It seems that everywhere I go in London I am met with a proliferation of cupcakes; the entire city, it appears, is gripped by cupcake mania. I was repeatedly told that the very best place to go when struck by a cupcake craving is The Hummingbird Bakery, on Portobello Road (get the red velvet).
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When I arrived in London, I gave Parisa and Tim a cookbook and some Godiva truffles, but wanted to find them something really special that they could use around the house. When we stopped into Ceramica Blue on Saturday they both seemed to really like this olive wood board (which can be used for cheeses, charcuterie, etc), so on Monday I went back and bought it for them as a thank-you for a truly amazing, unforgettable time.
In between bouts of being lost, I located Portobello Road, where I spent a lovely hour exploring antique shops. I absolutely adored the pink-and-gold chair…but feared that it just might be a little much. And a little tough to get into my suitcase.
My Life, Usually.
A little pink from Prosecco and ready to board the Tube home. This photo was taken around 7PM…I was in PJs by 8. I’m a party animal, I know.
Extra-large CDR blouse worn as dress, bought in a mall in Encino to console myself after a terrible, horrible date back in my single days.
Lardo, Prosciutto & Gorgonzola
Sheep's Milk Ricotta w/ Honeycomb
By 4PM we were absolutely ravenous (we had been searching for a restaurant for hours, but had been unable to find one that wasn’t full-to-the-brim with marketgoers), and stopped into Pizza East, an industrial-style pizza and antipasti restaurant in East London.
Vintage shop / Brick Lane
Grilled fish stand / Brick Lane
After meeting up with Tim & Parisa’s friends Verity and Ben, we stopped at Rootmaster (“London’s Original Vegan Bustaurant” - that’s the double-decker restaurant behind them) to fortify ourselves for a stroll down Brick Lane with mulled wine. They only had two portions left, but we shared some germs and made do.
Giggling like twelve-year-olds outside a naughtily-named bar near Spitalfields. Can you spot the creative Photoshop?
This bar, incidentally, was named for Richard Bentley, a prosperous 18th-century merchant who some say was the inspiration for Dickens’ Miss Havisham. Bentley was a neat, well-dressed man in his youth, but following the death of his fiancee refused to clean himself or his home/warehouse/shop, which soon became notorious for its disrepair (any letter addressed to “The Dirty Warehouse” was automatically directed to Bentley). Fortunately, the present-day bar retains the original site’s “atmosphere” only in the form of artifacts safely stowed away in a glass display case.
