Managed to hit two birds with one stone.

Well, not birds. Snails and Frogs legs.

And not a stone. Le Petit Auberge in Islington.

The restaurant was beautiful. Wist chose it.

Silly little Snail fork.

The Snails were very buttery and garlicky, and if I’m honest, didn’t taste of much else.

The Frogs legs were lovely. Very rich and kind of chicken-y. A bit boney though.

Anyway – the food challenge is almost complete…

… when you find a place that charges more for water than for coke…

… eating there is a logo.

It can fall off of kitchen work-surfaces, tables etc onto hard floors and you don’t have to flinch.

Very sad news this morning waking up to the fact Google Reader is to be closed on July 1st.

Going to have to hunt down a new RSS service pronto.

This morning, whilst battling a gale down Old Street, I thought about an old story my parents used to read to me about ‘The Wind and the Sun.’

Essentially – the wind and the sun make a bet that they can remove the coat from a mans back.
The wind tries to blow the coat off of his back – blowing harder and harder. But the man pulls his coat tighter and tighter.

The sun then has a go, and begins to shine. The man begins to warm up.
He gets hotter and hotter, and then removes his coat all by himself.

And, in a small way, that’s like advertising.

You can beat consumers over the head with advertising.
Try and force messages down their throats.
Shout look at me, look at me look at me.
But they’ll only pull their coats on tighter.

Or you can share with them something they’ll want to watch.
Share something that’s interesting, or useful or exciting.
And they’ll take their coats off.

On taste alone, Kumquats really don’t deserve two posts.

But I thought it would be nice to update on how we prepared them etc – as that bit was good fun.

1) Slice the Kumquats up into smallish chunks

2) Bring a mix of sugar and water to the boil

3) Add the kumquat chunks and reduce

4) Serve!

I’d love to say delicious. But alas…

Wist and I went along and saw Ethan Johns in concert last night.
It finished late, but I thought I’d quickly slip in a food challenge nonetheless.
Well, to be honest, it was a premeditated food challenge… weeks in the
planning.

You see, in early January I bought a pack of Kumquats from Sainsbury. A
large pack, for just shy of £1 sterling.

I popped them in the fridge.

And forgot about them.

They went off.

No matter I thought, I’ll just pick up another pack from Sainsburys next
time I’m there.

Alas, the next time I was there they were out of stock. 

And the next week.

Tesco weren’t stocking them for some reason, and neither were Waitrose.

A cold sweat gripped me as I pulled out my phone and scanned a blog about
kumquats.

‘Generally available between November and January.’

Ah.

Oh.

I’ve missed the season.

So no kumquat until November 2013, but the challenge finishes in June…

I was beaten.

Then one bright, breezy February day, Wist suggests we take a stroll to
Fortnum and Mason as they have Kumquat marmalade.

(Surely THAT would count, I figured.)

But marmalade didn’t need to count – Kumquat’s were still on sale in Fortnums!

Sure they were £14 to the kg, but they were fresh and in the country nonetheless.

We bought three whole kumquats.

It cost just shy of a £1 sterling.

And candied them as a post gig snack.

They were pretty bitter – certainly needed the extra sugar I think. 

And I wouldn’t choose to have them again.

But nice to have tried something new in the citrus family.

Isn’t it strange that you can live somewhere for quite a long while, without knowing everything that happens around you.

On Sunday evening, I went along to a local pub I know and watched a brilliant acoustic night with some brilliant acts.

And it turns out that it’s a weekly event!

First up was Raevennan Husbandes – who played a pretty set. She had a nice voice and her songwriting was dainty and light.

Then Liz Lawrence – a pop & soul songstress that played a house gig we ran a month or so ago. She’s brilliant and well worth checking out.

Next up was Lewis Mokler – not my cup of tea, but he was very Ed Sheeran and I can imagine some people liking his sound.

Rather randomly – Jamie Lawson ended up playing ‘I wasn’t expecting that’ after Lewis Mokler had finished. Wist and I saw him play at Union Chapel months and months ago – and we thought he was brilliant – so a really welcome surprise.

After all that – the event organiser, Kal Lavelle, played. And she was pretty bloody good too!

Well worth popping down to it if you ever get the chance.