Why Team USA beat Britain in sports. The word according to TLOML.

Today whilst sitting on the deck watching a lot of dolphins kill for their lunch, I munched my way through so Soreen, or 'sticky bread' as my family call it. I bought the Soreen after my adrenalin-pumping bike ride, whilst on the hunt for toffees for TLOML, in the nasty English shop in Santa Monica. (I don't like it because when I asked in their so-called English pub bar if they were showing the Ashes, the Irish bar tender didn't even know what sport it was).

Anyway it struck me that TLOML has probably never tried Soreen. I offered him a piece of 'delicious, healty malt loaf', and he said no. So I buttered him a little taster sized piece, and presented it, saying,

 "Sometimes 'no' means 'I don't realise how amazing what you're offering me is, and if I did, I'd say  

  'yes'."

 "Okay" he conceded, and took a bite. "Oh man, this is dirrrty. There's no way this is healthy".

I immediately turned to soreen.com for proof that it was, as I had always believed, a health food. After all it has a picture of grapes on the packaging.

 "Soreen Original fruity malt loaf is suprisingly nutritious and low in fat" I quoted.

 "It tastes like a sticky cake," TLOML countered.

 "97% fat free!"

 "Till you slathered it in butter..."

Undeterred, I informed him, "The website says many sports persons rely on Soreen's malt loaf range as part of their balanced diet because they are packed full of carbohydrates and a great source of energy."

 "British athletes? Or American?"

Hmmm. I had to admit Soreen is not likely to appear in Michael Phelps' lunchbox. But I bet Floella Benjamin and Steve Crane had it for breakfast every day.

 "Exactly. Maybe that's why Britain is so bad at sports,"  said TLOML.

Reader, I could not argue with him. But the good news is, I get the entire Soreen loaf to myself. Good times.

The crapness of Britain at sport is something of a recurring theme. The World Cup didn't help.

Yesterday TLOML and I were involved in our weekend jog round the track at Pepperdine University, where a baseball game was going on. I was laughing at the media set up (loud music, big screens with head shots of the players) and the merchandising for sale. Bear in mind that Pepperdine is, at best, a third tier university (with an incredible Malibu bluffs campus). I mused that even at a big university sporting event, like the Head of the River race in Oxford, or the Oxford vs Cambridge Varsity rugby match, you'd be hard pressed to buy merchandise. You'd probably have to leave a cheque in someone's pigeon hole and wait 10 days for your order to arrive. 'It's crazy how much money and focus there is on American college sport' I said, 'compared to England'.

"Exactly. Maybe that's why Britain is so bad at sports,"  said TLOML. And as usual, I was forced to agree.

 

Death wish PCH

I went for my regular weekend pootle into Santa Monica today. This involves 20 minutes on PCH aka the road of death. And 20 minutes on the bike path along the sands of Santa Monica.

On a sunny Saturday, the bike path is almost more dangerous than PCH. Typical hazards include simple-minded, granite-thighed roller bladers swooshing from side to side across the entire bike path, usually with ipod plugged in and baseball cap pulled down, as if seeing and hearing aren't at all important senses to engage whilst hurtling down a narrow path at 15 miles per hour. There are also the giggling tourists, pedalling along all recumbent on those so-called fun cycles, looking googled eyed around them and nearly steering off the path as if they've never seen a beach or been on a bike before. Grrr. The worst of all - because you're not really allowed to shout at them - are the small toddlers who appear out of nowhere to stumble and lurch slowly across the path.

'Fun' for some cycle

Yup, give me the chumps on 'apehangers', the RVs and Hummers of PCH any day.

What made it worse today is that my bike bell has rusted up, which happens to anything vaguely metal in the salty damp air of Malibu (coathangers, necklace clasps, etc). So instead of doing my usual gentle 'ting ting' I had to resort to trilling a rather British 'excuse me' to the idiot peds/ funcyclists/skaters in my path. And for the alarming toddler who appears from nowhere, I reserved a panicked, strangled, high pitched (but still rather British) 'LOOK OUT!!!'. Sometimes with a 'sorrreeeeeeeee' thrown over my shoulder as the child bursts into tears of pure fear.

Bad luck for The Euro, who is taking care of my lovely purple bike with faux leather Western style stitched handle bars and seat, and a rusty basket on the front. It now comes with no means of alerting potential roadkill. She will be careering around Venice in it swearing in 3 languages to clear her path, I'll warrant.


For more on bike bell etiquette, read this quite amusing article from The Guardian's resident cyclist.

If we can make it there...

Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin'

We're gonna do what they say can't be done

We've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there

I'm eastbound, just watch old Bandit run

In the space of 5 days, TLOML and I made the following judgements:

The Port Authority bus terminal. That's some vibe.

1. Paying $4k a month for a huge apartment on the same Hell's Kitchen block as the Port Authority is a great idea.
2. Paying rather less, to live somewhere rather smaller in Hell's Kitchen, is smarter.
3. A short-term lease in boring but central Murray Hill is the best choice for us.
4. Living in a damp, rat infested windowless dungeon in the East Village, for $3800 a month, where our meth-head would-be neighbour was asleep on her doorstep at 12 noon, is a bad idea. Despite its proximity to Katz's and Porchetta.
5. Living with an old lady's tchotchkes and redundant piano is worth it for the money we'll save, and the Chelsea location.
6. A posh building in Gramercy Park with lots of space and a nice doorman is the best place to be.
7. We absolutely can afford to pay 5 months' rent in advance for a charming, bijou pad in leafy heart of the West Village.
8. We should stay in lovely sunny beachy Malibu. TLOML can just commute to NY. NY can stay a 6 hour flight away, and we can stay here, on the beach, with Geoffrey's and Malibu Seafood, and the potential of sighting Dick Van Dyke in our local Ralph's.
9. We should sign a 10 month lease on a small Chelsea apartment we have never seen, in a lovely shiny building we have never seen...

Most of those judgments were firmly established after much discussion, sometimes involving financial spreadsheets, decision making matrices*, and careful poring over maps. They were then reversed, some almost immediately. Talk about a whirlwind. We were like country fools being pulled this-a-way and that-a-way by the bright lights and hustle and bustle of the big smoke.

Judgments 4 and 9 were made in mere moments. And they still stand. I guess sometimes you just have to go with your gut.

Now we have 4 short weeks to drink the contents of the wine fridge, dispose of the inessentials (lucky LA Goodwill) and pack the rest.... Yikes.

*I love using the tools of my consultancy trade ouside of work. Witness the colour coded (for location and the type of activity, obv.) post-it itinerary I created when my dear friends Soph and Tom came to LA for 5 short days. Pity TLOML when I Gant chart the heck out of our wedmin...

Taking liberties with Gwyneth: a happy accident.

Keen to indulge TLOML's love of clams, and because I have a girl crush on Gwynnie (Gwyn haters, you're just jealous), I decided to try her spaghetti alla vongole recipe from Epicurious. So far, so standard Tuesday night in Malibu.

Then bad things started to happen.
First, Ralph's was out of clams. No clams in stock = unhappy TLOML. Resourceful  as ever I bought squid and scallops instead and decided to call it spaghetti alla squid and scallops.
Back at the ranch, at the first step of the recipe, instead of adding a pinch of red chilli flakes, I rained a shower of red chilli flakes over the pan for many long seconds, till I noticed I had the jar open on 'spoon' not 'sprinkle'.

One side is for sprinkling lightly, the other is for dolloping huge spoonfuls out of.

Angsted by this I stirred some past-its-best yoghurt in, to calm it down.
Rather too late, I realised we only had enough spaghetti to feed a small child. TLOML is not a small child. And neither am I. Put us together and you need enough spaghetti to feed 2 big greedy gutses (plural of 'greedy guts', anyone?).

So far, so Bridget Jones-esque cooking disaster. But wait... my tale is not yet fully told... We were hungry, so we dug in regardless. Oh yeah baby! It was the best, hot, spicy, salty, sexy squid and scallop pasta EVER - and without too much pasta so we could have second and third helpings without feeling greedy.

I think this is what's known as a happy accident.

In case you're interested, here's the recipe.

1) Put your pasta on, with a bit of olive oil in the pan to stop it sticking. The sauce will take about 15-20 mins.

2) Sweat 2 cloves of garlic, a shallot and a handful of fennel, all thinly sliced, in a dollop of olive oil. And more than you'd think of those good red chilli flakes - about a tablespoon I think.

3) Mush in about half a tin of anchovies, till they break up and make a sort of paste

4) Add 8-10 cherry tomatoes, squished with your hand so they are a bit 'open'. Simmer away till they are breaking down.

5) Add 1-1.5 cups of white wine (I poured my glass in while cooking, as I didn't like it, so it's hard to be precise). Simmer to reduce for about 5 mins.

6) Panic that you've made it too spicy, and stir a dollop of yoghurt in.

7) Throw in whatever random seafood your local supermarket provided. Baby squid and scallop were wicked, I bet prawns would work out pretty well too. Cook till it's, well, cooked.

8) Then add your pasta and stir it through.

9) Eat and smile.

Have pillow, can travel

Heading to LAX. Musing. What is this trend for getting onto a plane as if one were getting into bed? Okay, for a long flight, if you're flying coach, I suppose you might want one of those neckpillow things. At a push. But do you need to travel in your actual pyjamas? It's madness. Surely that's what Pajama Jeans were invented for? Or, indeed, actual jeans. I'm firmly of the belief that brushed flannel PJs are indoor clothes.

And those women who carry big bed pillows with them... yes, you, waiting to board the 2 hour flight to Denver... come on! Can't you just sit in a chair for 2 hours like a regular person?!

How about the people who buy a great big dirty Macmeal and scarf it, slobbering away, and leave the smelly carton and napkins squished in the seatback pocket for the remainder of the flight. Eat stinky junk food at your peril if I am nearby. I will order the United 'Lite (sic) Snack Pack' and unleash the aroma of tinned tuna to passengers as far as the eye can see. Ha!

Oh dear, I feel my travel-induced misanthropy setting in. Deep breaths Isadora, deep breaths.