My Great British Menu

This might seem completely random and off-topic, but then, so am I.


I am currently engrossed in Great British Menu, and being a genetically-disposed foodie, I decided to imagine my own menu. If I suddenly start sneezing pound sterling, and wake up magically knowing all the techniques involved, I might attempt to cook a course or two.


Starter: 3 sweetbread ravioli (medallion-shaped, obvs) with rocket and apple-cider-vinegar-marinated seaweed, plum jelly cubes, morel/sweetbread juice and morel smoke (a la Roca brothers). Small, shallow, rectangular perspex/glass dishes with matching lids. Think a cross between a Ferrero Rocher box and a standard plate cover. 

        


Ish.




Fish: Great British Ceviche! Fresh raw Coley, cockles and crayfish marinated in lemon juice and set in a tarragon jelly (like jambon persille), cut into slices and served with sage/chili crispbread and some grated red onion and daikon. Served on a ceramic round plate made to look like yer average white paper plate.

(Daikon is a white Japanese radish that looks like this:

but one usually sees it like this:

or, if you're a Miyazaki fan like me, given life to as the Turnip Spirit from Spirited Away:

Main: Wild garlic-smoked wild boar medallions with wild boar head cheese/brawn and bone marrow croquettes, parsnip mousse, grilled baby turnips and gailan with blackberry gravy and mead vinaigrette. Served on a very shallow black slate podium, with the medallions in the gold spot, brawn in the silver and bone marrow in the bronze. Veggies scattered and smeared around the base and sauces in two thin glass vials standing on either side, with flame-shaped stoppers.

Gailan -

Dessert: Rose and water-chestnut (jelly) cake with rose jam and mini banana spring rolls with sea salt caramel sorbet. Plus little sugar-coated rose petals of course. Rose popping candy? I LOVE ROSE FLAVOUURRRRR. Served On a flat, black, laquered, square plate to show off the pinks and caramels.



Whew. Now I have that off my chest, time to watch the next episode!


  

  

Black Milk Clothing

A few Saturdays ago I went to the Experimental Cocktail Club in Soho (http://experimentalcocktailclublondon.com/ ) on a date (*enter silly childish noise made by my housemate here*). The guy was lovely, and was thoroughly approved of by my friends when we joined up with them afterwards. The cocktails were good, and pleasantly different to my usual vodka tonic served in a plastic cup (try La Medication), but when the bill came I suddenly remembered why I usually order the former.

However, the best discovery of the night was the waitress. Her legs, I mean. Or rather, what was covering her legs.

I couldn't take my eyes off her most fabulous of leggings, and I just had to ask - even if it was just to let her know I wasn't a creep. She directed me to this:

http://www.blackmilkclothing.com/

An online shop, started by an Australian designer called James Lillis that sells stretchy nylon clothes - mainly leggings, but also swimsuits, dresses, etc. - in absolutely fabulous prints! I'M OBSESSED!!!

I still can't work out which I like most!

Aurora Skye Leggings?

The TETRIS leggings??

or - OH MY GOODNESS WOW - the Jellyfish Swimsuit.....

If you have a look at their "Museum", you can see all the incredible things they have produced in the past: http://www.blackmilkclothing.com/collections/museum

There are faaaar too many awesome items here to pick out individually, but obvious stand-outs include: The Great Wave Swimsuit, with the famous Japanese print by Hokusai;

the Sharks vs. Mermaids swimsuit; the Mucha series; the Clouds series; the Dali, Koi vs. Samurai and Caterpillar swimsuits; the Jellyfish leggings; THE LIGHTNING LEGGINGS:

OH MY GOD THE LIGHTNING LEGGINGS.

Damn, those are cool. And they're gone forever :(

Also, any of those prints on a catsuit = automatically fashion gold.

I love catsuits.

And in the time it's taken me to faff around and publish this post, a substantial amount of the products have moved from the shop to the archives. This brand is selling very very fast, I'm guessing it's one to watch - it's going to be huge!

Hatwoman

I AM A MILLINER. I AM. NO, REALLY.

I made the decision to go into millinery almost with a shrug and a non-committal "Meh. I could do that..." After acquiring a Bachelor's degree in Art History at the University of Nottingham, I, like most of my friends, was nowhere close to knowing what I wanted and millinery seemed as plausible an option as any. But as I've progressed over the past year, learned the basics, gained experience and begun to develop my own style, I've come to realise - I fucking LOVE IT.

It all began, as it often does, with My Mother. She decided a couple of years ago, suddenly and without warning, that she should start wearing a hat every day. In part because it was more flattering, and partly because it doubled as a tool to disguise yourself in plain sight. Unfortunately now, as one of the only regular hat wearers in Hong Kong, that second point has probably been rendered null and void. At first I thought she was just asserting her right to be a little bit odd, and I chuckled and went along with it. Now, of course, I realise she was ahead of the curve. As per usual. Or, depending on how you look at it, waaayyy behind the curve. People gave up wearing hats on a daily basis in the 1960's, when the fashions at the time began to focus on hair and the shapes created by stylists like Vidal Sassoon. Indeed, the millinery industry has mostly survived on the back of traditional events that require wearing hats; weddings, races and the like. As a being that puts little to no effort into taming her hair/mane, or care when applying make-up, hats are the simplest and most fabulous solution, darling.

After a short while, it dawned on Mother Dear that it was nigh on impossible to find quality hats in Hong Kong, and she needed to take matters into her own hands if she was going to be Odd But Cool. She dreamed of a magical place, a place where fashion pilgrims could come and stand in awe at the heretofore unheard-of collection of beautiful, sculptural, functional, bizarre, but all hand crafted, completely individual pieces of millinery. April 2010: the dream becomes a reality. If you believe this to be an exaggeration, go check it out for yourself - HATWOMAN, SHOP 209, MAN YEE ARCADE, 68 DES VOEUX ROAD CENTRAL, HONG KONG. And if you're not lucky enough to live in Hong Kong, take a gander at the website: http://www.hatwoman.hk/eng/index.html

This astonishing and sudden move by Mother Darling simultaneously seemed idiosyncratic and made perfect sense. Ever since retiring from soliciting - hee hee - I mean lawyerdom, and during the years she was a foreign office spouse to My Father, she had visualised several business ideas that she would occasionally vaguely pursue. Until Hatwoman, none of these venture seedlings ever developed further than the germination stages and when she finally followed through, I was delighted. Proud. Inspired.

I've always been more creative than academic; I think it was obvious from the get-go that Big Bro had acquired all the brains in that department... The memory of Mama trying to teach me to read springs to mind. I believe she worried that if I was having trouble reading Ant and Bee at the age of two, I would be destined for a life working behind the counter at a fast food chain. So, when Hatwoman opened at the long-awaited close of my academic career, I knew instantly that millinery would be something I would enjoy, and something that I suspected I might be good at. This statement, even now, when I have been making hats for a year, still feels uncomfortably cocky.

However, whether I myself am good or not, the subtle power of hats is undeniable. Wearing them continues to be edgy and unusual - people today seem to believe that it requires a certain amount of confidence. This is not so - while wearing a hat attracts more attention, it can also be used to either create a flattering light on your face, or as a shield to hide completely, if you're in that kind of mood. Hats can be used to make you confident. Mysterious. Coy. Invisible. Alarming. Anything you want.

After a year, and for the foreseeable future, I remain in love with the fashion, the art, the design and the creation that makes up the millinery world. And My Mother remains my inspiration.