‘Dishy’, Candypants

I love this song at the moment. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a music video for it, just this. This track can be found on the awesome Alright This Time Just The Girls compilation.

For everyone who thinks that feminism is irrelevant…

Find me a woman who can’t relate to this.

(Via an awesome tumblr, Suck My Left One)

The Only Recipe You’ll Ever Need

My current food obsession is Yottam Ottolenghi’s recipe for miso-walnut udon noodles. It is absolutely delicious, and looks pretty great too, even with my limited food presentation skills.

I didn’t actually have all of the ingredients listed, but I wasn’t going to let a small thing like that stop me from making this.

Below is my slightly-altered version of the original recipe (which can be found on the Guardian’s site).

Udon Noodles With Miso and Walnuts

(Serves one)

1/4 small cucumber
1 medium aubergine
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
2 tsp chopped ginger
1 garlic clove, crushed
50g walnuts, roughly chopped (if you don’t have walnuts, cashews work as well)
2 tsp dark miso paste
1/4 c. low-salt vegetable bouillon
1 tsp tamari
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 bundle [approx. 90g] udon noodles (I particularly like Clearsping’s brown rice udon)

Cut the cucumber into long, thin, 2mm-thick strips and chill.

Use a potato peeler to peel strips of skin from the aubergine, from top to bottom, so it leaves a stripy pattern; cut the aubergines into 2 cm-thick discs, then cut each disc into four. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a ­medium pan and cook the ­aubergine until golden brown and cooked through. Set aside.

Put the onion and remaining oil in a large pan and sauté on medium heat. Once softened, after about two minutes, add the ginger and garlic, and cook on low heat for five minutes. Add the walnuts and fried aubergine, stir and set aside.

In a bowl, whisk the remaining ­ingredients bar the noodles and cucumber, then add to the pan.

Cook the noodles as ­instructed on the packet. While you do so, ­reheat the sauce and allow some evaporation so it thickens a ­little but not much. Serve individual portions of hot noodles, topped in the centre with walnut sauce. Finish with a sprinkling of the cucumber, drained and dried.

‘Our City Dreams’…

Is a beautiful, inspiring film, and the perfect cure for a ‘duvet day’.

Things to do in London

I really should buy the Guardian more often, especially as, on Saturdays, it has a comprehensive guide to what’s happening in the city. I spent a good hour or so looking through it, and here’s what I think is worth a visit:

• The Tate Modern continually has a film programme up, and the current one looks especially enticing. I will definitely be going to see Our City Dreams, following the lives of five female artists in NY, next Saturday. The offering for the following day is just as good – Good Ol’ Charles Schulz, a movie about the creator of ‘Peanuts’. Seats are free, but offered on a first-come basis. There’s also a series of queer films planned for the end of March, which include the colour-saturated Pink Narcissus, but you have to pay (and book) to get into those. More details here.
• The Illustration Cupboard’s ongoing 2009 Winter Exhibition ends on the 31st of January, so catch it while you can (it’s free!). For me, a whole museum dedicated to book illustrations seems like heaven.
• The Museum of Everything has a comprehensive show dedicated to outsider art (the best kind?) until the 14th of February, and it sounds amazing. Contributors include Thurston Moore, David Byrne and Nick Cave. Awesome.
• The good old V&A has a bunch of interesting exhibitions on at the moment, the highlights being: British fairytale illustrations, Noh costumes, the V&A illustration awards, and gargoyles.
• The Stooges, supported by Suicide, are playing in London on May Day weekend. This coincides with my birthday, so I’m considering attending. Buuut the tickets are expensive and reunions are generally a sad affair, so I’m not sure.

Music To Doodle To

I’ve been trying to get back into sketching and drawing recently, and I find that I tend to work better if I’m listening to music at the same time. These are the tracks that have been stimulating my creativity and making me happy of late:

1. Percussion Gun, White Rabbits
2. No Kind Words, The Maccabees (god, I love these guys)
3. Ambling Alp, Yeasayer
4. What’s Mine Is Yours, Sleater-Kinney
5. I Love You, Black Flag

Odds and Ends

As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted for quite a long time. Sorry about that, life has a knack of getting in the way. So, you may be wondering, what have I been up to in the past months? Here are the highlights:

• There was a PPK meet-up, specifically so that we could all go to the Bust Xmas Craftacular, which was amazing (but very, very crowded). And guess who, to my delight, was there? Gemma Correll of course! I sheepishly said hello, and bought this print from her stall. We then had lunch at Rootmaster (who have changed the chocolate fondant. Why!? It’s nowhere near as delicious as it was before!), went to the IMAX, managed to get lost somewhere near the London Eye, and had dinner at a cheap, okay vegan buffet. A very good day.
• I went to Pogo cafe in Hackney! (I love Pogo)
• I watched many excellent films, the best of which were Ponyo, Coraline, The Philadelphia Story (the Hepburn/Stewart/Grant version) and…
• 500 Days of Summer. What the hell? I really expected to hate this (a girl who doesn’t believe in love and a guy who wants to find the woman of his dreams and put her on a pedestal? Ugh) but I absolutely adored it. I can’t explain why, but it was certainly more than the sum of its parts. I came away feeling amazingly happy. I can’t recommend this film enough, and, seriously, if you feel like pulling your hair out with frustration half way through, stick with it. It’s worth it. (The fact that they used the song in the background, The Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition, multiple times in the film makes it all the better.)
• I went to see Henry Rollins! At the Royal Festival Hall. Totally worth it.
• A good end to an otherwise mediocre day came when some random guy let me know that he appreciated my Black Flag t-shirt (there’s nothing like validation from total strangers to perk you up)
• My eyes were finally opened to anarchafeminism (AK Press/Dark Star’s Quiet Rumours: An Anarchafeminist Reader is a good place to start) and…
• bell hooks
• There was yet another PPK meet-up (to bid farewell to Pieta), where we had vegan soft-serve (from Neal’s Yard salad bar- good ice cream, but I don’t recommend having it as the first meal of the day, which I inadvertently ended up doing), went to Pogo (and had their almond milkshake. Yum!) and then visited the SSOV.
• I also discovered Lucy Knisley! (Yes, I’m a little behind, I know) French Milk is winging its way to me as I type.

Add in some family drama, a pet health scare, being broke and lots of late nights, and you have the past three months of my life.

Just a quick post….

To let you know that the London Food Not Bombs is up and running (and has been for the last few months). The group is now based in Hackney, and meet twice every month. Check the Indymedia page for more info.

Things That Make Me Happy #01

Reading Gemma Correll’s daily diaries:

Whilst listening to My First Earthquake (psst: if you like this, quite a few of their tracks are available as free downloads on last.fm):

“You’re about a 7.8, right?”

To make up for the fact that I haven’t posted at all for the past month, here is a fascinating interview with Steve Albini (conducted by none other than Ian Svenonius). Ignore the fucking infuriating adverts that keep popping up though.

Also worth a look is Svenonius’ interview with Ian Mackaye.