Turning vegetables

As I didn’t have pictures of turned I thought I’d post pictures of my first practice session one quiet Friday night (Fridateless night!  Sob!)

Bought a big bag of potatoes.  I believe this was a 2kg bag.

one 2kg bag of potatoes

Get 2 big bowls or pots. Peel potatoes.  Put peeled potatoes in one pot of water and use the other for the turned potatoes.  Generally, when cooking potatoes, you should soak them in water to prevent them from turning brown (there are exceptions, if you don’t want to lose the starch, but you gotta work fast!).

Cut into approximate dimensions for required size.

Peel and cut into approximate required dimensions.

Use the turning knife to shape the potato chunk

A little too fat actually

But not too bad for a first attempt.

There was more trimmings than turned potatoes

This is all I got from 2kg of potatoes.

Shape or “turn” with turning knife.  The motion is similar to following the contours of an egg from top to bottom.

1 large potato could yield around 4 turned potato pieces.  But there is inevitably a lot of waste.

Anyway, i couldn’t take pictures and turn the potatoes, so this is not the best step-by-step at all, but more just to show what was involved.

After much manipulation, and muscle-cramping, the turned spud!

Et voila!

Not just beans and pulses

Lesson 4 is Préparation Classique de Légumes, which was translated to Classic Vegetable Preparation. Back in Secondary school Home Economics class, I remember legumes to be beans and pulses, but apparently in French, “légumes” is a general term for vegetables. Now I know!

We made légumes glacés (glazed vegetables), concassé de tomatoes (cooked diced tomatoes) and duxelle sèche classique (finely chopped mushrooms and shallots sautéed in butter). Not very exciting, as it’s nothing you would actually eat on it’s on, but as a garnish, or side dish. But all very important, as these are all things we would make a lot subsequently. We were also introduced to vegetable turning.

What, pray tell, is a turned vegetable? A very good question indeed. Almost everyone asks that question when I tell them. Basically, if you go to a posh (and dated) French restaurant, and all the vegetables look like little rugby balls, particularly potatoes are quite common, that’s a turned vegetable. And if you’ve never turned a vegetable before in your life, you just might cut yourself.

There are various ways of turning vegetables, depending on the vegetable in question. We were shown how to do courgettes, which look like a boat, and carrots, radishes and potatoes which look like rugby balls. The classic turned vegetable shape for the rugby ball is called a “cocotte” and it should have exactly 7 sides. There are also various terms to describe these cocottes, so you know what size they are (in height and width). So much to learn. The most important thing is that all the vegetables served on the same dish must be regular in shape and size, for even cooking, as well as aesthetics. Personally, I don’t care for a turned vegetable. I’m all about rustic chunky cuts. But I am learning classical French cuisine.

There is also a special knife one uses to turn vegetables, called …… a turning knife. It’s the one that looks like a curved paring knife, that you never know what to do with if you buy as part of a knife set. Now you do.

During the practical, all that vegetable turning took forever, mainly because it’s a muscle in my hands I’ve never exercised before, and also because I have very small hands. Very difficult to get a decent grip and also not cut myself (thankfully, I didn’t). After turning the vegetables, we had to glaze them. This involved boiling the vegetables in some water (covering about halfway up the vegetable) with sugar, salt and butter. This is then covered with a cartouche, or a silicone paper lid, and the vegetable is cooked in the water and steam (because of the cartouche), but there is also some evaporation, and once the vegetables have been cooked to the right degree of doneness, you remove the cartouche and allow the remaining water to evaporate. What you get left is a syrupy glaze from the sugar and butter. Mmmm butter. You can glaze almost any non-leafy vegetable. Like root vegetables, courgettes and onions.

We also made the tomato concassé, which was a little boring, but again, something we would see pop-up in various recipes time and again. Not much to say, really, except that tomatoes should be cooked with skins off and seeds removed, because apparently these bits are hard to digest. But I’m thinking, isn’t that good? Fibre and all? Keeps you regular!

Finally, the duxelle, I’ve made duxelle before when I made Beef Wellington. So I’m thinking, how hard can it be? It really wasn’t, except I was obsessing over the size of my brunoise of mushrooms. So what new thing did I learn? Apparently, I should use lemon juice so that the cut mushrooms don’t oxidise, and preserve their pristine white colour. So I did, although, seriously, once it’s cooked, the colour turns a little brown anyways. Big mistake with the stupid lemon juice. I overdid, eventhough I didn’t use much, and the mushrooms came out sour.

Of course I got Chef G again, and when he tasted my duxelle, again, with his French moue, declared my duxelle “too sour”.

And still, how come I cannot pout like the French?

Salads and Dressings

The next topic we moved on to is salads and salad dressings.  We were shown how to make vinaigrettes, which we learned is an unstable emulsion (I know some people who are like that!), and there would be more opportunity to practise the knife skills we had learned.  We were also shown how to plate and present our salads, and told to present like so at the practical session.

During the practical, our class got Chef G.  Chef G is quite a character.  He is very French and tells us we are his favourite group, followed by “I tell everyone that!” with grin and a flourish of his hand (this was something we would get every subsequent lesson, but mostly without the hand flourish).

Even though the lesson was extremely easy and I’ve done vinaigrettes hundreds of times, I was obsessed with following the recipe and measuring out all my ingredients just so, and the end result was not great.  I focused a lot on ensuring that my julienne was finely cut and took too long (how was I able to cut before culinary school?).  I was really worried about over-salting my food and completely under-seasoned.

When I presented my food, Chef G declared, “The plate is dirty!”  I’m like, “It is?” and had to peer hard at an angle to see the tiniest smudge on the side.  And because I didn’t add enough salt, my dressing was too sour, so when Chef tasted my food, he pursed his lips with a very French moue and proclaimed it too sour (how come I cannot pout like the French?).

I felt somewhat defeated.  I mean, salads should be the easiest thing to do.  I’ve served up salads hundreds of times.  How hard could it be?  The dressing was so tart, I just tossed the whole lot away.

We had a debrief after the lesson and turns out, almost everyone had “dirty” plates.  The trick is to use dip some kitchen paper in a mixture of white wine vinegar diluted with some warm water and polish the plate, after which, only handle the bottom of the plate with your hands, so you don’t smudge the top surface.

The next lesson was more salads and dressings.  This time, it was on cooked salads and stable emulsions.  We made mayonnaise, which is a cold emulsion, and although I’ve made mayonnaise before, it’s still really fascinating to see it turn from a thin solution of vinegar, egg yolks and some mustard into a thick creamy mixture with the addition of oil (and a whole lotta elbow grease).

Mayonnaise is an extremely important sauce because it is the base for many other sauces, of which we were shown 2: Sauce tartare and Sauce Marie-Rose.  I’ve never actually heard of this Marie Rose Sauce before.  It looked and tasted kind of like Thousand Island sauce.  It’s pink and has ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, tabasco and brandy added.  It’s also used like Thousand Island sauce, apparently often served with prawn cocktail for a posh 70s starter.

So with the mayonnaise that we made, we did a potato salad and were also taught how to make the perfect hard-boiled egg.  Apparently, you need to start cooking from cold water so the inside of the egg is thoroughly cooked through.  Bring the water to a boil and lower to a small boil, and boil the egg for another 8-10 minutes.  Which actually seemed a little long for me.  But I like the middle of my yolk just a little runny, so 7 minutes was about right for me.  Also, obviously if you have a small egg, then you adjust the time accordingly.

This time, I remembered to season and tried not to obsess too much about how I was cutting the vegetables and everything went fairly smoothly.  I was pretty pleased, and more importantly, churned out food that can actually be eaten.

Salade Italienne: carrots, turnips, green peas, French beans tossed with mayonnaise, served wth plum tomato petals, anchovy fillets, salami florette and hard-boiled eggs.

Salade de Pommes de Terre aux Oeufs Dur: Potato and hard-boiled egg salad

Back to Basics

Our very first proper cooking lesson, and we aren’t actually cooking, but learning how to use a knife and all the basic cuts that are used in classical French cooking.

The lessons are basically conducted thus: a 3-hour demonstration by our chef teacher, and a related 3-hour practical session to actually execute what we saw during the demo.

Demo #1:  All about knife cuts.  We were shown the various types of cuts typically used in classical French cooking.  Terms like macedoine, julienne, batonnet, brunoise, ciseler, were thrown at us, along with instructions on how to achieve these cuts, and what the end results should look like.

Various types of vegetable cuts (and a stray iPhone)

We were also introduced to the holy trinity of flavouring agents, the mirepoix, which comprises onions, celery and carrots.  And also a very useful tip that we learned is in the mirepoix, the onions always make up 50% of the mix, with carrots and celery making up 25% each, except when you are making a white mirepooix (when you don’t want colour in the stock), in which the carrot is replaced with leeks, which is also from the onion family, in which case, the celery makes up 50% of the the mirepoix and onions and leeks make up 25% each.

The mirepoix

We were also taught how to make a bouquet garni, which I absolutely love to make, because it just looks so cute.  Cut a nice big outer leaf from a leek, place inside the leaf a celery leaf, a couple of parsley stalks (save the leaves for something else like garnish), a  bay leaf, and a sprig of thyme (crush these 2 to release their flavours) and tie it up with a string, and trim off the ends.  I love how these little sticks of bouquet garni look.

Bouquet Garni. Little cigarette sticks of fragrant herbs.

It might sound amazing, but yes, an entire 3-hour session was devoted to cutting vegetables.

The demo was immediately followed by our first practical session, during which we put into practice what we were shown.  Finally, a chance to use the knives!

The knives! From left: turning knife, paring knife, boning knife, carving knife, chef’s knife, cleaver, bread knife, fork, sharpening steel.

The carrier case. Also contains whisk, pastry brush, palette knives, and a whole bunch of other useful stuff.

Our first chef tutor was Chef D.  He reviewed again the types of cuts he demonstrated during the lesson and we then had to execute and show him what we’d done.  I didn’t do too shabbily.  Oddly enough, I’m quite good with the fine cuts like a fine julienne and chiffonade, but not so great with the bigger cuts.  I need to learn how to cut straight.  I have to completely unlearn how I’ve been using my knife all this time.  And I was cutting extremely slowly. These knives were amazing.  Amazingly sharp.  Such a joy to use.

And the best thing about the day, Chef said my cuts were good, and that I was pretty precise, and asked what I did in life.  Told him I sold books.  And he said, “Good job.”

Yay!

How to Poison Someone

So.  Right after orientation, during which we got our class schedules and school kit, we realised classes start the very next day, from 9am to 4.30pm.  On a Saturday.  The topic: Level 2 Food Safety Made Easy (I have no idea what happened to Level 1).

The course was conducted by an external party and at the end of the session, we would be required to sit for an exam that same day.  It is essential to pass this course, in order to pass our exams.

Of all days, I decided to try a different route from the tube station to school, and got rather lost that morning, and turned up late for the course.  Thankfully, I was only 15 minutes late, and managed to keep up.  I turned up just in time to learn about the major types of bacteria that can cause food poisoning.

There is the fairly well-known Salmonella, typically found in raw chicken and raw eggs.  I mean, I’ve heard about this, but I’ve been eating cake batter forever.  And made my own mayonnaise.  And what about Sin Kee Chicken Rice at Margaret Drive (where has it moved to now?) with their ever-so-slightly bloody chicken?

We also learned about Staphyloccus Aureus which is some kind of skin bacteria, E Coli from the intestines of beef cattle apparently (and therefore comes out in human fecal matter), Listeria (I keep thinking Listerine, when I heard this), which comes from dairy, particularly unpasteurized dairy, Campylobacter (Kahm-pie-loh-bek-ter, and not campy-lo-bekter, which was my first reaction), which appears in the intestines of birds, Clostridium and Bacillus Cereus, which are apparently spore-forming bacteria, which can protect themselves under adverse conditions (eg high temperatures), so cooking thoroughly isn’t going to kill them.  The horror!  And.  And  And.  These are commonly found in cooked rice!!!  Well, cooked rice that had been left in the Danger Zone temperature of 5-63 degrees Celsius.

Bacillus Cereus. Most commonly associated with cooked rice.

Rice!  I mean really.  Repeatedly, during the session, we were told that cooked rice is a high-risk food (along with cooked meats, like chicken).  Rice.  Seriously.  I think all the Asians in the room took issue with that.  And then a moment of horror, and a mental note to store cooked rice in the fridge as soon as possible.  I mean, my mom used to leave cooked rice in the rice cooker overnight!  I told her not to, but she still did.  We’re still alive.  I think Asians have developed some sort of natural immunity against these bacteria.

So back to contamination, we were told the various ways food can get contaminated by bacteria, and what to do to avoid contamination.  There is of course, the sensible, cook your food thoroughly, and when things like beef tartare and medium-rare burgers were raised, the instructor (who is an external instructor), who also works as a food safety consultant to various food establishments, pretty much said, she wasn’t a fan, but understands that restaurants may still insist on serving food this way, and basically it’s all about knowing and trusting the supply source (like not getting diseased meat would be good!).

We were told the importance of cleaning and disinfecting.  And also, that the most common cause of food poisoning is cross-contamination, and how that happens.  We were told to never store cooked and raw food next to each other.  Which sounds like, duh, but sometimes it’s not so obvious, like never store raw food above cooked food in the fridge (does any from Singapore remember that case of food poisoning in Geylang Serai in which a couple of people actually died?  ‘Twas the raw cuttlefish sitting on the rack above the rojak gravy and dripping into it that did it: http://www.asiaone.com/Health/Eat%2BRight/Story/A1Story20090415-135347.html).

And more on cross-contamination.  Things like washing sponges, kitchen towels and tea towels.  All instruments of cross-contamination.  And let’s not forget fridge door handles.  I was like, OMG, my entire kitchen back home is a hotbed for breeding bacteria.  It’s a wonder I’ve not killed or poisoned anyone yet.

All in all, rather educational, if somewhat alarming session.  In any case, I HAVE to pass this test to pass my course.  And I’m super paranoid now about washing my hands (I have peasant’s hands from all the washing!), and not storing food in the fridge.  So definitely some of it stuck.

I’m still a bit distressed about the rice though.

Orientation

Friday, 30th March 2012.  Day 1 of school.  Orientation.  Several letters and email reminders to inform me that if I miss this session, I will not be allowed to attend the course.  That’ll be £16,444 down the toilet.  I made sure to set my alarm.  Several.  To make sure I get to school on time.  Nay!  Early!

At 10am at 15 Bloomsbury Square, 130 new students (apparently!) attending the LCB in London crowd around the small reception area at the new school campus.  The school was in Marylebone (not Mary-le-bone or bon, but Mar-leh-bone) previously, but moved to the new campus this year.

There are mainly 3 courses: Basic Cuisine (which is what I’m doing, which is the first of 3 modules to graduate with a diploma), Basic Pastry, or students doing the Grande diploma, which is both Cuisine and Pastry.

We (the Cuisine and the Grande Diploma students) were put into 4 groups: A, B, C or D (the Pastry students went their own way), and a chef instructor took charge of each group and took us on an orientation tour and talk.  I am in Group C and had Chef J, who is Canadian and pretty casual.  He took us to the first kitchen and that was when I finally, finally got excited!  It was a professional kitchen with state of the art equipment.  Very very cool.  The only thing that I was a little disappointed with was that it wasn’t open fire cooking, but with induction hobs.  But I guess I’m Asian and old-school that way.  How to get wok-hei?  In fact, cannot use a wok on an induction hob!  But I guess I will learn to adapt.

Chef went through all the usual schpiel about what to expect from the course, etc, and gave us a tour of the various kitchens and demonstration rooms.  Then we headed over to one of the rooms to get our kit!  I got my Wusthof knife set.  It came in a case and was extremely heavy.  I’ve not brought it back yet to fully examine everything that’s in it, but we’ve started using the knives and they are sharp!  Very cool.  Very exciting!

Also got my uniform, comprising:

my school uniform

• 3 Chef jackets (the double-breasted type), with the LCB emblem
• 2 pairs of checkered chef pants, which are kinda ugly and oddly-sized.  The medium was too large for me, but the small was a bit snug around the hips, so I decided to go with the medium and I keep feeling like MC Hammer (can’t touch this!). With so much room around my hips, I could be storing chickens in there.
• 3 aprons
• 3 tea towels
• 2 dish cloths
• 3 chef scarves
• 2 chef caps (not the tall toques which are for the real Chefs)

When people first started to know about me coming for this course, everyone kept asking me, aren’t you excited?  And I didn’t know how to respond, because I wanted to be excited.  But I had no time to get excited, because there was so much to do.  I was working all through till the end of February (it had to be a leap year!), I had to pack up so that the apartment was ready to be cleared out for the great move later in the year, when I’m not around, I have no place to live (my temp lodgings were only confirmed like a week before I left), intellectually, I should feel excited, but I wasn’t as excited as what everyone expected.  Stressed, yes.  Apprehensive, totally.  Freaked out, a little.  How could I not be freaked out?  I’m going back to school after close to 20 years to start all over again.  I have no real plans after, no job waiting for me, and no income.  It’s all rather frightening really.  And… and… what if I cannot hack it?  What if I was only, gasp, average?!!!!

But, seeing the kitchen that moment, I finally got excited.  And getting my kit, everything feels real now.  This is really happening.

After getting all sorted out with uniforms, knives etc and finding out where our lockers are, it was time for the principal’s speech.  Welcome welcome, etc etc, blah blah blah…… and then, she went on about ways to get expelled.  Cutting classes and being consistently late.  Skipping a demonstration equates to 2 absences.  If you have more than 5 recorded absences you will fail the course, etc etc.  OK, all pretty standard.  And then, she mentioned the internet.  It seems people have been expelled for writing unflattering things about the esteemed organisation, and she took care to mention that they have an entire IT department devoted to trawling the internet for postings about the school, because they take the school’s reputation very seriously.  Which brings me to why this blog is elceebee, because, while I think what I will say is hardly going to get me expelled (I’m rather exhilarated at that moment to be here, really), but who knows what the IT guy is thinking.  (Also, another thought is that, well, part of my bloody course fees are financing these IT guys?  No wonder it’s so expensive!)

After the principal’s speech, was the course scheduler’s session.  Our first lesson would be on Food Safety and Hygiene.  The very next day.  Saturday.  Great.  School has well and truly begun.

Hello, London!

So, 2 weeks ago, I packed up 40 years of my life (well, almost all of), lugged a suitcase halfway across the world (London actually isn’t all that far, really) and found myself in London, all ready to get started on my cuisine diploma at LCB (more later on why this is how I’m referring to the esteemed institution).

But first, I need to sort out the logistics of living here.  Firstly, I am extremely grateful to Wen for letting me stay at his parent’s fabulously located apartment in Gloucester Road.  But that had a limited time on it, as the flat was due for renovation sometime in April.  So I really need to find something fast.

Due to a confluence of factors, I was completely stressed and stretched before leaving for London, and wasn’t able to get that sorted before coming here, or even have a real sense of where I should be living, which areas were good, not good, convenient, cool, cool, but inconvenient.  I looked at everywhere!

I quickly learned a few things:  rooms for rent that are rented by agents tend to be quite horrible, and honestly, not all that cheap.  Flat shares are a much better option, price-wise, and aesthetics and general care of the place, but because there are more people looking to rent than people letting rooms out, these tend to go quickly, and the people who are already living in the flatshare can afford to be picky about who they want to live with.

I would’ve thought that my being a culinary student would make me a very popular candidate for a flat mate (hello, free food!!)  But apparently, not.  Firstly, the student thing wasn’t working in my favour, because I was only going to be around for around 9 months (anything longer is as yet a question mark).  The flat shares I was checking out were mainly with professionals, because frankly, I cannot live in a party house with young people, almost half my age (who would prefer someone closer to their age group anyway), and the professionals I met would prefer someone with a little more longevity.  I saw a few fabulous rooms, and I thought I got along quite well with the people living there.  One of them told me honestly the only reason he didn’t pick me was the fact that I was only going living for 9 months with any certainty, as he was hoping to find someone who could stay longer and not have to go through the hassle of finding someone else to take over the room when I leave.

Secondly, most of the kitchens are quite small.  If there was already an alpha cook in the household, more often than not, they didn’t want any competition (well, at least,that was the vibe I was getting).  In all honesty, I have no idea how much cooking I would be doing at home.  After a full day of dealing with food, would I want to come home and do more of the same?  Still, it is very important to me, that the option to cook as I wish is there.

The first place I saw was in Willesden Junction.  I figured as long as I stayed somewhere where I only had to change once for a line that got me to school (either Central or Piccadilly), that would be OK.  Preferably somewhere not further than Zone 2, but I would consider Zone 3 if they were within walking distance to either the Central or Piccadilly lines.  This was a bedsit.

Now, a bedsit is something fairly unique to the UK.  It is a bed-sitting room.  Not really a studio, because it usually doesn’t come with an attached bath or toilet, but usually has some form of kitchenette area and occasionally a wash basin also.  It’s often associated with poor people in the past, and now, I think mostly students or young couples starting out.

Anyway, so, this bedsit I saw was actually quite nicely done up.  The landlord lives on the property, but downstairs.  He had converted his house into rental bedsits upstairs, and he occupies the lower level.  The rented rooms have a separate entrance, it looks new and clean, and when I got there, there was a cleaner, cleaning the laundry area.  There is a shared washer and dryer, and the room, while not big, was decent and the kitchen was fairly well kitted out, with fairly new-looking, or at least well-maintained equipment and appliances.  It’s a quiet residential area, with a window looking out to the garden of sorts.  There was a bathroom and toilet outside, which the landlord told me is for my use exclusively, as the other 2 rooms have their on ensuite.  Not bad.  However, it was just a bit out of my budget, and also, the local area around the train station was all rather depressing.  It was also a good 20-minute walk from the station, and not a pleasant walk either.  I felt, I had to look at more properties to get a sense of what was available.

The afternoon viewings that day were rather depressing.  I saw a room for let, which was tiny with a rather horrendous bedspread in a miserable shared flat, with a grotty kitchen and bathroom, shared with 4 other people.  Each room had an improvised lock on the outside, and there was no living room, or even any shared area, other than the tiny kitchen. That was struck off my list immediately.  The location, though I quite liked.  It was a 5-minute walk to Bethnal Green station, which would take me to Holborn, where my school is, in under 15 minutes.  Walking around the area, I liked that it was pretty ethnic, had a lot of different eateries and grocers and butchers.  There were a lot of school kids on their way home, which indicated to me a fairly safe neighbourhood since there were lots of kids and therefore families (and lots of schools too, I noted).  I liked that there was a big old church, and just round the corner, the London Buddhist Centre, which had a nice little cafe called The Larder next to it, with all kinds of teas and tisanes, and a Thai eatery next door.  There is a nice park with a community library just at the park, and I love parks and librariesIt wasn’t a pretty neighbourhood, nor the cleanest, but I kinda liked it, because it feels real.  Like a place that real people lived.  I made a mental note to check out more places around Bethnal Green.

The next viewing was at Shepherd’s Bush.  It was a bedsit.  Having seen the one this morning, I was somewhat unprepared for the one I saw at Shepherd’s Bush.  Firstly, it was in a Victorian terrace house, which I thought, ooh, ok, quite nice.  Then I rang the buzzer, and the current tenant showed me the place.  It was literally just a room.  There was an old wardrobe, a foldout bed facing a rather giant window, and next to the window was a desk with a small TV and on the side, the kitchenette, which was rather depressing, including something I saw again in a few other bedsits, a microwave oven with built-in hot plates on top of it.  The toilet and shower were obviously added in and constituted a tiny wooden box on the other side of the room facing the kitchenette.  I think I would have been too depressed living there, and I would feel poor.  That was also stricken off the list.

That night, I had signed up for a Speed Flat Mating event organised by spareroom.co.uk.  It is like a Speed Dating event, except instead of looking for a date, you’re looking for a flat mate.  So I registered online, paid £3 at the door (£2 if you pay online) of a club near Holborn called Sway, got my pink label which says “I need a room” and stepped in intrepidly, wondering, what kind of people I was going to meet there, while peering nervously at other people’s labels, looking for those with a similar, but white, label, stating, “I have a room”.

Speed Flat Mating: I need a room

The first person I encountered was a man called Marcin, of Eastern Europe origin (possible Polish), who was looking for a flatmate, to share with him only.  There was a living area (aha!).  He was fairly well-prepared, and had photos to show.  The place was at Turnpike Lane (Zone 3, but on the Piccadilly line, so that was alright with me).  I found him a little odd, and awkward, but I thought perhaps it was more a language issue.  The next guy I met was possibly an agent.  He had several rooms, but it was not an area I had hitherto really considered, so I didn’t really plan to follow up on that either.

The next person I met seemed like a possibility.  Young English chap, probably gay.  Working in Burberry, but moving to Mulberry, and hoping to work his way up from Retail Associate to Management.  He was looking for a flatmate to share his place in South Ealing as his existing flatmate was buying his own place and moving out.  I asked, “Piccadilly line?” and he replied, “Yes!” enthusiastically.  It was just within my budget (£500 per month, plus bills, which would bring it up to around £600), and although in Zone 3, was on a direct line to school.  Plus he seemed nice, and I would be sharing with only him, and there was a living room (yay!).  So we exchanged numbers, and he said he was doing viewings on Friday night and all day Saturday.  (As it turned out, his flatmate’s deal fell through and he was not going to move out after all, so that didn’t work out).

The next few weren’t that positive, as they were in areas I’d never considered.  Just as I was about to leave, I saw this lady, easily the most well-dressed lady there that evening.  She had a room in Stratford, just opposite the Olympic stadium.  I wasn’t too keen on that area, but she seemed very interesting.  I asked her what she does and she said, a bit of writing, a bit of modeling, a bit of everything, really.  She does restaurant reviews and I was immediately very taken by that.  So I gave her my details, so she could email me some additional information about her place and some pictures of the room.  I left the event, feeling rather optimistic.

The next few day, I looked a few more rooms.  There was another one of those rooms to let in a flat share with 3 other people.  The rooms at least, were a decent size.  But the kitchen is rather depressing.  The rent included all bills and a cleaner who comes once a week to clean the common areas (bathroom, kitchen and corridor), but seeing as all the common areas weren’t terribly clean, I thought it was all rather dubious how much cleaning was actually done.  Also, I think it was a council or ex-council flat.  The block was named “Needwood house”.  The block next to it had broken windows on the ground floor flat.  The whole area looked rather unsavoury.  The same agent, then told me, he had a studio if I was interested and I thought, OK, let’s check it out.  A studio means, kitchenette and ensuite.  That might be good.  Well, it wasn’t.  It was along a rather busy street, and entry was via a back alley (where garbage is taken out to, including food waste, as I think there was some restaurants there).  There were a few other bedsits.  It was even more depressing than the one I saw at Shepherd’s Bush and there was no wardrobe.  The bathroom had door that opened to what the agent glamorously called “the deck”.  It was more like a service ledge.  The agent asked, “You like?” and I could not muster an appropriate response, really.  Nyet.

I also saw a flat share in Pimlico.  It was a teeny tiny room with a single bed.  Was very nice and clean, and there was a rather large kitchen with a lounge area.  But it was shared with 4 other people, and apparently amongst them there were 3 chefs.  Rather intimidating.  The area was nice, it was set above a beauty salon, along a pleasant street, and it’s in Zone 1, but I couldn’t get beyond the size of the room.  Plus the main lease-holder had a slight sleaziness about him that I couldn’t get past.

I saw a house share in Seven Sisters, but it was a 20-minute hike from the station.  The room was not too bad, but I felt I needed to view more places.  It didn’t wow me.  Saw a place at Kensal Green.  Initially I was a little concerned, because the area seemed so set away from everything, but it was a short walk from the station, and the room was large with a television!  It would be a flat share with the main leaseholder, a Moroccan musician who “travels a lot”, and works from home.  The kitchen was a tiny tiny room.  While the room was quite cosy, the kitchen really was small, and I felt I still needed to keep looking, because I didn’t love it.

After looking at a few rather dodgy places, I saw a lovely room in an Art & Craft cottage in Hampstead Gardens Suburb.  Quite a bit further out than where I wanted to live, but it was the nicest room I had seen, and within my budget, and I was totally taken with the idea of living in a cottage, with a garden and an allotment (Farmville for reals!).  The landlady was a lovely lady, who cracked open a bottle of French organic wine, while we chatted and got to know each other a bit better.  It’s a tiny cottage, but well-appointed and very cosy.  Apparently, the row of cottages located there were all artisan cottages.  They were given to the poorer artisans, in an area where a lot of rich people lived, and because they were not as well-off, they were given an allotment of land to grow their own vegetables.  I was all ready to move in.  So excitedly I told my friend Pat, who lives in London, who very quickly brought me down to reality.  She had had bad experiences with live-in landlords.  “They always seem nice initially and then after a while, it’s like, oh, are you cooking?  are you using the kitchen?  you seem to cook a lot, huh? are you watching TV? oh, i wanted to watch TV….”  She said, at the end of the day, they don’t want to be your friend, they only want your money.

That gave me cause for pause, so I decided to meet with the cottage lady again and hash all these out.  She still seemed lovely, but when we got to the nitty gritty of it, it dawned on me that she really didn’t want someone who was going to be there a lot.  As I hadn’t not gotten my class schedule yet, I had no idea how much time I would spend in the house.  And then we had a discussion about best time to move in, and I also noted her business partner and best friend was also always in the cottage, and she had family visiting and a whole host of stuff going on.  So I decided, it’s not going to be a cottage, after all.

Back to square one!  And I was already exhausted.  I got better at reading between the lines and picking out the better rooms, and saw a few of the aforementioned fabulous rooms.  However, after a week of optimistically waiting (while checking out other, not so great rooms), they didn’t pick me.  How could they not?!!!!

Oh, some info about flats/houses in London.  Unlike in Singapore, where it’s pretty much open plan for living areas, most of the houses and flats have a dedicated room for the living room and sometimes if you are lucky, there is also a dining room.  So a lot of landlords convert the living room into a large bedroom (usually for couples).  There is also the concept of single room and double room, which is basically an issue of size (fits a single bed, or a double bed).  Kitchens are usually not big.  Dryers are not common, nor laundry lines.  People apparently hang them on racks and the stuff dries because the air is dry.  Some of the dreadful rooms I saw were literally room lets.  You rent the room, there is a kitchen which you can use (small) and it’s not uncommon for 4-5 people living in the same flat to share 1 toilet and bathroom!!  Also, there’s the concept of separate toilets and bathrooms.  Which while i i think is a fabulous thing, in case people need to go and someone else is bathing, but!  the toilet doesn’t always have a washbasin!  in fact, 8 of 10 of these separate toilets I’ve seen did not come with a wash basin.  I think this is why a lot of people have this idea that it’s ok NOT to wash your hands after going to the toilet.  Lemme help you.  No!

But it wasn’t all bad.  Some of the people I met were really nice and interesting.  There was a lady (live-in landlord), who doesn’t work.  She is a freelancer.  Does a bit of writing, bit of modelling, bit of everything.  Rather glamorous with a lovely apartment in Stratford, right across from the Olympic Park.  I decided against it for practical transport reasons, during the Olympics, but she is fabulous.  A friend thought perhaps she’s a mistress, which is why she doesn’t have to work.  Heh.

There was also the 2 guys with the gorgeous place in Stoke Newington, that I desperately wanted.  I practically stalked the apartment.  The location isn’t great from a transport perspective (no tube), so I tried the National Rail service (not reliable and I only used it twice), and the bus.  But I love the area!  It’s got such a great vibe.  A lot of people said it’s a bit rough, but I like it.  It’s got Jamaican, Turkish and Jewish influences, and apparently Vietnamese too, on another street that I didn’t get to.  There’s a lot of community action going on, mainly art and music.  The cafes are funky, got meat places and those vegan ones too.  There are thrift stores and markets.  Apart from the area (which is in Hackney and was quite rough, but very up and coming), the room is a great size and the 2 guys living there already seem fun and chill.  Alas, they didn’t pick me (how could they not??!!!).

There’s also the architect originally from Hong Kong.  The “flat” is actually a converted 2-storey terrace house, with the downstairs converted into a flat, and the upstairs converted into another small one.  The place was not great, but he’d done up his room very nicely and we got on fabulously, but my short stay was alas, an issue with him.

At last!  At last!  2 weeks after I arrive, I find a place.  I’ve not moved in yet, and the room is quite small (really small), but the location is good (10 minute walk to the station, 15 minute tube ride to where I need to go), the place is clean, the kitchen looks decent and the people living there seem nice, and I was getting to the end of my tether.  I cannot look at another house!

Well, hopefully, that’s my apartment hunting chapter closed!

Next up, school!