24 May
Today is the official opening of Mark’s Tramshed, a fabulous space and fortunately just round the corner from where I live. I ate there yesterday. Very simple menu: a starter made of three different dishes (love the idea of the yorkshire pudding with chicken liver mousse) followed by roast chicken or steak served with French fries and a small selection of puddings. I am trying the steak tomorrow and will probably have it on a regular basis after that. I love going out for a quick lunch on my own and I am lucky to have several lovely restaurants near me where I can do just that. Anyway, the Tramshed is a great addition to the neighbourhood. Beautiful room, cool diners (lots of local British artists — I spotted Julian Opie and Tracey Emin) and a lovely owner!
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15 Dec
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/33222252[/vimeo]
It’s time for me to start travelling again. I have much more fun on my travels than when I am holed up in my loft, however gorgeous it is. And it is not in Shoreditch that I am going to push the door of a normal looking building to find rather good looking young men making yufka the way their fathers and grandfathers did before them. Or mothers and grandmothers as they would have done in earlier times. These guys were working on the ground floor of a regular building in Gaziantep in south eastern Turkey right next door to my favourite ice cream place, Ozgüler. I would have missed them if it wasn’t for the big sign advertising yufka. Unlike filo, yufka is slightly baked after being rolled out.
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7 Jul
So, I had my first supper club night, a Lebanese/Syrian dinner, and it was great. Full house with charming guests, and none of the ladies wore spiky heels — I asked them not to because my wooden floor hates them! And nothing went wrong. Oh, one thing. I forgot to offer the promised Turkish or white coffee despite having it all ready. But no one seemed to notice and they all enjoyed the food, each other and the setting.
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6 Jul
I seem to have a love/hate relationship with everything and everybody. One minute I love one person or one place and the next I am bored. I am exaggerating of course. I have many friends (even lovers) whom I have adored for many years; and places like Sicily or Syria where I love to go back again and again.
But I am definitely not exaggerating when I say that I both love and hate Shoreditch where I live. I love my loft of course, and the architecture of the whole area — not the horrid newly built stuff — and I really like most of the people I know there, in particular Mrs Patel who makes the best Gujarati food in town. I also love many of the new shops that have opened recently like Chiki Chic and the great places to eat like St John’s and Rochelle Canteen. But most of all, I love my almost daily walk to Waitrose through Bunhill Fields where William Blake and John Bunyan are buried.