a Dirty Martini

Holy Cow

I eat healthy. I buy organic within reason. Meaning I recognise the rips offs and absurdly marketed crap. I won't cook or eat too much processed food, over salted, over sugared..I'm careful with carbs (which are sugar). I'm not going to argue for organic or against processed etc but I know when I go off the carefully thought out foods it makes a difference. When I eat foods now, if they are over sugared, over salted (eg over-processed as opposed to someone being generous with the seasalt) it makes me want to wretch. To not too fine a point on it. 

It took some getting used to but the health benefits from my point of view pay off. I like to look and feel my best. Honestly who doesn't? At the same time I wouldn't inflict that lifestyle on people ever and will always eat what someone has lovingly prepared or gone to the trouble to make without any fussing. I cannot stand overly fussy people in company. 

At times it can be grindingly expensive. All the meat I order is delivered fresh up from a well kept and managed farm in Devon and most, but not all, of the veg and fruits I buy are organic. I stick to low carb, low sugar, low salt and my taste buds have adjusted accordingly, so food tastes of food not additives now. I also like to treat myself every once in a blue moon to a proper burger joint burger. 

I flat out ADORE hamburgers. To date the best one I have ever eaten anywhere in the world so far was in Spain. It was a grilled cheeseburger in a beachbar. Holy cow. Literally. The second best burger was in Fatburger (The Last Great Hamburger Stand) in Los Angeles. I have eaten 2 delicious incredible burgers in that sacred establishment to date. This time around (March this year) I even took a photo of the place! No greasy or French style chips, no cream shakes, no onion rings, no gallon sized grubby sweet Coke ruining the taste of everything.  Just a juicy medium rare freshly made, tasty, grilled goddamn cheeseburger. 

La Turbie

A really tiny photographic offering by way of accompaniment to the post below. If you click on the image collection - and then again- you can double enlarge it all (worth doing) . But in no way does it all justice, least of all the Trophie ruins which I can only squeeze the top into in my collage. The beautiful "grand bleu" views of the Cap, the balconies and colours, the old steps into one part of that ancient village where I saw people enjoying the afternoon sun as though they lived well....anywhere. Bits of wild gold summer. And a lovely vine canopy across a street.

 

I am so pleased to say that my Etsy shop (top left) has been going mildy crazy these last two days with two whole sales :) To a woman who wants to use them for her wedding invites. How lovely is that! What a privilege. Made me smile like a Cheshire cat. 

I have some experiments to share on the photo front with Buck as promised which I will do this weekend ...with a little time on my side.

To Catch a Thief

If I stand for any longer than 10 minutes in the fiercest sun it will render my skin crimson. I’m no lover of protracted heat or the sun’s bleaching light. But stand in the sun I do until my bones feel warmed, my soul feels calm and the scent of freshly baking early morning baguettes hits my senses with one deep warm breath - and forces a giant smile.  I’m waiting patiently outside the appartment for a gentleman in a pretty Audi TT coupe to scoop me up and deliver me up to the most reachable peaks of coastal Provencal France. It’s prettily perched working villages out of the reach of tourists (other than us two) and glorious panoramic ocean views stage managed by God. Between a few well-known spots around these well trodden parts, you can be out of touch in the turn of a hairpin. In a sleek car, in a pretty dress, with a picnik packed and euros counted for cold red wine. And with a man whose face lights up when he sees me, a genuine smile seemingly promising bona fide happiness and above all absolute sincerity (and always has). It’s amazing what you can glean from a smile when life is slow enough for you to appreciate it. I make it into the car gracefully and smile back. All cowboy hat, sunglasses and bare tanned legs. Packed in my bag is an easy going but densely informed book I’m re-loving but don’t expect to much read today – Monarchy by Starkey. It’s put me in the mood for history.

Provence is a proper rooted place, rough edged and turbulent from history, villages perched up high more for necessity and protection than aesthetics and views, hosts to the Romans who scattered theatres and arenas and monuments about the place. I need the tapestry of a thousand years of rich history. It shapes my London living after all.

The back of the Old Town of Nice is cool and forgiving with it’s narrow streets and tall balconied old buildings, pastel coloured shutters drawn closed against the sun.  Happily in the incessant heat, the only place we are likely to sit at lights. I search the signs for Grande Corniche, our exit out of the town and up into the hairpins.  Villas and hibiscus pan past us. The smell of pines all along the curves. The Grande Corniche is the majestic top road which rides the crest line from Nice to west of Menton, travelled by a flirtatious Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. Almost seems fitting.  Second down the jagged hills is the Moyenne Corniche. The road which in 1982 and in dubious circumstances killed her. The lower road around the hills and closer to the azur blue oceans carries the heavier traffic, tourists and travellers. Our aim is the Grande.  Described as  “the most romantic road in the world, a perfect symbol of French absolutism combined with a French need for access to luxury and frivolity. A masterpiece designed by Paris's L'Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, the world's first civil engineering school, … made to facilitate Napoelon's ambitious Italian campaign of 1796 "boldly designed, and solidly executed, with a disregard of difficulties"..

We climb, we wind, we stop. The region rises via forests and ravines to villages sprouting from ragged hilltops. We drink in the views of the famous Caps below us extending out into the ocean, full of life, the famous grand bleu and the unattainable luxury.  On one side is Italy, the other France. Directly behind us an old fort from where two imprisoned British soldiers cleverly escaped in World War 2.  Below is the casino playboy town of Monte Carlo, dotted with a thousand swimming pools from the hills to the Principality. Until the visitors came, it was a wretchedly poor area: among the local recipes was "L'aiga sou" or saltwater soup.  Way behind us somewhere is the French Grand Canyon with 13 miles of heart stopping ravines and soaring space. Further over is the land of lavender, carpeted purple blue.

The most evocative stop between Nice and Menton and a romantic stop en route for Kelly and Grant in that same film, is the village of La Turbie. The symbolic frontier between Rome and Gaul. Dante wrote in his Divina Commedia that Turbia was the western limit of the Italian Liguria. The tiny old working village is built, partly, with old stones recovered from the ruins of the Trophy of the Alpes, a roman monument built by the Emperor Augustus to celebrate his victory over the Ligurian tribes which lived in the mountains of the area and attacked the merchants plying the Roman trade routes. Today the collonade style Trophy has been restored to a state of archaeologically immaculate ruin and plays hosts to open air classical music concerts.

Immediately between us and the views are pines and a few old charming rustic picnik tables. Behind us a grey stone primary school, a working school. It’s too serene and lovely for children, surely. You can go mad with food lust in these parts these days, seduced by voluptuous fruit and veg, herbs, breads and olive oils. But it’s not that kind of seduction today. It’s a twofold seduction. A ‘Smooth’ twostep coupling senses to emotions, eyes and fingers, smiles to soft talk.  With all these aethetics in mind I keep that burning sun off my face in an attempt to keep my mascara where it belongs. We have borrowed the car and the views but not the time. Gently surrounded by a sensual light softly colouring a life lived hard for centuries and this slow summer day which is definitely all our own. No thieves to catch. Only cool red wine.

Time Out

I'm going home to France for a week.

Taking friends around Nice. Down the Grand Canyons de Verdon, horseriding into the ocean via Camargue -on their lovely white horses. (The guy in the photo above is rounding up bulls in Camargue)

Taking photos....Painting... Reading the above....  Amazon France (click here for English translation). Plus the website that accompanies the interior designs book...:)

and taking my mum from our home over to Corsica, no more than an hour or so.

Plus I get to catch the Ashes on Sky so I don't miss England versus Australia, the perfect English Summer. Woo hoo!  

I've only used up 3 weeks holiday allowance so far this year. Awww hurray. Thank God for British/Euro paid holiday allowances I gotta say. No mistaking..I work hard for my time out and negotiated my holiday. But to me it's the whole point of working - to make the most of life in every sense - not just rent and/or mortgage and bills. This is all 2 hours 5 minutes and no borders away! Not to mention a 10 day stint in the US again in September. I am made up!!  I should have plenty of time for some photographic experiments next week, even if I don't spend all my time behind a camera on this occasion :)

So happy...

Animation by Coso Blues

Life's been a rollercoaster this year. From painful ...to painless. I'm snatching moments. Even if I can't work it out. And don't want to. 

“I live & love in God’s peculiar light.” — Michelangelo (via IcING)

Women over 30

I got sent this today at the office and added in my thoughts in brackets:-

This is for all you ladies 30 years and over.... and for those who are turning 30, and for those who are scared of moving into their 30's...AND for guys who are scared of girls over 30... This was written by Andy Rooney from CBS 60 Minutes.

As I grow in age, I value women who are over 30 most of all. Here are
just a few reasons why:

A woman over 30 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask,
"What are you thinking?" She doesn't care what you think

If a woman over 30 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit
around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it's
usually something more interesting.

A woman over 30 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is,
what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of 30
give a damn about what you might think about her or what she's doing.

Women over 30 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you
at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if
you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can
get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated (what a tosser!)

A woman over 30 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women
friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best
friend because she doesn't trust the guy with other women. Women over 30
couldn't care less if you're attracted to her friends because she knows
her friends won't betray her (wtf)

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a
woman over 30. They Always Know.

A woman over 30 looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true
of younger women (yeuch).

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 30 is far sexier than
her younger counterpart ( what wrinkles).

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you
are a Jerk if you are acting like one! You don't ever have to wonder
where you stand with her (you're a jerk).

Yes, we praise women over 30 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately,
it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman
of 30+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of
himself with some 22-year-old waitress (Isn't Hef dead yet)

Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when
you can get the milk for free". Here's an update for you.

Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage, why? Because women realize
it's not worth buying an entire Pig, just to get a little sausage!

************************************************

That was crap. Can any of you do any better?!

Happy Friday to you.

My Kit

Had to present some of my photography at work today (long weird story) and used these images in my powerpoint. Thought I would post up on my blog. Click the image for the details. Might do a few photography posts over the summer to share and no doubt receive some useful tips....

 

 

 

Cruise in and Sail Away

Scan of a photo. My first visit to the US other than Florida. Road trip from Seattle to Big Sur down the coast. September 1-11 2001

Linking places and posts I have read, enjoyed or want to bookmark for when I get time to read them properly. I'll add more as I find stuff...:

Met Wiot Police are Too Wuff. Man. So good. I love this blog

People who don't want kids, expect to care for them, or consider having kids as no more important than taking a dump need to stop having them. Please. I don't care what you do and how you stop it. But desist. Stop. Quit. No more. The world is full of unwanted unloved kids with large religious groups protesting for more of the same. Enough. Already.

What went wrong? A perspective from Iran. The TV line is a killer. For us all.

I realise this is hardly great praise from this humble space on the net but this is such a beautifully written post. For the record I enjoyed Seattle, LA and SF when I visited. I have good friends in Seattle. I may even move to one of those last two cities. But I get it. I totally and completely get it. 

Gran Torino. I just want to watch that film all over again.  

You bastards

This is a comment I get. He says what I feel about the huge amount of fucking armchair opinion on the internet respect of Afghanistan. 

You all know nothing war and what its like to experience, just let our boys get on with it and you can vent your anger at the ballot box, I used to read these when I was serving and they made me despair about what people thought of us back home. 

And we will triumph in Afghanistan.

Gary (Col. ret), Mexico City,

Yes there is a legitimate reason to tackle the government about equipment, yes there is a good reason to vote Labour out. Yes it is right and proper to focus on the death toll. Yes it is right the Army and government should lock horns over troop levels. But why are we forgetting to write about their successes? I cannot even find the lines I read in the Times now, which actually noted that, in among the tragic mounting death toll, the British succeeded in their objectives and seized another Tali stronghold in this noted massive push. How is it honouring our troops to only cover the equipment issues or death toll and ignore their results? We provide the Taliban with the exact amount of propaganda they and their Al Qaeda ilk and fanclubs so love. Both here and abroad.

Peter Rabbit. Check the tale in the link and the tails below. I loved the rabbit as a kid. And now Beatrix's bun has his own site ...awww, my modern but goodly wabbit. My friend in Devon has a garden full of lettuces just like Peter's farmer. Double awww. Rows of lettuces are a deeply comforting thing to see. I am sure that is down to Peter and Beatrix. Another world. A lot of innocence. Something I reckon kids now would find stupid rather than comforting.

Very Entertaining

James runs a wonderful blog full of wonderfully fresh thinking, quirky pieces and sometimes a great recipe post. Plus he has been noted in my top true gentleman blogger list ever since I read this piece. 

Today I was busy buying up stocks of food for weeks of Summer hostessing starting...now. I love cooking. I find it relaxing even if it's for huge groups. I planned an easy supper with the milder weather this week, consisting of spagbol. Your basic Spaghetti Bolognaise. Coincidentally James posted his favourite version of the recipe which sounds delish. So this is mine - based on Heston Blumenthal's. 

He's a chef who fascinates me. He's wonderful. Even if his food is super complex and artsy fun and even if he is busy overcomplicating a simple spagbol (6 hours cooking time? C'mon).  I cut the cooking time by a huge amount and this still comes out tasting amazing. My other favourite is a huge piece of slow cooked leg of lamb done Greek style with lemons in an oven, on a BBQ, in a pitfire or on a spit, until it pulls away like cotton candy.

If any of you have any great entertaining recipes then please drop them in below :) I need more please and I'll show my gratitude!

• Make a soffrito - fry onions, garlic, celery and star anise, add a slosh of rice wine vinegar and set aside
• Fry off pork and beef mince or chunkier cuts until browned not cooked, I like mine quick burned
• Deglaze the pan with a splash of vermouth :)
• Cook off the meat and soffrito with some milk until meat is tender and cooked through
• Make a tomato sauce - using a LOT of red wine, fresh cherry vine tomatoes and canned variety (i'm sad and make this stuff when I need to cook to unwind and then freeze it)
• Add the tomato sauce to the meat and soffrito and leave to slow simmer until you are a) bored b) pasta is ready c) guests are starving and about to eat their own legs. But the longer you leave it the better.
• Serve with wholewheat pasta if you are sugar/carb averse like me with LOADS of fresh parmesan

If you feel like being a tart you can serve like it Heston (and this guy who copied him on Flickr) all twisty fancy like, eh:

Better get going...and apologies for not stopping by your blogs to say hello. Gordon has some amazing smoke recipes up I noticed!

London at War

a kid after a bombing raid in London during the war

I am pleased the 7/7 victims families now have a memorial. I am sure it offers them some kind of personal peace and focus for their grief. 

As a Londoner I don't know how I feel about remembering 7/7 other than that today none of us really talked about it, some of us didn't remember it. I think I know why. 

The day it happened I recall knowing something was wrong before I arrived at work and feeling lucky to be alive walking home slowly that same day with hundreds of Londoners, gently  joking and laughing. I remember seeing a documentary about a woman, a vicar, who lost her daughter and her faith in God. I felt intense empathy with her. Reading about a doctor at Kings Cross which is 5 minutes from where I live, who watched life slowly leave a woman who was pulled from the wreckage, nothing more than a torso. I felt absolute hatred. 

I have felt hate before. For the Irish. At an early age I remember my mum gently explaining yet another ghastly atrocity committed in their name as "something people do". In the grand scale of things Irish terrorism has had a more protracted impact on this city and my life generally and certainly even more hideous in Northern Ireland. 

As far as this city goes, I remember watching a programme about the Blitz. A man came home from the war to find that his London home had been raised to the ground and his family wiped out. He spoke gently, stoicly and only briefly - his voice cracked momentarily. I wonder is his tragedy noted anywhere in detail? Would he want it to be? 

Here is a list of terrorist atrocities in London. This is a memorial in south London where I was born which commemorates roughly the same number of people killed in a single bomb blast in the Blitz as the number killed on 7/7. It was cobbled together by Marks and Spencers.

42,000, half of them Londoners, died. Here is a list of Top Ten War Memorials commemorated for Armistice Day - worth a  look. 

This city stole my mother's quality of life in no less violent a fashion than what happened to people on 7/7. I remember thinking exactly that. This city. This city. This city. This city. 

My gut instinct about people who pointlessly attack my city for some pathetic cause that involves a focus on innocent people's lives is this - and it would remain this should I get wiped out or maimed by a bomb tomorrow: fuck you. do your worst. no surrender. 

Apologies if that is blunt, unemotional or devoid of political correctness.

My dad, 5th from left top with a bat, and his friends build a huge bonfire to celebrate the end of the war - 

either in Wales where he was evacuated to or back in London's East End, his home