Roast + Conch (Leeds)

Today Amy and I headed to the new Hotel Chocolat cafe/restaurant Roast + Conch which is part of the news (ish) Trinity Leeds shopping centre. Serving delicious drinks in a relaxed setting, this is the perfect place for a relaxing drink on a Sunday afternoon. At £3-4 for a cup of hot chocolate it's quite pricey, but totally worth it as a treat. 

We found a nice corner with nice leather booths and candles - on going to the bar to order our drinks the bar man was very helpful and made lots of suggestions of which drinks and chocolates we should go for. In the end I went for a chilli and rum hot chocolate and Amy went for a salted caramel hot chocolate. There is a great chocolate bar (£1 each) with a range of luxury chocolates available depending on how adventurous you're feeling. They showed me the chocolate making process from the conch through to the tempering, all of which goes on in sight of the bar - a nice added extra and it makes the place smell wonderful. We went for a rosemary and thyme truffle (delicious, if not a little odd!), a white chocolate and jasmine truffle (very sweet and tasty) and a rum truffle. 

All in all worth a visit for the chocolates and the atmosphere- the hot chocolate was nice but I've had better. My favourite part of the whole visit was the spoon of chocolate called a 'dipper' you can add for an extra £1 to your drink. I went for the hazelnut and chilli one - which was really nice but a bit too hot. They also had praline and salted caramel which I will definitely be going back to try! 

Saltaire Arts Trail

Ahh.... Saltaire Arts Trail, what a breath of fresh air compared to most days of my week. Once a year in May, the Saltaire Arts Trail brings together a chance to go in Salts Mill, buy nice things in the Makers' Fair and have a nosey around people's houses. This year was especially nice as the sun was beaming down and everyone seemed to be in a good mood! 

I headed down with my Mum and a family friend, Jenny, to have a look around - first stop was the Makers' Fair where I bought a lovely selection of cards (about 11 cards - but you ever have too many cards, right?!). Six of them were from Sunlight on Closed Lids, who create really nice printed cards with clean, bright designs. I've been coming to the Arts Trail for the last 3 years and always stock up on these cards; they sell them in the Mill also but you can snap them up for only £2 each on the stall (or 3 for £5). The rest of the cards were from artists dotted around the fair - I bought so many cards as I wanted the large scale prints but couldn't justify buying 11 of them! 

The Makers' Fair was in the beautiful Victoria Hall (you can see the ceiling below) and was filled with lots of handmade goodies - from necklaces and prints to hand carved wooden chopping boards and ceramics. The stalls that caught my eye most were the stalls with screenprints - such lovely designs! 

Next we moved to look in Salts Mill which is always a pleasure. Salts Mill, set up in its current guise in 1987 by Jonathan Silver, was once a textile mill opened by Sir Titus Salt in 1853. The mill today houses galleries, restaurants, shops and the most beautiful book shop I've ever seen.  The mill is a shrine to one of my favourite artists, David Hockney, and the gallery-cum-shop (the photo to the right below) lets you look at the art work AND buy art equipment at the same time. I love it in here but I always end up leaving with a new piece of equipment I'll never use (I have some charcoal tucked away that I bought 5 years ago but in that moment I just HAD to have it). 

Finally we moved on to have a look around the houses...

The houses surrounding the mill were built to house the workers of the mill and are ordered so that the foreman's houses at the end of each street were the tallest and largest houses on the street (apparently so the foremen could keep a watchful eye!). All of the streets are named after Salt's children (Mary, Helen, Amelia, Albert, Fanny and more - he had a lot of children!) and the houses are small and perfectly formed. As part of the Arts Trail about 20 of the houses open their doors to present artwork for sale - giving you a chance to look at the art work and have a good nosey around people's houses! Of course, I always want to live there before the day is through as the houses are just so nice. 

All of the houses that have artwork for sale have red bunting outside and range from the weird to the wonderful. My favourites were Clare Caulfield who creates really nice illustrations and Salts Press who I bought a lovely print from for a tenner.  

Saltaire is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is kept in beautiful condition - it's my favourite place in Yorkshire and I would recommend a visit all year round but it is especially good when the Arts Trail is on. 

Envelope Club

I signed up to the Envelope Club last month after spotting it on The Culture Vultures Blog. What a great idea - sending nice things through the post to other people and getting nice things in return! 

I was delighted to receive an envelope through the post filled with stickers, a card and a folding bird from Kate - I took a few pictures to show you the kind of thing that comes through. It cheered me up mid week and I would recommend it to anyone who likes sending letters. The bird that Kate sent through fits perfectly by my desk with my other birds. 

Here's a selection of pictures of what I sent through to Kate. I found these lovely old fashioned postcards in Scarborough for 39p of the old railway advertisements and added some clippings from my sticker collection. Also, I discovered Death By Tea at the Saltaire Arts Trail whose card you can see in the photo below - she makes some really nice things so I thought I'd pass her card on. I particularly like her digitally printed cards which are very reasonable. More on Saltaire Arts Trail later. 

Amazing Graze

Yesterday I went to Amazing Graze at the Left Bank Centre in Leeds - the sun came out and it was the perfect weather for eating ice cream (that's my excuse anyway!). Amazing Graze is a small 2 day food/art/music festival run by Manjit's Kitchen. I've visited Manjit's Kitchen many a time at events across Leeds and knew I was going to be in for a treat when I heard they were organising the event.

The atmosphere was great- helped by lots of people and lots of different food on offer. Outside the sun was shinning and the tables full of people enjoying good food, drink and music. Here's a pic of the outside area. It helps that I love Left Bank - I've been here at night time for Bettakultcha before and loved it then and it's even better in the day time! Left Bank is an old church (not sure if it's in use any more) that's used for a range of events - mainly arty ones. 

After soaking up the atmosphere and sun outside we headed inside to see what was on offer. Firstly we headed to Chinampas for a drink - the bags of drink people were carrying around caught my eye and we had to try one out. Opting for something I've never tried before paid off as the tamarind flavoured drink was really nice - the perfect combination of sweet and a little sour. Drinking from the bag was different and a great way to save on waste. 

Moving on to something a little more savoury we shared a mixed meze of tabbouleh, hommous, lamb and tzatziki with a wrap and some Persian breads from Afsaneh Kaviani. This was very tasty and I only wish I had tried the Persian candy floss on offer! 

To finish and the icing on the cake after all the nice food we'd eaten was a Plum Crumble ice-cream from Ginger's Comfort Emporium. Ginger's Comfort Emporium, normally based in Manchester, describes itself as 'an ice cream van for grown ups' and is lovely to look at. The menu is written out in coloured chalks and even the inside is decorated with colourful posters and russian dolls. The ice cream was delicious, with chunks of crumble and plum, I only wish I was hungry enough to try one of the ice cream brioche sandwiches - shown here on the Feast and Glory Blog they look delicious! 

Worth a mention too is the screen prints that were on offer from Hope House Prints and Simon on the Streets. Being a fan of screen printing I love the idea of getting people involved in making their own print for a donation - sadly we had to dash off so I didn't have time to do one - hopefully there will be a next time!

This was the first Amazing Graze and I hope there will be another one in the not so distant future as I would definitely visit again.

The Northern Art Prize at Leeds Art Gallery

Last Wednesday I helped out on the door at The Northern Art Prize at Leeds City Art Gallery – even though it was snowing and really cold there was a good turn out and a good buzz around the art on display. All the artists have produced new, never exhibited work for the exhibition which made it all the more interesting.

Rosalind Nashashibi

The four artists nominated for the competition are Margaret Harrison, Emily Speed, Rosalind 

Nashashibi and Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan (collaboration). The artists, all selected by curators and arts specialists, must all be practicing in the North and interestingly there are no boundaries around age or medium making the exhibition very varied - as Pippa Hale, the Director of the Northern Art Prize said 'a variety of mediums with artists ranging from 33 to 72'. Apparently many prizes relating to contemporary art put boundaries around age and medium, excluding those who don't fit into the specific boxes which is what makes the Northern Art Prize so nice. The winner will be announced on 23^rd May and will receive £16,500 as prize money. 

Of the four artists my favourites were Margaret and Joanne & Tim. I was lucky to receive a tour from Sarah Brown, curator of Leeds Art Gallery, before the masses of people arrived as I was helping out – unfortunately I was a little late and missed the talks on Rosalind and Emily so I may be a little biased as I learnt more about Margaret and Joanne & Tim’s pieces from the start!

'The Reiterative Grimace' - Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan

Joanne & Tim’s pieces are not only fun to look at – they also use the gallery space well to divide up the new and the old (as you can see from the pic above). As well as 'The Reiterative Grimace' above, there are some photos of past pieces showing the range of work they've done in the past - Looking in their work a bit more I particularly like 'Direct serious action is therefore necessary' - I like it so much I've added it below!

Direct serious action is therefore necessary - Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan

Common Reflections - Margaret Harrison

Margaret’s work fits in well with the kind of work I’m growing to like more and more with feminist meaning behind the work. I particularly like her piece 'Common Reflections' (above) - it's an interpretation of the fence from RAF Greenham Common that represents the site outside the base where in the 1980s women set up a peace camp to protest about nuclear weapons kept there - the mirrors are a clever twist as the women held up mirrors to the guards to hold them to account. I also liked the use of mixed media in her work. 

I still need to go back and look at Rosalind and Emily's work in more detail as I soon got swept away from the galleries when guests started to arrive. All in all a good exhibition- looking forward to seeing who the winner is in May!

Magma - Leeds International Film Festival

This evening I went to see the Magma short films festival showing at Leeds International Film Festival - what a great way to spend an evening with a glass of wine and some nice (free!) films.

Exercise was my favourite (the Film Festival website has some handy links for trailers). At only 8 minutes long this short film tells the story of a young boy who collects marbles - the story continues to show one marble for one day of his life as he grows old with his house overrun with thousands and thousands of marbles. It's beautifully filmed with lots of different colours but quite sad in the end. 

Also worth a mention is Rite, a British film selected for Magma in 2011. This film made me feel uneasy all the way through - a gritty British short film worth a watch. 

Nobody is to Blame (Nadie tiene la culpa) was funny and a good break from the more serious films of Rite, Last Train and After either side. A story of a man who wants to leave his wife and how everything turns on him in the end. 

Overall a good first film for me of Leeds International Film Festival - roll on Thursday for the next one! 

Pies and bargains

So, the new blog thing didn't go quite to plan (originally I was thinking of posting every other day!). I started a new job recently and it's been pretty tiring so haven't had much time to post.

This month I have mainly been cooking, working, doing some crafts (but not as many as I'd like!) and finding bargains at fairs:

I made a spinach and feta pie from my friend's Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals recipe book. The recipe I used (slightly tweaked) was:

Ingredients:
5 eggs
300g Feta
50g Cheddar
Dried Oregano
1 Lemon
A little butter
400g Baby Spinach
270g pack of filo pastry
Cayenne Pepper
Nutmeg
Preheat the oven to approx. 220 degrees

1. Crack 5 eggs into a mixing bowl and crumble in 300g of Feta. Grate in the 50g of Cheddar. 
2. Add a pinch of black pepper, oregano, zest of 1 lemon (although I thought lemon juice would suffice), and some olive oil.
3. Add olive oil, butter and half of the spinach to a pan and place on medium heat. Push it around the pan until wilted and add the other half. Take off the heat.
4. Take pastry out of the fridge and lay a sheet of greaseproof paper (50cm across) on the work surface. Rub olive oil over it. Arrange 3-4 filo pastry sheets in a large rectangle, overlapping at the edges so that they
almost cover the paper.
5. Rub some olive oil over them. Sprinkle a pinch of salt, pepper and cayenne pepper.
6. Repeat until you have three layers.
7. Add wilted spinach to egg mixture and grate in 1/2 nutmeg. Mix Well.
8. Put pastry in an over pan (carefully- it needed two of us to move it at this stage!). Pour in egg mixture and spread out.
9. Fold the filo over the top. I brushed a little olive oil over at this point.

10. Put the pan in the oven on the top shelf for 15-20 minutes until crispy. I pushed a knife in to see if the egg was cooked at this stage and it wasn't so it went back in for another 10 minutes.

I've also been discovering that hospice fairs are often places to find bargains - St. Gemma's in Moortown Leeds was wonderful to visit today with lots of old goods on offer. I got some fabric for 50p and some good quality thread for 20p a go. Also got some lovely things to make presents for my friend's birthday (more to follow on this later). My favourite find was a old fashioned 'Poison, Do Not Drink' jar for £3.50 - perfect for a flower or just for decoration on its own. St. Gemma's are hosting another on 24th and 25th September and 10th and 11th December - I highly recommend a visit if you like beautiful old things and a bargain.