One Night Stanzas

This post already appeared at One Night Stanzas in October 2012 and 2013. But it’s Halloween, so you need a pumpkin pie recipe… and if it’s vegan, EVEN BETTER.

Folks, Halloween is ON FRIDAY, 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!

*

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. 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!

You remember that one of the things in my 30 before 30 post was learning to cook things? Because as awesome as having a great cook for a boyfriend really is (and it really, really is), sometimes, you know, he goes out… and I end up eating a veggie burger from the back of the freezer. I’m not saying women ought to be 1950s-style domestic goddesses or anything, but I really don’t think Carrie Bradshaw’s whole “I keep sweaters in my stove” [read: and only ever eat take-out] thing is very adult. I need to be able to fend for myself, dammit!

So, I asked my aforementioned unpaid personal chef Lovely Boyfriend to teach me one of his classics: Thai tofu peanut satay and noodles. Turns out, it’s relatively straightforward… and extremely delicious! Here’s a rough idea of how to do it:

So, Lovely Boyfriend’s holy trinity of flavours is garlic, ginger and chilli — which is what this is, with some lemongrass and lime zest to make it extra Thai-ish. In the mug is some tamarind, softening in water. Apparently this is optional.

Next step: soften all those things, finely chopped or grated, in a small saucepan. (When it comes to amounts, it’s all down to your taste. This is 5 small garlic cloves, one stick of lemongrass, about a thumb-sized blob of ginger, one small chilli and the zest of one lime.) Once the tamarind has broken up in the water, seive the fluid into the saucepan too, and ditch the pulp.

Now for the veg! We did red bell pepper, carrot, broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms and white onion — we also added deep-fried tofu (which is amazing and can be bought from Asian supermarkets) and cashews for protein, ’cause we’re vegan. You could put in chicken or some other dead creature if you’re that way inclined. But I do encourage you to try the tofu!

(While the veg chopping is going on, your garlic, ginger etc will have softened and the fluid from the tamarind will have reduced. Once that happens, add one can of tinned coconut milk to your wee saucepan, along with as much smooth peanut butter as you fancy — we put in about four tablespoons full. Stir til the peanut butter softens and mixes in, then leave to simmer.)

Here’s Lovely Boyfriend showing me how to wok out. Chuck all the veggies etc into your pre-heated and greased wok. You’ll see there’s also some water boiling, ready for the noodles to start cooking! With Thai noodles, you only need to put them on as things start to come together, ’cause they cook pretty fast.

Last part: final flavours! As your veggies start to look done, splash some sesame oil (not too much!) and soy sauce into the mix, and tear a bit of coriander into your now-smooth and simmering sauce! You can also add some extra lime to the sauce if you like.

Wok action shot! Once our noodles were cooked, we added them into the wok with the veggies and chucked the sauce over everything, and wok-ed it all for a short while to mix everything into the sauce. If you want, you can just add the sauce to the veggies alone and serve over virgin noodles.

Serve in a noodle-bowl with a wedge of lime for squeezing! Are my noodle-bowls not lovely? They were handmade by Caractacus Pots of Etsyville. All her stuff is handmade, OOAK, reasonably priced and lovely! I’m keeping an eye on her yarn bowl section for my next purchase!

Needless to say, the satay was freaking delicious, and provided 6 of our 7-a-day portions of veg. (You can substitute the coconut milk for water or some other kind of unsweetened plant milk to cut down on the fat content, too, health lovers.) Next challenge: to make it without Lovely Boyfriend’s help!

*

Like shiny things? Check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. 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!

This post already appeared at One Night Stanzas in October 2012. But it’s Halloween, so you need a pumpkin pie recipe… and if it’s vegan, EVEN BETTER.

Folks, 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!

*

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, a totally unrelated ’sister site’ full of jewels, treasures and trinkets. 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 posted a few recipes for vegan desserts here now, and hopefully you’ve tried your hand at making some of them! Since becoming vegan just over a year ago, I’ve been thrilled (REALLY) to discover just how many dessert options are still open to me and my chronic sweet tooth! However, we vegans do sometimes lose out when it comes to tasty dessert accompaniments. I miss very few foodstuffs, but one of the things I do miss is, weirdly, custard. For a good while I was desperately seeking a tasty, cruelty-free custard substitute… and then I discovered cashew cream.

The revelation happened at the wonderful Zeffirelli’s, where I ordered a vegan summer pudding (OMG) and it came with lashings of what I can only describe as “freakin’ delicious cashew goo” on the side. I have since learned that cashew cream is basically the best thing ever to go with any kind of fruity dessert — especially a good old fashioned apple pie.

So if you have vegan guests coming over and you want to make sure they don’t just have to look sad while everyone else tops their tasty dessert with ice cream or custard, TRY THIS. It is so, so easy.

Ingredients

200g of cashews (pro tip: buy cashew pieces from your local healthfood store. Cheapness!)
A 200g block of creamed coconut
400ml water
1/2 cup of agave nectar
Vanilla extract

First, roughly chop your cashews. They don’t have to be evenly sized, or cut too small. Basically just make sure there are no whole cashews left.

Soak ‘em in cold water for a little while. I did mine for about two hours and that was plenty. Once they’re good n’ soaked, put them into the blender or food processor, along with the creamed coconut, which you should break into small chunks. Pour in the 400ml of warm water, and whizz for a good while.

You’ll end up with a mix that looks a bit like this. ^ (Warning: you will not get it to go totally smooth, ’cause yaknow, nuts. It’ll still be a little gritty. To reduce the grittiness, soak your cashews for longer.) At this stage, you can stir in your agave nectar and add vanilla extract to taste. That is LITERALLY IT.

NB: your ‘cream’ may seem a bit watery. If you want to eat it right away (as I did, obv), you can seive off some of the liquid (useful for vegan milkshake?). However, know this: the cream will firm up quite a bit in the fridge, so maybe prepare it a little ahead of time so it has a while to chill out.

Best served with pie, if you ask me! Enjoy!

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!

*

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.

*

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!

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 [email protected]. 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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