TALKING ABOUT FOOD

I’m really interested in the things we talk about when we share food, and that time we share when we sit down and eat and drink. I’m interested in community, how we fit into the world, how we measure ourselves against the world, and the fact this year seems a particularly political year.  I am also acutely aware that within popular media, there are still too few a space for women to have complex and in-depth conversation - the Bechdel test is still relevant to do today, with many films failing. Therefore, this is an interview column with women I find inspiring, and we sit down and eat and drink. I recently meet with Emma Underwood, GM of Burnt Truffle in Haswell, for an earlier dinner. She was down in London to do Blood Shot at The Dairy with the Sticky Walnut crew. We spoke about how a restaurant can create a community, how people can still feel tribal about the space they have carved out for themselves. Both our PhDs had feminism theory as the main component and so we s...

I am constantly trying to find a home away from home, away from home. I’m constantly trying to run away to somewhere comfy, like Goldilocks trying to work out which is the comfiest bed to sleep in. Berlin has become that place.  I have been coming to Berlin since 2008; it is my almost twice-yearly pattern. I came here for three months and wrote the first (terrible!) draft of my PhD thesis here, and over the years I have built up a small but wondrous group of friends. I grew up in Malaysia, New Zealand, and now London is my home and soon to be the place I have lived the longest. At my heart, I am a homebody, a homebody with itchy feet and a need for adventure. And so I calm both urges by visiting Berlin. Berlin is familiar, and yet changes, develops and grows, but hasn’t lost its soul. And so, this is a round up of what my most recent trip looked like, in food and drink, I have a few my favourites, which are asterisked. I stayed most of the time at my friend Sarah’s in Ne...

I write for CODE Quarterly, various thought pieces about where the industry is today and looking to ask questions around where we are heading. Here is a round up of all the pieces I have written for CODE Quarterly, thus far.

I went to Copenhagen and got swept away. It was a cold-ish October, but that didn't matter, Copenhagen is all about the hygge. Hygge is refined coziness, that equates to the glow of candles amongst beautifully designed furniture.  

The ace thing about London? The ease of travelling, in general, but of course to Europe. And Munich, you've been gorgeous.  This was my first trip to Munich. I've been going to Berlin once or twice a year since 2012 (and have been as a few times before that), it has been really interested to see the eating and drinking scene change, and I was curious to see what Munich was like.  Of course there are always going to be wonderful restaurants in cities like Berlin and Munich, but those are generally outside my income; what I am interested in is the development of the average, everyday eater. Berlin has great cafes, and bars, but the ‘wine bar’ and thoughtful but affordable neighbourhood restaurants wasn't really there the first few times I was in Berlin. This contrasts to what is happening in London (this is of course due to the difference economies and indeed structure of London in comparison to Berlin). But in Berlin it has been growing in the last year or so. I...

September - the summer wanes, the rain hits the pavement and then just has you’ve accepted the need for jumpers and umbrellas, days of sun. September, decide who you want to be and just go with it, you’re playing with my emotions, my wardrobe choices and my sensibilities. But that’s the beauty of the first days of autumn. Leaves turn orange as late morning sun shines through their delicate foliage - September is the month where anything and everything can happen, in one day. This September has been no different. It’s been a year since Dan and I sat down and devised the Chefs of Tomorrow plan, and now we have a new, bigger, more adventurous idea for the CoT (details soon, as soon as we know…!). It’s exciting to see how one thing, one idea, on one Sunday in September has grown into this new vision of a project (now I’m just being mean cos I can’t tell you the plan). Which reminded me how wonderful it is to work with people who are big thinkers, supportive and enthusiasti...

  I have a couple of points of contention that I need to air. Better late than never. This year’s Great British Menu was celebrating the WI (Women’s Institute) and yet only 4 of the 24 chefs competing where women. Seems a weird way to celebrate women’s contribution to the British heritage and indeed it’s culinary history; unless of course the attitude is women cook, and men are chefs (aka the professionals)’ which is exactly the message this gives. This undermines the work that women are doing in the industry; it undermines the industry as a whole. There are more than 4 women in the UK at that standard. The National Restaurant awards named Barafina as no.1 restaurant this year, a restaurant run by a woman. If the producers had asked more women and they had turned them down, then they need to re-think the structure of the show. Great British Menu no longer shows off the industry as a whole and feels disingenuous. There is some amazing food this year, and we're only i...

Earlier in the year I wrote about how technology is changing the restaurant industry for CODE Quarterly and I spoke about the american ticketing system Tock, since then The Clove Club have taken on the system. Ticketing systems within restaurants is a topic that elicits strong opinions for and against, and has many in the industry curious about how it can work.  I doubt there is much argument that it is something that will work in some establishments and not in others, but how big is the range of where it will work? Places that are akin to The Clove Club in it’s set menus structure, such as Lyle’s and Typing Room, are not employing the system and seem to have made a conscious decision not to.

This last month I have been trying to write an abstract for an academic journal submission about food, home and belonging, and identity. I’ve toyed with lots of different ways to approach this and I still haven’t worked how; but in the course of the month I have been reminded about how important nostalgia is in building home, and therefore a sense of identity. This idea of nostalgia and food came from a surprising place, a mid-week lunch at a ‘fancy’ restaurant with my friend Kevin. Typing Room had been in on my hit list for awhile, so it was great to to finally get there.  The plan was a quick-ish lunch, the three course menu. Now remember that time, not long after you had moved out of home, when you realise you can have dessert for dinner? And you do it, just because you can? Well, Kevin and I went against all good plans and had the five course tasting menu - because we f*cking could, because I’m a grown up and I can spend my money just the way I want to. And so began ...

  I feel like in the last few weeks there has been a focus on meat. Beyonce made a ‘big (anti-climactic) announcement’ that she was a vegan; then confirmed she does eat meat on occasion. The Chinese ‘dog eating’ festival dominated headlines and was counteracted with articles about how our (the west’s) consumption of meat is very problematic - for the animals, for the environment, and for our health.  Hadley Freeman wrote a great, well balanced piece this weekend about the increase in healthy-eating gurus; which I could rant on about, in particular the fact that it’s a scene dominated by privileged, white women, who are also ridiculously beautiful. I mean, who has time to be that good, unless you have the financial luxury to focus on those things and don’t have to run around just trying to survive? (I too would do daily yoga and make delicious foods if I wasn’t juggling multiple jobs, yet still dipping into my overdraft… for starters, where would I do my daily y...

I’ve been thinking a lot about networks recently, specifically to do with working and careers, for a number of reasons. Firstly because my part time job is working for a corporate global law firm, where I work on the alumni team. Our job is to create meaningful networks across the globe. In particular what I have been thinking about is how networks link into real time and real spaces. What does this have to do with London, and food and wine - my main passions in life and this blog? Bear with me, I will get there. Why I have been thinking about networks in this way is due to a work project I am on to build a new website and database - so a lot of time thinking about how to build a virtual space that will create strong, positive connections across time and space, across various different people, ages, expertise, whose only tangible connection is that they spend time together in an office, some where in the world. My conclusion was we needed to create something that wasn't so...

When I learnt how to sail, the first thing I was taught was how to capsize. When I went to gymnastics, the first thing I was taught was how to fall. Falling, capsizing – failing - was all about the recovery; and in gymnastics, it was all about recovering gracefully, getting up with style. I got married young. I got divorced young. A dramatic story of my 20s. He left for me another women. My heart broke. The divorce paperwork nearly killed me. But, it was a wonderful relationship; until, it wasn't. And now I'm saddled with this yoke of a 'failed marriage’. But what if we think about failure differently? It’s a cliché, but these kinda heartbreaks are what makes me who I am today - if I am not a success, at the very least I have survived. 100 years ago the average marriage lasted about a decade - women died in childbirth, life span was a lot less, so ‘forever’ had a different meaning. We have thankfully moved on from then and are living healthier, longer lives, ...

As a New Zealander I’m not familiar with the brand Blue Nun, but that doesn’t mean I’m not familiar with the idea it represents for the riesling grape - syrupy taste, all shiny sugared and shoulder pads of 80s glam (Jem and her Holograms totally drank riesling).  But, riesling is my favourite white wine grape ( as spoken about in January ), and so I went off to chat with Ed, from Highbury Vintners, to find out more about this under appreciated wine. Ed inspired me to have the dry Jan realising month in the first place, with his strategically placed ‘Dry January’ sign over the dry rieslings. Ed and I share the same love over this slender bottled beauty. 

This article was first published in Issue 2 of the  CODE Quarterly A new industrial revolution is happening and it is not represented by an iron structure built in the middle of Paris. This revolution is supported by dark rooms in distant lands – servers processing your apps, your social media timelines, your daily steps through the city. In the world of service and hospitality we have online booking apps, with OpenTable being the main player; and iPads are now appearing on tables instead of waiters. Therefore, business sense means we need to investigate ways to get connected and tapped into the app-savvy foodie. So technology is booming, but where is it taking us? And how does it affect the hospitality industry, from the inside and as a guest?