Jane Brocket's Blog, page 52

new light

It's not that I haven't got anything to write about. It's not that I haven't got anything to say. Rather that I am gently considering life in a new light, and simply can't seem to get myself to write about it here.

Having children is the most amazing thing - I once had to contemplate never having any and I know just how important it has been to us - and every so often as a parent you stop and take a long view of what you've done, and what might come next. It's about as deep and meaningful as life gets, and I feel I need to just be for a little while as a new routine and new kind of family life evolves.

Plus, I have ridiculous amounts of things to do, deadlines to meet, stuff to make and write. September always brings a moment of reflection, especially when you wake up to thick mist and heavy dew, and you never quite know how the day will turn out. This is how it is with every day at the moment, and mostly it's turning out to be beautiful.

[simple but stunning modern glass window in Spitalfields house]

capital cake: mrs marengo's

8. Mrs. Marengo's

Mrs Marengo's is the modern incarnation of the traditional greasy spoon cafe, thankfully without the grease. It's small, bright and clean and, with its dazzling white surfaces and bright pink 'pleather' stools, it offers a modern twist on the classic formica-and-plastic look. But some caff things never change (and nor should they): the mix of regulars, locals, passers-by and tourists who drop in all day long for friendly chat and smiles, huge breakfasts, and steaming cups of tea and coffee. However, what makes Mrs Marengo's (sister cafe to the much-loved Mildred's a few doors down) different, very contemporary, and worthy of a visit, is the specialisation in home-made cakes, baked on the premises using high-quality and, where possible, organic ingredients.

Mrs Marengo's is renowned for its bespoke delicious and/or risqué special occasion cakes, but there is also a lovely little selection of freshly made cakes in the cafe every day. There might be a tray of very drizzly drizzled mini loaves, a chocolate truffle cake, a pyramid of whopping meringues, and a plate of brownies – the selection changes all the time.

My advice is to take what's fresh; on a recent visit, the straight-from-the-oven raspberry and white chocolate muffins were deliciously moist, crumbly and, unlike so many British variations on the American muffin, not too sweet, huge, and heavy, and a take-home lemon drizzle loaf was sweet and tangy and generously proportioned. And when it comes to prices, Mrs M's is firmly in the egalitarian, old caff style (NB there is a mark-up for eating in).

Cake: £2.75 - £3.25

Tea: £1.60

Coffee: £1.60

53 Lexington Street

London W1F 9AS

Tel: 020 7287 2544

Website: www.mrsmarengos.co.uk

Open: Mon to Fri 8 – 6, Sat 12 – 6, Sun closed

Also offers whole cakes and takes commissions for 'bespoke cakes'

divine magenta

A vase full of floppy, spiky, beautifully coloured dahlias bought for less that £5, chosen mainly for the magnificent magenta petals of some of the flowers. This has been one of my favourite colours for as long as I can remember; it actually makes my mouth water, and I always think it would make the most brilliant colour for sweet-sour sucking sweets.

I also like the name (and have come across two young girls called Magenta recently - for real, unlike Magenta Devine whose name is actually Kim Taylor) although I think it would create permanent pressure to dye your hair bright pink and wear magenta nail varnish. (Imagine being called Magenta and actually preferring magnolia?)

For some years before I left school, I used to mooch around Manchester City Art Gallery at weekends, and loved the colours in Ford Madox Brown's paintings. (I always knew from looking that he was keen on magenta and have just found this link - quite pleasing, really.) There is a particularly mouth-watering magenta patch in Work which I would look at intently, wanting to cut it out and stick it in my diary. There is more magenta in the wonderful 'The Last of England' which is usually in Birmingham, but is currently in Manchester for the first major Ford Madox Brown exhibition in fifty years. Needless to say, I'll be visiting soon as any excuse to go to the wonderfully revamped Manchester Gallery and see 'Work' is welcome, but the prospect of seeing lots of his magenta in one place is utterly divine (dahling).

topsy-turvy

One teenager has gone to university, the other goes at the end of this week. The bedrooms have been turned upside down, the washing-machine is on a never-ending cycle, and the whole of the downstairs has become a temporary laundry. Fabrics and wool are being moved, bookshelves re-ordered, furniture moved, and plenty of adjustments made. We have discovered the usefulness of Skype for the teenager who has left lots of clothes at home: just hold the garments up in front of the screen and they can decide which can be taken with a friend (once they are dry).

Cake seems like a good idea. A topsy-turvy cherry cake with lots of cherries inside, looking as though they have been spun around in the washing-machine as well. (A bit like I feel.)

go, go, go

 

[necklaces made by the beading group earlier this month]

Phoebe knows how to reduce me to a jellified, helpless mass of laughter very easily. All she has to do as we leave the house to go somewhere very mundane (school bus stop, supermarket) is to leap into the car, slam the door, and shout, 'All units, go, go, go!' and I am barely able to put the key in the ignition. I'd be hopeless in a real emergency situation.

[Marilyn's necklaces]

But I urge you to go, go, go to West Dean for any courses taught by Marilyn Phipps. Like Julie Arkell and  Janet Bolton, she is a brilliant, creative, and inspirational artist, and an equally inspirational teacher. She is a genius with colour and everything she makes exudes personality and charm. She is teaching a beading weekend in November, and even the most tentative would-be beaders will make something beautiful. I know, because Marilyn was 'Miss' at the recent beading weekend I wrote about here. The thing about Marilyn, whom I've known for 13 years, is that she lives the life creative, so everything she does is infused with the same colourful, can-do vitality.

Go, go, go.

[Marilyn's photos]

up on the roof

One of the highlights of writing illustrated books is getting out of my usual, solitary workspace and going to unsual locations for photoshoots. Not that it happens very frequently, but when it does, it's a huge treat to see inside a house or building you'd otherwise never see except in magazines or films.

Yesterday, we did some photography for my next book (it will be out in autumn 2012) in a wonderful place in Spitalfields. It was a beautifully renovated Georgian property, very plain, with wide, creaking staircases, wonderful proportions and lots of light from tall sash windows, immense amounts of pale panelling and very carefully chosen furniture and mirrors. The owners continue the Georgian way of combining workplace and home in the same building, and there is a peaceful atmosphere of calm creativity about the place.

The real surprise, though, was climbing up a steep and narrow staircase to an enclosed roof garden, up amongst the chimneys of E1.

Although at first I was thinking of the Drifters, I quickly realised that a more suitable soundtrack would be from Mary Poppins (ignoring Dick VD's execrable Cockney accent). It also brought to mind the heart-rending passage in Oliver Twist when Oliver looks out sadly over the the soot-blackened chimneys and roofs of London (much cleaned up now - as seen below).

In fact, Dickens was generally very keen on unusual points of view (we'd describe them as very cinematic these days) and often looks out, over and down onto London's roofscape.

Think of the horrible Bill Sikes clinging to a chimney (that noose tells us all we need to know) and Riah's roof garden in Our Mutual Friend:

Even if this modern roof garden is more productive with its apples and grapes, runner beans, clipped box hedges and lavender, and even a tiny wildflower meadow, it's just as much a haven as Riah's, and the elevated view amongst a forest of chimney pots is still as delightfully disorienting as it was in Dickens' time.

Never mind the book photography, I'd have gone just for the chimneys and view.

 

capital cake: rose bakery at dover street market

7. Rose Bakery at Dover Street Market (DSM)

DSM is as high-end a high-end department store could possibly get. Created by Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, it has five floors of artfully hung, shockingly expensive clothes and accessories in ultra- cool, minimal, stripped back 'spaces' (as they say) plus terrifyingly stylish assistants. Yet hidden away on the top floor, is the homely-sounding Rose Bakery where very homely cakes, brownies, slices and crumbles are served to smartly dressed/shell-shocked shoppers and companions. Incongruous though it may sound, by dint of its France-meets-England-by-way-of-Japan food and style, it is in fact the perfect fit.

This is an offshoot of the legendary Rose Bakery in Paris, owned by the English Rose and her French husband, and offers the same range of baked goods (and savoury tarts and salads) that has given the bakery its formidable foodie reputation.  It's small (seats approx 24, plus a table or two on a tiny balcony) and simply done in stainless steel and pale wood, filled with light from the large corner window, and the staff are polite, friendly and very unintimidating. Plus the cakes are delicious.

At any one time there will be a choice of six or so: on this visit there were brownies, lemon polenta, fruit loaf, apricot slice, apple crumble, scones, and the trademark dinky, round, individual carrot cakes. The latter are textbook stuff with just enough but not too much cinnamon, a moist, spongy texture and a generous layer of cream cheese topping, while the apricot slice was dense, chewy and full of sweetened oats. Just as you would expect, tea is taken seriously, as is the reading material provided (cutting-edge design magazines).

Rose Bakery is a little oasis of calories and cake in a thin person's department store, and is worth a detour if you are in the Mayfair/Piccadilly area. Unsurprisingly, though, it's not cheap.

Cake: £4.50

Tea: £2.50

Coffee:  £2.50

Dover Street Market

17-18 Dover Street

London

W1S 4LT

Tel: 0207 518 0680

Website: www.doverstreetmarket.com

Open: Mon to Weds 11 – 6.30, Thurs to Sat 11 – 7, Sun 12 – 5

And a slice of culture: Rose Bakery at DSM is close to the Royal Academy, Hatchard's bookshop, Fortnum & Mason, Green Park, The Ritz, St James's Church, Piccadilly (Wren, excellent programme of concerts) and the Burlington Arcade (no whistling).

 

 

rainbows

A weekend away at the place I consider to be pretty much the closest I can get to the rainbow's end in real life, a place of magic and colour and making and laughing and eating.

As you'd expect of a coastline that inspired Turner, the sky and quality of light change constantly. This time we had indigo-violet clouds with peachy-coral tints in the evening and pearlescent grey horizons in the daytime.We also had a stunning double rainbow which came with that very odd and unsettling lemony-yellow light that makes the world look slightly queasy.

It also highlighted the colours of the plants. I saw that my nail varnish matched the deep pink valerian; this is possibly the last sighting of Birkenstocks this season so I felt I had to capture the moment.

[unfinished beading]

I wasn't there just to admire the light and the rainbows - I was also there for a most relaxing, enjoyable beading weekend. A group of us sat round a large table for two days, making beaded necklaces in all colours of the rainbow. The table was awash with little packets and tubes of fabulous seed beads, all jostling for attention and asking to be used in wonderful combinations.

It was so gentle and peaceful, I forgot to take many photos. That's how good it was.

my favourites

 

I remember reading a parenting book years ago which advised the reader on how to deal with the classic question asked of a parent by children with siblings, namely, 'who's your favourite?' It said to tell each one when they ask that they are your favourite, which struck me as dangerous advice at the time. But over the years I have come to see that it's amazingly true and diplomatic. Having watched Bruce Forsyth employ the same evasive tactic to great effect, I've come to the conclusion that it's always nice to be told you're someone's favourite, no matter how many others are, too.

Just as these cushions are my favourite cushions in my knitting book.

[It's a great way to play with colour. The yarns are Biggan Design from Woolaballoo - it comes in an amazing 64 colours. Just think of all the favourite cushions you could knit with those.]

back to school

 

For the first time ever, we have only one child going back to school tomorrow. It's the last year of uniform, and she is determined to wear the much rolled-over short skirt and the sweatshirt with the  shredded cuffs to the bitter end. I'm delighted I don't have to go shopping for uniform ever again - and that sewing in name tapes is a thing of the past. I've never been convinced by the need for school uniform, and I've followed the recent debate (and some great letters) about it in The Guardian with great interest and amusement.

The only aspect of school uniform that interests me are the colours. This is Phoebe with my 'School Colours' blanket (pattern in the knitting book) which is knitted as five scarves that are then sewn together. It's designed to go with any school uniform (only colours missing are grey and black) as I never could adhere to uniform rules. It took me six weeks to knit and reminded me of how happy I was to get out of my own black and gold uniform.

[I could have called this post 'The Eyes Have It']

Yarns from the Julia range by Kristin Nicholas