under the wing
December 15th, 2011
I had supper this week with my friend and artist Simon Tyszko. Simon has transformed his ordinary Fulham apartment, by building a full sized replica of a Dakota wing through the width of it – his website, Phlight, shows just how fascinating it is. All life and art, goes on under and over the wing!
kitchen table
I exaggerated slightly there – as you can see there is a multi purpose office and kitchen with table (made of beautiful old wooden beams).
salad
I chopped up some red onion and carrot salad, while Simon cooked some merguez – spicy sausages from North Africa and very popular in France and Spain.
flaming liver
Next he flash fried calf’s liver and flamed it with some white wine.
calf's liver
He whipped up a quick mustard and vinaigrette dressing too.
liver and merguez
It was fantastically piquant and spicy with the vinaigrette and taste of chilli in the sausages – a great food combination.
pierogi, harissa and parmesan
The second course consisted of pierogi with harissa and parmesan cheese. Pierogi are delicious, Polish, flour and water dumplings, traditionally filled with potato (what did the world do before Columbus?). Simon fried up two types – one with a meat filling and the other with mushroom and sauerkraut. Initially I thought the heat of the chilli in harissa might overpower the pierogi, but combined with cheese, it was again perfect.
The in-phlight catering was excellent, which is just as well, since I cycled home in a winter storm that had blown up contrary to the BBC weather forecast – though I suppose that’s to be expected!
You and your friends really know how to eat, I do like the flaming calfs liver! and getting around london on a bike is so sensible but did you have to wear 2 wetsuits, it seems to me that a wet suit would be perfect for london weather!! (laugh) c
I was definitely wearing waterproofs. London is very easy for cycling, it’s fairly flat unless you live in Hampstead or Highgate. I’ve never flamed calves liver at home, but it definitely added something good to the flavour 😉
That is very curious… Very nice post and link; your friend is very talented.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
It was quite amazing when he had the opening party, with people in air force uniforms 😉
A delicious meal – I love merguez sausages and we have them a lot here. And what an amazing, surreal installation! Thanks for the link.
Thanks and as you probably know, merguez aren’t very common in Britain. They were certainly very good with calf’s liver 😉
Honestly, your posts often make me so nostalgic for the quirkiness that can be found in London. I checked out Simon´s site…incredible! Not sure I would want to live like that, but then I´m not an artist, but I´d love to see it. And as for the meal…calf´s liver is my naughty trreat in the UK. Actually, here we can get what they call calf´s liver very cheaply but it´s from a young cow. It´s not so pink, but still very tender, and usually cut a little thicker.My Polish pal in London once made me Pierogi too – loved them! And finally you ventured south, you brave man…not so far from my “manor”!
Simon’s quite a character – I’m not quite sure I could cope with my living space cut in half horizontally by a wing either, but his cats seem to like it! I’ve never really seen Fulham as being south, I always think of it as west. South starts (in my head) once you get across the Thames 😉
Insane apartment – love the wing.
Completely and he moves the bath around so it’s very Diva like.
The windows face west, so the sunset on the shiny wings looks great.