Like most London-workers, I've become a serial sushi eater. I've only ever tried to make sushi at home a couple of times before, enjoying limited success.
A couple of weeks ago when Monkey and Rob came to stay for the weekend I decided to give it another go, but this time I was going to buy the best salmon fillet I could find. After a bit of hunting around on that Sunday morning with Rob, it turns out the best we could find was also the biggest. So I made a shitload of sushi!
The salmon was an organic skinless fillet from Waitrose, and I picked up some nori sheets too. I didn't have any sushi rice so I used unwashed (don't laugh - not washing keeps the starch in making it more sticky) basmati rice.
One thing nobody tells you is that when making sushi (especially a lot of it) the rice gets absolutely EVERYWHERE. It sticks to your hands, gets trodden into the carpet, in your hair - everywhere. I find having wet hands makes it much easier to pick up rice without it all sticking to your hands.
Rolling was good fun - the first one was shit, the rest were good. My knife was just about sharp enough, but making sushi really makes me want to splash out on one of these bad boys :)
Big fish, sharp knife
Attempt #2 at rolling - looking good
All rolled
The spread (well, half of it..)
Cut rolls
It's rare that I eat so much sushi that I feel completely full. This was one of those times. We ate, and ate and ate and there was still a massive slab of salmon left over.
The World's First Race Across the Internet is over! It took an extra huge (have you had enough hyperbole yet?) effort from Mattias, Dezza, Igor, Greg and Mike and I over the past couple of weeks to pull this one out of the bag, and it's so hugely satisfying that people enjoyed it so much. FFS, I got 74 comments on a single post! All the well wishes and thanks is really appreciated by us all - it was brilliant watching the buzz around the race during the past week and I'm immensely proud to have been involved in building such a unique and fun piece of work.
So, with the past 3 months being so busy I can't believe it's the summer!
This weekend just gone I've finally got back into the kitchen, cooking:
Asparagus with german smoked ham and chili and balsamic glaze
Linguine with chorizo, king prawns, red onion, pepper and basil chili oil
Barbecued mackrel with roasted Mediterranean vegetables
I've got heaps of nice photos of them, I'll be posting them on Friday or Saturday, hopefully whilst out in the garden in the sunshine drinking a cold one.
In the meantime, here are a couple of photos I've taken recently:
Welcome balloon racers! I work for POKE and I was lucky enough to be part of a very talented team that created the Balloon Race Across the Internet. It's been a long and in part difficult road, but I for one am so proud of what we've managed to achieve.
I love the idea of people dropping onto here, so please say hello! If you leave the name of your balloon I'll even give you a boost :)
A project I've been closely involved with at POKE has just launched - we're all dead proud and hope you enjoy Balloonacy:
We're hosting a balloon race across The Internets, - if your balloon floats furthest (you'll be able to control and push your balloon along, too) you'll win a week in Ibiza with a gang of mates.
As well has having a balloon, you can also be part of the map itself by putting your blog or website forward. It doesn't cost anything, the race lasts 7 days and you should get heaps of visitors during that time :) The little racoon in the bottom right hand corner means this site's signed up!
So, on 23rd June when the race starts and thousands of animal balloons are floating across the internet, now you'll know why.
I've just uploaded some photos of our trip to Centre Parcs with the lovely Monkey, Rob and Lotte.
Holidays should technically be restful and offer an opportunity to recharge, but I guess we needed someone to remind us of that because we've all come home more exhausted and broken than when we left!
5 days of: bike riding, wall climbing, golfing, ping pong-ing, badminton-ing, jumping off very high things, rapids swimming, pool shooting, drinking, BBQ eating, sauna sweating AND dance classing have taken it's toll - we're all feeling tired, beaten and bruised; yet somehow all extremely happy at having shared a truly awesome 5 days together.
I think we'd all forgotten how much fun it is to be around each other, and how mental we go when we are :)
A happy holiday and shitloads of happy memories - cheers Jo, Monkey, Lotte & Rob!
My bike got stolen from the station a few weeks ago, which coincided nicely with Poke joining Evans' very noble Ride2Work scheme, meaning I got a cool 35% off the price :)
Here she is:
I am so, so impressed! The ride is extremely fast, and the bike itself is so much lighter than I thought it would be. Riding on London's shitty potholed roads is a bit, ahem, jarring.. but I'm going to be using this mostly out around the countryside near Milton Keynes, so i'm not really bothered.
If you're looking for a fast, racey bike but that isn't actually a racer, look no further. At £400 you get a lot of quality for your money, and a bike that should cope really well with any kind of road riding.
It's something I've been talking about for a while, and today i've actually done it - I've permanently removed myself from Facebook.
I'd never really taken to it, preferring to use lots of the tried and tested methods to keep in touch with people I like, and found it was mostly useful for having inane twice-yearly "conversations" with people I intentionally stopped speaking to.
I've always steered clear of making pies and other items in the Pie Family (quiche, tart, flan, pastry), but I guess something spurred me into trying it because here's an apple pie I made this afternoon:
Closed
Slightly eated
Apple Pie Recipe
5 bramley apples, cut into sugar-cube sized pieces
2 teaspoons of freshly ground cinnamon sticks
3 tablespoons of caster sugar
squeeze of lemon juice
I used some off-the-shelf shortcrust pastry and rolled it out into a bottom-up cake tin, and brushed milk and sprinkled sugar over the top before sticking in a medium oven until it looked wicked.
