NYC Part One

Hello there! We have been on holiday, a very special holiday, to New York City and have had the most incredible, wonderful, exhausting time. We returned late Monday night and the last few days have been a blur of jet lag and washing. But normal life must resume at some point and I have many - many! - photos to share with you all, and the energy finally to sort through them all, so here we are. It's been lovely going through all our pictures, reliving those days, and I am looking forward to sharing them with you here

We flew out from Heathrow a week last Monday. We'd been worried about the possible industrial action affecting our flights but luckily things were fine.

This trip would be the first time Bella and Angus had flown, and the first time John and I had flown since going to Copenhagen in 2013. They enjoyed the whole experience, as did I mostly, especially now that crochet hooks are permitted in hand luggage. We landed around 5.00 pm local time and experienced a hair-raising taxi journey to the hotel with minimal attention paid to road signs or other road users, which seemed to be the norm. Our hotel was in the Midtown area of Manhattan, not the buzziest of places, but we chose it for it's central location and proximity to the subway at Grand Central Terminal, and for both those things it was perfect. We all shared one room, John and I in one bed and the kids in the other, and this was the view from the window.

We spent an hour or two wandering around, getting our bearings and something to eat, before falling into bed.

On Tuesday, thanks to the jet lag and 9.00 pm bedtime the night before, we were all awake by 6.00 am and sitting in a coffee shop in Grand Central Terminal by 7.30 am, watching the commuters rush by. We bought coffee, pastries and a map, and made a plan.

We spent a little time in the terminal, soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying the space. It's an incredible building, and I especially love the ceiling.

We all wanted to walk after so much sitting the day before, so we made our way up Fifth avenue, which was lovely and quiet as the shops weren't open yet, towards Central Park.

It was warm and humid, but not unbearably so, and the kids loved spending some time in the park, running around and climbing the rocks, just letting off a bit of steam.

Our destination for the morning was The American Museum of Natural History which we all enjoyed, but no-one more than Angus, who read every single piece of information by every single exhibit we passed, and had to be dragged away.

"Mum! Take a photo of me by the badger!"

We walked over to Zabars on the Upper West Side for lunch. This store-deli had been recommended to me and I'm so glad we visited as it's a treasure trove of food. I stopped myself buying all the expensive oils and spices and just limited myself to a tea towel and shopping bag, very practical.

We'd hoped to picnic in Central Park but the heavens opened and so we ate our knishes and spanakopita (both unbelievably delicious) as we walked back down towards mid-town, calling into shops and stopping for snacks on the way. Angus spent some of his holiday spending money on this Mets hat, which did not leave his head for the rest of the week.

We were all pretty shattered by the end of the day so found somewhere near the hotel to get pizza and were all asleep early again.

Wednesday begun with breakfast in the Comfort Diner, a really old school type diner. Between us we ordered every pancake/waffle/French toast offering on the menu. I love breakfast in America. 

We took the subway over to the Intrepid Museum, a decommissioned aircraft carrier which is now a museum, and a very good one. It wasn't my first choice of things to do in New York but I went along with it and surprised myself.

Times Square was our next destination, and we walked there, through the hot, humid air, along 42nd Street.

I swear the heat increased in Times Square - it was just awful. I do not understand why people like that place, it's so busy and loud and full of adverts and crowds....I just wanted to leave as soon as I got there. 

The kids loved it - it does have a certain energy about it I suppose - but I was much happier escaping the downpours in Macy's later that afternoon. We ate ramen as an early dinner then walked through the rain to the Gershwin Theatre, as we'd booked tickets to see Wicked before we left.

We were up in the cheap seats (although they were not cheap!) but it was still amazing. Bella, Angus and I really enjoyed it. John fell asleep. My favourite part of this day, however, was the walk home from the theatre: the air was cool, the rain had stopped and there was a completely different feel to the city as we slowly made our way back to the hotel. 

Times Square now felt friendly and relaxed, and the neon lights reflected so prettily on the wet roads.

Thursday. Ah, this was my favourite day by a mile. We crammed in so much and I saw so many places that I'd always wanted to visit.

We were up bright and early so that we could be at the Empire State Building for 8.00 am when it opened to avoid the inevitable crowds, and I'm so glad we made the effort. The light was incredible up there - heavy cloud to begin with, and very hazy, but with bright sunshine breaking through and blue sky appearing during the hour or so we spent up on the observation deck.

This was not John or my first visit to the Empire State building, but I always find those views breathtaking, and it was wonderful to share it with Bella and Angus

We stopped in a bakery for a late breakfast of coffee and cinnamon buns before walking across town to the High Line, taking in the iconic Flat Iron building on the way.

As soon as we'd booked the flights to New York, the one of the places I most wanted to experience was The High Line, an old elevated railway line which has been repurposed into miles of public garden and walkways. 

It's a pretty magical place. You're only one or two floors up from street level but the atmosphere is completely different away from the traffic noise, quiet and relaxed. At times, the view is completely hidden by high plants so you could be anywhere, surrounded by birdsong and butterflies fluttering, but here and there a break in the planting reminds you where you are.

Bella and Angus really loved it and I could see them visibly relax in the space. Although not large, it gave them space to roam freely away from us but not too far away, still within safety.

We loved this stepped seating area and wondered what everyone was looking at.

Just a busy junction and street corner, but raised up and behind plexiglass it was so relaxing to sit there in the shade and watch New York coming and going. It looked like a pretty good spot to eat your packed lunch too.

We ate lunch in Chelsea Market (sourdough bagels for the kids and a shared turkey sandwich for John and I) before spending the afternoon walking through Greenwich Village to Soho, stopping off in shops (air conditioning!) and for ice cream or drinks along the way.  We were walking around 20,000 steps a day and needed to keep our strength up and make sure the kids were not too hot or tired. We gave Bella and Angus a lot of input into this holiday (after all, it's a once in a lifetime kind of thing) and they watched a lot of travel videos on YouTube. Angus was mainly interested in two things, pizza and ice cream, and had particularly requested we visit Do, which just does Cookie Dough ice cream. His little face!

As we approached Soho, I had somewhere I particularly wanted to visit....can you guess? Here's a clue:

That's right, the mighty Purl Soho! I couldn't come all this way and not pop in, it would be rude! I kept my spending in here to a minimum, tempting though it all was, but loved browsing and the staff were really friendly.

After going back to the hotel for a couple of hours to rest, we came back down to this area again in the evening, to eat dinner in Little Italy.

The restaurant was small and cosy, the food was really good, I had a glass of wine - it was all utterly lovely. While we were in there, the wind picked up and it started to rain. A few people sitting outside under the umbrellas came in. Then it started to really rain, and before we knew it there was a full on storm directly overhead with thunder and lightening. Then, twenty minutes later, it was all over, just like that, and we walked back to the subway with the lights shining on the wet pavements again.

I'll stop there and give you the next three days soon. I don't want to bore you. I hope you're enjoying my travel tales - there's a lot more still to come. I haven't even shown you my souvenirs yet!

July's Cookery Book

July's cookery book, Nigel Slater's Greenfeast: Spring/Summer, was one of those perfect moments of right book, right time. It was a gift from my mum (we are both big fans of Nigel, cooking, and cookery books) and, once the summer holidays had started, I found the time both to read and cook from this book. 

It's wonderful, of course, as are all Nigel Slater's books. Small, thick and heavy with a shocking-pink and gold fabric jacket design, it's an eye-catching little book. Recipe titles are brief and list-like ("halloumi, mint, aubergine", for example) but fortunately almost every recipe has an accompanying photo and poetic sub-heading ("Smoky flavours. Silky aubergine. Crisp crumbs.") so you get some kind of idea of what it is you are actually cooking, rather than a helpful shopping list. All recipes are vegetarian. Chapter headings are organised by how you cook and serve the food: In a Pan, In the Hand, On a Plate, on the Grill etc, with a puddings chapter at the end. 

His recipes are so perfectly seasonal and his writing is as descriptive and evocative as ever, but this is probably not a recipe book I will use for a busy Tuesday night when I need to feed everyone quickly and easily before Cubs, say. A lot of the recipes here feel like side-dishes, which is in no-way a criticism, but you would need to cook two or three different things so that there would be something that everyone liked on the table. Or, if it's a busy school night with lots of activities, you could just do a quorn chilli or bolognese which is what I would do. 

That said, everything I tried from this book was wonderful.

First, on a very hot day last week, deep in the middle of the heatwave, I made "Halloumi, Melon, Chilli" for lunch. I adore halloumi and could happily eat it most days, but I wouldn't have thought of putting it with melon.

You make a salsa of chopped watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, spring onions, coriander and chilli and then put it in the fridge then, while it's chilling, griddle the halloumi - I bought one that had chilli in it. The recipe calls for a fried slice of ciabatta too but I couldn't face that, so I left it out. Then you simply assemble the salsa and cheese and eat, enjoying the contrast of icy, sweet fruit and hot, spicy cheese. 

Total hot-weather lunch perfection: filling but not heavy, although next time I'd maybe do more tomato and less melon, as those melons were syrupy sweet. 

There have been quite a few times over the last couple of weeks where the children have, for whatever reason, eaten earlier and separately to us, giving me the perfect opportunity to cook something just for John and I. "Peas, Parpadelle, Parmesan" was a quick and easy winner of a dish and definitely something I'd cook again.

Ideally you'd use fresh peas here but we used frozen. You boil the pasta and, while it's cooking, simmer the peas in stock. When they're cooked, reserve a few then blitz the rest with a little stock until you have a smooth sauce. Once the pasta is cooked and drained you mix in the pureed pea sauce and top with chunks of soft, mild, creamy goats cheese and a few peas. It was amazing. All of the flavours distinct but working with each other, and the robust pasta shape stopping is all becoming soft and sloppy.

Another quick and easy meal for two was these stuffed peppers - I know it looks like a lot, but they were very small peppers. 

You mix together pesto, feta, tomatoes and olives - such summery flavours! - then dollop a spoonful into each pepper before baking for half an hour. I cooked some bulgar wheat too, to put on the side as we were hungry.

"Rice, Broad Beans, Asparagus" next. People seem to really love or hate broad beans, I've found - I am in the love camp. I think they are delicious and could just eat them as they are, picking at them. This is a kind of pilaf, a mixture of seasoned rice and vegetables, but without the creamy cheesiness of a risotto. You cook the rice with herbs, spices and bay leaves, while steaming the asparagus and broad beans. Then you are supposed to whip up 200 g butter (yes, that's nearly a full block) with chopped herbs to serve on top. Now, I like butter, but I just couldn't bring myself to use that much so I mixed about a quarter of that with chopped chives, parsley and mint which we stirred through the rice and vegetables. You need the herb butter, otherwise you have a fairly dull dish of rice and veg, and the herbs lift the whole thing while the butter makes every mouthful taste, well, better.

Finally, dessert, in which I tried - unsuccessfully - to get other people in this house to share  my love of Summer Pudding. Traditionally eaten cold, it is white bread soaked with cooked summer berries and served with cream and I made it last summer to a luke-warm reception, to put it mildly. This recipe, "Currants, Gin, Bread", is a cooked version. 

You simmer with sugar the blackcurrants, redcurrants and raspberries as you usually would, then pour the liquid mixture over an oven dish filled with stale white bread torn into chunks. (You are supposed to add gin to the cooked berries but I didn't want to.) After baking for half an hour, you have a kind of mixture between a fruit crumble and a bread pudding, which you serve with cream. Everyone except me agreed that a summer fruit crumble would have been nicer, so I ate mine and put the rest in the freezer, individually portioned for when I feel like a bit of summer pudding. 

But an all-round lovely book, which I thoroughly enjoyed cooking from, and I am already excited for the publication of the autumn/winter version in October. Thank you mum. :-)

Mustard and Pears

The tone for this week was set on Monday afternoon when I dropped my phone (which was in the back pocket of my jeans) down the toilet. The first thing I did - after fishing it out - was reach for my phone to google "how to dry out a phone you've just dropped down the toilet" and then straight away realised that, of course, I could not do this simple task, and I would have to fire up the very old and very slow laptop. My phone sat in a bag of rice for a few days but alas, no joy, although thank goodness the SIM card (with contacts, photos etc) survived the dunking. It really made me think though. A break from online life is all well and good provided that it's on your terms, like you're on holiday and you've chosen to take that break. A break from online life which you didn't want is actually just really bloody annoying and inconvenient. I like my phone and I like my contact with life online, because it's all social. If I needed my phone for work then no doubt I'd feel less positively about it, but my phone is my connection to my friends - real life and online, my hobbies, my interests, my podcasts, my apps. It was most irritating not having all that in my pocket. We'd arranged on Tuesday to meet friends from Leeds who were staying in London, and their address was in a text on my phone, which I couldn't access.  I didn't have her mobile number in my address book (which I only open once a year to send Christmas cards anyway) and so I had to use the laptop to Facebook message a mutual friend for my friend's mobile number and then text her from Bella's phone, explaining that I was an accident prone idiot and please could we have the address again? You see, annoying. 

Phone issues aside, it has been a nice week. Not quite as hazy and summery as the first week of the holidays perhaps, but still lots of highlights. Our day in London (Teddington to be precise) was absolutely lovely, even with the rain, and it was really good to catch up with a family we met at NCT group twelve years ago, and so easy too. Some friendships can cope with a year or two year gap - you just pick up where you left off. Teddington, an affluent area I think it's fair to say, was full of independent cafes, bakeries and clothes shops and also had the most amazing charity shop I've ever come across. I found a very nice and I think brand new Breton striped top by and brand called Me+Em.

And a beautifully tailored Joules shirt.

It's a size larger than I'd usually wear but it looks fab tucked into jeans, and the long body length means I can wear it under a jumper in the winter.

Anyway, two almost-new, good quality tops for under £20 - if my local charity shops stocked such lovely items then I'd be more than happy to source my entire wardrobe second hand.

With all that extra free time I had, I got around to crocheting the Mama Moon Bag

I am so happy with how it turned out. 

I want to take this bag on holiday and use it as a handbag, so I lined it as I was worried about a pen or lip balm disappearing between the holes, and added a snap buckle for security.

It was very quick to make, maybe a couple of hours, and you could definitely make one in an evening. I would really recommend the pattern.

There was half a ball of Bobbiny yarn/rope leftover so I made a little plant pot with the remnants.

Other highlights....

I made courgette fritters using this recipe and they were amazing and did three days of lunches. 

A kind friend from Instagram sent me this embroidery kit and I cannot wait to to get stuck in to it. I love the limited palate of colours in the threads.

I treated myself to a wooden pear. It was a bad day and the arrival of this little beauty in the post made me smile from ear to ear. It's the little things. The tactile shape just begs to be picked up and turned over in your hand, and I like how the wood tones work with our collection of pebbles and shells. 

So not all bad, in fact lots of good, including a picnic with my sister Anna and her girls, a coffee with my dear friend Charlotte, pottering around the house doing various things like re-potting house plants, going on dog walks...it's been good. And now we are again visiting friends this weekend before leaving for our holiday on Monday, and I will be skipping onto that plane with a working mobile phone in my pocket. I cannot wait to share it with you when we get back. It's a big one. There may even be an embroidered holiday diary.