Denim: Give It A Wash
I have waxed lyrical before about my love of denim. How it fades, moulds to your body and is generally the best thing you could wear in the history of ever. In my last post I really covered why I love that particular pair of jeans, and the effect that wearing something for a long period of time has. What I didn’t cover was how to get them to the point that they look like they could give up the ghost at any minute (my preferred look).
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Many people have many opinions on how to treat raw denim. Some, like the geezer that runs Levis (or whichever P.A writes his blog posts), say you should never wash them but instead put them in the freezer to stop them smelling, A.P.C (who make this very pair jeans) suggest running into the sea then rubbing sand all over them.. both suggestions seem a little much. I mean, at the end of the day they’re a pair of jeans, you shouldn’t have to really think about it that much should you?
That being said, you probably don’t want to just whack your expensive and much loved pair of trousers in the washing machine with your stained t-shirts and clinging-on-for-dear-life socks. Instead, I’ve hit upon a pretty easy formula that seems to mean that every six months you end up with an excellent continuation to the denim fade whilst keeping your jeans moderately intact. I say moderately because mine seem to wear fairly quickly whether washed or not. Thankfully repair stations like Son Of A Stag exist so that people don’t have to see the gaping hole in my crotch.
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Usually at this point someone will say something about Steve McQueen and how he’s an icon and how you should own a pair of Persol sunglasses. Fuck that, here’s how to wash your jeans in 8 easy steps:
1. Take your jeans, empty the pockets, unfold any cuffs and shake out the accumulated dirt (It will be there)
2. Run a bath tub of lukewarm water until it’s around a quarter full
3. Add a mild detergent and stir through the water so it’s evenly mixed throughout
4. Submerge your jeans in the water and gently rub any particularly ingrained dirt to start the cleaning process
5. Weight the jeans down to ensure they don’t end up floating out of the water, and leave for 45 minutes
6. Return and gaze disgustedly at the colour of the water, and then empty the tub
7. Using a shower/the tap thoroughly rinse your jeans until the water runs clear
8. Find a well ventilated space and hang to dry
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Trails: Highgate Woods
I’m going to avoid making Teddy Bear’s Picnic jokes here. Woods and forests are cool, not just literally. There’s something really relaxing about taking a walk under the shade of closely packed trees, feeling the cool moisture in the air and watching as the wildlife either gets out of your way, or ignores you entirely as it’s just getting on.
Highgate Wood, in the north of my England’s fine capital, is not large but it’s pretty tranquil (28 Hectares according to the internet). I mean, that’s if you veer slightly off the beaten path and manage to avoid the children on microscooters and their trailing mothers. A surviving fragment of the Great Forest of Middlesex, it’s been open to the public since 1886. It’s remarkably easy to get to and so it was on a cloudy Sunday we took the Northern line up to Highgate and with a quick step off the high street were enveloped by the wood’s leafy fronds. Bypassing the hordes and the ubiquitous English cricket match, the woods provided the perfect antidote to hangovers and general fuzzy headedness.
This drinking fountain dating from 1888 proved to be the only notable feature of the otherwise pristine habitat (beyond a lovely cafe, heaving with young families). It’s commemorative plaque shares a quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
“Drink, pilgrim, here! Here rest! and if thy heart
be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound
or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees”
As it’s so small, there’s no real route I can recommend but it’s pretty easy to get to and is definitely a green dream if that’s what you’re looking for. Instead here’s some pictures of trees which I took, and like.
Find out how to get to Highgate Wood via the always handy Google Maps
Friday Tracks: Susie (Dramas)
Elton John - oh man, where do you start? The man more legend than person at this point. From his elaborate stage costumes to his adidas tracksuits, I’m sure he occupies a larger space in this dimension than just his physical form would suggest. Obviously everyone knows his hits, the Rocket Man’s, the Your Song’s, THAT moment in Almost Famous. All strong choices no doubt. But there’s one track on his ’72 album Honky Chateau that at some points I like more than all of his big crowd pleasers.
Susie (Dramas) precedes Rocket Man and that’s probably one of the reasons that it’s fallen by the wayside. The other being that, Elton’s recorded over a million and a half songs by this point and no one can be expected to keep track of them all, let alone him.
Honky Chateau was the first album on which EJ had managed to circumvent the irritating record company and feature his full live band across all the tracks. The way they blend, you can tell stage performance has honed these guys into a finely tuned machine.
Susie, lyrically, isn’t much to shout about. It tells the story of a country woman leading her man along and by about a minute and a half in you’ve heard all the original lyrics your’e going to hear. That said, it has some great turns of phrase from Bernie Taupin including ‘I’m an old hayseed harp player, I’m the hit of the county fair’, aided in fairness by Elton's delivery.
But it’s not the lyric you’re here for, it’s the sweet grove laid down by Nigel Olsson backed up by Dee Murray who locks this down on bass hooking nicely into Elton’s own bass part in his left hand. Davey Johnstone adds a nifty backwards guitar solo. This is one to make you dance - if it doesn’t you definitely aren’t listening to it loud enough.
Style: Vans Old Skool
I made a mistake this summer. I forgot one truly vital learning from my previous 25 years on this planet. In a hot season, cladding your ankles with trainers is a surefire fast lane to misery. In a mad bid to free myself from the confines of heat and canvas I hastily picked up a new pair of kicks which I’m well and truly infatuated with - the Vans Old Skool Reissue CA.
In an always helpful stroke of blog luck, I don’t think you can actually buy these anymore as the season has now passed, but I figured I’d write about the anyway since I like them so much, and the Old Skool comes in a literal heap of other colours, materials and collaborations.
Debuting back in 1977, the Old Skool was the first ever shoe to have Vans’ now trademark side stripe - whipped up as a doodle by the company’s founder Paul Van Doren, ‘Style 36’ was also the company’s first leather skate shoe. Soon it was seen adoring the feet of none other than the likes of skate pioneers Stacy Peralta and Steve Alva. Now a bonafide classic, many people have put their print on them some in DIY fashion and some as part of of Vans’ seemingly neverending series of collaborations.
Part of their Reissue CA series (who knows what that means, the internet isn’t particularly clear) these specific foot gems have the excellent added touch of coming pre-treated with Scotchgard so the need to worry about things like British summer weather, spilt drinks (guilty) or the shelling out for expensive and ineffective sneaker protection is completely taken away.
Comfy to an extreme, the reason this shoe works is that rather than blasting it out into a one colour/material dullard, the suede and canvas nicely complement each other whilst staying nicely neutral and similar enough that to the passing eye it looks more like a trick of the light than the work of a brilliant aesthetician. Props to Vans on this one, I’m only going to take these off when the sun stops shining.
I would recommend teaming them up with a pair of faded denim, and a bright yellow t-shirt. Go grab yourself a pair of 70s history.
Monday Moods: Feeling Heavier
I've opened it up with ZZ Top, who are truly in the upper echelons of cool. If you look past the beards and the furry guitars there's a lot there, and one thing that goes without argument is Billy Gibbons' guitar playing is no laughing matter. According to him, it was BB King who told him to use light guitar strings as anything heavier was getting in the way of his playing. My Dad used to love this band, and I finally see it was with good reason. Also included is yet another great 70s cut from Aerosmith, No More No More. Opening with the absolutely excellent lyric "Blood stains the ivories on my Daddy's baby grand, ain't seen the daylight since we started this band", Steven Tyler sure knew how to pen 'em. Moving on, as usual a few fun facts about some of these songs:
- - On The Ocean, there's a bunch of background noises that can be noticed through careful ringing, including a telephone ringing. This all happened by chance as the band recorded House of the Holy in a house, rather than a regular recording studio
- - On Melbourne based Australian radio station 3RRR in the mid to late 1980s, a legal show aired named after Warren Zevon's song 'Laywers, Guns and Money'
- - Though it sounds deceivingly simple, hidden on September Gurls by Big Star is a Fender mando guitar, an early electronic guitar/mandolin hybrid.
- - Bonus fact - I once caught a live Justin Timberlake concert playing on VH1 in the mid 00's. They sampled The Ocean for a verse of one of his songs. It was pretty, pretty awful.
Eats: Lasagne Forever
“Don’t you miss cheese?” “Oh my god, I couldn’t live without cheese?” “My life is cheese”.. these are just some of the utterances you get when you tell someone you don’t eat dairy anymore. Much better are the astonished faces you see when you confirm that no, you don’t miss it. Don’t get me wrong, cheese is a delicious substance filled with many intricate flavours, however now it’s gone I’m really not altogether fussed on it’s absence. I’ve moved on to far greener pastures.
What I do miss however, is a good béchamel sauce layered with pasta and bolognese sauce in a delicious English disruption of an Italian classic. There’s something so comforting about a well cooked lasagne, at least for me. It reminds me of childhood and general happiness as it’s always been a familiar face on my Mum’s kitchen table. Now thanks to the trusty help of the ever faithful cashew nut, and the forever ever trusty Oh She Glows, magic has happened. Lasagne has returned to my life in an, only slightly less than, mystical way which i’m very happy to share with you as I think pretty much everyone should eat this. All the time. If I had the time and the energy I would eat this every other day, however as I have neither this has gone into rotation as a solid Sunday dinner and is a great replacement for my Mum’s béchamel laden cheese/meat fest.
This recipe actually came together fairly easily, once we’d worked out the flavours and textures we wanted included it was simply a case of plotting the most structurally sound order in which to layer! As a side note, in doing my research for this I finally discovered the difference between lasagna and lasagne - for anyone interested lasagna is the singular sheet and lasagne is obviously the plural.
If you’re wondering whether you really need to soak the cashew nuts, trust me, unless you want a crunchy completely unsatisfactory experience - soak them. I speak from experience. In terms of the other ingredients, lots of other things would work in this - I would consider trying leeks, chard or even aubergine (though that’s a tad overdone isn’t it?) You can also use your own tomato sauce, or store bought if you’re really not bothered, this is just a nice way to incorporate lots of fresh ingredients directly.
Give it a go, you won’t look back.
Recipe
Cheeze Sauce
Borrowed from here, minus the Basil.
- 1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water for 30 mins or overnight
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup vegetable broth or water (or more as needed)
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast (gives the cheese flavour)
- 3/4-1 tsp kosher salt (or to taste) + freshly ground black pepper
1. Drain and rinse soaked cashews. With the food processor turned on, drop in your garlic cloves and process until chopped. Add in the rest of the ingredients and process until smooth, scraping down the bowl as needed.
Lasagne
1-2 Large Sweet Potatoes
1.5 Cups Red or Dead Pasta Sauce (I like to make mine at the same time the potatoes are baking)i
1 large, or 6 baby, Courgette sliced lengthways
250g Chestnut Mushrooms, Sliced
1-2 Handfulls of Baby Spinach
1 Pack Wholewheat/Spelt Lasagna sheets
Extra Nutritional Yeast
1. Pre-heat oven to 200°c
2. With a knife pierce or cross the Sweet Potatoes and place on baking tray in oven for 40-50 minutes
3. Once potatoes are soft to the touch, remove from oven and let cool
4. In a large baking dish, place a bottom layer of courgette slices, ensuring that it is relatively even and flat, add enough red sauce to mostly cover. Place layer of 3 lasagna sheets and spread cheeze sauce on top until covered.
5. Place layer of sliced mushrooms in the same way as the courgette slices, again ensuring relatively even and flat . Repeat sauce, sheets, and cheeze.
6. Remove sweet potatoes from skin and with a cutlery knife or spoon, spread evenly across surface of the lasagne and place spinach on top. Cover entirely in lasagna sheets ensuring no gaps.
7. Use the rest of the cheeze sauce to cover the lasagne, sprinkling additional nutritional yeast on top to ensure crispness.
8. Bake in oven for 35-45 minutes depending on crispy top preference.
9. ENJOY
