In praise of...portion control

Not what we used to call moderation....

 

 

As someone devoted to baking, coffee shops and sitting down with a book, I am perhaps not the shining exemplar of healthy living and moderation, but I have recently come to think of (another) reason to prefer the indies of Brum over their corporate counterparts - portion size.

 

 

Since the first Starbucks opened in the UK in 1998, the world of the café has changed hugely, and you won't be hearing complaints from me that ordering a coffee leads one to expect more than some value-range instant granules and a splash of tepid water in a polystyrene cup.  We now have shabby-chic rather than just shabby, and a latte is generally understood as not being the same as "hot milky coffee".  However, as has been well commented on, we have also somehow managed to accept the "bucket" as an acceptable volume for a cuppa (with a correspondingly enormous price tag).  Capacious mugs, augmented with whipped cream, flavoured syrups (shudder) and chocolate sprinkles abound, and like the sheep we are, we "treat ourselves" again and again.  [Of course, this could be just me, but I don't want to think about this being a personal weakness, so will continue to spread the blame here...]

 

BUT - when one enters an independent café, this is often not the case.  Order a large cappuccino, and that it precisely what you get - a very large cup of whatever blend you wish for, but nonetheless something your grandmother would recognise as a "big cup", not as something comically outsize.  Whist this can sometimes feel stingy when you are used to the huge mugs the chains have, but once you take a reality check, you realise that feeling bloated on pint after pint of frothy milk and sugary additions is not the reason we loved coffee in the first place.

So, make mine a small!

Harborne Food School - UPDATED!

Can't tell you how excited I am to see that the food school in the Harborne Clocktower development is coming together.

There are hoping to open in November, I am reliably informed by whoever the nice person tweeting for them, and the space looks fabulous.

As soon as I can get me on one of their courses, I will let you know what I learn!

UPDATE:

Well, that was serendipitous - just after tweeting about this I was approached by the people behind this venture, and was offered the opportunity to look around the space that will become the school.  I can confirm  -in a fully impartial capacity- that it's going to be fantastic.

The building -as anyone who knows the area already knows- is an airy, delightful Grade II listed former Victorian school which, after some political grumblings, is now being restored on a commercial basis.  It is a perfect location for a food school - gorgeous vaulted ceilings, imposing, church-style windows and the original wooden panelling.  There is space for an deli area which will sell items related to the demonstrations in the main schoolroom, which will host lessons and  masterclasses.

The owners are clearly enthusiastic and passionate about the project, and I left the place with the prickle of excitement one feels when in the presence of a genuine labour of love.


Must dash, but I'll be keeping an eye out and will let you know when things change.

Sunny Afternoon – The Hampstead Theatre, London

I know the cup's an odd colour, but it keeps my coffee warm...

OK, so I know that Birmingham is meant to be my focus on this blog – it’s long been a frustration that our city has such cultural vibrancy, and yet as with so many things this gets forgotten in London-centric media coverage.

BUT, I have to make an exception here, and will try to explain why.

When I was 15 I somehow wound up with a tape left behind after a party.  It was a compilation of the Kinks’ singles, and I was utterly mesmerised.  I hadn’t heard anything like it before – chirpy, vibrant tunes married perfectly to beautifully-crafted pen portraits and vignettes of working class life in 60s London.  Pop music, which up until then meant little to me, suddenly became vital and educational.  I know that people use the term “life changing” with tedious frequency, but that is the best way to describe the experience for me – music became a huge part of my life, and has remained so for the decades that followed.

So, there was never going to be a question of not going to see the new musical based on the Kinks’ rise to fame, scripted by Joe Penhall and featuring a raft of Kinks songs.  I trekked down to London with expectations not as high as you might expect – in later years Ray Davies (the Kinks’ leader) has made some unusual artistic choices, some of which (an “Unauthorised Autobiography”) work better than others (the choral reworkings of Kinks classics, some of the collaborations on his recent “see my friends” album).  Would this be purely an exercise in nostalgia, or will Davies and Penhall have produced something worthy of the story of this seminal band?

In short – yes, absolutely yes.  The play covers the period from the early sixties to the start of the 70s, where the Kinks enjoyed their first rush of success, with all its euphoria, fame and wealth alongside the financial wrangles, excess and the damaging experience of being effectively banned from performing in the US.

Performances are strong throughout, although my biggest plaudits go to Adam Sopp as a marvellously sardonic and prickly Mick Avory, the band's drummer and George Maguire as Dave, Ray’s hedonistic younger brother.  Maguire played every mannerism of the more exuberant Davies brother to perfection, and cuts a hugely charismatic figure, attracting the eye whenever he is on the stage, much as the real Dave did during the Kinks’ high-energy performances.

As well as the acting performances, the musical side is expertly played – each cast member playing live (as far as I could tell) with some support from a couple of other musicians at the side of the stage.  This way of performing the songs worked organically with the action on stage (they were a band, after all) and landed a greater sense of authenticity to proceedings that at times felt more like a gig than a theatrical production.

One flaw for me was perhaps the inevitable result of this being Ray’s story, told on his terms – whilst his brother was well-drawn and sympathetic, I would have loved to have heard his best-known songs, Death of a Clown and Susannah’s Still Alive, but perhaps I am being too precious demanding my favourite songs.

Rumours of a Kinks reunion abound in this, their 50^th anniversary year, and whilst one must always be cautious about whether great bands reforming are a good idea, I certainly hope that this production will kickstart greater interest in what was undoubtedly one of the greatest bands of the 60s. 

I would say one of the greatest of all time, but then I am biased.

Saffron Rolls

More an exercise in food photography than anything else.  More work needed!




When I moved in with my partner, she didn't have much in the way of furniture or homewares to add to the party, but she did have the most enormous box of saffron I have ever seen, and all things considered I think it makes it even.  It's such a warming and delicate addition to bakes in particular, I find it really elevates bread.

These are a simple white bread roll with a pinch of saffron soaked in the water for a bit before adding, to augment some of these I also added a few cumin seeds to the top, but I have found these to be a bit overwhelming on occasion, so I would suggest less is more when it comes to cumin.

These rolls are batched, which (as I understand the term in any case) means that they join up when baked together, meaning that the leave a lovely soft side when separated.  It's also a good way to get more onto a smaller baking tray...

Next on the agenda - sweet saffron buns.  Watch this space.

Stuart Maconie - The People's Songs, Birmingham Town Hall - 16th October 2013

An Americano before setting off

Stuart Maconie, for those not familiar with his work on radio and print, is warm, witty and erudite, and an unapologetic champion of pop music.  Through his radio 2 series “The People’s Songs” (and accompanying book) he has explored the role of music in shaping and reflecting the realities of modern Britain.

Birmingham Town Hall is an iconic venue marking the edge of Victoria square, and will be familiar to many Brummies.  The hall opened in 1834, with one of the architects being Joseph Hansom, later the inventor of the Hansom cab.   The Town Hall project actually bankrupted Hansom, the experience of which may have led to him later becoming a radical socialist.

I mention this as the Town Hall is therefore an appropriate venue for Maconie’s discussion of music, politics and everything in between, with particular focus on ‘ordinary’ people, as the building has served in the past as a forum for political debate and a meeting place for local government.  During his talk, Maconie drily noted he felt the pressure, knowing that Charles Dickens gave readings at the Hall (apparently, the first public reading of a Christmas Carol).  The venue symbolises the grandeur and optimism of the city in the 19^th century, and we should remain proud of it today.

Maconie is an engaging speaker, and his talk this evening is fairly fluid, structured loosely around some of the themes from The People’s Songs radio programme, a good format for a raconteur used to performing on live radio. As well as The People’s Songs, the talk includes excerpts from Maconie’s amusing and insightful books on music, food and The North, all of which he links well to his personal stories – his tale of being taken to see The Beatles as a small child is particularly hilarious.  In the hands of a less likable host, some of the tales could have descended into grating “here’s a story about my famous mates” anecdotes, but Maconie is unpretentious and grounded and these instead become fascinating insights.

The only downside of the evening, ironically, is the venue itself.  Despite being a spectacular building, both outside and in, the Town Hall is too large and “showy” for Maconie’s warm and inclusive manner.  The hall was less than full and this did give rise to a slight sense of being present at a sparsely-attended political gathering.  Overall, this reviewer felt that the event would have felt better in a more intimate setting.

This is, however, not a criticism of either the Town Hall, or of Maconie himself – both  are things to be treasured.

 

During the evening, Maconie noted with glee that The People’s Songs programmes are on the iplayer for 800 years (I’ve checked, and it seems he was getting ahead of himself – the latest episode is due to expire in 2099…).  Let’s hope that the heirs to this warm chronicler of the modern world are appearing at the Town Hall then.

 

[This post first appeared on www.birminghamfavourites.co.uk



The Raid (dir: Gareth Evans)

A cup of green tea to calm down.

Is it me, or are there more interesting DVDs in charity shops than ever before? Are they going the way of the video tape, with people getting shot of things they think of as clunky remnants of a pre-cloud world?

Whatever the reason, I am finding that I can pick up something worth taking a look at most weeks, and this week was no exception. With the Raid 2 about to hit cinema screens, I noticed the original film in the PDSA shop for £1.99, and thought I'd give it a try.

The film (which I think was released in 2012) was widely reviewed as being a benchmark movie in the action genre, which is not something I know much about.  My philosophy is usually that if you going to explore something new, whether food, music, books or film then to start with the classics and work out from there. So this seemed a good opportunity to see if I should explore further.

Set in a Jakarta tower block taken over by a brutal criminal gang, essentially this film is a 90-minute long fight, with a few moments of calm to allow the viewer to catch their breath before the next protracted period of ultra violence. Guns, knives, machetes, and kicks, kicks, kicks are the order of the day with no punches pulled on showing the gore on screen either. This film is not for the squeamish.

So, what did I think? Certainly is was fabulously put together, the production design, acting, music and sound all working well in the service of the film, but the star was clearly the direction, perhaps better described as choreography. The battles are absurdly over the top, with the flurries of punches, kicks and leaps sometimes feeling never-ending, and the superhuman protagonists surviving damage which no human surely could, then getting up to do it again and again.

For me, it is this cartoonist element that makes the violence tolerable, removing it from all sense of reality, an experience I last had watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Brutal and bloody, it wasn't something I would normally give the time of day to, but the time flew by, and the ending had a emotional punch I wasn't expecting.

So, will I be off to the cinema to see The Raid 2? Probably not, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out in Brum's fine charity shops.

Review: The Fifth Estate (Dir: Bill Condon) at the Electric Cinema

A cup of decaff after getting home.

 

 

The Electric Cinema, as many Brummies know, is a beautifully-restored picture house in the centre of town, with the much-recommended features of sofas and a licensed bar.  (I am told that you can summon drinks to your seat by text, combining these elements in a way your local Cineplex wouldn’t even dream of).

It was the perfect venue to see Benedict Cumberbatch’s latest film, chronicling the rise of Wikileaks and its charismatic head, Julian Assange.  I say this because the Electric Cinema represents an affectionate representation of what is best of the past, whilst sitting comfortably next to the impressive edifice of the transformed New Street Station.  Waiting outside the screen with a bottle of Purity Ale, one feels a warm sense that the best of traditional and modern can indeed exist cheek by jowl.

The Fifth Estate, however, represents a sharp contrast to this – attempting (in this reviewer’s opinion, unsuccessfully) to bring the style of the classic 70s conspiracy thriller to a very modern story, still very much on the front pages (and Twitter feeds).   The story covers the origins of Wikileaks, through to the seismic events around the releasing of the war logs and diplomatic cables in 2010.  The story is told mainly through the relationship between Cumberbatch’s Julian Assange and Daniel Brühl’s activist Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who became a spokesperson for Wikileaks.  Assange is shown as a messianic, driven figure, convinced of the righteousness of his cause, with Berg as a somewhat star-struck acolyte.

The film starts promisingly, showing us how web activists had a much clearer view of the realities of the flow of information in the internet era than did traditional journalists, bankers and the legal profession.  However, Condon then attempts to frame the narrative in terms of classic conspiracy movies such as (naturally) All the President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor (full disclosure: a personal favourite) and the film starts to drift.  Cliché follows cliché as we see Assange and Berg rushing around train stations to evade non-existent pursuers and screaming “shut it down!” at computer programs the purpose of which the viewer doesn’t know.  During the showing, the Electric cinema descended into giggles on more than one occasion as the (computer genius) characters did absurd technical things – such as merrily entering an internet chat room on an aeroplane.   

There is a romantic subplot that seems to serve no purpose and slows the narrative down (the film has an-it-feels-even-longer running time of 128 minutes) and whilst we are given glimpses of the childhood traumas that may have made Assange the way he is, his secretive nature means we are never sure what to believe about the man at the centre of the greatest leak of secrets in history.

The film is by no means all bad, the performances are good throughout, and Cumberbatch does well to put over the magnetism and drive of a man who otherwise might appear merely cruel and narcissistic.  Laura Linney also is a high point, playing a mid-ranking US diplomat, and showing, amongst other vignettes, the impact of Wikileaks’ activities, reminding the viewer that the work of these activists have huge repercussions in the real world.

Ultimately, however, this reviewer was left feeling that this was a missed opportunity, with the decision to market the film as a techno-thriller and ‘sort-of-portrait of Assage’  acting perhaps to hobble the much more interesting story about information flows in the 21^st century, and making it more about individuals and personalities.

 

The cinema was great, though!