@JacquieOtag

28.6.15

Food | Spinach and Sweet Potato Frittata Time

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What do you do on your days off work? If you're anything like me, you'll try your best to recreate a (hipster) brunch - which for me is anything with an avocado on top.

I scanned some recipes online and whilst most asked for cubed potatoes, I sliced mine thinly with a mandolin and didn't precook them. I also added some broccoli (the flowers and the heart) to this dish, which was so bloody good. Everyone knows that anything that looks like a miniature version of anything, in this case a tree, is basically wonderful.

I used:
8x eggs
handful of spinach
1 sweet potato
1/4 a head of broccoli
1/2 an onion
2x garlic
Olive oil & butter
salt, black pepper, paprika, nutmeg to taste

Shout out to frittatas for being that as long as you have eggs this'll be great type recipes!

26.6.15

Film Roll #1 | Part One

I bought a film SLR off a mate in March (a Canon AE-1) after getting a little fazed by the 'ease' of digital photography. Taking photos is a great skill of course, one that I'm still learning as I'm yet to develop the talent of making ordinary things look like art...

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The Tate Modern.

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A view of London from the Tate.

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24.6.15

Look at This #2

Another hump day, another barrage off cool shit off the internets.


- Tommy Ton, the Don Dadda of Streetstyle photography took some pretty sickening shots at this year's Men Collections. I've pretty much stopped reading streetstyle and fashun blogs, but I'm glad I got over myself an flicked through these. So good.


'I watched my ex fall in love with someone else on Facebook'. Yeah, this is as heartbreaking as the title suggests. This is a perfect write up of a particular situation, yet on a macro level illustrates yet another dimension of the millenial experience: our infinite timelines showing us falling in love, breaking up and moving on. Real feelz.

- Do you follow Petra Collins on Instagram? If not, why? Steadily squirting pepper spray into the male gaze, she's the shit and she's pro all-women. Here's her contribution to the 'What Lies Beneath' project. 


Happy perusing!

21.6.15

'I love it here'

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On a deceptively bright summer evening (yay for the Northern Hemisphere!) I popped over the Chez's new digs in Peckham. I still can't believe how Peckham's reputation has changed so much from my teenage years; once feared as one of London's gangland strongholds, it's now full of artschool hipsters tripping on happy pills and super trendy creative types.

Meh, it'll always be the place where I used to beg mum to buy me Jamaican Patties after long, long Saturdays of food shopping, where big baskets of pungent foreign (sometimes alive) ingredients lined the streets.

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Chez did her makeup using her super professional lighting and I skulked around her bedroom taking photos of her stuff.

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After a long amble around the streets where we searched for somewhere to eat - how hard can it be to find dinner at 10:50pm!?!? - we found a nice little Dim Sum place.

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We ordered endless Dim Sum and beers and caught up on work, boys and clothes because apparently we're teenage girls parading as grown ups.

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We finally left after we got kicked out at midnight for a night of dancing and debauchery.

10.6.15

Look #2 | Biker Dreams

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I'm not going to lie, the sever delay in summer tempartures here hasn't got me too peeved because I get to wear my leather biker jacket (that one day will have to be prised from my back surgically) and my pointy ankle boots.

4.6.15

Getting 'Over It'

street images-0660 'Comparison is the thief of joy.'

I repeat this to myself at least 20 times a day, because I am indeed one of the sad neurotics who constantly holds themselves up to impossible standards of perfection.

I'm getting a lot better at not doing this, but I am rather accustomed to suffering from incredible waves of a lack of self-confidence. No, it is not modesty, don't let that bashful English Reserve fool you; it's downright low-self esteem.

This is a pretty crappy issue to deal with, much more crappy when you're in a position where you like to create and work in an industry not renowned for rewarding martyr-like wall flowers. Creativity + Fear of Expression = Nothing. As far as formulae go, this is not one to live by, yet myself and other kindred spirits make it a way of life.

Thanks to years of having modesty drummed into me (hey, societal impositions of character based on gender and race!!!) along with an awkward mish-mash of teenage experiences, I became accustomed to batting away praise, starting projects and never finishing out of fear and avoiding people and relationships (all kinds).

Being the only child of both my parents and the first grandchild on both sides, to say I suffer from severe only-childness is a sheer understatement. To make it worse, I made the ill-thought out error of being a goody two shoes high achiever from a young age, despite all my ticked boxes (single parent home, born on council estate, immigrant background, absent father - I could go on) which has created a taught thread of expectation from my extended family to me.

But a wonderful thing is happening. As I use my twenties (the final frontier of Girl You Better Suck It Up and Fix Yourself Land) to work this through, I'm lamenting all the years lost to a crippling fear of self-judgment and unfulfilled expectations. The bouts of fear are shorter, my self-berating quieter and walking with my head high doesn't feel so unfamiliar. I wear my hair extra fluffy, my clothes to my style and my gin and tonic to my taste. I draw inspiration from inspirational women, from my fabulous mother, to brave creators on the Internet to characters in novels.

As of this month, halfway through 2015 and some months before I hit a quarter of a century (gasp),  I vow to continue to tread this path, even if I stumble, as every trip tears away at the thin gauze of protection I've suffocated myself in for so long. Will I make a tit out of myself? Probably. But I'll definitely learn a thing or two, no?

Isn't that what life is about?

2.6.15

Food | Porridge is LIFE

Pret a Manger sells a wonderful gluten free, dairy free, low fat, no calorie (ha! I jest) porridge made with whole oats, quinoa, flaxseed, chia seeds, amaranth and coconut water.

This porridge is £2.65.

2.65 x 5 = 13.25. 

I cannot afford to spend £13.25 a week (£53 a month) on porridge. Instead, I make do with porridge made with water bought from the office canteen and salvaged seasoned with maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg and sprinkled with raisins.

On the weekends, I treat myself to my very own homemade version of the Pret Posh Porridge. 

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I ran out of quinoa (dear God, who am I) so I had to simply make do with oats, but I used coconut water to make mine and embellished it with a trail mix from my local Tescos and some brown sugar. Sprinkled with surely one of the best spice combos in human consciousness (the aforementioned cinnamon and nutmeg) this hits the spot every time.

I almost don't miss the Pret porridge. Almost.