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Blanched jerusalem artichoke and celeriac with toasted sour dough bread and pomegranate seeds, in a tahini and lemon juice dressing. So GOOD! Antother one of Yotam Ottonlenghi’s fantastic recipes in his The New Vegetarian column for the Guardian, which you can read following this link below.
www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/dec/15/weekend7.weekend9

I’ve been cooking big field mushrooms like this for a long time now, since finding the recipe in Robert Carrier’s Great Dishes of the World cookbook. Its really easy: just saute the mushroom in a little olive oil with some chopped garlic and a sprinkling of marigold powder (veg stock). Then add a good glug of red wine and let that simmer down to a syrupy jus. To serve, add a squeeze of lemon juice, chopped chives and some freshly ground pepper.

Cripes I’m crap. This article was drafted yonks ago. For some reason I hesitated from publishing it… well Cibelle is still fantastic and still not got big enough a profile for my liking so here she is. Cibelle is one of the most underated artists out there, I know there are a lot of them, but this gig i went to, below, was f**king brilliant! And i just checked Cibelle’s website and she still doesn’t have the kind of size gigs I’d be hoping for her. Bardon’s Boudoir in April, tho’ there are plenty before that not in London. GO CHECK HER OUT!

Cibelle did a fantastic set at the Jungle Drums party last week. Its a shame so few people actually stopped talking to listen – they’d have discovered some real magic and we would’ve all been able to enjoy the music a lot better. But still, it was better than not seeing/hearing Cibelle live at all… her live set is really something special.

If you only know her albums you’ll be surprised at the experimental / electro / rock twist to her live sound, but it makes seeing her play so interesting and engaging. The live show is heavy on the electric guitar, which is coupled with the use of a sampler to effect, and set backing sounds with, her voice. The drums were an important player too, setting down some really great rhythms.

Cultural flotsam: Thoughts on Christmas

I recently acquired a copy of a great cookbook called Chinese Regional Cooking by Deh-Ta Hsiung from 1979. I have been learning all sorts of interesting recipes and the methods and ingredients common in Chinese cooking. Coincidentally a new Chinese supermarket has opened up at the end of my road so I’m pretty sorted for ingredients. This dish is always a weakness of mine when ordering Chinese takeaway but I always find myself disappointed by the tiny amount of pork they put in there surrounded by tonnes of batter and in a too sweet/simply flavoured sauce. Turns out the sauce is quite simple to make and in terms of ingredients, but it tastes a whole lot better made at home and with proper sized portions of pork. I’ll post the recipe here later.

I seem to be only posting video these days… I’m not quite sure why except that I keep coming across good stuff! So what I suggest is that you watch this video while you have the Four Eyed Monsters video I posted about below/before loading in another tab. This Tunng video is wonderful and hilarious. The bundle of stuff floating through space somehow seems to sum up Tunng’s music, and the way it is animated to the sound fits perfectly. I love Becky’s leg movements sticking out of the planet of Tunng, in fact, all of the various Tunng members are sticking out of the planet in some way or another… brilliant! Best of Haines’ Tunng videos so far, I’d say.

Alex Baker has a sculptural sound installation in our local clock tower on Mare Street in Hackney, St Augustine’s Tower. It is absolutely magical, to go into this space and experience it with the sound work. There is a reciprocal relationship where I think both the art and the tower gain a great deal from having the other around it. For the piece, titled A Recurring Sequence of Events, Alex has installed 72 speakers throughout the tower which are playing in a recurring ’sequence’ of notes, which is controlled by a sculpural-audio-amplifying set up in the top of the tower. If you are in in Hackney you absolutely must take this opportunity to check out the tower, or go back if you have been in before, if you are in London anywhere else, then this is a really good reason to come visit us here in Hackney! You can get in there every weekend afternoon until the 14th October, but check out Alex’s website below for exact times.
More information on Alex Baker’s A Recurring Sequence of Events site-specific sound installation.

I am really glad that I managed to get to the Anthony Gormley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery this summer. The Blind Light cloud installation was quite an experience – it was hot and damp and completely disorienting. You really couldn’t see further than the end of your arm, so at the same time as being isolated, you were really close to complete strangers, as they loomed out of the cloud right in front of you or as you listened to them call out to lost friends.
Click on the photo to see more photos of the exhibition on my Flickr stream.

I was appalled by the ornate appearance of this brand new strip of beach huts waiting to be snapped up. They just look so Disneyesque – all pastel colours and frills – yuck!

I heard these three Kiwi comedians called Tripod singing this song on BBC Radio 7’s coverage of the Edinburgh Festival recently. It completely took me by surprise and really had me laughing out loud. Enjoy!

This is a web-only sitcom, the plot is decided by the audience via their wiki and the story starts in London and then travels around Europe. It is a mockumentary style comedy, owing a lot to The Office, and you really don’t need to know anymore but just that you must go and watch it now! It’s bloody brilliant!