MORE FOOD - Borough Market

Another foody post about my trip to Borough market. Mmm, don't think I will ever be fed up of food... My obsession with drawing fish is still going strong too, I have about 5 paintings/studies of fish so far and intend on doing many more, oh yes.

This stall below was quite interesting to me in particular. They were recreating the real way of doing a raclette, where you melt a huge piece of cheese then scrape the top layer off once it's melted. Our family does this a lot & I believe it is a French thing, deeeelicious.

This mushroom stall was pretty awesome too, not many people I know are huge fans of them, but how can you not be when they look so good? All shapes, shades, forms, sizes - it was incredible, makes me want to go mushroom picking in a forest, although I don't think that would be a very safe idea haha.

After our morning at the market, my mother & I walked to Brick Lane for a late lunch. It was my first time there, and the feel of the place is so cool, it felt a bit like Reading festival style-wise, if you know what I mean? I loved it.

The street art, the restaurants, the buzz, AND MY BURGER (veggie burger of course) WAS AMAZING. It was huge, the guy kept asking me whether I wanted different salads and sauces & I just kept saying yes to everything, hence why I ended up with my humungous burger of deliciousness.

I had to resort to eating the burger with a fork in the end, it was that big.

Music-wise, I'm actually listening to The Paradise album right now (music to one of the best TV series) but I'm also listening toooo: Tom Odell's album, his voice is just so mmmm.

FOOD - Borough Market

 One of the beauties of picking your subject for A level art, is that you can pick something you love. My subject is about cultures & food, which meant an educational food-filled day trip to see Borough Market in London. Of course.

The place was buzzing with people, delicious scents and beautiful displays. I managed to go around as many stalls that gave out tasters as possible, sadly they were mainly cheese though, shame I'm not a cheese lover...

On the edge of the market, I came across a Meat shop with my family name on it... awkward because we're vegetarians haha.

I must say, the stall with many paella pans was the most impressive - the colours and sheer size of it were just overwhelming! (Plus they gave out loads of free tasters)

The fish was my favourite to look at though. Since I've started painting fish more and more, I've noticed all the different colours in fish - the shades of gold and pink are glorious.

The autumnal vegetables also caught my eye, pumpkins with their warm tones were beautiful.

I hope you like food, I've another post of this coming up, I'm excited. I'm also about to watch the Great British Bake Off. Even more excited. I think I can see a theme to all this...

Listening tooooo: 'Almost Lover' by A Fine Frenzy & 'Nice Fox' by The Rosebuds

Chelsea Buns With Tea & Cake

'Tea and Cake' is my favourite book right now.

I bought it for the beautiful illustrations by Emma Block (one of my favourite illustrators) and my oh my has it lived up to my expectations. Her work is absolutely lovely, the colours, patterns & drawings are pure delight. Not to mention the recipes.

(P.S. that blanket I sneaked into the photo below is the bees knees)

Yesterday, E & myself thought we'd have a go at making one of the recipes from the book before she left for Italy (teeny bit jealous). Seeing as I'm missing the lack of Made In Chelsea on my TV screen, Chelsea buns seemed the next best thing. After lots of kneading, rising & a little cooking, out came these beauties.

They're delicious. This was my first time making Chelsea Buns so I was shocked at how delicious they turned out - the perfect amount of stickiness & sweetness. I'm seriously considering having a lunch consisting of just Chelsea buns today, they are that good.

Also, I now have twitter, wooo, you can follow my everyday nonsense by clicking on the little icon on the top right of my blog.

Listening tooo: 'Inspired' by Healyum - they're a band of 3 siblings from my school and they are so good, definitely listen to them - more songs here.

London's Finest Cheese (I don't even like cheese...)

I'll explain the title later, but to begin with, I WENT ON THE BEST TUBE. It was one long carriage and you could see all the way down and every curve we went on you could see the whole thing bend. Awesome.

The reason I was in London to start with was for the London universities Open Day. After having taken pages of notes & bombarded the lecturers with questions, it was of course time to hit the streets of London to meet both E & my dad for lunch, who both happened to be working in London on the same day.

We met in the Spitalfields area where E was working & naturally we were spoilt for choice.

In the end we settled for this huge falafal sandwich (no idea on official the name...). I think I was more attracted to the look of it than the actual taste, but nevertheless it was tasty & incredibly filling for the size of it...

In the afternoon, I searched Spitalfields & Covent Garden for traditional food from different cultures - this is what I'm focusing on for my A2 Art. How come I couldn't find a single food market in Spitalfields?!

Incidentally, this photo below includes 3 of my favourite things right now: my scarf, stripy top & new boots! I wear all three a lot.

After searching nearly everywhere for some cultural food. I landed upon an adorable little British cheese shop.

I don't even like cheese (there's where I got that title) but this shop was perfect for my art. No kidding. The owner was really helpful when I told him I was there for my art & gave me loads of papers and information about the cheeses.

Just look at those textures! Not sure how I can approach drawing cheeses, but it's worth a go, maybe watercolour? Let me know if you have any suggestions.

It was a looovely day (I even managed to pop into Urban Outfitters, ooh yeah!). And on a completely unrelated note, I'm back doing work experience this week, woooo. Except this time I have to do it after school, so everything is pretty busy right now... but I looove it.

Listening toooo: 'Sleepyhead' by Passion Pit & 'You're The One That I Want' by Angus & Julia Stone

Food Festival

Whilst roaming around the shopping centre before my work, I stumbled upon a bustling Food Festival. Packed with delicious savoury treats, food demonstrations & endless tasters, this was the place to be.

Being a freebie hoarder, I walked past all the edible samples, gobbling them as I went along...

The item highest up on my foodie wishlist was this veggie flatbread, just looking at it makes my mouth water... 

Sadly by this time, I had already bought my lunch, so I had to let it slip...

But I have found a similar recipe which looks a-mazing!! Here's the link, it's definitely a good 'un.

Cardiff Part 2

Open days are suuuper important. Mainly to see the course & university BUT of course visiting the city is also a major factor (I think so at least)... So my afternoon in Cardiff was spent doing just that.

As you may have guessed from my previous post, I just had to visit Cardiff's Urban Outfitters. One of the most incredible shops known to man.

Even from the exterior you can see this shop has some seriously cool stuff inside. Thankfully their limit to items you can try on is pretty high, so I bundled everything into the changing room and tumbled into a state of pure joy.

After falling in love with pretty much the whole shop all over again, it was time to do some more exploring... 

To begin with, the Cardiff Market.

We had a quick look around the stalls before landing on this little Welsh gem & bought some traditional Welsh cakes (giant ones of course). They were delicious, I'm a huge fan of fruity cakes!

We then made it our mission to see the sea & on our way walked past this hunk of a castle.

Once we arrived at Cardiff bay it was pretty empty & windy, but it was really nice to see the sea and discover the area.

One thing I found interesting was the way everything was translated into Welsh, the only Welsh I know is 'Araf' which means 'slow' & seems to be on all roads... Its a really pretty language though, and I love the accents.

The day we were there also happened to coincide with the Welsh Varsity match, a huuuge event over there, so there were a lot of proud fans declaring their love for their teams...and some pretty crazy outfits.

We arrived back at the station just in time to catch our train. I spent the journey home looking through the Cardiff prospectus, listening to some seriously good songs & munching on the Welsh cakes as the sun set...

Take me back?