Page 127 – A Little Bird

14th July 201528th October 2021

Clary & Peg clothes for pregnancy and beyond

As anyone who has been pregnant knows, finding clothes that are both comfortable and stylish is a growing challenge – especially in the bump-tastic third trimester. And while you can get by with Lycra for so long there are some days when you don’t want to pull on yet another long stretchy t-shirt. We wrote about Clary & Peg when it first launched two years ago – back then it was called In Pig – in tribute to the Mitford sisters who used the term in their riotous books and letters of the 1930s. Since then the brand has changed its name to better highlight that these are clothes not just for pregnancy but to wear afterwards too. There’s plenty to covet – the adorable jumpsuit in denim or a grey and white stripe tie-waist maxi dresses in stripes or florals, tunics and smocks in denim or graphic prints and our favourite – the tiered shift, which comes in a fab Ikat print as well as gingham or red crepe. All looks are shown online on girls with bumps and girls without. And there are supercute printed bloomers for babies too. What better for a romp on the lawn in high summer?

8th July 20155th August 2015

Moccasins from Arambha

Finding little boys shoes that are both classic, hard-wearing but aesthetically pleasing is a never ending challenge so we were very pleased when we discovered these super cute suede moccasins that are handmade in Ethiopia using both locally produced leather and recycled car tyres. We found out about Arambha (the company that sells them) from an old colleague at Vogue whose sister, Ethiopia-based Georgie Jones, founded her company to use local skills to make Fairtrade clothes, shoes and accessories. The site also sells handwoven cotton dresses and skirts for little girls as well as beautiful striped cotton scarves and beach ponchos. Only some pieces are sold online but Arambha is holding a sale next Tuesday in Fulham. The sale will be on from 10am until 8pm at 49 Linver Road with all Arambha’s clothes and accessories on offer – the perfect pit stop to pick up some last minute holiday must-haves.

24th June 201531st August 2022

Inside the Wardrobe of…Lily Allen

How gorgeous is Lily Allen’s home and garden, never mind her brilliantly eclectic wardrobe? You can get a glimpse of both in this video – the first of a series (Olivia Palermo and Suki Waterhouse are next) produced by British Vogue and Vestiaire Collective, with Vogue stylist Bay Garnett (and sister of A Little Bird’s Daisy) doing the delving. Of course we all know that Lily Allen is clever and smart and quick witted and that her style goes from high to low, taking in punk, prom, street, stripper and the catwalk along the way, but did you know what happened to the handbag that Solange Knowles used to beat up Jay Z with in that lift…? Watch the totally charming video, here, and find out.

10th June 201531st August 2022

Pipsticks Stickers

Is there a child on the planet who doesn’t love a sticker? So for a bundle of really good ones – sourced from all over the world – to arrive in the post as if by magic each month: well, it’s a winning combo isn’t it. Pipsticks is a sticker subscription service. You can pay per month, for six months or for a year’s worth of stickers. And then, hey presto, a pack of 15 sheets of stickers, plus a blank postcard and some coloured cards arrive from America (it costs $3 extra for shipping to Europe), at the beginning of each month. Our daughter falls on the distinctive envelope when it arrives, and the stickers last pretty much all month, as there are plenty of them. It’s a simple idea of course and the kind of thing that’s been done endlessly before, but we love Pipsticks because the stickers tend to be old-school. They vary a good deal and suit both boys and girls, but you won’t find Elsa or Dora or Sponge Bob in any of the packs – Pipsticks is a Disney and ‘character’ free zone, which we love. The website also has a good blog section, with lots of craft ideas for using your stickers, but we kind of prefer to let our little ones just get on with it by themselves.

3rd June 201531st August 2022

The Basket Room

Yes, of course, we’ve all got baskets in our life, picked up at markets and on holiday. We have more than our fair share, we’ll admit. And yet when we discovered The Basket Room, we realised we needed more. What we love about The Basket Room, quite aside from their lovely designs, which range from understated and chic to neon bright and fun, is the wide range of sizes that they stock. It means that we’ve finally started buying baskets we actually need – they are perfect for toy storage for example – rather than adding yet another French shopping tote to our collection. What’s more, all the baskets are hand woven in Kenya by women. The weaver’s name is on a label attached to each basket, so you know who made it and be assured that she has been paid fairly, as well as recognised, for her work.

2nd June 20153rd June 2015

Olia Hercules’ Favourite Food Suppliers

The Snapery

Richard Peter Snapes makes the most incredible sourdough. I brought him some natural hop blossom yeast from Ukraine last year and he made a starter with it and now all of his bread, baguettes, even brioche buns have a little bit of Ukrainian meadow in them. I do not get bread from anywhere else. It is simply the best sourdough in London. It takes about 20 hours to make a Snapery loaf. Richard only uses his mixer to incorporate flour and water, he then lets his loaves rest and lets nature do its thing. He then stretches and folds them every half an hour. There is no vigorous kneading at all, which makes for the most wonderful texture. His is still a very small business but he sells his bread along with his friends from Tozino at Maltby Street market on Sundays.

Tozino

I love a collaboration. And I love small businesses helping each other. Tozino on Maltby Street are a small but the most incredible and atmospheric jamon bodega. They help The Snapery to keep afloat by buying and helping to sell Richard’s bread. They also sell the best jamon, salchichon (wine and black pepper salami), sobrasada (chilli chorizo pate!) and wine that I have ever tried. I go there to eat but also buy slices of ham and amazing iberico bones to make the most flavoursome stock! They have a stall at Maltby Street on Sundays.

Yasar Halim

I lived in Cyprus for five years so Cypriot food is something I cannot live without. I am so lucky that I now live right by Green Lanes, home to one of London’s grocery institutions, Yasar Halim, which has been there for 35 years. I go there to buy koubes (Cypriot cigar-shaped bulgar-encased meat bites), sesame-sprinkled breads and vegetables.

Hook and Son

I love my local Alexandra Palace market. There are always so many incredible producers present. I love making my own curd cheese (or syr in Ukrainian) and it is only good enough when made with raw milk. I know that I can always rely on organic, full-bodied lusciousness from Hook and Son. Their pastures are not treated with any chemicals so the milk is simply what it should be.

Turner & George

Meat provenance is extremely important to me. I love making broths and they really do rely on the best quality that there is. Turner & George have never let me down. Founded by chef Richard Turner and butcher James George, it is hands down one of the best butchers in the country. It’s easy to order online but I love dropping into their Islington shop, it’s got an amazing atmosphere.

Baldwins Butchers

When I can’t make it to Turner And George, I visit my local family-run Baldwins Butchers on Green Lanes. Apart from incredible deli items and organic and free range meats, they specialise in sausages with 50 varieties which are all home made on the premises.They are also very friendly and knowledgeable. Andreas, the owner really cares about what he does and it shows.

Natoora

Natoora is run by a group of some of the best people that I have ever met. Always informative, kind and passionate they deliver (through their website and Ocado) some of the best vegetables, fruit and cheeses (amongst other things) that I have ever tried. They source a lot of produce in Britain, but they also bring outstanding tomatoes from Sicily. They also do edible flowers which I sometimes use for my events.

Purkis and Sons

I have lived in North London for over eight years now, first in Muswell Hill and now by Turnpike Lane and Purkis & Sons is my fishmonger of choice. Established in 1973, Walter Purkis has always made a specialty of sourcing the freshest fish he could find and to that end both shops have day supplies coming in from Billingsgate Market, Cornwall, Devon, Grimsby, Aberdeen, Fraserburgh and many other fishing ports around Britain. Much of the smoked fish sold through the shops is smoked in the century old smoke house at the rear of the Crouch End Shop, with recipes that have been handed down through the family for at least six generations.

Harringay Local Store

I try to shop locally and support independent producers as much as I can. I hence love Harringay Local Store. They really do sell what they like and luckily I want to eat what they eat! Most of their produce is organic from predominantly British farms. I am not in any way a vegan but their vegan and vegetarian food is fantastic. They also sell amazing local craft beers, ciders and wine, as well as loads of other ace produce.

Mamushka by Olia Hercules (£25, pub Mitchell Beazley)

27th May 201528th October 2021

Heavenly Bedlinen by Once Milano

We love the brilliantly curated clusters of shops that have surrounded the Ham Yard Hotel since it opened a year ago. And none more so than Once Milano, especially since we were recently given one of the store’s gorgeous monogrammed pouches which has swiftly become one our favourite things. The firm, founded by three friends, specialises in the most sumptuous crushed Italian linen in a pretty spectacular palette of colours – the neutrals are perfect but if you’re into more punchy colours there are fabulous inky blues, raspberry and mossy greens. We are seriously coveting the bedlinen, beautiful linen quilts and the fringe-edged table cloths. The company will monogram or embroider any pieces to order too – making it a great destination to order a pretty special wedding gift. Or just to treat yourself. It’s an indulgence – but one you only have to make once.

20th May 201528th October 2021

Maison Assouline – a great café/bookshop in Mayfair

We love this elegant hotspot from the publisher Assouline in a gorgeous 1922 building by Sir Edward Lutyens on Piccadilly. In one corner you’ll find the Swans Bar serving late breakfast to early dinner – think light snacks such as salmon toast and flutes of champagne. Then there’s the Mondrian wall of books, their special collection of vintage Assouline editions, candles, stationery and upstairs a bespoke bindery, furnishings to purchase for your own library and a Cabinet of Curiosities with one-of-a-kind objects. It all feels terribly chic and with super-friendly staff, it’s the perfect place to meet a friend for a cocktail or stop-off by yourself after the RA for tea when you can treat yourself to one of their Dammann Frères teas (established in 1692) with cannelés and madeleines de Proust. Yum!

20th May 201531st August 2022

Cabbages & Roses founder Christina Strutt’s shopping and other secrets

It’s when I’m shopping for vintage textiles and antiques that my true, greedy personality is exposed. I find I get rather panicky when there is a danger of loosing something beautiful to someone else. That’s the best and worst thing about antiques – usually there is only one of whatever it is you’ve found.

My favourite hunting grounds are:

Kempton Antiques Market and Ardingly Antiques Market.

Sue Stokes Decorative Antiques shop in Lacock, Wilthsire – she has delicious and clever finds from the Georgian and Victorian eras.

Foreign junk shops especially American ones – in fact any junk shops at all. And my own stash in my studio is always good for riffling through and making the odd rediscovery.

When it comes to shopping (rather than hunting), I’m less keen. I’d rather be weeding the garden, but when the mood takes me this is where I can be found:

Egg, 36 Kinnerton Street, SW1. Maureen Doherty finds the best clothes and accessories for her beautiful and unusual shop.

Cabbages & Roses – the stuff that’s a year or more behind the current stock. I’m rather blasé about current collections, but if I see someone wearing old pieces that I don’t have, I am covetous beyond belief.

Daylesford Organic Farm. Everything they do is delicious and innovative and beautiful, and makes me seem as if I care about food when really I am happy with a bag of maltesers.

Odd Limited. If I could I would position an Odd rocker at every vantage point in my garden, which would mean I would need to buy 7.

I love books, and have about a million coffee table books, but these are my current faves.

Other people’s photograph albums. Anybody’s will do. I love them all.

A House is Not a Home by Bruce Webber.

The Rolling Stones by David Dalton and Waldemar Januszczak. Taschen have published this incredible collection of photographs taken over 50 years. This book would make me seem very cool.

Vogue: The Editor’s Eye. I love anything from Vogue, which reminds me of the old days when I used to work there.

Terence Donovan Fashion. Just beautiful.

Living Life Beautifully by Christina Strutt. OF COURSE.

Jasper Conran Country. The big version, please.

If someone fancied going shopping for me, here’s what I’d most love to receive.

Scented candles. Anything by Diptyque, or Cabbages & Roses’ new Fig and Pear candle or Twenty Seven Roses, which smells like a delicious granny.

Chocolate. Not grown up black chocolate, but posh milk chocolate and lots of it.

An extravagant flowering plant – the sort you would never buy yourself, but not an orchid.

A perfect piece of clothing from Egg (see above). My friend Maureen Doherty would know exactly what I’d love.

Really good bread. My son Edward gave a loaf of bread as gift to a dear friend, and five years later everyone is still talking about it.

About me: I am happiest in my vegetable garden where I have control of neat rows and beautiful produce.

I have a horror of technology and am terrified to change the ‘source’ thing on my TV in case I loose the netflix function.

I don’t know how to switch on the heating in my house. We have a wood burning system and I can’t ask my husband again how it works, so I just put on another sweater.

20th May 201520th May 2015

Energy Bank Sun Flash Balm by This Works

We love a multi-tasking beauty product, especially one from This Works – the no nonsense brand set up by ex-Vogue Beauty Director Kathy Phillips. And the latest launch – Energy Bank Sun Flash – ticks off two pressing pre-summer beauty issues. The rich balm is packed with nourishing ingredients like chicory root and vitamins C and E as well as a skin-plumping hyaluronic acid to give dull, dehydrated skin a real boost. But the formula also contains caramel which gives a dose of very natural colour too. If you want an even richer treatment you can blend it with moisturiser although we found it rich enough already. It’s an instant bronzer and one shot spring pick-me-up all in one.

30th April 201526th October 2021

Rosemary Ferguson on Nutrition

I am really passionate about nutrition. I am endlessly amazed by what food can do for you both physically and mentally. I am also a great believer that life is for living and that with the right nutrition we can help our bodies cope with whatever life throws at us. So if we have tough jobs, busy family lives, or just love going dancing till 3 in the morning – by giving our bodies the right fuel we can keep ourselves feeling well and vibrant.

I don’t think you need to be one extreme or the other, balance is what works in my experience. No-one I know sticks to an extreme plan, so make it do-able for you. Little tweaks and changes here and there make big differences, and as you start to become more mindful and informed you start to make better choices. Juicing is a great way of getting a lot of nutrition into the body. I really enjoy making juices tailored to my needs that day. So if I am feeling tired I add things to my juice or smoothie such as parsley, greens, sprouted seeds or green powders like blue green algae also known as spirulina or chlorella. If I feel I am getting a cold then a bit of rosemary, ginger and garlic can do wonders to stop it in its tracks. I find it a quick and easy way to boost my daily diet.

I love a glass of wine (or two), a bag of crisps now and then, some cheese, chocolate or ice cream. Most of the time, however, I eat a pretty nutrient-dense diet. I enjoy eating fresh food, my energy levels are better and I feel more positive. But I know if I didn’t have the other things I would feel pretty miserable. Your body is a temple and you should take care of it……BUT SO IS YOUR MIND! And if going for a rich delicious dinner with your mates feeds your soul then it is as much a part of wellbeing as fruit and veg.

And here’s my recipe for Rainbow Juice

RAINBOW JUICE

½ beetroot
1 carrot
Handful of spinach
5 strawberries
10 blueberries
Juice of ½ lemon
2 tsp blue green algae

This is multivitamins in a glass! It contains all the colours of the rainbow, so you are getting a whole spectrum of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals – all necessary to heal and repair the body. The live enzymes in the blue green algae, plus the B12, will leave you feeling totally regenerated particularly after exercise!

Pass all the ingredients, except the blue green algae, through the juicer, juicing the lemon through the juicer or by using a citrus press or squeezing by hand. Stir in the blue green algae at the end.

Extracted from Juice by Rosemary Ferguson. (Ebury Press, £15.99)

Photography by Nassima Rothacker

14th April 201526th October 2021

Egg – the very best recipes inspired by the simple egg by Blanche Vaughan

Few foods have been as demonized as the egg over the past few decades, but as Nigella Lawson succinctly points out the humble egg is “nature’s very own perfectly packaged convenience food.” So it makes perfect sense to dedicate an entire book to them as chef and food writer Blanche Vaughan has done. Vaughan trained at the River Café and has worked at Moro and St John and the recipes within her gorgeously packaged hardback reflect her impressive CV. As you would expect there are stacks of delicious breakfast and brunch treats within these sunshine yellow pages, all elevated with subtle twists such as adding crispy sage and chilli to a “frizzled” egg on toast and there are great supper ideas too – a spinach, marjoram and ricotta sformata that we can’t wait to try out or salmon with an egg and lemon sauce. But there are lots of pragmatic tips for refining basics such as poached eggs or a heavenly tortilla to slightly more time-consuming crème patissiere or a rich egg dough. But it’s the teatime section that really gets the pulse racing here – Vaughan is spectacularly good at cakes (as well as tarts, biscuits and crepes). There’s a chocolate, almond and orange cake that could well be our favorite new grown-up birthday cake – it’s light but incredibly rich. And a fragrant, deliciously moist pistachio, apricot and orange blossom cake too. Vaughan is kindly sharing the recipe for the latter here – what better way to spend a sunny weekend afternoon than baking – and eating – this?

Pistachio, apricot and orange blossom cake

serves 6–8

250g softened unsalted butter
250g sugar
Zest of ½ orange
2 tbsp orange blossom water
4 eggs (about 250g in weight)
100g ground pistachios
100g ground almonds
50g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch fine sea salt
150g dried apricots, chopped

For the topping

50g sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 tbsp chopped whole pistachios

Here the flavours of pistachio, apricot and orange blossom are inspired by sweet Arabic dishes. The ground nuts give the cake a dense, moist texture; it also helps it keep for longer.

Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/gas mark 3 and line a 900g loaf tin or 23cm round springform or loose-bottomed cake tin with baking parchment.

Beat the butter and sugar together using an electric stand mixer or handheld whisk until pale and fluffy. Add the orange zest and orange blossom water and mix well. Add the eggs one a time, mixing well after each addition, until completely incorporated. Add the ground nuts, flour, baking powder and salt and fold together with a metal spoon or spatula until you have a smooth batter. Finally, fold in the chopped apricots.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes.

Test to see if the cake is done by inserting a skewer into the middle; it should come out clean.

Allow to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out.

While the cake is cooling, make the topping. Put the sugar in a small pan with the lemon zest and juice and bring to the boil. Add the chopped pistachios and stir well. Immediately pour over the top of the cake. Let it cool a little before cutting and serving.