Miss Carrie

I've been watching Lily Allen: From Riches To Rags about her shop, 'Lucy In Disguise' on and off and was totally annoyed by her setting up the shop. Largely because I was jealous I didn't have the cash she had to hire all the man power, the hype and PR that is needed - I did everything with my own hands, from scratch and with absolutely no funding whatsoever, relying on friends to fill the cracks in the walls, to drill shelves into the walls and so on.

However, glad she did it in the end, looks like a lovely shop though, not a huge fan of hers but always love her first album as I played it often in Earlham Street. One day, she walked past but never came in. She was still wearing those horrible trainers back then.

On a different note, I was very moved by her miscarriage, being so late in her pregnancy, this must have just been devastating. In her words, "something like this changes a person," and I know exactly what she means.

Miscarriage is such a taboo, it is something that no one talks about, no one shares their feelings about, no one dares mention it. Sometimes the woman prefers it that way, if you have one, it is not really something to write home about. Even though you can carry the pain and the grief inside you for so long, you just have to bury it deep inside you and close the doors - lock it from the top, the middle and the bottom. Cry in the bathroom on your own, look yourself in the eye in the mirror to pull yourself together.

To miss someone you've never met, but was growing inside of you is something maybe miscarried women can only understand. According to The Miscarriage Association, one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage - thats about 250,000 miscarriages in the UK each year, and yet there is a huge wall of silence around it. Its so awkward, to someone else, its like opening a whole can of worms.

There are so many unknown reasons why miscarriages happen. Most of the times, the doctors just don't know what it is or how it happened, and you can go around retracing your steps for years and years wondering what you may have done, what could it be that was your fault.

But sometimes, what is worse is how some people regret for the whole of their lives the time they had an abortion for their reasons at the time that become so meaningless in the scheme of things.

Life is so precious, only when you create it you will know it. When something is precious, you only know how precious if you lose it. My heart goes out to Lily and one in four pregnant women who have had a miscarriage and a prayer for our lost souls.

John Malkovich & Leluu

O my God, she yells quietly in her head, that is John Malkovich! Yes, its John Malkovich standing in the door way…act calm, don't make any sudden movements.

John Malkovich wonders through the tall doors of a eclectic boutique, filled with stuff everywhere. Some things are lopsided, misplaced, knocked over and even a bit dusty. Even though its untidy, he likes the look of it, its not like other shops. It feels a little hasty but genuine. If only this shop girl would get off the chair, she would notice me, he thought. But why would she, when she doesn't even realise how messy things are. Perhaps she is busy with admin.

John stands still for a moment, looking at the girl, waiting to be greeted but she does seem very engrossed with some paper work. She must be the owner. She must be Leluu. She's writing cheques.

Realising his motionless stature was seemingly odd, he approaches the old Victorian counter where Leluu sits. There are brightly coloured necklaces and earrings inside, displayed like sweets that he almost wants to eat them. He hovers and starts to feel himself in a swinging awkward slow motion. I am being really creepy, he startles in himself, I am definitely looking very creepy, why am I floating around like this?

John shuffles his hands into his brown leather coat jacket, digging for coins or scraps - anything in particular to ease his pain of anxiety. He doesn't know what he wants, in fact, he doesn't even know what he is doing inside this girl's store.

"Hello", greets Leluu. John jumped a bit. He didn't expect a sound.
"Good morning," says John in a little delight. Leluu smiles at John in recognition and awe, but then continues to write out cheques.

Now that he has been acknowledged, John has finally placed himself in a shop. He moves around like a normal customer would do and looks aimlessly at all the strange and pretty things that girls would like to possess, like silky purses, long floating dresses, leather handbags, high heel shoes, lacy underwear… shit! John flares his nose like a lightning has struck over his head. Now I am really looking like a pervert. Why am I touching the lingerie?

John quickly reverts his hands back into his pockets! No, now I look like a thief! Dang!

"Err, what time do you open in the mornings"
"1130"
"I see… except, err, I was here at 1145 and you hadn't opened"
"I was late… sorry"
"Nice shop you have here."
"Thanks John."
"Good day, Leluu," John reaches the tip of his flat fishing cap with one hand and waves with the other, bowing to the girl. He doesn't know if he should greet her like a solider, a westerner or an easterner. What am I doing? He panics and darts out of the door as quickly as possible across the road out of her sight. Why am I acting like a teenager? I am a grown man, forgodssake!

John Malkovich knows my name, grins Leluu and pounces to the telephone to tell her friends.



This was written on a Creative Writes Workshop freeflow - within 10 mins.

Recipe:Thịt Heo Kho Trứng (Braised Pork Belly In Pear Cider, Coconut Juice & Egg)

By Leluu (@loveleluu)

This is one of my favourite dishes, it can be cooked and left on the stove to be demolished throughout the week for lunch over some steamed rice. Its also a very traditional new year (tet) dish. Commonly, a peasant meal as it uses all the cheap cuts of the pork and people on farms usually have eggs from their chickens.

As this can be left on the stove for a few days (you should heat it up twice daily in hot weather so that it doesn't go off), the more you heat it, the more the meat falls apart and you can stretch out the meat to last you. You can always use the delicious broth to flavour your rice which means you can make this your meal for days and days to come which is really useful if you are poor in Vietnam (or anywhere).

In this dish, you can use quail's eggs, which are slightly posher but they are bite sized and do not look as intimidating as a large chicken's egg when you serve them to people who've never eaten this before. I normally use quail's and chicken's eggs for the variety.

This is a sweet, savoury and hot dish, seasoned with fish sauce and is a warm, hearty paradise for the soul. You should serve this with many fresh stir fried greens such as pak choi, choi sum or even with a green leafy soup to balance out the hot and cold elements, the ying and yang of a meal.

Ingredients

Seves 4

500g pork belly, sliced and chopped into inch or less cubes
5 shallots or Medium Onion
4 cloves garlic - finely chopped
4 whole birds eye chillis
250ml pear cider (or ordinary cider)
350ml coconut water
12 quails eggs and/ or 4 chicken eggs
1 tbs coconut caramel
4 tbs Three Crabs fish sauce to season
pinch of black pepper

Method
Hard boil the eggs and peel off shell.
Cut the pork pieces (remove skin but leave some fatty bits).

Sweat off the shallots, add the meat to colour off then add garlic. Pour in the pear cider and the coconut water and coconut caramel. Bring to a gentle boil. Remove scum and then cook on simmer with the lid on. Season with Three Crabs fish sauce, a generous pinch of pepper, whole chillies and add the hard boiled eggs to the pot.

Simmer for at least 2 hours.

Serve with steamed rice. it is also really nice when you serve it with a fried egg.

Say Goodbye

There have been many times in my life when I had to say goodbye - seems like its a staple, a landmark, an end of a chapter to a new beginning. It all started when I was little, and I was lucky enough to leave behind Vietnam - at the time was suffering from extreme poverty and sanctions after the war.

I had to say goodbye to all my family. My aunts, my uncles, my grandparents and all of their siblings and neighbours and friends. it was thought that my mother will never see her family again and we would grow up in a cold country without anyone but my father. That there would be no rice, no noodles, no fruits, vegetables that defined our diet. No more Pho. We had to leave everything behind. People made us jumpers. My mum bought a bottle of fish sauce, the last she thought she would ever be able to have and a bag of rice.

Even though I was five, I still remember leaving and how sad it all was to see my whole family line up and waved us off at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, the image of them getting smaller and smaller in the distance as the door closed as we walked onto the flight lounge.

I knew they were crying their eyes out as if they were saying goodbye to us at a funeral. We thought we would never see them again. At the time, if you were able to leave, you were stripped of Vietnamese recognition. We became refugees, asylum seekers - never to be allowed back.

As policies changed, the Arts Council Of England bought me back to Vietnam when I was 21 years old in 2000. At the time, the country was still very underdeveloped, raw like how I left it. I made a documentary about returning, called 'Pho', After going around the film festival circuit and UK and European Tours, winning Best Documentary at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2001. It will be screened at The Chelsea Arts Club on 4th April after all these years.

How apted it was that 10 years ago, my passion was also with food, even though I didn't know it at the time. I will be travelling back to Vietnam in April to focus on recipes, food and how it is the way of life.

Since, I was five, it seemed like I said goodbye to many people I loved, including my father who left us, to favourite teachers at summer holidays, then to friends who didn't go to the same school anymore, to my stepfather who passed away suddenly, to lovers and friends who moved away from London.

The saddest thing is when they walk away and you can see them getting smaller and smaller, till they turn the corner, till they disappear and all the history you shared with them becomes only memory stopped at a halt. Or they get into a car, they would look at you one last time or they would not and no matter how bitter or sweet your history was, it is always a sad goodbye, sometimes you remember a funny moment you shared and you wonder if they have the same.

Sunday Lunch At JamieOliver.Com Supper Club

By Leluu (@loveleluu)

I think that I was born under a very lucky star and among many sad moments in life, I am blessed in equal amounts of happiness, always with a yin and a yang - as how it should be.

I was invited by Jamie Oliver's Web Editor, Danny McCubbin, to cook at Jamie's test kitchen last Sunday - (I was very busy and then unwell so I couldn't do it- but lucky me though as I got to enjoy being a guest instead).

Danny holds supper clubs in one of Jamie's offices with Cate Darlison, using test kitchens (where Jamie also films some of his cooking shows) to raise money for The Fifteen Foundation . Together, they design menus and this is also to inspire ordinary people to hold their own supper clubs at home with Jamie's recipes and raise money for their own causes and charities and to get people to cook and to eating well with their friends and families.

Danny McCubbin & Angela Morris

I was also lucky enough to be able to invite friends and fellow bloggers, The London Foodie, Cooking The Books, Hungry In London, Afternoon Tease, Slow Food Kitchen, SuperCharz and Rocket & Squash to come for Sunday lunch with me in this awesome place and have our meals cooked by Jamie's team:

Robbie Kadhim -(@Noreservations1) graduated with the second group of apprentices, is now working as a private chef - he has also worked with some very well known celebrities.

Robbie had worked in my kitchen before when we did the Yell event, fund raising for The Jamie Oliver Foundation.

Robbie cooked Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Truffle Oil and Freshly Baked Rolls from Stewart the lovely baker from Fifteen.

Tommy Parsons - worked at the River Cafe with Jamie then came and opened Fifteen London. Tommy is now a private Chef working for quite a few well known celebrities 

Tommy cooked Rotollo Filled with Butternut Squash, Ricotta, Spinach with Crispy Sage and Butter

Cate Darlison - is a self taught home cook with a background in cordon bleu cookery and like me she runs her own supper club, cooking classes at home as well as this one with Danny. She has her own catering company La Petite Boo and is a private chef.

Cate served up roasted spring cabbage parcels with bulgar wheat, shitake mushrooms, leeks and soft herbs. The poached portobello mushrooms were stuffed with grilled taleggio and roasted romanescco cauliflower roasted with cardamon and chilli and served with a warm aubergine salad with lemon and mint and griddled purple sprouting broccolli.

And later, Robbie made the dessert, from Danny's Pavlova recipe that was inspired by one of Jamie's recipes for Meringue with Vanilla Cream, Chocolate Sauce and Orange Zest.

As you would expect, it was a wonderful afternoon. I invited some lovely people and we were standing in Jamie's workspace, drinking prosecco and wine from Naked Wines, in awe and extreme envy of his larder (look how neat and organised it is!), his prop room, his three kitchens under a wonderful glass roof with light messelling in like it owns the place.

There were stylised pictures of food everywhere, flat screen videos, lovely mismatched crockery, glasses and cutlery, beautiful wooden benches and chairs to eat on and just kitchen equipment to send any kitchen fetish like me to their knees.

The place is heavenly, kept in pristine condition, clean, airy and full of knick knacks - anyone who comes to my house for dinner knows I love my knick knacks.

We all sat around a long table, stretching across the 2 kitchens underneath the skylight, all feeling so happy, so proud and honoured to be where we were - to be invited behind the scenes but especially to eat the delicious food that was coming.

The menu was served in enormous portions and delivered like in a great restaurant by the team. Everything was truly delightful. It was all cooked to perfection, my favourite being Tommy Parson's Rotolo.

All the ingredients was supplied by Fifteen - it was an entire vegetarian Sunday roast. No one missed the meat. Each chef had their own stations to work in, with an assistant each. Not a typical supper club, like mine, held in my little flat with everything cooked by me in a tiny little kitchen. This is the ideal place to hold supper clubs, this was just heavenly and very unique - its not everyday you can say you were in Jamie Oliver's kitchen. And we all raised £350 for the meal of all goes to Jamie's charity. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday!

The Office

Thank you so much to Danny & Cate for organising this every now and again and all those who came to help and cook for us. Its such a good way to get people inspired to cook. I am arranging to chef there very soon. And I CAN NOT WAIT! to work with all those utensils, pots and pans and space! Whoo!!

A Night In Homerton Hospital

The other day, I was reading this amazing post by Uncle Typewriter, written from a Reverb prompt - what would you do if you had only this month to live. I read and cried. On the same day, I was immediately admitted to hospital due to some serious kidney infection.

For the first time in my life, I stayed in hospital with an IV needle stuck in my left hand, in a ward next to sick old ladies. I spent the night in pains, "spiking" as the nurses put it and wondering what they would find in my blood, my X Rays, Ultrasounds and various tests, facing my own mortality. What if they told me I only had one more month to live.

I am a real cry baby when it comes to illness. I am very bad at being ill, I can never be strong, I just cry and feel sorry for myself like nobody's business.

The night was rough, not only was I in a lot of pain but I was also terrified and it didn't help when the loud mouth gossipers/ nurses kept talking, slamming doors, turning alarms and machines on and off, dropping everything, throwing metal bowls and all sorts for the course of the night. And she was the boss.

When I had told her I was in pain, she continued to read her book and giggled with the cleaning lady. I was mortified but just got on with shivering and being in pain. There was no one else to tell.

They were so unfriendly towards all the other women, "let me do my job," then a long sucking tut, "just let me do my job" making the patients freak out even more, like they are worthless for asking for something. A lot of the women do not speak any English and these nurses just have no patience, with the elderly with dementia or other, worse conditions.

I must state though that the day nurses are polar opposites. Just really nice and friendly. You certainly do not want to be spoken to so harshly or ignored when you are ill in hospital in the middle of the night without your friends or family.

It took me 6 hours to get a jug of water in the night. The whole time, I kept asking only to be told that it was coming after they have done whatever they were doing. I kept mentioning that I wanted to wash my hands and that there was no soap in the toilet but it just got ignored and I had to keep walking to a sink outside the toilet with my IV to wash my hands, as touching the handles in there were equally as dangerous as touching a mine full of germs.

I discharged myself, after spending a day waiting and eating the worse food I have ever eaten and wondering how the hell people are meant to recover when they are given so much rubbish to eat. When you are sick, nutrition is most vital, here it is just something they give to patients secondary to all the drugs they pump you up with. It is just so that you do not die on their bed of starvation (or thirst in my case).

The doctors told me to eat when I was supposed to be Nil By Mouth for a MRI scan. I was so angry, I would have rather starve than eat the crap they gave me. This meant I would have to stay for a further 2 days, so I kicked up a fuss to be discharged. So I left, at least at home, I have soap, I have peace and quiet, and at least some fruit and water and chicken soup.

I was very lucky to be seen by doctors very quickly and to have all the tests that were given to me because i have heard so many long waiting list stories. For this, I am ever so grateful for The NHS.

I heard how terrible hospital food is but when I was presented with so many meal options, many types of fish, chicken, beef, lamb, cooked in many ways from curries to sandwiches, I had a little hope. They do have the budget to have plenty of ingredients. It was just very disappointing to be given badly made, poor quality food that have been sitting around for ages, sagging away in a plastic cap.

Is anyone going to do anything about this? Is this the next Jamie Oliver project?

Could they have less choice and better quality? Could they pay more attention to how things are cooked and if any of it has any nutritional value in them at all? My vegetable soup tasted like glue with broccoli flavouring. My chicken, probably, from a battery farm, was harder than a piece of wood, my vegetables had become plastic.

Curiosity & The Cupcake sent me this article from The Hackney Post, where they do not have any soap in the kitchens at Homerton. Just like they have no soap in the toilet.

Overall, my view is that Homerton Hospital is a place where many cultures meet and clash and there are a string of people just trying to pull it altogether. Its a sad place to be- as with any hospital, but this is really a sad sad place. The view of the doctors and nurses seem to be to get through the shift. Some patients expect a lot of the nurses and some patients appear to feel lucky with what they can get.

Its a busy busy place, where there is no unison. Its like sleeping in a busy train station. People (doctors and nurses) come and go. Patients are just like left luggage.