Life Hack: The Breville Active-Blend Smoothie Maker

I woke up with a sore throat this morning and hope that - at the worst - it's just the beginning of a minor cold and not tonsillitis. I had tonsillitis a few years back during a trip home to the US and the only thing that would soothe my extremely swollen throat was a Jamba Juice smoothie.

Since then, I love getting Jamba Juices whenever I'm back in the States! Ice cold, thick, and delicious, they're just so damn good on a hot summer's day - even John's into them now! The so-called "smoothies" in the UK just don't cut it ... either they don't use fresh fruit or they arrive luke-warm/room temperature and super yogurt-y, which makes me gag.

I've bought blenders in the past and smoothie recipe books with good intentions, but the blenders were a mess to clean, the handles would break off within a few weeks, and they took up too much space in a small kitchen like the ones we have in London.

So, my ears perked up when I saw someone using this Blend-Active Blender by Breville (we also have a Breville kettle - it's ah-mazing). Apparently, you could blend in a sports bottle and simply remove the blades and replace with a leak-proof cap when you were ready to go. To be honest? It sounded a little too good to be true. But, at only £24, I was tempted and now ... well, I'm in love with it.

I've had it for two weeks and use it on most mornings - it takes probably exactly 5 minutes to grab all the ingredients out of my freezer (frozen chunks of mango or berries, plus ice, and some juice) and chop up a banana into the bottle. Then, I can just carry the bottle with me on the bus and drink it on my way to the stop or, if I'm feeling a little chilly, stash it in my bag later for work. I also downloaded the Jamba Juice recipes, which I found online, and while they might not be the healthiest to have every day, they're really nice as an occasional treat (hint: sorbet is the secret ingredient!).

My favorite smoothie so far is mango, orange, and banana, but for an indulgent dessert, I've made a berry, banana, and raspberry sorbet blend below:

The things I love about this blender:

- It's sturdy: the base has little suction-y feet that keeps in place on your countertop
- It's SO easy to clean! You can just quickly rinse the blades with warm soapy water and leave it to the side to dry. When I get to work and I'm finished with my bottle, I fill it with warm soapy water, give it a few shakes and rinse before stashing it back in my bag again.
- It takes up hardly any space. The base is so small, you can push it to one side of your kitchen work top and it's as inconspicuous as a bottle of wine.
- It blends ice. Granted, you shouldn't put too much in, but I typically use 5-6 pieces of crushed ice and it's worked fine.

I'm going to start making some green smoothies soon, so if you have any favorite smoothie recipes, please pass them my way!

p.s. This is not a sponsored post!

An Easy, One-Pan Burrito Bowl Recipe

Do you ever use Pinterest for recipes? I know lots of people who do, but I browse Pinterest mainly for ... clothes. And other pretty things. Definitely not food. I was busy pinning for one of the companies I freelance for the other day, when I came across this ingenious one-pan burrito bowl recipe from the blog, No. 2 Pencil.

I made it tonight and ... it was surprisingly good! I have such little confidence in my cooking abilities, but always end up surprising myself when I actually follow a recipe and make something that tastes good. Not restaurant quality, mind you, but just ... tasty.

This is such an easy recipe and you'll have a much easier time sourcing the ingredients if you're in the US, rather than here (for example, I couldn't find canned black beans for my online Tesco delivery order, but I've been told that they're available at my local Tesco - I know you can prepare them, but it takes time, which is something I don't have much of!).

I made a few tweaks that I thought I'd share with you in case you decide to make this one evening too: I substituted black beans with red kidney beans instead (since I happened to have some in the cupboard) and I absolutely love fresh coriander in my Mexican-inspired food, so I chopped up a handful and dropped it in at the end.

I loved this recipe and will definitely try it again! What's your favorite go-to recipe for a weeknight or for when you're feeling tired?

Foxes in London

A few months ago, I was walking home from the pub with John and saw what looked like a dog trotting between parked cars - except furrier, with a long bushy tail and pointy ears. It was a fox. And it was acting cool as f**k. As we got closer, it glanced nonchalantly at us and was like, "Oh hai", before disappearing into someone's front yard.

I squinted. "Is that ...? Was that ...? I mean, just all casual?" I said to John. "Yup," he replied."They're getting bolder by the day."

People would be surprised to know that there are plenty of urban foxes in London. When we lived in Maida Vale, there was a huge, private communal garden that stretched nearly the length of the street which our flat backed onto. Foxes would have speed dating sessions in this garden, then decide to get down and dirty in the wee hours of the morning. I know, right? Like, GET A ROOM. You know, instead of outside my window. I'd be woken in the middle of the night with a sound similar to a high-pitched woman's screaming, before realizing that it was a pair of foxes acting out the lyrics to a Rihanna song.

Anyway, I woke up this morning and headed for the bathroom. I left the window open overnight because it's been so hot in London lately. First, I noticed the turf had been overturned. My first thought was that someone had decided to some late night yard work in our garden. Highly unlikely, but I wouldn't rule out that 0.5% chance of possibility.

Bewildered, I brushed my teeth and looked again. This time, there was a fox standing boldly and staring defiantly at me.

"You little ..." I started, just as my Dad used to say when we were little after unwittingly stepping on a rogue Lego piece in the middle of the night.

But oh no. In an act that I can only describe as "challenging", this fox decided to curl up next to the hole it dug up, as if to say, "What. WHAT?"

Look at those eyes. Just look at them.

Evgeny Kissin In Recital @ Barbican Centre

Last night, I went to the most amazing recital at the Barbican - in fact, it was so electrifying, I couldn't sleep for about an hour after I got home! I sat on my bed listening to Chopin Etudes and Mazurkas (quietly, of cousre!) until nearly 1 in the morning.

The most exciting aspect of it all? I saw Evgeny Kissin in recital - a pianist whose interpretations of Chopin Nocturnes and Etudes had a huge influence on my playing when I was in high school. I've waited a long time to see him perform and there he was last night, on stage in front of me. I couldn't believe it.

I also couldn't believe how I managed to get tickets just in the nick of time: my co-worker Caroline and I were having a conversation about our favorite pianists, when I mentioned Kissin's name (actually, I had forgotten his name, squeezed my eyes shut in concentration and said to Caroline: "Not Ashkenazy, but Russian. You know. Crazy hair."). "Ooh! That's who I'm going to see tonight at the Barbican!" she said, after we both figured out I meant Kissin. I kind of half-screamed, then bought a ticket right then and there (randomly, we ended up sitting next to each other even though she bought her tickets ages ago and I had no idea where she was sitting - how crazy is that?!).

When I booked my ticket, there were still plenty of seats left. But after we arrived, they began to rapidly fill.

The first half of the program was the Schubert sonata in D Major - not one I knew at all, but it has some really pretty chorale-type sections. At four movements long, it lasted nearly 45 minutes, but he played with such proficiency and musicality, the audience was enraptured. Of course, the magical last moment (you know, the moment when the pianist lifts his hands away from the keyboard after the very last movement and there's a stunned silence as his hands pause mid-air) was ruined by a rogue clapper - that guy who claps first because he wants EVERYONE to know that HE knows the piece is over. I nearly beaned him in the head with my program.

The second half, however, was what I really went for: Scriabin. He played a sonata (No. 2 in G-sharp minor) as well as a selection of the Etudes from Opus 8 which were incredibly technically difficult and heart-wrenching. Kissin's ability to play the softest notes, yet allow them to sound all the way back of the concert hall (though the Barbican has terrific acoustics) was just magical.

After the final Scriabin etude, the applause was nearly deafening. After three curtain calls, he returned to the stage and announced, "Bach" and proceeded to play a beautiful sicilienne. After that, the audience still demanded more, so he returned with another Scriabin etude (to which someone in the audience actually hissed, "YESSSSS" very loudly - probably accompanied by a fist pump).

But the best encore was saved for last (yes, a third one!), when he played the much loved Chopin Polonaise Op. 53 in A-flat with absolute perfection and an unbelievable amount of gusto that one would have expected for the main performance.

This time, we were on our feet before his fingers barely reached the last note. Truly spectacular and unforgettable.

Dinner @ Granger & Co., Clerkenwell

My best friend from home, Sophia, travels a lot. As an artist, published author (her memoir, published by HarperCollins, was reviewed by the NYTimes here), filmmaker, and sometimes lecturer (yes - see below), she's constantly on the go. Sometimes I see her, sometimes I don't. But whenever I do, I soak up every minute of her presence because she reminds me so much - among other things - of home.

We grew up in Small Town, USA together and she sat behind me in pre-algebra. Our school was massively underfunded and classes were outsourced to "portables" - little blue shacks with ramps that housed some desks, an overhead projector, and one very wary teacher. Every morning of my 7th grade year, in second period, the lights would switch off and I'd settle down in my seat by the window to learn about simultaneous equations, the quadratic formula, and y = mx + b, which I learned and compartmentalized in my 13-year-old brain both quickly and methodically.

The girl who sat behind me wore black Converse tennis shoes and severe, bleached bell-bottom jeans that she sometimes drew on (is that right, Safi? Or am I making this up?). Her hair, parted in the middle, nearly covered half her face. She also stared out the window and talked to herself. I ignored her because I thought she was crazy.

"How was school?" my mom asked after my first day. "Good," I said. "A really weird girl sits behind me in pre-algebra."

But somehow, we became friends. Really good friends. We gathered at the local library and talked about our dream of escaping "this place" - this shitty, hellhole of Small Town in the Puget Sound, which refused to accept our brown and yellow skin or "foreign" last names and mocked us, abusive. We listened to teachers mispronounce these names over, and over, and over, and over again. We stopped at red lights behind pick-up trucks, our headlights glaring at the confederate flag bumper stickers and "NOBAMA" plastered to the side. We shopped at Value Village - a second-hand clothing store that played classics from the 60s and 70s and rummaged through the racks on 99 cent Mondays.

We traded notebooks with photos of Damon Albarn and Liam Gallagher hastily pasted inside. I mused about typical, nonsensical teenage things like clothes and bands I liked. Sophia, the more sophisticated of the two of us, made line drawings and scrawled notes about cult films and directors she admired. Flipping through one of these old notebooks last summer, however, it was clear that a common thread ran throughout: "I want to move to London," we wrote to each other."I want to live in England."

I wonder what would have happened if someone walked into that darkened portable and showed our futures to us in a crystal ball.

Fast forward sixteen years later, and we find ourselves having dinner at the newly opened Granger & Co. in Clerkenwell - an Australian restaurant whose namesake, Bill Granger, has the celebrity chef following in Australia akin to that of Jamie Oliver's. Sophia is wearing a gorgeous, pleated black Whistles skirt and her hair is very much not in her face. She looks beautiful, as she always has and as I always try to tell her - though it comes out sounding insincere even when I mean it so much.

The restaurant is huge: filled with large windows, big mirrors, warm lights, and minimalist decor (the bathroom is one of my favorite parts - pink tiled with old-fashioned sinks and Aesop products). The menu, comprised of small plates, big plates, and a section called "bowls and grains" (think: pappardelle, veal & pork ragu or prawn, chilli and rocket linguine) is both inventive and impressive. I had a difficult time deciding between the crab, chorizo, and house kim chee fried brown rice or the tea smoked salmon, green tea noodles, samphire, daikon with soy mirin dressing.

In the end, we both choose the salmon dish and share grilled asparagus with yuzu pepper creme fraiche to start.

For dessert, I order the Dutch pancake with ice cream, coconut, and kaya curd (a childhood favorite of mine that's reminiscent of summers spent in Hong Kong eating 2-inch thick slices of white toast slathered in butter and kaya spread) which is so sickly yet delicious, it makes my stomach feel like it's about to burst.

Sophia orders the prosecco and elderflower jelly with berries and I film her shaking her plate so that the gelatin quivers - making me shake with raucous laughter and causing the table of Americans next to us to give us some serious side-eye. I don't care because when I'm with Sophia, as it is with my closest friends back home, I lose all sense of self-consciousness.

I talk a mile a minute about everyone and everything - no topic of conversation left untouched. We see each other so infrequently that I save up everything I've been meaning to or wanting to tell her: observations, gossip, personal anecdotes, complaints, internet trends, and fashion. Then I ask her question upon question: "Where are you going? What are you doing? Who will you be with?" She tells me. Her next talk will be at the Vancouver Art Gallery in Vancouver B.C., where she - alongside William Gibson and Michael Stipe (yes, him) - will be discussing the future of art. You see?

As we descend to the pink-tiled bathroom once again before leaving the restaurant, I clap my hand on her shoulder and say, "What do you think those girls in pre-algebra would say if we walked up to them now and told them that this would be their life in fifteen years or so?"

"Oh god," says Sophia. "Our acne-ridden selves? We'd be like, 'Whaaaat?'" she says, making a high-pitched, drawn-out sound while scrunching her face up in confusion.

I laugh so hard.

In Which My Dream of Owning A Liberty London Silk Scarf Is Realized

I hate to admit it, but living in a cosmopolitan city like London has made me more materialistic than ever. Subscribing to magazines like Stylist with their weekly "Style List" of things to buy and email newsletters like SheerLuxe (which is, essentially, one huge advertisement wrapped up in witty editorial and pretty website design) really don't help my habit of "coveting", as John calls it.

But he's right.

I remember ogling the sea of Longchamp Le Pliage bags on the commute in to work when I first moved to London - it seemed like the grown-up, sophisticated working woman's handbag. Plus, it folded up into a little square when not in use - how handy is that? I went through iterations of the bags (because the corners wear so quickly) and my latest one is seldom used, except for traveling, and remains at the back of my wardrobe.

Next, it was the ubiquitous Links of London silver "Sweetie" charm bracelet, worn by the same Longchamp-toting women and which I pined over for months and months, unsuccessfully saving up for it until, one day, I found a gift wrapped Links box waiting for me on the window seat of our Maida Vale flat. John had beat me to it. I wore it every day for about three years or so and now, less frequently - preferring a more delicate rose gold chain.

Then, it was the Mulberry East West Bayswater handbag, which I first saw on the arm of my incredibly stylish and put-together friend, Jodi. By some stroke of luck, my family happened to pass through Bicester Village (i.e. I forced John to drive us there en route from Oxford), the discount designer factory outlet in Oxfordshire, a few years ago. My mom and I walked into the Mulberry store and it seemed as though I was magnetically pulled toward the first one I saw. "I'll pay for half of it," said my mom, as I protested. "Stop arguing with me and take the one you want before someone else takes it, for goodness sake!" she said, exasperated. Somehow, she ended up paying for all of it by using some kind of nonsensical mathematical deduction of money she owed me (she didn't - not one pence) for expenses used during the trip and I walked away with a ribbon tied around the handles of that unmistakable Mulberry shopping bag.

It gets worse.

I'll never forget the moment I walked into the Liberty London scarf hall for the very first time. Rows and rows of silk scarves hung from floor to nearly ceiling - each a beautiful silk-screened piece of art on its own. I flipped over the price tag and gulped: £95. 'No one needs an expensive silk scarf,' I thought to myself as I touched the exquisite fabric. But I felt a rush of adrenaline in my veins as I stared at the pretty, swirling stained-glass patterns and I added the scarf to my carefully curated, mental "covet list" of things to acquire some day.


A few weeks ago, an email pinged into my inbox from Vente-Privee - a French flash sale site that now operates in the UK. "The Liberty London scarf sale is now open!" it exclaimed brightly. I stared at the pink banner for a while, willing my finger not to click on the link. But it did. And £35 later (a significant reduction from £95, might I add!) I walked away (well, as much as you can "walk away" in cyberspace) with a gorgeous, peacock-feather print Hera scarf, which I tied around my all-black outfit yesterday like so:

(Yes, that is a Kate Spade watch and a Monica Vinader necklace pictured - both which I had also coveted and were also given to me as gifts.)

My friends and I email links to each other all the time of things we "want" or "like" or "just have to have". But increasingly, my "coveting" habit has made me realize just how much I have, and that I should really focus on that for a change, rather than the "next big thing". Not only am I lucky to have a beautiful array of accessories that I once coveted but now own, but I'm also extremely lucky to have my health, my family, my husband, and my wonderful friends - touch wood.

Feeling grateful (and, okay, a little stylish) today.

A Quick, Pre-Theatre Dinner @ The Delaunay

Last night, John and I went to see RSC's production of Wolf Hall at The Aldwych Theatre. Have you read the books (i.e. Wolf Hall and the subsequent Bring Up The Bodies)? They are so good. Well, actually, I'm only a third of the way through Wolf Hall but John's read both and he hardly ever has a book in his hand (or has the time to read) so you know that any book he recommends is definitely worthwhile - and he could not put these two books down. In fact, he looked over at me with sad eyes one night at the dinner table and I asked him what was wrong. "I'm almost finished with Bring Up the Bodies," he said sadly. "I just don't want it to end." He looked so forlorn that I felt obliged to reassure him by telling him that Hilary Mantel is working on the third installment. "Oh good!" he said, rubbing his hands together. Then he fell quiet. "She needs to hurry up," he said, looking worried.

Anyway, Hilary Mantel's writing style is nothing short of amazing. I love the descriptive imagery and Cromwell's voice, which I couldn't get out of my head for weeks after I started reading it. I definitely need to pick it up again.

But last night ... you guys, I'm not gonna lie. Mid-way through the second act, I TOTALLY FELL ASLEEP. It was 10:15 pm or so and way past my bedtime. Also, while the book took you deep into the head of Thomas Cromwell and did a lot of character development throughout, the play lacked this - superficially focusing instead on the story we know all too well re: Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and portraying Cromwell is a sort of "fixer", as John put it, rather than someone who was really, really clever (which is how he comes across in the book). It was around Anne's stomping around on stage that I dozed off - only to be woken by an angry outburst from George Boleyn.

But before all of this happened, we had the loveliest pre-theatre dinner at The Delaunay on Aldwych. I've passed it several times before on the bus and always wanted to go in, but never had an excuse. It's a restaurant styled as a "grand cafe" serving delicious European food in a mahogany paneled, white tableclothed, and heavy velvet curtained environment - and yet, it's not stuffy at all, which is what I love about it. The bread (soft, but fashioned into a branch-like shape with leaves) arrived to our table promptly and warm and we had perfect seats for people watching, which is always fun.

Though we didn't have reservations, we were able to grab a seat pretty quickly and the theater was literally next door, so I didn't have to worry too much about being late, though we were sort of in a rush. I ordered two bockwurst with sauerkraut, sauteed onions, and potato salad from their extensive wiener list (yes, really) and John opted for a mouthwatering lobster roll with fries. It was so good!

I wish we had more time to spend there because I was drooling over the desserts, which I caught sight of as we were being led to our table: slices of the most exquisite cakes perched on ornate glass cake stands. I definitely want to go back for brunch, a long lunch, or even afternoon tea!

Yum.