After our excellent brunch, Jeff and I spent the morning wandering through Soho. He was inevitably hungry merely two hours after we ate and expressed a desire for that recent acquaintance of ours, a cronut.
We’ve become “those food trend” people, ugh.
Anyway, the internets informed us that cronuts were to be had at my new favorite coffee joint.
Wild and Wood is a fun little place, all the seating comes from churches, mostly in the form of old pews which I think is fantastic, and most of all it’s tiny! If you go to the last picture of the gallery on the site’s homepage, you are looking at basically the entire shop. In other words, it’s almost a dead ringer for what most coffee houses and small businesses have looked like throughout human history in general and British history in particular.
Seriously, I’m feeling the urge for some ecclesiastically themed redecorating!Still endorsed by the Small Dog team.
“And now leave me in peace for a bit! I don’t want to answer a string of questions while I am eating. I want to think!” “Good Heavens!” said Pippin. “At breakfast?” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Last week was busy for both of us. Between days in the magazine office and nights spent freelancing for me, and long hours for him as busy season gathers force – all of which interspersed with some truly heinous days of commuting due to strike action on the part of Tube workers (I spent 10 of a 48 hour period commuting by foot and only occasionally bus) – we needed some indulgence on the weekend. And since we were being terribly grown up with grown up problems like commuting, a grownup weekend indulgence like brunch seemed the very thing.
There is something very adult about having brunch, as opposed to breakfast. Anybody can stumble blearily to the cupboard of a morning and slosh some cereal and milk into a bowl. But brunch, at least brunch in the more fashionable areas of London, requires effort, kittens.
I’d been hearing mouthwatering things about Jackson and Rye in Soho so last week I made a reservation for the weekend and Jeff and I trotted off that morning to enjoy ourselves on an uncharacteristically bright winter day. My initial desire to dine there was due to a pretty delectable sounding description of their buttermilk friend chicken sandwich, but the only time I could get us in was 10am. Fried food might be okay in Jeff’s book at that our of the morning, but it’s definitely an abomination in mine. I got a delicious eggs, potato, and fancy vegetable breakfast while Jeff threw himself on the sword of the aforementioned chicken – a great hardship for him, I’m sure – so I could at least taste it in between munches of grilled sourdough toast smothered in avocado.
Lest you think I’m dwelling too much on this, I was incredibly smug because historically Jeff tends to always choose better food than me when we go out to eat. Almost inevitably the dishes he chooses are better presented and tastier than my selections, which irks me greatly. For once at least, I won brunch. It was delicious – Britain has converted me to slightly softer cooked eggs and I haven’t looked back.
The bar area, kept hopping with hot drinks, fresh juices, the acceptable day drinking options like mimosas and Bloody Marys.
We’ll be going back because we quite liked it; I still want to try the Avocado Eggs Benedict (I really love avocados but finding decent ones it’s nigh impossible thus far) and because it felt really nice to “do brunch,” eating nice food in a fun place, leisurely people watching, and chatting about our further weekend plans (spoiler, one of the most interesting theatre experiences I’ve had in a long time). Very responsible and far more put together than many of our usual weekend morning routines. I wouldn’t want to do it every weekend, cereal and milk is frankly sometimes just what I need, but as an occasional treat I think it sounds quite nice. Minions are welcome to join us.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. – Oscar Wilde
I’m pretty sure this will be a continuing feature (my love of British placards and signage being well established).
I’m beyond ready for Game of Thrones to be back – as Kerry, once put it, you can tell a lot about a person by who you think should rule Westeros. Your answers to that immortal question in the comments, please. This guy also looks about as cheerful as Kit Harrington does in character – aka, miserable.
The eventual title of my autobiography, I’ve decided.
One of my favorite pubs every for reasons that will become more clear in a later post.
Self explanatory. (Or if not, a landmark of a restaurant that had to close in October of last year, but petitions were got up to keep it opening and functioning because it’s a Soho mainstay. Also, the name is cheeky, because it’s Soho.)
“Do you just constantly have your own little side adventures?” “Yep.” – Troy and Abed, NBC’s Community
Jeff likes to tease me that I stumble across random historical and cultural things by mistake. He calls it, “leading him into wardrobes,” which I take to be a high compliment. But some of these adventures take the most pleasant of odd turns. Take for instance this charming little house nestled into a quiet spot near Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames.
Adorable, right?
Exactly the sort of historical house I’d love to buy if I had pots of money. It had caught my eye before on many of our Thames strolls, but one evening I decided to wander closer (deaf to the dire warning of Jeff, who said I’d be arrested or at least scolded for venturing onto private property). Which is when I caught site of the stone inscription:
Which, if squinting isn’t a help, reads, “Here lived Sir Christopher Wren during the building of St Paul’s cathedral. Here also, in 1502, Catherine Infanta of Castile and Aragon, afterwards first queen of Henry VIII, took shelter on her first landing in London.”
Which already would have been cool if it was true, but is even more cool since it’s a pack of lies!
A little historical digging, starting on the internets and confirmed in some more official records, leads you down the most glorious, London-y-est, twisty, and complex turns. First of all, the house on the site wasn’t built until 1710 which was the year St. Paul’s was completed – making it pretty hard for Wren to have lived there while he was building and totally impossible for the long suffering Catherine of Aragon to have stopped by at all.
But in this alternate historical narrative, Wren’s view was fantastic.
To be fair, Wren did live up the road a few houses, but not at this particular bankside address. But in any event this placard (which as it turns out is a recreation of an earlier one that has disappeared) seems to have originated on a nearby building – which historians are unable to determine was or was not the site of Wren’s house. When the building was demolished, an intrepid local salvaged Placard 2.0 and hoisted it onto his own house.
In the final twist, this area of London was bombed heavily during WWII and was considered to be a less desirable part of town in general (I’ve mentioned before that we live in a former Dickensian slum, yes?) So after the war the powers that be were thinking of ways to improve the neighborhood. Postwar, and currently this usually meant bulldozing the damaged history bits and putting up new developments…
But!
The placard ensconced in the stone made them wary that they might be tearing down a culturally relevant site. And though sometimes weighed down by bureaucracy, the Brits usually bow to their own history.
Thus this Stuart era house – where Christopher Wren did NOT live, and Catherine of Aragon did not break her journey – stands. Impervious to historical accuracy, Hitler, and planning councils!
“When I was 16, I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines.” – Margaret Atwood
I am waist deep in transcriptions of interviews no one will see for months yet and the sense of intrigue is heady. But it’s also time consuming. Here are your links, kittens, I’ll have a full report of week one later in the weekend!
Pearl clutchers avoid, though you’re missing out on some grade A humor. Look, I’m as excited about the next series of Game of Thrones as anybody, but really, guys!? (It must be said, the last line slays me. And there’s someone for everyone, so let’s all hope they found happiness.)
Puppies! (I have really bad puppy lust again, you guys…)
Now that you know someone who (tangentially and not really at all) has some experience working with Fashion (capital F, note), it would be a shocking embarrassment for either of us to mispronounce major labels.
My first week at Red Magazine was great fun. I got to meet Alex Steadman of The Frugality, a site I quite like, and just diagonally across from my work station is Pip McCormac, whose book is coming out this spring – and looks gorgeous! It’s a bit intimidating working with a posse of such impressive people, but I’m enjoying it immensely.
“Anna liked magazines. They were glossy machines. The only technology that she could fold. She read them on a regular basis because they were absorbing.” ― Sarah Schulman, Empathy
“C.,” I hear you say, “You hinted at something last week and failed to follow up. For shame.”
Indeed, kittens. Here’s the big announcement:
I’m working at Red Magazine for this week and next as a sort of short term intern at their London office! Ruth, who is currently killing it as the Lifestyle team’s intern, very kindly tipped me off when a short work experience vacancy opened up and encouraged me to contact the responsible member of the Features team to put myself forward. Bless her for being the loveliest of friends.
It’s only been three days out of my first week (two total) but it’s been an absolute blast stuffed with insights and opportunities to help out with projects. It’s been a whirl of feminism, beauty, health, trending issues, and interesting people!
As it happens, it’s also coinciding with strike action on the part of London Tube workers. Yesterday was the first day and the city was gridlocked. I totaled over 5 hours commuting by foot over cobblestones to work and back again (only falling in the door at a quarter to 9pm). This morning my oyster card was also lifted from my pocket by some perfidious fiend, leading to a frantic scramble to buy a new one on my way to the office. I might need a chiropractor, but it’s a small price to pay for the chance to contribute to an editorial and creative team!
Quick – how do I make myself indispensable and talk my way into an internship? This office is a well oiled machine but surely they could use a whipsmart plucky Yank somewhere, right?
“She couldn’t get any farther away inside from her skin. She couldn’t get away.” ― Cynthia Voigt, When She Hollers
Confession. All my adult life I’ve read the articles in women’s magazines about the perils of winter on a girl’s skin, and I always assumed I got genetically lucky. My skin was largely okay. Even living in a desert state with dry air for years, the only thing that really affected my complexion was hormonal cycles and bad eating (still occasionally guilty of the latter). Then I moved to London. After an initial breakout, my skin calmed down again (many thanks for your advice)…until winter hit.
Team, consider me a convert. The magazines were not, in fact, just lying to promote sales of various products. The desert air has nothing on your old school heater in a city flat. I’ve never experienced the flaking, cracking, and shedding of my epidermis that I have in the last couple of months. Also, as a child I had eczema that mostly cleared up, except for my scalp where it has more or less stayed for the past two decades. Annoying but manageable. Not anymore! My eczema is back with a vengeance and it has become quite painful in areas.
I’m giving the mirror some serious side-eye here.
Sorry to the more prurient minded among you, that’s not a hickey. It’s but one of the visible patches of winter eczema currently dotting my neck, chest, and face. This one is mostly healed, after a week long battle with medication. I’ve got streaks of it just below the neckline of my supremely fashion forward alma mater hoodie, and a patch on my right temple which took a big enough hit that I’m pretty sure its going to leave some scarring. Drat.
The current arsenal, posed in front of the offending heater.
Nivea is currently managing things below the collar bone while my argan balms and are keeping things like knees, elbows, and feet intact. I’ve got my eczema specialist for spot treatment, my moisturizer with SPF for day and my eye cream and Kiehls treatment for night. Lips require their own regimen. Neosporin gets slathered on any point where the skin is punctured, fractured, or generally abused. One heavy duty cream for the nights where they won’t cut it. For the first time in my life I’ve needed the occasional slathering of hand cream after a day out in the cold!
All of this is mostly helping, but I’m wondering if it’s a bit much and if there’s an easier way to keep my skin from falling off. So I’m putting another call out for winter skin and facial care recommendations. RSVP. Before I disintegrate.
“All happiness depends on courage and work.” ― Honoré de Balzac
Big week! I’ve finished the majority of some major assignments. And I have a pretty big opportunity happening next week, provided of course that nothing falls through. More on that as confirmations roll in – we hope! Here are your links, kittens. I’m distracting you with shiny things while I hustle to wrap a few things up and fight a burgeoning sore throat with absolutely massive amounts of tea.
Trigger warning, because the blurb alone is pretty bad. Court. Ordered. Gang rape. Utterly, utterly horrifying and hideous. This is why we need feminism, sorry those who say it’s outdated.
Pretty good, but not quite as good as Richard III turning up in a car park on the very first day in the very first trench the archeologists dug. That one still takes the cake.
I give both this headline and the clothing items described therein a resounding, huzzah!
What’s that, well beloved minions? You say you still haven’t found a calendar for the new year? Feast your eyes, kittens!
This one’s not for the pearl clutchers, fair warning. Enthusiastic medievalist I may be, but frankly between the wars, famines, plagues, and “medicine,” in many ways it’s a marvel our species made it past the 15th century in the West. Add these sorts of logistical worries and it might be a miracle we made it past the 10th. Although we have the behavioral evidence of several kings of Britain alone, to say nothing of popes, to show that the medieval world seemed to have viewed this more as guidelines… (Sidenote. ‘Are you in church?!’)
Minions with kids, take note! Gap (whose Peter Rabbit collection for kids I found adorable) is now doing a Paddington Bear collection.
An old neighbor of mine, who it must be said is a kinda well known name in the world of baking blogs and Pinterest, is getting her first book published soon, and it’s already available in Kindle edition! High five, Ashton!
“What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.” ― Katharine Hepburn
Best saved for last, kittens!
This is another Portobello Road find, which Jeff and I literally stumbled across on a side street while trying to avoid tourists. A charming young man was standing outside the shop with samples, and it would have been rude to turn him down. After which it would have been rude not to go in and buy something because, ducklings, this store is incredible.
Alexeeva and Jones is a self described ‘salon du chocolat’ which brings some of the world’s top chocolatiers into one place. The shop occupies some prime real estate on Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill and each chocolatier’s work is beautifully presented to an admiring public. Without doubt these stunners are some of the most visually gorgeous foods I’ve ever seen and photos don’t do them justice, but here are a few anyway.
This woman is an utter delight. She’s served me both times I’ve been in (the second time, obviously, to purchase goodies for our Christmas stockings). She is so unabashedly enthusiastic about her work, and is one of the most genuinely friendly salespeople I’ve ever come across in my life. Between personal recommendations, descriptions of the various chocolatiers’ signature styles and flavors, and being generous with the samples, she’s the girl you want waiting upon you while you browse.
So, when you come to visit me in London, after we’ve bought you some tweed, we’ll recover our equilibrium by choosing some of the strangest and loveliest confectionery available. May I personally recommend the sea salt caramel with mango and coriander? You’d think it would be awful, but it’s just the nicest thing imaginable.
in Kindle edition! High five, Ashton!
Small Dog Syndrome 