I think about my blog every day. I think about writing for it every day. A day becomes a week becomes a month. I’m at once restless and lethargic, and how do I come to terms with that?
I’m not exactly sure.
My mother always told me, Janice, you think too much. She was right. What I think most about is other people. Who are they? What are they doing? Why don’t I know them? Where do they live? What do they eat? What are their lives when they are not in front of me, inside my head? Yes, all of that and more.
The short version of the story is I’m not getting out much and I’m not seeing that many people. Lockdowns combined with a deteriorating knee keep me indoors and away from things I normally love to do. I try to think about people who have written whole books while being (what I consider) prisoners of home and even bed. My hat’s off to them. Yes, the stories are still in my head but I lack the motivation. I’ve heard that inspiration is something being taken in, and motivation is about movement – a driving force. Â Motivation is more closely connected to external stimuli, while inspiration is based on the internal stimuli. I’d say that right now I do feel inspired, but not really motivated. So if I’m not getting out that much, external stimuli are dampened, and the thoughts stay inside my head. So let’s get them out a bit.
I say I haven’t been out much, but I’m blessed by living in an area that is infinitely walkable (even now, and even though that might be limited) and infinitely fascinating. Those who feel at one with nature have a hard time understanding that. In nature I understand the peace and beauty, but as large as the vista might be, it’s harder for me to examine. Where are the people? Maybe I don’t want to face the person who is there – me. Hmm.
Right now ‘me’ is a person who can barely walk. My knee has given up and more than a few minutes on it becomes unbearably painful. Except I do bear it, and don’t want to. I’m doing my best. If I don’t try, then I’m missing out on so many things. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve managed what I could. Now my radius is shrinking and I’ll still do what I can. So let’s look at what I’ve managed to do and think positive and look ahead.
Not in order but a smattering of life chez moi at the moment.
We are still mourning the loss of a favourite haunt, Poetto – a nice pizza and pasta with friendly service. Gone a few months before lockdown. Maybe it was a blessing for them.
Krish noticed a dragon standing over a building – now building supplies but we’d love to know what it was before. I’ll keep researching!There was apparently a tram depot in Clapton and this is the yard. Nowadays it’s a collection of rental studios for film and photography called Hackney Studios. Notice the ghost sign, centre right.After the tram depot, we visited Tram Shop. You can normally have a meal here, but right now it’s a general store. We found a few things to buy, none were food.I wanted to buy something at the Dusty Knuckle in Dalston. By the time I made it there (damn you, bad knee) the shelves were bare. Absolutely everything had sold out. This is the alley leading down to the bakery yard.
I hadn’t been in the Curve Garden for months! It was looking very green and wasn’t too busy. So Melodie and I sat by the Stik wallart and Melodie, who used to be his landlady, sent him texts, unanswered. I’m still a groupie, it seems.When Krish had his vaccination, we made time to visit Fremont Street, home of my great grandmother and father, and where my maternal grandmother was born. Along the way we saw Five King Edwards Road, once a women’s fashion factory, now fancy flats.We think this grand facade was likely the offices for the factory. Such elegant stonework.
6 Fremont Street. My maternal great grandparents lived here. It seems strange that I am now only 1km away from an ancestral home. Strange but fitting.My maternal great grandmother, Phoebe, with my maternal grandmother, Charlotte (looking incredibly like my mum)
Tesco Morning Lane. In just one year the world has changed. Shopping is a new experience and sometimes it feels like it was always like this, especially when I see people looking like they are used to it.
I have always been a bad needleworker, but I enjoy creating things, watching them take shape. I made these ‘postwoman’s gloves’ from a simple pattern and decorated them. I’ve now made a third pair in light orange.I went for an XRay on my knee and made sure I stayed a while in front of the Stik mural in one of the courtyards. On 28 March the clocks went forward in the UK. The evenings are longer. The trees on Sandringham Avenue will soon be in leaf, and the skies will stay lighter.
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods have taken cars away from some smaller streets and forced them to the larger streets, like mine. Every day starting around 3pm the parade of cars begins, ending almost four hours later. Continue reading “COVID – Restlessness and Lethargy”
On a day when I thought staying home and resting might be a good idea I instead found myself saying yes to going up to ‘the big Sainsburys’ in Dalston. It was an excuse to take a couple of photos for my aunt of a converted synagogue nearby and also keep my promise to myself to take some photos in Ridley Road Market.
First off, the synagogue. It’s hidden behind Montague Road. Montague Road Beth Hamedrash began 1902 and closed between 1980 and 1985. I’ve often thought about living in that top floor with the patio balcony.
There are many repurposed and demolished synagogues around. It amazes me how many there must have been at one point. My research tells me that around 1880 there were about 5,000 Jews in Hackney and Dalston. The richer Jews tended to move further north to Stamford Hill, Highbury, and Stoke Newington. By the end of the early 1900s there was a large population of the ‘better class of Jewish working man.’ The Jews of Whitechapel chose Dalston or Canonbury as their ‘first steps upwards.’ In the early 1950s Hackney was assumed to have the densest Jewish population in the country, and the two estates on Amhurst Road alone contained 1,500 to 2,000 working-class Jews, while half of the boys at Hackney Downs school were Jewish. Many of these families prospered and moved along and less than a third of the school’s boys were Jewish by 1972, replaced by newer Afro-Caribbean immigrants. My closest synagogue is about a kilometre away today. The Montague Road Beth Hamedrash would have been a two-minute walk, with others to choose from not much further.Â
I always think about how I could live in one of these little houses built between two larger onesAnother view of St Marks Church on my way to Ridley Road
Straight up to St Mark’s Rise and turn left and the bottom of Ridley Road market is straight ahead. I wasn’t keen to go into, with all the restrictions. There are barriers on either side too and that’s a bit daunting, since I often want to leave to get out to the shops along the road. Instead I walked along the west side of the market, taking in the sights of the mostly Afro-Caribbean storefronts.
The shops are mostly just shallow sheds along the road, each with its chaotic assortment of goods. There’s fish, meat, fabrics, vegetables and fruit, and household goods.
I’m not the first to say that there’s not enough Ridley Road history. Geographically, it links Dalston Lane to Kingsland Road but there’s really nothing much said about the street until the mid 1800s. The main street of Dalston, Kingsland Road, was completely commercial by 1849, properties being sold off by the Tyssen family, and the tram arriving in 1872. In 1930 The Kingsland Road market was in Ridley Road, and was among the best known in London. Other records show that the market existed since the 1880s. This period features in most of the then-modern Hackney, with so many houses that I’ve photographed having this decade engraved on the facade. Ridley Road at the end of the 1880s had about 20 stalls and has played an important part in Hackney’s history. Before the pandemic is had over 150 stalls. Once a Jewish market, it is now mainly Afro-Caribbean and Turkish.
Restricted entrance to the stalls area of Ridley Road Market. Normally, stalls would come right down the end down either side of the roadThe fabric store at the bottom of the market has seen better days. I’ve shopped in there, hoping the mountain of fabrics wouldn’t engulf meA jumble of dry goods and shoesRandom Afro-Caribbean goodsOne of many butchersClothing in the central marketStalls are spaced apart and there are fewer than there once wereObligatory burger and hot dog stand. On the whole they are very poor qualityLots of plantainNear the top of Ridley Road, with Kingsland High Street and the new buildings aheadNew normal spacing means the stalls are sparseI reached the top of the market and stallholders were starting to leave
It’s hard to show the atmosphere of Ridley Road so I took a couple of videos to try to show it. This is pandemic time so it doesn’t bustle as it used to.
I’ll confess to not liking to shop on Ridley Road, and I’ll often avoid walking along it. While it’s interesting, it crosses the line of interesting into too scruffy. That’s saying a lot coming from me. I don’t see the sense of pride I think there should be there. The shops stay the same, often look dirty, are usually quite smelly…have I sold you yet? However, there’s a lot of colour and vibrancy once you get past the assault on your senses. And you’ll find the odd favourite stall – the egg stall, and the one where we buy herbs aren’t there right now but we went regularly.
With so many newcomers in the area demanding more modern, luxurious surroundings, and with the increase in new building, Ridley Road is threatened. New residents aren’t shopping here, the poorer shoppers are being squeezed out of the area by rising prices, and the stallholders are having trouble meeting the rents and rates along with the decrease in traffic. The pandemic has has meant fewer stalls, so restricted foot traffic and revenue. While I am not a big Ridley Road fan, I’d be sad to see it totally cleaned up and overhauled, if not razed. No matter what, Ridley Road has served this community very well for almost a century and a half and I don’t know what Dalston would be without it.
I live with someone who has OCD – well, it’s OCPD but that’s another story. Germ-phobia is something I also battle. Not everything bothers me and I wouldn’t say that I worry too much but definitely more than some. I don’t have OCD but I do wash my hands quite often and am grossed out by things like ‘double-dipping,’ picking up food that’s dropped on the table (let alone the floor), people using their own forks or spoons to dip into a serving dish, humans cleaning up after their pets – inside or outside…
It goes further with Krish, who won’t suffer shoes in the house or even stored in a room other than a hallway, changes completely out of outdoor clothes when arriving home, and washes everything that arrives from the shop before storing it away, even when it isn’t food. I could go on…
However, the threat of novel coronavirus has revved things up a notch or five. I’ve always been amused at the things Krish calls ‘disgusting,’ since I now am feeling quite the same way.
With the usual sensationalist and alarmist media verve hard to dodge, I’ve considered this – what if (terrible words!) I’m sitting comfortably today, amused at the hysteria and scaremongering, and next week I’m witnessing the zombie apocalyse. In fact, had I been keeping closer written track of things daily, I’d say this isn’t so very far-fetched. Each day I wake up to new situations, hearing increasingly difficult stats and facts, needing to face my personal decisions, just in case. As a somewhat recovered agoraphobic, those italicised words are ones that I’ve spent a lot of time eliminating from my thoughts but now they are creeping back in…necessarily?
Esmeralda lives in Bologna. She’s sent me videos of empty streets, the usual rush hour with hardly any people and no more than a few cars. Italy is in lock-down and there’s nothing anyone can do except wait it out and hope. We’ve talked about it and she feels that Italy has over-reacted. The more I read, the more I think it was the right reaction but maybe not enacted quickly enough.
I follow a Turin blogger, Sonia, who has been posting photos. Last night she posted a good story on how things have progressed. You can see this here . I messaged her to tell her how informative her story was and she asked how I was. I told her about London and how I felt and she let me know she had had to post her story very late that night since she didn’t want her children to hear what she had to say.
In London, things are going on as normal. We haven’t had it as bad as Italy. There aren’t as many cases here. I doubt that will last very long. This is a densely populated city with millions travelling around, crowded together, and these Londoners love to gather in packed pubs as often as they can. Handwashing has become an art, hand sanitiser essential and I’m looking sideways at everyone who sneezes or coughs on the bus.
Last week I went out and was a bit worried about all the bus travel. I sweetened the deal by visiting a new restaurant for lunch. I went to Three Uncles, which serves Cantonese barbecue. It’s been ages since I’ve eaten like that. I chose the noodles with wonton and char siu pork and enjoyed it. I was wondering if the place might be quiet, based on the Sinophobia I’ve been hearing about but trade was brisk.
More rain as I walk along the narrow street to Three UnclesFound it!Inside Three Uncles – it got busierMy lunch! Char siu pork and wonton lo mein
On the way home, I started noticing that no one was coughing…anywhere. I put this down to people staying home if they were unwell, or perhaps being afraid to cough for fear or reprisal.
This hasn’t lasted long, though. I’ve been in the bus with people with awful coughs, rarely covering their mouths and touching everything in sight. On the weekend I went to Tesco. The toilet paper was completely gone from the shelves, there were a few paper towels left, and just a few, more expensive, soaps – liquid and otherwise. Hand sanitisers are nowhere to be seen. Almost every person in the queue had a shopping cart filled to the brim and I waited almost half an hour to pay for my small basket of things. Panic buying had set in.
Toilet paper goneAll but the most expensive hand soaps disappearing quicklyGrab those antibacterial wipes while you can
At the bus stop, a small boy was playing around the seats and eagerly sucking his thumb, a man in the bus was rubbing his eyes vigorously. I clutched my bag close to me and tried not to look.
Krish and I went out. A woman who looked visibly ill, coughed long loose coughs, in the seat across from us, her nose was red and she looked anxious. I tried not to worry too much. Unless we don’t go out at all, there’s no way to avoid all of this.
Yesterday I went to a class on fermentation. I considered not going but thought I was being silly so off I went. My germ phobia had to be put in the back seat or I couldn’t face it. I went back to the Dusty Knuckle Bakery school classroom and this time there were nine of us. I was at a table with three men and everything was shared. We chopped together, threw our vegetables into a communal basin, used our bare hands to chop and to mix.
Arriving at the fermentation class
Apart from an initial mandatory twenty-second hand washing, things got pretty loose. I had decided not to use my phone to take any photos, despite wanting to. The guy next to me took his out frequently. Each time he did so, I cringed. When people came back from being outside the room, only I and another woman washed our hands again. And the guy next to me was the one who wanted to mix the basin of cabbage for sauerkraut with his hands. I tried again to look away.
Later, though, when we were all encouraged to taste the kimchi before it was jarred, his habit of taking a piece and licking his fingers before digging in again broke the dam. I started to feel threatened and upset. When he left the table I begged the other two men to continue with the mixing and not to let him put his hands back in. They smiled at me indulgently. I tried not to panic.
Funny that I remember more of this stuff than what we did and learned. However, I do know that fermentation is what happens when you pack fruit or vegetables, salt, and other ingredients together and allow the main ingredients to be broken down naturally. We made three ferments: A red and white cabbage sauerkraut with caraway, a spicy kimchi, and a beet and carrot dill pickle. My hands were stained with red cabbage and beets – lurid.
I was freaked out but the men were drinking beer – four or five each that night – and not caring much about anything. How do they do that?
We sat and ate together. For the second time I put up with the dreaded puy lentil soup except this time I asked to serve myself and took only a little. There was one big loaf of sour dough bread to go with it and we got to taste some of the ferments the teacher, Adam, had on hand. There was one that had a blue film on top and a truly nasty smell. Adam showed it to us so we knew how funky a ferment could get and yet still be safe. I was the only person who didn’t want to taste it after he scraped away the mould. So unlike me to not be adventurous with food but my phobias were settling in!
We packed a large jar of each mixture to bring home. They weighed a ton! More coughing and spluttering around me on the bus but I made it home and put my jars down.
My finished jars
Today, one of them had overflowed despite being tightly closed so tonight I loosened the lids to let some gas out and tightened them up again. We had to clean the table the jar had originally been on and put the three jars into a plastic bowl under the sink so there wouldn’t be any more messy accidents.
Tonight the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. It’s hard to think of much else. My germ phobia has come to the fore. Not happy about that. I’m reluctant to go out but sure I will. Chances are things will become easier, that we’ll get on top of this and beat it, until the next time.
I belong a site called Nextdoor. It unites neighbours in areas around the world, sort of like an updated BBS. It’s so useful for finding things like local tradespeople, events, sales and free stuff and so on. (There’ll be one in your area too!) Some time before Christmas I saw this:
Katie Cross,
NEW VEGAN CAKE SHOP OPENING IN DALSTON
Hello everyone, I am a vegan baker and I am opening my bakery CAKE OR DEATH every Saturday until Christmas starting tomorrow 10am – 3pm. It’s in Dalston on the corner of Dalston Lane and Martel Place E8 2FR. I’m a small business – just me baking – and I make delicious cakes, brownies and cookies and everything is vegan. Do pop down if you’re in the area – I’d love the support! Best wishes, Katie www.cakeordeath.net
Now, veganism isn’t for me but I do have two vegan friends and Hackney is pretty much Vegan Central. Every bakery has a good selection of vegan cakes, some are strictly vegan. When I go out with Lisa, I let her choose somewhere that’s vegan because it’s so much easier than her finding something on the menu where I usually go. I didn’t get to Katie’s bakery, Cake or Death, though.
Then Katie started to advertise classes at her bakery. I still didn’t go for those, until she had a sale. I couldn’t resist, even knowing this would mean…cake!
I arrived at the class and there were nine of us- eight women, one man. There were also no baking spaces other than Katie’s kitchen area and a big table.
We watched her make lemon cup cakes. She made the batter, then worked on the icing. She whipped broad bean water from the can until it stood in stiff peaks, then added in icing sugar and lemon. She also made a lemon curd, which is a normal recipe but with Flora ‘buttery’ margarine instead of butter.
We then made our own carrot cake, measuring and mixing and pouring the batter into tins to bake. Again Flora is used and also unsweetened soy milk. And a lot of oil! It smelled good.
Once that was in the oven, we all had a part to play in making sticky ginger cake. I stirred the huge bowl of liquids – Flora, soy milk, treacle, muscovado sugar, and golden syrup, all melted in the microwave and ready for the dry ingredients.
Our last baking effort was at the end of the class. We each made our own peanut butter chocolate chip cookies – seven large ones. They went into the oven when the other things were ready or almost ready to come out.
The whole place smelled great. The participants were friendly and I chatted a bit to the other two locals that were there – a couple. I should have got their details but I didn’t. Maybe I’ll see them around. Even though we didn’t have our own cooking stations, things worked well. Katie’s helper gave us each a huge box and I put in my cakes and cookies and balanced them all the way home.
Then the eating. The only thing we haven’t tried yet is the carrot cake. It’s in the freezer, cut into three pieces. Everything has been delicious. Nothing tastes like it should be labelled vegan. I’m ready to host my vegan afternoon tea party!
I didn’t make any new year’s resolutions really but one thing I did was decide I would get to all the restaurants on my list – maybe one each week. I’m working on it. Those restaurants were
Singburi – No nonsense Thai Anju – pop up Korean Bubala – Vegetarian, inspired by the cafes of Tel Aviv Sambal Shiok – Laksa specialist Marksman – Classic British fare in a former Victorian pub P.Franco – Snug, trendy bar with rotating chefs
or Bright – wine bar by P.Franco Peg – tiny cafe by P.Franco with set menu Mao Chow – All-vegan Chinese-inspired dishes Cafe East – Vietnamese home cooking Gloria – Decadent Italian, 70’s Capri-style Kakki Katsu – Specialist in Katsu Curry St John Bread and Wine – newer classic -seasonal, indigenous ingredients and “the whole beast” Rochelle Canteen – British restaurant at Arnold Circus that’s “calm, delicious, and brilliant”
and probably more to come. The ones in italics are the ones I’ve managed to get to so far – I’ll keep updating this. Almost all are local but it’s still taking me ages.
But three are done. None so far are going my must-return list. I hope the ‘done’ list grows and hopefully at least one will become a regular.
A note about dining alone, though. I can remember when I was very agoraphobic and in therapy. One of the practice sessions I had to undertake was to go to any restaurant and eat there alone. This terrified me, I can’t tell you how much. I chose the cafe at The Sheraton in Toronto and I have no idea what I ate there. It was terrifying, but I did it. It wasn’t something I wanted to repeat, to be honest, but since then I’ve become more used to dining alone and I quite like it. I knew I’d be going to most of these places alone, with the biggest drawback being not being alone, but not being able to try enough different things and being confined to just one or two menu items. I love to eat but I’m not a big eater.
Kakki Katsu opened not too long ago at Dalston Junction. This is a really handy location, since I have to be at this corner fairly often. It’s definitely not a chic place, more like a fast food cafe. There was one chef/server/cashier at the front. I ordered a katsu ramen and I would say it rated about a 5/10. The katsu was thick but crispy, the noodles were too soft, the broth was more like an average chicken soup, and the eggs were a bit too well done. It’s passable and nothing more but it was reasonably priced.
Katsu ramen at Kakki Katsu
I already blogged about Anju so I’ll steal the words: Anju has been open for a little while inside The Gun pub on Well Street. I stayed downstairs in the dark and unadorned pub instead of going up to the restaurant space. The menu was short, the few main courses pricey for a back-street pub – at £13-14 – and I’m not really up to a big meal much of the time, so I chose a starter instead: Korean Sushi Rolls (Bulgogi Beef or Braised Sweet Tofu, I chose the beef). They were fresh and pleasant. I was thinking that putting some hot beef in there would have made them more delicious but this was just a taste. Maybe I’ll go again and have something larger.
Bulgogi sushi rolls at Anju
I was really looking forward to trying Gloria. It was described as ‘exuberant,’ ‘over the top,’ ‘flamboyant, and the rest. It was said to be an in-your-face Italian place with large portions and crazy decor. It also boasted a lemon meringue pie with a six-inch high meringue – I have to say I really wanted to try that! I had one aborted attempt to get there, when I got lost, but this time I had it timed between two appointments. I at least wanted to try that pie to see if I would have it again on my birthday.
Gloria is on Great Eastern Street near Shoreditch High Street. I thought it would be trendy but it’s kitschy inside and looks like it’s been there for decades, rather than being quite new. I got a seat by myself quite easily, sitting next to another solo diner with her own table. I chose a ‘girella,’ since it didn’t sound too large – it was a stuffed coiled raviolo with some ragu. I also got some raddichio with parmesan, followed by the lemon pie. The girella and radicchio were pleasant. Then things went wonky. My coffee arrived – it was a standard restaurant cappuccino, the type that you know wasn’t made with a deeply roasted espresso – so so. And I waited…half an hour later, when my coffee was cold, the pie arrived.
Well, it did impress on first sight. The meringue was indeed at least six-inches high and nicely torched. But it wasn’t a lemon meringue pie. I’d describe it as a tarte au citron (rich and buttery and very sweet, with a shortbread base) with a tea-cake type topping that was creamy and dense, like a campfire marshmallow. It wasn’t the tangy, melt-in-the-mouth experience I had hoped for, even if it was interesting and tasty. Almost a fail in terms of expectations and it made me late for my next appointment, which is a whole other story!
From my seat, a glimpse of the bar at Gloria’s entranceDiners opposite in front of the large interior barLooking into the centre of GloriaRaddichio salad and my girellaThe very silly lemon pie
That’s it for now but watch this space grow…I hope!
