My week in pictures

Posted in Adventures, Girl About Town by ameliaflorencesimmons

I don’t usually do these kind of posts as I think they’re a bit of a cop out, but things have been absolutely crazy the past week and a half. After coming back from holiday, things went into hyperdrive and I went from being a freelancer to working full time in a London entertainment PR agency. I’m enjoying every minute of it. It’s one of those jobs where you can’t wait to get started in the mornings, and I couldn’t be happier about working there.

But awesome job aside, I’ve barely had a minute to sit down and blog. So to fill the gap, here’s a selection of pictures of what I’ve been up to (spoiler alert: mostly eating). To sum up, I did the following: went to an open air screening at London Zoo (more on that soon), ate, went to a hen do, rehearsed for a musical in a gun room, accidentally attended an ‘Ibiza Pizza Party’ in a tiny village pub in Surrey, drank cocktails with pipettes in, wore an oversized cricket jumper, and ate some more. Not pictures are the pheasant impressions I did with friends at the end of the night. Don’t ask.

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20Apr2013

Recipe: pears poached in red wine

Posted in Food, Recipes by ameliaflorencesimmons

Because you’ve been very good, I’m going to give you one of my favourite easy dessert recipes. I mean, you could do this blindfolded (don’t). It’s ridiculously easy, but hugely satisfying, and a completely fuss-free option for finishing off a supper with friends. While it’s perhaps a little Autumnal, so is the weather. Cool, richly flavoured pear, hot spiced sugar syrup, and the chill of a vanilla-flecked ice cream make this a real crowd-pleaser.

This particular recipe is for 4 people, but it’s easy to adapt the quantities accordingly.

Pears poached in red wine

4 firm pears, peeled and with stalks in tact
500ml red wine
1 vanilla pod, split
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
125g caster sugar
2 tbsp honey
Peel and juice of 1 orange

1. Put all of the ingredients apart from the pears into a saucepan and head until the sugar dissolves.

2. Slice the bottoms off the pears to make sure they stand upright, and place in the saucepan. If you like it, then you should put a lid on it. For 25-30 minutes to be precise, allowing it to simmer.

3. Turn the heat off and let the pears sit in the liquid for at least two hours to fully infuse them with the liquid.

4. When you’re ready to serve, simply plate up the pears, then bring the remaining syrup to a boil. Pour it over the pears and serve with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. If you’re going commercial, it HAS to be Green & Black’s, which is the very best store bought vanilla ice cream I’ve ever had.

Happy cooking! Coming up soon, a veggie bangers and mash recipe, burger chat, and Ben Ainslie’s boat.

15Apr2013

It’s always better on holiday…

Posted in Adventures, Positive Thinking by ameliaflorencesimmons

On Friday, I grudgingly came back from Cornwall, smashing back into the real world. I’m not entirely sure how to write a post about this without it being the 2013 equivalent of showing you my holiday slide show (‘how did THAT get in there?!’) so I’ll do what I can to keep it lively.

I spent two weeks with the fam in St Ives in Cornwall, mainly just eating, reading, walking and cooking, and very occasionally thinking. It was my first holiday in a year, and I desperately needed to take a bit of time out from pressures at home, and come back with a fresh perspective. For me, that’s what a holiday should be for – in a way, a break from yourself and a break from your routines.

I was stagnating a bit before I went away. It was a stressful start to the year, and I went from knowing exactly what I wanted to do to being more or less completely lost in a matter of weeks. Circumstances around me changed and I found it hard to change with them. I’ve been freelance for nearly two years now, and I hit a wall. Projects wrapped up and I suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of having to come up with a slew of new ideas to get going on.

Nearly two years of pressured deadlines, answering emails at 11pm, constantly seeking new clients, projects not coming off…and more than anything, the ALL-ENERGY-ALL-THE-TIME aspect of freelancing. I was exhausted. I was fed up. I lost all motivation and found myself questioning what I wanted to do. I hated writing, didn’t want to do, couldn’t do it, most terrifyingly of all. I couldn’t pick up a pen, couldn’t open an empty Word doc. I’ve been craving photocopiers and office gossip and leaving work at 6 and drawing a line under it. No messy overspill. Defined days. Measured time.

Two weeks away gave me time to reflect on all of those ragged, half-formed thoughts. I was so cross and frustrated with myself. While I was away, I put down my phone(s), zipped up my laptop bag, and just tried to ‘be’ for the two weeks. I read a lot, went for long walks, cooked meals over a period of several hours with a glass of wine in hand. I’ve come back ready to address things properly instead of running away from them. This Monday, I’ve been excited again, keen to work hard, wanting to get things done. I feel a million miles away from the way I did before the holiday, and it’s a relief.

If you’ve been feeling a bit lost or a bit confused, try and take some time away if your circumstances permit it. Get away from social media and the relentless tide of everyday communications. Try and remember who you are and what you’re doing. Step back before you jump in again. What a sappy post – I’m sorry for the fortune cookie wisdom I appear to be spouting, so I’ll wrap up right here. If you’re anything like me and you tend to run away from things, then try running a little further then coming back more prepared.

And if you found that the most saccharine pile of old rubbish, then here are some pretty pictures and photos of food wot I ate to cheer you up. Coming up soon: more recipes, and watch a shirt magically transform into a skirt.

8Apr2013

Spaghetti with roasted vine tomatoes in white wine sauce

Posted in Cooking by ameliaflorencesimmons

G’day, mates – no particular reason for the Aussie intro, but it’s a Monday, so let’s go with it. As I mentioned briefly in my last post, I’m down in Cornwall at the moment, and due to a lack of my usual ingredients and utensils, I’ve only been making very simple suppers. That said, I’ve got access to some wonderful greengrocers and delis, so the quality of my ingredients is much higher, a fact which I’m trying to make the most of.

As you might have gathered from my recent recipe posts, such as my veggie burgers, I’m on a bit of a veggie crusade right now. I’m fed up of missing out on certain flavours and techniques in restaurants, instead being offered the standard goat’s cheese tart or mushroom risotto. I’m vegetarian BUT I STILL HAVE TASTEBUDS, GODDAMMIT. Anyway, I fancied a spaghetti dish with a fragrant white wine sauce to emulate a seafood spaghetti dish, so here goes:

Serves 3-6, depending on how hungry you are

Roasted tomatoes

Tomatoes on the vine, roughly 16
Olive oil to drizzle
3 lemon slices
3 garlic cloves
Salt & pepper

Sauce

300ml white wine
2 garlic cloves
1/2 white onion
500ml veg stock
2 bay leaves
Salt & pepper

Assembly

250g spaghetti
Two handfuls baby spinach or rocket leaves
Large handful basil
Cheese, to taste

1. Heat oven to 180°C. Keeping your tomatoes on the vine, place them in foil or a roasting dish. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Smash garlic cloves with the handle of a knife and wedge in with the tomatoes, along with the three thick lemon slices. Roast for 30-40 minutes, until the skins start to split (sounds pretty gross, right?)

2. Meanwhile, start your sauce off. Heat a drizzle of olive oil while you finely chop your onion and garlic. Sweat both in the pan until the onion is translucent, then add the wine. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until the sauce begins to reduce down. Add bay leaves and stock, and keep simmering away, tasting occasionally, for about 30 minutes.

3. Cook the spaghetti according to packet instructions – feels like a real cop out writing that in my recipe, but hey ho. Wash spinach or rocket and leave to drain. Stack basil leaves on top of each other and roll up so it looks like you’re going to be up to no good with it, then slice – this will give you ribbons of basil and is called ‘Chiffonade’. Pretty cool, eh?

4. To assemble, drain spaghetti and add it to the pan containing the sauce. Slice off half of the tomatoes and stir them in, preserving the rest on the vine. Add leaves, basil, and finely grate a cheese of your choice and stir it all in, leaving the flavours to marry together on the stove for about 10 minutes. Top with two tomatoes still on the vine on each dish, some more grated cheese, a lemon wedge, and a thick slice of sourdough or crusty bread to mop up flavours.

Bon appetit! Coming up soon, a write up of the Maritime museum in Falmouth, pictures of actual SUN, and more recipes…

3Apr2013

Adam & Albert

Posted in Adventures, Girl About Town, London, Music by ameliaflorencesimmons

I’m currently writing this post from a wonderfully sunny St Ives in Cornwall, but before I go on to boast about the glorious weather, I’m going to rewind to last week, and a cold and faintly snowy London.

Last Thursday, India and I headed up to South Ken to see the event we’d been anticipating for months on end: Foals at the Albert Hall. We last saw them in the grubby, chilly, small Concorde 2 in Brighton, and were fascinated as to how they’d translate to such a different venue. If you’ve never seen the band live, I urge you to get tickets for whatever you can lay your hands on. Foals are phenomenal live, and I say that without the slightest bit of exaggeration.

After a rather pleasing support slot from Efterklang, the laser lighting kicked in, the smoke machine pumped up to full volume, and the band made their way on stage. Most of the set came from their new album, Holy Fire, interspersed with crowd-pleasers such as Total Life Forever and Spanish Sahara. When Foals play, something almost transcendental happens to the audience. I looked around the crowd, seeing people transported by the music, these huge guitar riffs and echoing vocals punching the walls of the Albert Hall.

After about half an hour, India and I grew frustrated at being in a seated area, and our attempts at chair dancing weren’t really cutting it, so we clambered down to the front of the tiered section in a haze of dance-driven urgency. We spent the rest of the gig waving about like idiots, watching the mosh pit from on high, and feeling the waves of sound on our faces. Due to our (over)enthusiasm, we got pulled aside at the end of the gig to give a short interview about Foals for the Albert Hall. After hoarsely repeating the word ‘epic’ several times, we were on our way to Soho.

In Soho, we picked up Frankie, who took us to a new discovery: The Soho Social Club. I almost don’t want to talk about it, because it was so ace that I don’t want anyone else to know it’s there, but what the heck. It’s essentially one room on the corner of a dark, tucked away Soho street, and contains a few small tables and one long banqueting table. The walls are stacked with books and framed black and white photos with a heavy S&M emphasis. The cocktail menu is brief but carefully curated, and the staff charming.

When we got there, Frankie was greeted heartily by an old dear in a fur hat and large earrings who perched, regally, at the very end of the long table. ‘Oh hello love’, she said, ‘it’s been ages since I saw you, hasn’t it?’ They chattered away for a little while, before Frankie turned to us and said she’d never seen the woman before in her life…But I’ve overlooked the very best part of TSSC: the dogs. Yes, dogs. Four squiggly balls of fluff scattered around the room, enjoying the attention of the delighted customers, and I took quite a shine to a sweet French bulldog called Modesty.

From there, we dashed to The Diner for stacked burgers, baskets of fries and Cherry Cokes before crossing the river to the BFI, just in time for my beloved Adam Buxton and the start of BUG. If you’ve never been, BUG is a bi-monthly (last time I checked) showcase for new and interesting music videos, which Adam hosts. Not only is it a fantastic way of discovering new bands, but Adam also reads out YouTube comments on the videos, and gives his own commentary, which is hugely entertaining.

Bit of a skim through Thursday, but I’ll be back soon with posts about Cornwall, and showing off about the sunshine. Ta ra for now.

18Mar2013

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

Posted in Adventures, Fashion, Girl About Town, London by ameliaflorencesimmons

I am SO SORRY for being atrocious at posting lately. I got tangled up around Fashion Week and haven’t quite regained my footing until now. Someone even contacted me the other day to check if I was dead, so I knew it was probably time to post. Also, this weather is making me feel totally miz. I’m looking outside and can see a fat grumpy pigeon perched on the bare branches of the tree at the end of the garden while it rains on him, and that sort of sums everything up. I’m desperately in need of sun.

So what have I been doing with my life, I hear you demand? (Correction: I like to think I hear you demand. You’re probably just thinking about pigeons right now. You philistine.) I’d say in the month since I last posted, I’ve mostly been eating. I went up to St Andrews in February to judge the Alfa Romeo Young Designer Award for Lady M Presents, write up coming shortly. That was an awful lot of aceness. Also, I love Scotland, and I managed to resist doing my famously awful Scottish accent for the entire weekend, AND I didn’t even refer to anyone as the ‘Scotch’, as Stewart Lee is always getting people to do. Or quote any of this video.

The weekend after that, I went to the London outpost of the St Andrews Fashion Show, including dinner at Circus with the winners of the award. Circus is a unique concept: Pan-Asian cuisine served alongside…well, circus acts. And of course, we saw the St Andrews show again. Eating sushi while watching fire-eaters was a pretty fascinating way to spend an evening… On the whole, the food was delicious, the entertainment very absorbing, and we were shown into the venue by a man in a top hat and much more eye makeup than me, which is the way any good night should start.

It was great to see the designs on the catwalk again, and I’m still bowled over at the huge amount of hard work that must have gone into the organising of the show. I skipped out earlyish to get some much needed sleep, and also to eat plum jelly in my hotel room. Yep. That’s how I roll on a Friday night. Jelly roll. The next day, nursing a jelly hangover, I got taken to one of the most delightful restaurants I’ve been to in a very long time, which was The Delaunay, a charming place tucked away just off the strand. Beware the photo of the waffles I had, which can be seen in the pictures below. It has been known to induce fits of jealousy.

Then I went to Sketch, and back to Canteen, and to the wonderful Brasserie Zedel, and I made brunch, and sausage and mash…In fact, I really have been more or less eating non-stop for the last month, and having a rather wonderful time, all sorts of adventures and smiling non-stop, but I’m going to catch up with posts a bit at a time to avoid any essay length blogs. In the meantime, take a look at some pictures, why don’t you? And if you’re wondering where the title of this post comes from, I say firstly to you: get sum edukashun, yeh? And secondly, this.