Photoessay | a global affair

By Lakshmi:

Can I make a confession? I’m a baby about my birthdays! For many years now, I’ve made a resolution to not work on my birthday and fill the day surrounded by the people, activities and food I love. And every year I look forward to the 24 hours dedicated to me. But this time around, I decided to extend the celebration to 192 hours. That’s right, eight days of eating my way through London with my teenaged daughter and her dear friend for company.

Now, this was going to be no random Eatathon. I had a wish list of five places I definitely wanted to hit up on my trip. Places where tables tend to get booked up months ahead of time. And here I was with my air tickets to London purchased barely two weeks away from D-day! OpenTable and the phone became my best friends as I wrangled my way to reservations at all five. With those anchors set, I scoured my way through bookmarked clippings from food and travel magazines, Time Out London, and other sources to create a list of restaurants by neighborhood that served amazing meals at not too exorbitant prices. This list was vetted by my travel companions, and the end product was a list accented with highlights and bold colors. We were ready to forage our way through London!

The first stop on this journey was a dream come true. NOPI, a restaurant by one of my favorite chefs, Yottam Ottolenghi. He is the MAN who does vegetables like no other. The flavors, the seasoning, the fresh taste, the creativity…I could just go on and on.

My excitement entering in was like a kid who had been promised a trip to a candy store for a long time and now had permission to pick out anything she wanted. Let me walk you through a visual journey of what we ate! If I had to pick one word to describe the meal? Divine. Add another word? Magic! Tell you how I felt? Like Royalty. How was the taste? It was a like a perfectly orchestrated taste festival on my tongue. And my admiration for the creator of this culinary nirvana? Undying!

image (10) — The menu – presenting us with the agonizing tradeoffs we would be subject to!!

image (5) — Bread with the richest olive oil you could dream of

image (8) — AAhhhhh! Nothing like marinated olives with a glass of wine

image (7) — Jicama, smokey jalapeno and tomato salsa – I’m crying with happiness

image (6) — Mixed seed lavash with burnt spring onion dip – too bad we were in a place where it would be inappropriate to lick our bowl clean

image (11) — Roasted butternet squash, red onion, tahini, zatar – nowhere have I tasted squash this good

image (9) — Spiced potato cakes with a topping of parsnip chips

image (14) — Peanut and caramel icecream with chocolate sauce and peanut brittle – should I eat them separately or mix them?

image (15) — Baked chocolate ganache, plum soil, creme fraiche, the perfect backdrop for a candle

Stay tuned for our next post on this 192 hour food fueled journey through London!

By Lakshmi:

On my last birthday, I wanted to hike up the other mountain that we saw every time we walked about town in Abergavenny – Skirrid Fawr. According to legend, part of the mountain is said to have been broken off at the moment of the crucifixion of Jesus. So, early on my birthday, armed with a couple of water bottles, we parked our car at the bottom of the mountain and began our climb. There were just a handful of cars in the parking lot and throughout our hike, we just saw a few hikers ascending or descending the summit.

The hike is neither easy nor difficult. But there are definitely a lot of steep inclines and steps along the way. So, be prepared to take your time and rest up along the way if you need to. We simply followed the signs to the top. The information from National Trust on How to climb Skirrid Fawr provides a good how-to as well.

And here is a photo essay of our climb!