One Night Stanzas

What have I been up to…? More baking.

These are triple orange vegan cupcakes. Zesty orange sponge, orange fondant filling (and some on the top), not-butter-not-cream icing, made uber-yellow by Lovely Boyfriend’s fancy-ass confectioner’s food colouring. And chocolate ganache. And fresh orange. And sugar stars. I basically decided that when it came to topping these babies, more was more. They were certainly appreciated by the gaggle of hungry board-gamers who sampled them!

Lovely Boyfriend requested these instead of a birthday cake. They’re vegan peanut butter cupcakes with not-butter-not-cream icing, chocolate ganache and a smidge of added peanut butter. We snuck them into the pub and enjoyed them over birthday pints with friends. The best way to spend an evening!

These were another request: my lovely sister wanted DINO CAKES for her birthday. These are classic double chocolate with chocolate ganache filling, not-butter-not-cream icing, and the required dinos. They look like they’re frolicking on tiny, daisy-spotted hills.

And these are espresso cupcakes with espresso icing and dark chocolate flowers. For when you’re really, really tired and you need a caffeine hit AND a sugar high! These were produced, again, for a bunch of ravenous board gamers, and saw them through a particularly epic session of Eclipse!

Aaaand as well as cupcakes, I’ve also got well into baking pies. Yet again, this is thanks to my personal GODDESS, Isa. They’re weirdly difficult to photograph, so my previous efforts (all-American cherry, and blueberry-and-maple) have gone sadly undocumented. This baby is a classic, like-your-gran-used-to-make apple pie, and I think was my best effort yet (BRAG BRAG BRAG). So good with soy whipped cream, which I have just discovered exists… and it’s so good!

Want to see what else I’m eating? I started a Flickr set for all the things that are making my belly happy. PROOF THAT BEING VEGAN IS TASTY.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

The amazing GiftED book sculptures at the Scottish Poetry Library.

I’m guessing that, since you’re reading this blog, you like books really quite a lot. Therefore, you’ve probably heard about GiftED, the series of sculptures made out of old books and gifted to various literary landmarks around Edinburgh. But just in case you haven’t, here’s the lowdown: over the past eighteen months, these beautiful, intricate book-based paper sculptures have been popping up in places like the Central Library, Filmhouse Cinema and the SPL itself. Nothing is known about the uber-talented creator of these objects, except that she’s a lady. Oh, and she’s on a valiant one-woman crusade to save libraries and keep people reading. In other words: this person is my heroine.

GiftED has been on tour around Scotland over the past few months, much to the delight of every bookish Scottish person ever. It’s just ended its run with a few days on show at the Scottish Poetry Library, and I was lucky enough to be able to go along twice to see these ten wonderful pieces on show all in the same space. Here are some photos of just a few:

After two visits and I-don’t-know-how-many circuits of the exhibition, I finally, painfully, picked a favourite — and it’s the T Rex. As with all the sculptures, every time I looked at him I saw something else: the words interlaced between his jaws, the tiny men in the page-forest trying to take him down, and — my favourite part — his wee tail sticking out of the back of the book! Magic.

I also loved the dragon-baby. I thought it was such a nice physical metaphor for a book being born! He’s super cute, too. On my first visit to GiftED I was accompanied by the ladies from the women’s community support group I’ve been working with, and they were utterly enchanted by the whole thing. A few of us spent a while speculating over whether the dragon is nestled inside a real egg or not — is it an ostrich egg, maybe? It looks so real, we just couldn’t be sure.

I love the words that are carefully highlighted inside the gramophone… “towards dark.” This sculptor definitely has a penchant for the eerie and unheimlich!

This was the one my group picked as their definite favourite. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing poetry and the ways in which it can be used to help us understand the world, work through difficult times, celebrate happy times, etc. Many of the ladies in the group had never read a poem before in their lives, and therefore were understandably nervous at the start. But they saw this sculpture and loved it. One of them said, “that’s how I feel about books now — like you can be sheltered by them.” Result!

This — the Poetree — was the first sculpture, the one that started all the (totally deserved) hype. The exhibition (and its accompanying promotional book) contained an illustrated guide to making your own poetree! My favourite instruction: “inconsistencies add charm.” A good motto for life, methinks.

“Nothing beats a nice cup of tea (or coffee) and a really great book.” She speaks the truth! If you want to see the other sculptures (and er, much better photos of the ones featured here!) you can head over to the photostream of the wonderful Chris Scott, who, quite rightly, has become their de facto official photographer!

Having an ethical, hopefully-Amazon-free Christmas

I don’t want to sound too judge-y here, but you guys… is it me, or has Christmas become a time for assholeish behaviour? This assholeishness is weird, since Christmas is supposed to be all about being selfless and nice! It seems that, at Christmastime, some people become weird Mr-Hyde-type versions of themselves as far as all things greed and consumption are concerned. Christmas is the time of year when we do things like stuff a bird into a slightly bigger bird and then stuff both those birds into a slightly-bigger-again bird, roast, and then scoff so much of the resulting Frankenbird that for the rest of the day we can’t do anything more taxing than occasionally nibble the edge of an enormous Toblerone. We spend a bazillion pounds each on a bazillion presents, usually from massive high-street and internet conglomorates who dazzle us with their sparkly TV ads (if I see that goddamn awful Brad Pitt Chanel No. 5 ad again I may smash Lovely Boyfriend’s beloved UberTV to bits). We buy presents for people we don’t even like because we feel like we have to. We send 1.5 billion Christmas cards TO LANDFILL for chrissakes. Sorry to sound like the world’s biggest Scrooge, but it’s effed up, y’all. It’s time to OCCUPY CHRISTMAS!

OK, maybe that’s a bit radical for the moment. But still — this year I have been trying to stick to the following Christmas rules:

– Buy second hand wherever possible
– Buy local wherever possible
– If you can’t buy local or second hand, at least buy from an independent business or charity org
– No sweatshop labour
– No animal cruelty
– No waste
– No Amazon purchases

I’m now pretty much finished with my Christmas shopping, and I know I’ve broken my rules a bit already. For example: I bought a box of chocolates for some of my workmates that I know has dairy in it, so animal cruelty (*cries*). I can’t go into more specifics right now without giving away what other presents I’ve bought, but I might do a re-cap post-Christmas and evaluate how I did! In the meantime, I’m doing crafty, waste-free stuff like wrapping my gifts in old brown paper bags and pre-used wrapping paper (see photo above — I’ve been saving all year from birthdays etc!) and making present tags out of last year’s Christmas cards (see photo below). I’m feeling super righteous, very crafty, and really unusually rich for this time of year as a result!

The new issue of The Edinburgh Review: #136, aka No Shouting Out.

This isn’t just making the list because I have a review in it, but, well… I have a review in it! This is my fourth contribution to The Edinburgh Review in twelve issues, and I’m really happy that they keep accepting my work! I love the publication, especially since Alan Gillis took over the role of Editor-in-Chief — he’s doing fantastic work. Look how pretty this issue is!

My review is on Kerry Hardie’s most recent collection, The Oak & The Ash & The Wild Cherry Tree. Hardie is hands-down one of my all-time favourite poets ever ever ever, so needless to say, my review is pretty glowing. You should all seriously buy this book straight away, because it is brilliant. It’s about ageing and death and nature and birds and skies and trees and memory and it’s GREAT! Get it, get it one and all.

Want to read more? Well, you’ll have to buy The Edinburgh Review, then! Except the issue’s so new, it seems to be not-available-online-yet. It will be, though — keep an eye on the site. There are a million other (better!) reasons to buy a copy too, of course — Hannah McGill has a GREAT short story in here, and the fantabulous Jen Hadfield has written a highly right-on review of William Letford’s Bevel. Hey, why not go the whole hog and get a subscription?! So worth it, trust me, and they’d love and appreciate your support for sure! If you’re in Edinburgh, you can also keep an eye out for the issue in bookstores, including the wonderful Word Power.

What are YOU loving this week?

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

So, my easy peasy vegan profiteroles have proven so popular with everyone I’ve made them for, that I decided to post another of my recipes here for your reading pleasure. Halloween is TOMORROW, and if you haven’t yet made yourself a pumpkin pie then U R DOIN IT WRONG. Happily, I am here to help you. I stitched together this recipe from bits and pieces of several other recipes I found online but didn’t like 100%. It results in a truly finger-lickin’ pie, even if I do say so myself.

Fiendish all-vegan pumpkin pie
(Serves 8-10.)

Pie crust base:
125g (half a pack) Lotus caramelised biscuits
A quarter of a cup of rapeseed or groundnut oil
A splash of sweetened soy milk

Pumpkin filling:
Half a cup of dark brown sugar
One third of a cup of icing (confectioner’s) sugar
Ground cinnamon
Ground nutmeg
Ground ginger
The zest of one lemon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
Half a cup of sweetened soy milk
1 tsp cornflour
1 tbsp rapeseed or groundnut oil
250ml soya cream
1 tin of pumpkin puree
Half a tsp vanilla extract

Pre-heat your oven to 220°C, 425°F, or gas mark 8.

OK, first — the base! Lotus caramelised biscuits are fantastic, because they’re totally vegan and extra super tasty. To make the base, the first thing you need to do is whizz up roughly 125 grams of these biscuits — or roughly half a pack — until they’re broken down into a fine, sandy powder.

Tip the biscuit crumbs into a large bowl and stir in the rapeseed or groundnut oil (personally I prefer groundnut, but if you’re potentially feeding a person with a nut allergy as I often do, it’s good to have an alternative). Add your splash of soy milk and you should end up with a shiny, sticky, but not-too-wet paste. Press this into the bottom of your pie dish to form your crust base, and stick it in the fridge while you create the filling!

In a large, clean mixing bowl, sieve and mix the brown sugar and icing sugar together, then add ground spices to taste. If you’re unsure, I’d say one teaspoon of cinnamon and one of ginger, and maybe half a teaspoon of nutmeg. But personally I like my pie spicy, so I’d up the cinnamon and nutmeg, personally! Once you’ve sorted your spices, grate in the lemon zest, and add the salt and baking powder. Mix everything thoroughly!

OK, slightly tricky bit now: this pie is vegan, so no eggs allowed. But you can mimic the consistency of eggs! Grab your sweetened soy milk, stick it in a pan and put over a low heat. As the soy milk begins to warm, add to it the teaspoon of cornflour and continue to heat, stirring constantly. As the milk heats, it should thicken up. When it gets to roughly the consistency of beaten egg, remove from heat and pour into the dry mix. Add the tablespoon of oil and mix thoroughly. Once mixed, pour and mix in the soy cream, too.

It’s finally time for the essential ingredient — pumpkin! Some recipes insist that you use actual hollowed-out pumpkin, and yes, if you’re hollowing a pumpkin anyway, it’s smart to make use of the flesh for this. But if, like me, you have three hours before your Halloween party starts and you need to get a move on, then reach for the canned stuff! I use Libby’s myself as it’s relatively easy to get hold of. Pour the can of pumpkin into the mix and add the dash of vanilla. Mix, mix, mix — once you have a thick, gloopy batter, your filling is done!

To bake, pour the pumpkin batter over your refrigerated base and place in the top half of the oven at 220°C for fifteen minutes. Once that time has passed, and without opening the oven (however tempting!), turn the temperature down to 180°C and bake for another 50-60 minutes.

Your pie should come out looking only ever-so-slightly wibbly, and golden brown right across the top. It should be allowed to refrigerate for several hours — ideally overnight — to firm up. Then you can carve up and dig in!

Happy Halloween!

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

So, I mentioned last week that I kind of out-of-the-blue invented my very own recipe for vegan profiteroles! I say ‘kind of’ because the process was actually this: I recalled a fancy vegetable bake with a cheesy choux-pastry-type topping that I used to make… then I successfully veganised it for a dinner party. That night I lay awake toying with the idea of making the now-vegan choux-ish pastry sweet somehow. Next day I tried it in a small quantity, baked a few small, vaguely-biscuit-shaped pieces as a test, and melted some odds and ends of dark chocolate I had around the place on top (because, you know, chocolate). Initially, still-warm and choco-melty, I thought they were tasty but slightly odd, so I shoved the remaining ones in the fridge. Next day, I took a bite and suddenly, I knew what they were. Vegan profiteroles! And what’s more, they’re SUPER EASY and don’t make a ton of washing up! Here’s the deal:

Easy peasy vegan profiteroles
(Makes 12 profiteroles)

4 level tablespoons of vegan margarine (I think Pure Sunflower is the most flavoursome one)

5 floz hot water

3.5 oz of self raising flour

2 oz soft dark brown sugar

1 level teaspoon of baking powder

Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract

Dairy-free chocolate for the topping

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C, 175°C for fan-assisted ovens, or gas mark 6.

Melt the vegan margarine in a large-ish saucepan. Once melted, add the water and allow the liquid to come to the boil. Once this happens, remove from the heat and leave to cool for a couple of minutes. Sieve in 2.5 ounces of the self-raising flour and stir slowly, allowing the mixture to thicken. You should end up with a thick, glossy paste that cleans the sides of the pan.

To make the mixture sweet, sieve in the 2 ounces of sugar and mix until the dough is an even colour. The mixture will become stickier, so to regain the original consistency, at this point add the last ounce of flour and stir in. At the same time, mix in the baking powder and vanilla.

Grease a shallow baking tray, or line it with greaseproof paper. Break the dough in the pan into twelve even pieces, and gently pat them into ball shapes — try not to squidge them too much! Place them on the tray, leaving space between each. Place in the top part of the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes.

The profiteroles should come out feeling crispy on the outside but still squidgy on the inside. Put them on a cooling rack and let them cool completely. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate to add as the profiterole topping. The amount is up to you — depends how chocolate-y you like your profiteroles! I used about half of one 100g bar for these babies.

A tip: I always always melt mine the way pros do before they temper chocolate. That is, put the chocolate in a bowl and suspend it over boiling water, rather than melting it in a pan or in the microwave. This results in much smoother chocolate that won’t burn and pours easily. As for choosing your chocolate, as long as it’s vegan it doesn’t really matter. My chocolate of choice always comes from The Chocolate Tree, but I’ve also used Green and Black’s and Lindt in my baking.

It will be SUPER TEMPTING to eat these little delights once they are chocolate-d up, but as I said before, they’re not at their best warm. Stick them in the fridge for two hours minimum to let them cool down and firm up. THEN you can scoff them any way you like!

A final note for non-vegans: when you veganise something, it’s never quite the same as the original (often it’s better!). Therefore, the texture of these babies is not like classic profiteroles. They are not hollow or flaky — see the photo above! BUT they do taste exactly like the real deal, which I think is the main thing. Sure — there are veganised recipes out there that involve all sorts of jiggery-pokery to try and get close to the ‘real profiterole’ texture and appearance. But personally, I’d rather have less washing up, less ingredients to buy, and more time to read books. So this recipe suits me fine. Try it yourself and see what you reckon!

Om nom nom.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

It’s been several months since I did my last TiLT, and I’ve had quite a summer! Here are just a few of the things I’ve been loving loads since I last expressed my gratitude here!

Long, summery days in my sunshine-filled living room, crystals in the window throwing tiny rainbows everywhere, drinking tea, reading books, writing poems, not having to go to work.
(Like my mug? I got it from Rust Belt Threads, perhaps my favourite Etsy vintage store after Edinburgh Vintage!)

Hydra, Greece — Lovely Boyfriend and I stayed there for a week, holed up in a tiny whitewashed-stone cottage, writing, reading, occasionally going out to swim in the sea or scratch the noses of the town donkeys. This^ was the view from our living room window!

My SUISS class of 2012 — Jill, Joanna, Linda, Dan, Daniel and Sarah, thank you so much for all your hard work and inspiration!

I MET GEORGE WATSKY, and it was amazing! Thank you a million billion to McGuire, Ryan, Jenny, George and Paul for making One Night Stanzas presents Watsky x2 such an amazing success.

A great summer for Edinburgh Vintage with tons of lovely new stuff being added to the store all the time, nearly 200 sales and some really lovely customer encounters! Thank you everyone who’s browsed, bought, clicked, liked, re-tweeted and given feedback!

Yet more delicious vegan food — since my last TiLT, Lovely Boyfriend has also gone vegan! This means even more delicious vegan meals for my very happy belly. ^These are sweet potato pancakes with maple syrup, and they were UTTERLY LUSH.

Autumn arriving — my favourite time of year. I have already started taking autumnal walks, foraging for early brambles, sitting in the blustery Meadows with my boy watching cute dogs chase leaves, drinking amazing Chocolate Tree vegan hot chocolate, and planning my Halloween antics.

What are YOU loving right now?

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

Disclaimer: I am not this Claire Askew. That Claire Askew has been a vegan and vegan activist for many years, from what I can see. I am by no means trying to hijack her bandwagon, and I do intend to buy her book. You guys should, too.

The thing I’ve been loving a whole load this week is also something you can read. I LOVE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz
This lady is the thing I am loving, and I am loving her a whole, whole lot. As most of you probably know, I recently — and rather inexplicably — became vegan, and wrote a post about it right here. Some lovely folk came to comment on said post (and on my Facebook and Twitter), to give me words of encouragement, hints and tips. All of this was much appreciated, but a special shout-out must go to Regina Green. Not only did she give me a ton of feel-good encouragement, she also pointed me in the direction of Isa Chandra Moskowitz. AND I AM SO, SO GLAD that she did.

Ms Moskowitz — who you can learn about in this kick-ass interview from the New York Times — is a tattooed punk chef who believes in culinary activism and cupcakes for all. She’s written several extremely popular vegan cookbooks including one that’s all about pies, another that’s all about cookies, and for those of you for whom those are dirty words, there’s also a low fat book. When I hit the website, The Post Punk Kitchen, I really was spoilt for choice.

However, I eventually decided on Vegan Brunch. One of my all-time favourite things in life is breakfast, and one of the things I’ve missed most about becoming vegan is breakfast pastry. I thought I’d never eat a croissant ever again, until I came across the Gopal Deli in Barcelona and discovered that actually, vegan pastries are in fact possible. But although Edinburgh has plenty of places that’ll whip you up a lovely vegan lunch or dinner, the only place I know of that’ll make you a vegan breakfast or brunch is David Bann’s. (And they only do it at weekends. And yaknow, eating there twice every week is probably not good for my wallet.) Therefore, I was very happy to find a cookbook that would enable me to provide my own vegan breakfast goodies without too much fuss.

The book arrived last week and, as you can imagine, last weekend was a massive brunch-fest as a result. On Saturday morning, Lovely Boyfriend — even though he’d been off work sick for two days, bless him — got out of bed to make me Isa’s Perfect Pancakes, a vegan take on the traditional American fluffy pancake. While he was whipping up batter and manning the frying pan, I put together some of the cookbook’s Chocolate Drizzle to go on top. Both recipes were extremely simple, required a few cheap and easy-to-get ingredients, and were ready pretty quickly. The fact that I made enough Chocolate Drizzle for about ten people was the only real issue. Tip: if there’s just two of you, halve the ingredients suggested! The result of our labours is in the photo at the top of this post. It was one lush brunch, I can tell you. (Neither of the recipes are online, but Isa does have another pancake recipe, for super-fluffy cakes that look amazing, right here.)

Next, I tried the recipe for Cinnamon Rolls. I am obsessed with anything cinnamon-filled, cinnamon-topped or cinnamon-scented, and I was beyond delighted to discover that the aforementioned Gopal also did a great line in huge swirly cinnamon buns. I never thought I’d be able to make such things myself, but of course, Isa proved me wrong. These were time-consuming, but easy to do — I am a very basics-only kind of cook, so if I can do it, anyone can — and a lot of the time was down-time, waiting for the dough to rise. The rather dark (sorry) photo above shows the rolls fresh out of the oven, before they were iced. Lovely Boyfriend and I tried one at this point and were worried it was too breadlike and not sweet enough. However, the next morning I iced them (and not heavily, either), and it made all the difference — suddenly they were sweet, sticky and perfect. You literally can’t tell the difference between these and their all-butter non-vegan cousins. The recipe for these isn’t online either, but it’s worth buying the book just for these babies! Excellent with a good cup of tea.

Finally, on Sunday morning the loveliest Lovely Boyfriend decided to tackle Isa’s standard scrambled tofu, with with a Lovely Boyfriend twist. As well as Isa’s cumin and thyme spice mix — which sounds a bit curry-esque but actually works beautifully for breakfast — he also added some broken-up mushrooms, finely chopped onion and torn spinach. The end result was one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in my life, vegan or otherwise. The recipe calls for extra-firm silken tofu — we could only find the firm stuff, so as a result the pieces broke down quite small while cooking. However, the chunky mushrooms kept the consistency from being too bitty. On top of a wholemeal bagel it was utterly lush, I tell you. There are plenty of other uses for tofu in the Post Punk Kitchen, too.

So yes — I’m in love with this cookbook, and with its author. You can guarantee that I’ll be buying more of her books in the near future, and I cannot wait til next weekend when I can try out more brunches (look out, waistline…).

If anyone loves me or ONS enough to help keep me stocked with Things I’m Reading Thursday fodder, you can check out my Amazon Wishlist!

Honourable mentions:
Sunshine. It’s still disturbingly cold outside, but at least it looks pretty // Starry Rhymes — you can finally buy it in the Read This Press etsy store! As I was listing it, I was re-reading some of my favourite poems, and oh my goodness, it’s good // Thrifting with my mad and lovely sister. Morningside has all the best finds! If you’re a fellow thrifter, check out my vintage store, Edinburgh Vintage, for some pretty bargains // feeling busy and productive, but not stressed. This is a rare feeling — long may it last! // Lazing under my duvet and plotting for the future. So much stuff, so little time! // Netflix. We just got it. Goodbye, what spare time I formerly had… // The West Wing. We’ve been trawling through every episode ever in order and we’re nearing the end of Season Six. Only one more to go! I never want it to end!

What are you loving this week?

If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

I’ve been away for a week, so I’m a bit late with this — but here’s why…

Barcelona
The gorgeous city of Barcelona is going to be at the top of my “things I like” list for a pretty long time, I reckon! I just spent a beautiful seven days there with Lovely Boyfriend and his family. I was pretty apprehensive before I went, I’ll admit — I didn’t speak a word of Spanish or Catalan before I set off and I hate being “one of those” kind of tourists; as a new vegan I didn’t know what to expect in terms of food available and was a bit worried I’d end up eating bread and apples for a whole week. However, I was very pleasantly surprised, and loved pretty much every single second of my trip. In case anyone’s heading there anytime soon, here’s a quick bite-sized list of stuff I did and stuff I’d recommend…

Firstly, my vegan-related worries were quickly squished, thanks to the huge array of veggie and vegan stuff on offer in fair Barcelona. I can personally recommend several places! I really liked Sesamo (the neighbourhood seems a bit scruffy and you, er, might want to avoid the outside loo, but otherwise…), a hip, friendly all-veggie place with plenty of weird and wonderful stuff on the menu (if you’re not a vegan you can say hello to the likes of gnocchi with beetroot and hazelnut sauce, peanut butter cheesecake and pumpkin pie with cardamon custard; there are damn fine vegan options too). Juicy Jones is right off the main drag on the Gothic side of Las Ramblas, and they have juices to die for as well as an all-vegan menu that includes finger-lickin’ seitan pintxos (skewers) and massive, epic sandwiches. Organic is a big warehouse-style restaurant as well as a fixed stall at the back of La Boqueria — pay attention: THEY HAVE THE BEST VEGGIE PAELLA YOU CAN GET IN BARCELONA. Go there. Right next to each other in the middle of a maze of streets in the Gothic quarter are Vegetalia and Gopal Vegan Deli, my two favourite eatieries from the trip. Vegetalia is great for a sit-down meal — they serve delicious vegan Sangria and their staff are extra lovely. Gopal is basically a vegan heaven on earth. Vegan croissants and breakfast pastries (the like of which I genuinely did not know was possible), vegan “chicken nuggets” and plenty of seitan for those of you who like your fake meat, vegan and non-alcoholic wine and beer, and best of all, uber tasty and very cheap menus del dia which include delicious dahl and spinach burgers and nommy cakes. Try the patatas bravas. (I also had my first experience with Maoz Falafel, though they’re a worldwide chain, in Barcelona. Make sure you’re very hungry, though.)

Did I do anything besides eat, I hear you cry? Well, a few things. My trip involved lots and lots of Gaudi. We visited the breathtaking La Pedrera, famous from the holiday snaps of everyone-who’s-ever-been-to-Barca. But for goodness’ sakes suffer the queue and the fifteen euro entrance fee and go inside. If you can, go in the evening and watch the sun go down over the roof terrace sculptures. Last entry is 7.30pm and you’ll want to leave yourself at least an hour. Also Parc Guell — we arrived around noon in the baking heat at about the same time, apparently, as half of continental Europe, so for the first hour or so I was silently re-naming the place “Parc Hell” in my head. But when siesta time came around the crowds thinned and I actually became really glad I’d gone. The gingerbread houses are cool but the other bits are probably better. Don’t expect to be able to photograph the dragon, though, unless you want to literally fight about a hundred posing tourists. (Oh, and it’s worth wandering around just for the various buskers and performers who are scattered around the place. I saw flamenco dancers, drummers, a capella singers, classical guitarists… oh, and those frickin’ guys with bird-whistles who seem to be everywhere.)
Still not sick of Gaudi, we naturally also headed to the Sagrada Familia. My advice: do a good circuit of the outside and make sure you see everything before you head in. The inside is a gorgeous work of art, but if you’re even vaguely respectful of religious spaces, expect to be extremely uncomfortable. There is some really damn bad, embarrassing and terrible human behaviour on display in this place, from people talking loudly on iPhones to children trying to climb on the altars unchecked by their guardians. It made me feel so murderous I had to leave. But the outside is awesome. I think I most enjoyed sitting in the sunshine in the park outside, looking up at its ostentatious madness. (Some of my party also went into the Casa Batllo, while I was content to just look at its craziness from the street outside. Apparently the inside was also spectacular and I really regretted not joining them… so if you want yet more Gaudi, this is another place to head.)

Other stuff? Parks — Lovely Boyfriend and I enjoyed lounging and wandering in both Parc de la Cuitadella and the Jardins d’Atlanta. The beach is pretty OK considering it’s right in the middle of a huge city and it’s easily accessible on foot and via the Metro — I’d recommend heading up to the Cuitadella station and trying that end of the beach, though, as it’s less dirty and crowded than the Barceloneta end. Just keep an eye out for black market tat-peddlars who’ll relentlessly pursue you if you sit down for any length of time — avoid eye contact unless you want to be sold some flat, warm beer, an ugly pashmina or perhaps weirdest, an on-the-spot back massage.
What else? Just plod around. The Bari Gotic (Gothic quarter) and El Raval are the two halves of the ‘old town’, cut neatly in half by Las Ramblas, which is like Barcelona’s version of the Royal Mile (we tried to spend as little time as possible actually on the street, but if you like crowds, the thrill of high pickpocket risk, lots of badly-behaved Brits on stag dos and everything geared towards gullible tourists, it’s your place). Both are great for just wandering and seeing what you can find (although NB: some bits of El Raval can get quite shady quite quickly). If you’re cash-strapped you can just spot out all the amazing street art (see pictured). Final thoughts? My lack of Spanish/Catalan was not really a problem at all (most folk seem to speak both, but the vast majority also speak English, or enough Spanglish that you can get by fine), and the residents are all chilled and friendly and generally welcome tourists if you’re the well-behaved sort. You don’t need an open-top bus tour to find your way about — get a map and avoid the queues and hefty prices by walking. Get a ten-trip Metro pass for the best value… oh, and when in the Metro, look out for the sneaky sons-of-bitches trying to sneak through the barriers by pressing themselves against your back and going through at the same time as you (apart from anything else, personal space fail. Ew). Apparently pick-pocketing is a huge problem and Barcelona’s bag thieves are extremely inventive — I heard tales of thieves knifing through bagstraps with pocket knives and other such tricks. I was fine and didn’t witness any such wickedness, but I was careful to a paranoid degree. Finally, the tap water aint so hot. Bottled water is cheap and won’t make you sick, so go with that unless you’re particularly iron stomached. NOW GO BOOK YOUR PLANE TICKET ALREADY. Barcelona is totally awesome.

Honourable mentions:
Lovely Boyfriend’s lovely family. Thanks so much to Kate, Malcolm, David and Ula for being so brilliant. // Kerry Hardie. My god, I love this woman’s poems. Her Selected from Bloodaxe kept me edified and inspired throughout my Barcelona trip. // Dorianne Laux. And ditto this woman. Her Book of Men is one of the best collections I have read for years, literally. There are not words for how much I want to be even half the poet she is. // Excitement over forthcoming gigs — come and see me read my stuff THIS WEEKEND (Sun 15th) at Young Blood, organised by Stirling University. It’s at the Junk Rooms in Stirling from 6.30pm. Or if that’s too much like short notice, I’m also reading at Trashed Organ’s BelongingFest opening night on 30th. // Booja Booja. OH WAIT HAVE I MENTIONED THIS BEFORE? // Flip flops. It may only be five degrees here in Scotland (at least ten lower than Barca — boo!) and the heating’s still on in my flat, but MY FEET ARE REBELLING, dammit. It’s officially springtime and that means GOODBYE, SOCKS!

What are you loving this week?

One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via claire@onenightstanzas.com. NB: I am physically unable to reply to non-urgent stuff unless I have a free afternoon and a cup of tea in my hand. Please be patient!

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Disclaimer: I am not this Claire Askew. That Claire Askew has been a vegan and vegan activist for many years, from what I can see. I am by no means trying to hijack her bandwagon, and I do intend to buy her book. You guys should, too.

So, I’ve been vegan for nearly three months now, but I’ve been trying not to tell people. Not because I’m ashamed, as such, but because one of the first friends I told — the artist formerly known as The Boy, in fact — reacted in a very angry, aggressive way. “Why have you gone vegan?” he demanded to know. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t have a reason! People like you just become vegan so they can tell people about it and get ethical brownie points.”

I was kind of shell-shocked by this outburst. I mean, I should have expected it — this is my ex-boyfriend, who has never really trusted me 100% since he found out that in my whole life, I have never eaten steak, spam or a kebab. But his accusation about just wanting “ethical brownie points” has floated through my head every time I’ve uttered the v-word since. Because actually, I don’t really have a reason for going vegan. I don’t want anyone’s brownie points, but I don’t have any other real motivation.

It’s been an unexpected transition. Less than a year ago, I was still a carnivore. I’ve always been extremely squeamish about meat, admittedly; I have many vegetarian relatives and was a committed veggie myself as a teenager. But then I moved in with the aforementioned Boy, to whom a meal without meat just wasn’t a meal, and who didn’t really cook. So mainly out of tiredness and convenience, I started eating what he ate, which meant meat.
I wouldn’t eat beef or lamb, and so our lasagne and chilli were always veggie. I started sneaking Quorn chicken into some things I made to see if he noticed (he often didn’t). I’d cite expense as a reason for not buying any meat in that week (a fair point) — so I wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic carnivore.

Therefore, when I broke up with the artist formerly known as The Boy (amicably, and nothing to do with steak) it was easy for the artist now known as Lovely Boyfriend (many years veggie) to swoop in and convert me. I became pescetarian pretty much as soon as we got together. For a while I clung on to my love of seafood, but then, “I just like it” began to seem like a bit of a weak argument, particularly since I only ever ate seafood when dining out in fancy restaurants (so, not often). So I reverted to veggie-ism, and didn’t miss a beat — it was very easy.

But why become vegan? I still don’t know, really. My best friend in the whole world, Martyna, is a committed vegan and animal rights activist. For a while she shared a house with the artist formerly known as The Boy and I, and she and I would chat a lot about veganism. I’d also had chance to observe her habits. More recently, I’d had chance to observe Lovely Boyfriend’s brother, Dave, also long-time vegan and animal rights activist. Lovely Boyfriend — an incredible chef — cooks vegan food for Dave whenever he’s home in Scotland, and makes light work of it. I guess all of this demystified veganism for me — many people have no experience of it at all, and just find it totally scary.

I toyed with the idea for a few days, and then I just did it. I decided to do a one-month trial, to see how it went, and to be honest I fully expected I’d be back eating cheese within about three days. But it just kept being OK… then it got to be normal. Comfy. I still don’t know why I made the change. I suspect a combination of factors, mainly to do with (of course) books. I’d started reading about ethical shopping in some books and pamphlets I’d picked up from Word Power, and as a result I was confronted with some grim facts about the lives of dairy cows. I also read Oryx and Crake and then The Year of the Flood back-to-back (if you’ve ever fancied reading either of these, this is the way they ought to be read, I’m convinced). The former includes a bit about Atwood’s imagined future society’s inroads into the world of test-tube meat (ew), and the latter focusses on a vegan sect whose members seem to be the only people who’ve noticed that the dietary apocalypse is coming. Atwood’s depictions of these vegan folk are actually pretty tongue-in-cheek, but I think they got ideas about veganism buzzing in my brain, and it seems that’s all it took.

So what have I learned that I can pass on to other hapless veggies, thinking about taking the vegan plunge?

It’s easy…
People talk about going vegan as being really, really hard. I used to talk about this, too. “Oh, I don’t think I could manage without cheese!”, “what about Dairy Milk?!”, etc. But actually, I’ve barely missed cheese at all. I’ve got used to dark chocolate and love it now. I haven’t really missed anything with the sort of passion that I initally missed bacon sandwiches when I first became veggie as a teen. For the first few weeks, I kept waiting for it to get difficult. I’d convinced myself it’d be a real fight and probably one I’d ultimately lose. I kept waiting for the fight to start… then it just didn’t.

…if you live near a really good grocery store…
However, I can see how it’d be hard if you lived in darkest Northumberland, or somewhere. Edinburgh isn’t Portland by any stretch, but it’s still pretty hip to the hippie, vegan vibe. I’m lucky enough to live a block away from the Tollcross branch of Real Foods, which has made my vegan transition incredibly smooth. I just had a totally lush, raw, vegan cheesecake from there the other day. If you have a vegan-friendly store near you, you can literally still eat anything your heart desires, in some form.

…and if you can cook.
I can’t cook. Not really. But I’m lucky enough to live with Lovely Boyfriend, who, as I mentioned, ought to be a pro chef (his reason for not being a pro chef? “If you like sex, you don’t necessarily become a prostitute, do you?” Touché). Although he’s still a cheese-munching veggie, he’s cool to cook all-vegan, or to cook dishes where any dairy or egg type stuff can be added right at the end, after a vegan portion has already been served up. I’d imagine that if you’re a hopeless cook and not in love with the world’s greatest chef (seriously, folks), you might end up turning to beans on toast a bit more often than I have to. So learn to cook, before you leap. Or yaknow, find a cute Scotsman who knows how to wield a wok.

It’s not that expensive.
Yes, bottles of vegan wine are more expensive than their non-vegan cousins, usually. You either have to seek out all manner of seaweed and odd veggies or take vitamin supplements if you want to keep your calcium, vit B12 and iron levels happy, and either option costs money. However, these costs are, I reckon, balanced out by other stuff. Because my place of work has two main lunch options — vending machines and/or a canteen that specialises in burgers and greasy breakfasts — I’ve started packing my own lunch and have saved a wee stash of cash each week that way. If you eat out, veggie options are always cheaper and a lot of restaurants — particularly pizza places — will knock a bit extra off, too, if you ask for a veggie dish with the dairy taken out. I really haven’t seen a dip in my finances at all since taking the vegan plunge — although I have only just discovered those mini cheesecakes, and they’re £3 a time…

You can still have nice things.
So, it turns out — cheese-less pizza? Way better than regular pizza (no, really). I can still order a curry, as long as it’s not one of the creamy ones (pretty icky anyway). Wagamama, one of my all-time favourite places, have several dishes I can order. My all-time most-loved food is Mexican, which I can still eat with aplomb as long as I hold the sour cream and cheese. I am still a regular at Illegal Jack’s. I’ve been amazed by the number of restaurants who have a veggie-dish-that-is-also-a-vegan-contingency, and places that don’t will usually be happy to make Something Tasty for you from scratch. I even got a from-scratch vegan meal made for me in a very old fashioned pub-grub, only-one-veggie-option type place in rural Cumbria. People are starting to hear about veganism. It’s not all celery sticks and hummus.

You have to love hummus.
That said, you do have to like hummus. If you don’t, I have no idea how you’d survive. Big chain coffee and sandwich shops are starting to do an obligatory vegan sandwich/panini option (Pret have a nice one), but it almost always contains lashings of hummus. When you go round to the houses of enlightened carnivore friends, hummus is what they’ve bought in for you, 99% of the time. Fortunately, I love the stuff — and Lovely Boyfriend’s homemade brand is the best, obv.

Some dairy substitutes are actually bloody excellent.
But you do have to be willing to try and fail. All the vegan cheeses I’ve tried so far have failed to impress, and I only tried vegan mayonnaise once before deciding ‘never, ever again.’ I’m cool with soy milk, but I know not everyone likes it and some folk would rather take their tea black and give up cornflakes than consume it. However, it is worth trying vegan versions of dairy things, even if some of them make you retch, because sometimes they’re incredible. Booja Booja vegan ice cream is bloody delicious (the maple pecan one is hands-down the best of the range). I’ve discovered that cashew cream is pretty much the best thing ever to happen to dessert. These things are also super healthy, too — often raw, often sugar free, gluten free, etc. At the risk of sounding like I’m after “brownie points”, this is kind of how food should be, really.

You have to be willing to get yelled at.
The most difficult thing about becoming vegan, for me? Other people’s responses. I’ve had eye-rolls, I’ve been laughed at, and I’ve been yelled at. I’ve had concern-trolling like crazy: “but you’ll make yourself ill!”, “it’s tantamount to an eating disorder!”, and the classic “your mother must be worried sick about you!”. I’ve also had a lot of folk — usually carnivores — smugly tell me that it’ll only be so long before I “crack”, run out and scoff a whole wedge of Edam. And people demand, really demand, to know why… before, usually, dismissing you as a poser hippie. I’ve tried really hard to understand the aggressively anti-vegan stance so many people take, and I just don’t get it. Are they frightened? Do they think veganism is some sort of cult? Are they worried I might try and convert them? (NB: I don’t do this. Martyna used to, but I’m happy to sit next to a friend who’s chowing down on a steak. Whatever.) Je ne comprends pas. But it happens. And as I tentatively start to tell people I’m vegan, it this that’s really hard to get used to.

Got any vegan tips? Good stores? Tasty treats? Vegan “coming out” stories? I WANT TO HEAR THEM! Get ye to the comments!
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One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via claire@onenightstanzas.com. NB: I am physically unable to reply to non-urgent stuff unless I have a free afternoon and a cup of tea in my hand. Please be patient!

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TiLT = I love stuff, therefore I blog.

OK, so… my promise to blog much more often through 2012 has been somewhat redacted these past few weeks, as I have been so busy my feet haven’t touched the ground. Having promised myself I’d reduce my academic stress, I’ve been up against (and, er, still am up against) some big deadlines for my PhD thesis. Having promised myself I’d have a quieter gigging year this year, I’ve been innundated with invitations to read my stuff all over the place (and you guys know how truly rubbish I am at saying “no”!). And having assumed that I’d have tonnes of free time after reducing my work hours… well, naturally I’ve just found loads of mystery Stuff to fill that time. C’est la vie. However, I finally have a few spare moments to catch up and let you know what, amongst the chaos, I have been loving lately.

Sharon Olds
OK, so my PhD supervisor doesn’t know this yet, and I’m not sure how he’s going to take it. BUT I’ve decided to veer off course a little bit with my thesis plan in order to be able to write about the poetry of Sharon Olds.
Over the past week or so I’ve been reading her newest collection, One Secret Thing, which deals with the death of her mother. Hers are the kind of poems that grab you by the throat and shake you til you see patterns… in other words, the kind of poems I love. And this collection is particularly brutal, heartfelt and moving. As always, Olds pulls absolutely no punches — every feeling is explored, every moment included. You literally live every moment of her mother’s last months, weeks, days and seconds with her. I cried in public reading this book. IT’S ONE OF THOSE.
As a result, I am defiantly putting Sharon Olds into my thesis, and have already written 4,000 joyous words (seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that’s come this easily) about her. I’ve discussed the her poetry’s fiercely autobiographical bent, but also her ability to take the most mundane moment from her life, a moment you’d think could only be interesting to her, and make it universally fascinating. I’ve talked about her love-hate relationship with the confessional mode — her great respect for Plath and Sexton and their definite influence on her own work, in spite of her determination to move off their well-trodden path. And I’ve talked about her as a “domestic” poet — writing about married love, childbirth, parenting and the nursing of her own ailing parents — how she makes poems that are most definitely about acts of love and nurturing almost violent in their honesty about how hard it can be, sometimes, to be a wife, mother, daughter, care-giver. Her poems are spectacular, in my opinion: she really is one of the greatest poetic talents America has ever produced. Seriously: for me she’s up there with Whitman.
But most of all I love the way she sees at the world, how unacademic she is about everything, about writing. Check out this audio interview, if you can — really, it’s great, and it’s short. She talks about how she uses Curious George (”oh, he’s a monkey in a children’s book!”) stickers to help her write poems and how she thinks life makes a sound kind of like a humming motorbike. Solid gold loveliness.

And her advice to aspiring poets? “Take your vitamins. Exercise. Just work to love yourself as much as you can—not more than the people around you but not so much less. Love, Sharon.” Brilliant.

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The Melrose Literary Society

I’ve been dying to write about this for weeks now, but as I say, the busy-ness of life has until now prevented me. But about three weeks ago I spent a brilliant Tuesday afternoon and evening in picturesque Melrose, a guest of the town’s venerable literary society.
As some of you may already know, I grew up in the Scottish Borders: my family moved to the tiny village of Town Yetholm in the Bowmont Valley when I was nine years old (hey look — that white one’s my old house!), and I lived there until I flew the nest and moved to Edinburgh in 2004, aged eighteen. Yetholm’s a teeny-tiny wee place which as a teenager I both loved and loathed: my friends and I were free to head off up the valley and climb trees, swim in the Bowmont or climb the nearby fells. However, buses were very infrequent, we got snowed in most winters, and there was only one shop. In spite of my freedom I was also restless, and high-tailed it to the Big City at the first chance I got.
However, there are some really sweet places in the Borders, and Melrose is probably my favourite of all the region’s towns. It has a handful of excellent bookshops which is obviously a big plus for me, and I am a massive fan of the town’s big arts and antiques market, “The Whole Lot“, where I’ve found many a lovely vintage bargain in the past and which I always make a bee-line for before I do anything else! I’m also a fan of a well-baked scone, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned here before, and would highly recommend Russells to anyone similarly inclined. Melrose also has its own tiny, indie theatre, The Wynd — which in such a small place and in this day and age is to be saluted, as well as heartily supported.

But the real props here must go to the truly excellent Melrose Literary Society, a community group dedicated to the promotion and protection of good literature, founded in 1885 and still going strong. I was talent-spotted, for want of a better expression, by the group’s Honorary President, Professor Ian Campbell, who during my undergrad degree was one of my great heroes (I took his honours module “Fiction in the Age of the Machine,” a class which was always truly enlightening as well as fun) — not least because he bakes scones for his students (and they are lovely)! Professor Campbell recommended that the group invite me to speak, and the next thing I knew I was standing in front of a room full of very friendly and attentive (and, as the question-session afterwards showed, highly knowledgable) Melrosians, giving a talk entitled “Making Poems, Writing Histories, Excavating Myths.” The talk was a quick trek through one section of my PhD research and drew heavily from the ideas laid out by Margaret Atwood in Negotiating With The Dead. The questions I got were spirited, difficult, fascinating and enlightened. I was extremely nervous beforehand but enjoyed myself immensely. In short: long live the Melrose Literary Society! Here’s to the next 125 years!

Honourable mentions:
If you ever are in Melrose, nip down the road to Donkey Heaven. Steve sponsors one of their donkeys, Daniel (here, on the right — aint he cute?!), and he loves to have his nose scratched! (although NB: he will obviously not love you quite as much as he loves Steve). // My all-female slam! It went super well — watch this space for separate post in due course // Being vegan! I went vegan about two weeks ago and have been astounded by how easy it is. Currently it’s just a trial to see how I go, but I am pretty much loving it so far. Delicious vegan stuffs I have discovered include Booja Booja ice cream (the Maple Pecan OMFG!) and the amazing vegan-friendly chocolate products at The Chocolate Tree, only a few blocks from my house! // The Banshee Labyrinth — so supportive of poetry events. They — literally — rock. // Spring being everywhere: Spring flowers, the smell of earth, sunshine, it actually being light in the mornings as I head to work — at last!

What are you loving this week?

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