January 19, 2023
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A Burns Night Event in London, When Everyone is Scottish
On Burns Night, on or about January 25, everyone in London seems to pretend they are Scottish. Well, not authentically/believably Scottish so much as the faux pageantry of the movie-friendly version of being Scottish (plaid and Sean Connery accents aaaand that’s all there is to it!). The event, a haggis-focused dinner (eww!), pays tribute to Scottish poet Robert Burns, whose most famous poem is about haggis (so gross). In London, super-overpriced events abound, so everyone who thought the Scots were super dumb for wanting independence can now pretend they are totally pro-Scot and enjoy everything about their fellow countrymen, namely bagpipes, disgusting meats, whiskey, and dancing.
If you can get past the hypocritical undertones of tons of English people reveling in all things Scottish for one night thereby recognizing that Scots have their own unique culture yet still not recognizing that they are deserving of ruling themselves or being an independent nation, then the events in London can be really fun. I mean, they are still haggis-focused, but if you’re lucky you can find one that offers a vegan meal option. Lucky us, we found Burns Baby Burns, a huge, fun event held in the old (really old, dilapidated) St John’s church in Hackney that offered vegan-option tickets on the online site. (You need tickets to these events, so important.) Hundreds of people attended the mass sit-down dinner, which was followed by hilarious and enjoyable (looking) Scottish square dancing and an extremely overpriced whiskey bar. If you’re able, I recommend going to this kind of Burns Night dinner once for the experience, and again if you like spending too much money on food, not drinking, and dancing like a fool like a FOOL.
As you entered the frightening church of falling pillars, a man playing the bagpipes on the front stoop greeted you. I was very glad to see that the bagpipes were relegated to the outdoor entertainment section and weren’t going to be Rossing us all night long to celebrate good times come on. I’m all for bagpipes, especially on Burns night, but not for more than ten minutes or so. Fiddlers were playing on the stage inside – well, one fiddler, one guitarist, but I prefer to refer to all musicians wearing hats as fiddlers. The jovial music helped create the right happy, social atmosphere.
Between courses, we were treated to traditional Scottish entertainment (pictured above) of fire dancers and men reading poetry while wielding enormous knives. We were told that the Scots party in such ways nightly. The girl with the sticks of fire successfully got the fire scarily close to her hair without setting it on fire, so good on her. That was really cool, and if I talked to her I would have asked her how she keeps from burning her hair at social occasions, a feat I cannot say I have achieved 100%. The scary man was one of the guys running the entertainment, and he read the all-important Address to a Haggis, Burns’s most famous poem. I don’t think the enormous knife was necessary, as the words are scary enough. It’s pretty long, and it’s pretty gory when it gets into the making of haggis (so gross). Not vegan-friendly, this poem, except maybe the first line, which is
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!
so if you focus on deciphering this opening, you will be sufficiently distracted for the rest of the crazy ass poem and won’t have to worry about listening to rhymes about murdering animals, because you will never decipher this.
The food was decent. While omnivores started with rye bread covered with lox and some kind of dilly cream, vegetarians got that same rye bread covered with spinach salad and cubes of roast vegetables. Not the most obvious choice for a piece of toast, but whatever, greens are good, bread’s good, root vegetables are okay.
Between courses, we were treated to traditional Scottish entertainment (pictured above) of fire dancers and men reading poetry while wielding enormous knives. We were told that the Scots party in such ways nightly. The girl with the sticks of fire successfully got the fire scarily close to her hair without setting it on fire, so good on her. That was really cool, and if I talked to her I would have asked her how she keeps from burning her hair at social occasions, a feat I cannot say I have achieved 100%. The scary man was one of the guys running the entertainment, and he read the all-important Address to a Haggis, Burns’s most famous poem. I don’t think the enormous knife was necessary, as the words are scary enough. It’s pretty long, and it’s pretty gory when it gets into the making of haggis (so gross). Not vegan-friendly, this poem, except maybe the first line, which is
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!
so if you focus on deciphering this opening, you will be sufficiently distracted for the rest of the crazy ass poem and won’t have to worry about listening to rhymes about murdering animals, because you will never decipher this.
The food was decent. While omnivores started with rye bread covered with lox and some kind of dilly cream, vegetarians got that same rye bread covered with spinach salad and cubes of roast vegetables. Not the most obvious choice for a piece of toast, but whatever, greens are good, bread’s good, root vegetables are okay.
Between courses, scary knife man and a young Scottish woman (who later led the dancing) did the traditional Ode to the Laddies/Ode to the Lassies, really weird obviously gendered kind of sexist and super awkward speeches to the opposite sex. The woman at least rhymed about Robbie Burns, which was cool, and mentioned all his wimmins and all his STDs. The man’s was the usual expected kind about how pretty women are and how they are so much better looking than men and yada yada yada. I made some comments about how none of it was very LGBT-friendly but then I got distracted by being upset about haggis.
Thank goodness for vegetarian haggis. So, real haggis, if you don’t know, is like amoebas on fleas on rats. Vegetarian haggis is OODLES better, and not just because it doesn’t involve cruelty. It flat out tastes better, probably because it’s made of ingredients people are okay with talking about out loud. It’s so much better, in fact, that the one actual Scottish person we met at Burns Baby Burns, the woman sitting next to me, ordered the vegetarian haggis even though she wasn’t vegetarian! She said she just likes it more! Now that’s a huge win. She still had some of the regular haggis from the communal bowl, but her main source of food was the veg one. Yay! Summary, vegetarian haggis is great, regular haggis is a Rhimes.
Thank goodness for vegetarian haggis. So, real haggis, if you don’t know, is like amoebas on fleas on rats. Vegetarian haggis is OODLES better, and not just because it doesn’t involve cruelty. It flat out tastes better, probably because it’s made of ingredients people are okay with talking about out loud. It’s so much better, in fact, that the one actual Scottish person we met at Burns Baby Burns, the woman sitting next to me, ordered the vegetarian haggis even though she wasn’t vegetarian! She said she just likes it more! Now that’s a huge win. She still had some of the regular haggis from the communal bowl, but her main source of food was the veg one. Yay! Summary, vegetarian haggis is great, regular haggis is a Rhimes.
Non-vegans ate “neeps and tatties” – parsnips* and potatoes – from communal bowls. I imagine they were made with butter because my plate came with an enormous plain baked potato instead. People sitting next to us were like ha ha why did they give you a huge baked potahto and I said I am vegan and they said oh.
Also on the tables were communal pitchers of gravy. I mean. We’ve all seen gravy boats and that’s cool. Have you ever seen a freaking drinks pitcher used for gravy? I thought it was wine. It was hilarious. Anyway the plain baked potato was kind of awful to eat plain so I asked a server if there was vegan gravy and she said the communal gravy was! Huzzah! It was also not delicious. I hope she was right.
Something I actually know the servers were wrong about was the existence of vegan dessert. Considering I paid the same price as the omnivores, I figured that there would be a vegan dessert option. Cranachan, a traditional Scottish dessert of oats, cream, whiskey, and honey, filled display tables at the back, and I asked the server guarding the table if there was a vegan dessert option. She said no! I was so mad! On principle! We paid the same price ffs! I asked another server if there was a vegan dessert. She said there was only what was out. Boo. Turns out, she wasn’t wrong, she just had no idea what was out. The next day, the people behind Burns Baby Burns responded kindly to an angry dessert-less tweet I sent out, and assured me that one of the tables of cranachan was all vegan. That’s super wonderful, it’s just that none of the people they had working for them knew apparently. I’m really glad the problem was misinformed servers and not unfair lack of vegan dessert. I mean that doesn’t put the weird ass oats and cream mixture in my stomach 5 days ago but it’s still something!
Also on the tables were communal pitchers of gravy. I mean. We’ve all seen gravy boats and that’s cool. Have you ever seen a freaking drinks pitcher used for gravy? I thought it was wine. It was hilarious. Anyway the plain baked potato was kind of awful to eat plain so I asked a server if there was vegan gravy and she said the communal gravy was! Huzzah! It was also not delicious. I hope she was right.
Something I actually know the servers were wrong about was the existence of vegan dessert. Considering I paid the same price as the omnivores, I figured that there would be a vegan dessert option. Cranachan, a traditional Scottish dessert of oats, cream, whiskey, and honey, filled display tables at the back, and I asked the server guarding the table if there was a vegan dessert option. She said no! I was so mad! On principle! We paid the same price ffs! I asked another server if there was a vegan dessert. She said there was only what was out. Boo. Turns out, she wasn’t wrong, she just had no idea what was out. The next day, the people behind Burns Baby Burns responded kindly to an angry dessert-less tweet I sent out, and assured me that one of the tables of cranachan was all vegan. That’s super wonderful, it’s just that none of the people they had working for them knew apparently. I’m really glad the problem was misinformed servers and not unfair lack of vegan dessert. I mean that doesn’t put the weird ass oats and cream mixture in my stomach 5 days ago but it’s still something!
After dining came dancing. This is the view from the pews upstairs, where the ‘secret’ (secretly overpriced like whoa) whiskey bar and the face painting (awesome) corner were. I was certain that the top section of the run-down church was going to come crashing down but luckily it didn’t yet. The dancing looked like fun, if you enjoy making a fool of yourself in front of strangers, which normally I’m all for but for some reason I just didn’t feel up for it that night. My bad. It looked like everyone partaking had fun though, none more than this old white-haired man in a tight white tee shirt who danced with literally everybody at some point.
All in all, it was pretty fun and something I recommend doing if you are in the UK, just so you experience Burns Night at some point. The food was fine, the entertainment fun. A main problem for me was the lack of bathrooms. Outdoor portapotties are fiiine, I guess, if you get non-disgusting ones. I was there very early and I imagine I was the first person to actually check out the bathrooms. They were already disgusting, even an hour before the event was called for. That’s not cool. Another problem was that for how expensive the event was – 45 GDP – there was not one drink included. And the bar was insane expensive. Not even a soda included? Not cool. And of course we have the miscommunication between the people running things. Hopefully, these things can be sorted out for next year and it will be even better. And hooray for Robbie Burns, who actually wrote “Auld Lang Syne” but no one knows that because he also wrote about haggis.
All in all, it was pretty fun and something I recommend doing if you are in the UK, just so you experience Burns Night at some point. The food was fine, the entertainment fun. A main problem for me was the lack of bathrooms. Outdoor portapotties are fiiine, I guess, if you get non-disgusting ones. I was there very early and I imagine I was the first person to actually check out the bathrooms. They were already disgusting, even an hour before the event was called for. That’s not cool. Another problem was that for how expensive the event was – 45 GDP – there was not one drink included. And the bar was insane expensive. Not even a soda included? Not cool. And of course we have the miscommunication between the people running things. Hopefully, these things can be sorted out for next year and it will be even better. And hooray for Robbie Burns, who actually wrote “Auld Lang Syne” but no one knows that because he also wrote about haggis.
*Correction: Neeps are apparently turnips. I don’t know because a) they all taste exactly the same and b) they didn’t give me any.
Challenge Accepted: Saint Joseph’s Pants Cavazoon (Sweet Chickpea Calzone) & Happy St. Joseph’s Day!
Today’s entry for my “Challenge Accepted” make-it-vegan series comes from a very special source: mia famiglia. My mom requested that I try to recreate the sweet chickpea cookies that my great-grandmother used to make for her, called “St. Joseph’s Pants”. A calzone-type cookie (called a ‘cavazoon’ in Sicily, where this is popular), the Pants are sweet doughy folds containing vanilla and honey-laden chickpea puree. They are traditionally served on St. Joseph’s Day (celebrating the spouse of Mary), which this year is March 19. The Eye-tals in my family reminisce fondly about these cookies and I just had to figure out more about them.
Now, you may recall that bean-filled desserts have to be amazing to pass muster in my book. Those shite “you won’t believe it’s made with black beans!” brownie recipes are literally the Devil’s work. (So much so that this Devil is Capitalized.) But these are different. These cookies aren’t trying to hide their chickpeas; they are proud of them and want to show them off. In Sicily, chickpeas (‘ceci’) play a huge role in traditional celebrations, as they epitomize so perfectly the ability to take something basic and inexpensive and make magical creations with it. Chickpeas play an especially big role in the celebration of St. Joseph’s Day, in salads with fennel, in pastas with cauliflower and fava beans, and of course in these calzone-like cookies. These cookies demonstrate that when you quit trying to hide the beans in your dessert, and instead show some g-d respect, you can achieve wonderful results.
Also, if you missed Purim a few days ago, this is your lucky new holiday, because these Cavazoons are kind of like hamantaschen. Hooray for Jews & Italians, the two groups who do food best. I highly suggest making these because a) it’s one of my new favorite desserts but more so b) I feel bad for Joseph and want people to celebrate his holiday. What a crappy hand he got. I really don’t understand how all that shit went down and no one listened to him exclaiming “Um y’all are playing, right?”
SAINT JOSEPH’S PANTS
Sweet chickpea-filled mini calzone cookies are delicious baked or fried. We’ll include directions for both. I suggest doing half and half because sometimes you feel like a nut, but sometimes you don’t.
Calzone Dough
Ingredients
Directions
Chickpea filling
Directions
ASSEMBLY
For frying:
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I hope you make and enjoy these calzones, or cavazoons!! Is this not the best bean-based dessert ever? It is. And how good is March for filled-cookie holiday celebrations? Is there another filled-cookie holiday I am missing? Please let me know so I may soon remedy that.
Also, you know we are not going to talk about calzone-like things without mentioning the most adorable king of loving calzones, Mr. Ben Wyatt.
Also, you know we are not going to talk about calzone-like things without mentioning the most adorable king of loving calzones, Mr. Ben Wyatt.
And after all this talk about my cavazoons, and all the work that went into them, YOU KNOW we have to watch this one as well.
orig: https://laughfrodisiac.weebly.com/my-own-creations/challenge-accepted-saint-josephs-pants-cavazoon-sweet-chickpea-calzone-happy-st-josephs-day#comments