LCC Work: Dairy and the 21st Century Diet

Anchor & Hope

I'm just going to put it out there, I love this place!

SPECIALISING in big meaty mains and seasonal sides just like your mum used to make, The Anchor & Hope is a gastropub with clout. 

Serving large cuts of red meats for all to share, it was almost impossible to get a seat when we turned up one February evening.  But you can't blame the boisterous after work crowd apparently drawn here every night, for they distinguish The Anchor and Hope from fine dining and a real pub grub experience. 

This was ale-house dining with a difference.

A chalk board menu offered starters such as; smoked sprats; nettle soup with foie gras and warm snail and bacon salad.  We dived straight in with the mains, and when I say dive, the bar was so busy with people pleading for tables that we had to launch ourselves to the front with some force.

We ate a huge slow cooked shoulder of lamb for four with a generous side of gratin dauphenoise.  Everything was brought out in dishes straight from the oven and the serve-yourself-ethos was very much encouraged.

And boy do they know how to cook meat. 

A soon as I put the lamb into my mouth it had already melted into my tongue.  The dauphenoise weren't bad either; creamy, crispy and soft with a bit of bite in all the right places.

Located in Southwark, just minutes from the Young Vic, The Anchor & Hope with it's simple, slightly shabby interior provides a very lively dining experience.  If you're looking for a gastropub I hasten to say you won't get better. 

However if you're looking for a restaurant I'd suggest looking elsewhere.  The noise levels made it difficult to hear my friends at times and the service is limited to what you would expect from a pub, i.e. they carry your food over and offer condiments.  The rest is down to you.



I'm a bad blogger...

Apparently blogging is harder than I thought.  I have been so busy that posting on here has been rather regrettably put on the back burner.  However four essays, three features, a website and video news report later and things are about to change.  I am determined to be a good blogger.  

I first came across Gareth Pugh in a 2006 edition of French Vogue.  No-unfortunately I can't say that I make a habit out of reading foreign periodicals.  In an attempt to expand my linguistic horizons I took French A-Level and part of the course involved two hours a week of reading French news online.  While others in the class immersed themselves in, Le Monde, Le Figaro and Le Parisien I opted for Vogue Francaise and Marie Claire (which, being a French publication, I was able to justify to myself even more so than Vogue).  It turned out to be a fatal mistake.  My assessor cared about as much for fashion as I do for a cold cup of tea, so when she asked me to describe the benefits of the French education system I found the delights of a shopping trip to the Louvre-Tuilieries rolling off my tongue.  I failed.

Anyway this (above) is my favourite video of Gareth Pugh's 2009 collection, by London film maker Ruth Hogben. I love how she captures his eccentric style through film.

 On a quick aside, another part of the A-Level involved watching French nouvelle vague cinema which is surprisingly entertaining.  A particular favourite of mine was Jules et Jim, a tragic and bizarre account of a post war Bohemian lifestyle, told through the autobiography of Henri-Pierre Roche.

Even if you can't speak French, as I proved I couldn't, the film is still beautiful.

It's a bit nippy out there...

...so play to the seasons and use Benefit's 'Posie Tint' on porcelain skin to perfect this winter's feminine, frost-bitten face.

100% Wool

I FINALLY got my hands on some cable knit shorts.  Not only does this mean that I no longer have to lust after an inevitably pricey pair by Stolen Girlfriend’s Club, but  I can also happily say that my knitting machine is going back into storage until the next unobtainable woollen must have appears.  As much as the end product is always a rewarding emblem of your sweat and tears the fact that the whole process literally DOES involve sweat and tears makes it little short of unfavourable.

I remember when I 'had' to have a green bolero so like a woman possessed broke out the knitting machine at top speed only to embark on three of the most stressful days of my life. The result was repetitive strain injury and a bolero that wouldn't have looked out of place in the faulty and damaged section of Bicester Village.

However, I am in love with cable knit. 

Brought to Europe by sailors and since stylised by Scottish housewives to create the numerous different patterns that there are today it provides a textural master class for the winter wardrobe.  I would have liked the shorts a bit chunkier but they saved a weeks worth of hard graft so thank you Topshop.  The jumper is Mango and the scarf is Accessorize.  I have had so much fun the last few days layering knits and woollen garments in reaction to the cold snap.  It's definitely worth a try, I'm amazed by how many old style-lacking cardigans I have managed to resurrect!

Write a Bike

FORGET the conventional push bike, typographer Juri Zaech has fathered what is set to be the latest influx in two wheel crazes.  He calls them 'Write a Bikes'.  Defined by their elegantly inscripted frames I still haven't decided whether I want to ride it or frame it.  Unfortunately we will have to wait as 'write a bike' currently stands only as a concept that Zaech hopes to prototype by the end of the year.

Alpine Chills

IN an attempt to capture a toned down, wearable version of D&G’s après ski vibe, which features models heavily accessorised with snow boots and ski goggles I came up with this.  The jumper is Zara, of all the Christmas knits that I trawled through Zara definitely offered the best medium between style and value for money.  Although Gant were also excellent nailing the ‘knitted by my grandma’ look jumpers in almost every colour imaginable. 

The chinos were a hasty choice from H&M Formal.  As fear of mimicking a certain fast food hero (ahem Ronald McDonald) set in we abandoned their original starched creases in favour of creating our own cropped, carrot cut.  Quick, easy and effective.