Christmas Holidays: update

I haven't posted for nearly a month, this is because I've been busy working on my dissertation (context report) and celebrating Christmas! Here is a little summary of some of the things I've been doing and seeing.

Christmas biscuits and cards 2010I made over 100 of these little gingerbread biscuits and gave boxes of them to people as presents this year. The biscuits have little stained-glass window centres (boiled sweets) and can be hung on the tree or eaten! For cards I created a simple Christmas tree illustration and decorated it in different ways.


16th December - Unpackaged store, Amwell Street
I finally visited this store, close to Angel tube station. Everything sold there is unpackaged, organic and non-air-freighted. I chatted a bit to Catherine, who started the place two years ago. It was really interesting to discuss with her the difficult decisions she has to make about which suppliers to choose, where to source certain products and the possibility of selling meat there in the future. The place is small and quite expensive - but fantastic, and inspiring.

16th December - Free lunch, Trafalgar Square
Received an flyer for this event while I was at my local farmer's market. It sounded like a great idea! A free lunch for 5000 people - made from vegetables that haven't made the grade to be sold in supermarkets. (no idea why - they all looked perfect!) Despite the freezing cold temperatures and the first few snowflakes, I headed down to see what was going on. Also got a chance to see the 'ice bear' - climate change awareness thing - and the tree from Norway.

Got there early so didn't have to queue long for my vegetable curry lunch. By the time I left the queue was enormous (see below)! You could also queue up to get free groceries - fruit and veg. I talked to quite a few of the people helping to organise the event - but as it was such a big event they weren't able to give me very detailed information, e.g. which supermarkets and farmers were involved and for how long. Really interesting though and definitely worth going.


18th December - bread
This is the first loaf of bread I have made since the Bargehouse event - months ago, shameful! I decided to make white bread for a change, as this is supposed to be easier. I was so pleased with the results, I've included it on here! Definitely the most edible bread I've ever made.

Christmas holidays
I did take a break to enjoy Christmas - I think it has done me good. Above are a few photos of my holiday - christmas lights in St Christopher's Place (just off Oxford St), mum's christmas tree, my snowy train journey back to Devon, the christmas cake. Hope that everyone reading this had a lovely christmas too.

January 3rd - Turner Prize exhibition
Richard Wright won this year's Turner Prize - £25,000 to him! I didn't find this out until after I'd seen the exhibition. Above is the work that he showed in the Tate Britain exhibition - but not what he was nominated for. A short film at the end of the exhibition showed some of his other work. I've never heard of him until now, but I really loved the patterns in some of his other work. My favourite thing in the exhibition.