest perishable air freight handling centre to a standstill today."

I mean, it's from The Guardian, so obviously it's a bit dramatized, but the point still stands. the way the uk (and most larger countries) obtain their perishable food is none too sustainable. As ben and I can attest to, grown near-by and in-season is not a bad thing. actually, it's rather nice.

Either way, makes me damn glad our fruit and veg comes locally (sometimes from hackney itself! which is wicked awesome), and my constant stream of delicious beetroot (which I have a newfound love of) will not be disrupted.

[reminder to self: put up kick-ass beetroot and potato gratin recipe...]

may I present kick-ass british ice cream deliciousness, no.2:

the awesome dessert reasons not to leave the UK are rapidly piling up....

I don't even know how to begin to describe this awesomeness.

I am a huge and unabashed dr. horrible fan.
[I've got the soundtrack and the videos on my ipod. legally purchased even.]
bringing in the 8-bit video game graphics and sounds of my childhood just multiplied my love in ways I didn't even know existed before last night when ben showed me this video.

I am waiting in tenderhooks for act two and act three to appear on youtube.

tenderhooks people.

[original act one here]

also, can we talk about the sheer brilliance of neil patrick harris?
lordy, if he weren't gay...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8621407.stm

all I'm sayin is thank goodness ben and I are flying next week...

or a certain wedding would be missed.

and that would not be cool.

not cool volcanic ash, not cool.
[literally. hey ooo!]

I need an old typwriter so I may type notes such as these.

[via]

dear girls of london aged 12 to 26,

please note the following.

kind regards,
bethany


[via]

afternoon observations:

1. going to the shop for water post lunch is a much better idea that pre lunch or far enough into the afternoon that lunch is a moot point anyways and you are hungry again. fewer spur-of-the-moment chocolate bar purchases occur this way.

2. you want to be looked/stared/glanced at oddly by many many people on the street? wear bright yellow tights.

3. the sun is glorious.

4. I apparently am unable to walk to and from a destination along the same route. I drew a diagram.
[made in microsoft paint. excuse the crudeness.]

[totally did not remember this complete lack of a skin tone colour from when I used this program as a kid. thus the no arms and head. only my bright yellow tights saved my legs.]
I have no idea why I do this.

5. rice cakes are freakin' delicious. no matter what ben says to the contrary.

it's images like these that makes me wish our flat had even the teeniest sliver of outdoor space.

also, a balcony would mean that my black thumb would magically turn into a green one.

automatically.
cause that's the way it goes.

I want to be an urban farmer, damnit!

[enviable brooklyn balcony garden here]

my baby's [finally] started a blog!

http://bluebollard.blogspot.com/

go over and show him some love.

[tho not too much. my job.]

 

Glove map of London
George Shove, British
1851
Printed map on leather

The international expositions staged in Europe and America over the past two centuries attracted exhibits and tourists from around the world. To help organize the sprawling grounds, cartographers issued specialized maps that rivaled the inventiveness and visual allure of the displays themselves. On this ladies' glove, George Shove fit a map of London and the Great Exhibition. The Exhibition's distinctive Crystal Palace is near the base of the palm. The relative positions of other London destinations are also drawn in: St. Paul's Cathedral across two fingers and Kensington Gardens near the wrist.



why have I not thought of this before?
I get lost all the time, it's one of my special talents.
why have I not yet printed a map of the city onto the palm of my gloves?

so handy!
[pun intended]


[via]

 

oh Yellow Shoes,

what do I have to do to make you mine?

[via]

From The Wooster Collective:

Exciting news from our friend JR who emailed us just a few moments ago from Kibera, Kenya - one of the largest slums in all of Africa.

Today, after more than a year of planning, 2000 square meters of rooftops have been covered with photos of the eyes and faces of the women of Kibera. The material used is water resistant so that the photo itself will protect the fragile houses in the heavy rain season. The train that passes on this line through Kibera at least twice a day has also been covered with eyes from the women that live below it. With the eyes on the train, the bottom half of the their faces have be pasted on corrugated sheets on the slope that leads down from the tracks to the rooftops. The idea being that for the split second the train passes, their eyes will match their smiles and their faces will be complete.

 
wow.

just wow.

 

this right here is proof why [in my humble opinion] jim henson should be nominated for sainthood.

immediately.

I'm finally getting around to posting recipes and a photo or two from the first ever "come to bethany's flat and cook something you've been meaning to try out but haven't found the time to do so and drink and talk and eat and be merry" event.  
[the CTBFACSYBMTTOBHFTTTDSADATAEABM, for short]

it was fun, fabulous, delicious food stuffing and a huge success!

the next one is planned for this sunday.

which also happens to be ben's birthday.

and maybe it won't take me a month to post the recipes for this one... 

so without further ado, I give you the recipes!

[cooking credits:

      crab cakes - sam

      drunk mushrooms - laura + pablo

      mushrooms, spinach and ricotta tarts - me 

      coconut macaroons - me +sam

      drinking a prairie oyster for the first time for our amusement - ben

      there to eat (and apparently shop) - peter] 

 

Crab Cakes

Ingredients:

-500g mixed crabmeat

-grated zest of one lemon

-1 tbsp finely chopped parsely and/or chives
-1-2 tbsp creme fraiche (optional)
-4 tbsp plain flour
-1 medium egg, lightly beaten
-50 g slightly stale white breadcrumbs
-a large knob of butter
-4 tbsp sunflower oil
-seas salt and ground black pepper


Directions:
1. Put crabmeat into a bowl with lemon zest, parsle,.chives and seasoning. Mix together, adding a little bit of creme fraiche if needed to bind.


2. Divid into 8 and shape into fat cakes, around 2cm thick. Chill for one hour.


3. Put flour on a plate and season well. Pour the egg into a shallow dish, then scatter the breadcrumbs on another plate. Take a crab cake and dip it into the flour, turning over so that it is lightly coated in both sides, then dip it into the beaten egg and then into the breadcrumbs. Repeat with the rest of the crab cakes.


4. Heat butter and oil in a large frying pan. When butter starts to sizzle, gently add crab cakes to the pan and fry over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes until crisp and golden brown underneath.


5. Turn them over and cook for another 2-3 minutes.


6. Serve immediately with crushed garlic mayo (or creme fraiche) and lemon wedges.

Drunk Mushrooms


Ingredients:

-6 big flat mushrooms, such as portobello

-mozzarella cheese, sliced
-parma ham or prosciutto, cut into strips
-white wine
-creme fraiche or soft cheese


Directions:
1. Lightly oil a baking try (with sides, to catch the juices) and arrange the mushrooms top-side down.


2. Pour a small amount (1 spoon or less) of white wine over each mushroom. In a seperate bowl, combine a cup or two of wine with the soft cheese or creme fraiche. Season mixture with salt and pepper, or any other desired seasonings.


3. Place the ham over the mushrooms, and them top with the cheese slices. Pour the wine and cheese/creme mixture over the mushrooms.


4. Bake the mushrooms in a 200 degree C oven for about 15 minutes, or until the liquids are boiling and the cheese is brown.


5. Take them out and eat them!

 *image from the recipe. ben is not as obsessive about taking pictures and getting in the way while people are trying to cook in our tiny little kitchen as I am.

Mushroom, Spinach and Ricotta Tarts

Ingredients:
-250g (9oz) brown/chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced
-10ml (2 teasp) honey grain mustard (or mix wholegrain mustard with honey)
-60ml (4 tablesp) olive oil
-175g (6oz) fresh spinach
-150g (5oz) ricotta cheese
-30ml (2 tablesp) chives, finely chopped
-1.25ml (¼ teasp) nutmeg, grated
-2 medium eggs, beaten
-Salt and pepper
-350g (12oz) puff pastry

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven 200º C, 400º F, Gas no 6.

2. Put sliced mushrooms on a baking tray. Mix together the mustard and olive oil and drizzle over the mushrooms. Roast mushrooms until soft and all moisture has evaporated (approx. 15 minutes).

3. Rinse spinach and blanch until just losing its shape, then drain and wring out all moisture. Chop spinach finely. 

4. Mix together ricotta, spinach, chives, nutmeg and beaten eggs. Season to taste.

5. Roll out pastry according to pack instructions and cut into four 18cm (6") circles. Use the trimmings to make raised borders to each tart.

6. Place on greased baking sheets and prick the bases with a fork. Fill each tart with the ricotta mixture and then spoon mushrooms on top.

7. Bake for 20 minutes until golden. Enjoy!

 *not our macaroons. we were too stuffed full of delicious food to remember to take pictures at this point. image shamelessly nicked off of google images.

Coconut Macaroons

Ingredients: 
-2 eggs, separated
-1/4 cup raw caster sugar
-2 cups shredded coconut

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 130 degrees C.

2. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale and creamy. Stir in the shredded coconut.

3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture.

4. Drop teaspoonfuls of mixture onto a baking tray lined with baking (parchment) paper, and bake for 15 minutes.

5. After 15 minutes, reduce the oven heat to 110 degrees C, and continue to bake for another 30 minutes, or until golden brown. (cookies will dry out quickly if left in the oven too long).

6. Eat! Yum!

I wish I had the cajones to do this to my bill collectors.


[via]

blogsphere, meet future home decor.

future home decor, blogsphere.

[via]

the countdown to our trip back to the states is offically into the single digits!!

woohoo!!!

I WANT NEED THIS MUG.

[via]

h

had two of these this weekend to celebrate the glorious weather and the ambling and meandering through london's parks.

and now I want more.

contstantly.

this is bad...I think I may have become addicted.

I had my own, and then came dangerously close to finishing off ben's as well.

maybe I can get one at lunch time....

oh cadbury flake, what you do to me.

the difference between arial and helvetica.

if finding this chart wicked awesome is wrong, I sure don't want to be right.

[via]

is it bacon?  ---->   yes.   --->  eat it.


amen.


[via]

these are freakin' awesome.

[via]

also.

new blog.

just stuff I find that I like.

but freakin' awesome stuff.

check it out.

an eclectic anthology of arbitrary things

so I stumbled across this nifty little device called mousepath the other day.

you download a program that tracks your use of the mouse (paths, clicking points, etc) over the course of the day/time at the computer, and creates a pretty awesome graphic.

here are two of mine from last week:

they are from the series "mostly autocad, with a little bit of photoshop and prolly more internet browsing than my boss would be happy about thrown in there for good measure".

either way, I think they are pretty freakin' cool.

well.

it seems my couple years at kicking ass in the area of march madness brackets was either a fluke, or a very short-runned streak.

I did horribly this year.

though, in some slight defense to me, this years men's ncaa tourney did not go as anybody thought it would.

which is why I love college basketball, really. anything can happen, and it often does.

so without further ado, let's go the the bracket carnage.

[I am going to keep them smaller, so you can't see my shame as easily.]

yeah.
this bracket was bad.
though nobody, nobody, saw kansas going out in the second round to a number 9 seed. they were the pundit favourite's to take it all.
you let me down kansas. you let me down.

so, we are going to forget that bracket ever happened and move on.

the men's nit tourney.
also, not fabulous.

so far, 0-8 on the final four predictions.

ouch.

but let's forget the men, and take a look at the women, shall we?

this is a little better.
1-3 in the final four, and managed to pick the champs correctly.
[though whoever didn't pick uconn to take it all after the season they were having had obviously fallen and hit their head or was on some heavy medication.]

at least my first round showing here is respectable.

but honestly, I couldn't even pick the muppets correctly....

while I did almost take the fraggle rock region, my understanding of the world's favourite original muppets is apparently way way off.

all in all, I am calling this year a wash, and going to see if I can get my bracket mojo back next march.

I'll just leave you with a pretty proud HELL YEAH UCONN!!!


WOOHOO!!

hilarious.

16 days until we fly back to the states!!!

it's been too long.
miss my family.
:(

16 DAYS! 

:)

insert building here.


[via]

damn straight.


[via]

[via]