Leluu & Oliver

I love Jamie Oliver, I have always loved him and I have grown up with him via the television and he is my hero. He is not just a hero chef but he is an activist, a phenomenon, he moves our society to the better.

The universe, the guardian angel or the gods have a way of taking me through to the magnitudes of depths and glorious blooms of this life. Stories vary from one polar opposite to another. Here is a story of a day I will never forget, a day of great happiness and exhilaration, the day I first met Jamie Oliver. Only in my dreams did I imagine him in my home, filming with him. I planted the idea in a cosmic order and it happened!

I have been wanting to tell about the day Jamie came over, had a basic Vietnamese cooking lesson, cooked with me for a supper club and served it to our guests. It was one of the best days of my life. I wanted to shout about it for an entire year but couldn't because it was due to be aired for Jamie's Great Britain.

Last October, on a specific leaden, murky and lachrymose day, my mother called me. She was always worried about the tangles of weeds I was buried under as my relationship at the time crippled in fierce hostility. This made me the more irritated to receive the call.

Listen to me, she yelled. Jamie Oliver! The guy from the TV, you have to call him!
Eh? Say again?!
He's looking for you! He's looking for a young foodie who knows about Vietnamese food.
What? Are you pulling my leg? Why would they call you and not me? Or get in contact via my blog? I don't believe you! Why are you playing a joke on me?

Me, Jamie & My Mum

The thing is, my mother has a funny way of intuition and has a great knack of making destiny. For no good reason other than lunch, she went to The Vietnamese Community Centre a few weeks back to brag about me, how I run these supper clubs and how pleased she was that people are getting to eat good Pho.

 

Fresh One, Jamie's production team went to the community centre to ask if they knew of a young immigrant whose grown up in London and yet is passionate about Vietnamese food. Mr Vu Khanh Thanh, MBE,  the founder of the Community Centre, said, yes, I know someone, there is this girl called Leluu. He helped my mother settle in London with her two small children with housing and education in the early 80s, he had rarely seen me since I became an adult. He didn't have my number, but my mother left him hers.

And so, I was interviewed by the researcher, the director, the producer and within a few days, Fresh One camped outside the flat, there were 3 or 4 cameras in my kitchen and one downstairs, sound, assistants, lighting, grip, production manager - the whole works.

 

I spent the day with the food team, Ginny styled my flat, we got all the ingredients ready and everyone was setting up their stations while Mildred, my mini schnauzer, stuck on the sofa was barking away at all the commotion.

I wasn't nervous during the day but as time got on and I knew that I was going to see Jamie and that he was coming to my kitchen, I was getting so nervous. I did my hair and makeup and vainly asked Ginny to tell me when I was starting to get shiney as it was getting hot under all those lights. I went to get some air. I opened the door and saw how there were many vans and people running around. Noise of a film set.

Hello! You must be Uyen.  I'm Jamie Oliver. I've heard so much about you!

I was so shocked. I extended my hand which were cold and his were warm. Great hand shake with two kisses. No one expected me to meet him, that wasn't the plan- yet! I told Jamie how I was so pleased to meet him, how I loved him since we were both young and how I watched him all these years.

Good! He said. So this has worked out well for the both of us.

From then on, we were like old chums, chatting chatting like we were old friends catching up - Is that your fella? (its complicated) Is this your photography stuff? (yes) Is this your house? (yes)  How long have you lived here (years) etc etc.

But we were indeed, strangers, and I was then to tell Jamie about our immigrant lives.

Mr Vu & his daughter Linh - Owner of Namo

Mrs Linh & Jamie

Banh Mi 11 Girls & Jamie

They filmed us making summer rolls, pho, spring rolls and banh xeo while Jamie was asking questions of my childhood, how we came to England, the history of the Vietnam war, what happened to the people afterwards. He was very moved and very interested in the whole story. My mother was there and he met my brother. He said that him and I sound like proper Londoners. Well, we have lived in London for 30 years, quite a long time.

We talked about yin and yang, the hot and cold elements in food. I gave him civet cat coffee and explained to him how its actually coffee that the civet cat poos out. It was hilarious!

Meanwhile, my friends gathered like a pile of sardines quietly on the stairs eavesdropping. I went to powder my nose and they all waved in extreme excitement quietly with their mouths smiling like it was also the happiest day of their lives.

Jamie and I plated up the food and he bought it down with Mia and I to the guests (some close friends and Vietnamese friends of my mother) waiting downstairs.

Mia & Jamie

My Mum, Aggie & Co Duyen

He ate with us, we chatted to my mother's friends and Mr Vu about how they escaped Vietnam, what happened to the people who were left behind to the ones at sea. I translated for them, how Mrs Linh's family were murdered by Pol Pot to Vietnamese traditions and eating ettiquettes.

Jamie was incredible and a very humble person. He is a people's person. He was so in tune with what anyone would say, listened and took it all in.

Jamie chatting to everyone after dinner

He loved the supper club, how I set it out. Mike Sarah, did wonders to my garden by planting beautiful fairy lights everywhere. Jamie could have sat there talking to us for hours over a bowl of pho and all the things we made. Your wife and children are waiting for you, said his personal assistant. But they must be asleep by now - can I have 20 more minutes?

Jamie asked me if I wanted to open a restaurant. I said no. I said, I am a film maker, a photographer - thats what I want to do.

I want to go to Vietnam. He said.
Jamie Does Vietnam. I said. I would like to come with you.
OK.

I went to Mersea where Jamie filmed. He cooked me fish. I made him a prawn salad with carrot and green papaya (similar to this). I even got to go inside The Cock In Cider. Marvellous!

This did not get through to the final cut. The gods have other plans. I continue to love Jamie Oliver.

Feisty

 

I was introduced to Feist back in 2006 by a lovely French/ Belgium girl called Caroline who used to work in my boutique. We played the entire Let It Die over and over and then carried on playing The Reminder, singing and listening to every note of Feist's silky, succulent voice like it being the voice of our souls. I take Feist everywhere I go, and now I am taking her superb, intricate and lacy album Metals into my doors and mesmerising at its acute, filmic stories and musical arrangements.

I love Feist because her voice is like satin or something nice and smooth but sometimes her songs, her music, the way she sings things cuts into me like a tailor's scissors right into the depths of my fabric heart.

As I found out that Feist was coming to London, I said to a friend who was talking about Chilly Gonzales wanting a good bowl of 'pho' how wonderful it would be if Feist and Chilly Gonzales were to come to the supper club because I can give them, pho.

A few days prior to the concert, which I was booked to see, I got an email saying, "I am the social coordinator for Feist and am wondering if you have any space available in your class …"

Imagine! my disbelief and excitement! Feist - my heroine in my house - the place where I play her songs at least once a day for years and years. She wants to learn about Vietnamese cooking with me?! Whoa!!

But after two days of sending emails back and forth, it didn't happen. I think she ended up doing the Jools Holland show instead.

I went to see Feist at The London Palladium, (she doesn't like playing big venues) on her one night in London. No thrills, just magic! One woman entrancing the entire theatre into stillness, into a lost in time, in space, a Feist space - "how come you never go there?"

As she played, solo, her guitar to The Bad In Each Other my arms flared in goose bumps. It was like, she found out everything there is to know and put it in songs. They turned every popular old song into another arrangement - something dark, something ironic, something poetic, something feisty.

These are only moments you can treasure. To think, she was meant to be coming over. Leslie Feist in my home. Feist and me. How would she be? Would I stumble into speechlessness to be in her presence? Maybe next Spring upon her return to London, I am told to expect.

Here's to wishing… I hope Feist continues to read my blog. I love her. I really do.

check her website for great film clips

http://www.listentofeist.com

Eating, Little Sardegna, Francesco Mazzei & Wishing

Francesco Mazzei & his son

On sunny days, I often think of my time in Cervo, the Liguria region of Northern Italy. I went there about three times a year during my 7 year courtship with the Hungarian Count. I could easily indulge in "eat", pray, love whenever I wanted, and I did.

My favourite dishes where always octopus salad with sauteed potatoes, crispy on the edges with rosemary, drizzles of great olive oil and a generous squeeze of a yellow sunny lemon. Then I would have spaghetti with (just) tomato sauce and plenty of parmesan. It was all in a dated restaurant by the beach with slightly greasy plastic table cloths, bread sticks in wrappers and oily containers of vinegar and olive oil. The salt shaker had brown rice in it and the chubby middle aged waitress half smiles, "buon giorno…" because its too hot for a full smile.

After lunch,  I would go back to the rocks of Portoghetto with a current dog eared, wet and salty book. I would crisp in the sun, my then youthful twenty-something unblemished skin would shimmer in sweat and lotion with the lit up water of the sea, twinkling like glitter. It would be hot and I would only think of basil, tomato and mozzarella salad with ciabatta and more good good olive oil, salt and pepper and an olive or two.

Italy is one of my favourite destinations in the world, mostly because I just love Italian food. The simplicity of it is divine and pleasurable to my every sense. And so, when the sun shines in London, I often wish I can go to Italy or I would close my eyes for a moment and imagine standing on the hill tops of some place in Liguria and listen to the sweeping shores lazily fold toward me. I can imagine the sip of cold crisp white Chardonnay and eat ravoli filled full with spinach and ricotta, coated in tons of butter and fresh sage; followed by (because I am greedy and I eat with my desire) roasted lemon chicken.

I wished this on a sunny Sunday morning to the ears of a Boy From Alassio (near Genova) and he said, lets go and have all that you wish to eat.

We drove to Highbury Hill, in the Figaro, almost like a scene from Felini. (It was where I grew up - its not Italy but indulge with me). We stopped to look at furniture and interiors boutiques on Blackstock Road, dreaming for the perfect home with the absolute beauty of a lampshade or a glass table or a chair or a set of grappa glasses.

And then, as destiny has it, we landed on Francesco Mazzei - (acclaimed Italian chef of L’Anima), who happened to be sitting by the open shop front of a lovely Italian restaurant called 'Little Sardegna' with his wife and children. The Boy From Alassio and Francesco knew each other and Francesco invited us to join the family for lunch.

Francesco, his beautiful wife Maria and their two stunning children live around the corner and regularly visit Little Sardegna - a charming place that only remind me of being in Italy. All it needs is a view of cobble streets and some clothes blowing gently in the wind on a clothes line and few cats staring at height from windows and a mama sweeping the outside of her family home with a twiggy broom.

Marcello - Chef 'Little Sardegna'

Francesco Mazzei & his son

(Not knowing I had wished for them), Francesco ordered absolutely everything I asked for that morning, including the loveliest wines, as Marcello, the head chef and owner of Little Sardegna kept bringing them out as he cooked them. We dished up each other's plates, poured wine into each other's glasses, laughed a lot, talked a lot and of course, someone would always spill something or drop cutlery and there would be a small roar.

Francesco would talk loudly, expressively and passionately whilst his little son would climb all over his father's body like a monkey and Maria, a tired yet deliciously beautiful mother would speak gently to me about girls stuff like fashion and colours that suit. Mia Sofia, their pretty little daughter dressed as a pink fairy danced around (they had been at a party previously), falling over  - nearly crying and then giggling again in the afternoon Autumn light of North London.

Mia Sofia

Marcello's food tasted like it was made with pride, care and love. Proper good stuff, done the right way. He showed us how he started to paint someone eating spaghetti on the wall of his restaurant, then changed his mind, painted something else over it and then decided it was all crap and stuck another painting on top.  We could only laugh our heads off with adoration.

A simple wish of Italy was answered. We didn't have to go to Italy, it came to us.
I continue to make wishes and highly recommend eating at Little Sardegna.

170 Blackstock Road, London N5 1HA
0207 354 4500
info@littlesardegna.com
www.littlesardegna.com