Day of the Dead at Downhills Park

I don’t really go in for Halloween. This year, instead of cowering inside with the lights off, I was out at a recently refurbished local pub.

On Sunday though there was an event to celebrate the Day of the Dead, put on by Tottenham Ploughman. Tottenham Plougman is the brainchild of local resident and Queen of Markets, Cheryl Cohen  She wanted to bring together locally-produced bread, cheese and ale at community-focussed events.

The Mexican Day of the Dead theme worked really well.

I bought bread from Flourish, ale from Redemption, cheese from Wildes Cheese and chutney from the Harringay and Tottenham WI. A Ploughman’s indeed! Lunch however was a quesadilla from Filling the Gap and was delicious.

A rainy morning had made things muddy, which lent a festival feel to proceedings, along with the various bands playing throughout the afternoon.

Their next event is WinterFest on Sunday 14 December at Bruce Castle Museum.  Unfortunately I’m not able to go but it sounds like a lot of fun!

Pastures new

In my last post, I said it was time for a new project – and that was almost a full month ago!

In that time I have moved from the centre of London to where the action really is – South Tottenham.

150 years ago my area looked like this:

(image from excellent local forum Harringay Online)

Quite literally new pastures! I can assure you that things have changed now though – my new area is urban, bustling, vibrant, diverse and I’ve fallen utterly in love with it.

I’m excited to share all of my new discoveries, though I have now to share my time between blogging and several new hobbies, such as “waiting for the boiler repair man to come and fix what the other boiler repair man did wrong” and “taking inexplicable tiles off my bedroom wall” (seriously – if anyone has any idea why there might have been tiles on my bedroom wall, let me know. Best tradesman’s* guess is “they had some spare tiles and didn’t know what to do with them?”).

And oh yeah – I’ll also have to juggle it all with learning a new job.**

The second weekend I was here, having been stuck inside all day waiting for packages and bathroom men and boiler repair men and the like, I finally escaped at 8pm and went for a walk. First stop: Yasar Halim where I bought the most amazing olives and made a mental note to buy all sorts of other lovely things like fresh black eyed beans and mulberry molasses.

Then on to, Hot Nuts. Best name for a shop, right? And it’s a treasure trove. I could barely restrain myself, so I didn’t. I came away with chilli cashews, honey sesame peanuts, yoghurt covered cranberries, roast chickpeas…

And then I came to the Turkish Delight counter. I’ve never liked Turkish Delight much, being more of a savoury food person. But they all looked so pretty, like jewels sitting there. So I ended up with a selection in my bag. After trying them all (in the name of research) I can declare that they are delicious, and that pomegranate and pistachio is the best flavour.

(seriously, look at them sitting there like orphaned puppies, crying “take me home”! Yes I’m aware that the simile falls flat at the point where I stuff them into my uncaring mouth)

Over the coming weeks/months/years I hope to introduce you to more of my new home as I explore, so stay tuned.

Hot Nuts is there to satisfy all of your cravings from 8am-11pm (I KNOW), 7 days a week.

*apologies for the sexist language, but when they send a boiler repairwoman I’ll be sure to let you know.

**No, not that new job, another one – do keep up! Moving house and then having a job interview when you haven’t figured out where all your clothes are yet? Not necessarily recommended.