Seeking Music - Converse Represent

You ever have one of those days where something you knew nothing about just keeps popping up everywhere? That's what happened to me on my way home today when all of a sudden everything I saw was telling me about Converse Represent.



It seems that despite the ridiculous amount of Olympic themed things dominating London for the rest of the 'summer', Converse have managed to knock out a mini festivals of sorts in a venue I've been meaning to tick off my gig list, the 100 Club.

Much like the iTunes festival, it's free - so you select which artists you'd like to see, you're put into a drawing and notified if you snapped up a pair of tickets 2 weeks before the event.  I've already put in my entry so fingers crossed, but I doubt I'll be so lucky!  With artists like SBTRKT, Santigold, Django Django, Best Coast, Paul Weller etc etc, I think they'll be hard to win.

See the full lineup and enter here:

Seeking Markets - Angel and Whitechapel

*This post is about 2 months delayed due to some very bad relationship management from a sponsor.  Therefore, this post is not sponsored.* 

What happens to the streets of London that are normally filled with commuters making their way into Central London or The City on the weekend? Markets, that's what.

I finally walked through Chapel Market in Angel in my beautiful borough of Islington (I don't think I will ever live in another borough!!).  Chapel Market has beautiful fruits and veg, various bits and bobs of jewellery, shoes, clothes and...bed mattresses? It's borderline car boot sale mixed with a farmers' market and simply good for a wander. What's even better is that this is a short walk, bus or tube ride away from King's Cross.

Sometimes I get a bit sad when I walk through King's Cross or anywhere else in Central and realise that this is the only London that most tourists get to know. There is SO MUCH outside of Zone 1 to see.  When I came here as a tourist I hated London, it seemed like any other big city.  But after living here, I've discovered that there are so many mini-cities in London - it's not what a tourist sees at all.

I like to play a game when I walk/take the bus through London where I 'unlock' levels on the map (hint at my geeky gamer girl past). There's a fork in the road at King's Cross where Caledonian Road takes you North and Pentonville Road takes you North East and straight to Angel.  Once I connected those points, I realised London was a lot easier to navigate without the restrictions of the Tube map.

I later travelled on to Whitechapel to visit some friends, which required me unlocking the Angel to Old Street and Old Street/Liverpool St/Brick Lane (thanks to many a drunken night) to Whitechapel portions of the map. :)

As I normally only go there at night before heading out, I'd never seen the high street at full force. It's decorated with a massive street market in what appears to not even be London anymore save for the shiny Gherkin poking its head above the street signs.

What about you - how do you like to discover cities you visit? 

For the Londoners - which levels of the map have you unlocked? :) 

Seeking History - The Secret History of Our Streets: Caledonian Road

BBC iPlayer - The Secret History of Our Streets: Caledonian Road:

If you haven't started watching this series, please do start. I was ridiculously excited to see the history of the street that I use to commute into London every.single.day. and never realised that so much has happened on this road over the years.

Some of my favourite bits were learning about the market behind Cally station, discovering Thornhill Square and understanding just how big of an impact the rail station had to this area.

What are your thoughts on Caledonian Road - is it a 'rough' neighbourhood or just rough around the edges?

'via Blog this'

Jubilee Extravaganza Day 4 - English Roast

After our lovely curry the night before, we finally reached the end of the Jubilee Weekend and I celebrated by randomly cooking a dinner for my friends!

Sunday Roast - There's not much for me to say on this weekly English dish.  Although, as someone who likes to cook, improvise recipes and present visually pleasing and tasty meals, I've always got to put my own twist on things!

As I was trying to do only British themed activities this weekend, my roast (which is basically a lightweight Thanksgiving dinner to my American readers) couldn't include my staples of mac n' cheese, some form of green veg in pork and vinegar and cornbread. Tragic, I know.

I did make a roast chicken that was meant for 2-3 but fed 5 in the end!

Orange and Herb Roasted Chicken

Orange and Herb Roasted Chicken

I'm not very good at recipes but here goes

• 1 whole chicken
• 1 orange cut into quarters
• 1 onion cut into quarters
• 1 sliced clove of garlic
• fresh thyme, rosemary and sage
• 2 tablespoons of softened butter
• salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon of oil (I think I use EVOO)
• Dried mixed/italian herbs if you want

Pre-heat oven to 210ºC. Run the chicken under cold water, plucking any extra bits that are still on it and rinsing out the cavity completely. If there are any necks or giblet type thingies get rid of that. If you know how to make gravy with it, go for it but I normally have these already removed.

Place chicken on its back on a clean surface or even in the pan you'll be cooking this in.  At this point, I start thinking of the chicken as a little person that's getting a massage and going in the sauna for a bit. (Don't judge me, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen by myself - gotta stay entertained!)

In a small bowl mix the butter, salt, pepper and dried herbs (if you're using them) together. With the cavity facing you, just at the top you should be able to lift up a bit of the skin and fit most of your hand underneath the skin over the breast. (If you're squeamish about touching meat, imagining this as a massage helps!) The slit between the skin should go down to the legs as well. Keep using the butter mix and massaging the chicken under and over the skin, front and back, until you're happy with the seasoning. This butter mix will also help the chicken have nice and crispy skin.

Transfer the chicken to the pan if it's not already there and top with more salt, pepper and dried herbs if you wish.

Take one orange quarter and squeeze over the chicken. Put one quarter inside the chicken, another quarter behind a wing, and the last quarter behind a leg diagonal from the orange wing.

Take one onion quarter and put inside the chicken, use the other 3 to put around the chicken behind the wing and leg with no orange and peel the last quarter to sprinkle around the chicken.

Put several slices of the garlic inside the chicken and sprinkle the rest around him er her er it. :) See, it becomes my little friend before I send it off to the nice warm sauna. 

Decorate it with the fresh herbs as you wish. I normally tuck rosemary sprigs on its legs, and put a mix of the herbs inside the chicken.  Finally prop the wings behind its neck like it's lying back and kicking up its legs to relax (this helps the wing tips not to burn). People wrap up the legs with poultry string for the same reason, but I never have a problem with them burning. 

Drizzle a bit of oil at the bottom of the pan.  Set in the oven, on the middle rack, for however long the pack tells you since it depends on the size. I think this bird took about 30 - 45 minutes but you want it to look like the second picture up there (obvs). If you see it turning brown too fast, turn down the heat. If by 30 minutes it's not brown enough, turn it up to 220ºC for the last 10 minutes or so and it should be good. 

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I also had my first stab at Yorkshire Puddings, which must've been created when someone didn't know what to do with their excessively soupy bread mixture. I found this recipe online, followed it to.a.T. and created these bad boys as my cornbread replacement!

Best Yorkshire pudding recipe evar

Gorgeous yorkshire puds on the first try!

I'm stil amazed by how they work, how do they grow like that?!!? Apparently the trick is heating the pan to cooking temp with vegetable oil before adding the batter. The more oil, the more they rise. The hotter the pan, the better they rise.  Give it a try!

Here's the final dinner feast!

Orange and Herb Roasted Chicken, steamed broccoli, roasted carrots and potatoes, Yorkshire Pudding, gravy

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And finally, I may have broken my 'no American' things rule a bit with dessert. Well technically it's Sicilian, but who cares - it's my beloved Cassata Cake that I blogged about over a year ago.  I haven't made it since moving to England, and to be honest it's a bitch of a cake to make. It takes up your life, but it is WELL worth it once it's done. I normally try to save it as a summer weather cake as it's heavy in fruit and cream ingredients, but, well, like I said I haven't made it since moving to England. (Will it EVER be summer here!?)

I wanted to make a Jubilee themed cake so here are the results.

Cassata Cake

Click here for the recipe: http://arielcking.blogspot.com/2011/03/cassata-cake.html

This was my first time making everything, even the cake from scratch (I normally use box cake)! Very pleased with the results!

Building a Cassata Cake 

So that's that for my English Roast and Jubilee Weekend.

If you have any questions, have tried these recipes before, or have similar dishes to share let me know in the comments!

Jubilee Extravaganza Day 3 - Lahore Kebab House

So far, we've ticked off festivals/drinking and how we spend our downtime nursing hangovers with some primetime telly.  Now it's time to move on to what we're eating.

Curry - right then.  This should be a known fact for most of you out there, but for those that don't know - Indian food is more popular than fish n'chips here in the UK.  So on Bank Holiday Monday, whilst Tom Jones took the stage outside of Buckingham Palace, I took a seat in a Whitechapel restaurant called Lahore.

A few things; as much as I've embraced British culture since moving here I still can't get that excited about curry.  I'll have it, but I won't crave it the way some people seem to.  Also, I use the term 'restaurant' quite loosely. It looks a bit more like a cafeteria you would've had your lunches in around age 10.  That being said, this seems to be one of East London's gems with people proclaiming their love for the cuisine. Not to mention, it's BYOB so drink up!

We have some friends that live out this way so we've been here before, but I think this is the first time I had eaten there. As they were quite clued up on what to eat and how to order it, someone shouted for mixed starters and papadums and our waiter returned to the table with about 8 plates of food.

While I don't go for curries that often, hands down my favourite part is the papadums and the 'lil dips you get with it. There was heaps of mint sauce on the table but he didn't bring out the mango chutney, I nearly cried inside.  If finally arrived and I tore into the crispy treat and had a few bits of chicken kebab that was mixed with lamb kebab.  Now World, I'm quite terrified of eating lamb - and I'm not one to say no to trying different food.  I normally cant even bring myself to swallow it, but this place managed to keep the little lamb chops in my belly.  Success - but I probably still won't eat the lambykins in the future.

Bottom line is we had a delicious meal, but I won't bang on about the food much as I didn't take any pictures (was having a 2 hour asthma attack without my inhalers on hand - stupid!). I will say however, that this adventure sparked a new treat for my fellow Seekers out there.

Now I know many of you don't use Foursquare in the UK but there are some really handy features for those that do!

New look on Foursquare

I've created lists of some of my favourite places to help you through London

Follow me and check-in to a place I've been before or a place near to where I've been before and my tips about the location will appear on your phone!

This post is releasing just in time for Foursquare's new look so if you don't have it or you haven't used it in a while, download it and follow me to get tips and suggestions while you're out seeking London.

Lahore Kebab House can be found at:

2-10 Umberston Street
London
E1 1PY
http://www.lahore-kebabhouse.com/
Nearest Tube: Whitechapel, Aldgate East, Shadwell (DLR/Overground)