this is what I had for dinner last night.

I marinaded the chicken in olive oil, jerk seasonining, lime juice, maldon sea salt and some lea&perrins (best ingredient ever) and then put in the oven and added a bit of coconut milk just before the end.

cooked the rice half in water and half in coconut milk.

Made the papya salsa with diced papaya, finely chopped red chilli, a few chopped spring onions, lime juice, salt, pepper, olive oil, grated ginger and some torn up coriander.

this isn't the best picture of it.

I got a birthday loaf

My mum called me up on the morning of my birthday. Here is a rouch transcript of how our conversation went as remembered by me.

MUM: Happppppy birthday, happpppy birthday.

ME: Hiiii mum.

MUM: what are you doing today?

ME: I'm going to the zoo.

MUM: (sings) I'm going to the zooo oo ooo are you going to come too oo ooo? Are you going to sing the zoo song.

ME: is that a real song?

MUM: yes. what kind of birthday cake do you want.

ME: banana cake.

MUM: what?? I don't know how to make a banana cake. what kind?

ME: one with bananas and toffee and cream and bananas in the middle Just don't make me banana BREAD okay mum. or chocolate cake. I definitely do not want chocolate cake. I could accept a pavlova but don't get a bloody meringue base from sainsburys and squirt some cream on it and throw some fruit on it.

MUM: hahaha that is what I was going to do.

I saw my mum the next day for my birthday meal and cake.

This is what I got.

It's a loaf of banana bread with buttercream icing on the top. It's pretty tasty with some butter spread on it though.

birthday.

It was my birthday on Saturday, I am now 24 years old. I went to the zoo with my boyfriend and my friends. I will get the photos back soon and when I do I will put them in my other blog http://mostlyaboutcrows.blogspot.com/ . We had a big picnic near the parrot cages after penguin feeding time and before we saw the rest of the animals. These are some of the foods we ate collectively . . . .

*cashel blue cheese. *brie. *hard goats cheese. *cava. *red wine. *stuffed vine leaves. *artisan bread. *grapes. *chocolate eclairs. *ham and pickle sandwiches. *crisps. *artichoke dip. *parma ham. *sunblush tomatoes. *a very good potato salad that my friend Roxy made.

It was a pretty good picnic, my two personal favourite things to eat were the artisan bread with cashel blue cheese and grapes and the ham and pickle sandwiches with crisps.

After we left the zoo we sat on primrose hill drinking and eating round two of the picnic, then onto the lock tavern and then me and James left to go for oyster at fishworks in angel. I wanted to cry a little bit when I saw that it has been closed down now. I didn't have time to cry really though because it was late and I wanted to get dinner somewhere before the restaurants started saying NO GO AWAY IT IS TOO LATE FOR YOU TO COME IN. We walked up and down upper street two or three times because I am a spazz and couldn't find Le Mercury even though I have eaten there loads.

James had mussels for a starter and barbary duck breast with garlic mash for mains. I had pear poached in white wine with blue cheese and walnut salad for my starter and pork belly with apple for my main. It was quite brave of me eating a pear as I have a phobia of them but the phobia is mostly because of their skin and it was without skin so it was fine. It wasn't as tasty as I wanted though, I think I haven't eaten pears in so long that I had imagined them a whole new flavour. My pork belly was amazzzzzing though.

Here is my list of pros and cons for Le Mercury restaurant in upper street.

PROS.

1. CHEAP. almost all of the starters are £3.45, mains £6.45 and deserts are £2.95.
2. The food is tasty.
3. Looks a bit posh in there.
4. They used to have rhubarb and basil ice cream on the me menu and it was one of the tastiest things I ever tasted.
5. Their menu changes a bit with the seasons.

CONS.

1. The bloody waiting staff are a bit shit. Once I took my friend Nima there for dinner and we had a sexy little waitress who was attentive and good at her job and told us what was good and what wasn't and remembered we were there. The last two times I have been they forget to bring drinks or they leave me trying to make faces at them to pay the bill (lie, I haven't been paying for the bill, but I have been in charge of getting it) and just generally leave me feeling a bit abandoned.

last weekend

ICE CREAM WEEKEND.
the people featuring in this blog are;James - who is my boyfriend who is ginger.Andrew - who is James' flatmate who is slightly Chinese and has a long head.Dave - who is James' flatmate who has a small head.Lotta - who is one of my best friends who has a normal size head and is also ginger.me - small head.

Friday night - stayed in at James' flat and watched some Come Dine with me. It was a very lazy evening with everyone tired from partying the night before. I wasn't so tired because I had spent half the day in bed and the other half reading about crows in a bookshop but I don't mind sometimes having a lazy Friday night in. Dave and Andrew went out to get a kebab and I gave them a shopping list of what to get me from the shops. It was like this;
one tub of ice cream. acceptable flavours are cookie dough or strawberry cheesecake.
2 flakes.
1 can of R Whites lemonade.
2 surprise toppings.
I mixed some ice cream without the cookie dough lumps in with the lemonade in a glass. 4/10. Then I had about half the tub in a bowl with the haribo on top and a flake stuck in it. The flake and the haribo went a big rigor mortis when I put them with the ice cream.8/10.

Saturday morning - I had half the tub for breakfast with the other flake crumbled over it, I had been planning on eating a bacon sandwich at the same time so I could have a partially savoury breakfast and also pretend like I was eating at The fat duck.

Saturday night - I went to a party. I didn't drink at all because the snowball I attempted to make with tonic water (there was no lemonade) SUCKED. James got super drunk. We left the party and I got three ice lollies to make up for being so sober.
strawberry mini milk.
raspberry iced smoothie by del monte.
malteasers ice cream.
Then James got us lost in the rain and the wind somewhere in east London so here is how I enjoyed those ice lollies.
Was covered in ice and bent out of shape and not good. Had to eat it outside. also not good. let down lolly. mini milks are usually a favourite.
I could have been freezing to death and would have still enjoyed this. I remember when solero's used to be this good.
I waited til I got home to eat my favourite one in front of the tv. I had to do it with a spoon. That's James' fault though and not the malteaser ice creams.

Sunday evening - I went to Marine Ices with James, mostly because we were both craving spaghetti. I had spaghetti vongole which was fine but not as amazing as I had remembered it. I went with Lotta once before and we had the good waitress (the others I've had have been snarly or basically silent, this one is hot with a funny hairstyle) and I wanted to eat the spaghetti vongole every day for a week afterwards and my ice cream pudding made me make excited 5 year old faces. For my pudding I ordered three flavours of ice cream with hot fudge sauce and chocolate drops and it already comes with whipped cream. Lotta turned up to meet me and James at the beginning of pudding so I shared it with her because James couldn't eat very much. The three flavours I got were
honey and ginger.
banana
coconut.
This is because I want to be on holiday in a hot country so I was being tropical. I had to eat all the whipped cream and no one helped me with it and I didn't enjoy it that much because it was a funny temperature. The ice cream was pretty good, I'm not writing home about it though. 7/10. I was watching a gig later and the taste of the garlic and clams repeated on me at the same time as the ice creams, that was gross and amusing.