Brixton Blog moves to a new site

By Zoe Jewell, Editor

We have exciting news – almost two years after it began, Brixton Blog is moving to a new website, www.brixtonblog.com, and combining forces with Tim Dickens, the man behind the Brixton Bugle. The website will cover news, culture, features and local history on a daily basis and will, we hope, be a trusted source for all who live in – or want to find out about – Brixton. We want to report on and foster debate in a place we are passionate about.

This is one of the first posts for the Brixton Blog I have written in the first person and credited to my own name. I have always strived not to be an overbearing personality on the site, to remain truthful to the subjects I have covered and give others a place to write about where they live. Yet the Brixton Blog has also been a very personal project to create an online space for news and views about the area I grew up in and love very much.

If there is one regret I have, it is not having looked the fast-moving change in Brixton squarely in the eye and reported on the full effects of gentrification here, both positive and negative.

And my, Brixton has changed since I set up the Brixton Blog two years ago in 2010. My first article was about the Spacemaker project in its first few months. Little did I know what was to come.  There are a feast of new, wonderful restaurants to choose from in the town centre now, but there are also many who feel excluded by this new Brixton or who do not even register it in their lives. Will the change continue at this pace? How will it affect the old traders and what will happen to the surrounding areas in Brixton? We plan to report on all of this at the new Brixton Blog.

Running Brixton Blog alone with a full-time job has meant that the blog hasn’t yet fulfilled all its potential. This will all change as we move to a new site. We want to be a proper, considered, fun online newspaper about Brixton. We plan to keep the council to account, report on crime and look at the effects of the cuts in Lambeth, as well as write features, profile brilliant Brixtonites and tell some of our local history.

We are soft launching tomorrow, so bear with us as we get everything up and running. It might be a month or so before all systems are running smoothly but we hope you stay with us – and above all send all your comments, questions, criticisms to info@brixtonblog.com, because we’d love to hear them.

Meet Brixton

After the success of the first Meet Brixton event in December, we’ve organised a second with the Brixton Bugle team on 18 January at the Dogstar. It’s a meet up/tweet up for the people of Brixton to come together to have a beer and share their love of the place where they live, work or simply admire. Very laid back – and everyone is welcome! Come for 7.30pm. More details here.

RECIPE: Christmas Day

Guest Brixton food blogger, Lucy Ferguson, hosted a Christmas dinner for twelve in South London a few weeks ago – she gives us her tips for a (sort of) successful Christmas Day meal

X Factor has finished and River Cottage Christmas Special is on Television. It’s that time that our thoughts turn to why on earth we offered to cook Christmas dinner and how on earth to tackle it.

If any of you have seen my blog TV Dinners, you’ll know I’m an unconfident and indeed sometimes talentless cook. But recently I hosted a traditional Christmas dinner for twelve with all the trimmings – everyone ate too much, no-one died and nothing went wrong (well except for the bread sauce, but who cares about bread sauce?) If I can do it, I absolutely promise you anyone can. So here’s my hints, tips, cheats and workarounds for the big day. 

Sporty delights for the cold weather in south London

In August, Joe Coulson wrote us a post on summer sports in Brixton.  Now he shares his tips for keeping moving in the cold winter weather

(Photo: Matthew Bluett)

As any cliché-loving sports coach will tell you, winter is the season in which champions are made, and that’s not the only reason to keep running & cycling through the cold weather.

There are surely few more simple pleasures than spinning through the city on a crisp clear night, with your tyres humming frostily beneath you.

So here are some Brixton-bespoke ideas for enjoying your running and cycling until the spring.

Cunning running. A bit of inventiveness is all you need to keep running once the ice arrives. Last year, I found that outside Olive Morris House on Brixton Hill, with its overhanging shelter, made a great ice-free spot for the odd interval session. Better still, ask Father Christmas for a set of snow-cleats for your trainers and then when everyone else is fighting to stay upright, you’ll be granted exclusive use of a pristine white running wonderland.

Circuits in the park. If you’d prefer a bit of company, why not head down to the park for some circuit training? You’ll get the benefit of a good hour’s cardio work while improving your speed and core stability. A cheap pair of football boots is a wise investment when it gets muddy though. One Element run sessions on Streatham Common and across London, and Community Circuits run sessions in Brockwell Park.

Winter swim. You can swim outdoors through the winter at the Serpentine or Tooting Bec if you join and — whether you’re indoors or outdoors — getting involved in something like winterswim is a great way to stay motivated.

Weatherproof your ride. Never mind mudguards and waterproofs, the secret to happy winter cycling starts with a good base layer. One well-known brand claims to have been worn continuously for 40 days at sea during a round-the-world record attempt, so a few chilly early morning commutes through London shouldn’t be a problem. To keep your bike ship-shape, Brixton Cycles will sort you out with the essential degreaser and lube you need.   

Eat like an explorer. There’s a reason why the diet of choice for the high-altitude, sub-zero explorer includes soup, stew and hot tea: you get warmth, much-needed fluid, and food all in one go. I reckon Kaosarn is a hard-to-beat bet in Brixton for a warming winter meal, but — further afield – why not try Galapagos Foods in Battersea for a bowl of hearty homemade soup?

 What are your top winter exercise tips?

Joe Coulson blogs here

RECIPE: Lebkuchen

It’s okay to talk about Christmas now that December has begun. Here, Brixton food blogger Miss South introduces us to the delights of the German Lebkuchen

Christmas is coming! Which means you’re either running around like a headless chicken trying to do all your shopping or you’re cosied up indoors enjoying the season. Either way you’ll need a simple seasonal treat to see you through. Brixton may not have a German market (although it has every other sort) but don’t let that stop you from indulging in these traditional German biscuits or Lebkuchen.A spiced cookie similar to gingerbread, these are bursting with festive flavours and are the easiest thing in the world to make. Best of all, you can get everything you need to do so in the wonderful Nour Cash and Carry for about a third of the cost of popping to Tesco. So stock up and impress everyone this year with freshly baked biscuits in no time.

(Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food)
250g plain flour
85g ground almonds
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves, black pepper, nutmeg, mace, allspice (use all or just which ones you have)
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
200ml clear honey or 100ml honey and 100g dark brown sugar
85g butter
1 lemon , finely grated zest

FOR THE ICING

100g icing sugar
1 egg white , beaten

Preheat your oven to 200C and melt the butter, honey and sugar together on the stove. Measure your dry ingredients into a large bowl and then add the liquid when completely melted. Combine together well until a slightly fudgy dough. This should take about 5 minutes.

Pinch off walnut sized pieces of the dough, roll into a ball and then flatten out on a lined baking tray, leaving enough room to spread out slightly. The dough should yield about 30 cookies so you’ll probably only be able to bake half at one time. Cover the dough to stop it drying out in this case. You can also freeze the cookies and simply cook for a minute or two longer when needed. Just put some greaseproof paper between them when freezing.

You want to cook the biscuits until golden and still slightly soft so check after 10 minutes but don’t be surprised if they need up to 15 minutes. Leave them on the tray for about 2 minutes to firm slightly, then transfer to a wire rack to cool for about 15 minutes so you can ice them.

The icing is firmer with the egg white and less likely to drip, but if it’s a waste of an egg for you, just mix the icing sugar into a stiffish paste with some water and use that instead with the back of a teaspoon or a pastry brush. Allow to dry for a moment or two and then get stuck in!

These are equally good with a cup of tea as with some mulled wine. They are soft and chewy, thanks to the almonds, with a warming tingle of spice than knocks the shopbought ones into a cocked hat. Simple enough to make with the kids, they’ll impress everyone this Christmas and keep well in a tin if you happen to have any leftover. I have a feeling they’ll be a Christmas tradition in your house year after year…

Miss South blogs at North South Food

(Speedy) REVIEW: In defence of Speedy Noodle

After an outraged tweet by Vanessa G about our failure to review Speedy Noodle on Brixton Rd, we challenged her to rectify the wrong and tell us why she loves it so much

Speedy Noodle, which proudly dominates the space between Risky and HSBC on Brixton Rd, has long been serving the community with its extensive menu of far-Eastern cuisine.

Given that Brixton is now celebrated as a foodie haven, with restaurants, bars and delis revered by mainstream press and citizen journalists alike, why has Speedy Noodle, one of our original independent eateries been overlooked? Some might say it’s due to the bright lighting and clinical feel, some might be suspicious that anywhere so cheap could possibly hold any quality. Most, I suspect, are mere snobs who choose not the stray from the Village Tourist Trail. Yet, for those not yet initiated, it offers many virtues, albeit with a lack of shabby-chic bunting.

You enter into a vast area with on-trend communal bench style seating, enabling you to get close enough to listen to other diners’ arguments if you so wish, or to sneak into a far corner for a private discussion with your own lover.

The lighting is indeed bright and somewhat unflattering, but at least this clearly illuminates the menu – and what a vast menu it is.

While so many places now choose to restrict their meal choices to one or two offers, Speedy Noodle offers well over a hundred different dishes, most of which are served with either rice, or noodles (both arrive equally speedily). Vegetarians are well catered for, with a range of vegetable and soya-protein dishes. The restaurant is licensed although there is a good selection of non-alcoholic drink options available.

The portions are large and, quite frankly, delicious. Don’t start protesting with your MSG-related worries. Deep in your heart you know that if some tasty meals were served in a more fashionable location they would be well praised. The fact that, thanks to its convenient late opening times, Speedy Noodle is the perfect late-night eatery after a few pints should not be allowed to overshadow another fact – the food is yum.

Perhaps most importantly, in these budget-conscious times of austerity, Speedy Noodle is cheapcheapcheap, with mains around the £4 range. I would highly recommend a visit  to anyone looking for a cheap, filling and unpretentious meal in Brixton.

OPINION: Life in the Bus Lane

Life-long Brixtonite, Esther Webber, is a bus obsessive. Here, she talks about the joys of South London buses

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love buses. I ride them every day to work, and every other opportunity I get. There is something about buses quite unlike any other form of public transport. I think if I had to define it in a word, it would be intimacy.

On the train or the Tube, passengers try to isolate themselves. Even when they are jammed, faces in each other’s armpits, on the 08.55 from East Croydon, they are all desperately trying to distance themselves from one another. Plugged into iPods or reading The Metro, the aim is to disengage as fully as possible from the rest of the carriage.

On the bus, it doesn’t work like that. You can try to seal yourself off, but you will not be successful. For one thing, the cosy nature of the seating, where you are coupled side by side with a merry-go-round of strangers, makes for a certain unavoidable closeness. Your neighbour’s elbow is in your ribcage and his conversation is in your ear. He is close enough to read your book (or look down your top, if you are particularly unlucky).

On the bus, as nowhere else, people believe in sharing. The rudeboys on the back seats practise a modern kind of evangelism: they are convinced their music is so good that they have to share it with the rest of the bus, blasting it from mobile phones and singing along. The rudegirls need you to know about who they slept with last night and why they will not be sleeping with them again.

One morning recently, on the number 3 from Brixton to Westminster, the bus was nearly empty. This has its own pleasures. The journey is faster and you can spread out across the seat. I entertained myself by trying to work out what language the man behind me was chattering into his phone. He, in turn, entertained himself by scuffing his trainers against the back of my seat periodically.

Several people have told me this is precisely why they hate buses. If hell is other people, then the number 29 in rush hour must be one of its outer circles. If, on the other hand, you happen to quite like other people, then buses are a good place to get to know them.

The bus, after all, is not as much of an anarchic place as it might seem at first. It has its own set of unspoken rules, a peculiar etiquette, which help keep the whole thing in motion.

So when I finally ran out of patience with the seat-kicker, I turned round and glared. The other language he’d been speaking gave way to a perfectly contrite “Sorry, hadn’t realised I was doing that.” On the bus, it’s easy to get carried away.

The Weekend Ahead in Brixton

Friday 18: It’s time to transport yourselves back to the 1970s with a little bit of funk from The Soul Immigrants, playing at Upstairs in the Ritzy for their ‘Around the Decades‘ night. 8.30pm, free, The Ritzy

Saturday 19: Another new market for Station Rd  – the monthly Retro and Vintage market starts today from 10am-5pm. Once you’ve got your glad rags sorted, head to Plan B for the Reggae Roast Jamdown session. Reggae Roast, Plan b, from 9pm, £8 Advance and £10 on the door. 

Sunday 20: A perfect autumnal Sunday in Brixton = brunch at The Lido Cafe, a walk to the top of the hill in Brockwell Park for views of the City, and – after a big Sunday lunch – catching the highly recommended film, ‘Weekend’, at The Ritzy at 9.15pm.

‘Brixton Experience’: Saturday 26 November

The Brixton Market Traders Federation is launching a month-long celebration of Brixton market with a big event on Saturday 26 November. Around 40 local businesses will set up stalls in the market, representing four categories – food, fashion, creative arts and media, and lifestyle. The businesses must be based within a 400m radius of the station and will include high-street shops as well as independent ones. Named the ‘Brixton Experience’ (bit cringe?), the month-long series of events is funded by the Mayor of London’s High Street Support Scheme Fund (a post-riots initiative to get London businesses back on their feet). It will also include business clinics run by Lambeth Enterprise and workshops with local makers from Makerhood.

Meet Brixton

We are organising a meet-up/tweet-up with the Brixton Bugle team for Brixton-based twitterers, facebookers, blog readers and any others who fancy it. It’ll be on Dec 7 at Mango Landin. Check out details here, but most importantly, come and say hello!