Monsieur and I visited Borough Market on Saturday. Borough Market was great fun; getting there was a little fraught. On the tube we were sat opposite a case of Arrested Development (and I’m not talking about the band). He was dressed in jeans and a lot of red – red sweatshirt bearing some hip insignia I…
Bandes Dessinees weekend 1 – The Case of the Missing Navette
There are too many people in this world who simply don’t understand the fascination of bandes dessinées (otherwise known as graphic novels). Monsieur and I are not among these people. We still read Tintin, raced madly through a series called XIII (Treize, as in ‘thirteen’) which gripped us with political intrigue and Kennedy-esque family, spent last…
The MITE-y wars
One of the best things about the weekend is Vegemite toast. I love Vegemite toast. Coming from south of the equator, as I do, it is natural to like Vegemite. It’s one of the most praiseworthy Aussie creations and pretty much everyone I know from Australia or New Zealand eats it in some way, shape…
Malaysia Part 9 – Melaka Moments
As Monsieur had selected most of the hotels for our Malaysian holiday, I decided to find something a bit different for our time in Melaka. Trawling tripadvisor, I found repeated reference to the Hotel Puri, its fabulous antiques and themed rooms and the über-efficient Madame Jo who ran front desk. If the five-star hotels we’d…
Front Window
I admit it. I’m a curtain twitcher. I love to observe what’s going on around our home so now that the weather is nice in London Town, I frequently find myself hanging out of our front window, watching the changing colours in the sky and observing people on the street. Most of the time I see people ensconced…
Malaysia, Part 8: Hey Mambo, Melaka!
We were soon to leave the island state of Singapore to return to Malaysia, but first we enjoyed a last breakfast on the terrace outside The Line. There was no more rain. Isn’t that typical? It had rained off and on the whole time we’d been in Singapore but on our day of departure the sun…
Malaysia/Singapore Part 7: Bumboats and hotpants
Monsieur and I left the bowling ball bullfrog behind on Clarke Quay as we jumped on a bumboat (a.k.a. junk) to take us up the Singapore River. It was late afternoon grey as our almost empty boat set off from the jetty. Up the green river we went, under the pedestrian Riverwalk bridge and adjacent…
Epic euphemisms 1
Recently, I started a list of funny euphemisms that pass my way. It’s amusing to see how far humankind will go to make something icky or uncomfortable sound not so bad. Dear friend, The Wise Woman of Wandsworth, is always ‘washing her cat’ when she wants to turn down an invitation. (Odd that she…
1000 Journals
‘The project officially launched in August of 2000, with the release of the first 100 journals in San Francisco. I gave them to friends, and left them at bars, cafes, and on park benches. Shortly thereafter, people began emailing me, asking if they could participate. So I started sending journals to folks, allowing them to…
Epic Ingredients 2: Salts
One of my kitchen secrets is to keep the right sort of salts. At Oliviers & Co there are three which make a good basis for a seasoning collection: The blue, for fish, contains: laurel leaves, lemon zest, juniper berries, coriander seeds, rosemary, sage, thyme, parsley, fennel seeds and basil The pink, for meat, contains:…
A Tale of Two Mexicans in Paris
‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’, or so they say, but what about ‘when in Paris, eat as the Mexicans do’? Deciding to turn our backs on canard and moules and other typical French fare, Monsieur and I felt like dining on something different. That’s how we came to experience two very different…
World Taximeter
I just found a really interesting site on the internet: World Taximeter! Choose your city and enter your point of departure and destination and the site will calculate how much it will cost. At a click, you can also convert the currency between pounds sterling, US dollars and the Euro. The list of cities isn’t exhaustive, but…
Epicurienne 