Interview: We Love Food

Admittedly, I am not the most elegant in the kitchen. Part of the reason is that time is precious and with London’s busy lifestyle, there’s not a  lot of it to spare. M&S oven meals often come to my rescue after a busy day.

When this shiny cookbook, We Love Food, landed on my doorstep, I felt a bit more inspired by its pretty photos of organic food and a wide variety of dishes to choose from – some simple for people like me and others a bit more complicated for those who are more adventurous when it comes 6pm.

I had the opportunity to ask the authors about how hectic Londoners can benefit from their approach to cooking and food in general. They also give some tips on how to grow your own in London’s limited living space.

Here’s a few words from Peta Heine and Kirsty Manning-Wilcox. (WLF)

LLO: Why is We Love Food specifically relevant to the lives of Londoners?
WLF: London life is fast-paced, exciting and complex. Modern family life is all of these things too! As busy working mums, we recognize that it can be crazy to get the kids to school and all their other activities, pull off a day job and get any time at all to cook or garden. We Love Food is full of tips for gardening in confined spaces plus many healthy, quick and practical recipes for families on the run (including an SOS list for those nights when you just can’t face the kitchen but want a quiet night!).

We’ve also included ideas for lazy weekends at home when more time is available to roam the wonderful markets, delis and specialty shops a great city like London has to offer. There are many old recipes to remind you of your childhood, like Golden Syrup Dumplings and Lemon Delicious Pudding and other more modern adaptations of the wonderful cultures that are available to us now like Thai Green Chicken Curry, Middle Eastern Tomato Salad and Sesame Chicken Vermicelli with Asian Greens.

LLO: What were your priorities in creating this beautiful book?
WLF: As working mums we recognize that during the week you want your children to be eating healthy meals, but we don’t necessarily have the time and energy to spend all day doing it! We want to introduce children to the concept of how food is grown and prepared, and wanted a guide book for people like us who don’t necessarily have a team around us helping us cook, garden and care for the kids! We are the generation doing it all!  Our goal was to create delicious, achievable, family-oriented recipes as well as some simple and inspiring growing instructions for a handful of well-loved fruit and vegetables.

In the photography and design we really wanted to show the kids having fun in the kitchen and the garden. It’s about getting back to the simple pleasures, stepping off the treadmill to smell the roses. Something we could all do a bit more of! We are both working on it!!

LLO: It’s often a bit hectic in London with this chaotic city lifestyle. Can you point us to a few of your recipes that would be perfect to toss together after a long day but still feel like you’ve prepared a nice meal?
WLF: Chow Mien Noodles, Lemony Lamb Chops with Baked Vegies, Sichuan Chicken Thighs and Asian Greens, Tacos or Fajitas

LLO: What’s your favourite sweet treat to indulge in after a stressful week at the office?
WLF: Easy baked rhubarb, Nutty Ice Cream Sundaes or Golden Syrup Dumplings.

LLO: There are some interesting sections in We Love Food that are all about home-grown ingredients. A lot of Londoners don’t have the luxury of a garden, so do you have any tips for growing indoors or on small balconies?
WLF: Summer is a great time to get a few herbs growing on a sunny windowsill in 10 cm pots. Rosemary, parsley, basil, coriander, chives, mint, garlic chives and a chilli plant will see you through the summer months. The great thing about growing your own herbs and garnishes is they give an instant life to any pasta sauce or curry and can be sprinkled over anything. How often do you buy a bag of herbs at the supermarket only for it to go mushy before you use it all? This way you have herbs for any spontaneous dish. Fresh herbs are also a good way of getting “greens” into the diet of your kids – let them sprinkle parsley over a pasta, or scrambled eggs on the weekend. Chillies really add depth to simple pasta sauces and curries and they look pretty as a centerpiece on an outdoor table.

If you have a larger outdoor space, a 50 cm terracotta pot filled with premium potting mix will hold a couple of silver beet plants, a few lettuces (cos, mizuna, radiccio- pick your favourites) , some rocket and some Asian greens like pak choy or bok choy so you always have a salad or Asian side dish ready to go. A large ½ wine barrel will hold enough greens to keep a family of 4 in salads throughout summer. Choose green plants that are ‘cut and come again’ so you can just chop them off and they will re-shoot right through summer. Beetroot is a handy plant to grow as the leafy green tops are great in salads and pasta sauces, and the beetroot is great baked in foil and drizzled with Feta and olive oil. Two sides for the one veggie, Voila!

Tomatoes and beans can be grown in hanging baskets or trellised up drain pipes. Many London nurseries also stock specialty grow bags full of soil and nutrients ready to grow whatever seedlings are in season. Drop into your local nursery or farmer’s market to get a couple of punnets of whatever is in season and away you go!

LLO: What are you having for dinner tonight then?
WLF: Tacos with the lot!

Thanks Kirsty and Peta!

We Love Food, £16.99, is published by Hardie Grant.

Listen to a Londoner: Chris Holt

Listen to a Londoner is a weekly interview with a Londoner – someone who lives in this city, born here or elsewhere. If you want to be interviewed, email littlelondonobservationist@hotmail.co.uk. Always looking for new volunteers.

Chris Holt, 44

Chris Holt is a former journalist and anti-poverty campaigner who now teaches yoga, mainly in south London. Since moving to London in 1994, she has lived in Bow, Bloomsbury, Clapham, Brixton and Streatham.
She tweets as @brixtonyoga.

LLO: Having grown up in the Midlands and held jobs from journalist to anti-poverty campaigner to barmaid to fruit picker, how did you end up in London as a yoga instructor?
CH: I’ve kept following my curiosity. Started off wondering what other people were like – and found out a bit being a journalist asking questions. Then wanted to know more about why the world’s the way it is – so spent some years seeing life in developing countries working for an aid agency. And now I’m going inwards, looking after the one body I’ve got for this life, and exploring whether I’m anything beyond it?

LLO: I’ve seen people practising outdoor yoga everywhere from Hyde Park to a nook behind Liverpool Street Station and even in Trafalgar Square. Where’s your favourite outdoor yoga spot in London?
CH: I love practising yoga outdoors, best of all on a beach or hillside looking out to sea. As that’s a bit tricky in London, I make do with my back garden or somewhere like Brockwell Lido where at least you’re looking out onto either trees or water. I’m really looking forward to the yoga holiday I’m running in France in September, because we can practise in an open-sided barn looking out over beautiful countryside.

LLO: What are some other London activities that you enjoy when you’re looking for peace of mind?
CH: Art galleries, theatre at the Donmar Warehouse or National Theatre, dance at Sadlers Wells, performance poetry at South Bank or Apples and Snakes events – not always for immediate peace of mind, but at least to get the creative juices flowing, which I need to thrive.

LLO: What’s the best part about living in your postcode?
CH: SW2 for the madness of Brixton Road, the friendliness of neighbours, the views from Brockwell Park, the resurgence of Brixton Market, and the number of amazing, interesting people you meet – it is definitely NOT mainstream.

LLO: Best London shop to buy yoga gear?
CH: I confess to being a favourite T-shirt and leggings kind of yoga teacher – it’s not really about what you’re wearing; it’s more about how it makes you feel inside.

LLO: I see on your yoga retreat to France this coming September you’ll be eating organic, vegetarian food with the group you’re taking. What are your favourite vegetarian restaurants in London and the best places to buy organic foods?
CH: I get all my organic veg, fruit and milk delivered by the wonderful Ged, who runs Riverford organic boxes in Lambeth and Southwark. Most interesting restaurant (not strictly veggie – but great) is Brixton Cornercopea in Brixton Market – everything grown, made or sourced locally, including things like courgette fritters, watercress, feta and pea salad & summer fruit pudding.

LLO: You work in Brixton a lot. What’s the best place in the area to sip a relaxing morning coffee with friends?
CH: For comfy sofas and good music, The Lounge on Atlantic Road; for a quiet read of the paper overlooking the bustle of Brixton Road, Cafe Nero in Morley’s department store, but for the absolutely best coffee in Brixton, Federation Coffee in Brixton Market – with plantain cake to die for.

LLO: Favourite place in London to catch some live music and why?
CH: With two small kids, my gigging days are a bit sparse, but when I make it, I like more intimate venues such as the Jazz Cafe in Camden. Really want to try the Hideaway that’s recently opened in Streatham and getting rave reviews.

LLO: Have you found a place in London – other than your home – that always makes you happy?
CH: The views from Westminster or Waterloo Bridges; or the first room on your right as you go in the National Gallery for Cezanne, Gaugin, Van Gogh – and no queues.

LLO: Describe your perfect London day.
CH: Yoga, art, perhaps a good book and some time alone to wander and explore – after more than 15 years in London, I’m still discovering it.

Thanks Chris!

Keep up with Chris over on Twitter or her yoga site.

For more Listen to a Londoner posts, click here.

London Art Spot: Gill Apple

Meet Gill Apple – creative in every sense of the word, but a tattoo artist at heart, which is soon to become a full-time career. Gill packed up home in sunny South Africa five years ago and found herself some 9,000 kilometers away under the grey sky of London. Despite escaping every winter, she’s still here every time the dreaded cold season passes.

It was in a small town called Vereeinging, just south of Jo’burg, where Gill grew up – often climbing trees to look over the big city for her first perspective of the wider world. She met some fascinating people there: artists, goths, punks, skinheads, drug dealers. It had a strong subculture where everyone belonged – a little Camden. Some of her fondest memories were created in a bar nearby called Rafterz where some great musicians began careers. Rafterz never closed, so Gill and her friends never left. Between periods of studying and unemployment, they would all gravitate there, listening to alternative music, playing pool, jumping off the balcony when they finally headed home.

Happiness 1

When Gill’s not tattooing, she’s reading books on Hindu philosophy by the great Sages. Currently, she’s got The World Within the Mind on her bedside table. The books she reads, as well as the diverse selection of music in her collection, tend to relate to another world – much different from everyday life. These things remind her that there’s more than work and money. Ramdom fact relating to both music and another world: Gill plans to have “Return to Sender” by Elvis, played at her funeral. In her free time, she paints and draws emotions, currently focussed on a series called “Study in Happiness” where all of the pictures are ironically sad.

She also writes poems like this on that never rhyme:

‘Push the splints of your disillusion into me
Through me
Holding me
Deep into the earth
Over which fire, water and air find entrapment and redemption
Give to me the very essence of being
The secrets some dare tell
Blow the soul of a weeping willow around what i despise
and then
move me to the foot of a forthcoming end
for i failed to hold the sun
when i could no longer see’

Gill’s London lies mainly in Camden, but on a night out you might catch her dancing the night away anonymously, lost in her daydreams at Slimelight (Isllington) or Electric Dreams (a regular club night at The Purple Turtle in Camden or The London Stone in the City). If you meet her there, she will play up the dream and tell you stories about a life that is not her own. Meet her in daylight, she will tell the truth. For this week’s London Art Spot, Gill’s shared a bit of that truth as you just read and shows off some of her tattoo designs:

LLO: How does living in London influence your creativity?
GA: London to me is busy and bursting at the seams with a contradiction of cultures and experiences; it has a million little worlds inside it. Where you move around in it defines how your life will unfold. At times I feel like a voyeur. This strange sense of feeling isolated within one of the busiest places  in the world inspires me to draw and create my emotions. When I create, I am interacting and documenting my time here. I can most vividly remember how I felt in a certain moment when I look at something I’ve created. Obviously, being in a very creative city forces you to push the boundaries.

LLO: How long have you been tattooing?
GA: 4 years

LLO: Which London-based tattoo artists do you most admire?
GA: Kamil Mocet – I love his bold designs; they remind me of oil paintings

LLO: Best London tattoo studio?
GA: Evil From the Needle

LLO: Which design are you most proud of and why?
GA: I guess my newest design – the arm piece on myself. It is a freehand design with red flowers and grey wash backgrounds. The colours work well together and the design flows. But having said that, every piece I do I always see areas I can improve. I’m still in search of perfection… 

LLO: Describe your style.
GA: Art noveau, organic. I love the flowing freehand designs, patterns that weave and flow. I love using only black or a few bold colours offset with grey shading. Flowers are my current ‘theme’, I guess, with Japanese backdrops or pattern work.

LLO: How do you see your art fitting into your future?
GA: In the future I plan to only tattoo and create art pieces, so to answer your question, art will be my life in the future (right after I quit my day job).

LLO: What obstacles would you face to get into the business of tattooing full time?
GA: Mostly getting the capital and confidence to say ‘right thats it, I’m opening up my own shop’. I believe most obstacles are self-created, that we are our own obstacles to success.

LLO: How do people get in touch with you if they’re interested in your work?
GA: Mail me – w.gillian@live.co.uk

Thanks Gill!

For more London Art Spot interviews, click here.