Kitchen Diaries: Tagliatelle alla Romana

According to Theo Randall's book Pasta, tagliatelle alla romana is "a true classic you'll find in every trattoria in Rome." I hope to one day verify this by visiting a large enough sample of said eateries, but until then I'll take his word for it. He is, after all, an expert pasta chef. The sauce is made with red onion, chicken liver, and canned tomatoes, so it's easy and extremely cheap. My first attempt at the dish looks like this:

There were fewer people here for dinner than expected so there is now a vast bowlful sat on my kitchen worktop, causing me no end of angst as I fret that it will congeal into a vast starchy mush! I'll survive.

If it doesn't turn into a carbohydrate brick, it's breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow...

Sample of work for I-House application

Prints: shoes

Pinhole photography

Multiple portraits: Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Mixed media type: "O great creator, grant us one more hour to perfect our lives."

Bands I may well see at Glasto 2011

U2, Mumford & Sons, Fleet Foxes (missed their much talked-about set last time they played), The Naked and Famous, I Am Kloot, Newton Faulkner, Coldplay, Elbow, The Gaslight Anthem, Noah and the Whale, Laura Marling, Queens of the Stone Age, Eels, TV on the Radio, Bombay Bicycle Club, Cold War Kids, Everything Everything.

And then because my taste is just that mainstream I'll get my much cooler mates to introduce me to all the more unusual stuff they love.

Scribble

I haven't done any drawing for months now. I used to draw all the time, making up characters and worlds to my heart's content. Usually complete rip-offs of existing ideas, but that's just the way it is.

But over time I got all self-concious and hung-up and neurotic about drawing.

A good friend gave me advice ages ago; be alone, put some music on and just draw. So tonight I followed it (at last).

I also set out with a simple purpose - to draw some rubbish. Some really awful drawings - a toddler could capture more accurate representations of objects, but accuracy wasn't the point - it worked to get me past that initial fear of ruining a perfectly good blank sheet of paper with a failed attempt at a portrait.

Inspiration, Motivation &c.

"There are two types of genius. Ordinary geniuses do great things, but they leave you room to believe that you could do the same if only you worked hard enough. Then there are magicians, and you can have no idea how they do it. Feynman was a magician." - Hans Bethe

Frank Turner, Live at Trof Cafe

I was lucky enough to catch the end of a solo set last night. It was free entry, with a collection for charity inside (£20 donation to make a request). The small crowd (of maybe 100-200) belted out every chorus, Frank going as far as to unplug his mic for a couple of songs during the encore. The PA turned out to be superfluous anyway, since he could out-sing us all.

Salford Quays

I took a trip to Imperial War Museum North in the company of two of my housemates today. The museum is excellent, intense, and portrays the stark reality of war without being overly harrowing. This was the best shot I managed to get as I snapped and walked, of some building over the water from the museum itself.

Sun and blue skies have been far more frequent in Manchester this autumn than people give the place credit for. We were going to have a look round the Lowry Gallery but decided to save it for another time.