Last Saturday was very warm and sunny here in London. There was no way I was going to have a proper lunch, so thought I’d make a salad. Put together a few ingredients and then realised that yep, they were all fruit, rather than vegetables: orange, avocado and tomato. It’s a fruit salad!
I dressed it very simply with a mixture of extra virgin olive oil, cider vinegar, Maldon salt and white pepper.
It’s summer!
Last Saturday it was my friend, and flatmate, Lauren’s birthday. About two months ago I had asked her what her favourite cake was; I thought I’d give it a while so she wouldn’t suspect anything and without hesitation she answered “Lemon drizzle!” So, early on Saturday morning I snuck out of the flat, bought eggs, almost forgot to buy lemons, and rushed back to bake. Sadly, she woke up before the cake was all done, but she was not allowed into the kitchen until it was all ready.
I found this recipe on the BBC GoodFood website but I decided to revise it slightly, using plain flour and baking powder and making it a little extra lemony for Lauren, whose famous motto about lemons is “the more, the better”. This recipe is easy to remember, as butter, sugar and flour are all the same quantity, and the final result is very lemony but not sour, as there is quite a lot of sugar in the drizzle.
One thing I’ve learnt is that, even though recipes suggest you to heat the oven first thing, that’s not a great idea. Anyone who tells you that a cake preparation will only take 10 minutes is living in denial. What about the weighing? How about the chopping, melting, washing and grating? Liars. By the time you are ready to stick that cake into the oven, you’ll have wasted a good 20 minutes of gas – feel free to call me stingy. It doesn’t take that long to heat the oven, mine is old and dreams of holidays in the sun, but it takes less than 10 minutes to heat up. Just turn it on when you know you’re 5 to 10 minutes away from being done with the preparation.
Without further ado, I give you… Lemon Drizzle 61 Revisited.
What you’ll need:
For the cake
For the drizzle
Preparation:
Wash the lemons very thoroughly, dry them and grate the zest finely. Set it aside. In the meantime soften the butter until very soft, but not hot! Combine the butter with the sugar and beat them with an electric whisk until they have become a soft, pale cream. Add the eggs one by one and keep beating the mixture until everything is well combined. Now preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160C/gas 4. In a different bowl mix together the flour and baking powder, making sure the powder is well distributed. Now sift that into the cake mixture and add the zest, mixing all thoroughly. Get yourself a loaf tin, grease it with butter and coat it with flour. Pour the mixture into the tin and then flatten it evenly with the back of a spoon. Bake for about 45 minutes (try the wooden toothpick trick – if it comes out clean, the cake is ready). While the cake is in the oven, get working on the drizzle. Squeeze the two lemons and sieve the juice into a bowl with the sugar. Mix well. When the cake is ready, prick it all over with the same toothpick and then pour the drizzle over the entire surface area, letting it sink into the holes. Let it cool and then, with a flat, butter knife detach the sides of the cake from the tin, being careful not to scratch the metal if you are using a non-stick tin. Remove the cake from it, place on a plate, slice and eat eat eat!
Firstly, I would like to apologise and say that I know I’ve been terrible for not writing in an age, but I do have a couple of good excuses. Some of my absence can be put down to me being a little poorly. Nothing serious, not kicking the bucket just yet, only nagging little pains that stole all my time as I took partial residency in my doctor’s waiting room. The rest of my time has been absorbed by the editorial internship I’ve been doing at the great Kings Chelsea Magazine, which is launching in June. Yay!
Admittedly, I discovered that adjusting to a full-time shift job and a part-time internship is harder than anticipated, particularly when those two workplaces and my house are based respectively in the south, west and east of London, but it’s definitely worth it. This internship will go on until mid-August, so I am afraid that until then I’ll probably be a little out of sight. But bear with me and after that I shall be even better (or I’ll try, at least). I wish I were doing something a little more senior with my few years of experience as an editor, but sadly, fashion publishing regards itself as a different kettle of fish, and unless you have relevant fashion experience you need to start from the bottom again. So, full to my eyes with humble pie, I ping-pong across London for the best part of my days.
With that out of the way, in the UK, H&M have collected all the neglected leftover Marni stock from the back of their warehouses and placed it on sale. This reminded me how I actually did go on a mission on the line’s launch day and took pictures to write about the collection, but ended up doing nothing with them.
I remember getting to the flagship store on Regent Street at 9 am on the dot, its opening time, and asking what the queuing system was. It soon transpired that I was way too late for their manically organised schedule, and that all the wristbands (colour-coded depending on the time you were supposed to get in) had all already been given to people queuing outside since 7 am.
Anyone with an entry bracelet was placed in a group of a dozen people and had 15 minutes to enter, explore and ransack the designated Marni area, which was a cluttered, crowded, poky little affair of about 2 m2 with naturally very little room to roam around. A man with a headset microphone would aggressively shout “Ten minutes left!” “Five minutes left!” (why the shouting, crazyman Michael? You’re wearing a microphone). Two bouncers were at the edges of the cordoned-off area trying to keep us as far away as possible. Despite sounding like the opposite of offering customers what they want, this schizo approach seemed to work, and by 9:32 another batch of collars was called up as the previous bunch had sold out. For us, bracelet-less civilians, there was little to do but wait until 2 pm, when all the chosen ones had already munched their way through the collection like mice through Edam and we were left with the red wax.
As you can see from the picture, at 2:30 pm the queue outside the Oxford Street shop was still remarkable, despite the poor selection left by hurricane People. I managed to take a few pictures of the whole process but can tell you this is probably the last H&M designer collaboration I am planning to attend.
Sadly, the quality of the pictures is not up to scratch as I also forgot that picnik.com was going to be shut in April. Has anyone got another similar, free website to suggest, please?
Vintage YSL blazer; b Store t-shirt; Paul Smith shirt; Jil Sander trousers; Marc by Marc Jacobs socks, Clarks brogues.
Copenhagen Erfurt scarf; River Island skirt; clogs and jacket from Japan; Philippe Roucou bag.
Topshop scarf; Bruuns Bazaar green dress; Joop purple cardigan; vintage lilac dress; Topshop brogues; Jil Sander for Uniqlo coat.
This is one of the most meaningful recipes in my recipe book, certainly one that brings with itself the sweetest memories. This is my father’s favourite dessert and my mother used to bake it for him every time he came back for his periodical home visits from working abroad. It reminds me of the feeling of expectation you have when you know you are going to see someone dear whom you haven’t seen for months, the fragrance of baking apples coming from the kitchen takes me back to how lovely it was to sit around the table, aged 5, on an afternoon with my dad smiling, having a slice of this cake, drinking his espresso and playing around with me. It reminds me of how lovingly my mum mixed all the ingredients together, confident that my dad would’ve appreciated it as a gesture of care and love.
This is indeed my mum’s personal interpretation of a classic Italian recipe, and getting the doses out of her was somewhat of a mission: “I go by the eye” is her official motto!
I always use plain flour + baking powder so I get through the flour quicker, but you can use self-raising flour, if you prefer.
So here it is, I hope you enjoy making it as much as eating it.
What you’ll need:
Preparation:
Wash, peel, core and dice the apples for the mixture in ½ in little pieces (leave the apple for the top for now, if you peel them too much in advance they’ll oxidise and be brown by the time you are ready to place them on the cake).
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350F/Gas 4 and grease and coat an 18cm/7in cake tin. Cream the room-temperature butter and the sugar together in a bowl until all uniform and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, and add in the vanilla extract. The mixture should be quite runny. If it isn’t, add a glug of soya or cow’s milk. Add the raising powder, mix really well and finally add the chopped apples. Now pour the batter into the tin.
It’s time to prepare the rest of the apples. Wash, peel and core them. To cut them, cut the apples into vertical quarters and then slice them vertically to a thickness of about 1/3 of a cm being very careful not to break the slices. Place the slices on top of the batter as shown in the first picture above.
Bake for about 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
This cake is wonderfully moist because of all those lovely bits of apples inside that go really soft when baking so you can serve it on its own, or if you like to contrast the apple flavour, serve with cream, custard or vanilla ice cream.
Finally, I thought long and hard whether to translate the word torta into pie, tart or cake. Pie is not right as there is no crust in this recipe, and tart just didn’t feel right, as that would be a separate base with a filling and a just a fruity topping. So I decided to settle for cake, as the preparation method for the basic mixture is not too different from a Victoria sponge. Let me know what you think!
I recently discovered the designer Manuela Dack. I thought “with such a name, she can only be a winner”. Well, I was right (I don’t know if it’s down to the name, though).
Manuela Dack S/S '12
Manuela graduated from Middlesex University in 2010 and since then she has been a very prolific designer. Her first collection, Autumn/Winter ’11, was discovered at the London Concept store Machine-A and stocked at The Shop at Bluebird on King’s Road. Since then, Manuela received plenty of attention from the press and media, including Elle Japan, Grazia Magazine, Style.it, SHOWStudio, Vogue Italia, Style Bubble, W Magazine and recently The Independent and Fashion Editor at Large (Grazia’s fashion editor Melanie Rickey’s blog). And it’s easy to see why. This hot new talent’s signature elements are silk and leather layering, embellishment and texture. Her elegant style is clean despite including several intricate craft detailing, such as dreamlike hand-dyeing, embroidery and beaded fringing.
Manuela Dack S/S '12
Her Spring/Summer ’12 collection is astounding: cascading silk layers ripple ethereally like in her second film collaboration, a short video which was directed by artist Max Langlands and that focuses on the sculptural and shape aspects of clothing. British-made, delicate lace and digitally printed leather (cowhide is printed to look like stingray to keep things ethical) are juxtaposed in a natural and breezy colour palette to create a minimalistic and sophisticated collection.
The inspiration for this collection came from the designer’s childhood on the Caribbean Island of Grand Cayman. The sea, colours and textures of the Caribbean, along with the island’s traditional craft techniques, play a very strong role in influencing this collection. And the perfectionist obsession of the attention to detail, which sees beading and hand-dyeing all done in-house, the label’s production kept within the UK and the inclusion of British craft work, can only guarantee wonderfully high-quality product standards, which puts this young newcomer to the same level of high-end designers.
Manuela Dack S/S '12
Her Autumn/Winter ’12 sees the return of her inspiring outerwear, which features a powerful feminine silhouette with a focus on detail. This latest collection was inspired by a collection of carved and inlaid wooden boxes owned by the designer, which transpired in the design through cut-away leather and with an angular uniform silhouette in contrast to spring/summer’s relaxed vibe.
Manuela Dack A/W '12
Manuela won London and Paris Fashion Week Sponsorship for Autumn/ Winter 2012 from Vauxhall Fashion Scout and the Center of Fashion Enterprise and her new pieces from the S/S ’12 collection are being stocked by The Shop at Bluebird, where they seemed only too happy to take her design on board for a second time.
Manuela Dack A/W '12
Manuela Dack A/W '12
I made this soup for lunch on a cold, wintery day when I had loads of random ingredients at home and really had no idea what to cook. I decided to throw all of these ingredients together in a soup and took a few pictures, just in case the experiment turned out well – and it did!
This soup is probably the healthiest thing you’ll ever eat, and yet it’s delicious. Use whole barley rather than pearled, as the former has all its vitamins and minerals intact and, therefore, is higher in iron, protein, calcium and fibre. The barley gives this dish a hearty, creamy texture which is normally hard to recreate without dairy products. Try it and tell me what you think. These doses serve one ravenous person or two light eaters.
What you’ll need:
Rinse the barely and bring it to the boil on a high flame. Once it boils turn down to a simmer and cook for about an hour (or until it’s soft), as the whole barley takes a lot longer than the pearly type. In the meantime chop the garlic and onion to a mince and lightly sweat them with the hot oil in a sauce pan for a few minutes. Add the chopped pepper, tomato, mushrooms and minced stock cube. Cook them for about ten minutes or until the pepper softens up. The tomato will let out some water, in which the stock will dissolve. Add the boiled and drained barley to the pot of veggies and simmer for ten minutes, so that all flavours join together. Check for seasoning, although the stock should have made the soup flavoursome enough. Add the hot sauce (I go for plenty) and garnish with dried coriander leaves.
Serve by itself or with a buttered slice of toasted granary bread!
End of the month = payday = shopping!
I’ve been on the lookout for something to buy for a while now (who am I lying to? I already had plenty of options in mind). It must be the spring-like, sun-lit, mild and breezy weather London is giving us of late, or all of these bright and rich colours invading every shop and clothes website. Whatever it is, we are all dying to inject some colour and new shapes into our wardrobes, so I thought I’d take a look at what’s cool and write a little list to give some inspiration, in case any of you was feeling stuck for ideas.
First of all: think mint. It is absolutely everywhere and my friend Sara is delighted as it’s her favourite colour. Just thinking of the high street, I saw this pale green shade in Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Zara, Accessorize+Monsoon and Pull&Bear, just to name a few.
Topshop bow sleeve mint blouse – £36
I thought the following top was probably the easiest option to wear this colour, so you could team it with pretty much anything under the sun.
I chose this mini skirt below because it encompasses two different trends which are huge at the moment and will remain with us through the spring and summer: the Aztec print and the pastel colours (and it goes with the top!)
Zara embroidered mini skirt – £29.99
I love Zara too much. And this skirt is edgy, short, cool and cute. It’s all you need, can’t beat it.
The Aztec print is also featured on this snuggly little jumper. It’s the first time I see neon colours toned down a little to make them look paler, and thought it was different and cool. I need it to wear it over my denim shirt, paired with shorts.
River Island fluorescent print jumper – £38
…And that’s when I got the email from Moda Operandi with a preview of the new Marc by Marc Jacobs FW 2012, Marc by Marc Jacobs FW Accessories 2012 and Jason Wu Accessories. So I absolutely had to share.
This sleeveless, round neck velvet cocktail dress has a quirky geometric waistline and an eyelet embroidered skirt, with a silk lining. The colour looks nice and rich and the velvet does not look too thick, preventing the frumpy look that this fabric can give at times. I can see this piece working with contrasting accessories. The red socks really complemented the look and were matching the red lips on the catwalk.
Marc by Marc Jacobs Valentina Velvet Dress – US$628. Picture source: modaoperandi.com
Très chic! I love this tri-tone satchel. It features a snake inspired laser cut suede panel on the front flap and the caramel, mauve and shocking pink work perfectly together.
Marc by Marc Jacobs Flipping Out Satchel – US$528. Picture source: modaoperandi.com
And last but not least…These burgundy velvet loafers feature varnish red details and a low stacked heel, very comfy and easy to wear with ankle-grazer trousers, slim-fit midi skirts, shorts and mini skirts.
Jason Wu little emperor loafers – US$630. Picture source: modaoperandi.com
I now feel super impatient about getting a hold on those FW collections – skip the summer, I want a new MbMJ bag!
On a Saturday morning not too long ago I decided I would make escalopes for a nice late lunch. So off I went to the supermarket. I set off to buy veal for this recipe, but when I got to Tesco I quickly realised they had no veal, looked for lean pork steaks, and couldn’t find those either, so resorted to buying small lean pork medallions and flattening them at home. Pork meat works just as perfectly as veal in this recipe so that’s fine. I was actually quite excited about getting medallions in the end as that meant I’d get to use the very, very, very old meat pounder I nicked from my Grandma’s kitchen over Christmas. Here it is:
vintage meat pounder
If you don’t have one, you could always use a small metal pot or saucepan.
What you’ll need:
For the roast potatoes
For the sweet red cabbage
For the escalopes
Preparation:
Preheat oven to gas mark 7/425°F (220°C). Wash, peel and chop the potatoes into fairly small cubes (about 2 in). Place them into a roasting tin and add the oil, herbs, lemon thyme and a generous sprinkle of salt. Place the tin in the oven and cook them for at least ½ hour, or until they are all golden, soft inside and crunchy outside.
While the tatties cook away, peel off the outer leaves of the cabbage. Now slice the half cabbage thinly (between ½ and 1 cm thick) and set aside. Slice the red onion and place in a pan where you’ve been heating the oil. Gently fry the onion until it’s soft and add cinnamon and nutmeg. Cook for another minute to let the spices release all their flavour, then add the cabbage, raisins, bay leaves, vinegar and water. Cover and bring up to the boil, then turn the heat down and let simmer until the cabbage is soft, which should take about 40–45 minutes. If the contents of the pan become dry and the cabbage is not yet soft, just keep adding water little by little to keep it simmering. When the cabbage is about five minutes from being ready, add the butter, salt and pepper and stir well to mix all the flavours.
While the cabbage simmers, it’s time to get started on that pork. Flatten the medallions to a thickness of between 0.5 and 1 cm thick. Flour them and place them in a large frying pan with the hot oil where you’ve been lightly frying the garlic. Sear them and cut the mushrooms into small pieces (if they are small enough you can slice them vertically so they’ll retain the mushroom shape and look pretty). Crumble the stock cube and add it to the pan with the mushrooms, the lemon thyme and a little bit of water. Let cook for five minutes or so and then turn the heat right up. Pour the wine in and let evaporate. Turn the heat back to medium and cook until the mushrooms are soft and the pork is done (which shouldn’t take longer than ten minutes, as the meat is rather thin).
Plate up and go.
Last Thursday I attended a fashion exhibition showcasing Sarmite Ostanevica’s A/W ’12 collection called Automatic. The show was held at Testbed 1, a big ex-factory building in Battersea. It was organised by the designer herself and supported by my friend Melanie at the World Photography Organisation. The exhibition was very unusual, with the whole collection displayed in amazing pictures on the walls all over the venue, and a few sample pieces hung on a rail under multicoloured neon lights. I had the luck to interview the designer about this exhibition, and this is what she revealed.
Designer Sarmite Ostanevica
Neon lights
DfD: How did you come up with the idea to hold a fashion show in such a different, innovative and exciting way, rather than having a simple catwalk show?
SO: I quite often get contacted by photographers who want to shoot my previous collections, so I thought why not use my newest material to create an exhibition with it! And what’s the point in having all the work in a portfolio which you only show to certain contacts and not to the public? You know, around here tonight we have real public. So much work goes towards it and it’s worth sharing it.
Photographs by Carine Ottou
Photograph by Gina Amama
Photographs by Johan Paul Hion
DfD: Does this exhibition include just your Automatic collection?
SO: Yes, it does.
The Automatic collection
DfD: And are you enjoying it here today?
SO: Yes, I am, because I hadn’t seen any of the photographers’ work until today so it’s very exciting for me.
DfD: I know you’re from Latvia. Can you give me a bit more background about yourself? Where did you study and why did you decide to move to the UK?
SO: I moved to London because I wasn’t sure what to study, and once here it didn’t take me long to realise that I should study fashion. And that was an adventure for me, to see how I’d get to study and learn in a foreign country. I worked with a lot of people for free to learn the trade. I studied at Kensington and Chelsea College, and took some courses at St Martin’s College.
DfD: Where do you get your inspiration from?
SO: In terms of this particular collection, the inspiration was quite unusual. Automatic comes from motors and engines, but inspiration can come from anywhere. It is something that comes from your mind, something that you want to discover and at this point I decided I’d discover something about mechanics and machines! (laughs)
Sketches for the collection
DfD: Why not! All the luxe and metallics recall that theme.
SO: Yes, I tried to keep colours and tones quite neutral, look on the obviously metallic colours and tried to play around with the combinations. But I think cuts and shapes are the most important aspect of this collection.
A few samples
Organza top
Bronze silk top
DfD: How do shapes relate to the theme?
SO: As a designer it’s quite difficult to explain how I got to the final products. You see some images, like I have, and they will reflect in the designs. I studied and looked at motors for many days, and to begin with it was really complicated to see something out of it but then after a week or so you choose some shapes from it which you’d like to use in your designs.
Round-neck sleeveless black top
DfD: Do you retail anywhere?
SO: I do retail in Latvia at the moment. I’m sourcing for retailers in Europe but I understand especially now with this economic climate that it’s not going to happen overnight. But I’m open to suggestions.
Detail from a silk top
Detail from a wool and silk top
DfD: What other projects are you planning to work on soon?
SO: Oh I have so many! I’m going to keep it as a bit of a secret. The fact is that I am social, I have hundreds of ideas and contacts and it’s hard to choose the right one. But at least that means I never find myself in a situation where I’m stuck and I have nowhere to go. I have hundreds of options and connections.
DfD: Are you interested in other forms of art and design?
SO: I do paint a little bit. I love various art directions. This time I chose photography to express the collection.
DfD: So we just need to watch this space really, right? You might use painting to showcase the next collection!
SO: Nice one, we’ll see…
dressing4dinner.com 