Positive Procrastination

It may, on the off, sound like an oxymoron but procrastination can be positive. When I was working I somehow found myself scrolling through Pinterest, pinning beautiful clothes, interiors shots, puppies... nothing related to what I should be. Then suddenly. The one. An incredible precedent for the part of my project I was yet to resolve, jumping out of the screen at me. Brilliant! Then the last half hour of skirts and kitchens didn't seem so bad after all!

Another is a fortunate accident or serendipity, like the John Cusack/Kate Beckinsale flick of the noughties. As a non-tattoo type serendipity is the only thing I would ever consider having scribed if my life ever depended on it! I go on and on and on about coincidences: thinking about a friend you haven't spoken to in months and the next second your phone beeps with a message from them, or having spoken about the said film Serendipity, the next day in a cafe they play on of the more obscure songs from the soundtrack (oh yeah, I have the sound track!) Perhaps I'm highly aware of them, cause do coincidences get distributed equally? Who knows, but I do know I'll continue picking them out for a long time to come!

Little City

With my final crit on Friday, I'm going to get model making this week. I like small scale models, perhaps working at 1:500, so these little cities are providing me inspiration as to how I'll make the houses themselves. I expect I'll end up chosing wood, with all the variety in grain and colour, but the clay is so versatile for adding detail. Let's see how it ends up!

Images: 1. maisons en cèdre by spielplatz 2. shelf city by the oak leaves

Back to Baking

I've been MIA for the last (what!!) 6 weeks!! No excuses, well apart from I had my final ever portfolio deadline for MArch, so I'm back on it. I miss rambling on here and making record of what I get up to. Also I am currently in the making of a website of my work - so watch this space.

Since finishing I have got back into cooking and baking. Dan bought lots of fruit to keep healthy over deadline time, but some of the bananas were left over so nothing is more perfect than to make them into banana cake. I took this Nigella recipe and added rough chunks of dark chocolate. It went down a treat, far too quickly.

Today I decided to try and bake a loaf of bread, of the tiger variety. It was a basic white loaf recipe with a cornflour and milk mix spread on top before baking to create the crackling. I think the oven must have been too hot (the one here at uni is a bit temperamental and you can't see in!) and so left any longer, the crust would have got crustier but the insides needed more time. Maybe I didn't knead the dough properly in the first place? Help?

A more successful dish was the paella I cooked for the girls on Tuesday evening, this time a Jamie recipe. It went down an absolute treat and I will definitely make it again, it was so easy! Here and here are a few more of my culinary experiments. 

Crunchy Courgette

I spotted this recipe for a crunchy lemon topped courgette cake a while back so I cut it out of the magazine and kept it in the back of my mind. So when I spotted a couple of courgettes in Ma's veg box last week I thought I must give it a go. Courgettes are most probably my favourite vegetable - grilled with pepper or sautéed with garlic - so why not in a cake? I made half the quantity in the given recipe, and swapped the plain flour for gluten free so Ma can enjoy it too. If you like carrot cake but I think this makes a great veggie alternative. Even if I do say so myself, it's delicious! 

P.S. The label is written on my new typewriter!

Dreaming of Dresses

The Great British Sewing Bee started on Tuesday evening and even before the programme finished, I though "I wanna make some simple dresses for summer"! Whilst pinning I came across Samuji, a Finnish designer, and I love their light feminine dresses above. Since, I've been thinking about the tulip shaped dress, like this one, but I'm going to continue on the hunt for the perfect pattern. I've loved the clothes by Wiksten for a long time, check out the collections. For now I must keep my architecture head on, just 35 days to go, after which I can get the sewing machine out and dream of holidays in the sun.

Images by Samuji

Design Education

Here is another inspiring TED lecture from Emily Pilloton of Studio H, a not-for-profit organisation in the US, which runs programmes at schools in rural areas to teach the pupils design skills and thinking. I first saw their chicken coops a year or so ago, and I wish we had something similar at my secondary school. Is there something similar in the UK?

Like Roses

Whilst visiting York, we came across a shop called the The Yorkshire Pantry which sells products from local businesses and I bought a jar of Raspberry and Rose Conserve from Catherine's Choice. They've got a great selection and I just love their packaging design. I had some Essence of Rose in the cupboard at home, so now that I'm back, I got to making some Rose Cupcakes.

It's a simple sponge recipe - 200g marg, 200g sugar, 200g butter and 2 eggs - with a dash of milk and the essence of rose. The taste is very subtle in these, so next time I'm gonna put more in, perhaps a tablespoon. After cooling and before buttercream icing, I carved out the top and popped in a blob of the raspberry and rose jam!

YOLO

On Friday evening, Cathy and I jumped on a train from Manchester to head even further north to York to visit Lauren. We explored, absorbing Lauren's stained glass knowledge in York Minster and around the cobbled streets, and ate lots, from fish finger butties in pub and tea and cake in Betty's to cheese and meats from The Hairy Fig. It was great to see more of the beautiful city after my day trip with Leah last year, and to catch up with two of my oldest friends!

Super Inspired

Last night we went to a lecture by David Zahle of BIG. As the title explains, it was a highly inspiring two hours, showing their work. BIG's work is fun, imaginative yet simple, with one element which makes each project unique. I've loved their Mountain Housing for years, but it was great to see a selection of their projects, a cycling pavilion, a marine museum in an former ship dock. The way BIG communicate their work is key, their office ethos looks so fun and it's got me re-enthused for the last couple of months of MArch.

Images from BIG

Giant Robot

Last night before I headed back up north, we decided to grab a bite to eat and had our mind on meatballs at Meatballs at the Quality Chop House. On the train I googled it to check it was open on a Monday only to find it had moved to Westfield and the Chop House had been taken over! The menu all looked very nice but we had our mind on meatballs! Instead we tried Giant Robot on Clerkenwell Road, which had meatballs on the menu. The interior is really cool, just like Workshop along the road, and the food was delicious. We had meatballs and mash with sautéed green beans and chocolate fudge brownie to finish. With a hop, skip and a jump I was back on the train to Manchester, with a satisfied stomach - will happily go to Giant Robot again.

Images by Jonathan Perugia via Giant Robot