The big match #1
Ahoy there me hearties!
Although my foot has not yet returned to its former high-functioning glory and Homerton Hospital has viciously banned me from running or wearing high heels until mid-February, I am out of the boot, and able to walk and carry my own shopping. Life has returned to normality… or had.
I now find myself sitting on my best friend’s bed wearing a skintight double-denim ensemble with a backcombed La Roux quiff and pink lipstick smeared over my eyelids.
Guardian Girl is back.
I hate rollmops (I know this without ever having to eat them) and it was Liv’s 30th today so pickling herring was, as ever, far from my mind. I bought an orange, a tub of ready-rolled mops straight out of hell, some bread, some soured cream and some cider. It’s not very River Cottage but then what really is, other than the River Cottage?
Conclusions:
• I have managed to get my consumerist mitts on an iPhone at long last, but I’m still getting the hang of it. Expect general confusion for a fair while, plus late additions of captions, weblinks and italics.
• People really seemed to like the La Roux effect in the end. I’m surprised and a bit pleased.
• There’s never an excuse for herring.
Lean on me
But not too hard, as this pose is slightly precarious and my core stability is not what it once was
Cider vinegar and orange rollmops
Far too much cider (not pictured), an orange and some rollmops
Banana caramel cream pie and a week off consuming
On Friday night I cooked the remaining recipe for last week: Dan Lepard’s banana caramel cream pie.
Sainsbury’s was out of bananas but for a load of very green ones or a massive multipack of fairtrade ones, which I bought. When I got them home I realised there was no weight on the packet so I had no idea how many to use. I plumped for one in the sauce and another sliced up under the meringue. I added a very, very liberal amount of rum and brandy, and used a mixture of thick chantilly cream and mascarpone. I made the meringue properly (good girl, no slacking) with my hand blender, which worked a treat.
Liv arrived a bit later, we finished off the labneh with celery sticks (and she pronounced it delicious), then we tucked into the pie in front of a DVD. After one slice each we were pretty tipsy – not sure if this could really have been the pie’s doing alone, as we were drinking the remaining brandy with 7up as an accompaniment. It was delicious anyway, however intoxicating, and a spoonful of mascarpone on top cut through the sweetness a bit. As much as I complained when I had to eat pie every day, you can’t really beat a good one, and this was that.
Banana caramel cream pie
Rum and brandy pie
I woke up the next morning to discover that I was 30 years old, so the rest of the pie made a good celebratory breakfast before I popped out to buy the paper. To my delight I discovered the whole mag is given over to a retrospective of the noughties this week, which means no cooking and no shopping all week – just outfits. It was a much-appreciated birthday present. Off I trotted to the pub in my party dress, and there I stayed, with all my pals, for a very long time. What a brilliant night – I have yet to recover. Here follow this week’s outfits so far:
Carrie Bradshaw
Barry Bradshaw
Skinny denim
Chubber denim
The It bag
The nosebag
Bling is the thing
Grim is the bling
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Alco-pie: a grand foodstuff.
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Labneh: gets nicer with time.
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A week off cooking, reorganising furniture and searching for elusive garments: sublime.
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Being 30: yes.
Hide and seek #1
Saturday’s outfit was absolutely hideous in its recreated state, like Little Jimmie Crankie (sp?) all grown up. Luckily I spent most of the day dressed in leggings and a T-shirt, piled into a double bed with three friends watching White Men Can’t Jump, but I did get changed into the required outfit for dinner, which meant walking through Dalston on a Saturday night looking like this. I pretty much took it all off once I got to my friend’s house.
Two of the pals I spent much of the weekend with, Nin and Phoebe, are the lasses behind the recycled fashion label Goodone, and they re-convinced me within the space of three seconds that there was no need ever to set foot in Primark again. This is an official resolution. Anything I can possibly buy second hand I will from now on. It’s what I used to do when I worked around the corner from Beyond Retro but I sold my principles to the devil when I switched to an office near Primark. Now I’m not close to either of those places I do my shopping at the weekends anyway, so I’m rediscovering my ethics. Goodone 1, Primark nil.
Hide and seek
Hide
Good work by Phoebe on the action shot though eh?
Conclusions:
- Some people can get away with layering a denim jacket under a mac and pairing them with bare legs, socks and flat brogues. Others can’t.
- Think I’ll leave it at that.
I've always found it funny when people write letters to the Guardian's Weekend magazine complaining that the recipe ingredients are too middle class and the fashion only looks good on thin people. After all, it's just a magazine. Or is it? I decided to follow its recipes, fashion and lifestyle advice as closely as possible, to see if the aspirations promoted therein can really be achieved by the average reader who is not especially wealthy, not necessarily model thin and is obliged to work regular office hours. This blog has no affiliation whatsoever with the Guardian but I link to the Weekend magazine website for the purposes of illustration. 
Guardian Girl 
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