Viva Brighton Issue #56 October 2017

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VIVA
B R I G H T O N
#56. OCT 2017
EDITORIAL
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Viva Brighton is based at:
Brighton Junction,
1a Isetta Square, BN1 4GQ.
For advertising enquiries call:
01273 810 296.
Other enquiries call:
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Every care has been taken to
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any omissions, errors or alterations.
When did Brighton become an epicentre for
the epicurean? I guess it started with Marie-
Antonin Carême, whose epic banquets at the
Pavilion put the current trend for ten-course
tasting menus in the shade. On the 18th
of January 1817, he sent to the table eight
soups, eight removes of fish, forty entrées,
platters after the fish, eight great pieces, eight
centrepieces patisserie, eight roasts, thirty-two
desserts and savoury entremets and twelve great
rounds. Pity the pot washer.
But the food scene hasn’t always been so
celebrated. Eating out in Brighton in the
(19)80s meant pizza from Pie in the Sky in
Preston Street or, if you wanted a steak, you
could go across the road to the Aberdeen
Steak House (and you still can). Now people
are raising Wagyu beef in West Sussex and a
growing stable of celebrated chefs are cooking
up modern-British banquets of their own.
Maybe the city’s food scene has come full circle.
So in this ‘feast’ issue we meet some of the
taste makers and take a look behind their
kitchen doors. We prepare to welcome food
royalty (Yotam Ottolenghi is in town; lock up
your tahini). We meet people cooking dinner
for neighbours in need, and others feeding
displaced people far from home. People who
write about food, blog about food, and one man
who reckons that edible insects might one day
be as popular as sushi.
Gulp.

VIVA
B R I G H T O N
THE TEAM
.....................
EDITOR: Lizzie Lower lizzie@vivamagazines.com
DEPUTY EDITOR: Steve Ramsey steve@vivamagazines.com
ART DIRECTOR: Katie Moorman katie@vivamagazines.com
WRITER/DESIGNER: Rebecca Cunningham rebecca@vivamagazines.com
PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE: Adam Bronkhorst mail@adambronkhorst.com
PUBLISHER: Becky Ramsden becky@vivamagazines.com
ADVERTISING: Hilary Maguire hilary@vivamagazines.com,
Sarah Jane Lewis sarah-jane@vivamagazines.com
ADVERTISING/ADMIN: Kelly Hill kelly@vivamagazines.com
DISTRIBUTION: David Pardue distribution@vivamagazines.com
CONTRIBUTORS: Alex Leith, Amy Holtz, Andrew Darling, Ben Bailey, Cara Courage,
Chloë King, Chris Riddell, David Burke, Emma Chaplin, JJ Waller, Jay Collins, Joanna Baumann,
Joda, Joe Decie, John Helmer, John O’Donoghue, Lisa Devlin, Lizzie Enfield, Mark Bridge,
Mark Greco, Martin Skelton, Michael Blencowe, Nione Meakin and Saskia Solomon
Please recycle your Viva (or keep us forever).

FROM HOUSE
TO HOME
nashwatson.com

CONTENTS
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Bits and bobs.
8-21. Pastry as architecture. Rock as a
health food. Last night’s takeaway as
breakfast. Meal sharing as philanthropy.
Deliveroo as art patrons. And shed
poetry as a stimulant.
8
My Brighton.
22-23. Murmur from a Scottish
Brightonian: super-chef and Meat
Liquor-fan Michael Bremner.
Photography.
25-29. ‘It’s like a dance’. Xavi D Buendia,
on how to move in a busy kitchen (and
take great photos while you’re at it).
43
22
Lucy Sherston
Columns.
31-35. Why funerals are better than
weddings - usually. Why Minnesotans
don’t do vegetarianism – or understand
it. And why Penguin biscuits are the
best pudding - even at a dinner party.
Photo by Adam Bronkhorst
On this month.
37-49. Why is dad dancing so embarrassing?
What is the Ottolenghi Effect?
Who would dare re-score Koyaanisqatsi?
Which acclaimed poet has a Master’s in
Economics? And how new is fake news?
....6 ....

CONTENTS
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Art and design.
51-59. Dunking your work in the sea.
Collaborating with table-tennis players.
Branding in an anything-goes era.
Podcasting about a medieval tyrant. And
creating a ‘hallucinogenic window into
another world’.
52
The way we work.
61-65. The butcher, the baker, the
micro-herb grower…
Photo taken at The Royal Pavilion, Brighton
Thanks to Royal Pavilion & Museums Brighton & Hove
Food.
66-71. Vegetarianism, à la française.
Coriander rice, à la surrealist photographer
Lee Miller. Grown-up dining,
Blue Man-style. And the most decadent
dessert we could find.
78
Features.
73-89. The economics of eating insects.
The messiness of the human experience.
The extravagance of Prince George’s
menu. The dream of a kitchen road-trip.
The logistics of helping refugees. The
likelihood of a Michelin star. And the
kebab shop of plants.
Inside left.
90. Oh, you eat the hokey pokey and
you catch a disease, that’s how it happened
before the ice-cream cone was
invented.
Tony Tree
....7 ....

THIS MONTH’S COVER ARTIST
..................................................
“It’s just baffling that anyone thought that
these were appetizing things,” says illustrator
Lucy Sherston, of the ‘strange 70s dinnerparty
concoctions’ she’s been researching for
this month’s cover. “I just want to know if
people actually ate them, or if they were just
spectacles…” Her creation is based on a real-life
recipe card that she found online, showing a jelly
centrepiece filled with fruit and meat, which
she’s embellished with frankfurters and garnish.
“I thought it might tie in quite nicely with
Halloween, and it looking a bit gross and scary.”
Her vibrant, playful pieces cross the boundary
between illustration and collage. She explains her
process: “Initially I’ll sketch out the vague layout
or idea, and then I’ll draw elements of it with ink
and a brush, or try to create some textures that
are to do with the image that I’m focusing on. I’ll
scan all that mess in and layer it up in Photoshop,
blocking in the bits that are working well,
removing the bits that aren’t working. Once I’ve
got the handmade bits done, the more physical
elements that take more time, I’m in a position
to work really quickly to manipulate them into
something that I’m happy with.”
Lucy’s work takes many forms: from prints,
to installations, to murals. She’s recently been
working on a project for Deliveroo Editions, a
delivery-only kitchen in Portslade, which makes
the food-delivery service available to people
....8 ....

LUCY SHERSTON
..........................................
living outside of the city centre. “They were
brilliant to work with,” she says. “I’ve seen a
lot of the stuff they’ve done for these local
sites, and I think they work with really great
illustrators, so it felt really good to be involved
in that. I’ve just finished designing a postcard
for them, and I’m hoping to do a mural in the
space as well.”
Lucy was adopted into the Brighton art
scene after moving down here from Leeds
three years ago. She sells work through the
prominent design outlet Dowse, and is a
regular at illustration fairs, including the DIY
Art Market (which returns to Brighton in
November), and Brighton Illustration Fair,
taking place this month. “I love doing the
markets,” she says. “I always get super anxious
before doing them, but then as soon as I’m
there… I’ve just met some of the best people.
And even though they can be hit-and-miss
in terms of selling work, it’s so much more
about being in those spaces where you’re just
meeting so many interesting people. I’ve had
some great opportunities that have come from
people not buying stuff.”
Lucy has been selected as the local Guest
Artist at this year’s Illustration Fair, which
has moved to the Sallis Benney Theatre on
Grand Parade. The event, which is open on
the 21st and 22nd, showcases work by artists
from Brighton and beyond, with a programme
of talks, workshops and screenings running
throughout the weekend. As well as exhibiting
some of her recent work, Lucy will be putting
on a workshop with fellow local illustrator
Pippa Toole. For all dates and times, follow
the fair on Twitter: @wearebif. RC
lucysherston.com
....9 ....

BITS AND BOBS
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SPREAD THE WORD
Here’s ‘Burner’ Carly Moorman at this year’s Burning
Man Festival in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. That’s
her toting our ‘wheels’ issue, with her festival wheels, in
front of the very man himself. She tells us “the festival’s
motto is ‘leave no trace’, and Viva would definitely have
been considered MOOP (matter out of place)”. We’ve
been called many things before, but never MOOP…
Hope she brought us home.
And that’s Charlie Hill outside Central Perk - the mother
of all coffee shops - recreated at Friends Fest in Oxford.
We can almost hear
Phoebe singing
Smelly Cat… Keep
taking us with you
and keep spreading
the word. Send
your pics to hello@
vivamagazines.com
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ON THE BUSES #30:
MARIE ANTONIN CARÊME (Routes 5 & 5A)
From 1816 to 1817, The Royal Pavilion’s Great
Kitchen was graced by the presence of famed
French chef Marie Antonin Carême.
Born in Paris in the late eighteenth century
and abandoned aged eight during the French
Revolution, Carême cut his teeth in the food
trade as a kitchen boy in a chop house. In 1798, he
became an apprentice to patissier Sylvain Bailly, who
recognised Carême’s flair for cooking, becoming a
mentor to the boy. Inspired, Carême left his master
and set up his own shop, the Patisserie de la Rue de
la Paix, which he ran until 1813.
Carême was known for his ‘pièces montées’, fruits
and cakes stacked vertiginously high to make for
elaborate centrepieces – some of which stood over
four feet high and up to six feet across. ‘Pastry,’ he
once said, ‘is the highest form of architecture’. In a
prolific career, Carême
fed both Emperor
Napoleon and the Tsar
of Russia. He is often
held responsible for the creation of the white
chef’s hat.
The Prince Regent benefitted from Carême’s
presence, if a little too much. ‘Carême,’ George
whined, ‘You will make me eat myself to death. I
want to eat everything you place under my nose, it
is all too tempting.’ Indeed, when the Grand Duke
Nicholas of Russia visited the Pavilion, the menu
boasted 36 mains and 32 side dishes.
Carême left Brighton, exasperated by the fog and
the smog. He died on January 12th, 1833, aged 49.
His untimely death has been attributed to years of
working over a coal-fuelled stove. Saskia Solomon
Illustration by Joda (@jonydaga)
....11....

Celebrate the bounty of the season at
our activity packed harvest festival
Tractor rides | Tours & workshops | Tree climbing | Apple pressing
14 – 15 October
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For details visit kew.org/bountiful

JOE DECIE
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BITS AND BOBS
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BOOK REVIEW: JIZZ, NEW & SELECTED POEMS BY JOHN DAVIES
This is the time of year we all need pepping up. Jizz
might be what’s required. It’s the name John Davies
gives to his New and Selected Poems.
Being the guttersnipe I am, I wasn’t aware of its
meaning amongst twitchers: ‘The characteristic
impression given by a particular species of animal
or plant’. It’s this attention to particularities that
gives the book its character, for Davies has a very
distinctive voice, pitched somewhere between the
Englishness of Ted Hughes and John Betjeman, in a
kind of middle-ground all his own.
The book launches at an event this month, with
music, dance and recitations set against the glorious
architecture of St George’s Church in Kemptown.
Personally, I’m hoping Davies will be performing
such heart-stopping poems as Elegy – really an
anti-elegy: ‘I think it’s time to grab the elegy by the
throat’; and his very funny
Maximum Shed. Sheds are very
close to Davies’ heart. They
are to his poetry what the bog
was to Heaney or glasses are to
Hegley. They represent both
senses of the word retreat,
a place where modern man
can escape, but also a diminishment of masculinity.
Who else could wring both poignancy and humour
from the humble shed? Who else but Shedman?
The evening will also feature readings from Ciaran
O’Driscoll from Ireland, and Kate Gale from the
USA. John O’Donoghue
Friday 6th October, St George’s, Kemptown, 7.15pm
for 8pm. £10/£8 concs
ticketsource.co.uk/boxoffice
01273 678 822
attenboroughcentre.com

BITS AND BOGS
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MAGAZINE OF THE MONTH: UPPERCASE
Last month, we reviewed a
food mag because we simply
couldn’t find a link to the Viva
theme of ‘electric’. This month
the theme is ‘feast’, but we
aren’t featuring two food mags
in a row. For us, feast means:
‘Something that is very enjoyable
to see, hear, experience,
etc’. (Thanks, Cambridge Dictionary.)
And that means that,
after nearly three years of writing
this column, we are able to
feature Uppercase magazine.
Uppercase is the result of the heroic work of Janine
Vangool, who lives in Alberta, Canada. It’s not quite
true to say that she produces the magazine singlehandedly,
because there are always lots of contributors,
but, wow, she very nearly does. And, amazingly,
Janine has developed and nursed Uppercase to Issue
34 without a single page of advertising.
Its tag line is ‘for the creative and curious’, and it
really delivers. In the current issue, the first sixteen
pages are a cornucopia of snippets of information,
cleverly designed objects to use and keep, a small
feature about globes, and an A-Z of exploration
from Appalachian Trail to Zeppelin.
And then, the magazine
really takes off.
Neatly divided into four sections
- Fine Print, Art and Design,
Craft+Style and Miscellaneous,
there’s way too much
to list in this short review, but
here’s a taster. A sketchbook
of India; the glory of maps;
the joy of semi-planned road
trips, Chris Fritton’s 47,000
mile journey to make prints in
as many different letterpress
shops as he could find; a review of some historical
postcards; and an interview with Jeanne Ledoux,
who started her shopwomanshopsworld.com
website to sell a whole array of gorgeous stuff; and
so much more.
What’s so delightful about Uppercase is that it’s a
visual feast as well as a feast of ideas and stimulation.
You can’t possibly read it in one go, and you’ll
be passing it on to friends and dipping into it
yourself six months from now. It’s no wonder it’s
so popular.
Martin Skelton, MagazineBrighton
TOILET GRAFFITO #33
Either this Brighton convenience serves as a
venue for a snogging match (we’ve checked with
the Urban Dictionary), or there’s a toilet tout
doing a nice line in the famous poulet de Bresse.
Neither possibility is easy to stomach.
But which - and where - is it?
Last month’s answer: Presuming Eds
....15....

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JJ WALLER
...............................
It seems that even Brighton Rock has woken up to the trend for healthy eating.
Not only is it now available in these balanced meal deals but, says JJ Waller,
“they contain NO Artificial Colours. Simply a sprinkling of E120, E163, E171,
E160c, E141, E150c and E153. What’s not to like?”
....17....

吀 爀 愀 渀 猀 昀 漀 爀 洀 礀 漀 甀 爀 栀 漀 洀 攀 眀 椀 琀 栀 漀 甀 爀 昀 椀 渀 攀 猀 琀 焀 甀 愀 氀 椀 琀 礀
匀 㨀 䌀 刀 䄀 䘀 吀 洀 愀 搀 攀 ⴀ 琀 漀 ⴀ 洀 攀 愀 猀 甀 爀 攀 椀 渀 琀 攀 爀 椀 漀 爀 猀 栀 甀 琀 琀 攀 爀 猀 ⸀
琀 ⸀ ㈀ 㜀 アパート アパート アパート 㠀 㐀 ㈀
攀 ⸀ 挀 漀 渀 琀 愀 挀 琀 䀀 戀 攀 氀 氀 愀 瘀 椀 猀 琀 愀 猀 栀 甀 琀 琀 攀 爀 猀 ⸀ 挀 漀 ⸀ 甀 欀
眀 ⸀ 眀 眀 眀 ⸀ 戀 攀 氀 氀 愀 瘀 椀 猀 琀 愀 猀 栀 甀 琀 琀 攀 爀 猀 ⸀ 挀 漀 ⸀ 甀 欀
HAPPY BIRTHDAY QUEENSPARK BOOKS
‘If you go back in the history of Brighton when it was Brighthelmston
you had the Eastdeaners and the Westdeaners... And there was always
a sort of a family feud if you go back long enough... you’re really going
back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. [Though] when I
first went to market, which is back in the 1930s - there were still some
families that wouldn’t speak to other families even in those days.’
It seems that turf wars over fishing rights are nothing new. This longstanding
contretemps was described by John Leach in Catching Stories:
Voices from the Brighton Fishing Community back in 1996. It’s just one
of the publications by QueenSpark Books that captured, in ‘authentic
voice’, the social history of the city’s working communities.
This excerpt – along with many other seaside memories – is republished
in Brighton’s Seaside Stories, the latest book to be produced by
QSB. Its release this month coincides with QueenSpark’s 45th anniversary
and it’s the first in a series of anthologies that a team of volunteers have been busy compiling from
their impressive (and largely out-of-print) back catalogue. Our congratulations to QueenSpark Books and
all of the people who’ve shared their stories over the past 45 years. Here’s to capturing many more.
queensparkbooks.org.uk
....18....

BITS AND BOBS
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CHARITY BOX #19: CASSEROLE CLUB
Casserole Club is a free food-sharing
community in Brighton and Hove. It connects
those who would appreciate a home-cooked meal,
such as those who may be socially isolated, with a
volunteer cook. People can self-refer by calling us,
or via the website. We’ll match them up with one of
our volunteer cooks - people who are really keen to
share a homecooked meal with somebody in their
local community.
We currently have around 60 active matches
across the city, with meals being shared weekly,
fortnightly or monthly. It’s a flexible way for
people to volunteer their skills locally in a way
that suits them, whilst getting to know their
neighbours. It’s important to stay and chat. It’s
about saying ‘how are you?’
With nearly 250 volunteer cooks, we are keen
to hear from people in the city who know or
work with those that are isolated and would
like to be matched with a cook. If you know a
neighbour, family or friend who would benefit
from seeing a friendly face, please tell them about
Casserole Club and get in touch.
As told to Lizzie Lower by Vikki Dagnan
You can sign up to receive a home-cooked meal, or
find out more, by contacting the Casserole Club
Team on 01273 431700 or casserole@bhfood.org.uk
Casserole Clubbers Ed, Vicky and Arthur
Bringing fresh independence to
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Share the Roads,
Brighton & Hove
focus
LOOK
LISTEN
42% of collisions in Brighton & Hove
occurred because people were
not looking properly
6241_road_safety_A6.indd 1 14/09/2017 15:
Analytical Hypnotherapy
with Psychotherapy
Bradley Dearman combines traditional
hypnotherapy with a psychotherapeutic
approach to treat a range of issues, including:
• sleeplessness
• anxiety
• depression
• relationship difficulties
• dependencies & addictions
• fears & phobias
• low self esteem
• PTSD
By removing these issues,
hypnotherapy can help to encourage
a healthy balanced lifestyle
SAVE OUR SCHOOLS
A CORRECTION
In our August issue, in an article about a fundraising
raffle, we incorrectly stated that the Middle
Street Infant School was in danger of closure
and we’d like to apologise for any confusion or
anxiety caused. Whilst the nursery has had to
close, Julie Aldous, the Head Teacher at Middle
Street, informs us that the school is ‘struggling
financially as many schools are’ but ‘there has
never been any threat to or possibility of the
main school closing’. Many of our city’s schools
are struggling in the face of government cuts.
We salute the efforts and initiatives being run by
the community to ease the pressure.

BITS AND BOBS
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PUB: BRIGHTON BEER DISPENSARY
It’s Friday, it’s four o’clock, and
it’s time the weekend started.
The first thing I clock as I walk
into the Brighton Beer Dispensary
is legendary Brighton
hedonist Smelly sitting at the bar
- a very good sign: this is a man
who knows his beer.
The second thing I notice is
a blackboard which half-fills
the back wall, denoting the 16
different ales and ciders on tap,
along with the brewer, ABV
(‘booziness’) and price. I quietly
order the only lager on the list,
Fourpure’s Indy Lager, 4.4%,
£5.20 a pint.
I never went to the Prince
Arthur, which the BBD was
called for over 150 years, until
a collaboration between two
independent companies - Late
Knights and Brighton Bier - led
to its buy-out in 2014 from
Enterprise Inns, though I walked
past it many times. Something
about its scruffy facade didn’t
appeal.
For the record, the first Post
Office Directory mention of the
Prince Arthur was in 1866; Dean
Street was built in the 1820s, so
presumably the proprietor – a
WF Sargood – converted his terraced
house into a drinking place
for the locals. It was named after
Queen Victoria’s third son, later
the Duke of Connaught, then
just 15 years old.
It’s already been taken over again
since 2014 – by the Southey
Brewing Company – but it’s still
very much a place where people
who know their ale go. There are
about ten others in the bar this
afternoon, all men. I’m the only
one drinking lager. It’s a craft
lager, to be sure, but it makes me
feel a little guilty. The Brighton
Beer Dispensary is Brighton &
South Downs 2017 CAMRA pub
of the year.
I leave, then, feeling I haven’t
quite done my job properly, but
it’s not till someone tells me that
the BBD serves pickled eggs
that I resolve to go back. They
don’t, as it happens, but the very
pleasant barmaid suggests I try
some beerkins (battered gherkins
in a hot Thai sauce, £4) instead,
and there’s something about
the way she says it that means I
can’t refuse. It proves to be an
excellent bit of advice. The pub’s
kitchen – branded ‘Dizzy Gull’ –
is done by the people responsible
for The Set restaurant in
Regency Square, and they have
come up trumps here. As I wash
these miracles of taste-and-texture-variety
down, with a tastily
rambunctious pint of Southey
APA (6.2%), I notice ‘black pudding
tacos’ on the specials board,
and resolve to become something
of a regular. Alex Leith
38 Dean Street
Photo by Alex Leith
....21....

Photo by Adam Bronkhorst, adambronkhorst.com
....22....

INTERVIEW
..........................................
MYbrighton: Michael Bremner
Chef and owner, 64 Degrees and Murmur
Are you local? I’m not. I’m from
Scotland. But I’ve lived in Brighton since
2004, and I very much see myself as a local.
I may not have the accent, but I love
the place.
What brought you here? I used to come
down for weekends while I was working
in London, just to be by the sea really,
though I enjoyed the nightlife. Initially I
got a job at the Seattle Hotel, which had
just opened at the Marina. Then, after
travelling in Canada, I came back and
met Rob Shenton from Due South, and
became their chef.
What do you love about it? I love the
fact Brighton is a city with a small-town
feel. It’s very friendly. Also - and this will
sound weird - I really like stormy days, so
I like the beach when it’s rough and brutal.
I used to love working at Due South
when a storm was coming in.
Where was the first place you ate? It
was a place called Saucy near Palmeira
Square. The food wasn’t that great - I
can’t even remember what I ate - but
I remember thinking it was a fantastic
location for a restaurant.
Where do you live? I live next to St
Ann’s Well Gardens with my partner
Carla Grassy, who’s a photographer. We
met at Due South when she was working
as a waitress. We’ve got two girls, Bonnie,
seven, and Heidi, five.
What do you make of the food scene
in Brighton? There’s a lot of curiosity
in Brighton, and people enjoy something
different. There are some great chefs
here – I get on really well with Steven
Edwards of Etch, Matt Gillan of Pike
and Pine, and Duncan Ray of the Little
Fish Market – and I think the standard of
food is just going to keep getting better.
I predict there will be a Michelin-starred
restaurant in the future.
Where do you eat? I could eat at Chilli
Pickle every day, and I absolutely adore
Pho. I also spend a lot of time in the
Flour Pot Bakery. If I was going on a
night out, I’d go to Meat Liquor for their
dirty chicken burger. It could well be one
of the best things I’ve ever eaten.
And your worst dining experience? I
got barred from Buddies once. It was a
misunderstanding…
What would you change about Brighton?
It will sound petty, but the parking.
I hate driving in Brighton. It kills me.
I drive in and out, no worries, but I’d
rather do anything than drive around the
city centre. Other than that, I think it’s
pretty perfect.
When did you last swim in the sea?
I went skinny dipping a few years ago,
but I haven’t been in since. I’ve not been
a massive fan of open water since I had
a really bad snorkelling experience in
Australia where I met a massive fish.
Interview by Nione Meakin
....23....

A GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND
BRITISH LANDSCAPE AND THE IMAGINATION: 1970s TO NOW
AN ARTS COUNCIL COLLECTION NATIONAL PARTNER EXHIBITION
30 SEPTEMBER 2017 - 21 JANUARY 2018
townereastbourne.org.uk
FREE ADMISSION
TOWNER ART GALLERY
Devonshire Park, College Road
Eastbourne, BN21 1PS
01323 434670 @TownerGallery
John Davies, Agecroft Power Station, Salford
© John Davies 1983

PHOTOGRAPHY
..........................................
Xavi D Buendia
Dance of the kitchen photographer
I worked in the food industry
for such a long time, here
in the UK as sommelier, and
as a waiter and barman. But it
was time to move on and do
something for myself, so when
I turned 30 I took a break. I
was taking pictures for fun and
did a favour for a friend - I
shot all his new menu - and the
photos looked incredible. I’d
never produced photos like that
before. One job led to another,
to another and food photography is what I’m
doing full-time now.
It feels natural for me. I know how to move
in kitchens, so I don’t get in the way of anyone.
I hear the checks coming in and see the waiting
staff moving around; it’s like a dance. I make it
easy for everyone because I know how stressful
it can be, especially for chefs to have someone
foreign around them when they’re working.
Chefs can be hot-headed, but I quite like it. I
loved the old-school kitchens; the swearing and
the shouting. You can see the tension building in
them, and the passion and the emotion; there was
a lot of fire. I don’t know how they do it nowadays
in open kitchens; it feels very unnatural.
I’m very lucky, the clients that I work with
are incredibly good at what they do, so what
you see in my photos is what you get at the table.
I don’t work in a studio and I don’t style any of
the food. I’m not too keen on food styling that
you see in magazines and Instagram feeds. Nobody
eats like that. Nobody gets up in the morning
and tidies up the table and puts a pretty cloth
and flowers with a pretty looking dish… I’m
grateful to be able to work with very talented
chefs who know their craft. Their
plating is insane. It’s tidy, creative
and fun. And that’s what I’m after.
Most of my clients are in
Brighton, and I tend to shoot
for them regularly; not only the
food but the staff, the interiors,
and the action. Typically, if I get
an enquiry, I’ll go eat there to see
what the food and the service is
like. If there’s something not quite
right, I’ll tell them it’s not the job
for me. I’m not just photographing
a product, I’m helping them sell an experience,
and to be able to capture that, I need to feel it
and believe in it.
Of the hundreds of restaurants in Brighton,
I always go back to my favourite five or six
when I get to eat out. Some of my favourites
are Silo, Riddle and Finns, Señor Buddha, the
Little Fish Market, Petit Pois, Cin Cin... Out of
those I’d say the Little Fish Market is the closest
to fine dining. I’ve worked in Michelin-starred
restaurants and super-luxurious establishments
and - in terms of food and service - they’re there.
I like to eat food that excites me and that I can’t
cook at home.
The food industry is so big and diverse. Most
people think only of restaurants, but then you
have the small farmers growing for them, the
foragers getting seaweed, micro-brewers and
distilleries, the guy who smokes salmon in his
garage, the banker who started making jams... I
realised that there is a niche for anyone with a
passion for food; anyone can create a successful
business out of it. There’s plenty for everyone.
As told to Lizzie Lower
xdbphotography.com
....25....

PHOTOGRAPHY
..........................................
Blair at Silo © XDBPhotography
....26....

PHOTOGRAPHY
..........................................
Sam at 64 Degrees © XDBPhotography Isaac at Isaac At © XDBPhotography
....27....

PHOTOGRAPHY
..........................................
Lee at Señor Buddha © XDBPhotography
Paul at Fourth & Church © XDBPhotography
....28....

PHOTOGRAPHY
..........................................
Baker at Presuming Ed © XDBPhotography Chef at Chilli Pickle © XDBPhotography
....29....

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COLUMN
...........................................
John Helmer
Lolling at the Feast
Illustration by Chris Riddell
On the whole I prefer funerals to weddings. The
dress code is easier to fall in with and people behave
better. Jolliness is mandated at weddings, with
the result that they end up generating boredom,
resentment and usually a punch-up – in Essex,
where I come from, anyway. At funerals, where
you’re supposed to be solemn and grave, an
atmosphere of bubbling mirth often hovers beyond
the circle of the directly bereaved. Sometimes
they’re a proper laugh: a comedian friend of mine
who popped his clogs some years ago arranged
for the curtains at the crematorium to close to the
strains of the Countdown theme.
Funerals are easier on the pocket, too. Nobody is
tempted into a pair of £3,000 Christian Louboutins
with six-inch spike heels that they can’t walk in
and will never wear again by the prospect of an
upcoming family funeral. Nobody decides to hold
their funeral on a beach in a distant country they
saw once on a travel programme and gets all their
friends to shell out thousands of sovs on airfares to
follow them. And nobody contemplating their last
rites makes a list of crockery and toasters and vases
for you to buy in the wrong colour and style so
they get hidden in a cupboard and only brought out
when you come round to visit. No, give me a good
funeral any day: that’s my attitude.
Which is why it comes as such a surprise to find
myself here, in a large and beautiful garden hidden
away behind flint-knapped walls on the fringes of
Whitehawk watching a young bride and groom pass
their one-year-old back and forth during their joint
speech as the infant points in gurgling delight at
the flowers, at the marquee, at a red-faced drunken
relative, and greets each with the same lusty yell of,
‘THERE!’… ‘THERE!’... ‘THERE!’… and feeling
an odd lifting of the spirits.
The weather is miraculous, the booze swims in
ice in the back of a vintage pick-up truck, and the
flowers – well I couldn’t diss the flowers because
they were done by my wife, despite her fractured
shoulder. Everything is beautiful, even the band is
beautiful, and none of it is pretentious or forced.
Later, with shadows lengthening along the lawn,
Stevie Wonder tempts those who earlier said they
would definitely under no circumstances be dancing
that evening onto the floor, wine glasses in hand.
‘This is where you get your moves from,’ I tell my
son. Dustpan and brush is passed over the heads of
the crowd for the broken glass.
And just when I feel a perfect day couldn’t get any
more perfect, I bump into the best man, drunk to
a point where motor functions are shutting down.
‘Would you like a Fab?’ he says. Leading me into
the kitchen, he opens a cool-bag of lollies. ‘Have
one. Have two.’
Could life be any better?
....31....

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COLUMN
...........................................
Amy Holtz
The truth is, I’m a Minnesotan
‘You want a burger, Aim?’
my dad asks, innocently.
Our family – and my
partner’s family, all the way
from Brighton – are seated
for dinner al fresco, on a
sunny Minnesota evening.
It seems like an innocuous
question, but I’m a
Brightonian now, sort of.
And this means I’m trying,
really hard, not to eat meat.
My dad doesn’t entirely
understand this; when
you grow up in the prairie
with food, on feet or on
stalks, as far as the eye can
see, the idea of not plucking whatever you like
from the land is somewhat alien. Ok, that’s an
understatement. It’s unfathomable – like a woman
over 40 starring in a movie. But this is the 56th
time I’ve been asked if I want some form of animal
flesh, and the spectre of my teenagerdom has
finally been called up to haunt the backyard and all
its artless inhabitants.
‘No, thanks,’ I mumble into my coleslaw.
‘Pork chop?’ My father-in-law waves another plate
at me.
‘Nah. Thanks though.’ I sink lower in my seat.
Sanctimony is a slow-dripping insanity, boring into
the space behind my eyeballs. Just focus on the
potato salad, I tell myself. And ooh, look – what
lovely watermelon. It won’t stop people chucking
meat at me, as they’re wont to do in Minnesota,
but it’ll save me chucking it at them.
‘The burgers are really good,’ my dad says, to
no one in particular. He does this because he has
a short memory and he’s still not really sure if I
don’t want a burger. Because
it’s ridiculous, obviously,
not to.
‘Dad.’ I huff. The reflexive
rolling of my eyes is
strangely satisfying, like
slipping on and settling
into an old, worn sweater. ‘I
haven’t eaten a burger since,
like, 2005.’
Honestly. It sometimes feels
like adulthood is just longer
stretches between, and more
concentrated tamping down
of, adolescent behaviour.
But something so mercurial
must always ooze out
somewhere. Perhaps we never really grow up that
much; after all, here I am, once again refusing a
lovingly-made dinner based on half-formed, highly
emotional principles. I once boycotted turkey
at Thanksgiving after finding one confused and
incapacitated on the road on my way home from
school. The turkey was not as confused as the
cops, who I called, tearfully, to come pick him up.
To be fair, the Willmar cops probably didn’t have
anything else to do on a Thursday at 3pm.
‘Ok then.’ His eyes scan the table. I brace myself;
there’s quite a few things on the table. So many
things he can offer me next.
‘Salmon?’
The adult side of my brain gives a slap to the
teenaged side – to remind it to enjoy this moment,
where people still care about you and offer you
food. But I can’t help but dream of having a
conversation about seitan that isn’t an invitation to
swap favourite bible verses.
A huge sigh. ‘Fiiiiiine.’
....33....

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COLUMN
.......................
Lizzie Enfield
Notes from North Village
Illustration by Joda (@jonydaga)
“I think it’s a bit too Guardian, even for the
Guardian,” says my editor, on receiving an idea.
I’m quite pleased with myself. I think it’s fairly
hard to achieve this kind of particular knock back
by an editor you regularly write for, or come
up with an idea that encapsulates so much of
everything the paper is about that it’s too much
even for it!
It was a food piece about cooking with moss:
foraging off damp rocks for it, then wrapping fish
and whatnot, before cooking in a mud oven or
something like that. It’s a thing. There’s a pub up
the road which does it, but then I live in Fiveways,
which is definitely too Fiveways for itself (hence
the North Village), and about as Ultimate
Guardian as you can get.
Nobody here eats food without an issue or a story
attached. Kids ask if their sausages have been kind
to pigs, the local supermarket sells ‘Moroccan
Inspired Breadcrumbs’. Presumably, they inspire
the Moroccan women who made them to fight for
equal pay or access to free nursery places. Even
the seagulls, who regularly cover the car, appear to
live off foraged granola. Oh, and the pound shop
sells hummus!
I have to admit to railing slightly. Whatever
happened to food just being stuff you ate? I’m
nostalgic for the days when peaches were tinned,
avocado was the colour of your bathroom suite,
wine was Blue Nun, and breadcrumbs were things
you made yourself, inspired only by the fact the
bread was stale.
I rebel in my own ways: sending the kids to school
with Scotch eggs and crisps for lunch, and citing
a cheese and marmite sandwich when asked by
a very-full-of-themselves food journo what my
favorite meal was.
I’m proud of the fact my daughter thinks I’m
the only mother in the village who wants their
children to eat junk food - less so of the fact she
calls me a hypocrite for writing about nice food
while rarely making it.
I do appreciate good food, mostly in restaurants
and friends’ houses. It’s just all the talk of it that
puts me off and makes me panic at the prospect of
“foodies” coming round for dinner.
In some circles, though, my own lackadaisical
attitude has its own kudos.
“I still think that’s the most impressive thing
about you,” says a friend, citing something so
unimpressive it’s a bit depressing that it’s the most
impressive thing about me.
I’d invited friends for supper, years ago, but it’s
still remembered.
I’d stressed supper. Nothing fancy. Baked
potatoes, probably. An impromptu get together
with no element of me trying to impress with
the food.
But inadvertently, I did.
“You invited everyone for dinner...” My friend
loves telling this story. “...And then you gave
everyone Penguin biscuits for pudding!”
I did. A cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit is my
absolute favorite pudding.
But it’s not really North Village enough for the
North Village.
....35....

REDFACES
Sunday 1st October
The Joker
TRIGGERFINGER
Wednesday 4th October
The Hope & Ruin
THERApy?
Monday 9th October
Komedia
ARCANE ROOTS
Saturday 14th October
The Haunt
BROOKE BENTHAM
Monday 16th October
The Prince Albert
JARROD DICKENSON
Tuesday 17th October
Latest Music Bar
BURy TOMORROW
Saturday 21st October
Concorde 2
METRONOMy
Sunday 22nd October
Brighton Dome
RATIONALE
Wednesday 25th October
The Haunt
WARSAW RADIO
Wednesday 25th October
The Hope & Ruin
MAKE THEM SUFFER
Saturday 28th October
Sticky Mike’s
BEN OTTEWELL
Sunday 29th October
Komedia
TURBOWOLF
Monday 30th October
Sticky Mike’s
THE ORIELLES
Tuesday 31st October
Sticky Mike’s
LoutPromotions.co.uk
THE LIBERTINES
Mon 2 Oct
LEGENDS LIVE
Sat 21 Oct
EMELI SANDÉ
Thur 19 Oct
JOHN BISHOP
Tue 24 - Thur 26 Oct
box office 0844 847 1515 *
www.brightoncentre.co.uk
*calls cost 7p per minute plus your phone
company’s access charge

MUSIC
..........................
Ben Bailey rounds up the local music scene
NORMANTON STREET
Sat 7, Haunt, 7pm, £8
This lot were ubiquitous
on the city’s live circuit
about five years ago, so it’s
gratifying to see their star
rise, even if it means they
don’t play here so much anymore. They’ve gigged
around Europe and the States and been the subject
of a six-part documentary, but they probably know
they’ll always get the greatest reception when
they come back to Brighton. Part of their success
must stem from being so many things at once: a
mix of hip hop and soul, with a touch of jazz and
some newfound disco elements, all backed by a
live band that’s warm and unshowily sophisticated.
This is the second date of a mini October tour, and
chances are they’ll be off abroad soon enough, so
now’s your chance.
THE NEW FAITH
Fri 13, Brighthelm Centre, 7pm, £10
Will Charlton, the singer and
songwriter behind The New Faith,
certainly seems to know what
he’s after. That counts for a lot in
music, and it’s great to see a new band emerge with
such a sense of purpose and ambition. The group
have only released three songs so far, but each is a
slab of sumptuous orchestral pop, ready to become
an anthem as soon as a willing crowd catches on.
Charlton, for his part, delivers narrative vocals with
a baritone croon, full of undefined yearning and
melancholic drama. Given their portentous name,
it’s fitting that The New Faith’s album launch is taking
place in a church. The ticket price includes two
pints of beer and performances from Other States,
Supermarket and Whiskey for the Wounded.
THE CRAVATS
Sat 14, Green Door Store, 7.30pm, £12/10
The legacy of John Peel lives
on. Back in the late 70s a bizarro
noise band from Redditch caught
his attention and ended up doing
a session on his show every year
until they disbanded in 1982. This gig is a celebration
of the late DJ, and also a launch party for The
Cravats’ first album in 35 years. Having resurfaced
in Brighton with an almost entirely different lineup,
the band are now releasing a new slew of tracks
that are just as unhinged and inventive as anything
they did back in the day. The new album, Dustbin
of History, combines the band’s love of Dadaist
humour and abrasive punk with sinister singing and
crazy sax breaks. Support comes from The Nightingales
(no stranger to Peel sessions themselves)
and revered anti-comedian Ted Chippington.
DOG IN THE SNOW
Sat 28, Basement, 7pm, £6
The new record from Dog in the
Snow sees Helen Ganya Brown
expanding on the ambiguous
themes of her 2015 debut EP in a
search for identity, authenticity and safety in a world
gone weird. Having written the album whilst on a
US tour with her other band, Fear of Men, Helen
responded to happenings over there with a song that
imagines women refusing to give birth as a form
of protest. Formerly a duo, now a synth-and-guitar
solo act, Dog in the Snow have smothered the traces
of Kate Bush kookiness with eerie electronic soundscapes,
injected with urgency by the forthright lyrics.
After this launch show, Helen takes her songs on
the road supporting and playing in Lost Horizons, a
new project from Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde.
....37....

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BOOKS
..........................
Yotam Ottolenghi
On exotic ingredients
and gummy bears
Fans will know you mainly for savoury, vegetarian,
Middle Eastern food – is your new book
‘Sweet’ something of a departure? I suppose it
could seem that way. But I started out as a pastry
chef and even when Sami [Tamimi] and I launched
the first deli fifteen years ago, he cooked and I did
the pastries. My first book featured quite a lot of
cakes. But then Plenty and Jerusalem came out and
this book got delayed.
Which of the cakes have you made most
recently? A couple of weeks ago I made the
rum-and-raisin cake, which is just divine. I baked
it when some friends came over for lunch and it
was a big success. But I’d forgotten when making
this alcohol-drenched cake that they were bringing
their kids too. We ended up giving them a little bit
as well. Everyone was happy!
I was slightly surprised by the lack of Middle
Eastern recipes… I think that’s partly because I
got all of my training outside Israel, while Helen
[Goh], my co-author, is Malaysian but grew up in
Australia. Many of the recipes have little twists I’d
relate to our backgrounds. The chiffon cake with
star anise and dried pineapple nods to Helen’s
Malaysian heritage, and the brownies with halva
are a reference to my own.
In the book you coin the verb ‘to Ottolenghify’
– what does that mean to you? Ha! It doesn’t
roll off the tongue, does it? I suppose it refers to
the times when you make something that’s really
good and you’re happy with it, but it’s just that...
to me, to Ottolenghify something is to add a twist,
to take a recipe up a level. It’s about a more intense
flavour, a surprise, a sense of abundance…
Then there’s the famous ‘Ottolenghi effect’,
which has led to sumac and tahini being on
supermarket shelves. I notice this book isn’t
short on exotic ingredients – Dutch-processed
cocoa, 00 flour, Pandan leaves… [Laughs] But
they’re necessary! In normal cooking you can get
away with substituting things, but with baking,
certain ingredients really work so much better.
What we wanted to do - and this is why the recipes
are also quite detailed - is make sure people get a
good result.
What do your two sons like to eat? I’d be the
first to admit they’re typical children, in the sense
they like carbs and they’re obsessed with chocolate.
Good, wholesome vegetables are not their
first port of call. But I realised early on that you
can’t get too wound up about these things. And
they do like broccoli, at least.
Do you have any guilty pleasures when it
comes to food? In the glove compartment of my
car I always have stuff like gummy bears and Love
Hearts. Passengers are often a bit surprised when
they see them. I’m not proud of it, but it serves
a purpose. I really do have quite a sweet tooth…
Nione Meakin
Yotam Ottolenghi will be interviewed by Helen Goh
at the Hilton Metropole, on October 23rd. Tickets
from City Books. Sweet is out this month, published
by Ten Speed Press
Photo by Peden and Munk
....39....

Music for Two Pianos
...brings the exhila rating world of two pianos to Brighton!
7.30pm FRIDAY
17th NOVEMBER
A two-piano extravaganza – duos performed by Evgenia
Startseva & Yuri Paterson-Olenich, Carlos Bianchini &
Mike Hatchard, to a work written for eight players.
Performers include Helen Wilson & Simon Lane,
Kemp Duo, Zongora Piano Group plus
special guest Caroline Lucas MP.
Includes music by Mozart, Debussy
and Richard Rodney Bennett
ST. NICHOLAS’ CHURCH
CHURCH STREET,
BRIGHTON BN1 3LJ
#UKPW17 www.ukparliamentweek.org
EXPLORE, ENGAGE, EMPOWER:
This concert is a community & cultural event in
Special Guest
Caroline Lucas MP
TICKETS
£10 / £5 U26 / FREE U18
www.musicofourtime.co.uk
Parliament Week contributed by MOOT.
The Parish of Brighton Saint Nicholas of Myra. Registered Charity No. 1131831
Registered Charity 1169015. Producer: Norman Jacobs

MUSIC
....................................
Tru Thoughts
Brighton on wax
Photos (left to right) of: J-Felix by Michael Gajewski, Alice Russell by Kenny McCracken, Werkha
Born out of the Brighton club scene of the late
90s, local record label Tru Thoughts has helped
establish international artists such as Quantic, Alice
Russell and the Hot 8 Brass Band. This month
all three acts are performing at the Brighton
Dome for the label’s 18th-birthday party. We
spoke to Tru Thoughts co-founder Rob Luis about
how he’s managed to spend almost two decades
doing what he loves.
How did the label start? I met Paul Jonas in
1997 and we started running our club night
phonic:hoop in Brighton. As with many labels
started by DJs, it was to promote music that we
felt needed to be heard. The interest in our release
of Bonobo’s debut album showed us that we might
have a chance to make the label a success, and
quickly adding Quantic, Nostalgia 77 and TM
Juke really helped solidify things.
Tell us about your birthday bash on the 18th...
We really wanted to do something special if we
were to do an event in Brighton. Paul managed
to co-ordinate getting three of the label’s biggest
acts to all agree to do this party. It means a lot to
be able to play at the Dome as it’s a prestigious
venue and shows the progression of the label from
underground and dingy club nights to a big party
in the centre of Brighton.
Was it easier to run an independent label when
you started? In 1999 there was a barrier to entry
in the fact you had to pay for vinyl and CDs to be
manufactured, and it could be hard to get stocked
in the shops. Whereas today anyone can make a
track and get it on digital stores - and that means
literally anyone! So it’s harder to stand out today
in the world of streaming and digital music, unlike
back then. Today’s technology has allowed more
people to have the opportunity to get into the
music industry without needing too much money,
and that is a good thing.
Your acts tend to be quite diverse; what do
they have in common? All the acts on Tru
Thoughts make music they believe in. We actively
encourage artists not to make music for the label,
but for themselves. In a way, because of this, it
could be described as folk or soul music. Flowdan
represents grime, Quantic represents his travels
across the world, Hot 8 represent the authentic
sound of New Orleans in the 21st century.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of running a
label? It’s great that we’ve been able to help artists
make a living from music without compromising
their artistic visions. It is nice being 100%
independent and contributing to the Brighton
economy and arts. We are able to chat with our
acts, collaborate with them and experiment.
Everyone in the office debates ideas, and then we
try them out. Sometimes they work and sometimes
they don’t, but it is a luxury to be able to
experiment in a job and see what happens. We very
much appreciate that.
Ben Bailey
Brighton Dome, 18th Oct, 6.45pm, £20
....41....

'Fantastic place, full of beautiful magazines. I just love this shop.’
the world of great indie mags is here in Brighton.
22 Trafalgar Street
magazinebrighton.com
@magbrighton
magazinebrighton

SPOKEN WORD
....................................
Hollie McNish
‘I didn’t know poetry could be a job’
Few modern poets are as critically acclaimed as
Hollie McNish. We talk to the Ted Hughes Award
winner about her latest poetry collection Plum,
finding inspiration in the words of a child and why
it’s best to never hand her a mic.
‘Plum’ was written in chronological order; with
poems from the age of eight to now. I’ve got loads
of diaries, and I’ve been writing since I was little.
When I was 33, I wrote a poem about picking fruit
– you know, nature, lying on grass, picking plums
with my daughter. A friend asked if she could see
these old diaries because she thought it’d be funny
after a few glasses of wine. In one was a poem I’d
written when I was eight, and it was almost identical
to this new poem; same number of lines, same
syllables, same topic. It’s funny to think that maybe
my writing hasn’t changed much. There’s another
from about age ten, about the first midnight mass I
went to; the vicar told me I was going to go to hell
if I didn’t eat the bread and drink the wine. So I
wrote about what it felt like, looking back. People
often seem embarrassed by what they’ve written
when they’re younger, but I actually think I could
learn as much from my ten-year-old self as I could
from myself at 32.
I didn’t know poetry could be a job; I studied
languages and have a Master’s in Economics – I
thought I’d be working somewhere in immigration.
When I was 25, my then-partner said to me:
‘You should go read out your poems’. I’d never
heard of spoken word before, never lived in a city,
so it’s not like there were poetry clubs everywhere.
After my first reading, I got asked to do another
one, then another. I liked the readings, but the
performance side scared me – even walking across
the stage is hard! If someone asks if I want a
handheld mic, it makes me want to vomit in my
hand with nerves. The idea of taking the mic off
the stand – there’s no chance.
There’s so many different platforms for expressing
yourself. I used to draw, and still write in
prose, but I find poetry a good way to summarise
things. Or maybe I’m just lazy, as they’re shorter
than stories. When I was young, I used to really
like Hole, with Courtney Love – I thought her
lyrics were very deep. I’d write terrible poems with
the same rhyme scheme so I could read them over
the top of the beat – it’s the only thing I remember
consciously copying!
I’m more likely to share my poems now. Last
night I was worrying about putting my daughter to
bed. While she was falling asleep I scribbled down
a poem and thought ‘I’ll put that online - I’m
quite lonely – there might be other mums doing
bedtime as well,’ but it’s quite nice sharing things
like that knowing that someone might be going
through the same. Amy Holtz
Hollie McNish reads from Plum with support from
Rosie Carrick at The Old Market, 8th October,
7.30pm
....43....

PERFORMANCE
....................................
Dad Dancing
'Dad, you're so embarrassing'
Helena Webb, Rosie Heafford and Alexandrina
Hemsley invited their fathers to perform with
them when they were studying dance. Five years
on, as they tour the resulting show, the fundamental
question remains…
Why is dad dancing so embarrassing? A: It's
woven in there. Embarrassment is woven into our
relationships with our families.
R: Our dads would say it's an emotional thing and
men are not allowed to express themselves, not
allowed to dance. I used to make fun of my dad
dancing, but then I got older and wanted to look
past the ridicule. Dance has a radical power to
show who people can be.
A: And no matter who you are, there's something
about dancing that makes people incredibly selfconscious.
But then you see this glimmer of what
they can do.
How do you turn that into a performance?
H: We give people a place where they can play:
imagine you are surrounded by clouds. Imagine
your fingernails are as long as the room. Exercises
like that. And the group becomes a supportive
place where people can take risks.
R: The workshops draw out the individual stories
of the supporting cast, local fathers and their children.
Then we build the show around those.
Stories? So it's not just dancing. A: No, it's
memories and some acting. We've had fathers
telling birth stories, which is interesting because
normally the mother holds that.
R: We've also had fathers who lost contact with
their children.
Wait, fathers without children or children
without fathers? H: Both! One woman asked her
mother to dance because her father had left when
she was young. So her mother was there dancing
with the fathers.
Your website describes the show as joyous,
but it sounds quite serious. A: We want both.
There's a moment where the guys do full-on rockstar
dancing with lights and music. It's a powerful
moment in the show.
How's their dancing? H: It's surprising. My dad
does these splits. He's in his 70s and he'll just drop
into a split. If that's not right for the show I might
object. But it would be specific, not just "Dad, how
embarrassing!"
R: I'm less interested in watching someone do
something amazing they've learned than watching
someone discover something about themselves.
H: When we started this in 2012 the challenge
was getting fathers and children to dance. Now it's
easier, but we are looking at the future of fatherhood.
What is the role of fathers now, and how do
we want to be fathered?
A: As we've got older, the show has changed.
H: Well, we've grown up. Interview by David Burke
Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Friday
27th October. Sunday workshops in September /
October. To participate call Sarah Kearney on
01273 645 265
Photo by Zoe Manders
....45....

DEBATE
.........................................
Operation Chaos
‘Fake news didn’t only
manifest last year’
How do we negotiate the blurring of fact and fiction
in the news? And is it a new phenomenon? At
Shoreham Wordfest this month, Guardian journalist
Rafael Behr will lead a debate on the subject,
with an introduction to the history of misinformation
by authors John Higgs and David Bramwell.
David explains that we’ve been here before.
What can we expect from your ‘introductory
romp through the history of misinformation’?
It’s a different angle on fake news. Fake
news didn’t only manifest last year. It’s always
been there. Spin and misinformation is not always
spread by the right. We’ll be talking about Operation
Chaos, or Operation Mindf**k, a counterculture
movement in the late 60s started by
Kerry Thornley and Robert Anton Wilson. They
decided the world was too uptight, too authoritarian
and orderly, and they needed to redress the
balance. Their icon was Eris, the goddess of chaos.
They gathered like-minded people in a campaign
to commit pranks, hoaxes and culture-jamming;
creating contradictory stories. The idea was to
bring about social change by getting people to
think and be more careful about what they believed.
They gathered a cult following.
Are you a political person? I am now. I would
have said no not very long ago, but then I became
friends with [People’s Peer and social-justice
campaigner] Victor Adebowale, and that changed
things. He’s passionate, with a big, socialist heart,
and made me aware that politics is at the heart of
nearly everything we do.
How did you meet? He came to listen to me and
John Higgs perform at the Wilderness Festival,
bought John’s book Stranger Than We Can Imagine
- an insightful look at trying to make sense of the
20th century - then got in touch with us.
You and John are friends... Yes, and we have a
shared optimism for the future. John talks about
the 2016-Brexit-Trump world as ‘a virus that
needs to work its way through the system’, and
says ‘pessimism is for lightweights’. I now ask
myself, “am I doing anything of use?” and I hope I
am, in a small way.
Tell us about your new book, ‘The Mysterium’.
The tagline is ‘Modern Mysteries for the Post-
Nessie Age’. I grew up loving Arthur C Clarke
and the Reader’s Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained.
These days, we can take photos so easily and debunk
mysteries. So I wondered, what are the new
mysteries, and do they hold up? I discovered that
there are plenty of bizarre things happening in the
world. Like the 12 human feet that have washed
up on the same British Columbian beach over ten
years. Emma Chaplin
Operation Chaos - A Debate on Fake News & Active
Citizenship. Wed 11th, Ropetackle Arts Centre,
7.30pm, £8. The Shoreham Wordfest runs until the
19th. shorehamwordfest.com
....46....

LIVE SCORE
....................................
GoGo Penguin
Replacement Glass
‘Why is this compelling?’
I wondered while
watching Koyaanisqatsi,
an 80-minute documentary
with no narrative or
dialogue. It’s made up
of dozens of seemingly
unconnected pieces of
footage - initially of the
natural world, then of
the (uglier) man-made
world: factories, planes,
crowd scenes, traffic,
etc. The title - which is translated as ‘life out of
balance’ - hints at some kind of irritating mystical,
anti-technology angle.
However, rather than being dull or annoying, the
film is oddly enjoyable and absorbing. This is partly
– perhaps mostly – due to Philip Glass’ hypnotic
soundtrack. The critic Alex Ross has noted that the
director and composer each edited their work in
response to the other’s, ‘until the appearance of fusion
was total’. Ross argued that ‘there is no more
potent example of a score dominating a film’.
So why have the jazz trio GoGo Penguin
created – dared to create – a new soundtrack
for Koyaanisqatsi? One that will be performed
live at a screening of the film at Brighton Dome
this month. During a brief email interview, their
pianist Chris Illingworth explained.
The film is described as ‘contrast[ing] the tranquil
beauty of nature with the frenzied hum of
contemporary urban society’. Is that a theme
that you’re particularly interested in? Our
music plays a lot on the contrast between natural
and man made, acoustic and electronic, light and
dark; this is reflected in the visuals of the film, and
I think that is one of the features of Koyaanisqatsi
that really got us hooked. The imagery alone says
so much, but combining
it with the score makes a
really powerful combination;
having more than
one sense active at once,
it’s more visceral and
creates a more immersive
experience.
What did you feel you
could add by developing
a new score…? Glass’
score (like any great film
soundtrack) plays an important
role in the experience of watching the film,
and we wanted our rescore to be a new experience
and not just a variation or rework of the original.
We obviously watched the film with the original
score, but spent a lot more time watching the
film repeatedly without sound, so as not to be too
influenced by the original soundtrack. We wanted
our score to be a completely new take on the film;
music that not only reflects the original intentions
and meaning of the film but also our interpretation,
bringing a new perspective from a different
standpoint… and with a score that stays true to
our sound. We want the music to enhance the
experience, but we were also aware that seeing the
film with the score being performed live is a different
experience from watching a film with recorded
audio, and we wrote with that in mind. There are
moments when the music is quite programmatic
and descriptive, but it’s more about conveying an
emotion or feeling attached to the images and not
a specific idea or piece of information. We want
to leave space for the audience to make their own
judgements and interpretations, just as we do with
all of our music. Joanna Baumann
GoGo Penguin: Koyaanisqatsi, Brighton Dome
Concert Hall, Sunday 15th, 8pm, from £20
Photo by Sarah Leech
....47....

Photographic portrait of Gluck
Howard Coster, 1926
© The Fine Art Society, London
Wed 11 Oct
Richard Thompson
Fri 13 & Sat 14 Oct
Tap Factory
Sat 14 Oct
Trope
New spoken word night
Sun 15 Oct
GoGo Penguin:
Koyaanisqatsi
New score performed live
Wed 18 Oct
Tru Thoughts Recordings
18th Birthday Party
Thu 26 & Fri 27 Oct
Acosta Danza
Fri 27 – Sun 29 Oct
Séance
Gluck
Art & Identity
Brighton Museum
& Art Gallery
18 November 2017
to 11 March 2018
Royal Pavilion Garden
Brighton BN1 1EE
Admission payable / members free
Open Tue-Sun 10am-5pm
Closed Mon (except Bank
Holidays 10am-5pm)
brightonmuseums.org.uk
03000 290900
01273 709709
brightondome.org
Photo: Acosta Danza

EARLY MUSIC
....................................
The Askew Sisters
Revitalising traditional music
For around a decade, Hazel Askew and her sister
Emily have been performing as the Askew Sisters.
Together they explore the overlap between early
classical and folk.
When did you and your sister first play music
together? Probably towards the end of primary
school. In our early teenage years we had a little
band called Rubber Chicken, of all things! When
we were a few years older and I started playing
melodeon and Emily played the fiddle, it fell into
place a bit more as a duo. That’s when we started
performing more seriously.
A lot of early musical instruments seem less
sophisticated than their modern counterparts.
Why are they so appealing to you? Early instruments
tend to be less technically sophisticated but
we love the quality of their sound. For example,
the vielle (medieval fiddle) is slightly larger than
a modern fiddle, but has gut strings and no sound
post, meaning it is quieter and has a beautiful,
earthy resonance.
Where do ‘early music’ and ‘folk music’ overlap?
The distinction between folk/traditional music
and ‘art music’ is much clearer now than it would
have been in medieval times. If you look at the
surviving music from that era, a lot of the melodies
sound like folk tunes. Music would have been more
improvised, much like folk music today. The idea of
notating every expression, dynamic and ornament
in music has only been around a few hundred years.
How do you choose songs for your albums? We
love how folk music connects people in different
ways, including the way that narratives from the
past can strike a chord hundreds of years later. Often
we are drawn to songs like that. As I get older
and I’m more in tune with the subtleties of the
personal, political and social struggles I see around
me and hear about in the world, I find that I’m
much more picky about what traditional songs I
want to sing. For example, I find the gender politics
of some traditional songs interesting to navigate,
and that’s much more nuanced than just wanting
to sing songs about ‘strong women’, whatever that
actually means. It’s not about never singing a song
that has something potentially problematic in it,
but whether the way you sing it and the way you
introduce it on stage highlights that or just lets it
go as the status quo.
This month you’re also running an Early Music
for Folk Musicians workshop in Lewes. What
will that involve? We will cover a range of different
early tunes and songs from England, France,
Spain and Italy. We’ll also bring lots of instruments
to demonstrate and lots of material so we can tailor
it a little to the needs to the participants. We really
enjoy teaching folk and early music; it belongs to
everyone, so we love encouraging people to play it.
Mark Bridge
Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham, 2nd November,
8pm as part of Brighton Early Music Festival.
bremf.org.uk. Full details of the workshop at lewessaturdayfolkclub.org
....49....

ART
............................
Laura Ford
‘Play can be incredibly
intense and thoughtful’
“I was struck by the cartoon in the Royal Pavilion’s
collections of George IV with his pet giraffe,”
says the sculptor Laura Ford. “The animal is in its
death throes while the prince and his wife look on.
I suppose they would have had no idea what to do
with it.” Ford has spent a lot of time at the Pavilion
preparing a new commission for this year’s HOUSE
Biennial, whose theme of ‘excess’ chimes perfectly
with rotund, frivolous Prinny and his extravagant
seaside home. She doesn’t want to say too much
about the works, but admits ‘an enormous giraffe’
will be installed in Brighton Museum, along with
‘three disapproving figures’. It was the emotions
surrounding excess that interested Ford most – the
tussle between wanting more and self denial; the
desire for things we neither need nor understand. “I
suppose what it was with the giraffe was that idea of
inappropriate care for something. How an insatiable
curiosity for things can be detrimental to them. I
had a sense of being disapproving of the Pavilion,
the colonialism and so on, but at the same time
being drawn to the wonderful Chinese fabrics, the
trading that went on.”
Ford’s role as HOUSE’s Invited Artist is the latest
development in a career spanning some 30 years,
numerous exhibitions and public commissions.
A childhood spent living on fairgrounds with her
showmen parents gave her both a taste for the
colourful and the macabre – “It was interesting
to be a child in that slightly edgy atmosphere,
witnessing an adult world but being safe” – and a
sense of freedom now key to her work as an artist.
“We had a playroom where we could do anything
we liked. We’d paint the walls, take the room apart,
have massive creative games. I lived right next to
the beach so I would go out and sit on a sewage
outlet and pretend I was driving a submarine.”
Many of her ideas and methods come from tapping
into that same playfulness and spontaneity: “I try
not to overthink things. I prefer to bring an urgency
to the work, to stay in the moment.” Sculptures
often begin “just by making,” she says. “I used to
draw out ideas before I had children, then I jumped
to just making the bloody stuff. I like the puzzle
of working out how to make something exist in
the world; how does it stand? What is it made of?
What does this material offer? It’s quite an intuitive
process, but that doesn’t mean it’s a thoughtless one.
Play can be incredibly intense and thoughtful.”
She hopes viewers approach her work in the same
spirit. “I’m slightly against having too much written
about my work, specifically because I think that can
close down the way people respond to it. They’ll
often stop looking and start reading. I don’t feel
there’s a right or a wrong way to respond to it, but I
like people to do the work themselves.”
Her work for HOUSE will be “easily recognisable
as mine. But I think the caricature thing has really
liberated some part of me as well. The commission
is proving very exciting and fun to make. I feel it’s
a bit more festival-like, a bit more carnivalesque.”
Nione Meakin
HOUSE Biennial, until Nov 5th. housebiennial.art
....51....

PHOTOGRAPHY
..........................................
Tony Tree
A tale of two houses
“There is something very special about going
into any of those rooms,” says Tony Tree of the
celebrated artists homes at Farleys House and at
Charleston, once gathering places of the Modernists
and Surrealists, and of the Bloomsbury Set,
respectively. “You get the spirit of them, and a
sense of place and of person.”
Tony began documenting the houses in 1975,
when as a freelancer looking to specialise in “potters,
painters and poets”, he went to photograph
the painter Duncan Grant at his Charleston Farmhouse
home on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
“I went in there and it was extraordinary. He
wasn’t in good health and the place was grim but I
spent a long time with him. He offered me coffee,
drinks and strong cigarettes and I got some lovely
photographs. I looked around the house and I
thought, ‘I’d love to get back in here sometime’.
Grant died in 1978 and Tony returned occasionally
over the years to photograph conservation
work and then to document the literary festival
and the ‘Charleston Regained’ restoration project.
“They took the house to bits and then put it back
together. I was there every day, over a long period
of time, seeing the house down to its bones.
“I grew to feel a real affection for the place. And
for the people who worked there. It was a really
close-knit group and it was a wonderful time.
Making friends with the guests, photographing the
festivals; I got to have one-to-ones with Harold
Pinter, Susan Sontag and John Mortimer. The
green room was the kitchen. It was so extraordinary,
the number of people who went through that
kitchen. There was wonderful food, a warm Aga,
bon ami and amazing chat.”
Then came a call from Antony Penrose. An
established filmmaker himself, he was giving talks
about his late mother, the famous war photogra-
Duncan Grant, photographed on his 90th birthday in January 1975
The garden room at Charleston Farm House, with a portrait of Virginia Woolf by Vanessa Bell
....52....

PHOTOGRAPHY
..........................................
The dining room at Farleys House. A small jug by Picasso sits within the fireplace mural, painted by Roland Penrose in 1950
pher Lee Miller, and
wanted some updated
photographs of the
house. Tree had been to
Farleys once before in
the 80s to photograph
the late Sir Roland
Penrose [the Surrealist
painter, poet, father of
Antony and husband
of Lee] when he was
preparing for his last
show at the Gardner Arts Centre. “He was charming
and gentle and welcoming. I photographed
him putting together the last of his collages and
we walked around the garden. Then he said ‘would
you like to come and see my Picassos?’ Again, I
thought ‘I’ve got to come back here’…
“I was a great fan of Lee Miller. As soon as I
became aware of her work, I was taken with her.
Sir Roland Penrose and his dog Tina, c1983
At Farleys, I not only get to [photograph] the interiors,
but also the artefacts. I get to handle letters
and Lee’s photography kit; to photograph her billy
cans, her cameras…
“Because it’s lived in, and we still sit and have
lunches there, the house is still alive”, says Tony, describing
it as being “full of vibrant distractions” and
constant reminders of its luminary house guests.
“You’re up and down stairs all day, every day, trying
to avoid knocking a Man Ray off the wall.”
Lizzie Lower
An exhibition of Tony’s photographs from Farleys
House and Charleston is at Pelham House in Lewes
until the 31st. Also on display are photographs by
Lee Miller, showing a cross-section of her fashion,
friends and Sussex-inspired photographic work.
More photographs from the Farley Arts Trust will
be exhibited at Skyway Gallery in Shoreham from
the 3rd until the 21st as part of Shoreham Wordfest.
shorehamwordfest.com
The Farleys House visitors' book lies open on a page decorated by Joan Miro in 1964
....53....

Bring your space to life
with our delicious curves!
Contemporary
British Painting and
Sculpture
We look forward to welcoming
you to our gallery in Hove.
OPENING TIMES
Mon—Sat 10.30am—5pm
Sunday/bank holidays 12pm—5pm
Closed Tuesday
For more details visit
CAMERONCONTEMPORARY.COM

ART
....................................
ART & ABOUT
In town this month...
Laura Ford: Maquette for Green bags, Queen, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist
‘Lavishness, absurdity,
hubris and
humanity are all
on show in dizzying
proportions,’
says Laura Ford,
about the Royal
Pavilion. Where
better for the
celebrated British
sculptor to draw
inspiration for a
commission on
the theme of ‘excess’?
The resulting
works make up A King’s Appetite, and will be on
display at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery as part
of HOUSE Biennial throughout this month (see pg
51). Also on the HOUSE billing are lens-based artist
Natasha Caruana; textile works by ‘outsider artists’
Anthony Stevens and Andrew Omoding at Phoenix
Gallery, and the young people from Brighton
Table Tennis Club, who have been working with
artist Becky Warnock. See what they’ve made at
Brighton Museum. [housebiennial.art]
As part of the Brighton Digital Festival,
which continues until the 13th, the winners
of the 2017 Lumen Prize – an award that
celebrates the very best art created digitally
– will be on display at the University of
Brighton in Edward Street from the 29th
September to the 13th October. [lumenprize.com]
Also in Edward Street, Dominic
Hawgood’s site-specific installation and
animation serves as a ‘hallucinogenic window
into another world, questioning the role of
the gallery, and exploring how light installation
can be experienced in the virtual.’ If that
all feels a bit too futuristic, Tom McNally
presents the season’s finale of his fantasy podcast
The Saga of the European King at ONCA
on Friday the 6th, with an exhibition of the
accompanying art and a sound workshop for
kids over the weekend. What’s it all about? In
his own words: ‘A medieval king sets out to do
what all tyrants dream of – to murder Winter
alongside all his best friends’… Move over
Game of Thrones. [thesagaoftheeuropeanking.
bandcamp.com] [brightondigitalfestival.co.uk]
Lucy Sherston
Brighton Illustration
Fair returns for the 3rd
year on the 21st and
22nd. Given how many
talented illustrators live
in the city (see our cover
stories over the past five
years), expect a lively
turnout at the Sallis
Benney Theatre.
[@wearebif]
Tom McNally
....55....

ART
....................................
ART & ABOUT
Out of town
‘Clayton Mills (Jack and Jill), 1931’ by Eric Slater ‘Axed Vessel’ by Forest + Found
The wood theme continues at The Grange in
Rottingdean, with an exhibition of interwar colour
woodcuts by Eric Slater (1896-1963) and his
Japanese friend Yoshijiro Urushibara (1889-1953),
from the 5th until the 17th. The author of Slater’s
Sussex, James Trollope, will be giving a talk at the
Whiteway Centre on Friday the 13th (7pm).
New Truth to Materials: Wood continues at Ditchling Museum of Art
+ Craft. This is the first in a series of multi-disciplinary exhibitions,
named with a precept central to the Arts & Craft Movement in mind:
the importance of maintaining the integrity of materials by preserving
and emphasising their original qualities. The display includes works
by a diverse range of artists, designers and craftspeople from the past
100 years, including Graham Sutherland, David Jones and Forest +
Found. Laura Ford’s Espaliered Girl (2007) is also on show as part of
HOUSE Biennial. The work is described as a classic example of the
artist’s ability to ‘blend fantasy with a touch of both menace and
tenderness’. [ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk]
For three weeks from the 3rd there’s more from
Farleys Arts Trust at Skyway Gallery in Shoreham.
An exhibition of 60 photographs, taken
largely by Lee Miller and Roland Penrose,
forms part of Shoreham Wordfest’s exploration
of Modernism. A dramatised reading about
Miller’s life, assembled from letters, manuscripts
and remembered conversations, is performed by
her son Antony Penrose as part of the festival.
Lee Miller: The Angel & The Fiend in on Sunday
the 15th at 2.30pm. [shorehamwordfest.com]
‘Self portrait with headband, New York Studio, USA c1932’ by Lee Miller
....56....

ART
....................................
‘Sea Painting, Birling Gap, 2017’ by Jessica Warboys
Made on the shoreline of Birling Gap beach by
Jessica Warboys, Sea Painting, Birling Gap, 2017,
was created by a process of casting and rubbing
pigment onto lengths of raw canvas that were
then submerged in, and pulled from, the sea. The
result? ‘Vivid swathes of colour that echo the
water’s ebb and flow’, and a record of Warboys’
relationship with the landscape. Commissioned by
Towner Gallery, it forms an integral backdrop to
ECHOGAP; a collection of sculptures and films
referencing Warboys’ ongoing interest in performance,
ritual and ‘the physical and psychic dynamics
that give a landscape its shape and meaning’. See
it from the 21st. [townereastbourne.org.uk]
Also at Towner on Sunday the 15th, Ink, Paper
& Print present a designers’ and makers’ fair in
two galleries. One showcases upcoming talent:
new printmakers, design collectives, zines and riso
prints. The second includes established printmakers,
mid-century prints and ephemera, and
fine-press artists’ books. There’s a programme of
events, like The Mysterious World of Darktown by
Jonny Hannah. [inkpaperandprint.co.uk]
Jonny Hannah
‘Snow White playing with her father’s trophies’ by Paula Rego, 1995.
© the artist. Courtesy of Marlborough Fine Art
The Only Way to Travel by Quentin Blake finishes at Jerwood
Gallery on the 15th and is followed from the 21st by Paula
Rego: The Boy Who Loved the Sea and Other Stories. Recognised
as one of the most significant artists working today, 82-year-old
Paula Rego was brought up by the coast in Lisbon, and her
longstanding fascination with the sea is often reflected in her
work. The exhibition includes her latest works as well as a series of
previously unseen pastel drawings and five startling self-portraits.
[jerwoodgallery.org] There’s more to discover about Rego at
Pallant House Gallery, where an exhibition of her sketchbooks
from the 80s and 90s provides a window into her creative process.
It continues until January. [pallant.org.uk]
....57....

DESIGN
...................................
Cook Chick
‘The anything-goes era of branding’
Lee Cook and Sally Chick have worked in packaging
design since the days alcopops were cool.
They each worked for major design agencies
on rebrands for the likes of Gordon’s Gin and
Drambuie, then they got together, started a family,
moved to Brighton and set up Cook Chick, their
own boutique agency, in 2005.
Lee and Sally continue to produce some of the
most desirable packaging in the drinks business.
Their portfolio includes Adnams, Thatchers, Dark
Star, the D&AD Award-winning Da Luca wines,
as well as iconic designs for body-and-hair-care
brands Original Source and Charles Worthington.
They employ a small team at their Brighton studio,
a converted garage on Brunswick Row, and are
clearly excited by the raft of opportunities being
presented by the Sussex wine industry.
It couldn’t be a better time to work in their specialism,
as the growth in English wines, spirits and
craft brewing shows no sign of being contained.
Cook Chick have already produced packaging for
Sussex-based Hoffmann and Rathbone, Mountfield
Winery and Albourne Estate, for whom they
commissioned local illustrators to create images of
South Downs flora and fauna. And there is more in
the pipeline.
“It’s great for us,” Lee tells me. “We’re into an anything-goes
era with branding now… it’s far more
open. While ten years ago the average drinker
might be reticent to risk £4 on an unknown brand
....58....

DESIGN
...................................
of beer, we now favour something novel but of
reliable provenance.”
The boom in small drinks producers has
undoubtedly created new business, but the
downside, says Lee, is that “we’re in a transient
stage where brands live and die very quickly.”
The trick to creating one that lasts, he says, is
to recognise the difference between building a
brand and just trying to be different. “You can
shock quite easily. You can create something
new, unusual, but it isn’t necessarily something
that will seep into your consciousness. A brand
that is created properly will do that.”
“We always say the first sip is taken with the
eye,” says Sally, who explains a little about
the magic of successful packaging. “We pride
ourselves in our craftsmanship and experience,”
she says, “because brands with integrity and a
story to tell stand the test of time.”
The secret, they say, is to “find a truth”, but
sometimes you need to dig deep to get that.
“Very often,” says Lee, “when we say to clients,
‘can we look in your archives?’, they are like
‘no, no, no, we want to go forward not back’.
It’s often difficult to explain, but we want to be
inspired by something real rather than try to
concoct something. If you can get something
that looks contemporary and is built on something
original, in drink branding, you’re onto
a winner.”
I wonder if they have a favourite example. “I
really like Lyle’s Golden Syrup,” says Sally, “It’s
amazing packaging because it’s such an odd
thing…” You’ll see what looks like flies, but
are actually bees, buzzing around a dead lion’s
head - not something you would expect to see
on food packaging.
“But haven’t they been brave to keep it?” says
Sally. “Brands are always changing, but it’s unnecessary.
People are brave to keep something
that’s working. Good design should stand the
test of time.”
Interview by Chloë King
cookchick.com
....59....

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THE WAY WE WORK
This month, Adam Bronkhorst photographed some
of the city’s food producers. He asked them:
What’s your favourite indulgent treat?
adambronkhorst.com | 07879 401333
Jack Mills, smoker at Jack & Linda Mills Traditional Fish Smokers
“A kipper roll with hot bread and butter.”

THE WAY WE WORK
Andy West, butcher at Barfields
“A nice rib of beef with a Sunday roast.”

THE WAY WE WORK
Helen Craig-Daffern, churner at KNOB Butter
“When I was younger I used to mix up some icing with butter and cocoa powder and eat it on its own.”

THE WAY WE WORK
Isaac Bartlett-Copeland, micro-herb grower (and chef) at Isaac At
“I love a Friday treat of popping up to The Flour Pot for one of their amazing doughnuts.
They are the best in Brighton.”

THE WAY WE WORK
Simon Parker, baker at Infinity Foods
“Light rye sourdough with butter.”

FOOD
............................
The Blue Man Restaurant
Chekchouka it out
On the occasions that I brave Churchill Square on a weekend, the place that I
always go to escape the crowds is The Blue Man on Queens Road. I love the
cosy, dimly lit interior, the spicy fries, the single malted milk biscuit you get with your cup of tea...
They’ve now opened a restaurant in Manchester Street, in Kemptown, and Viva editor Lizzie and I are keen
to try it. We’re both veggies – not your dream food-reviewing duo – but there are plenty of meat-free options.
We go for the Algerian Mixed Salad and the Chekchouka to start (each £7) followed by the Khodra (vegetable
tagine, £14) for her and Kabouya Bou’Saada (baked butternut squash, £12.50) for me.
The restaurant feels like a grown-up version of their café. The interior is still cosy and dimly lit, but there are
no fries to be seen. When the starters come, Lizzie has to teach me how to eat the flesh of the artichoke leaves
that come with the salad before I bite straight into them. The Chekchouka is my favourite; we’ve gone for the
vegan fennel-and-pine-nut option (it usually comes with egg) which goes nicely with the spiced tomato sauce.
Then the mains. My squash is stuffed with lentils and vegetables and surrounded by the most delicious spiced
beetroot sauce, which doesn’t taste at all sweet, but earthy. Lizzie’s tagine is the stocky kind, rather than
tomatoey, and she’s silent for several minutes, which means it’s good. It comes with couscous, harissa to season
and tiny slices of toasted bread, which are perfect for mopping up the leftover sauce. There’s a dessert menu
too, but I couldn’t eat another bite. Well, maybe a malted milk. Rebecca Cunningham
www.brightontaxis.com
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FOOD REVIEW
...........................................
Petit Pois
Frogs and snails and publishers’ tales
As a vegetarian, some national
cuisines are especially challenging
and French restaurants
can offer slim pickings. It’s not
that I don’t like French food,
but it can be tricky to muster
a meat-free meal amongst the
steak tartare and invertebrates.
This is most definitely not the
case at Petit Pois - the recently
opened French restaurant on
Ship Street. Their menu of
‘French classics with a modern
twist’ includes something for
every palate.
The ‘nibbles’ menu features –
of course – frogs’ legs goujons
and garlic snails, and there’s charcuterie and (on
the day we visit) rock oysters. So far, so French. But
there’s goats cheese croquettes and ‘frites, Béarnaise’
too, and the cheese list fills a wall. The idea is
to pick and mix the small plates, French-tapas style,
and there are 15 to choose from - five dishes under
each of the headings ‘vegetable’, ‘meat’ and ‘fish’.
Plates like: puy lentils, quinoa and kale stew; cod
fillet with mushroom veloute, potato mousseline
and crispy kale; and pork cheek stew with potatoes,
pancetta, carrots and pearl onions.
I’m dining with my omnivorous friend Tristan.
He’s a man who gives freely of his opinion and,
I think, might be persuaded to tackle the frogs’
legs or a couple of snails. He obliges, and is
presented with a portion of splendid muscular
thighs, lightly breaded and fried to a deep shade
of gold. Anointing each one with tartare sauce, he
dispatches them in a couple of bites, crunching
ogre-like on the tiny bones. It’s all a bit unsettling,
so I concentrate on dipping my frites in the tasty
Béarnaise sauce.
The ambience is intimate but
relaxed, the lighting low and
the décor eclectic. Filament
bulbs hang in smoked glass
shades, reflecting in ornate
mirrors. Dark wood floors meet
tiled walls, and a long banquette
runs the length of the
room. The charming French
waitresses are cordial without
crowding. It’s the perfect
setting for both business and
pleasure, which suits this evening
just fine, as - no matter how
the conversation begins - academic
publisher Tristan and I
invariably end up talking about
the minutiae of print. Tonight is no exception.
We order four more plates that soon crowd the
table: a bowl of the most delicious cauliflower
soup topped with croutons, roasted almonds and
truffle oil; a casserole of perfectly cooked root
vegetables and artichokes (complete with tiny
turnips); a plate of fish-stuffed squid, with rice,
crispy tentacles and bisque; and a sirloin of beef
with fondant potato and carrots in a red wine jus.
They are not so much tapas as miniature meals.
Each plate is perfectly formed but Lilliputian in
proportion. It’s the ideal format for the indecisive
or those afflicted with order-envy. Why choose
one dinner when you can have four?
The sharing continues, and for dessert we order
the café gourmand tasting plate and a trio of
miniature crème brulées; one vanilla, one coffee,
but both eclipsed by the prune and Armagnac.
It’s a delicious end to our tasting tour but, in my
opinion, just too petit to share. Lizzie Lower
Dinner for two with wine for one, £73.
70 Ship Street, petitpoisbrighton.co.uk
....67....

RECIPE
..........................................
Photo by Alex Leith
....68....

RECIPE
..........................................
Lee Miller’s coriander rice
Lee Miller is best known as a photographer, but her latter career was as a
chef, and her granddaughter Ami Bouhassane has been working on a book
incorporating many of her unique and imaginative recipes
My grandmother left behind thousands of photo
negatives, and we have spent many years archiving
them. But after moving to Sussex in 1949 she
became more and more serious about making food,
and she also left behind a number of recipes she
devised, including a draft of an entire cookbook
she was preparing in the mid-70s, The Entertaining
Freezer. It’s only in recent years that we’ve had the
chance to make the most of these.
Of course Lee was a surrealist, and there are some
recipes – like Cauliflower Breasts – that were
devised in this vein. It was tempting to put a recipe
like that in this slot, but I chose not to, so people
didn’t get the wrong idea and deduce she wasn’t
serious about her cooking. She was deadly serious:
she did two Cordon Bleu courses, including one
for six months in Paris. She was in the running to
be Vogue’s first cookery writer, before they took on
Elizabeth David. And she did a lot of cooking for
the illustrious guests who frequently visited Farleys
House as well as devising special menus to be prepared
for exhibition openings for some of her artist
friends like Picasso.
Lee’s influences came from all over, and she was
very ahead of her time in her use of foreign ingredients
we take for granted in today’s cooking. This
dish, for example, will have been influenced by the
time she spent in Egypt. But most of all you can
see Lee’s personality coming out in her recipes: her
inventiveness and her sense of humour. Her artistry,
too: she was very particular about how dishes
were served up, as you can see from this recipe for
coriander rice salad. This dish serves six.
Main ingredients: 640g / 4 cups white or brown
long grained basmati rice, cooked; 2 spring onions,
finely chopped; 2 tablespoons raisins or currants
soaked in hot water for 10 minutes and drained; 1
tablespoon coriander seeds, simmered for 10 minutes
and drained; 10 large green olives, chopped; 4
stalks of celery with green leaves, finely chopped;
1 large green pepper, deseeded and cut into thin
slivers; ½ cucumber, peeled and finely chopped; 2
tablespoons sliced almonds; 1 tablespoon pine nuts;
1 teaspoon olive oil.
For dressing: 120ml / ½ cup extra virgin olive oil;
120ml / ½ cup white wine vinegar; 1 tablespoon
fresh tarragon, finely chopped; 2 cloves of garlic,
finely chopped; 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard; 1 tablespoon
honey; salt and pepper to taste.
To serve: 40g / 1 cup fresh coriander, lightly
chopped; French basil leaves; 2 lettuce hearts; 8
baby plum tomatoes, halved. In a large bowl, mix
cooked rice with chopped vegetables, fruits and
nuts. Sprinkle oil on top.
When ready to serve: Drizzle French dressing
over the rice and let it sink in. Place a row of heart
lettuce leaves around the rice and garnish with
‘petals’ of tomatoes and basil leaves.
As told to Alex Leith
Thanks to Chloe Edwards of Seven Sisters
Spices, who prepared the salad for the photo.
sevensistersspices.com. Ami’s book, Lee Miller; a
Life with Food, Friends & Recipes, is published
in October. Ami presents an exclusive ‘Talk and
Tasting’ preview of the cookbook and some of
its recipes at Westgate Chapel in Lewes, on the
5th October at 7pm, as part of OctoberFeast.
lewesoctoberfeast.com
....69....

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FOOD
....................
Frankenshake
A monster of a milkshake
With this issue’s theme being ‘feast’, I decide to seek out the
most over-the-top, indulgent treat I can find. It comes in the
form of a Frankenshake - a dessert-milkshake hybrid. A bit of
googling tells me that they make them at cupcake shop Cloud 9.
I arrive, with an empty stomach and a tasting companion, István,
at their shop in the Lanes, where I’m greeted by a whole board of Frankenshake flavours: Crazy Caramel,
Cookie Crumble, Mighty Minty… We go for a Bueno Bomb (me) and a Fudge Brownie (him) and settle
into the big lilac Chesterfield armchairs near the window. The wait feels long, and my stomach rumbles
as I try to avoid gazing at the mouthwatering display of cupcakes on the counter.
Thankfully it’s not too long, and they arrive in two large Kilner jars, each generously topped with
whipped cream and drizzled with sauce. Mine has two fingers of Kinder Bueno sticking out of the top
and more on the side. The brownie is deliciously gooey, and I pinch a bit to scoop up my extra cream.
Then we get to the milkshake.
Mine is a little underwhelming after the sweetness of the cream and the hazelnut sauce – I think it could
have done with an extra scoop of ice cream. The brownie shake, however, is amazing: much thicker and
sweeter, with crumbly bits of brownie in it. I’m happy to help him polish off the last few mouthfuls. RC
Frankenshakes £5.50 each. 15 Brighton Place
....70....

ADVERTORIAL
Food & Drink
Terre à Terre
The local go-to for the most
creative vegetarian food in
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with a cheeky little pun! Offering lunch and
dinner options from small plates and sharing
tapas to three-course set meals, not forgetting
the afternoon-tea menu, multi-tiered savoury,
sweet and traditional delights available
from 3-5pm daily. Enjoy one of the unique
cocktails, or a glass from the extensive organic
wine list, with a little nibble off the à la carte.
71 East Street, 01273 729051, terreaterre.co.uk
Fin and Farm
Chillier days and darker
evenings mean warming
suppers. Cook up sweet,
dense local squashes with
tasty leafy greens. Sussex
fruit and vegetables, meat and all your
larder produce. Veg boxes or choose your
own freshly picked produce from our
zero food waste company. Why not give a
seasonal present of a gift voucher for local
produce? A fantastic present for your south
coast foodie friends. finandfarm.co.uk
The Better Half
The Better Half pub has
put the heart and soul back
into one of the oldest public
houses in the city, just off
Hove seafront. There’s a superb wine and
spirits list and some great ales and ciders on
offer, as well as a hearty and wholesome menu
to enjoy, making the best of local ingredients.
The Better Half is relaxed, friendly and
easy-going, making all feel welcome and
comfortable when you visit. 1 Hove Place,
01273 737869, thebetterhalfpub.co.uk
Edible updates
Top of the pops this month has to be superstar
Yotam Ottolenghi, in conversation with Helen
Goh on the 23rd at the Hilton Metropole
courtesy of City Books (see pg 39).
OctoberBest returns from the 1st to the
15th. You can grab a range of bargain £20
offers and discounts at the city’s top 20
restaurants and mingle with prominent foodies
like Tim Hayward and ‘King of Cocktails’
Ryan Chetiyawardana (aka Mr Lyan).
[brightonsbestrestaurants.com] Mr Lyan is
hosting a six-course dinner at Silo - a little
nudge towards his new Hoxton opening Cub,
a collaboration with Douglas McMaster and
Noma scientist Dr Arielle Johnson.
Meanwhile, we get a branch of London burger
chain Patty & Bun. No. 32 are opening a
sister venue on Third Avenue, and Old Tree
Brewery close their café at FIELD to focus on
drinks production and growing. Traditionally
the direction of travel has been for London folk
to migrate to Brighton, but this month Tom
Griffiths takes Flank to the smoke.
Good luck to startup foodiniclub launching
a delightful-looking kids’ cookery club
[foodiniclub.co.uk], and to Brighton Food
Partnership who are opening a community
kitchen and cook school on Queens Road early
next year.
Brighton Food Tours have a new walking tour
focusing on wine, Oktoberfest brings a 50m
Bier Bar to the Level on the 13th and 14th, and
The Rum Festival, on
the 27th and 28th, will
be held in collaboration
with Sussex-based
Cloven Hoof Rum.
A good excuse to grab a
fortifying brunch at the
recently opened Lost
in the Lanes, in Nile
Street. Chloë King

We do things our way. Not the only
way, but the only way we know how to…
with care, skill and a smile.
If you’re after seriously good food enjoyed
in warm and welcoming surroundings,
come to The Better Half.
1 Hove Place, Hove BN3 2RG
T. 01273 737869
E. hello@thebetterhalfpub.co.uk
www.thebetterhalfpub.co.uk

BRIGHTON MAKER
............................
Be Chocolat
Tailor made to taste
Be Chocolat is the newest addition to Duke
Street’s run of chocolate shops. Michel Clement,
who has won awards for his chocolate, says that
what sets them apart from the others is that
they make all of their products in the shop.
“All the products that you see here, we make in
front of the customer,” he says. “I think that is
the difference between our chocolate and the
chocolate that is coming from factories; it can
never be as fresh as ours. When you enter our
shop, you can smell the chocolate, and that’s a very
great difference.”
Michel and his wife Titus ran a successful
chocolate company in Spain, with 40 shops
around the country, as well as in Shanghai and in
Singapore, before settling in Bali to retire. Their
retirement didn’t last long: “We started again with
this new concept in Bali, four years ago, next in
Barcelona and now in Brighton. Probably in the
UK will we make a big development.”
Be Chocolat has remained a family business;
the Brighton shop is led by Michel, Titus, their
daughter Gina and her husband James (pictured),
who Michel has trained in chocolate making.
Their decision to make all of their products in
the shop, where the temperature and atmosphere
are constantly changing, has come with its own
challenges: “Every time you attempt to make
some chocolate it’s different,” explains James. “As
customers start coming in, the shop warms up.
Making it yesterday compared to the day before
was completely different. But if you take in the
environment around you and you think about it
before you start, you can kind of control it – that’s
what I’ve learnt from Michel.”
But because the chocolates are produced fresh
throughout the day, the duo can be creative with
their flavours and respond quickly to customer
demand. “We take the customers’ lead,” says
James. “Recently we had loads of vegans asking
for salted caramel chocolates, so we came up
with the idea of dates dipped in chocolate and
sprinkled with sea salt. They tasted just like salted
caramel, but they were completely vegan.” It’s not
like working in a factory, he says: “When I sell
people chocolates, I can remember the song I was
listening to when I was making them.” JB
15 Duke Street, bechocolat.co.uk
Photos by Adam Bronkhorst
....73....

MY SPACE
..............................
Eshé’s Kitchen
‘This mad idea’ becomes a reality
Eshé Brown is about to embark on a new adventure.
In December 2015, the Brighton food
writer’s ‘dream ball’ came up and now her dream of
owning her own kitchen on wheels has become a
reality. Eshé explains: “The idea for Eshé’s Kitchen
came up when I was working at [local SEO & marketing
agency] Propellernet. They have this amazing
scheme called The Dream Ball initiative: in
the foyer of their office, there’s a vintage gumball
machine and each of the balls within it contains the
name of an employee, and more importantly, their
dream. When the company reaches a business target,
a ball is released, and the person whose name
is pulled out is supported to fulfil their dream. Back
in 2015 at our Christmas party, mine was the lucky
name pulled from it.
“Initially I dreamt of doing a food tour of India. It
would have been a great experience and I would
have made a lot of memories, but it would have
been short-lived. So my boyfriend and I put our
heads together and tried to think of an idea that
would be more of a stretch for me. We came up
with this mad idea of building a mobile kitchen
and taking it around Europe, to cook with other
people that also love food. It started off as a small
idea: we were going to buy a trailer and have a sort
of outdoor barbecue in it. But when I got talking
to people about it, we realised it wouldn’t be much
fun if it rained, so it turned out that the best idea
would be to renovate a caravan.
“The caravan we bought is a 1968 Sprite Alpine,
and I’ve named her Meredith, after an extremely
resilient character in Grey’s Anatomy. We found her
in Leeds, which is about a seven-hour drive away
from here. We’ve been working with The English
Caravan Company and Melanie Sramek-Bennett,
....74....

MY SPACE
..............................
a local graphic designer, to help us transform her.
They’ve done an incredible job; she looks better
than I could have ever imagined!
“There were so many things to think about with the
renovation, like where you place the equipment; the
caravan has something called a ‘front load’, which is
a certain amount of weight that you need to evenly
balance her, so that she doesn’t tip when you tow
her. We also have two sinks – one for food-prep
and one for hand-washing. You’ve got to keep those
separate for hygiene reasons. Inside, there’s a fourgas-burner
hob, a little gas oven – you could probably
fit a small chicken in it, or bake a cake – and
there’s a fridge that can run off gas when you’re not
connected to the mains. We’re at the exciting stage
of the project now, because all the dirty work’s done
and all that’s left is to pick the kitchen equipment
and style it inside.
“I’ve always wanted the trip to be steered by my followers,
so the idea is to ask people where they want
me to explore, which cuisines they want me to find
out about, and take their lead. I’ve had a few comments
on my blog already: someone I’ve never met
has invited me to visit them in Seeheim-Jugenheim
in Germany and cook Wurst with them at a UN-
ESCO World Heritage beauty spot, and a couple
we met from Denmark invited me to visit them too.
It sounds like a crazy plan to go to a country you
don’t know and ask strangers to cook with you, but
actually, I find when you talk to people about what
you’re doing, they’re very open-minded. Food is one
of those things that brings people together.” RC
Follow Eshé’s adventure at foodieeshe.com/esheskitchen.
@FoodieEshe
Photos courtesy of Eshé Brown
....75....

伀 倀 䔀 一 䐀 䄀 夀
匀 唀 一 䐀 䄀 夀 㠀 吀 䠀 伀 䌀 吀 伀 䈀 䔀 刀
䄀 䴀 ⴀ㈀ 倀 䴀 䘀 刀 䔀 䔀 䔀 一 吀 刀 夀

WINE
...........................................
Cloudy Ridge
Red wine, made in Plumpton
A short while ago I wrote about a local-produceonly
delicatessen in Brighton Marina and came
away with various items including some Sussex
chorizo and – almost as incompatible sounding
– some English red wine. It was made, it said on
the label, by Plumpton College students, and it
turned out to be extremely palatable. I decided to
investigate further…
I’m greeted outside the college’s very modernlooking,
curly-wurly-roofed Wine Centre by
‘Winemaker and Winery Instructor’ Sarah
Midgley, who’s volunteered to show me round.
Plumpton, of course, is the only educational
establishment to enrol at in the UK if you’re
serious about learning how to make wine. They
offer all sorts of courses, from week-long tasters to
postgraduate degrees in viticulture and oenology,
offering to impart know-how in both the practical
and the commercial sides of the business.
The modus operandi is this: all the wine-making
work is done by the students, under very close
supervision by Sarah and her colleagues. Plumpton
Estate, using grapes cultivated on vines in Scaynes
Hill and at the foot of Ditchling Beacon, produces
around 22,000 bottles of wine a year. Of these,
around 1,000 are red.
Sarah explains the difference between making
red and white wine as she shows me round the
squeaky-clean centre: there’s a warehouse full of
shiny silver machines and vats, a couple of brightly
lit analysis labs, a classroom and an admin office.
Red wine, I learn, is made from the skin and flesh
of red grapes; white wine is made from the skinless
flesh of either red or white grapes (or both). While
perfect for sparkling wine and a certain type of
white, the British climate isn’t warm enough
(“yet!”) to fully ripen the varieties of grapes that
produce the sort of full-bodied, 14% reds that sell
most in supermarkets. “But some German grape
varieties, which produce a lighter wine, grow well
Photo by Emma Croman
in England. For our red we use a mix of Rondo
and Dornfelder.”
Sarah is constantly experimenting. She uses a
method to get the best flavour out of the grape
skins by pressing them gently (think teabags) and
has started aging the wine in oak barrels. The 2016
vintage is 11%, and is pretty versatile, either as a
session wine, or with food (“it’s particularly good
with lamb.”) The 2017 grape crop was threatened
by an April air frost, which will affect the yield,
if not the quality. “This isn’t a bad thing for the
students: the more they encounter the sort of
problems they are likely to face in their career, the
better the training.”
Sarah stresses that the education of their students
is more important to the college than the sale
of their wine, which means, for example, that
production – from harvesting to bottling – has to
be completed within an academic year. But their
wines are proving to be increasingly popular,
stocked, for example, by Waitrose. At the Lewes
branch a bottle of 2016 Cloudy Ridge will set you
back £9.99; I leave with a complimentary one in
my bag. Alex Leith
plumpton.ac.uk
....77....

LOWDOWN ON...
....................................
Photo taken at The Royal Pavilion, Brighton, by Rebecca Cunningham. Thanks to the Royal Pavilion & Museums Brighton & Hove
....78....

LOWDOWN ON...
....................................
The Great Kitchen
Royal Pavilion curator, Alexandra Loske
What really makes this
kitchen stand out is
its relative size to the
Pavilion. The Pavilion
is reasonably small for a
royal residence; it’s not a
large palace, and to have
a kitchen that’s so grand
and modern and large is
quite something, which
really tells you what
this building is about:
entertainment. Balls, concerts, banquets. And it’s
on the ground floor - it’s not in a basement and
it’s not far away from the state rooms; it’s part
of the main building. If you think of places like
Windsor, like Hampton Court, or even Petworth
House, the kitchens are far away from the dining
rooms. And yet here we are on the ground floor
with only one little room between, and that’s the
Table Deckers’ Room.
Table deckers’ rooms, these link-rooms
between the kitchen and banqueting room,
are quite rare. They were used to put the last
finishing touches on all those little dishes, and to set
everything. We need to learn a lot more about what
actually happened in the Table Deckers’ Room,
but it is significant that we have it. It’s also the only
barrier between the kitchen and the grand room, in
terms of smoke and noise – and fire, in case it broke
out – so the architecture is partly informed by that.
But because it was so close, food could be brought
in quickly and at the right temperature, without
falling apart.
George’s dinner parties were relatively small, by
court standards; if you look at the table as it’s laid
out in the Nash views, I believe it’s set for 36. He
liked dining ‘à la française’, this sort of buffet-style
menu [displayed in the
kitchen] with dozens and
dozens of options. I think
‘options’ is an important
word here, because
we can’t think of these
dishes as the courses we
have today – that would
have been ‘à la russe’.
It’s a great conversation
piece, this menu,
because it looks
extraordinary; it’s what you’d expect from the
Regency. You would have been served every one of
these dishes, but fear not, where it says ‘eight soups’
it doesn’t mean you had to eat eight soups - you
had the choice of eight soups. Eight types of fish, 40
entrées – you have to imagine it a bit like a buffet.
But whether people ate ten or twelve of these didn’t
really matter; the kitchen still had to produce it all,
at the right temperature, at the right time.
The menu is a translation; the original was
written and printed in French. It’s a Carême
menu. Marie Antonin Carême was a celebrity chef,
who was brought in by George after the Napoleonic
wars. He wanted the best French chef, and
Carême was known to have cooked for the Tsar of
Russia, for Napoleon himself, and after Napoleon
was defeated George got his best chef over. He
wasn’t too keen on England, really. Carême did
comment on the blandness of English food and
the way things were done here, so he wasn’t happy
here, clearly: he stayed for just under a year. But he
stayed at that crucial time when the kitchen was just
about to be finished, so he must have been the first
one who used that fabulous space. It’s a shame we
don’t have any comments from him on what it was
like to work in it. As told to Rebecca Cunningham
Photo taken at The Royal Pavilion, Brighton, by Rebecca Cunningham. Thanks to the Royal Pavilion & Museums Brighton & Hove
....79....

INTERVIEW
..........................................
Andy Lynes
Food and drink writer
“I think we’re ready for a
Michelin Star. Brighton
hasn’t had one since 1974,
so it’s about time.”
So says Andy Lynes, and he
should know. As a freelance
food and drink writer, he
contributes regularly to
publications including
BBC Good Food, the Times,
the Telegraph and the
Independent. The writing
has become “sort of a substitute
for not becoming a
chef,” he explains. “Instead
of going into cooking
professionally, I applied
for MasterChef and got to
the semi-finals in 1997.
Then I thought: ‘What
can I do with this?’ and
decided to get into writing.
I became a founding
affiliate of eGullet [the
online restaurant-world
message board], which was
quite influential. People
like Anthony Bourdain,
Jay Rayner - all sorts of
people - used to congregate
on there.”
As well as travelling
constantly for work, he’s been keeping a close eye
on the local food scene, and is the creator and
co-founder of the Brighton’s Best Restaurants
Awards and the author of
Brighton’s Best Cookbook.
“Brighton’s food scene is
amazing,” he enthuses, but
admits that it wasn’t always
the case. “For as long I
can remember, there were
only five or six restaurants
that you’d want to eat in. It
was only when 64 Degrees
opened that that changed.
Chefs have told me that
they saw Michael (Bremner)
having success as Chef
Patron in Brighton, and
that there was a market for
that sort of food. That inspired
them to think ‘well,
we can do that too’. Up
until that point, there just
hadn’t been an audience.
That was about 2013, so
the Brighton food scene
has grown very fast since,
and it’s accelerating.”
The night before our
conversation, he’d been
dining at Clare Smyth’s
new restaurant, Core,
in Notting Hill, a place
he describes as “just
jaw-dropping. They’ve
obviously spent millions on the interior, they’ve
got a huge brigade of waiters and front-of-house
staff, the crockery and stemware is of the highest
....80....

INTERVIEW
..........................................
order. You just feel like you’re
somewhere very, very special.”
Does Brighton have an
equivalent dining experience?
“The closest we’ve got to that
sort of food is from Duncan
Ray at the Little Fish Market.
If anyone is going to get a
[Michelin] star, it’s him. But I
think he’d be the first to admit
that it’s a small neighbourhood
place with one person
front-of-house, so it’s not the
full fine-dining experience.
I’m not sure that anyone could
replicate the Clare Smyth-type
operation in Brighton. She’ll
have to fill that place all week
through. Who in Brighton has
got a hundred quid a head to
spend on a Tuesday night?
“There is a concern amongst
chefs and restauranteurs
that there are only so many
customers in the city, and that
restaurants that open will just
be sharing that same customer
base between them. But, having
said that, the fact is that
people are still interested in
opening new places, and you’ve
got operators from London
looking to open down here.
“People like Douglas [Mc-
Master of Silo], he’s worked
in top places in London and
Europe and chose to open
down here. Matt Gillan [of
Pike & Pine] has chosen to
open here, and Steven Edwards
[of etch]. When we started
Brighton’s Best Restaurants, it
was because we thought there
was loads going on in Brighton
and there wasn’t any national
attention. Now, when I talk to
chefs and PR people, they are
aware of what’s going on. People
in the industry are keeping
an eye on what is going on, and
they’re coming down to check
it out.” Lizzie Lower
The 2018 UK Michelin Guide
is out on the 2nd of October.
Check to see if any Brighton
chefs made the cut.
From the 1st to the 15th, the
Brighton’s Best top-20 restaurants
will be offering special
£20 menus for the OctoberBest
festival. (Better book quick.)
brightonsbestrestaurants.com
....81....

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INTERVIEW
...........................................
Paul Hutchings
Distributing aid with dignity
“I have no regrets,”
says Paul Hutchings,
co-founder of Refugee
Support Europe.
“Around August two
years ago when I was
thinking ‘I need to
do something about
this’, there wasn’t really
any other choice.
I could stay at home,
frustrated and angry,
or I could go and do
something.
“That was fairly easy
when I could go over to Calais at weekends. The
decision to set up an organisation - to leave paid
work and to take a leap of faith that we would get
enough money to help the people there and that
things would be okay - was a bigger decision. But,
again, I don’t think I would have been comfortable
doing anything else.”
Paul will be in conversation at the Brighton
Summit business conference later this month. His
decision - to take time out from his twenty-year
career in market research, and to leave behind his
own agency, Kindle Research - certainly chimes
with the conference’s theme: ‘embracing the
unknown’. It is something that Paul is remarkably
stoical about. “Anyone who has been self-employed
has to feel comfortable with uncertainty,
as you never know where the next client is coming
from, but there is a bit more pressure when
you feel the weight of 1,500 people dependent on
you to stock that shop and keep delivering.”
‘That shop’ is part of the distribution strategy
that he and co-founder John Sloan devised after
their shared experience in the ‘Jungle’ camp.
“The way that you distributed food and clothing
in Calais was to drive in and try to get it out of
the back of your van as best as you could… it was
chaotic, messy and
unfair. We definitely
wanted to get away
from that, and the
first thing that we
did when we got
to the Alexandria
camp [in Greece]
was to set up a shop
to enable dignified
distribution.
“It’s about making
sure things are
done in a calm way,
where everyone on
the camp gets the same amount from the limited
resources that we have. People have a time slot
so they’re not queueing, and we have helpful
volunteers who give them the best service. Every
individual is allocated a certain number of points
to spend, as you and I would do with money.”
The charity operates a clothing boutique on a
similar system, restocking it with men’s, women’s
and children’s clothing according to the day. “It
gives them choice; a bit of dignity and normality
in the very abnormal environment of the camp.”
“It’s a lot like running a business,” Paul says of
his new role, surprised at how transferable his
skills have been. “The main difference is that
our customer group don’t have a choice about
whether to use us. They don’t have to use us, but
there is no alternative.” He’ll be sharing some of
the lessons he’s learnt at the Brighton Summit.
Like “how to deal with a constantly changing environment
- both externally and internally. We’ve
had to create a system that is implemented by
volunteers who change every two weeks. Managing
that kind of change is tricky.”
Lizzie Lower
Paul will be speaking at the Brighton Summit, on
Friday 13th October. businessinbrighton.org.uk
....83....

INTERVIEW
...........................................
Edible insects
A crunchy solution to a global problem
Many people in the West eat a lot more
meat and dairy products than they really
need. In rich countries, protein is not
normally one of the nutrients that people
tend to be lacking, but if everybody’s eating
beef and pork and so on, on a regular basis,
it becomes unsustainable. It takes a lot of
resources to produce a kilogram of beef. Of
course, it depends on whether the beef that
you’re eating is fed on grain that’s produced
in Latin America, or if it’s grass-fed beef. But
either way, it’s a big animal, it’s a warmblooded
animal, so it takes a lot of energy just
to keep the animal alive in order to produce a
kilogram of meat that we can consume.
Insects are cold-blooded. This means
the conversion rate between their feed
and food that we can consume, the ratio of
input to output, is much better compared
to traditional livestock, especially large
animals like cows. In terms of their bodily
content, insects are basically meat, a little bit
of fat and some trace mineral elements, and
once you’ve taken off the hard skin, they’re
nutritionally quite good for you. In many
parts of the world, people already consume
insects as part of their diet. Not normally
a major part; it might be seasonal, it might
be very small-scale. But certainly if you’ve
ever travelled to places like Vietnam, you’ve
....84....

INTERVIEW
...........................................
probably seen street food made with insects.
In some parts of southern Africa you might
have come across Mopane worms, which are
an edible type of caterpillar.
The market for edible insects is growing.
There are quite a lot of these insect-based
foods already available from the internet,
and in the Netherlands and Belgium they’re
actually available on your supermarket shelf.
Some of the start-ups that are marketing
edible insects are targeting the health-andfitness
community, so they’re marketing
insect protein in protein shakes and
protein bars. They’re targeting the kinds
of people who are concerned about their
health, or concerned about their sustainable
consumption, and those people might be the
early adopters, the leaders of a new trend.
I think that change can happen a lot
more quickly than we appreciate. People
who are working on commercialising edible
insects use the comparison of sushi: if you go
back to the 1960s and 70s, certainly in this
country, the idea that you would eat a dish
that comprised rice, raw fish and seaweed…
they would have looked at you like you
were a bit strange. But what happened was
that on the west coast of the United States,
where there was some Japanese culture
and influence of East Asian cultures in
general, they started to sell sushi in fancy
restaurants and bars, and sushi
became a sort of sexy, highstatus,
sophisticated sort of
food. Nowadays you can buy
a tray of readymade sushi
from Marks and Spencer’s at
the train station. So it isn’t an
unprecedented thing.
There are other novel foods
as well; you might have come
across people who are harvesting seaweed
from the oceans, who are developing protein
foods based on mycoprotein – Quorn is
a commercialised example of that - and
there are other kinds of proteins made
from algae or other micro-organisms that
could potentially feed humans in the future.
There’s research going on into synthetic
meat of various kinds, lab-cultured meat.
So it’s not unrealistic to think, actually, even
in as little as twenty years, regular people
in Brighton might be consuming foods
that contain insect protein. Whether that’s
actually in the form of an insect that looks
like an insect, or whether it’s ground up and
incorporated into burgers and sausages and
so on, that’s a matter of marketing.
As told to Rebecca Cunningham by Dominic
Glover, Research Fellow at the Institute of
Development Studies
....85....

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HEALTH
...........................................
I Eat What I Need
Emily Holden, food support group founder
I moved to Brighton four or five years ago,
and realized my behavior wouldn’t change unless
I did something quite radical. I felt really
sane in other areas of my life: I was reasonably
intelligent, quite useful in the world, but
when it came to food, I felt like a psycho. It’s
frightening, and shaming, when you’re doing
a behavior that you know is illogical, but you
don’t feel in control. What had started as
gentle overeating had spiraled into bingeing,
which spiraled into bingeing and purging,
which made me think: ‘Whoa, this is insanity!’
I did a 12-step programme for recovering
food addicts, which involved a whole undoing
of my persona. Everything in my family and
educational background had said I had to be
capable, strong, not to let people worry about
me, because if they did, I’d have lost some
sort of power. I had to surrender my will:
your sponsor decides on everything you eat,
weighed and measured, black
and white. It’s a structure,
and you agree to be part
of it forever. Some
people do get to a
place of peace with
that, but I couldn’t
get down with it:
I’d be a food addict
forever, I’d go to
three meetings a
week forever.
I believe in reclaiming
authority, and
I’m the authority
on what I
eat and
what my body feels internally. Your sponsor
doesn’t know how your body feels internally!
I set up ‘I Eat What I Need’, to reclaim
a felt sense of the body, being with it on a
day-to-day basis. There’s no judgement, there’s
nothing anyone can say or do that would mean
they can’t be part of the group, whereas with
other approaches you’re either ‘on programme’
or not. We don’t talk about ‘good foods’ or ‘bad
foods’ - that’s completely unhelpful. Diet culture
taps into that kind of moralizing, that ‘I’ve
been good’. The language I use is whether food
is stimulating or non-stimulating, does it excite
my nervous system, my dopamine receptors, or
not? If I choose a stimulating food, then I know
the consequences. My brain gets hooked on
those stimulating foods, and I know that I then
get massive cravings, when actually what I want
now is peace. In the groups at IEWIN we talk
about this a lot: do I want the hit, the instant
pleasure, or do I want peace and ultimately
freedom?
It’s pretty much all women at IEWIN. We
talk, we share and support, we do gentle yoga,
we do meditation, and the muscle that we’re
developing is the muscle for being truly present.
Are you willing to fully be in your own life
from a position of self-responsibility, kindly accepting
yourself unconditionally? I hold a space
here for the messiness of the human experience,
the struggle, the pain, the difficulty, the
joy, the light, the whole lot. We can’t shut off
the difficult emotions, and this current idea of
‘choose happiness’ is bullshit. There’s wisdom
in the anger, the struggle. It’s so empowering.
As told to Andy Darling
ieatwhatineed.wordpress.com
....87....

COMMUNITY
...........................................
Edible Brighton
Making a meal of the city
Photo by Rob Orchard
Brighton and Hove
is an increasingly
edible city. There are
a number of ways
that we can produce
a feast for ourselves
and our communities.
In the fields
surrounding us
during the warmer
weather you’ll see
the city flocks of
Herdwick Sheep
grazing. Brighton and Hove Sheep Share, run by
Brighton Community Agriculture, works to get
those sheep onto city plates. Fattened up over
the summer, the sheep are slaughtered humanely
and butchered locally, with orders for the meat
taken online. There are plans for a similar pig and
market-garden scheme.
The Brighton and Hove Food Partnership is a citywide
initiative that works to get people growing
and cooking food. Amongst many other schemes,
it is involved in: community gardens, the newest
one being at Saunders Park; ‘gleaning’ days, where
unharvested produce is picked and redirected to
those in need; a Casserole Club, linking those with
an extra portion of food to share with an isolated or
elderly neighbour that would benefit from the meal
and the company (more on pg 19); and a community
composting scheme, with food waste paying
dividends for local gardens or allotments.
There are just over thirty community kitchens
across the city - places where groups can come
to learn about food, cook and eat together. The
Food Partnership is planning to open a city-centre
kitchen and cookery school next year. It will be
launching a crowdfunding campaign soon to
bolster the support
it has already
received from local
businesses.
For a drink to
accompany your
locally reared and
grown food, Old
Tree Brewery have
a call out for your
surplus apples and
pears. Old Tree is
brewing a Brighton
Blend cider from donations, offering 500ml of cider
or cider vinegar per 12kgs of apples, or a litre of the
fresh juice straight out of the press if you take your
own bottles.
Brighton and Hove Honey can be found in shops
all over the city, made from rooftop and garden
hives by our bees and apiarists. The Brighton
and Lewes Division of the Sussex Beekeepers Association
spans from Portslade to Newhaven, and
north to Haywards Heath, and runs taster days for
anyone interested in taking up beekeeping. Hove
councillor Robert Nemeth, an avid beekeeper, tells
us: “Aside from loving nature and being outdoors, I
became a beekeeper to do my bit to solve the problem
of bee numbers declining. Rather than protest
or sign petitions, I thought that I’d just get on with
it. The same goes for food supply chains. If we can
produce locally, we should.”
Brighton and Hove is a city that is bountiful for
its residents, and its food culture grows community
interaction as much as it does produce. The
Council, Brighton and Hove Food Partnership
and Brighton Permaculture Trust, as well as all
the groups mentioned here, can help you to get
involved. Cara Courage
....88....

WILDLIFE
...........................................
Illustration by Mark Greco (@markgreco)
Ivy
Your all-in-one kebab shop,
nature reserve and goblin scarer
This month’s Viva may be fat with feasts, but
for our insects, October nourishment is in
short supply. The flowers that have filled our
countryside and gardens with colour, and that
have provided our insects with nectar, will have
shut up shop for another year. But there is one
plant that will just be revealing its flowers in
October; opening for business long after the
others have closed their doors. Your nearest
ivy will now be coming into bloom; look for its
flowers - bobbly explosions of pale green.
In some ways, ivy is the kebab shop of plants; it
offers welcome nourishment for those insects
that like staying out late in the year. And, like
a kebab shop, you’re going to find a right old
mix of characters queueing up for that one last
meal before they go to sleep for the winter.
Beautiful butterflies dine alongside wasps;
bumblebees jostle with hoverflies and our ivy
bushes literally buzz with life.
The importance of ivy to the wildlife of our
city cannot be overstated. Aside from this
vital late-season nectar supply, ivy’s evergreen
leaves also feed caterpillars – including those
of the holly blue butterfly and the delicate
swallow-tailed moth. These leathery leaves
provide a hibernating site for brimstone and
peacock butterflies. On cold winter evenings
the ivy sings with the chatter and chirp of an
invisible starling-and-sparrow choir roosting
in the waterproof warmth. Its black berries
keep our winter thrushes fed, and in the spring
it is a nesting site for our robins and wrens. Ivy
covers a blank brick wall with a piece of living
graffiti. It’s a nature reserve that has spread
itself across our city.
But despite all the life it supports, ivy has a
reputation as a killer, its roots sucking the life
from the trees it surrounds. This isn’t true; ivy
manufactures its own nourishment just like
any other honest plant. And we can’t forget the
important service that ivy provides for us humans.
For centuries ivy has protected us from
house goblins. Bringing ivy into your home
as a decoration at Christmas (the time when
goblins are at their most pesky) will ensure
that your festive season passes without a burnt
turkey or a blown fairy light.
Michael Blencowe, Sussex Wildlife Trust
sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk
....89....

INSIDE LEFT: LOWER ESPLANADE, c 1900
.....................................................................................
It’s around the turn of the century, and a couple of
street vendors are plying their trade outside Bolla
and Biucchi’s Restaurant, on the Lower Esplanade,
near the Rotunda in front of West Street. The man
is selling shellfish, the woman is selling ‘Hokey
Pokey’ ice-cream, which suggests perhaps the handcart
stalls are connected with the restaurant. She is
managing to hold her baby over her shoulder while
working: let’s hope her shifts weren’t too long.
Ice cream was brought to England by emigrant Italians
as early as the mid-eighteenth century. Vendors
used to shout ‘Gelati! Ecco un poco’ (loosely: ‘ice
creams: here’s just a little bit’); soon ‘ecco un poco’
was corrupted to ‘hokey pokey’. The sale of ices was
to blame for the spread of many diseases as it was
offered in a glass tub, which would be licked clean,
given back to the vendor, rinsed in what water was
available on the stall, and used again for another
customer. This was called a ‘penny lick’. Around the
time this photo was taken, ice cream was starting
to be sold between two wafers: it’s unclear which
method is being used here. Whatever the case, the
serious chap in the bowler with the wooden leg
doesn’t look interested.
The Bolla and the Biucchi families were originally
from Ticino in Italian-speaking Switzerland, and
around the turn of the twentieth century colonised
this small part of Brighton, running a tea room, a
separate restaurant, and the Fortune of War pub.
There are quite a few extant photographs of the
restaurant: from one we can see that it offered
‘chops, steaks and hot joints’, which sounds a little
healthier than the penny licks on sale outside.
The photographer is standing with their back to the
beach, which would have been just as bustling as the
scene in front, with tourists milling around fishing
boats, and rows of bathing machines at the water’s
edge. While most men are wearing jackets, we can
see that it’s a summer day, as there are a number of
boater hats – fashionable at the time and only worn
in that season – on display. Alex Leith
The picture is courtesy of the James Gray collection,
which can be viewed in its entirety online at
regencysociety-jamesgray.com
....90....

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local children with life-shortening
conditions and their families enjoy
every little moment together at
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#ChestnutLittleThings
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