First Birthday menu:

So Nottingham underground is 1 years old! And I’m celebrating with a feast this Saterday out in the sticks in Gunthorpe ,although it’s a bit of a treck its well worth it as we have our artist in resident for the night Rob White (of Left Lion fame) doing amazing illustrations , Miss Jessica Hayes-Gill modelling her fine kitchen linen  and me producing a wonderous meze of delights that include: scrumptious home baked pitta and village bread with chilly feta , tzatziki and tahini dips, meditaranian meat balls with red pepper sauce, Pasteli sesame (feta baked in a sesame crust), Spanakopita (spinach and feta pies),Fasolia (greek butterbeans cooked in a rich tomato sauce), Pligouri (chestnut bulgur wheat), grilled med veg, Greek fruit halva and Christopsomo (Greek Christmas bread), coffee and tea. We still have a few places left, come and stuff your faces!

First Birthday

Guerrilla Gardening.

When I first set up this blog I had wanted it to be about cooking, creating and growing stuff but as the Underground Restaurant has taken off it became more about cooking and creating than growing. I loved going out to my allotment, however recently I have been a little lax. But a lady in Cyprus has really inspired me to do a bit of guerrilla gardening.

Guerrilla gardening is all the rage in London and it’s usually done on abandoned or neglected public land; to be honest it’s a bit like squatting but by gardening on waist land.

As you can see from the pictures she has taken on a mammoth expanse of waist land around the children’s Play Park converting it from dangerous waist land to an oasis full of beautiful reclaimed plants and fruit trees.

                This is what the land would have looked like before the guerrilla make over

After:

 

This section is beautifully landscaped cactus cops with interweaving path ways for visitors to explore. I’m sure most locals will not be as excited as I was by the amazing flowers and shapes of the cactus (a little like I’m totally underwhelmed by the beauty of bind weed). I also love the way the she has reused massive boulders originally on the sight and tires to contain the cactus so people can interact with the plans and landscape.

 

The company who built this estate have to by law install a play area for the kids. This seems like a great concept but…. You can see the company that built this new estate 5 or 6 years ago really could not be fussed to do a good job! Sad really.

 

An immense herb garden

 

Fruit section

I hope you like these pictures. keep your eye out for my next pop up which will be held on the 3rd of Dec it is a birthday pop up (one year of Nottingham Underground) I will be celabrating with a Greek Meze inspired celebration.

Ok ok I’m sorry

Ok ok I’m sorry I’ve been away for quiet some time! What with going on me jollies and doing the last pop up I’ve been sadly very lax with the old blog! Sorry folks!

So any way although Cyprus is not quite the European capital of culture it did get me a little creatively excited (this may be due to the copious amounts of booze the olds plied me with!!!).

What I love about Cypress in October is the abundance of wonderful fresh out the field veg and just amazing fruit growing every where. My particular fave is the pomegranate.

Pomegranates bring back childhood memories of being sat by the fire eating the seeds with a pin (yes a pin! my mums way of keeping me and the brother quiet! It worked well) so in adult hood I still have a fondness for the little blighters!

You can imagine my joy to see hundreds literally hundreds of the buggers going to waist! So I decided to go scrumping with my mum! And I have to say it was well worth it I have never taste any thing quite as lush and sweet as a scrumped pomegranate!