Many Lives at the Home Community Café

Home Community Cafe sign outside St Andrew's Church in Earlsfield

 

By the side of the road, in amongst the shops and the bars, stands a church. It is a grand building in the Victorian Gothic style, built in the late 19th century, soon after the railway brought development to what used to be little more than sparse open fields. A century earlier, these fields were renown for decades for hosting the infamous “Garrat Elections” – a raucous spectacle timed to coincide with general elections, where spoof candidates would pillory politicians through skits and speeches. At its height it attracted 80,000 visitors, much to the delight of local publicans (including that of The Leather Bottle, still in operation today).

When the railway arrived, the new station was named after a local house – Earlsfield – which had been demolished to accommodate the line; the owners had insisted the name be kept on as condition of the sale. With the station to the north and the newly built church to the south, the area expanded rapidly, transforming from a sleepy Surrey village to a thriving London suburb in a blink of an eye, largely stocked with terraced housing for working class families. Meanwhile the area picked up its name from the station – rather than vice versa – and it has been known as Earlsfield ever since.

Where once the church sat on a countryside lane, now it finds itself on a bustling high street. Where once it was the preserve of Sunday morning worshippers, now its doors are open throughout the week. Open in the widest sense, for this building is a place for anyone and everyone; a space that transcends the religious and the secular, the young and the old, this community or that. Under its towering vaults and arches, people come to gather and connect, in the same ways people have for millennia: through conversation, art, music and food…

 

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Jerk Stories: Salt and Spices, Smoke and Wood

 

Jamaica; 10 million years ago

 

Wood and water, water and wood.

Rain falls. Seeds sow.


Wood and water, water and wood.

Tendrils sprawl. Currents flow. 


Wood and water, water and wood.

Rivers roar. Branches grow.


Wood and water, water and wood.

Trees soar. Clouds roll.


Wood and water, water and wood.

Rain falls. Seeds sow.

 

…and now the forest is born. Roots digging deep over limestone karst. Burrowing. Delving. Trees holding firm against frenetic storms. They bow, they sway. Yet steadfast they remain.

In swamp stillness, drizzle hangs in the air like a levitating sea. The mist settles on heart-shaped leaves and over great pools of water; ripples glisten in the morning light. On a floating log, a dragonfly settles, antennae twitching, wings still. All around, towering trunks plunge into the murky depths, where behemoth fish weave between swaying ferns, a shifting kaleidoscope of green.

The trees thirst: mighty giants that glug and grow, racing to the heavens with canopies that unfurl to salute prehistoric skies, capturing cosmic rays from distant suns, chemistry bubbling away in chloroplast cauldrons. Light turns to matter.

And now the forest is ready. Sustainer of life. Provider of food. Guardian, protector. But first it waits: waits for the first canoe, the first fire, the first smoke. This place, this land, this Xaymaca – the land of wood and water.

 

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Timeless Pleasures at Paul Rothe & Son

Paul Rothe & Son sandwich counter chalkboard menu full of different types of fillings

 

A scrawled blackboard menu usually signifies a food offering that’s in constant flux, a snapshot of the moment – miss it and it may be gone forever. At Paul Rothe & Son however, whose expansive blackboard menu sails over the sandwich counter like a celebratory birthday banner, it indicates a place that’s indefatigably old-school, where nothing really changes, a steadfast bulwark against the whims and fads of modern city life. For this place has been around since 1900, handed down the generations like a treasured family heirloom.

Stepping through the chocolate box frontage, and you’re stepping back in time, into an Aladdin’s cave of condiments, a magical place of heaving shelves and shimmering jars. The counter is lined with bowl after bowl of pâté and pickles, mixes and fillers, home-roasted meats and deli delights – all ready to be layered between slices of bread or the embrace of a bun. Or, if you’re feeling particularly exotic: a ciabatta.

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‘Food Podcasts: A Tethering to Sound, Food and the World’ – A Guest Post by Adrienne Katz Kennedy

A montage of logos from different food podcasts

food podcasts

– Foreword –

I initially researched and wrote this piece two years ago, during a challenging period. Sadly, it never made it to publication, an inevitable reality of the freelance writing world that never really seems to get easier. Two years on, and suddenly Aaron offered this opportunity to guest post on his blogsite. To have it revived in this way (and by someone who takes such care with his words) seemed genuinely impossible: it felt like cheating, or playing with a hand of cards that weren’t mine. Besides, would it even be relevant now?

Yet, as we mark the third anniversary of the first Covid 19 pandemic lockdown in the UK, I find myself reflecting on the past. If I were to pick a soundtrack to accompany my life at that time, it would be the voices of those I’ve listed below. Voices and stories that carried me up and away, tethering me to other places as a reassurance that they still existed. The reliable, weekly or monthly appearance of a new podcast episode or comforting reassurance of older ones I had yet to hear helped to push me through the drudgery, even if only as a dangling carrot, coaxing me back out on a walk through the same streets with new sounds and stories and familiar voices as my reward.

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Breakfasts and Blessings – Rituals and Spaces in Synagogues and the Regency Cafe

The exterior of the iconic Art Deco Regency Cafe in London.

 

Ko-ha-nim…

The cantor stands on the bimah, the raised platform in the centre of the synagogue, facing out towards the East, towards Jerusalem, towards where the Holy Temple once stood, before it was destroyed by the Babylonians, and then rebuilt, and then destroyed again, this time by the Romans, and yet whose legacy is such that it remains a spiritual lodestone, to where all synagogues are orientated, all the synagogues around the world.

The cantor now addresses the kohanim: the segment of the community who affiliate as descendants of the biblical priestly class. They shuffle in as one, cloaked in white tallis prayer shawls, setting themselves in a row at the front. Then, turning silently to face the congregation, they slowly raise their arms aloft, as is the tradition for this prayer.

And then they chant.

 

*

 

Set beans, set tomatoes, hash browns. Any sauce?..”

The Regency Cafe is an old-school caff in the heart of Westminster: an old cabbies’ haunt where the drivers take their early morning victuals before a long day crisscrossing the city streets and circumventing its dysfunctional ring roads.

Nowadays, you’ll find more international tourists than taxi drivers, lured by glowing reviews in guide books, or its many featured cameos in films aiming to portray a characterful slice of London. Still, there’s always a smattering of old-timers and greasy-spoon traditionalists, and the occasional gang of ravenous construction workers on a morning break. It does the best fry-ups in town.

But more than that, thanks to an operation that stretches for almost eight decades, and a proud management with nostalgic sensibilities, the place is awash with rituals and symbols. And that is why visits here, however obliquely, remind me of synagogue.

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