The Beat That My Heart Skipped – A blog dedicated to daily design inspirations. By Rohini Wahi.

House of Origin are a Dutch design studio who create wonderful food installations! Can you imagine anything better?! They create, designed and style special dinners, food installations and several cookbooks…

They presented ‘brain food’ below at the Milan events this year – outlining which foods affect which parts of the brain in a visually striking way.

I also love their past installation of chocolate dipped carrots!

And my favourite… Colour Cakes! Oozy, colourful yummy-ness! See their other works here

This week I’ve been counting down the minutes and seconds until my sister gets back from traveling. 6 months ago she decided to travel around Oz, New Zealand and Tokyo with her partner Ben and 4 year old daughter, Jasmine. Jasmine is actually MY daughter – there was a biological mix up but I kindly offered to let my sister keep her, provided I could have 24/7 access.

We are quite a close knit family [read Brady Bunch] and my mother, being French n’all, has been acting like there’s been a death in the family since my sister ‘left us’. Given that my mum still insists we text to let her know we got back safely from their house [an hour away], she didn’t take the ‘erm, we’re thinking of going traveling for 6 months’ news well. So you can imagine how she’s handling all the malarkey with that pesky volcano.

First there was the initial panic that her youngest would be stranded in Tokyo without food or shelter. However, my sister, being the jammy sibling that she is, just happened to book her return flight on the day after the air ban was lifted. So it looks like she’s flying back on time but now mother is having a wobbly about it not being safe to fly. She recites facts about ash particles hitting planes like she’s some kind of aviation expert and she’ll be pacing the kitchen like a trapped lion until her babies are home safely under her wing.

All this angst will no doubt have been poured into excessive food preparation for the grand homecoming – recipe books will have been scoured; a year’s supply of food will have been crammed into the too-small fridge and my dad will be cowering in a corner on the other side of the house. It’s probably not the best time to announce that I’ve started a detox. I

t’s supposed to be scorchio for the next few days so for those of you who aren’t lucky enough to savour my mum’s welcome home feast, here’s a selection of some of the best alfresco dining spots in London. There are obviously loads  I haven’t included so please add your favourites in the comments section as I fully intend to flex my gastronomic tastebuds this summer.

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Today we are sharing a recipe from Ele’s Kitchen, if you recall Ele has contributed to the blog a few times here and here. Now she’s back with a wierd and wonderful alternative version of coleslaw – perfect for the summery days ahead. Thanks Ele!

My Mum has a saying, one which should bring comfort to frustrated parents everywhere: “Picky eaters are just good cooks in the making”. Though this hasn’t been scientifically proven, it’s definitely proved accurate in the case of me and my sister, and indeed most of our cousins, too.

My family was rife with picky eaters, and I was the worst of the bunch. Christmas Eve dinner for me was often a roll with butter, and I would routinely get stomach aches before going to a certain aunt’s house for dinner, so frightened I was of whatever she was going to foist upon us. [I’ve since come to realise that said aunt is actually a wonderful cook, and love eating at her house.]

Though my picky-eater status is nowhere near where it used to me, and my good cook status much improved, there are still a few things that I’ve never been tempted to try, let alone cook. Dishes that, by their merest mention, make my stomach turn. Among the worst of these offenders is coleslaw. I know people who adore the stuff, waxing lyrical about the contrast of crunch and creaminess. But me? I only see cabbage, raw cabbage, smothered in that most revolting invention of humankind, mayonnaise. No, thank you.

It was somewhat of a surprise then, when I came across a coleslaw recipe that I immediately wanted to make- and eat. The Peanut Slaw from David Lebovitz’s wonderful book The Sweet Life in Paris jumped out at me for its decidedly un-coleslaw-like vibe. A fresh and crunchy mixture of cabbage and carrots, it’s dressed not with gloopy mayo, but with a simple mixture of peanut butter, soy sauce and lime juice. Since there’s nothing [in my opinion] that can’t be made better by the addition of peanut butter, I figured if I was ever going to try coleslaw, this was going to be it.
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I love the energy found in Roland Bello’s food photography…

Well now I know what it’s like to put your soul on the line and flog your wares at a market stall. After several long days making candles, tying ribbons in fiddly bows, choosing plants that had perfect petals, sourcing oversized playing cards for the Alice in Wonderland theme and getting out wads of cash for all that change I would need I ended up selling nine items. Yes, nine, and most of those were bought by my lovely friends who I’m sure took pity on me.

Whilst I’m loving this springtime weather, why did the sun have to come out on my big day? Bar a couple of old ladies who came in for some cheap tea, everyone had stripped down a la English and escaped to the park, leaving me to man my overstocked stall and contemplate what on earth I was going to do with a stash of crockery. It was so dead that I thought about food even more that usual and ended up scoffing the French Fancies that were there for display on my cake plate. While I’m on the subject, can I just say how disappointing they were. I remember these little pastel coloured delicacies being indulgent treats when I was at University but they are absolutely vile. I had to try each colour just to make sure and rest assured, they are all equally disgusting. Thankfully my lovely friends [who have earnt serious brownie points] were waiting for me at the pub with a pint of pear cider so I packed up with my tail between my legs, put it down to the weather and sunk a few instead. For those of you who were down the park, here are some pictures of the stall:

All this lovely weather has got me thinking about how lucky I am to be at home actively seeking work and it’s all I can do to keep myself from writing smug comments next to friends Facebook updates about how trapped they are in the office. Today, I thought I’d take my laptop outside and write this article in the garden. It was a good idea in theory apart from the fact that I couldn’t see the screen and an annoying child was playing swingball next door. There were building works going on two doors along, a dog pining for its owners and then the dustmen have arrived. So I’ve returned indoors, but none of this will spoil my smug, zen-like state of mind.

Today I’m thinking about the birds and the bees and, no, it’s not going to be that kind of article but one about urban beekeeping. Have I lost you all now? As my partner Matt is the son of a beekeeper, I have started to learn a thing or two about these furry little insects and as some of you probably already know, they are the bees knees – excuse the pun but it’s been estimated that the honeybee contributes around £150m annually to the economy and that without them the food chain would collapse.
Although the number of honeybees have fallen drastically in recent years, urban beekeeping is getting very trendy so hopefully us city folk will keep them going… even if does mean a new breed of bees who’ll have blackened lungs and live in fear of being mugged. I hope those Queen bees get streetwise quickly and adopt phrases like ‘girlfriend, you aint stealing my honey’ otherwise there’s no hope for them. In fact, honey is thought to taste better and be more varied in urban areas because the bees have a greater diversity of trees and flowers. Places like Fortnum and Mason have got in on the act and have set up rooftop hives in Piccadilly and Samuel L Jackson bought Scarlett Johansson a beehive for a wedding present. A proper beehive, not a hairdo, that is.

I have to say, I didn’t really get how you’d even begin to go about keeping bees in the city. After all, if you’re lucky enough to have any outside space it’s probably just about big enough to swing a cat, let alone a beehive. But it is doable and help is at hand.

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