ola!

my darling friend aleksandra (aka ola) joined the 30 club on monday and we celebrated with rice crispies, victoria sponge and a feast at a great italian restaurant called botegga prelibato.

oh ola, she thought that by planning her birthday on the actual day and a monday to boot that we wouldn't surprise her with cake at work. although as it is ola, and she is not a fan of chocolate, i made rice crispie squares (with pink marshmallows) and kate made a lovely victoria sponge. my fave part of the whole afternoon? the fact that so many of the people at the cake fest had never had rice crispie squares...like...ever. it was amazing. i was asked for my recipe and i lovingly gave it all away! 3 tbsp butter, 4 cups mallows, 6 cups cereal. melt, mix. set. amazing.

botegga was such a great restaurant to host her open house. she hired out the basement which has couches and a table (think university basement suite) and the food was amazing. proper italian pizza (melanzanne, anchovie, artichoke, margherita it goes on and on), pesto pasta salad, and antipasti...mmmmm. so yummy. lots of wine to boot. it was a great way to turn 30! i wish i could post a link to the restaurant but they are staying in the non-broadband zone, so if you go check it out, you'll find it by old street station in shoreditch.

and i still got home in time to watch glee! jesse's girl....love it.

on tuesday, ola and i went for massages and although we both went for 'deep tissue' i think i was the only sore one on wednesday. eeek.

on thursday i met up with my friend laura and new friend pria to go check out the indian portrait exhibit at the national portrait gallery. i think of the centuries covered i preferred the first century. the detail to such tiny pieces of art...amazing. i wonder at their precision with tools as simple as they were.

then i entered room 38...contemporary art. and well you all know my contempt for most of this 'art' and this is exhibit a. check it out. at both fascinating, disgusting but more importantly INFURIATING.


described as A self-portrait of the artist Marc Quinn cast in several pints of his frozen blood....he reproduces the object every 5 years and in essence you can also watch him age. but here's the thing. the blood is frozen. and how does it stay frozen? it has its own mini freezer. that operates 24/7/365. INFURIATING! what a waste of energy for this supposed piece of art. its insulting. and don't give me that blah blah blah freedom of expression...because sometimes that freedom comes at a huge cost, and this time, its at the cost of the environment. hopefully the artist compensates for his refridgerant emissions. INFURIATING!

but i digress.

i ended up at fire and stone for pizza and had a margherita but having been to bottega, there was no point. never go to this place. the pizza is crap.

xoxo