Rev Stan's other stuff

Postcard from my life: Week 14 or the Bro's big birthday

My brother moved back to London last year and it's great having him in town again. It means we meet up more often, usually on the spur of the moment.

It was his 40th yesterday (which means it's three weeks and five days until mine!) and so I sent him a text to see if he fancied lunch or coffee and cake or something and said 'both'. He likes his food.

And so we met up for what turned out to be an afternoon of eating in the sun, people watching, car watching (we were near the King's Road) and catching up. There was a brief sniff around the shops to see if we could find the sunglasses he wanted but that was about it.

Simple but lovely.

 

 

Postcard from my life: Week 6 or baking delights

It's been a busy, busy week. First there was the day less ordinary then three days away from home for work, putting in long hours, then coming back and going straight to the theatre on Friday night to see little Colin Morgan on stage.

Barely time to take breath.

And I'd like to say the weekend has been more restful. And it has in a way because I've spent a lot of time in the kitchen which is mentally very restful. Yesterday is was baking and roasting stuff for me for the freezer and then today baking for our charity cake sale at work tomorrow. I decided to try out a new recipe book from a newish cookbook, it's the same one I got the courgette and camomile cupcakes from.

It's got grated beetroot in it which gives it a lovely pink colour - a cheesy-homage to the cheesy romantic theme of tomorrow Valentine sale - I've added my own little garnish.

So this is what I was aiming for:

And this is how it went:

 

Postcard from my life: Week 5 or that was January

Phew. It's over for another 11 months. January is done and dusted. And I'm feeling quite smug because I seem to have come through it without feeling any blues.

I put it down to just keeping busy, not having regrets and seeing life as something that changes organically not because the year has a different number on the end of it. But mainly keeping busy.

It's been a cracking month of films particularly and theatre and there is plenty to look forward to this month. I'm particularly excited about seeing little Colin Morgan on stage this Friday.

Work is cranking up nicely towards our busiest period and the much dreaded and enjoyed work trip to Cannes at the beginning of March. Tomorrow we are having our photo taken for the marketing material which will be a first. Must try not to grin inanely. We've apparently to look approachable, I'll just settle for not looking like an idiot.

Anyway January was:

7 London plays

1 Edinburgh play

5 films

88 miles cycled too and from work

3 cities visited for work which equated to 992 train miles

12 camomile and courgette cupcakes I made for my Mum's birthday (a new recipe, pictured)

Twice I had ribs for tea. Love ribs.

 

 

Now that's what I call making the most of Saturday

It was a lovely day so I went walking with my camera:

Smithfield meat market

City weeds

Reflections

Then I met up with Poly for a back stage tour of the Almeida Theatre as it was Open House weekend (all the pics are over here on Theatre if you are interested

After that we got the bus back into town and had a lunch stop at the lovely Soho Thai where I used to eat  when I worked around the corner on Wardour Street:

Then we went to the Curzon for a sneaky glass of wine on the comfy leather sofa's while we waited to see I'm Still Here which is definitely a mockumentary, I've since discovered, although I'd pretty much made up my mind it was when I saw it. Listed my reasons and what I thought of it generally over on film

After that we headed out west to Shepherds Bush for a cuppa and then my first trip to the tiny Bush Theatre where Ralph Little of Royle Family fame and Mackenzie Crook of The Office and Pirates of the Caribbean fame were starring in an American play called The Aliens.

The Intolerant Gourmet's sultana and spice cookies (small aperture)

The Intolerant Gourmet's sultana and spice cookies (small aperture), originally uploaded by Rev Stan.

Love TIG's website because it is all stuff I can eat - my birthday lunch was pretty much made up of all her recipes and most of my guests asked for the link!

The recipe for these delicious cookies can be found here.

Oh and it was also an opportunity to play around with aperture on my camera, this is shallow depth of field and over on my flickr site you can see the shot with a longer depth of field - if you are interested that is.

 

Eat ate cake

The magazine I work for has been re-designed and we had a bit of a launch event for it.

As I love all things cake I couldn't resist having a go at making a monster cake for the office. Thank goodness I had expert baker Alison on hand to mathematically calculate just the right increase in ingredients for my huge cake tin. It had 9 eggs and approximately 500g of everything else if you were wondering.

I also decided to recreate the new masthead in icing - working with ready roll for the first in years. It took three trips to the supermarket to pick up extra ingredients and about four and a half hours to make the cake and ice it and I was physically exhausted by the end. But it turned out really well and the speed with which it was wolfed down implied that it tasted good too (sadly I couldn't eat any as it wasn't Stan-friendly).

Loved the fact that the last three slices to be eaten were these:

IMGP2897

 

 

QotD: Peanut Butter and...

Peanut butter and what?

Jam and a smidge of salad cream. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

Birthday celebrations part 1

The election yesterday was just a side show to the main event: mine and George Clooney's birthdays (and my mate Alan's, my mate Chris's mums and Tony Blair's).
And I am today feeling the effects of that main event but it was worth it.
There was a bit of a theme to the day: chocolate and champagne. My friends know me so well.
Nadia made me this gorgeous chocolate cake (she's such an amazing cook she made the recipe up adapting a non-gluten free cake she likes). It had nearly half a kilo of chocolate in it. Enough said.

Chocolate birthday cake

 

You know you are past your youth when you get excited about a tupperware cake box with cake-lifter inside as a gift. I got excited - fellow office cake-baker, Alison has one from back home in NZ which I've always coveted but Lakeland (a shop I get excited visiting which is another indicator of my having traversed past youth) has just started stocking them. It was Nadia's gift alongside a gluten-free baking recipe book. She's already picked out the cake she wants me to make her...
Anyway so my day in the office was pretty much chocolate-cake fuelled which set me up for an evening of cocktails and food with friends.
Went to the London Cocktail Club, which I'd never been to before but chose because it looked like it had the right level of sophistication without the prices to match. In fact when I ordered the first round I discovered it was two for one, so that was us all set up for pre-dinner drinks. We just swapped around our second drinks so we could sample something different.
The menu is extensive, the staff really friendly and skilled at turning out the most elegant looking drinks:

Porn Star Martini (the chaser is champagne and goes with the PSM) and a Champagne cocktail

Then there was more well chosen presents (theatre tokens/chocolate) and larks for the camera - thanks to Kate for wrestling it from me and doing a marvellous job:

Sadly one present didn't make it home in one piece and it wasn't anything to do with the amount of champagne drunk. The handles of the bag snapped :0( I will be emailing the evidence to Montezuma's as it was their bag and their jar of chocolate buttons.

Birthday breakage

It was a lovely, lovely day and now I'm looking forward to birthday celebrations part 2, details coming soon....

QotD: Peanut Butter OR Jelly

If you have to give up either peanut butter or jam and jelly for the rest of your life, which one would you choose?

I want to say peanut butter because I'm not supposed to eat it as it's tough for my stomach and there are so many alternatives that I can have and love like hazelnut, almond and cashew nut butter.

But I do love dishes like gado gado and satay when I eat out and there is a Thai restaurant I go with my friend Jen when we are having lunch near her office that does this amazingly gorgeous dish of crispy spinach with peanut sauce on top.

Then there is the delicious African sweet potato and groundnut stew that I love to cook at home when I succumb to buying a jar.

So I'll have to say jam - I never buy it anyway preferring the sugar free fruit spreads instead.

 

Some random shots from the week

Booja Booja's Hunky Punky

Where have you been all my life? Discovery of the week, probably the year: it tastes like a velvety-smooth chocolate ice-cream/mousse but has no nasty dairy, soya or even sugar. Only four ingredients. Genius.

Was very flattered to be asked by our designer at work if I would take some pictures of busy traffic outside our office to go with a feature in the mag. It was all fine until he suggested trying some shots from our fourth floor balcony (we had to get permission from our landlord to go out there as it is decorative rather than usable feature of the building).

I'm not great with heights and my palms were sweating just thinking about it. It wasn't quite as bad as I'd imagined as there was a lip on the balcony which masked the sheer drop but I still felt the need to cling onto the railing with my elbow and concentrate hard on not thinking about where I was.

We aren't using the balcony shot big in the end as there wasn't enough traffic (typical) but are using one I took down at ground level as the main image. Proudness level: 9/10.

One of the few plus sides to the economy being up the spout is it means despite having a reduced budget the nice hotels have all dropped their prices to the point where they are expenses-friendly. This is a little boutique hotel in Leeds where we were hosting an event and we were all given upgrades to these beautiful rooms with a charming little seating area.

The bed was so lovely and squishy and feathery I could have sat in it and worked all day (had the hotel internet been working and had I not had to catch a train back to London).

The hotel also had this cute frog shaped soap which didn't really fit with the overall style but was fun.

Froggy soap

QotD: Breakfast of Champions

If you had to pick one breakfast food to eat every morning for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

Ooh this is a difficult one. I love breakfast and eat all sorts of things: different cereals, muesli, porridge, pancakes, banana bread, walnut bread, chocolate muffins, fruit and soya yoghurt smoothies...and even the odd cooked breaky

All are wheat-free and dairy-free and most I make myself (good excuse to do some baking). But to choose one thing...mmm... if forced it would have to be my home made banana bread served warm with hazelnut butter.

My first attempt at truffles

My first attempt at truffles, originally uploaded by Rev Stan.

Spent New Year's eve up to my elbows in chocolate. It was brilliant.
I've never made chocolates before and these chestnut truffles were from a recipe in one of my gluten/dairy free cook books.
I was really chuffed with how they turned out and they seemed to go down well with my friends who came for lunch the next day.

As did the peanut brittle although it was more like cinder toffee (must remember to grease the spatula before pouring it onto the baking sheet).

Cinder toffe

 

QotD: Condiment Complement

Fritjes with mayonnaise, originally uploaded by Verity Borthwick.

What foods do you pair with ketchup? What about mayonnaise? 

Chips for both (that's fries to those over the water).

If I had to choose, it would be mayonnaise though. (I'm so European!)