Love, Leluu

To Dancing In Jaguar Shoes, To Family & To Eating Out

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:17:00 +0000

After spending a good few months writing a cook book, I felt reluctant to blog. All my words were used up in the book and I stood in the dry words desert facing untitled documents on my laptop with the thirsty cursor line tapping away in vain hope that it could fill a page, a sentence, a line, a word…

I died a death when I saw Brandi Carlile at The Islington Assembly Hall. She sang so beautifully, her country songs of love, loss and stories of people gone in the morrow broke my heart further. She touches a fractured nerve in me but somehow I love the pain of her words, sorrow, wisdom and tune. I wept shamelessly as I sat next to the only vacant seat in the house, as if I had found a Jesus in her and she knew everything I had ever felt. And that was when I was reborn again, a new skin, a new firmer, guarded heart.

Life started again with Richard Vines, (as it does), who is my liberal, generous and charming dinner companion. We went to Ravinder Bhogal's supper club at South Place with the ever smiley, kind and loveable Francesco Mazzei, owner and head chef of L'Amina. He has the most beautiful hands and soothing yet infectious giggles. It was as if the dead winter was forgotten as they pumped the life back into me and things just kept shinning despite our weather.

PD James

I hoovered around the legendary PD James, aged 92, at Greene & Heaton's (my literary agency) 50th Anniversary party and was completely spellbounded by the superior and grand aura she has as she sat there with her cane and smiled at all the young people standing around her. She inspired a string of imaginations. I saw her for weeks to come as a young woman, perhaps with strawberry blonde hair typing away on a heavy desk with a typewriter on one day and scribbling with forceful excitement on another with a wholesome wrinkled notepad. If I am lucky enough to live into my nineties, I would still hope to attend lots of parties and shout into someone's ears about how young people just don't get it!

The Clove Club

But then I was thrown right back into reality, into Shoreditch (with the hipsters and young people whom I am so jealous of because they are fresh out of art school and they don't get it yet). We ventured to The Clove Club, a new restaurant by one of the Young Turks, Issac McHale. I went with Rocket & Squash (read his well informed review here). I loved it there, its 5 courses of whatever they are going to give you, you eat it. Its good!

Viajante bar with exquisites

aged beef at The Corner Room

My clan of loyal and loving friends is where its at. What better than a family get-together to swap stories, exchange anecdotes and share raucous cackle at The Scolt Head over roasted seabass and duck breasts. I love the more civilised nights too with a smaller group of friends at Vinoteca drinking prosecco on tap while lining the belly with their great tapas selection and trying all the different wines and never wanting to go home.

Like I didn't ever want to go home when we were at The Bootleg Banquet for my friend Adele's birthday and all my friends from Central St Martins where there. We ate so well, the lamb racks were incredible! And the party poured onto Shoreditch High Street where 15 years previous, we were the masters of the bars and knights of the party houses before everyone flooded there. We stood, stopped and still where-shall-we-go? We had become parents, purchased houses, became successful, got jaded and flew in the breeze. Our eyes had seen more than it had ever done but we still laughed as loud and as wide as we used to, if not even more so. We still 'cussed' each other, bigged each other up, beated each other over and then laughed and laughed and laughed and danced outrageously in Jaguar Shoes.

To family, cheers Nima who flew back from LA. To family, we all say. To family, I say, as a sister, a motherly friend, as I feel the happiest that I could ever be in the company of brothers who have such big hearts, who love their wives, girlfriends and children; who pave their own successes and failures and yet among each other's company are still the young gifted wide eyed boys who met at aged 18.

Gizzie Erskine at her book launch Skinny Weeks & Weekend Feasts

Tori Haschka at her book launch A Suitcase & A Spatula

In a more refined manner, I have been dinning well and had beautiful ceviche at The Corner Room; One Leicester Street served a memorable razor clam dish; Social Eating House serves a great ravioli and octopus carpaccio; had a huge orgasmic foie gras at Angelus; can never get enough of the scallops with apple at Duck & Waffle and the ridiculous feeling of being happy when on the 40th floor of The Heron Tower; everything at Elliots in Borough Market is amazing; the most delicious smooth hound and white sprouting broccoli with a hint of anchovy at The Quality Chop House; octopus at Boqueria Tapas; pizzettes and everything at Spuntino; the most beautiful fish and chips at The Ivy Club; I had some buffalo mozzarella with Aldo Zilli at Fratelli La Bufala; as per standard, excellent dim sum at Leongs Legends; a very good scotch egg at Brigade - they work with The Beyond Food Foundation, and offer people who have been at risk of or have experienced homelessness the opportunity to take part in an apprenticeship program.

Social Eating House - Octopus

Duck & Waffle

Foie Gras - Angelus

Nice rooms at The Dean St Town House Hotel

Scallops at The Ivy Club

However, the best meal I have had in a long time though came from the beautiful garden of Sophie Dening as James Lowe (Young Turks) served up a BBQ using the finest, in season, freshest of ingredients. This is just a different calibre I say to myself as I devour. His steaks were incomparable to many of the steaks I had ever had, even his salad dressings tasted like magic. This is the succulent life, this is how its all supposed to be done. It was just totally amazing!

James Lowe

So thats why I've been M.I.A and not really blogging. I've been eating, enjoying every bite of this delicious life and trying to cure my heart of ills and singing along with Brandi Carlile, for the sorrow will always be deep inside.

Thanks to my friend, Rosie Birkett for taking me to some of the places! She beautiful!

Food Styling With Uyen Luu - On The Good Food Channel

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:39:00 +0000

Create beautiful photographs of the food that you cook at home with just a few simple steps.

If you enjoy taking photos of a kitchen creation, it can be easily incorporated into the ritual of cooking itself. I usually take my daily food pictures with my iphone. Just one snap and off I go and eat it all up!

Read more here on The Good Food Channel

Bavette, Courgette & Pancetta

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:02:00 +0000

I really miss the spring and summer time in Liguria, Italy, where I spent my youthful twenty something days torched by the sun and then soothed by the Mediterranean waters. Those were some of the best days of my life!

Italian is my second most favourite cuisine (after Vietnamese). In Vietnam, my cousins crave and crave Italian food and there is a big market for it with many restaurants trying to recreate carbonara or bolognese. I always think of them, when dishing up and enjoying a plate on the sofa, in pure solitude enjoying all the simplicity with the great balance of flavours.

Bavette, Courgette & Pancetta

Serves 2
Prep & Cooking time 15 mins

Ingredients
1/3 packet of bavette, linguine or spaghetti
1 small onion, diced
1/2 bird seye chilli, seeded or de seeded, or dried chilli flakes
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 courgette, grated or julienned
100g pancetta, thinly sliced or cubed
1 splash white wine or cider
juice of half lemon
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of sugar
1 knob butter or a dash of extra virgin olive oil
1 small handful of parsley, coarsely chopped
black pepper for seasoning
parmesan for seasoning

Method
Heat a frying pan and add a dash of olive oil.
Bring pot of water to the boil and cook the bavette according to packet instructions.(should be about 8 mins)

Add onion to sweat in the frying pan with the chilli and garlic. Then add pancetta, splash of white wine, pinch of salt and sugar and stir well. Add courgettes, cooking for about a minute (until soft) and take off heat.

Once the pasta is cooked and drained, mix the courgette and pancetta with it, adding a knob of butter or extra virgin olive oil, juice of the lemon, parsley and a good grinding of black pepper. Mix well and serve with parmesan.

Aubergine Hotness

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:04:00 +0000

After visiting, Fuchsia Dunlop's Ba Shan in Soho, I've gone even madder and fallen in love (even more than ever) with aubergines these past few weeks and have been putting this together for a fast and delicious meal.

Sweet Soy Aubergine With Chill & Red Onion & Chives

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 aubergine, halved, sliced lengthways 1 cm thick pieces

1 small onion or fennel, sliced into rings

Sauce

5 tblsp soy sauce

3 tblsp sugar

1 tblsp sriracha

1 birds-eye chilli, sliced, with or without seeds

1 tsp dried chilli flakes

1 tblsp cider or white wine vinegar

Garnish

10g mint or coriander, dill, Thai basil, chives, garlic chives, fennel flower

Method

Mix together the sauce mixture in a small bowl and set aside.

Slice the aubergine and steam in a steamer for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a frying pan with a dash of oil and brown onion rings or fennel for about 3 - 5 minutes or until slightly brown around the edges.

Then add the steamed aubergines to the same frying pan to brown off for a few minutes and pour over the soy sauce mixture. Cook for a minute or two and serve with your choice of garnish.

This is a great dish on its own, or with steamed rice or vermicelli. It is also great with peanuts or cashew sprinkled on top.

Come To Pappa, You Chicken Heart, You...

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 12:14:00 +0000

pappardelle with chicken hearts, teriyaki, sage and buttered peas

Ingredients

Serves 1

prep & cooking time: About 15 - 20 minutes

120g pappardelle

130g chicken hearts, butterflied

1 shallot, sliced

3 tbls teriyaki sauce

1 pinch sugar

1 dash of white wine

4 tbls peas
1 pinch of salt

2 knobs butter

4 sage leaves
black pepper to season

Method

Butterfly the chicken hearts and marinate in teriyaki sauce.

Bring a pan of water to the boil for the pappardelle. Heat a frying pan and sweat the shallots for a couple of minutes (or until the pot of water comes to the boil).

Add the pasta to cook (should be about 8 - 10 minutes) then add butter and sage to the frying pan and sautee the hearts with the marinade on medium heat. Add a pinch of sugar and a dash of white wine.(for about 7 mins).

In a separate frying pan, add a knob of butter and gently fry the peas to cook with a pinch of salt (for about 2 mins).

Once the pasta is cooked, drain then add to the frying pan and mix well with hearts then place on a serving plate and then add the buttered peas.

Season with black pepper and an option of parmesan.

Photography, Book Shoot With Clare Winfield

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:20:00 +0000

The greatest gift I ever received was a Canon AE-1 SLR camera from the 70s. My uncle gave it to me when my mother, brother and I left Vietnam in 1983 along with photographs he took of us and all our family together so that we wouldn't forget them.

I remember looking through the photographs every day as a child because I missed my family from Vietnam so much. I remember diving into them and smelling the cinnamon from my grandmother's bun bo Hue scented skin to the tabaco stench on my grandfather's shirt. I heard the laughter from my aunts and felt the fur of my kittens. Photographs were all I had of them.

I used to hide in the darkroom when I was thirteen. At first, I had no idea how to develop pictures nor use the camera properly. What did the numbers mean around the lens and body? I asked my art teacher but she didn't know either so I went to the library and I began reading the most important book in my life by David Bailey on what it all meant.

That was when and where I found my place in the world. As a teenager, I didn't think I ever took very good photographs. Not good enough to be works of art nor did I have the capacity to "see" properly. All I knew was that I loved it and that was all that mattered.

I came home stinking of too much stop bath solution or my shirt would turn green or orange from the developing tank and my hands swarm in the fix solution to the point where skin would fall off the sides of my finger nails. I didn't care. I loved being in the dark and I loved seeing the image peer through, as if coming alive. There was truly nothing more satisfying than finding the perfect filter for your print and seeing the silver unfold on beautiful Ilford photographic paper.

I never took photography further. I never felt that I was ever good enough to see like my photographer heros and ventured into film making because I loved stories.

Nowadays, my beloved Canon AE-1 faces me every morning and I look neglectedly into its eyes like some old abandoned lover that I never take into my hands and I haven't seen through its viewfinder in years. It taught me everything, that beautiful old dignified camera. Today, I take pictures with my iphone and instagram it or if I am taking a serious picture, my Nikon DSLR has become an easier, faster and eager wing man. Every day I am sad for my loss of celluloid.

The studio. Props by Jo Harris.

my studio

When I got a publishing deal for my cook book, I intended to do the photography for it but like when I was a teenager, I now have no technical ability in digital photography to make the picture the way I want and nor do I have the experience in still-life and food photography (other than everyday blog photos). I acted like a diva when told that I had to have a photographer and didn't like that idea at all. But I succumbed and chose a photographer. I chose someone with the least commercial clients listed on her website and probably the youngest but one I thought lit all her pictures more perfectly. I am old school after all. Its just me, my camera and the daylight usually and I wanted to work with someone with the same artistic idea. I would be the food stylist.

In Clare Winfield, not only did I find my eye's soul mate but a concise, determined and direct partner. She was someone who soon knew exactly what I was thinking because she was thinking it herself and where I was coming from because she's been there too. When I laid the food down, she felt the mood and atmosphere of the recipe itself. She was someone who was also out to play and be a little daring to make something as beautiful as it can be but also modern and poetic. It was as if we were cut from the same piece of cloth. I totally love her!

Photography for the book took 10 days in total over 4 weeks. I am lucky enough to have a publisher who maintains a picture for each recipe. Phew - as I never look at the ones that don't have pictures. So we did 50 recipes and over 20 chapter openings and extras. In the days when I entered the studio until the moment I left, I had the best time of my life working on the book. The best! I left everything at the door or in my car - my troubles in love, in life and down the park. The work was hard and intensive but I had my wonderful mother helping me cook and Rosie Birkett who assisted with prepping, shopping, tea making, opinion giving and general great support and laughter. I could go and do this every day for a very long time with my team and live and really happy life. Once again, I found my place in the world.

mackerel ceviche

tried using miniature models but they were too small

fin and flounder supplied the best looking fish

I couldn't resist- who doesn't dream of being massaged on a bed of salty chips

sardines in coconut water

the plate was really wrong, we tried to make it right but it was still wrong

one of Rosie's jobs was to hold up props

Thank you Clare Winfield, Rosie Birkett, Megan Smith (Ryland Peters & Small), Jo Harris (prop stylist) and my beloved mum. We can't wait to show the pictures. The book will be available to buy in October 2013.

Please note that the photographs in this post are a documentary of our photo-shoot and not actual photos of the book.

Summer Thing

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:03:00 +0000

It was the last of summer but the sun clung onto us as if we were talking about a revolution. We drank white wine spritzers under the shade of a pomegranate tree and talked about the nonsensical things that seem to make sense when you're with someone whom you can easily call your honey.

When it got too hot we dipped our feet into the golden turquoise pool and swirled it around making ripples and baked in the sunshine. Then he laid his head on my bare sun kissed lap for the first time and I sat in quiet sweet content listening to the stillness of the afternoon somewhere deep in the heart of Majorca where trees bore greenish yellow lemons and lilac rosemary bushes hummed of crickets and bees.

I photographed that moment in my mind, to never forget the moments of falling in to someone. The moments where we were going to be strong and tall like pine trees standing under the stars in the woods; we'd sing and life would be evergreen.

We ate fish, grilled on a barbecue of salvaged tree branches and charcoal; spaghetti vongole and octopus potato salad with herbs, fruits and nuts we would forage from the land in our shorts, flip flopped feet, smiley sweaty faces and scrappy knees.

But the storm came in the night while we slept and dreamed like dogs running in the fields; and wiped it all away in one pour. I knew I would end up in one of your zeitgeist blog posts he said. I said, that wasn't you, I was talking about someone else. He smiled, and, he left.

My friends Anja, Beni & godson Leif

Me & Leif

Friends & Recipe Testing For Book

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:57:00 +0000

Crispy pork belly with vermicelli

Last Autumn, I received a publishing deal with Ryland Peters & Small to produce a Vietnamese recipe cook book. I was really happy. Even more so than I had imagine being. I have been writing since I was seven years old, moving my mother and her friends to tears. They were mainly letters to my father, every day I would look to the sky and see aeroplanes, recites my mother, but it has been two months and you have not returned…

I couldn't believe that I had actually gotten a book deal because sometimes you think things are just impossible especially when these things have been cooked up in dreams from childhood. I had always had a big love for beautiful smelling books and I wanted to have one myself! I got that feeling people talked about, when an author is published for the first time. That awesome awesome feeling. I shook so hard with joy. I celebrated with my agent. I rode my bicycle very drunk with the biggest fattest smile on my face in the rain!

Crispy chicken wings with sweet chilli fish sauce

My dream had come true and it had been staring me in the face for the past few months. I went to Vietnam to do more research and to take photographs. We have shot and produced a BLAD (book layout and design) for the Book Fair in April. The book will contain 50 recipes written and tested, 60 styled (by me) recipe photographs by Clare Winfield; 40 travel photographs by me.

I have been cooking over 50 dishes in the last couple of months, maybe three times then asking a friend to follow my recipe to see if it works. They have been amazing in helping me adjust the flavour as well as instructions.

Udon noodle soup with dill fish cakes

It has been very interesting to see how people follow recipes. Some follow every detail and some find it very difficult to even when given the exact recipe someone else had accomplished with ease. Some people can't believe how little cooking time is required with Vietnamese cuisine and cook further or do not understand that everything is in the prep.

It is so easy for people to confuse teaspoons (tsp) with tablespoons (tbs); a squeeze of lime depends on how juicy the lime is, a pinch of salt depends on how your pinch is; a splash of wine depends on what you regard as a splash and so on.

Therefore, I have been faced with different scenarios. The same recipe I have created can be produced in almost every way possible depending on whose cooking, their mood, how many distractions, how seriously they take the task, how well they know about oriental cooking, how fast or slow they are, how competent they are in the kitchen, how precise, if they bother to measure with scales and measuring jugs..

sea bass congee

What I have noticed is that most people never taste when cooking when following a recipe (only afterwards when its done) and that there is this a blind trust in the author's recipe and what will be will be with the fate of the dish. Which is why it is so important for me to test the dishes several times with different friends.

I am lucky to have so many good friends who are offering their time and dedication to my cause, to my book. I've had some fabulous evenings as everything gets eaten in the end over long conversations and laughter.

I have noticed that tasty food always makes people so happy that they give me so much back in friendship, love and respect. Sometimes, a group of my friends will gather from all over London to help me out and then to even comfort me on rainy days. Then I find out that in fact, they didn't really come for the food but to just be there for me. I thank everyone whose helped me with all my heart.

I am finishing up recipe writing. Next will be some prose and then 3 weeks of photography - my favourite bit.

The book will be out in September 2013.

Ca phe creme caramel

NB: These are not photos of the book, but tested recipes.

The Thief, The Murderer & Christmas In A Day

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:45:00 +0000

Film Still: A Vietnamese Christmas

I was opting over four chocolate eclairs or two custard tarts and my waist line at my local supermarket when I sensed the body language of a thief. He was a very tall skinny man, dressed in skinny jeans, a black puffy jacket and a black cap. He picked up five or six packets of smoked salmon, the entire selection of it ever so swiftly but not quickly. He was being smooth, he was trying to blend in but he had his eyes covering his surroundings as he moved to the stationary isle where there was a blind spot for the staff and the other customers. Except for me. I had continued to linger toward him in my green duffle coat with the hood covering my face and my basket in arm; also, trying not to be seen, by him. I, too, was trying to act normal as I spied with the sides of my eyes and the lucidity of my ears.

He reached to the top shelf when I stood beside him and he pretended to look at brown envelopes and a white piggy bank. I felt the awkwardness and a sense of danger. I will turn a blind eye now, I decided. I had a feeling of fear in the face of someone doing something wrong. I will let him steal, I said to myself and then debated: do I care? Should I care? Its a big supermarket monster, should I risk a scene; have the guy after me in the future or be violent towards me over a supermarket chain? No. Its not like its an independent shop like the ones I used to have whereupon I learned all the tricks of the thieving trade, (where I have no problems raising an alarm).

I heard him undo and redo his zip. Phew, I can turn around and continue to shop as the shelf I was stood at was clear of any baked goods. The smoked salmon was out of sight and he was still making out as if he were interested in envelopes and a piggy bank. I had let him steal the smoked salmon. He knew I knew and it was my power to release him, to let him go. I turned my back, took another blind eye and he dashed as quickly as he could out of the shop. I felt just like a thief.

I remained still and moved slowly as if to style out of something I did wrong. As if I had committed the act myself and walked slowly towards the staff at the check out, looking at powdered soup on the way, waited my turn in queue and informed the staff, feeling the fact that I am just the same as him by letting him get away with it.

I often face the fear of catching someone in a criminal act in my dreams. Often, I witness murders by strangers killing other strangers. It is painful, bloody and terrifying. I do not know either parties and throughout the hours of the night the drama of me being seen by the murderer and trying to escape from the murderer torments me as I toss and turn, cry and scream, sometimes waking in a terror of panic and agitation for I had been perpetually running and hiding for what seemed like a very long time.

The fore coming day is greeted with anxiety and apprehension. Often, I catch myself being in a terrible mood with someone (who may have been involved in the dream) as if they had done wrong by me as the dream was so vivid and lifelike.

But what with the thief and the murderer? Is the thief the murderer? The murderer is always a thief and everything below the food chain of badness. The thief didn't do something so bad as kill someone but he made me face the same dilemmas as the murderer in my dreams. To face something I don't like to face. He did something that wasn't right and I had a choice to stop him or run away. To fight or to flee.

Why do I dream of murders so very frequently? What are my dreams trying to tell me? I figured it out. (For myself).

What if in dreams, my subconscious is saying something to me, especially if it is recurring. Who is being murdered and who is murdering? I don't think there are actual murderers out there who are after me. Not even murderers, but anyone! No one is after me. I came to realise that there are many people in my subconscious, like the child me, the mother me, the father me, the friend me, the enemy me, the creative me and so on and one of them is murdering the other and the me that I recognise is really afraid or she turns a blind eye.

I often have extreme self doubt despite me appearing sometimes like I don't. I know I cook a really good roast chicken with all the trimmings and I will blatantly put my hands up and say its the best so people will think I am confident. But cooking a perfect roast isn't like having any self worth in creativity or within myself and I can often murder days and weeks and months and years of my life not doing something I love because of the fear of something like failure or the anxiety of perhaps being caught out. That I am actually not that good at anything.

The perfect example of this was clarified to me when I put two and two together. Today.

Film Still: Christmas Dinner

Last month, one thing lead to another and I was invited to participate in Kevin Macdonald (Director, Last King Of Scotland, One Day In September, Touching The Void) & Ridley Scott's (Thelma & Louise, Alien, Blade Runner) project, Christmas In A Day. They had previously created the brilliant and utterly beautiful film, Life In A Day where people from all over the world had sent in footage of their life on a certain day and the film makers edited thousand of hours of film together to create a view of the world in a day in 90 minutes or so. It was moving, thrilling and beautiful in aesthetics and emotions.

Christmas In A Day is going to be the same thing, except, Christmas in Britain in a day. Anyone can submit footage, you, me, the next door neighbour, the accountant and so forth and it may or may not be included.

I was honoured to be invited to submit something and that somehow, my wish to make films again to the universe was heard by my spiritual Santa Claus. Here's your chance he said and I took the chance and I filmed intensively over 5 days over Christmas. I had planned my themes: my Christmas alone, my family's and dogs' Christmas, and the most important thing, my mother's Christmas.

I rarely spend time with my mother over Christmas as she spends it with a group of her friends. They get together on special occasions for over thirty years. It is because we don't have our families in this country, they said, but we have created a new family, us, all twelve of now women in their sixties.

For the first time in about 20 years, I went to see what my mother gets up to at Christmas with her friends, with a camera and an eye for Kevin Macdonald & Ridley Scott.

It was incredible. One of the most emotionally intensive days I have had in a long time. They cooked together, ate together, sang and danced together and they told me stories of war and escape from Communist Vietnam. They cried in front of camera as I cried behind the camera, trying to pull focus at the same time when a friend of my mother told me the story of our first Christmas in London. It is a young memory I have which I thought everyone had forgotten but they remembered it and we felt like we had survived a hell of a lot back then. We were very poor. We had nothing and it was very moving.

All this was somehow deleted from my hard drive yesterday.

By my own murderous hands.

It had been over three weeks since I had shot the film but I had made myself busy with my cook book or I would make up any excuse not to look at my rushes because it was so intense. The film reflected so many hidden wounds and bared my memories and it saw my mother at her roots, her bare roots which are also mine. The Christmas was beautiful and joyous but also very painful. Most of all, I had so much fear of looking at it because I was so afraid that what I did isn't/ wasn't good enough. I had already had so many words with myself (the killing of time and self confidence), why didn't you shoot it like this, why not like that, why did you do it this way, why didn't you go the extra mile… and so on.

Finally I was ready to face the thief in the eye and decided to look through the rushes (before I hand it over to Scott Free) and it had vanished. Completely. There was just one copy and it was gone. I had unintentionally deleted one of the most important projects from my hard drive and from my life. It was my baby and I killed it.

The massive feeling of falling down a hole, loss, losing, death and pure OMG and disbelief that I had at my desk as I was looking at my Finder without the folder, Christmas In A Day, was immense. Search. Search again. Gone. It was as if I had just lost a life. It was as if I had just murdered someone. Me.

I wept and my body started to shake and I had no where to hide, no way to retrieve the loss. It was all gone. I called my closest friend and he assured me that it could be retrieved so I called Scott Free and told them what had happened and if there was something they could do and they said they have the software to get it all back.

And now I sit here, in a cafe, awaiting the diagnostics, loving the nerds and perhaps to be lucky enough to hopefully just wake up from a really bad dream.

Film Still: My mother preparing rice paper for summer rolls

UPDATE: Most of my rushes are rescued. Now lets hope its used in the film. :D

Short Film: My Aunt Ut Makes Bánh Cuốn

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:55:00 +0000

My mother's sister, has been making bánh cuốn for years. Every morning, her husband wakes up at 3am to start a fire in their little clay oven. On the pot of water, sits a canvas frame with a slit on one side (to let steam out). The rice flour mixture is ladled onto it and cooks with the lid on for about a minute and my aunt folds them up into rolls. She makes and sells this every morning from 5am at the market.

These can be eaten plain with fried shallots and fish sauce, or with spring onions, minced meat and/ prawn fillings. You can add whatever you like them. Sometimes I eat them with fried aubergines and a sweet and chilli soy sauce or with lots of cured ham and basil. They are silky and delicious, one of my favourite things in the world.

I have written a recipe for it which will be published in my forth coming book.

Short Film: My Cousin Binh Makes Creme Caramel

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

[Repost]:
My cousin Binh and I met when I first came back to Vietnam for the first time in 2000. He was about 8 and I was about 21. When Binh was little, he survived a tragic accident causing his head to split open. Luckily, nothing bad happened to him except everyone says he is very quiet and keeps himself to himself, except when I come back, he only ever talks to me.

This time, he showed me how he makes creme caramel because he is setting up a little street stall outside the house. We both have a strong miss and craving for the creme caramel you can get in both our mother's home town of Phan Thiet - 5 hours away from Saigon.

In Phan Thiet, there lives a poet and teacher, named, Duong (Uncle) Tran, after school every day, he would open up his garden which is at the front of his house, turns on the fairy lights hanging from a jack fruit tree, opens the gates and people flood inside for tea, coffee and creme caramel, the best creme caramel in the world! I always have to visit this place every time I go to Vietnam. Its a must!

Duong Tran doesn't talk much, especially about what goes into his famous dessert. He refuses to disclose any information on how he makes it. (I don't blame him) He lost his wife, his muse, who always loved his kem flan, and tells us that that he will make this everyday so that she can also enjoy it in the afterlife.

The Vietnamese love creme caramel, one of the things bought over by the French colony. In Vietnam, they do not really have ovens, so if you were to recreate it, it is usually steamed. Goodness knows how Duong Tran makes it to utter perfection of sweetness, egginess, lightness and delightfulness.

Here is Binh's recipe which is very close to Duong Tran's.

Binh's Ingredients (from film clip):

400ml Long Life Sweetened Milk
1/2 Can Condensed Milk
1/2 Can Hot Water
6 Eggs
Vanilla Flavouring

For Caramel
Sugar and a splash of water

Not too many people have ovens in Vietnam, so this is steamed over a bowl in a pot of water for 30 mins, but this leaves many holes in the custard.

Original Post with full pictures here:
http://www.leluu.com/2011/06/recipe-ca-phe-kem-flan-creme-caramel.html

Short Film: My Uncle Na Fries Fish

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 12:36:00 +0000

My Work In Food Styling & Having Pictures Taken With Celebs

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:28:00 +0000

Gregg Wallace & me

A little voice, deep inside inside had always squeaked something at me and I couldn't really hear what she was saying until it surfaced by chance in the summer when I did my first styling gig with Bill Granger. After years of watching and loving Jamie, Nigella, (even Ramsay & Delia), Stein, Rachel Khoo and Saturday Kitchen, I am somehow landing a few jobs behind the scenes as a food stylist, as a home ec person, as a prop stylist and even being the actual talent myself on camera! ha.

Gregg Wallace, me & Chris

Left over tomatoes from shoot

I went to work with Gregg Wallace, (to be aired on BBC1). I was quite nervous as I heard he had a reputation for being rather vocal. And yes, he was. He challenged me as soon as he met me but because I knew what I was doing and I had everything ready for him we became friends on set and I really enjoyed working with him and listening to his outrageous jokes. Uyen! Like you and me, he kept chuckling as he'd throw his heavy arms around my shoulder. Weeks later, I was even called back to work on the remainder of the shoot which I was very pleased about because I had the opportunity to go to the beach in England which was something I had wanted to do all summer.

I had to make 650 tripled fried chips, cut with an apple corer. Took me 13 hours!

Then I was lucky enough to work with Raymond Blanc. The set, my kitchen! I spent a whole week organising and propping my kitchen and then food styling as well as working with Raymond in front of camera (to be aired BBC2, Winter/ Spring). It was an absolute honour to work with one of the finest figures in food.

Raymond Blanc & me

The next thing I knew, I was packing my little suitcase and going to Thomasina Miers's house to do some recipe testing with her for her forthcoming book. That was a great day, making curries, ceviche and other yummy Asian food. The best thing she came up with was a fragrant pork noodle salad with roasted rice powder, loads of limes, lime leaves and chillies - it was like eating an Asian spaghetti bolognese - totally amazing! She was so cool and we gossiped while we were chopping onions and playing with ingredients. I loved working with her. She is a woman I totally look up to and if I weren't just about the same age as her I could say I aspire to be someone like her, but I am just about the same age as her and I do aspire to be like her: loved by her husband, soon to be mother of two, a successful business woman, author of many books, living in a beautiful house. Tommi then asked me to work as her stylist on a TV pilot (hopefully for Channel 4).

Thomasina Miers

Fragrant Pork Noodle Salad

Fried Fish & Green Mango Salad

Monk Fish Curry

Mackerel Ceviche

Grilled Pork & Tamarind

Part of Tommi's beautiful kitchen that her father and she built

I am incredibly lucky. Doors are always opening for me even when I am not even knocking. Somehow, the skills I gathered as a film maker to a fashion designer to a cook has landed me in this food styling place… I never would have thought! I am truly loving it, it feels like I found something I really really enjoy. The work is hard and you have to be on your feet, the actual ones as well as the mental ones, constantly. You have to think way a head of everyone because food needs preparation and you're in charge of that department. You have to have everything ready, and you have to know where a can opener is or a tooth pick to a chopping board at any given moment it may be requested. It keeps you on your toes and its great fun!

I am now currently styling my own cook book and working with an excellent team, my publisher Ryland Peters & Small. I am loving the photos, the outcome and can not wait to share it when the book is published in Autumn 2013!

Gennaro Contaldo & me (still waiting to work with him)

Love & A Well Done Steak

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:33:00 +0000

In bad company, it is hard to swallow something as mighty good as it may well taste, even if its in a top restaurant, cooked by a top rated chef because a song and dance (or should I say, a rattle and shake) which can be performed by the invitee makes it impossible to enjoy. My mother always says, its best to resolve conflicts, then eat, or do it after, never during a meal, never spoil a perfectly good meal! And to always resolve a conflict before sleep.

In good company, I can eat a steak, well done (when ordered medium rare) without even complaining about it. It sure is chewy and he doesn't look too pleased and there is that dreadful awkward and unhappy silence during which that dry piece of meat is being chomped and masticated. Those moments are when you can tell much about a person because that is when they can have a choice to act as well done as that piece of steak or remain succulent, medium rare and juicy as the steak they were meant to be. Its a good test of character. There are many times when mine was rather flawed.

cheese souffle

On one cold chilly evening, Roche Communications sent me to eat at The Grill On The Market, Smithfields. I was very happy about it as I had been working all day and really needed a little pampering. However, the steak was over cooked but we didn't care too much, we were in good company, we talked about things and laughed about them too. Even the starters were on the safe side of bland but the wine was excellent and so was the sticky toffee pudding. Service was brilliant which made it all quite a fun date.

sticky toffee pudding

I always order steak. I love steak even though it is so easy for me to cook at home. I order it for the quality of meat that I can't always get when cooking at home or for the fire of the grill, a serious creed. Sometimes, I have friends whom when I am with, always reminds me that I want to eat steak, something about them. I love people who enjoy steak as much as I do. There is something very inherent about that grip of your teeth into flesh, tearing at the almost raw tissues.

Perhaps it would be cooked to my liking the next time.

The Grill on the Market
2-3 West Smithfield, City of London, EC1A 9JX

www.blackhouse.uk.com/restaurant/london-smithfield/

Twitter: @GotmSmithfield

NB: With thanks, we did not pay for this meal as we were kindly invited by Roche Communications.

SeeSushi

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:59:00 +0000

Sushi/ Sashimi selection

Seewoo has a Japanese fusion restaurant in Paddington, just off Praed Street by Edgware Road station, in by the bit with the canal. I've been there last year with Lucy Mitchel, daughter of Stanely Tse, founder of the fabulous Seewoo Oriental supermarkets. Click here to read what I have previously written about Seewoo/ Stanley Tse.

Ever since my meal with Lucy there, I had been dreaming about the black cod. It was like one of those perfect kisses that never leave your mind, sweet, soft, succulent and sinks onto your tongue and slips away, like a tease. Phrwoar! They invited me and a guest to dine at the restaurant and immediately, I thought - YES! I am going to have the black cod. Here's the menu.

Black Cod

The chef at SeeSushi makes a secret sweet and savoury miso dressing for the black cod which stuns my taste buds and is great with some steamed rice. I am not entirely sure how I could ever possibly recreate this dish at home as Seewoo do sell black cod in their store in Greenwich. I am guessing it has been marinated in mirin, miso paste, soy/ teriyaki and sake and then grilled. Mark my word, this is something to lust over.

Vegeatable Gyoza

Eel

We also had gyoza, because I always have gyoza, tonkatsu, a sushi/ sashimi selection from the chef and a plate of half an eel - also wonderfully delicious! Then a very good, bitter and sweet green tea ice cream.

Green Tea Ice Cream

It is hard to imagine crossing town to eat in Paddington. Who goes there unless they have to? Or if they live nearby? But I can see myself having a lovely lunch here on a sunny day, overlooking the canal and getting seduced by fish. I do like the food here a lot.

Thank you to Seewoo who kindly invited me to dine here and therefore, I did not pay for this meal.

www.seesushi.com
4d Praed Street, Paddington, London, W2 1JX

Vietnam On Instagram

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 05:36:00 +0000

I have just been on a photography trip to Vietnam for my forthcoming book. You can see some of the photos I have take on Instagram. As you may be aware, I love Instagram! Follow me: @loveleluu.
You can see my pictures from the Instagram website here too: http://instagram.com/loveleluu

A Short Film By Crane.tv: "Uyen Luu | Vietnamese Supper Club"

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:15:00 +0000

I shot a short film about the supper club with Crane.tv. Click on the You Tube below to view:
Also on The Guardian

As I trained in film making, I thrived on set and absolutely loved working with the camera crew at Crane.tv. We decided to use only natural lighting. I styled the set (my kitchen) previously but we did everything live for the entire day. It was really nice to hang out, shop, cook, eat, take photos, make a film with some really nice and talented people.

One thing I am not sure about is presenting myself in front of camera! Was quite nervous and my knife skills went to on holiday! : ) but I enjoyed getting manicures and having shellac!

I had one of the best nights with my friends afterwards who came to enjoy the food. We had the best conversations about love, life, sex, money and fast cars! I adore my friends with all my heart. Thank you to Will Timbers, Chris Hendrie, Emma Sweeney, Dominique Leonie Humphrys, Zoe Reeves and my next door neighbour Joe for taking part.

Photo By Emma Sweeney

These Three Years, People Of The Supper Club & A Donald Russell BBQ

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:47:00 +0000

I have met some incredible people in the last three years. It is three years this week! Three years ago, I invited some friends over for a feast, dessert didn't come till 1am as at that time, we certainly didn't know what we were doing but true loyalty and friendship stuck and as time went by and the more the supper club happened, I gained more and more experience in cooking, writing, photographing and blogging.

Three years on and looking back, I have had the most amazing time of my life in so many ways. From tears of pain to tears of joy. To those moments where I couldn't face chopping another onion or make another pot of pho; to those where I met people I will know and love for the rest of my life. I vividly remember when someone sang so beautifully and emotionally, This Year's Love on my out-of-tune piano (that my mother had saved up and gifted to me as a teenager, hoping that I would become a star). He touched my heart so much, tears fell violently down my face. To a moment when my hero, Jamie Oliver, my friend Mia and me were carrying down plates of food from the kitchen to the dinning room. We had to wait for the camera to roll so we waited on the stairs, chit chatting and I remember thinking and looking into Jamie's eyes, jeez, I thought, the carpet (then filled with stains of food being carried up and down the stairs) Jamie thinks the carpet is really dirty! Because it was : )

I have met some of the most incredible people, some are now dear friends of mine. How else would I have met an agent for comedians, cancer research doctors, pathologists, many lawyers, publishers of my favourite books, singers of great songs, architects of beautiful innovative buildings, wine lovers, composers, opera and classical music conductors, writers, great chefs, app makers, journalists, editors, film makers, photographers, environmental workers, politicians, lobbyists, food critics… the list is endless.

Even though I am astounded by all the lovely, wonderful and creative people who have walked through my door and have eaten my food, I feel more proud of the fact that it doesn't really matter what someone does for a living because no matter which walk of life you belong, there is a unison in my dinning room, a joy and a love for food that brings everyone there together. I find most people I have met to be delightful, warm and really really nice. I am always touched by people who often bring me flowers, chocolates, cheese and things they've baked or cooked. Then I would get the nicest thank you emails or hand written letters sent in the post. People have traveled long distances to eat my food. Once a beautiful eighty- something year old lady had traveled 4 hours in the car to see me. Her family knew how much she missed her travels to Vietnam and how much she loves Vietnamese food so had brought her all the way. Or those who flew over from far far away lands and end here, somewhere in London Fields, it could look like the ends of the earth to those whose never been to Hackney!

And now, three years later, the supper club still happens every Friday, people still book to come, word of mouth still spreads. I've met and connected with some great people who have opened doors for me and its all lead me to become even more busier than ever, more creative and very excited! What I do depends on the day of the week. Sometimes I am a stylist, sometimes I am a photographer, a film maker, a writer, a consultant, a cook…. I never know what the day brings but it always brings something.

As a treat to some of friends, those I have known for decades to those I have met in the last three years, I threw a barbecue. Unfortunately, it was on the rainiest day of the year and my dog Kodi, the white West Highlander, caught and proudly killed his first rat in the garden (I do live in Hackney after all, he is the gangsta rap on this East side of town). However, forty people ate the best barbecue ever, courtesy of Donald Russell whom I visited in Aberdeen on a butchery masterclass a few months ago. As I have previously mentioned, they do really really good meat. I swear by them and seeing as they have a royal warrant, I needn't say much more.

As I am always cooking, I tend to try to do as little as possible (especially) at barbecues or dinner parties so I can spend time with my friends. I wrote to everyone and gave them a list of things to bring along including drinks and the odd ketchup, spices, ice cubes and lemon and limes. Everyone obliged apart from the weather. The boys fired up the barbie (boys are always very sexy in front of a fire, they become men) and o my goodness, said everyone! Hmmmm noises were all you could hear around the house as the condiments went to waste. No one wanted to eat the meat with anything other than itself because it was just utterly mouthwateringly succulently delicious! Its like butter melting in your mouth people would say or yumm or delicious or o.m.g, wow, etc etc. The best noises ever!

We must have had about 30 kg of meat, from tafelspitz, rib eye, rump steak, lamb racks, noisettes, valentines to pork sausages and beef burgers. I love those sausages! And on behalf of all my friends and I, truly, highly recommend the barbecue meat selection from Donald Russell or any meat from Donald Russell! Its incredible! You order it online at their website and its delivered to your door: www.donaldrussell.com

my boys from St Martins, all grown up and becoming daddies!

Thank you Donald Russell for letting me treat my friends and to thank them for all the support they have given me during my three years of cooking like a maniac!

I am the luckiest person! I am so thankful and grateful for all those who have supported me and everyone who has been to the supper club and the cooking classes and who keep coming back.

I am most thankful to my mum and my brother and my waiters/ waitresses who always help me in the kitchen, for without them, I would be quite stuck!

Thank you Thank you Thank you
Hope there will be loads more fun to be had.

Raymond Blanc & Me

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:18:00 +0000

I had a very special guest, Raymond Blanc, in my kitchen the other day. I will write more about it in the near future.

Photo Credit: Edward Smith/ Rocket & Squash

Bánh Xeo Recipe

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 09:58:00 +0000

Bánh Xeo is a street food favourite of many Vietnamese - it is a light savoury crepe made with rice flour and coconut milk, to be eaten as its being cooked. it is served with an abundance of salad leaves and herbs. The crepe is placed on a lettuce leaf on your palm, then rolled up with lots of herbs and then dipped into a fish sauce based dipping sauce. Never before could I enjoy a salad so immensely. Everything should be prepped before the crepes are made so they can be eaten with your hands as soon as they are done.

For 15 x 20cm pancakes, Serves 5 - 6

Ingredients
Batter:
400g rice flour
10g turmeric powder
400ml coconut milk
800ml water
4 spring onions thinly sliced
A pinch of salt
A pinch of sugar

Filling:
500g king prawns - peeled
pork belly - thinly sliced
4 shallots - coarsely chopped
500g beansprouts
salt and pepper to season

Garnish:
lettuce
coriander
sweet Basil
mint

Dipping Sauce:
2 tbs premium fish sauce - (Three Crabs Brand)
2 birdseye chilli - finely chopped
2 cloves garlic – finely chopped
2 tbs cider vinegar
2 tbs sugar
400ml water

Method

Mix together the batter ingredients making sure that the mixture is smooth and free of lumps.
Prep salad and herb leaves for the table and make the dipping sauce by combining all the ingredients together. If you find that it is too sweet, add more fish sauce, if too sour, add more sugar, if too salty add a little water. Place dipping sauce into bowls for each person.

To make the crepe, heat a frying pan with cooking oil, then brown off a teaspoon of chopped shallots, then add a few pieces of thinly sliced pork belly and two prawns to colour off. Using a shallow ladle, pour on a thin layer of batter, add a handful of beansprouts and close the pan with a lid and wait patiently for two minutes to cook. Then remove the lid and cook for a further one minute, making sure the batter is crispy and brown. Then turn the crepe onto a half moon and serve immediately and continue to make more.

How To Burn A Fry Up

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 18:49:00 +0000

I first learned what the English ate for breakfast back in home economics class with Mrs Dooley when I was about eleven years old. Its all about timing, she would say to us wives-to-me, mother-of-children and discussed the general-rule-of-thumb-rule-of-how-to-be-a-woman, the best way to a man's heart is via his stomach, she'd roar. Easy as that, huh? I thought as I conspired my life with Matt Goss from Bros.

Bacon, eggs, sausages, bread, butter, milk, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots & hummus, was, as agreed (blindly by me), kindly sent to me (or someone called Hannanh Yeadon who apparently lives at my address) by Sainsbury's So Organic. There were no raspberries in stock! - A month prior, I had agreed (without much thought) to write a recipe for them on a specific date in return for "a range of organic ingredients". Its Sainsbury's, giant hand of God, I thought… how lovely of them to be in touch.

Hence, this post.

Usually, when I need to make an English Breakfast, I have not had much sleep the night before and am completely hung over so I am often burning everything, or one thing has gone cold and something is still burning in the oven, the scramble egg goes rubbery while I set the fire alarms off. With head hammering, I'd slip on a piece of bacon that had fallen off the counter onto the floor and someone laughs as they just sit there and watch or drink juice.

Or, I'd be the one sitting there drinking juice and watch it all slide downhill because a) they are still pissed/ hungover b) completely incompetent because i) they didn't hear the wise words of Mrs Dooley at home ec ii) they are rubbish in the kitchen iii) trying too hard to impress c) making a perfect fry up is quite hard.

So, its just best to go to the nearest cafe and order one for the same price as these ingredients. Fry ups are usually for soaking up last night's mayhem or when you stay at a hotel and someone else mucks it up.

Sometimes though, when you are in a relationship and no one gets drunk anymore or you live with someone because you can't afford to live alone, you can achieve these fry ups and feel really proud of yourself, as you sensibly read the Sunday papers and think about having a stroll along the canal and buy china from a vintage market.

Sometimes you just fancy one, because you do, because they are quite yummy. So here's how you make it and as rule of thumb, I always burn the best free range, organic, friendly farmed ingredients!

Ingredients
For two

4 x back bacon rashers
2 x sausages
4 x toast bread (I prefer white, lighter bread)
some butter for the table
2 x eggs
some tomatoes (brought from my local organic green grocers)
some mushrooms
olive oil
cooking oil

Utensils
2 x medium sized frying pans
1 x oven proof dish
1 x anti splatter device (optional)

Method

1. Set table, don't leave to last minute

2. Lay out ingredients, open packets, have things ready

3. Turn on grill, 275 should do it

4. Make a pot of tea or coffee

5. Pour juice

6. Cut cherry tomatoes in half, and slice mushrooms, place on oven dish, season with salt, pepper and olive oil. Once the oven is heated, place dish inside and try not to forget they are in there (set timer 5 mins)

7. Heat two frying pans, pour some oil in when they are both hot enough

8. Get the toast in the toaster - ready - don't toast them yet.

9. Fry sausages in one pan on medium heat, turning occasionally for a few minutes.

10. Fit the bacon around the sausages and use the other pan if it doesn't fit.

11. Break open eggs and fry them. If the pan is nice and hot, they get nice and crispy on the edges.

12. Don't forget about the grilled tomatoes and mushrooms

13. Turn sausages and bacon.

14. Toast toast.

15. Don't forget about the mushrooms and tomatoes.

16. Remove bacon from pan and place on plate.

17. Remove tomatoes and mushrooms from the grill, place on plate.

18. Turn sausages

19. Remove eggs if they are crispy enough and place on plate

20. (you might have wanted baked beans with this) - quick put that in the microwave!

21. toast more toast.

22. Remove sausages, place on plate.

(23. place baked beans on plate).

24. congratulate yourself

25. Eat and discuss what happened last night! Or keep it zipped!

Here's what happened when Meemalee's Kitchen got the same gift.

Thanks Sainsbury's So Organic range. Thanks.

Sound, Silence & Summer

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:49:00 +0000

one of the best books I have read - Man Walks Into A Room - Nicole Krauss

This summer, I have spent the most joyous weekend afternoons and sunsets at Burnt Enz. Rihanna themed my tunes as bottle after bottle of prosecco, the holy water of my religion, filled flute after flute. We ate the best steak burgers, eels, roast quails and even a whole piglet. The banter, continuous. The love, everlasting, lustering between sunsets and dawn. It is truly glorious living in London Fields.

It all started when I was rocking up to The London Fields Brewery on my birthday in June with a bunch of my friends as the Cuban band played underneath the bunting. It was post Jubilee, pre Olympics and there was a perfume of optimism just hanging in the air like a smog of goodness, promising fun and laughter. The sunset swung its deep red rays onto the faces of my friends who were puffing cigarettes, swigging pints of beers and talking endlessly to each other. Perhaps the sun was so forbidden this summer that every glimpse we had, we made the best of it.

After this, I lost my voice for two weeks solid. The silencing brought on a depression I had never felt before and like any (mute) cry baby, I wept for days, abstained in bed, frightened that I would never be heard again until I wrote and wrote and wrote and found a certain voice, somewhere in La Bouche and the library, a literary one, I would hope. And there, I saw how everything happens for a reason and once I found my inner voice, the vocal one also came back, a rebirth.

I did lots of nice things like a shoot and interview with Sophie Dening at Editer.com to The Daily Express (which I wasn't sure about - he made me smile very forcibly - am no good at that!) Sophie also invited me over and cooked the most delicious Jose Pizarro recipe of hake and peas. Even though I am put on ice, I met with some incredible publishers too and didn't think I could ever be so lucky to even get an appointment. I did some more amazing supper clubs and classes where I met loads of wonderful people. A hen do where they all came on a double decker bus; a cooking class where we cooked, learned, ate and watched The Men's Wimbledon Final.

was featured in Scout Magazine

Did a food demo at The Vietnam Festival

My friend Danny McCubbin at Jamie Oliver ran with the Olympic torch!

Went to Rocket & Squash Supper Club Summit

did a few photo shoots

Did a show with ITV2

Pictures above: MsMarmiteLover, Feast To The World & Plusixfive, Feed The Tang

I also joined The Skinny Bib and cooked a Thai/ Vietnamese night at Global Feast and had lots of fun giggling and doing yoga afterwards in the cold courtyard. There wasn't a lot of sleep involved, especially when we partied with Rankin at a book launch at his studio and what with running down Mare Street with a(nother) bottle of prosecco, whooing at the fire works during the opening ceremony and laughing my head off.

Rankin & Ayami

had lovely dinner parties with friends

didn't go to bed a few nights and cycled around Victoria Park

was in a few magazinea

My ex next door neighbour had an impromptu cocktail party, she told us to get dressed up and actually there were only five of us and we danced to Graceland all night with diamonds on the soles of our shoes. After a bet, (and with thanks to Chris Hendrie) I managed to secure tickets to see Paul Simon at Hyde Park the next day which was Ah.Mazing. I went with my friend Azzz who like me, loves living it up and we had so much fun munching on hamburgers at a Drive Thru after wards, sat in my roofless car, gazing at faint starry tinkles.

I still own the records my father left behind with his clothes when he left in the mid 80s. My brother and I favourited Simon & Garfunkel, Live in Central Park, 1981, a record we would play over and over. If you open the record sleeve, you can see the crowds of people at Central Park, a view Simon & Garfunkel saw as they sang. We always wanted to be there, in the crowd. We would shut our eyes tight while blasting the volume loud and imagine.

After the Graceland set, Paul Simon came to the stage, solo, with his acoustic guitar, just a blue beam on him, above his pork pie hat. Hello darkness my old friend, he sang, in a voice that have aged deeper than what is engraved. I've come to talk with you again… At that moment, I was transported back to the age of seven, or eight or nine years old. Like a therapist's dream, I stood, awakened. My childhood mind thawed as my thirty something year old self froze, I stood in Central Park in 1981, with ten thousand people, maybe more, holding my little brother's hand. We looked at each other in astonishment and we smiled like we had never smiled before and he, being a five, six or seven year old boy hugged my long arm dangling beside him.

One rainy July day, I went to Pub On The Park to meet someone (impromptu) I had never met before. I am wearing jeans and a white shirt, I said. I am wearing suit trousers and a blue shirt he said. This is looking like a blind date, I said… the best ever! He was fit! Especially when we met weeks and weeks later as the summer sun was mounting low and we decided to go up and down, up and down, up and down the glass lift of the Heron Tower and also had a really enjoyable meal at Duck & Waffle on the 40th floor.

View From Heron Tower

Duck & Waffle

Previously, Richard Vines had taken me for a belated birthday dinner at Sushi Samba which is below Duck & Waffle. Great thing about dinning with Richard is that we can order many things and I loved a lot of it, especially the sushi. We drank champagne on the terrace over looking a beautiful breathtaking view of London. The man always has to walk in front of the woman when she is climbing down the stairs, he says as I vertigo over the see-through steps (on the 40th floor by the glass window). So that he can catch her if she falls.

Richard Vines & me

Without any sleep after a supper club I went directly to The South Of France, to Gaillac, a little town an hour from Toulouse to a mutual friend's wedding. I went with my old friend and ex flat mate Will, whom I've known for over a decade. The wedding had a little pool party too and afterwards we travelled around the South Of France. While running with our bags and eating baguettes we caught all the trains. Remember this, Luu, Will said, as we laid bare on the beach, toasting with sun cream and sea salt in our hair. We had a picnic of tinned tuna, baguette and la vache qui rit, a can of Kronenberg and some iceberg salad. Remember it, he kept saying, because this is the best day ever! It really was.

When I landed back at Gatwick, I received a good ask, to work with Bill Granger. I was terrified. I drank a lot the day before (obvs, if among gorgeous boys and the sunshine at Burnt Enz) and had no sleep (because I was packing props and terrified). But I did it!

One night, after a poor meal and a lot of booze later, I enjoyed one of the best bowls of pho at midnight. It was a left over from the supper club and there wasn't enough herbs or spring onions and the meat was getting kind of old from being in the fridge for a few days but it was so good. Ever so good. A memorable good! Oh na na, whats my name, sings a handsome boy with a creased linen tie, Ohh naa naa… Then, just like that, as if like clockwork, I forgot about the house of cards, the one I had spent all year building so carefully … .. .

Dang! I have had the most amazing summer!
Sorry for the lack of blog posts then, now you know why.

Styling For Bill Granger

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:28:00 +0000

Thursday night. I came back from holidaying in the South Of France to an email, saying, can you style a shoot for Bill Granger, for The Sunday Times? Hell yes! was the answer.

We share the same literary agency whose seen much of my handy work behind the camera and believed in my abilities and somehow pushed me right into the deep end with a video shoot with Bill Granger! Bill Granger!! I've been watching him on telly for years! I love him!

Friday. As well as cooking and hosting two supper clubs that weekend.
I cycled as fast as I could to the book shop and brought as well as study every Bill Granger book so I can grasp his style.

Background Prop Hire

Took myself immediately to a prop house, Background Props - thanks to many of my Twitter friend's advice (it was like being in prop heaven!!!). Got all the props together from recipes we would shoot.

Sunday. Went to the flower market. Brought tons of flowers and herbs.
Panicked. I didn't have linen. Brought linen.

Went out drinking for the entire day at Burnt Enz and then had a mini dinner party. Chucked everyone out and stayed up till 6am gathering my own props just in case Bill needed something.

Monday.Turned up at 9, cleared clutter, set props. shoot. re set. done.

I gave Bill a bottle of pho stock. I would have given him noodles and everything too but I was more worried about me bringing an ironing board, hair dryer and all. Hope he liked it. It was an honour to work with him. Such a calm and friendly person!

In return I got some pork chops made by Bill Granger on the shoot and shared it with one of my best friends, Will, whom I went on holiday with. Yay! It was one of the best meals. I will certainly remember it for life. When I woke up on that Thursday morning in sticky hot France and took many train journeys and flew home, I had absolutely no idea, just no idea how extraordinary circumstances would lead me. So thankful!

(I know these aren't the best plates for those chops, we just wanted to eat the food)

So! If anyone wants me to style anything or shoot anything or light anything. I am your gal! Hit me! I was in my element! Due to being on many shoots in the past, and having done a degree in Film & Video at Central Saint Martins (where I was mostly at the pub and in New York) I love making film and taking photos.

Bill Granger's new book EASY by Harper Collins is out. The styling in that book is incredible! As are the recipes!

Introduction To Vietnamese Cooking

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 10:25:00 +0000

As previously published on The Good Food Channel

pho bo

There is a certain sound of solitary quietness when bent over a steaming hot bowl of phở, slurping away and sucking at noodles. The broth is laced with warm fragrant spices of star anise, coriander seeds, cinnamon and cloves with top notes of fresh spring onions, coriander, basil, saw tooth herbs and citrus lemon linger the air.

Vietnamese cuisine is one of the most flavoursome in the world with many of its basic principles based on satisfying every taste bud of the tongue. Cooking is about fine tuning tasting skills to balance and master sweet, sour, salty, umani, bitter and hot flavours. It is about combining perfect textures such as silky meat/ fish with crunchy vegetables or herbs to satisfy the bite.

bun bo hue -lemongrass beef noodle soup, morning glory, banana blossom

Cari Ga - chicken curry with okra

Vietnamese food is about accomplishing a perfect balance in taste, in texture and the lightness of being. Many people naturally follow the yin and yang principles in combining ingredients, for example, a soup with heaty ginger to warm up the body is contrasted with refreshing cool leaves like pak choi to harmonise the feeling in your body. Eating in balance is a major factor in keeping healthy and many believe that food is medicine. Having too much bread, wheat or fried foods can have an effect on your body, making it heat up. To maintain an equilibrium, plenty of delicious cooling shakes, like avocado, papaya, pennyswort and watermelon etc are drank as snacks especially in the evenings to freshen and lighten the body before bed.

The Vietnamese has taken much inspiration from it occupiers, especially from the French. The streets are buzzing with food and its aromas. Barbequed meats fill baguettes (bánh mì), hot pork pastries, crunchy carrot salads and beef steaks with fries – French potatoes. The famous noodle soup, phở, was influenced by the French’s famous casserole: pot-au-feu (pot of fire) and you would find many Vietnamese words reflect a French one, like pate, phở –(feu), bò bít tết (beef steak), pâté so (pate chaud), cà rốt (carrot) …

Vietnamese people love eating so much that they have a term called “an choi” which means to eat playfully, like to snack! There are many small and light street food portions that one would pick up, eat and go – throughout the day. Sometimes they are even referred to as gifts to the mouth. There isn’t a starter, main and dessert – there are snacks, meals in one dish and family meals with many plates all served at once. Vietnamese food is all about the love of food, flavour, eating and how food is love.

pho bo

Robert James Russell & Me

noreply@blogger.com (LELUU) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:46:00 +0000

I've always wanted to write, says Robert James Russell, since I was a kid. Same here, I'd say. Relating. Abbreviating a sudden motion of being completely understood by a total stranger. I’m inspired by many, many things, he says. Sometimes I overhear dialog, a conversation at a café, or I watch people and see someone interesting that makes me create a character. Other times I read about some place (like Aokigahara), and I just can’t get the place out of my mind—and then ideas start coming full force. 

We'd been following each other on Twitter for a couple of years, him being a distant author, curiously living somewhere in Michigan, writing poetry and publishing books and me, well, who am I? Who cares, I could be Celine, Before Sunset, drawn towards the handsome American writer, Jesse. Am I getting carried away? Robert reads in bookshops and one day I am sure, he'll be doing it in Paris.

I write all the time, he says, whenever I can, ‪and if anything ever happens, I write‬ and write and I feel better. Over the last couple of months, Robert and I have been exchanging our writing in progress and thoughts on them. It started when I purchased his first book, a novella, Sea Of Trees which I read back to back in a couple of hours lying in my garden soaking in the scarce London sun.

Sea Of Trees is about a place in Japan, a forest called Aokigahara, where people go to peacefully commit suicide, without being rescued by the neighbour or a spouse for example. Its a place to get lost in and to never be found (or for at least, not for a while).

I couldn't put it down. The author didn't allow me to rest my intrigue and swallowed me whole into this world of trees and suicide, sometimes, I wanted to reach out and pull at the characters with my hands to pull them back.

He paints a scenic, atmospheric and haunting landscape of the forest as we journey through with American Bill and his Japanese girlfriend, Junko whose looking for her missing sister. They run into bodies as we run into vignettes, intersected throughout, short glimpses into how their bodies have ended up among trees and forest grass, their belongings scattered like litter. Robert says, they were based on some cases on real-life bodies found in Aokigahara, their back stories created by me, filling in the gap up until the moment of their death. Some others were inspired by incidents around Japan, since suicides (and group suicides) are an epidemic there, again, back stories created to fill in the lives of these people, detailing how they came to these decisions, and how they decided on Aokigahara as their final resting place. It’s weird to say I got inspired by what I read, about all the suicides, but it’s so prevalent, so many cases, that it’s hard to not want to write about it.

Robert sends me chapters, first drafts and secret manuscripts. I read them, under wraps and I send him my drafts of thoughts intertwined into narratives and he gives me encouragement and I give him encouragement and its like we're on the train together, Before Sunrise, exchanging a bit of ourselves, over the pretend telephone. It is sometimes painful to realise your calling as a writer. It is often when that happens, you suddenly feel like you are the only one who can not write. Robert can, believe me, everything he sends me, I read like its water running through my fingers. ‪I just feel compelled to tell stories‬, he says, always have, either by drawing (when I was younger) or later (and now) by writing. I‪ just think there are those of us that are storytellers‬, I want to tell stories
I want to show people what I see, how I see it.

He is a young talent who can feed a story so vividly and concise, (even in a first draft). He gets me to into a world and I always feel like I am within the story, breathing and living by its every thread. I don't get this by many regular published books I read. Its amazing! Robert is often exclaiming how lucky he is. I say, oh the joys! I do not know but can only dream about being published for the first time. I’m lucky, he says, to have found a publisher who appreciates and believes in me. It’s also very surreal. I’ve spent a lot of time getting to this point, so sometimes it’s hard to believe I’m here. Living it. I mean, I'm not naive to think people haven't had similar thoughts to all of us previously--there's always been people who want to reinvent, or rethink things.

Robert James Russell lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA with his soon to be wife and is looking for literary representation and publication of forthcoming novels. He is one to watch out for!

www.robertjamesrussell.com
Facebook: Robert James Russell
Twitter @robhollywood

Buy Sea Of Trees Here