Day 29: we tartare

So today WAS going to be Curtain-Hemming Day (the great idea of Lisa), until I realised that I'd have to extract the ladder from the garden shed to get them down and I happen to be terrified of ladders. Luckily for me, I did some design research that told me pooling-curtain lengths are ALL the rage, so I've decided to embrace the look and remove 'hemming curtains' from my to-do list entirely. So the end result was the same: I got to take it off the list! Lisa, you're brilliant.

In its place, something else I've been wanting to do: make steak tartare.

I love raw food in any of its forms - carpaccio, ceviche, tartare, sashimi - there's not a version I don't enjoy (well, maybe not Torisashi, though *technically* I haven't tried it yet, and maybe it's amazing?? If you've had it, lmk). But while I feel comfortable messing about with raw fish, for some reason it didn't occur to me I could also mess about with raw beef. That is, until our neighbour in France invited us over for lunch last time we were there, and made it for us. It was so good and as he pointed out, so simple; I made a mental note to try it myself.

Today is that day.

First things first: I needed the right butcher. If one is going to eat raw, uncooked beef, it's got to be fresh. So I took a left at the bottom of our street instead of a right and headed for the fanciest part of our neighbourhood: Victoria Park Village.

They don't let you forget it's a village, either.

So much twee, so little money under the mattress. It's why I usually go right.

And then we get to my butcher of choice: Ginger Pig, with its ethical animal husbandry and best sausage roll in London. This is where to go to get a cut of meat good enough to eat raw: 

Church spire, unstripped bikes, fancy doggo - check, check, check. I jangle the coins in my pocket so everyone knows I belong. 

They dry-age most of their beef so I had to tell them I was tartaring it and they picked out the perfect cut for me: 

One of each. 

Then I took home my beautiful fillet tail and gazed at it lovingly for a no doubt hazardous length of time: 

Who wouldn't want to cram this raw straight into their mouth? 

But no, that's not how it's done. It must be cHopPeD first, because we are not a dOg. I used Nigella's recipe - mostly so that I had an excuse to look at her like I did at this meat - and it. was. great. I'd probably use slightly less gherkin next time (I suspect our pickles are larger than the ones she was suggesting), but that's the only thing I'd change. It was exactly what I wanted: 

That yolk on top - *kisses tips of fingers* - could watch it cascade over my beef all day. 

Uh. 

Happy Tartare Tuesday!

Cheers,

Essss

Day 19: we market

FIFTEEN MINUTES TO BLOG before we head back out for the night. That means you are getting 80% pics, lo siento in advance.

First up: we went to the market!

It started off the usual market - mostly produce, the occasional butcher, cheesemonger, and spice merchant - and then we got to our goal: THE FLEA MARKET:

Row upon row of some truly terrific junk.

I was mildly surprised at how many men there were shopping, and not a little assertively. It was like they all had eBay businesses to support, and God protect the person getting between them and that broken hair dryer. Jostling, pushing to the front, there were several stalls - on the cheapest row of the market - where I couldn't even see the wares through the line of them leaning over, shoulder-to-shoulder.  

Then we had the most glorious lunch at Restaurant Grace, recommended by Mast yesterday.

Local milk bread stuffed with jerusalem artichokes and chestnuts, served with a jerusalem artichoke flower emulsion, and chive cream, the classic Austrian dip.

Perigord truffle with egg (slow cooked Japanese-style), sesame, and mushroom

Smoked trout with crosne, medlar and peanut with shaved terragon.

Prawn with salsify (THOSE STICKS! but now . . . tasty??), coconut and basil

We shared the main (well, we shared it all, but this was the heftiest boy) - venison, red cabbage roll, with pine nut polenta and pickled cherry gravy. Fun fact: we were served by the owner, and she told us that her father and his friends hunt the meat they serve in the restaurant - including this venison! Talk about local sourcing! 

We didn't have room for dessert - in fact, I don't know we're going to be eating dinner in an hour, I'm good to not eat again until tomorrow - but they brought us each a zwetschkenknodel, the famous Austrian plum dumpling. They hand-make these themselves, slow-cooking the plums until they're a beautifully condensed, sticky jam, and dust the dumplings in poppy seeds before drizzling on the cream.

It was so warming and comforting; just perfect in this winter weather.

Okay, time to get ready to go . . . to dinner. Oh God. 

This pretty much sums up how we spend our time here

So far today we've had breakfast (croissants, lardons, eggs), lunch (lasagna), and for a snack - because of course when you do nothing all day, you're mysteriously starving - yet more raclette. Our raclette machine may be the greatest French flea market find yet. For only ten euros, we get to gorge ourselves on melted cheese ALL THE TIME.

This is the raclette cheese we get from the supermarket - it comes in packages like this, already trimmed to the right size - for the laziest of us, natch, which is to say anyone who uses a raclette grill - and in a variety of styles. Here we have regular, pepper, and herbs de provence (my personal favourite). 

Then we just stick it in our super modern machine: 

And WHAMMO! A minute later, GOO TOWN. 

Saturday I'm going to experiment making nachos using it, JUST BECAUSE I CAN.

See you tomorrow! I'll be starting a proofread - because one can't be on cheese holiday forever - and it's a book I'm really looking forward to.

Big love and lots of love,
Essss

Time to feign some domesticity

Alright youguys, I have 19 minutes to blog before the washing machine stops and I have to start ironing while the going is damp and the pressing is easy. Then it's time to make dinner - a healthy one, no less - and relax for what may be the first time this entire manic, burger-fuelled, proofreading-crushed week.

Speaking of burgers, last night we had our last one for the week - this time from Mac and Wild - which was a venison burger with pork stuffing, melted Morangie brie, red cabbage, and shredded sprout tops. This burger - like Hawksmoor's - stands on the power of its perfectly cooked, high quality meat. Which is good, because the red cabbage came on as aggressively as a Roman centurion and there wasn't enough brie to give it a passing fight.

I dismantled this entire burger trying to find the cheese, which was the complete opposite of Bad Egg's, where I couldn't find the burger. Like last year, it was a tiny smear, looking much like an anemic swab of mayo, and its stinginess irritated me almost as much as the three million corporate Christmas parties hollering at the tables around us. But we more than made up for it with the haggis macaroni and cheese, and will definitely be returning for their regular burgers at another, less festive time of year. 

AW SHOOT. The machine has quit rumbling across the floor and now it's gone into the high-pitched whine of the spin cycle. Gotta go, much love and hugs,

Essss

Gonna have to do a Salad January

OMGYOUGUYS. I'm almost done with my Christmas burgers. I've only got two left and then DUNZO for another year. There are a few that I regretfully didn't have a chance to hit that I loved last year (Lucky Chip, Blacklock) but I got to try new ones (FUGBK, Red's) and all around it feels like a success. (For my taste buds, if not my health.)

Here are the Christmas burger/sandwiches I have had in the last 24 hours: 

Bad Egg: A rare breed beef patty, with roast beef, gravy, horseradish, caramelised onions, and cheese fondue. 10/10 for the absolutely pornographic cheese waterfall and being served in a bowl of gravy (is gravy the new cranberry sauce? Last year I only recall two burgers getting served with it - Hawksmoor and Blacklock - but this year, it is EVERYwhere. Even the hot dog had it!), but flavour-wise, the real standout wasn't that golden fountain or that meaty moat - shocking - but the horseradish. They would've done well to layer it between the meats rather than on the bottom bun so every bite got a hit. (I also have to say I also don't love having to knife and fork a burger - it's so hard to get every element together in a single bite and isn't that the point?)

Then, of course, we have MeatLiquor, who had not one but THREE Christmas sandwiches on the menu. I didn't bother with the XXXmas burger after last year's debacle but happily tackled the two new ones with my buddy Mike - a hero who joined me on his lunch break to help - and the most prolific burger-lover I know in London. We shared the Turkey Cheesesteak and the Burgducken. 

Let's start with the cheesesteak, which was "a free-range roast turkey bathed in gravy with melted camembert, crispy stuffing crumbles and cranberry sauce": the photo I took above (left) doesn't do it justice. It was really, seriously yummy. It actually tasted - more than anything else I've had so far - like Christmas. The turkey was moist and flavourful, the cranberry sauce sweet-but-not-too, and the stuffing - well, who doesn't like stuffing. This is the sandwich you actually make out of leftovers the day after the holiday and it got to the true spirit of things.

Now for the Burgducken: the creation of Tom Kerridge and Nick Beardshaw (of Michelin-starred famis place and famis place) made this take on the turducken, which is '5 birds (turkey, duck, chicken, pigeon & pheasant) minced with pork belly, deep fried in southern fried panko breadcrumbs, with brandy and cranberry mayo, brussel sprout 'slaw, xxxmas pudding ketchup, and topped with a free-range piggy in a blanket.' Got all that? It was tasty, this gimmickiest of gimmicks - but I can't say my unrefined palate was able to discern what all those other birds added to the affair, other than maybe structure, or comedy. Didn't taste the pork belly at all, but it probably gave it some juice. The cranberry mayo - that horrifyingly pale purple sauce - had tons of orange zest in it that livened things up, and the slaw - well, like the stuffing above - was likeable. It was surprisingly easy to eat, despite its girth - bonus points for that - though as Mike pointed out, 'It's one of those burgers that once you pick it up, you can't put it down again or it goes everywhere.' 

Tonight I hit my fourth Christmas burger and then take a break - lest the gout seek and find me - until my last one next week. I still have my eye on a Christmas burrito, and a Christmas brunch, but only time will tell if I'll manage them. May have to figure out how to (ugh) jog or something if I plan to keep this up. 

I've got to get back to work now - these Romans are literally tearing things up in Germania and it's thrilling - but I'll see you tomorrow! (By the way, if you have any recommendations for decent ways to work out at home - any youtubes you like? an app? - send 'em my direction, so that at the very least I can feel guilty that I'm not doing them, and satisfied that I've asked.)

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss

That ham and cheese fritter, though

Yesterday was a SUCCESS, youguys. We put two Christmas burgers in us, watched some football, and fell into bed exhausted by . . . well, eleven. Not as early as I needed, but as late as I liked. Tonight, though - tonight is blissfully free and I'm making venison steak and risotto for dinner then crawling into bed with my book.

Now about yesterday's Christmas burgers. Chick'n Sours was the first up, for lunch. (Note about this burger: they only make a limited number a day, so if you want to make sure you don't miss out, ask them to save you one when you're making your reservation.) It's worth the effort, though, because like all Chick'n Sours chicken burgers, it was terrific. This year's burger is different from last year's, which I appreciated because so many on my list are duplicates and who's got time for that?? This year, their burger is a fried chicken fillet, 'Christmas' ham and cheese fritter, kewpie mayo, lettuce, and pineapple kimchi.

I've always wanted to spend Christmas in Hawaii.

Its only demerit was how impossible it was to eat: my mouth simply isn't big enough to get all the layers in one bite. I had to tackle it with a knife and fork after my first attempt scattered its contents all over my plate. It was a burger that wanted to be shovelled, and so I obliged. 

Then, after a snow-filled, romantic* jaunt around Covent Garden, we headed east to Red's True BBQ.  Their Christmas burger, called The Great Uniter, was a turkey patty with ham, bacon, Monterey jack cheese and cranberry sauce, tucked into a custard-soaked fried brioche bun:

Yep. Exactly as described. 

I'm not gonna lie: I liked it. The turkey patty was really flavourful - I thought for a moment I was actually eating stuffing, they must've put buckets of sage in it - and you can never go wrong with two different kinds of pork. The custard-soaked bun - the riskiest guest at the party - was not overpoweringly sweet, and kept the overall affair from dryness. Despite its appearance, it was also remarkably contained and easy to eat: 

I love a good burger cross-section. It reminds me of studying the earth's layers in science. "See the mantle? That's the tastiest bit."

And all that was for the best, because the rest of the food we ordered was not great. The restaurant was understaffed and perhaps because of this - the delayed service that plagued us all night - the pulled pork platter came out cold. The cornbread accompaniment was so dry you had to choke it down and so hard it could've been used as a missile if it didn't crumble into a thousand pieces just looking at it, and the mac and cheese - which might've been nice, if it were warm and bubbly - had become goopy and bland. The jalapeno and cheese sausage was the only dish that didn't suffer from cooling.

The best part of the night, though, was the company: we got to see our old friend Marcos, a world-travelling Brazilian who works as a freelance travel guide. He's seen more corners of the world than anyone I know, and always has great stories when we catch him. We were entertained well into the evening.

Today is work work work: I'm going to try to get through a quarter of this book edit and that requires a media and laptop blackout. Time to turn off phone and wifi, and dive in.

Wish me luck, and see you tomorrow.

Hugs,
Essss



*If by 'romantic,' we mean 'cold, wet and crowded'

Two more burgers down, only one worth it

OKAY, YOUGUYS. Speed-post. It's nearly ten and I have two burgers to talk about and the house is so cold all I want is to get under the duvet as quickly as possible and read my book.

Today Jess helped me knock a couple burgers off my list (one cannot eat all of these alone) and we decided to tackle Patty & Bun and Gourmet Burger Kitchen (henceforth called GBK, or FUGBK).

First, Patty and Bun. Lovely, juicy, thoughtful Patty & Bun.

This year, instead of doing a traditional* Christmas burger, Patty & Bun got together with Flat Iron and made this beast of a special called The Iron Patty. It was terrific, and contained all the elements promised cooked to medium rare perfection: a galloway mince beef patty, roscoff onions, fontina ‘goo', dripping & truffle mayo, on a brioche bun with pickled cucumbers on the side. I don't need to say much for this, other than it was scoffed heartily and with great pleasure. 

    

Two more snaps for your viewing pleasure before we leave P&B and things take a dark turn. 

THEN WE GET TO BURGER TWO. There was a GBK located right around the corner from Patty & Bun, a convenience that I took advantage of, but should not have. I should have immediately high-tailed it all the way across town, to Red's, or Dirty Bones, or heck, KFC, whose Christmas burger I ate last year and which was, for the record, STILL BETTER THAN THIS, and I'm pretty sure it was just mayonnaise. I learned tonight why I've never been to a GBK: BECAUSE IT IS TERRIBLE.

According to the article I read, it was 'Beef, venison or chicken, topped with hash browns, smoked Applewood cheese, cabbage, bacon and tarragon mayo. All sloshed down with a shameful wheelbarrow of gravy'. None of these are bad ingredients, right? In fact, pretty standard, hardly even worth calling it Christmas-themed. We ordered the venison version (because something had to make it feel festive), and then, soon, this arrived:

Now, okay, objectively, not the worst burger we've ever seen. It may not be the sexy, gooey fun-fest the others have been, but it's not sloppy. The pieces are all there, including the seemingly-obligatory, gratuitous, crowning meat chunk. (A little excess for you, Emma.)

THEN WE OPENED IT UP.

Just LOOK at this:

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A DRIER BURGER IN YOUR LIFE? 

Also, that cheese? It had clearly been frozen and then defrosted. It was crumbling, no, flaking out of the burger in oily pieces. FLAKING. How gross is that descriptor for something falling out of your burger that isn't truffle, or parmesan?

Oh, and the 'shameful wheelbarrow of gravy'? THIS:

The only thing shameful about this is the reviewer's description of it. And, well . . . everything else. We poured it over the burger hoping it'd save the day - or at least, fix the sahara-like texture - but alas. Nothing could. Jess didn't even finish her half, calling it - graciously, elegantly - 'a serious misstep'. Oh yes it was, Jess. Oh yes it was. 

Now I need to go upstairs, put on my pajamas, and try to forgive myself. 

Tomorrow's schedule isn't likely to allow any Eating Christmas, but it will contain editing, laundry, and probably a stomach-ache. EXCITED ALREADY. 

Hugs,

Esssss

*I'm flying pretty fast and loose with this word here

Eating aubergine in the dark, as a Monday does

I haven't had a moment to write all day and now I'm in that ravenous window, right between lunch and dinner, where all I want, more than anything, is to EAT - real food, not these clementines I keep cramming in my face - but I can't because dinner is in a couple hours and I have to WAIT. In a previous life, when I worked as a nanny, this was the hour I fed the kids and stole bites of their macaroni and cheese when their backs were turned. 

Super fun that my entire post today is food-related. This will be great and not at all torturous. 

      

Let's talk about last night's Yard Sale Pizza! On the left we have their cheesy garlic bread, which - even though not Christmas-themed - was so perfect it deserved some credit. Let's all take a moment and admire the way the cheese has already melted back into the cracks where it was sliced. (Does that make anybody else feel funny inside?) To the right, we have the star of the show: Yard Sale's Christmas pizza, the Damn Son. It came with shredded brussels sprouts, pancetta, Fio Di Latte mozzarella, black pepper, and DJ BBQ's double smoked garlic and sriracha mayo. It was, like all of Yard Sale's pizzas, excellent. So this review is going to be boring. It is excellent. If you live near a Yard Sale, put it in your mouth. That is all I have to say about it.

Today unfortunately did not contain a Christmas food of some sort, but there is a homemade soup for dinner, which functions as both a punishment for our gluttony and a necessary break for our waistlines. It's harissa-roasted aubergine with orange and its incredibly unappealing purple-brown colour makes the lovely flavour all the more shocking - but if you cover your eyes, hey hey hey!

I hope your Mondays have been nice; see you tomorrow!

Hugs,
Essss

First burger down, now let's make some pork belly

YOUGUYS. Let's talk about the Hawksmoor Spitalfields Christmas Burger for a minute. I don't know what's different from last year's (on paper the elements are the same: one turkey burger, one pork patty, with bacon, sprout tops, spiced cranberry ketchup and a slice of Ogleshield, all topped off with a pot of turkey gravy) but I don't even care because it was INCREDIBLE. It was so juicy that you didn't even need the turkey gravy to rich it up (though we poured it on anyway, because obviously) and the meat wasn't so thick you couldn't get it all in on a single bite (a hindrance with a lot of these loaded burgers). And the bacon was so RIDICULOUSLY crispy it was basically bacon crumble. Every bite was a drippy, crunchy delight.

Also Christmas NUGGETS, that beauty in the foreground, filled with creamy cheesy turkey goo, which we devoured in about three seconds.

So of course now I have all the regrets, because what if I started with the best one? WHERE CAN THEY GO FROM HERE?

Today is going to be the opposite of Christmas Eating: we have friends coming over and we'll all be cooking from The Land of Fish and Rice. I'm excited. I have almost no experience cooking this style of cuisine, and the recipes are gorgeous. We've already had our first adventure just sourcing half the ingredients. Noble, heroic Rich volunteered to go to the Chinatown supermarket, a maze of epic proportions, with a list that included dried lily flowers and snow vegetable - which is not what you think it is - and within seconds was sending pics through to the group chat: 'Is this the Shaoxing dried fermented greens? Or this? Wait what about this?' Turns out there is also a billion different varieties of peanut, maybe more. I was absolutely useless: 'Yes?' while his wife helpfully supplied snapshots: 'You're looking for mei gan cai.'

She's clearly going to be the one keeping us from self-harming in the first hour.

Now I've got to go tidy up so that we can make a proper mess. Wish us luck tonight, and see you tomorrow!

Hugs,
Essss

Diving in for December

Alright alright alright. I know I said I'd never do another MyBloWriMo but I have the memory of a goldfish and can't recall now why it's the dumbest idea ever. Also I don't do things by halves (which is probably why I do so very little) so here we are.

It's a good month for it, to be honest - it's too cold to leave the house without getting a tension headache from hunching my shoulders which means I will be spending an inordinate amount of energy trying not to - but also there are holidays, and holiday foods, and fireplaces, and family, and twinkly trees, and all that is nice to talk about.

Youguys want to see the dark cave that is our house in the winter? Our social spaces are subterranean and this is as bright as they get this time of year. This was taken just past 9 this morning and soon I will need to turn on the lights.

That is not a nice wintery thing, per se, but it is my current view from the shadows of the couch, so there we go. I hope you like it, because I'll probably be sharing it every day.

Starting this blog as we mean to go on.

Today is going to be a lovely one, despite having to enter it. I have a friend's* birthday party this afternoon, followed by our first Christmas burger of the season at Hawksmoor Spitalfields Bar. I have high hopes, even though I'll confess I wasn't crazy about last year's (though at least their pork patty was heads above MeatLiquor's) (who, incidentally, seem to have created THREE Christmas burgers this year, so I'm diving back in).

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a book edit to work on and it's due Monday so as much as I hate to leave you, I also want to invoice things so I can buy more Christmas sandwiches.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Essss





*I HAVE FRIENDS, THEY JUST HAPPEN TO BE CALLED 'BREWERY' AND THEY'RE BIG AND SHINY AND I SPEND MONEY TO HANG OUT WITH THEM

Happy Saturday!

ACCKKKKKK I had a whole hour set aside to do this post this morning before we leave for the day and the entire time was spent digging through the million photos on my phone trying to figure out the best ones. (Why do I TAKE so many??)

HERE ARE SOME PICTURES LOVE YOU BYE

         

Thursday's lunch at Le Vieux Logis in Tremolat

OLD MEDIEVAL TIMEY TOWN ON TOP OF A HILL, a.k.a., Ten Thousand Shades o' Brown. Meet Belvés:

    

 Architects of the XVII century: we're going for a combo of sepia filter plus DUST. * flicks wrist * 

Locals: still having fun since 1700

I have a kazillion pics of candelight night garden oh so romantic ooh la la but NO TIME WE HAVE A DAY HEAD: two more markets (a brocante in a neighbouring village and Sarlat), the wine region of Cahors to explore, all capped by a birthday party + sleepover in the Lot. THIS IS GONNA BE FUN YOUGUYS.

See you tomorrow!

Big hugs and lots of love,
Essss

All the things, none of the things

OMGYOUGUYS. So much to blog and far too little wifi in the middle of nowhere, which is where I have found a hot second of 3G in which to mobile-post this. When I am back properly, I have got the following:

* The marche gourmand from last night, which was far more than we expected, on a variety of levels

* A morning spent on a truffle farm, learning how to spot truffles in the wild (hint: grab a dog), and how to spot imposters on a menu (hint: learn Latin)

* A beautiful meal at our favourite restaurant in the region, a Michelin-starred, garden-dining delight, from which I currently post:

Them's the tables under the trees ^ 

After this we are on our way to a village that Alan read is ‘one of the most scenic villages in France’ (I must confess I am skeptical, who even MAKES these lists) and a twilight visit to a formal garden that candlelights their paths on Thursday evenings while live music jazzes from various terraces. I am pretty sure it's gonna be Too Much.

Until tomorrow,

Big hugs,
Essss

I'll never look at bacon the same way again

OMGYOUGUYS. You know what our plans are today? ABSOLUTELY FRIGGIN' NOTHING. We're going to read! We're going to splash in our lil pool! We're going to lie around gaining weight! Which brings me to breakfast: today's trigger warning is brought to you by the letter pork.

When we were at the market on Sunday, we were looking for bacon at one of the butcher's stalls and saw the above. It *looked* like bacon, and the guy said it was pig when we asked (if there's one French word we know, it's porc), so we decided to give it a go.

Then we get it home, and I go to peel a slice off to cook it. Except THERE IS NO SLICE. THERE IS SLAB. Three slabs, specifically, this thick:

I'll give you a moment.

We googled the name written on the package - ventreche - and it turns out we have bought a cut of meat that's a cross between SMOKED PORK BELLY and PANCETTA. 

I'll give you another moment.

I've got another slab waiting for breakfast and I am going to do all sorts of filthy things to it.*

See you tomorrow! On the agenda is a trip to the garden shop (to find weapons that will help me in my ongoing battle out back) and the Bergerac market. 

Big hugs,

Essss

*Namely, stuff it into a croissant with eggs

On bookstores, harnessing the sun, and face-stuffing

HEYYOUGUYS. Guess how many blog posts I planned to write but never did and now they're likely never to see the light of day? The rest of my Christmas burgers - I had 16 in total, shout out to Chick 'n Sours for the best one - our trip to the Ice Hotel in January - in which the northern lights flipped us the bird but we still basked in the glow of permanent snow-twilight while snowmobiling and dogsledding - and last month's trip to Sicily. (Though that one may still make it in at some point, probably when I'm feeling moody at the endless London grey and want to pretend it's okay because you can leave it so easily.)

Instead of all those topics that come with built-in photographs and adventures, I will tell you all about my day of nothing yesterday. Extra fun, because I have no pics or actual story. Good to get the practice in if I'm going to do an additional MyBloWriMo in June this year (jury's still out on that one). 

Al and I are very good at spending our weekends lazily and yesterday was no exception. We booked a nice lunch, then spent the afternoon wandering through bookstores on our way to a nice dinner. These activities encompassed two of our favourite past-times: eating, and reading, and eating some more.

The first bookstore we hit was Persephone, notable as both a publisher and bookseller of out-of-print works by female authors. It was teeny tiny and quaint and crowded and sweet and the overall environment made me want to buy every book in the house, even though I knew I probably wouldn't make it to the end of half of them (all that old timey wordsmithing, innit). I did get this one, though, because it was flipping hilarious:

 

Here are the first two pages that sold me:

I think we all know Lady B.

After that we hit Skoob - MY NEW FAVOURITE BOOKSTORE EVER, like the green apple of London - which has - according to le googles - over 55,000 used books. The ceiling was low, the shop was dark and underground and full of nooks, and books were stacked EVERYwhere. After tripping over a half dozen piled haphazardly on the floor, I was in love. I couldn't stop myself from buying a handful of crime novels on our way out. 

We also hit Judd's used books, which was no Skoob but had - randomly and weirdly - an excellent vegetarian cookbook selection - before wandering to Treadwell's. NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT TREADWELL'S. This came as a recommendation from my favourite darkest magik friends as an 'occult bookshop,' which is - as one pointed out - 'two of the best words to hear in sequence in the English language.' And the shop was LOVELY. Warm and incensey with Celtic font everywhere, including on the signs to the Hindu and Biblical sections. I couldn't resist buying two aroma oils - frankincense and sage - which - per the shopkeeper - apparently have planetary alignments (the Sun and Jupiter, respectively) that would bring me wellbeing (the former) and success (the latter). To think I just thought they smelled nice! Embarrassing. Needless to say, I blended the two before bed and smeared them all over my face. 

Then we headed to the Waterstones on Gower which - while being a chain - still exists, so gets props for surviving in an Amazon-era. This one is extra lovely because it's got red carpet and mini-levels. We headed straight for the basement to see an art exhibit - recommended by KT - of The Quiet Medusa, who sculpts/stitches/creates doll-like female effigies - that relate to works of literature and also her life. It was powerful and intimate stuff. Do go to see it if you're in the area.

And then we ate some more and then went home and read some more. It was a thrilling day, I tell you. 

I hope to see you again in June - post- our next trip Stateside - and until then,

Big hugs and lots of love,

Esss