Ripe London

Stir Your Heart

I’ve read a lot of personal-growth books, and I can tell you that they all say the same the thing.  Whether they’re about finding love, moving on, leading a richer life or discovering your purpose, it all comes down to two words: acceptance and gratitude. 

A few months ago, I came across The Surrendered Single by Laura Doyle.  Once I got over the funny title, I saw that the premise was once again the same: don’t try to change him (acceptance) and focus on what you love about him rather than what ticks you off (gratitude).  But there was also another little nugget in there I warmed to:  the idea that there is no perfect partner, rather an imperfect person who’s perfect for you.  Which, if you think about it, is just another way of saying the same thing: get over yourself and embrace what you’ve got, whether you're in love or singledom.

I’ve always been intensely intrigued by that elusive little devil called chemistry.  How someone can spark outrageous flames in your heart while another won’t cause so much as a flutter is infinitely fascinating to me.  And the fact that the person who ignites such passions in you often turns out to be far from your idea of perfect fills me with awe for the mysterious workings of human nature.

Perfect imperfection.  I was thinking about this as I was making everybody’s favourite standby: the stir-fry.  There might be a few fundamentals in the preparation, yet my idea of a perfect stir-fry is probably quite different from yours.  Google “stir fry”, and you get 4,020,000 results (and quite a discrepancy about whether there should be a hyphen).  One thing is certain: stir-frying, like romance, needs to be devoid of measurements.  It’s much more satisfying – and I’d say essential – to dispense with rigidity and just go with the flow.  Just make sure you keep things moving – in this case over high heat.

This is the stir-fry that does it for me.  There’s nothing fancy about it.  It fills me up.  It’s good to my body.  It’s always dependable.  It’s nice to look at and even better to taste.  So, tell me, what’s perfectly imperfect about yours?

My Perfect Stir-Fry

King Soba Noodle Culture brown rice and millet noodles
Mild olive oil
Carrots
Celery
Broccoli
Garlic clove
Fresh ginger
Mushrooms
Tofu
Light tahini
Tamari
Raw cashews
Toasted sesame seeds

Put a pot of water to boil and set a wok over high heat.  Cut the carrots into matchsticks, slice the celery and add to the wok along with a little water.  While the vegetables steam, cut the broccoli into small florets, rinse them and add to the wok (with more water if necessary).  When the broccoli’s green amps up (about a minute), transfer all the veggies to a plate.

Add some olive oil to the wok, then mince the garlic and ginger and throw them in.  Place the noodles in the pot of the now boiling water.  Quarter the mushrooms and add to the wok.  Stir, stir, stir.  Slice the tofu and add it in, too.  Sizzle, sizzle.  Meanwhile, quickly mix about one part tahini to four parts tamari in a small bowl.

Push the mushrooms and tofu up to the side of the wok and add a little more oil to the center.  Drain the noodles and add them to the oil, breaking them up with a long wooden fork.  Now add the vegetables back in along with the cashews, sauce and sesame seeds.  Keep stirring everything together vigorously for a few more seconds.

That's mine.  Now show me yours...

Stuck on You

Welcome, food lovers, to the first of two Valentine’s Day posts.  Love is in the air in my flat this morning, and it smells of sticky toffee pudding.

Oh yes.  You know those rare moments when “you just know”?  I’m talking about that absolute knowingness that comes when you a) fall in love, b) finally solve a long-standing problem and c) come up with a recipe that knocks your own thermal socks off.

For the past-two weeks since deciding to stick with a plant-based diet, I’ve been trying to give my banana pancakes an egg-free, dairy-free makeover.  I’ve tried the usual vegan recommendations: using soy yogurt in place of Greek and beating ground flax seed together with water to replace the egg.  The results were pretty good, but I had this feeling – I just knew – there was something else I hadn’t yet hit upon.

At the same time, I had been thinking about an old flame I hadn’t seen in a while: the sticky toffee pudding.  Suddenly, it all came together: the planets aligned, my heart skipped a beat and I went to bed last night with Sticky Toffee Pancake dreams.

This recipe trumps my banana pancakes on every level.  Not only are they fluffy and wonderfully sticky toffee, but because there’s no egg or dairy in them, there’s no cholesterol to clog your precious heart.  Instead, the flax seed gives you those heart-healthy Omega-3 fats that keep springing up in the press – as if this is news.  And did I mention there’s no sugar in these, either?  

I. Am. In. Love.  In fact, I am so flipping excited (Tom Cruise style) that for the first time in the three years of writing Ripe London I’ve been moved to make things official: I added one of those Creative Commons licenses to the blog.  Let it be known to the world that heart-thumping, vegan Sticky Toffee Pancakes originated here.  Likewise, don’t make these for your sweetheart on Saturday morning unless you’re prepared for him or her to declare their undying love for you.

Sticky Toffee Pancakes
Serves 2 better halves

For the pancakes:

10 pitted dates
1 cup plain soymilk
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
1 cup fine wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
A few gratings of fresh nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
Sunflower spread

For the sauce:

2 teaspoons sunflower spread or other vegan margarine
1/2 cup almond cream*
4 tablespoons dark Agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Set a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Put the dates, soymilk, water, baking soda and ground flax seed in a blender and whizz until smooth.  Combine flour, baking powder, spices and salt in a large bowl.  Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and blend gently with a fork – just a few quick strokes will do; over-mixing will activate the gluten in the flour, and the pancakes won’t be as fluffy as they should.

Put a bit of sunflower spread on the skillet to coat lightly, then drop enough batter in to make a pancake shape.  When the top starts to bubble, flip and cook on the other side.  Continue with remaining batter, stacking cooked pancakes on a paper towel.  Meanwhile, melt the two teaspoons sunflower spread in a small saucepan; then add the almond cream, dark Agave nectar and vanilla extract.  Stir constantly until sauce bubbles; turn off heat.  Distribute the pancakes amongst two plates, drench with the sauce and feel the sticky love.

*Almond cream, like cashew cream, is very simple to make:  Soak one part raw almonds in three parts water overnight.  The following morning, blend everything in a blender and push through a fine-mesh sieve.  Any extra cream keeps in a tightly-lidded jar in the fridge for a few days and can be served with fruit...or more pancakes.

The Whole Truth

We love the things we love for what they are.
–Robert Frost

Oh, the lessons.  How mercilessly yet lovingly they come.  Heartbreaking, bittersweet, utterly necessary.

I am tasting the hot chocolate at Paul for the second time in a week. This time I’ve gone for the large.  That’s the kind of impression it made.

The skin has already started to set and pucker.  Tick.  It’s thin enough to drink, thick enough to spoon.  Tick.  It hugs the inside of the cup as it does the back of my throat.  Tick.  It tastes deeply of chocolate with a light touch of je ne sais quoi.  Tick.

As I tip the cup one final time to get the last drop, I wonder what the recipe might be and if I could get it.  Then my heart sinks as I think: copious cream, unscrupulous sugar.  But then it dawns on me:  the sum of this hot chocolate would never be so wonderful were it not for all its parts: the sinful as well as the seductive.

Last week, a new friend shared some wisdom from, believe it or not, Mike Myers.  He said something like this:  true love comes in three stages.  First, there is love without knowledge.  This is when we project our fantasies onto someone we barely know, thus creating that initial giddiness.  Then comes knowledge without love.  Here is where we find out that the screen we projected our fantasies onto is actually a real person, one who in all likelihood has been brought into our lives to mirror back to us what we secretly don’t like about ourselves and vice versa.  Initial attraction is actually nature’s clever trick to get us to this second stage so that we come face to face with ourselves via another, deal with our demons, and grow. 

Sticking it out at this stage is like boiling maple sap into syrup: it bubbles up a lot of uncomfortable stuff, but the rewards are ultimately sweeter than what you started with.  It only happens when we trust in the process and give each other the unconditional acceptance we want for ourselves.  It’s all too easy to bail at this point, but then you miss the third stage and the icing on the cake: love with knowledge.

In other words, ignorance is lust.  It’s acceptance – loving what is – that’s bliss.

Paul is now my pick for high street hot chocolate – warts and all, drop for drop.

High and Dry

Have you ever had a broken rib?  You can’t see what’s wrong on the outside, but oh can you feel it.  You’re hyper aware of even the smallest movements, and deep breaths are difficult.  Sometimes you forget the pain, but all too soon you remember.  You laugh, and then it hurts again.  The only thing that will heal it is time, and lots of it.  No wonder having a broken rib is likened to having a broken heart.  It’s also what the hot chocolate at l’apostrophe is like.

I finally got around to trying what Time Out calls “best of London’s high-street brands” for hot chocolate.  In retrospect, I should have thought about this claim a little more.  Aside from Paul (which is still on my list), I didn't think any high-street standbys did the thick stuff.  Ah, that’s my problem.  Somewhere between my visits to Ladurée and Granada I have come to view thick hot chocolate as the only kind of hot chocolate.

Well, l’apostrophe is definitely thick.  It looks the part.  It sits in the cup with a plop and even has that shiny “skin” settled on top.  All looks good from the outside.  But l’apostrophe’s hot stuff, once it touches your tongue, falls apart like a fractured rib.  The texture is right, but it doesn’t taste chocolaty to me at all.  I kept drinking it – yes, even spooning it at times since it was so thick – but the closer I got to the bottom of the cup, the further I got from hitting the spot.  It was hot.  It was thick.  But chocolate, it wasn’t.

Contrast this with the bowl (yes, bowl) I tried at Hotel Chocolat, a place I’ve long considered too posh and self-conscious.  As you’ll see from the photo, no shiny skin on top, which means it looses points on thickness, though thin it wasn’t.  But this stuff scores on real chocolate flavour.  It was so rich, in fact, that it was almost grainy.  Shame the place feels more like a Perspex chair than a cozy sofa.

Will l’apostrophe recover by adding more chocolate oomph a la Hotel Chocolat?  Only time will tell, of course.   Do I have to settle for texture or flavour?  Nope, especially not when Ladurée still outshines on both criteria and is cheaper than either of these two places. 

l’apostrophe and Hotel Chocolat are on a high street near you.

Home Fires

About two-and-a-half years ago, just before I started this blog, I was cooking lunch twice a week for two guys at the office.  It was an accidental business: one of them wanted to eat healthier as his new year’s resolution.  I offered to teach him a few recipes; he said he’d pay me to make them.  Then a second guy wanted in.  I made them entirely vegetarian meals based on whatever came in my veggie box that week, and I never repeated a recipe for the whole three months I did it.  I also included a note that explained what was in each dish and why it was good for them. 

They absolutely loved it.  One of them would even sit on the edge of my desk and eat it, cooing in appreciation.  But I don’t think it had anything to do with my cooking.  This wasn’t haute cuisine.  There weren’t any expensive cuts of meat in it.  The reason for their enthusiasm, I think, was that someone had made something just for them.

Ay, there’s the rub.  The one thing a restaurant can’t offer is heart. 

A good friend of mine once told me that what feeds the body doesn’t always feed the soul.  She was talking about jobs versus hobbies, but I think it applies just as much to restaurants versus home cooking.

One of the most memorable meals I’ve recently had was without reservations, fancy linen or a third party hovering over the table.  I won't include the recipe, because it's not what was in the dish that matters.  It's that someone made it for me.  And that, of course, is the sweetest ingredient of all.

Heart Art

The term “public displays of affection” has always been a curious one to me.  A friend of mine who shall remain nameless has picked Trafalgar Square as her post-date make-out spot.  I find this funny, both because she has chosen one of the most public spots in London and because it’s adjacent to the National Gallery and the National Dining Rooms, a restaurant The Observer once said was a top spot for conducting an affair—precisely because locals tend not to go there (a mistake given the fine food and service).  Moreover, I also think it’s funny that one would pre-mediate a make-out spot, otherwise that other often-heard term – “get a room” – would hardly exist.  To me, the hallmark of PDAs is that they grab you in transit.

Which is why the new Love exhibit at the National Gallery failed to grab me.  The works in themselves are all worth seeing, but to me the pre-meditated quality of it removes the essential nature of affection: spontaneity.

Exhibit A: see this couple here.  The picture’s a bit blurry, because I actually felt I was intruding by taking it and so did a very hasty job.  Definitely not your typical PDA, but who's to say?  These two were in public, yet whatever they have is entirely private – completely theirs alone. 

To me, part of the thrill of living in such a public place is finding your own bit of privacy within it.  Go see the Love exhibit, by all means, then sit awhile in the Café in the Crypt below St. Martin-in-the-Fields.  It can be surprisingly quiet on a Sunday.  Afternoon tea is not the glitzy show you’d get at the posh hotels, but that’s precisely what makes it so yours.

“Love” is at the National Gallery until the 5th October, and admission is free.  It’s just opposite The Café in the Crypt below St. Martin-in-the-Fields at the north-eastern corner of Trafalgar Square.  Embrace the view.

Can't Buy Me Love

I had no intention of writing about the Sex and the City movie until, in the same weekend, I had the good fortune of coming across a truly great film about love: The Waiting Room.

I know I’m in the minority here, but I thought SATC didn’t work as a feature film.  Actually, I’ll just come out and say it: I couldn’t stand it.  It’s like they took 30 minutes and thinned it out with high-fructose corn syrup simply because they knew fans of the series would knock back whatever they served up.  Loaded with labels and skin deep, it seemed to me like an excuse for a big-screen fashion show and product placement.  Starbucks, Pret and Key Food (which, as a former Brooklyn resident did bring a tear to my eye) all got plenty of camera time, but did a film with this kind of budget really need it?  As for the constant catwalk, I still remember the early seasons when the girls wore Gap and you could actually – imagine this – relate to them.  Who the hell packs up for a move wearing stilettos that should bear a warning label?  Likewise, do you or anybody you know wear pearls to bed?  If so, please contact me – I’d like to interview.

With so much to take in on the surface, we never get what a film is supposed to deliver – rich characterization and something to really think about on the way home, if not longer.  The rare moments this film works are those that are devoid of labels and go the heart of what all these characters are searching for: Steve and Miranda on the bridge, Carrie talking Big off the fence the night before the wedding.  Everything else is a headache-inducing blur of cotton candy and that awful bag Carrie gives her assistant.

But, just to prove how things can change in a heartbeat, something truly screen worthy comes along my path.  It’s hayfever season, so while everyone else was out enjoying the long-awaited summer weather, I had to seek refuge in dark, enclosed spaces.  That’s how I came across The Waiting Room – a low, low budget film set in South London. 

A chance meeting at Wandsworth Common station between a single mother (Anne-Marie Duff) and a care worker (Ralf Little) sets in motion a series of events that changes their lives and those close to them.  It’s a heart warming and extremely real story about the journey of love.  There’s undying fidelity, heartbreak, the thrill of a crush, the daily grind, the value in learning from our elders, the importance of standing still; and it’s all delivered in such an honest way, that you don’t even think twice about the ASDA juice carton or the Sainsbury’s plug.  In fact, I’m all for whatever this little gem of a film needs to get the word out and get people to come inside and watch, which is why I’m asking you to see it.  Watching it almost back-to-back with SATC was a perfect foil for the box-office blockbuster, showing how you can’t put a price tag on true romance. It’s so low budget, you’ll see more of the lithe and luscious Little than SATC ever dared.  And he’s a fantastic dancer.  Can you tell I’m still thinking about it beyond the ride home?

I saw SATC at the Electric in Notting Hill, a swanky cinema with leather seats and wine if you want it.  In stark contrast, I saw The Waiting Room in shabby Shepherd’s Bush and was so moved I stayed long enough to watch the end of the credits, a variation on “characters in this film are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental.”  I had to smile.  Something tells me you will, too.

The Waiting Room by Roger Goldby is showing in cinemas across the UK.  Don’t wait.

Belly Up

I love laughing as much as the next person, but the thought of going to live stand up makes me sick.  I was telling this to a guy who once asked me to a comedy gig, and before I knew it he launched into a different kind of act: that of armchair psychologist.

He leaned in with a real look of concern on his face. “Were you picked on as a child, Jessica?”

Yes.  Wasn’t everyone?  But it’s not really that I’m worried they’ll pick on me, it’s more that I start feeling nervous for the person on stage.  It’s like I’m up there with them, and I get butterflies in my stomach.  It’s not funny.

Yet I couldn’t resist when my married friend Debbie, who obviously thinks I need help, handed me an article about Deborah Frances-White’s show How to Get Almost Anyone to Want to Sleep With You playing at Watermans Comedy & Curry night.  Well, if there’s food involved…

So I dragged a couple of friends along, all of whom went insisting it was definitely for the food despite there being a curry joint on almost every corner in London.  An Edinburgh sell-out, the one-woman show was refreshingly tasteful, full of audience participation and very funny.  I won’t ruin it for you, but according to Frances-White, who is so damn confident she can pull any man in the room and put those of us with suppressed childhood anxieties at ease, a hat’s where it’s at.  Here’s what I remember: “A hat says I’m not afraid of attention.  A hat says I might like attention from you.  And that means I probably want you to talk to me.  And if I want you to talk to me, I may just want to sleep with you.”

Interesting.  My friend Tiffany owns about 50 hats.  I’ve lost count of how many dates she has had.  Maybe it’s time for an experiment.  But it’s finally getting hot outside.  A hat when it’s hot says I’m desperate for attention.  A hat when it’s hot says I’m probably having a bad hair day.  And if I’m having a bad hair day, I probably don’t want you to talk to me.  Maybe this experiment will have to wait until Autumn.

In any case, we were here for the food.  So did the tandoori prove a turn on?  Sadly not.  For a fiver you get a dish of your choice with way too much white basmati and naan.  The deal may be tempting, but like most two-for-ones, it’s only good in theory.  Silly me.  Now where did I put my chapeau?

Watermans Comedy & Curry is at 40 High Street, Brentford, TW8 0DS.  These outrageously delicious Alphonso mangoes were a very kind gift from Arti and Sunil, fellow Le Cordon Bleu graduates visiting from India.  Namasté.

Freeze Frame

Men are born with another, not so obvious, apparatus.  I’m talking about the switch.  You know, the emotional one they can turn on and off.  Quickly.  I was going over this with John while we were having lunch at Whole Foods – he a burrito, me brown-rice sushi.

“You girls analyse far too much.  We find it easier to move on.”

This, of course, was nothing new, though the point bears repeating.  Flashback to a conversation I had weeks earlier with another male friend.  I asked him what makes a man come back to an ex.  “Simple,” he said, “It’s the best sex he ever had.”  Now that was a revelation.  Hmm.

Hmm that I’m about to walk over to the gelato counter.  I ask John what flavour he wants, and he tells me to surprise him.  Astonishing.  I could never leave such a thing up to someone else – holiday destinations, pieces of jewellery, burial plots maybe – but my ice cream flavour?  Never.  But you see, John has the switch – the attachment switch.  Meaning he doesn’t get as attached as we do, because it’s biologically built into him not to.  Survival of man depended on non-attachment – no point standing around waiting to see what the big bear was going to do or why he did it.  This also explains their single-minded focus.  We however, were back at the hearth, mashing the maize, suckling the kids and concocting whatever hijinks must have been needed to keep the hunter bringing back his kill (see: "what makes a man come back" above).

I’m standing at the gelato counter.  I’ve looked at the creamy clouds of colour many more times than I’d like to admit, and John’s scoop comes easily: passion fruit.  It makes me think I should try something new.  Come on, Jess, you can do it.  Just this once.  You can have the usual stuff next time.  Nope, it’s one scoop chocolate, one scoop coconut.  I can’t switch.

By the way, as you’re walking around town make sure you stop and worship wisteria, this gorgeous climbing vine.  It only flowers until June and then it’s gone, until next time…

Made to Order

The last time a man chased me down the street, he took off with my bag.  My friend Andrea, however, recently had a man run after her on the street, grab her hand and ask her for a date.  She told me the story at Notting Hill’s Lazy Daisy Café.

“I was walking home wondering why I’m still single when this John Lewis delivery guy stopped me, held my hand and asked my name.”

I put down my forkful of broccoli and feta quiche.  It looks like it has been nuked in the microwave, the natural bright green of the vegetable desaturated to a greyish gunk.  I beg her to tell me more.

“Well, I asked him if he normally holds random women’s hands on the street.”

She’s over-analyzing him, I think, as I peer down at the lacklustre assortment of tinned beans they’ve thrown together with red-pepper flakes and called a salad.

“And he said no, that I was amazing and he couldn’t let me go.  That he had to take me to dinner – if I wasn’t married, that is.  He looked at my finger and said that if I was married he’d go away and be a gentleman, but that he couldn’t let me go without trying.”

This isn’t the first time this has happened to Andrea.  She’s gorgeous, can easily get away with subtracting ten years and always looks like she lives in a fashion photo shoot, which is especially annoying when we’re at something like the Lazy Daisy Café and I’m in my standard can’t-cope-with-transitional-London-weather turtleneck, skinny jeans, furry boots and bike-helmet hair.

Anyway, you may have heard of cosmic ordering, a.k.a. “The Secret” a.k.a. the law of attraction.  Same thing, different marketing spin.  Andrea put out a simple-enough directive to the universe: I want to meet someone.  And the universe delivered swiftly, with brilliant intentional comedy.

My friend rejected the dotting deliveryman, even though she admitted – more than twice – that he was quite good looking.  Why did she say no?  Because he didn’t really fit with her idea of how her man would show up.  That’s the other thing to remember about this cosmic ordering business:  focus on what you want, but leave the how to the powers that be.  Otherwise you turn intention into control, and trying to meddle with Mother Nature always messes things up.

Bottom line: be specific about what you want; you’ll probably get exactly what you ask for.  Now that's service. 

Lazy Daisy Café is at 59a Portobello Road, W11 3DB.  Now you know why they call it “lazy.”