Dip/stick
Today’s photo is a self-portrait because I couldn’t leave the house in what I was wearing. Would you take me seriously if you bumped into me around the office wearing this?
If I’d only had a coral Margaret Howell blouse, some drawstring moleskin trousers and perhaps a tiny pair of hips, I’d be looking chic today. Oh, and a pair of clear-rimmed specs. But these garms are the closest I could get and, as you can see, tracksuit bottoms (Fat Face 1999 – not really Best Dressed material) an orange top, cropped Primark shirt and fancy-dress glasses do not a professional lady make. I changed into black h-h-h-harem pants and swapped the shirt for my beloved Farhi by Nicole Farhi covering-up mannish shirt thing so I looked less like I’d soiled myself, added a big scarf to make it look like I had some kind of intention for my appearance and headed off to the bus stop flowingly. I do look like a psychodrama workshop facilitator today but that’s probably better than looking like a plain old psychodrama. Today I’d like to add an extra dimension to my snap by providing the soundtrack that was going on in my head as I looked in the mirror. For those who have spotify: http://open.spotify.com/track/1Vchex0xowRj9k59RLvRfo.
Step out
Stay in
Dinner last night, on the other hand, was a steaming success. It was Hugh’s Muhamarra recipe, a very tasty affair involving walnuts, bread, olive oil, baked red peppers, chilli flakes, lime juice and caramelised onion chutney because I couldn’t find any pomegranate molasses. Once I was on Guardian Soulmates – why not, since I outsource every other decision in my life to the Guardian, let it choose me a lover as well? I met this guy and Jesus Christ was he a bore. He was even more smug than me. He was sick with the nation because it promoted cultural low-browism by celebrating Harry Potter. I unfortunately hit upon the subject of his difficult relationship with his father within ten minutes of meeting him – purely accidental – and the tense diatribe that followed was a terrifying to behold, and highly awkward to react to over a conversational pint of Strongbow. Anyway I went home after a while and shortly afterwards decided to choose my own menfolk. But the point of this story is that he harped on at great length about how amazing pomegranate molasses is, and how you can use it to add depth to any flavour, and how you can get it any Turkish shop. But I was in Sainsbury’s in my tracksuit (because I’m now running everywhere in order to maintain this experiment without growing out of the last remaining giantsize harem pants) and I couldn’t find any, so I just bought some Taste the Difference chutney instead. It’s a bit soapy to be honest. ANYWAY, the dip is stunningly delicious. You must make it. If you can’t be bothered to do the bits involving the peppers, the paste made with all the other ingredients is delicious in itself. Walnutty oily rich wonder with bread dipped in. I ate plenty of it before I added the peppers. Hugh told me to add the rest of the ingredients after the peppers but I rebelliously ignored him. I was wating for the peppers to cook so I thought I may as well get the rest ready.
Also I used my hand blender! If you’ve been reading from the start you’ll know this is a great thing as it marks my triumph over the emotional scars I earned during an egg white incident.
Here are the photies:
Muhamarra
Muhm-muhm-ahhh
I know it looks kind of like a feline production here but that’s just any ungarnished dip for you isn’t it? I added extra chilli flakes, chutney and cumin so it’s got quite a kick. It’s making me mildly perspire as I eat the remains for lunch while typing this.
Conclusions:
- I’m taking a long moment to appreciate the fact that I changed out of that heinous outfit before coming to work.
- I strongly recommend trying the dip.
- Peeling red peppers is pretty tricky even after doing the oven/plastic bag trick but the dip doesn’t appear to have suffered by having skins in it.
First impressions
This week I was at a festival, so I set my alarm for 6.30am, climbed out of my wet tent and made a trip to the showers followed by the shop to buy my paper, which came with a free packet of Andrex wipes and a cotton bag. I got back to the tent and had a slightly less enthusiastic look to see what was on the cards than has been known in weeks gone by. Being at a festival with a limited selection of clothes squashed into a rucksack and no cooking facilities is fun for a normal life but tricky if you’re supposed to be trying to replicate outfits and cook recipes in pursuit of the perfect middle-class lifestyle. Having said that I was at Latitude. This is where 75% of the Guardian-reading population (and their gaggles of highly styled teenage daughters) were taking their credit-crunch summer holidays. I’d like to point out at this juncture that despite seeing hoardes of distressingly perfect individuals getting festival style bang on in all their wonderful ways, I saw NOT ONE pair of heels and no lace shawls. So the Stevie Nicks style campaign of the other week clearly hadn’t yet filtered through to the masses.
Fashion:
- Initially I looked at the usual All ages pages, thought that was all there was and decided it ‘d be pretty easy. A week of slightly bizarre hairstyles, plus belts tied around otherwise decent outfits. Then I noticed the interview with the Killers’ Brandon Flowers was actually a fashion story too, which meant more suits, more ties, more unattainable hairstyles. It’s a slightly pointless exercise but pleasingly methodical
- Blimey! There are loads this week! A whole 11 pages of recipes. I’ll barely get through any of them but I’ll give it a try, and it’s interesting to note the difference between various chefs and the ease with which you can actually cook the damn recipes. I could instantly see that Rosie Sykes has a pragmatic approach to recipe writing – a description I wouldn’t have thought of as a compliment until I started this experiment. I’ve already begun to wish they’d have just a couple of weekend recipes that require a lot of faff, visiting the butcher, letting things cool and set etc, then publish a load of stuff you can cook in less than an hour and buy the ingredients for in your local shop. I can still see a lot of cream involved in these dishes. Again, times are changing. Once that would have looked like heaven to me but I’m growing tired of the daily richness and slightly concerned about the effects
The Measure (so important that even the Guardian gives it a capital letter):
- Good call on the harem pant pyjamas, as I had enough trouble with the daytime version. However Cari has lent me a pair of silk harem pants in the event that they should emerge in future shoots, so prepare for hilarity on that one. When she texted me saying she’d found them my response was: ‘ooh, just too late for last week’s shoot, but I’m sure Hammertime isn’t over yet.’ Big shout out to my own humour
- The knitting kit sounds great but you can bet your bottom dollar I won’t have time to track one down at a festival/during the ensuing week, in which I have to collect my cat from his godfathers’ house (I know, fag hags eh?), cook 17,000 recipes involving gelatine leaves, try to get an iPhone contract so I can write this blog away from my spirit-crushing desk, wrestle for hours a day with the main object of my hatred Natwest because they failed to change my address SIX MONTHS ago and therefore I cannot get said iPhone as the address I gave Carphone Warehouse didn’t match the billing address and I’m now blocked for fraud reasons until I change my address back to the WRONG one, which takes FOUR DAYS, and work the usual 9-5 hours, get home from work and also attempt a level of human interaction. The knitting kit can probably ____ off
- Pale foundation is unlikely to look terribly fashion forward on top of my summer-tanned body, but the vampire trend will be most welcome come winter
Make-up:
- It has long been my experience that steel blue eyes do not compliment angry red spots, of which I usually have several
- This is a section of the magazine I haven’t got round to copying yet, although I keep fervently wishing to. I blame this on Natwest, and will continue to blame everything on Natwest until they sort themselves out and complete one task with a basic level of competence
Garden:
- Don’t have one, mate
- However – hanging paintings above the bath? Not likely in my little rented studio flat. They’ve only just redone the beautiful peach, watercolour-effect tiled surround. Guess I might just tear the picture of the bathroom out of the magazine and blu-tac that on to the tiles. Same effect, different size, with extra level added to hint at the nature of representation itself
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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