I went to London with my friend Heather on Wednesday and had such a great time. When you're not from the UK you see it much more as a tourist and it's such a beautiful city. Arriving at Liverpool St Station always gives me a buzz for a start as it's so huge and airy.
Heather says people are much nicer in London these days too. A few people stopped and asked if we needed help while we were spinning the map hopelessly around. The tube was really clean with new moving image advertising (that you can't actually see moving here but I'm sure you get the general idea) that reminded me of Blade runner as the ones on the actual
stations are HUGE.
It's always amazing popping out at Piccadilly Circus and seeing Eros. Small but perfectly formed.
Our main reason for going was to see an exhibition at the Royal Academy. Sculptures by three English
Artists who were around just before the 1st world war. It was called '
Wild thing' from a
quote by Ezra Pound who, upon meeting one of the sculptors, Henri Gaudier-
Brzeska for the first time called him "a well-made young wolf or some soft-moving, bright-eyed wild thing". The exhibition was good but lacking somehow. I thought there would be more drawings of the reliefs Epstein did for the controversial
British medical association . Much was made of his work called 'The rock drill'. A huge macabre figure which
must have inspired
Ridley Scott for his Alien with it's foetus inside the monster's chest.
Most of his work was rounded and sensual and I really
wanted to touch it. It's given me a taste for Epstein's work and I want to see more.
Another reason for going to London was to do some 'Market Research' on the elusive,fashionable and fragile
Macaron. There is a rash of them in London. Here they are mounted up like a marvelous summer umbrella in
Laduree in the Burlington arcade. The gold stalactite drip castle effect on the walls of the shop left something to be desired though. I was too self conscious to go in though and kicked myself for the rest of the afternoon.
Here are some more in a
very groovy Japanese
patisserie just down from
Laduree in Piccadilly.
I did however summon up the courage to go into
Fortnum and Mason across the road. It really is spectacular in there.
This gorgeous purple was every where inside.
Purple and turquoise with swans and feathers. Wow, check out the feather chandelier.
and this towering display of boxes of truffles.
There were more
macarons but I didn't take any photos (this one is from a blog called 'T
he girl who ate everything')
This is is the stunning sculpture outside the Royal Academy my
Anish Kapoor. If you click on it and blow it up really big you might see Heather and I waving at you.
This is a detail of the gates at the R A.
After the exhibition we wandered down
Carnaby St where they had these funky blow up Christmas decorations, I need to get some.
Another reason we went to London was to look at the fabric shops in
Berwick Street in Soho and I was not
disappointed. Every colour of Thai silk you can imagine.
Some incredible fabrics including this one with strange beaded blisters. There was one with peacock feathers sewn all over it, reminding me of a dress I made at Art school that was covered with overlapping peacock feathers (a complete nightmare when you wanted to sit down).
Look at this for fabric heaven.....
The best of the lot was the
Cloth house at number 98. I managed to find the exact shade of Heather coloured purple silk satin that
Fortnum and Mason had used in their window display as well as some purple ribbed silk and a beautiful citrus yellow flower trim , all of which I've already made into a couple of cushions. Will take some
photokoes tomorrow.
We had to have a lie down and a cup of tea after all that so we headed off to Liberty for some Earl Grey (well we managed the cuppa) and yep you guessed it a trio of
Macarons!! Then an inspiring wander around the shop. We still had some time up our sleeves so we headed over to Harrods to check out the
Laduree shop there and this time at great expense to the management, I pushed the boat out and bought 6
macarons for Ricardo the Magnificent. The
best I've ever tasted,
especially the
Bergamot flavour...how DO they do it.
Phew that's it for now. Enjoy the visuals and go forth & make yourself some of those
most fashionable of treats this weekend....
Here's a little bit of cushion porn too.
Heather says people are much nicer in London these days too. A few people stopped and asked if we needed help while we were spinning the map hopelessly around. The tube was really clean with new moving image advertising (that you can't actually see moving here but I'm sure you get the general idea) that reminded me of Blade runner as the ones on the actual stations are HUGE.
Our main reason for going was to see an exhibition at the Royal Academy. Sculptures by three English Artists who were around just before the 1st world war. It was called 'Wild thing' from a quote by Ezra Pound who, upon meeting one of the sculptors, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska for the first time called him "a well-made young wolf or some soft-moving, bright-eyed wild thing". The exhibition was good but lacking somehow. I thought there would be more drawings of the reliefs Epstein did for the controversial British medical association . Much was made of his work called 'The rock drill'. A huge macabre figure which must have inspired Ridley Scott for his Alien with it's foetus inside the monster's chest.
Most of his work was rounded and sensual and I really wanted to touch it. It's given me a taste for Epstein's work and I want to see more.
Another reason for going to London was to do some 'Market Research' on the elusive,fashionable and fragile Macaron. There is a rash of them in London. Here they are mounted up like a marvelous summer umbrella in Laduree in the Burlington arcade. The gold stalactite drip castle effect on the walls of the shop left something to be desired though. I was too self conscious to go in though and kicked myself for the rest of the afternoon.
Here are some more in a very groovy Japanese patisserie just down from Laduree in Piccadilly.
I did however summon up the courage to go into Fortnum and Mason across the road. It really is spectacular in there.
This gorgeous purple was every where inside.
Purple and turquoise with swans and feathers. Wow, check out the feather chandelier.
and this towering display of boxes of truffles.
There were more macarons but I didn't take any photos (this one is from a blog called 'The girl who ate everything')
This is is the stunning sculpture outside the Royal Academy my Anish Kapoor. If you click on it and blow it up really big you might see Heather and I waving at you.
This is a detail of the gates at the R A.
After the exhibition we wandered down Carnaby St where they had these funky blow up Christmas decorations, I need to get some.
Another reason we went to London was to look at the fabric shops in Berwick Street in Soho and I was not disappointed. Every colour of Thai silk you can imagine.
Some incredible fabrics including this one with strange beaded blisters. There was one with peacock feathers sewn all over it, reminding me of a dress I made at Art school that was covered with overlapping peacock feathers (a complete nightmare when you wanted to sit down).
Look at this for fabric heaven.....
The best of the lot was the Cloth house at number 98. I managed to find the exact shade of Heather coloured purple silk satin that Fortnum and Mason had used in their window display as well as some purple ribbed silk and a beautiful citrus yellow flower trim , all of which I've already made into a couple of cushions. Will take some photokoes tomorrow.
The observatory was sensational and I wish we'd set aside a lot more time. Here is Ricardo standing where time begins at 0 degrees.
There is a spectacular view, we're not used to such vertiginous drops living here in Norfolk.
Here are a couple of views of the elegant Georgian interior too.
Richard had read the book called Longitude by David Sobel and had told me the stories about how long it took to make the time pieces that eventually solved the problem of how to find longitude when aboard ship including the hilarious wounded dog theory. The 'H4' timepiece
that eventually won the prize is an amazingly elegant and contemporary looking watch whereas his first trial called 'H1' was as big as a small table.
The fair I did on the weekend went well. At first people were highly suspicious of the macarons and couldn't believe 1: that they were edible and 2: that I'd actually made them. I sold almost all of them in the end.
This is what it said on the note 
So I set to work smiling.
chestnut filling for the pistachio ones
....... and saffron filling for the saffron coloured ones. These worked out the best so I gilded them with edible gold dust too. They REALLY taste like saffron as I put a whole packet in both the biscuits and the ganache.
So far so good. Let's just hope I sell a bucket load of these little edible cushions.
and these edible cushions....
I've been in a frenzy of Macaron making (you could say a macaron-a-thon really). The most successful being the SAFFRON ones which really, really taste like saffron. I've bought ribbons and boxes and all sorts of frippery and I just hope to God I sell some, otherwise we'll have to eat them all!
These photos were taken at Wilsons Promontory National Park. One of my favourite places in the whole world. They are of Xantheria or grass trees after the recent bushfires there.
It seems grass trees bloom profusely after such a traumatic event. A brilliant metaphor for hope after trauma.
Now for the frivolous. My darling friend Sally WJ went to Paris on a school excursion and despite the fact that she had 20 small girls to look after managed to hotfoot it down to the Laduree pattisserie and buy me a small yet stylish bag of heaven.
In descending order; raspberry, pistachio, orange flower and rose. Now I know the benchmark I need to achieve..... the packaging is sublime as were the biscuits.
(As you can see Sally there are only 4 of the eight left for me to photograph). What a star.
Sorry I haven't blogged for a while, I've been busy: our beautiful Boy Zebedee has been in hospital and Mumma has the same dreadful virus, so it's Granny and Joey to the rescue. It's so heartbreaking to see him just lying there in a big bed wimpering. I'm off again to do the day shift and take over from Granny who drove five hours from Devon and then did the night shift with him on Sunday night and again last night.
and the ones on the pink mat did?
Here is the ganache for the filling made with a LOT of white chocolate. It's lucky any got into the bowl really. It's my favourite Green and Blacks flavour with speckles of vanilla seed in it.
Boiling the cream and adding the ground pistachios and lime rind.
The terrifying moment of amalgamation, will it separate at this late stage?
So far, so good. Sandwiching the two halves together has to be a very careful operation as they are extremely fragile at this stage. You can see on the pink mat the remains of a lot of them.
Finally the finished product looking pretty professional I think. 
Next time I'm trying coffee with chocolate filling. Mmmmm.
