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The Saatchi Gallery is on the move again!

Its new home at The Duke of York's HQ in Chelsea looks quite smart in the virtual tour, though the interior is quite hard to distinguish from London's other big contemporary art gallery. County Hall had a warm, homely feel, very much like walking through some rich guy's private property admiring his bizarre multi-million pound art collection - which, of course, is exactly what it was. To me the new setup appears too orderly and sterile, and I'm not sure whether the orthogonal, neutral backdrop of the new gallery might lessen the shock-factor of certain items in his collection... but I guess I'll see for myself when it re-opens in 2007.

Posted by Rachel at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This recipe for salad dressing was given to me by my mom, and she's French, so I can vouch for its authenticity!

For 100g of salad leaves (2-4 people)

1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard

3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar

Pinch of salt

A dash of freshly ground black pepper

Measure the above straight into a salad bowl and stir until the ingredients have combined, or mix multiples of the above quantities and funnel into a clean bottle to store in the fridge (the ingredients naturally separate so you'll need to give it a shake before use).

Feel free to play around with variants of these ingredients; balsamic vinegar works well.

I heard a good taste-test trick is to dip a leaf of your salad into the dressing and try it, rather than just stick your finger in the bowl.

Update: Mom's just emailed me to tell me that she uses red wine vinegar in her dressing - white, she only uses to descale her kettle. Sorry Mom! Personally I think either works well - but, so much for my authentic recipe..!

Posted by Rachel at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let me make one thing clear before I start: the fact I've added a 'recipes' category doesn't necessarily mean I'll be producing many spectacular or particularly original recipe ideas. I just love simple stress-free cooking and meal preparation, and if I happen to come across a food idea which gives me pleasure in both the preparation and the eating, I'd like to share it with anyone who might be interested.

This one is not a recipe so much as a combination of different foods which just seemed perfect on a day like today. Spring is definitely here, I spent several hours today and yesterday cleaning the balcony and filling it with new plants, and I faniced a lunch which could be enjoyed outside in the sunshine with minimal preparation or cleaning up.

For 2 people

1/2 seasoned rotisserie chicken served warm and torn into large chunks

1 sandwich-sized French baguette cut into portions and spread with butter

1 pot of potato salad

1 bag of herb salad tossed in home-made French dressing

I simply laid out the above in individual bowls, and provided plates and cutlery for self-service.

It took about 5 minutes to prepare including making the salad dressing, and there's now half a chicken in my fridge which will do nicely for dinner tomorrow night and possibly some sandwiches. Bargain!

Posted by Rachel at 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Almost all previous attempts to start my own website have been a complete disaster. I find myself thinking things like "This is too much hard work", "I want more design contol", and "I don't know why I'm even bothering, nobody's going to look at it anyway", followed by lots of sulking because I can't get my own way.

This time hasn't been any different.

Still, I'm determined to make a go of it this time, particularly as Iestyn has kindly paid for my domain name and web hosting.

His advice was to start with a blog and build from there. Not really what I wanted to hear; even though I haven't really decided on a specific purpose for this website, it certainly wasn't ever intended to be a blog. But already I'm warming to the idea and seeing the benefits of doing things this way. He works in the web industry and I don't; no doubt I'll get more done if I pay attention to the people who know what they're talking about instead of letting myself getting carried away with creative ideas.

This is the first time I've used professional tools to create a website: freeparking.co.uk for the domain name; 34sp.com for hosting; Movable Type; FileZilla. Admittedly they're a bit harder to grasp than Geocities was, but the benefits of using 'proper' web tools are immediately obvious and I'm already gaining confidence using them. However, despite Iestyn's nagging, I'm still choosing to write HTML by hand in Notepad instead of using Movable Type's own interface.

Posted by Rachel at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)