A New Frontier

Today's much needed brunch came from Frontier in Tollcross.

Got points for: being true to their ethos with their menu and decor
Lost points for: being really bloody cold inside

Bowled over by Cannonball

Today's lunch came from Contini Cannonball on the Royal Mile.

Got points for: Very friendly staff and excellent service
Lost points for: No toilet paper anywhere on the premises!

Cannonball cocktail and Isle of Mull scallops 

Burger Meats Fun

Tonight's dinner came from Burger Meats Bun. 

Got points for: providing a whole roll of kitchen towel for paw-wiping
Lost points for: serving the beer in a frosted glass (too cold)

Pleased to meat you.

Sustainable me(al)

It has been a very long time since I posted a blog here, good people of the internets. I do hope you're all well. I just thought I’d stop by and share a recent venture with you, a ‘sustainable’ dinner party hosted by my fine flatmate Debbie and I last Tuesday, March 20^th.

Our flat, the Den, had previously hosted a couple of successful themed dinner parties, a Christmas Dinner and a Burns Night Supper. And now another meal was called for, said our hungry friends. But what should it be at this time of year? An Easter dinner party seemed a bit premature...

After a little deliberation the plan became to have a dinner party with the lowest carbon footprint possible. How hard could it be?

Ha!

Well that would be decided by what makes a low carbon meal. A little time spent on the internet and it was deemed that such a dinner would have various aims. Forgive me for forgetting where I got these from. My student days of accurate sourcing abilities have faded, I'm afraid.

Anyway, we would attempt to 'minimise emissions related to production, packaging, processing, transport, preparation and waste' by serving food that was not 'industrial meat, dairy, overly packaged or processed' (so local farm-bought is fine - though still better to avoid cows, right?)

Instead, we should aim to eat locally grown and seasonal food. We should also reduce waste through proper portion sizing, recycling packaging and composting scraps such as potato peelings.

Better still, where possible we should choose food which had been ethically sourced, was fair trade and supported local or independent businesses.

So, no problems there then...!

Of course, some things would be easier to achieve and therefore would make for obvious successes. For instance, all our guests walked to the Den and walked home again. But that’s largely because we live close to each other in a city it’s safe to walk in. Still, no carbon miles accumulated there.

Other aspects were harder. It turns out March is a pretty poor time to attempt a seasonal meal – it’s a time for planting, not for harvesting. The BBC’s ‘In Season’ recipe section is also quite unhelpful, in so far as what it classifies as ‘in season’ does not mean ‘in the UK’. But despite these hurdles, I think we came up with a pretty tasty menu.

To start, we had soup. It was supplied from leftovers from my awesome workplace, Union of Genius, which avoided waste there. First points, kerching! We had caldo verde, a chunky chorizo, kale, potato and garlic number. Alongside it there was a bit of poppyseed bread, which was also left over. The bread came from local artisan baker Dough Re Mi, so that’s another wonderful local business supported.

For the main we came up with fish and chips. Sea bass are supposedly ‘in season’ at the moment so a chum was dispatched to one of the city’s best fishmongers, Eddie’s Seafood, to get us some. We baked it in the oven with lemon and rosemary and it turned out great, all light and flakey and fragrant.

Our chips were made from organic potatoes and organic yams seasoned with thyme and garlic. They were accompanied by organic kale and organic purple sprouting broccoli with chili and lemon. All the veg came from the Den’s weekly veg box from local organic farm, East Coast Organics. Sadly the herbs, lemon and chilli came from Tesco. Shhh.

To finish I had a look through the cupboards to see what we could make. We ended up with a Dan Lepard recipe for clementine and oat muffins, which were had with a dash of cream. It was already in the fridge, so using it totally counted as not wasting it. Anyway, they were very clementine-y but were a bit dry, so the cream was gratefully received.

We still lost points for dairy there though, as the muffins contained eggs too. And yes, there was butter on the bread earlier too. But perhaps we can claw back some points, dear reader, since the muffins were baked and served in little metal pots, not paper cases? Okay, that was largely because we didn’t have any paper cases, but not using disposable packaging was better for the environment anyways. Win.

Lastly, the drinks. We had Copella English apple juice, Crabbie’s ginger beer and from local wholefood store Earthy, organic white wine and Scottish Black Isle organic beer. I can recommend their oatmeal stout but the honey heather ale did not live up to Fraoch’s standard, I’m afraid.

The food portions proved just right, if a little smaller than I would’ve liked, so there was no food waste there. Hurrah! Furthermore, all scraps such as potato peelings and unwanted fish skins were composted. Union of Genius composts all its food waste, so I was able to blag a biodegradable compost bag from my charmingly amenable and generous boss, Elaine, and use that - plus take it back full the next day for composting. Double hurrah!

As far as I recall, all packaging was recycled too. The only exception was the tray the fish came on, which was tragically polystyrene. The washing up was even done with Ecover washing up liquid, not our regular Fairy. (Once upon a time someone bought some of the long-lasting stuff en masse, and sometimes I wonder if it will ever run out.)

All in all, I was pleased we made the effort and with how the meal turned out. Our guests certainly gave it a positive review and everyone seemed to have a lovely time. Regardless of their own sustainability credentials, everyone recognised a low carbon meal is an admirable goal and a worthwhile theme and totally went in for it.

It wasn’t impossible but it was difficult – mostly to find food with a low carbon footprint. To do it on a regular basis would require a change in diet or patterns of eating.

I think most city dwellers are already encouraged to recycle and local authorities make that fairly straight forward. Choosing to shop locally or from independent retailers isn’t much of a leap of imagination – if, again, you’re prepared to make some basic changes to your diet and accept that there may be less choice than in a supermarket.

As for avoiding waste? Throwing away food is pretty inexcusable, if you ask me, in this day and age. Everyone has a freezer but better still, we could all make less and eat less (gasp!) It’d be better for your wallet, better for your waistline and better for the environment.

Food for thought, eh?

You got the love

Friends. (As I am often heard to say...)

We know I have a bad memory, so forgive me if I've written a post like this before. But the sentiment remains, in any case, and it's not a bad one to repeat.

The worst thing about graduation? It's going to split up the family. The summer brings fancy plans of far-flung adventures; people leave the city. Leases end; jobs need to be found. I'll probably move back to London.

WOAH! But that's not cool - what about all these nice people that I've met in the last six months? (I think I had this dilemma leaving NZ?) I'm so lucky - everywhere I go I meet awesome people. But since I move around quite a bit, I'm always leaving some of them behind. One of my favourite games is 'who will I know in a year that I don't now?' Obv, there's no answer until a year later, but then of course you just shift to 'who do I know now that I didn't know a year ago?' The answer is always, ALWAYS, a frigging lovely bunch of people.

Coming back from NZ has been interesting in terms of friends, particularly in Edinburgh (tho I've also been thrilled to be in touch with London stalwarts and new recruits from across the globe). I've definitely met some brilliant new people, as well as rekindled old friendships, but also noticed radio silence with others and become better friends with people I knew before but didn't really hang out with.

It just goes to show that there are so many different kinds of friends and friendships. But maybe that's obvious - people play different roles in your life. Some friends you see only once or twice a year, or even more sporadically, but the moment you see them it's like the last time was yesterday. Others you can see weekly but still fade with time. And that's okay too - friendship can't be forced. And you never know what the future will bring.

I've always thought that friends are a fluid concept. I hope I will always have some, but who they are will vary. That's not to say that any particular friend or group of friends is any better or more valued than any other(s). I love you all, and I don't forget kindnesses done to me (I hope). I don't forget who I've wronged. Do as you would be done by, right? I try to give as good as I get. At the back of my diary is a little list of names: 'kindness owed'; 'apologies owed'. Each year, being a list maker, I make note of who has played a significant role in my life. My friends are my family too.

What I'm trying to say is that I genuinely believe that I would be nothing without my friends - they (you!) make me who I am. And how bloody lucky am I to be able to count so many people as my friends? That we should all be that rich. You can have everything I have, money, clothes, possessions, health, skills, knowledge, whatever, but don't take my friends away. I'm repeatedly flattered by your curious commitment to me - to my happiness, to supporting me; appearing at my dinner table, at my musical endeavors; laughing at my jokes, tolerating my casual disinterest (or should that be the other way round?)

Forgive my unusual display of sentiment, but I've been thinking about this post for a while. Today just seemed like the right time to say 'thanks, guys' in a round about sort of way. Cos no matter what happens to me, I know you'll be there. And I promise that I'll be here for you too.

Just wanted to say.

A x

My good old friend Mr Pro. Crastination

Bloggity bloggity blog blog.

Hi Friends.

It's been a while, so since I have a lot of work to do I thought I'd write a blog! Clever me. But to relieve some of the guilt, I shall blog about work! Good call, clever me.

So, at the moment I'm (trying to) work hard on my dissertation (10,000 words, topic of your choice, by the end of March). Although - uh oh - I don't have a *specific* research question just yet, I'm basically looking in to/at lesbian speech.

'Woah!' I hear you cry, 'but Amy, *do* lesbians have a particular kind of speech?'

Good question, imagined reader. But please, no shouting. Whilst the answer to that is something I'll save for my 10,000 word count, I can tell you that I don't know. Personally, I'm not convinced they do, but others have tried really hard to find something. I guess that's the whole point of looking into it, right?

But anyway, in the last week or so it's a conversation I have had several times with various people. Luckily, not one person has said, how ridiculous!, or Oh, great, and shuffled away quickly. They've all been really - strangely - enthusiastic and interested. How lovely.

More interestingly though (to me) is what doing my research has taught me about myself. No, I am not about to come out as gay. Nice try. For although some of the reading has given me something of an existential crisis - who knew identity was fluid and gender culturally constructed? Not me, until Wednesday - what I've learnt about myself is more to do with my own abilities, academically or work-wise.

Slight tangent: I've also been applying for jobs/careers, it being that point in my life (FUCK!) where one does such things. Some of these applications involve timed aptitude tests, what a nightmare, where you look at a paragraph of writing and then have to determine the truth value of a sentence related to the passage. There's also a maths test, and often 'competency questionnaires'. All this can be a little soul-destroying, and sufficed to say I've yet to prove that I am sufficiently capable. It turns out the (tens of) thousands of granduates also desperately looking for futures are MUCH better at this than me. Sad, but true.

Back to the main plot (tho keeping our tangential friend in mind). So there I am reading lots about sexual identity and/or trying to do backwards percentages on the income of a fictional paper company and I realise, almost simultaneously, two things. One, I am nowhere near as intelligent as I used to be (at school) and secondly, I'm not actually that hopeless, so don't worry dear, there there, you will find employment, shhhh.

It seems that I simply have a terrible memory, particularly for detail, and that I read very slowly. After a whole day selectively reading bits of two books, I was surprised to find how much I'd taken in, as I drummed out a tidy 600 words on the topic (I'd been aiming for 200). But, a few days later, in the pub, stumbling upon a friend-of-a-friend who happned to be reading similar things from an Eng Lit perspective, I had very little to say for myself. Now, maybe it was because I was a pint and a half down, and she'd come from editing her essay five mintes before, but sufficed to say, whilst I recognised the words she was saying, I couldn't really remember much about what they meant or why they were significant.

This happens to me time and again, that I can remember concepts but not specifics, and it's kind of annoying. It's certainly going to make the dissertation slow-going. It also makes me think that actually, some of the jobs I applied for I wouldn't be very good at, if they required a lot of reading and digesting of information.

But look, this is not meant as a negative post - I'm not losing sleep over this. It's just an observation, and perhaps an important one in terms of determining what I do do with the rest of my life. (Not that I have any great ideas - all suggestions welcome. My biggest fear is to spend the next 40 years in a suit trapped in a grey box making Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.)

So, we shall see. Just thought I'd have a little vent. Now tho I have to comb through several articles on Communities of Practice. Things seem to stick if I read lots of stuff on the same topic, so better get started......

A x

Hold on to that feeling.

A month ago, I was nervous about coming to Edinburgh: I was having such a good time in London. But now,

I AM HAVING SO MUCH FRINGE FUN

that I'm sad that tomorrow is the last day of Fringe (for those of us working at the wonderful Bedlam Theatre). I know, I know, some people are exhausted - and believe you me, I have been - and hate the Fringe, want their normal lives back etc etc. But, lucky me, I have had a fairly straight forward, simple job to do, and one that I have enjoyed immensely.

Bedlam is such a fantastic place to work, the building looks great this year, people come back again and again for the kind of shows on there and for the great value food and drink, and most of all for the cheerful, laid back atmosphere. This may sound like a shameless (fruitless, at this stage) plug, but it's true. It's why I love Bedlam, and am so proud to work there.

I have also been managed and working with some truly awesome people. Hard working, dedicated people, without whom the above paragraph might well read very differently. How thrilling to be part of a team like that! We should all be so lucky every day of our working lives to feel that way.

Sticking with the topic of lovely people, of course I needn't have worried about returning to the 'burgh. My diary for the last three weeks reads again and again of all the new people I've met, and all the friends I've made, or re-made, of the people I sort of knew of, but didn't really know, and now do. Exciting. With these both old and brand spanking new chums I've been to some great parties, enjoyed many a late night drink and been to see some awesome (and some awful) shows. I've played with my old band at a couple of great gigs and had a couple of delicious days cooking in The Palace (my sweet-as flat) with Helen. And of course, I've been reminded constantly that Edinburgh is as beautiful as my beloved London.

But as Fringe is about to come to an end, I'm nervous again (have I ever been a fan of change? I don't even like it in monetary form). I really should know by now that more exciting things are undoubtedly around the corner, but once again I'm having fun and don't want it to stop. I am still terribly excited to be going to New York and Montreal to see old friends and a new place, as always, but there is a slight sense of dread associated with my return - FOURTH YEAR!

In just a couple of weeks (at least it's still that long), I will be in my final year of university. I'll have to, like, actually do some work. Write a dissertation. Decide and apply for jobs, think about where I want to live, what I want to *do* to make my life worthwhile (at least in my eyes). I always approach milestones with trepidation. At the end of my school career I was worried that I didn't know what the future held; up to 18 I knew exactly where I would be and what I would be doing. Then I had uni, but soon I will need something else. I try, I try, but I do like structure (preferably in Excel form).

Still, in the mean time, I can comfort myself with two things: firstly that useful mantra, live each day as if it were your last. I shall continue to enjoy this time, grateful for my happiness and to have been fortunate enough to have this experience. Secondly, my favourite game: who will I know this time next year who I don't know now? If the past has taught me anything, it's that I will meet lots of lovely people and do some super cool things and, I think we can all be sure, have planned my future.

Perhaps I'll even block out some time for spontaneity.


A x


PS sorry if this post has made anyone a little nauseous. Sick bags are located in the seat pocket in front of you.