The Breakfast Club

My idea of the perfect breakfast. It tastes especially good when made at my parents house and costs me $0 to make. Mmm mmm good!

Welcome To Pharrell's House

Hollywood's favourite 'kidult' Pharrell Williams, opened the doors of his amazing pad to monsieur Todd Selby, to share with us, his amazing big kid toys. Love! Click HERE to view all the photos.

Romantic Fortune Cookies

You can always count on Le Love to find a great image that'll make you feel all warm and tingly inside! Joli Lapin loves fortune cookies and silly romantic things!

X-Mas Eve @ The Lowon Popes

Family, friends & great food! The best way to spend Christmas eve. This year the Lowon Pope's hosted a fabulous Xmas eve soiree with an asian fusion theme, it was delicious! Plus I got to watch Miracle on 34th street and was given a new pink YSL lipstick - happy me!!

Bedroom Details

This framed 50s advertisement was a gift given to me by a family friend for one of my birthdays many years ago (can't remember which one, that's how long ago), and I absolutely love it! I'm too afraid to take it back to the UK with me as I don't want it to get wrecked travelling, but I can't wait to have it in the bathroom of my future Toronto home.

Home Cooking

My parents are signed up for the "Organic Box"program, which means a box of seasonal organic vegetables is delivered to their doorstep each week. Lately they have been getting a lot of the same veg as the kitchen is overflowing with pumpkins, potatoes and butternut squash. I guess it's winter! To clear some space, and put the vegetables to good use, I decided to make a curried pumpkin, butternut squash, yam, potato and green apple soup and it turned out to be super yummy!

I loosely followed a recipe from Epicurious on my iphone, but I mainly made it up as I went along. If you would like to make this at home, first bake your vegetables (cut in half and face down) for about 50 minutes at 350C - take out and let cool. Chop an onion, and soften in a large pot with olive oil, add lots of garlic and ginger to the mix. At this point, I added roughly chopped granny smith apples before transferring everything to the food processor. Blend the mixture until smooth and return it to your pot. Next, scoop out the baked veg into the food processor, blend until smooth and add to the pot. Add 2-3 cups of chicken stock and stir everything together well. The mixture can tend to be quite thick so depending on how much you are making you can add more chicken stock, or milk to give it a creamier taste. I played around with just about every spice in the kitchen, but I would highly recommend adding salt, fresh ground pepper, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, cumin, cinnamon and curry powder to taste.

Good luck and enjoy!

Mum Has The Coolest Things...

Just a few of her many, many, MANY treasures!

The Easy Apple Tart

Speaking of my friend Dana, last weekend she hosted a wonderful little tea party at her flat with tons of wonderful food, but she happened to have a little trouble with the apple cake she made. While it looked great, it was undercooked and had "too many apples" as her first taster commented. I told her I would post my Easy Apple Tart recipe as it would have been a lot faster, easier and would cook better in her crappy old oven. Sorry, but it's true! So here goes...

The Easy Apple Tart:

2 tablespoons - organic unsalted butter

1 tablespoon - brown sugar

1 tsp - vanilla

1/2 tsp - cinnamon

4-6 - apples (I often use pears as well) cored and sliced into wedges

1 roll - easy puff pastry

To begin, slice the apples (and pears) into wedges and place in a pie dish as you go a long. This is often the best way to measure as the sizes of fruit, and amount you need can vary, fill the dish until level. Heat a non-stick frying pan and melt the butter, add the brown sugar and mix with a wooden spoon until the sugar has melted and is well-blended. Poor in the sliced apples and toss until coated, add the vanilla and cinnamon (you can add more or less depended on taste preferences). Toss the apples a couple of more times, before removing from heat.

Roll out the puff pastry and place in the pie dish, roll down edges to create a thicker crust. Poor in the apple mixture and spread evenly in the dish. Place the dish into a pre-heated oven at 180C and bake for approximately 30 minutes. Keep an eye on it, when the crust and apples are golden brown it's time to take it out!

Best served piping hot with vanilla ice cream on the side, enjoy!

Flower Power Tea Towels

ELLE Deco had a little end-of-year sample sale last week and I picked up TONS of great things for hardly anything! A few cookbooks, some gifts, a new fancy pillow... eventually I will post about all my great finds. I love this pink flower power tea towel I got so much, it was sitting on the sale table for so long I couldn't believe no one had picked it up! I guess you could say it was meant to be, and I only had to pay £1 for it!!

Tropical Owls

On my first visit to England, a few of years ago, the boyfriend and I stayed at his sister's old flat for a couple of nights. She and her husband had the most amazing place, situated inside a massive old manor house, it had incredibly tall ceilings and windows, with huge rooms - the place was magnificent. But what caught my eye most of all, was her large golden vintage pineapple that she kept in the kitchen, never have I been so envious of a piece of fruit!!

Since that first sighting, I have developed a bit of an obsession with retro pineapples. In fact, when I went to get my nails done with SLC at WAH in Topshop last spring, they too had a gold pineapple sitting on a shelf to my surprise - sadly they declined my somewhat-generous-for-a-poor-person offer.

On the day of my birthday party this year, my friend Dana popped over early so we could scour local charity shops together. As we wandered through my least favourite of the three chazzers on the main strip, Dana picked up a great set of hand-painted tumblers while I was still left empty-handed. Feeling certain that I wasn't going to find anything to my liking amongst their homeware shelves - I took one last glance, before something spiky and golden hiding in the corner caught my eye. I could hardly contain myself, I GOLDEN FREAKING PINEAPPLE AT LAST!!! I held that thing up in the air like a damn trophy.

It may be a mini version of my first love, but I still love it none the less. Now it sits pretty next to my favourite little owls and I think it makes them feel happy and cool, as if they're hanging out in their own tropical oasis. Yay!

Festive Fun

On Wednesday night, my friend Hayley and I headed over to the Harrod's champagne bar to indulge in some festive fun. Psychologies Magazine organised a small event where guests were treated to a wreath making tutorial by one of London's leading florists before making their own to take home. Neither of us had ever made a holiday wreath before - but it was such a blast and we sure didn't mind sipping on glasses of veuve and snacking on canapes while creating our holiday works of art! I have a feeling wreath-making parties are going to be all the rage next year!

Roasted Garlic and Citrus Carrots

This was such an easy and delicious side dish with my Sunday roast this weekend, I feel I must share the recipe as they would be great alongside almost anything!

5-6 Organic carrots 

4 Whole garlic bulbs

2 Oranges

1 Tablespoon (or so) olive oil

Freshly ground pepper

A pinch of salt

To start, cut the carrots in half and then lengthwise (slice larger bits into 3 or 4 pieces) and place on a baking tray or in a roasting pan. Cut both oranges in half, squeeze the juice of each piece over the carrots, then place the pulp and skin around the dish along with garlic bulbs. Drizzle olive oil lightly over carrots, add salt and pepper then toss.

Place in the oven at 180C for 45 mins, toss the carrots half way through. Enjoy!

Urban Farming

Lately I've become obsessed with the idea of urban farming. I feel very priviliged to live in London and have such a great, green backyard. Last summer I planted a number of herbs and grew some rocket, but I would absolutely love to have a large vegetable garden growing one day. A chicken or two running aroud would be even better - fresh eggs in the mornings! It's so important that we begin re-thinking how we acquire our food. The more I pay attention to origin listings at the grocery store, the more I worry about my carbon footprint simply from trying to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Asparagus from Spain, rasberries from California, spinach from Morocco? Each time I fill my basket, it seems there is less and less that has been grown at home in the UK. Of course, like anyone, I am used to being able to purchase just about anything at any time of year because of this, but would it really be so bad if you were only able to eat what was in season? I think we would manage. Recently, Tom Selby of Theselby.com paid a visit to New Yorker, Annie Novak - an urban farmer based in Brooklyn. It's so refreshing to see cool, young, urban people putting their green thumbs to good use by combining two different lifestyles. Check out the full feature by clicking HERE.