Uyen Luu

I shot a short film about the supper club with Crane.tv. Click on the You Tube below to view:
Also on The Guardian

As I trained in film making, I thrived on set and absolutely loved working with the camera crew at Crane.tv. We decided to use only natural lighting. I styled the set (my kitchen) previously but we did everything live for the entire day. It was really nice to hang out, shop, cook, eat, take photos, make a film with some really nice and talented people.

One thing I am not sure about is presenting myself in front of camera! Was quite nervous and my knife skills went to on holiday! : ) but I enjoyed getting manicures and having shellac!

Photo By Emma Sweeney

I have met some incredible people in the last three years. It is three years this week! Three years ago, I invited some friends over for a feast, dessert didn’t come till 1am as at that time, we certainly didn’t know what we were doing but true loyalty and friendship stuck and as time went by and the more the supper club happened, I gained more and more experience in cooking, writing, photographing and blogging.

Three years on and looking back, I have had the most amazing time of my life in so many ways. From tears of pain to tears of joy. To those moments where I couldn’t face chopping another onion or make another pot of pho; to those where I met people I will know and love for the rest of my life. I vividly remember when someone sang so beautifully and emotionally, This Year’s Love on my out-of-tune piano (that my mother had saved up and gifted to me as a teenager, hoping that I would become a star). He touched my heart so much, tears fell violently down my face. To a moment when my hero, Jamie Oliver, my friend Mia and me were carrying down plates of food from the kitchen to the dinning room. We had to wait for the camera to roll so we waited on the stairs, chit chatting and I remember thinking and looking into Jamie’s eyes, jeez, I thought, the carpet (then filled with stains of food being carried up and down the stairs) Jamie thinks the carpet is really dirty! Because it was : )

I have met some of the most incredible people, some are now dear friends of mine. How else would I have met an agent for comedians, cancer research doctors,  pathologists, many lawyers, publishers of my favourite books, singers of great songs, architects of beautiful innovative buildings, wine lovers, composers, opera and classical music conductors, writers, great chefs, app makers, journalists, editors, film makers, photographers, environmental workers, politicians, lobbyists, food critics… the list is endless.

Even though I am astounded by all the lovely, wonderful and creative people who have walked through my door and have eaten my food, I feel more proud of the fact that it doesn’t really matter what someone does for a living because no matter which walk of life you belong, there is a unison in my dinning room, a joy and a love for food that brings everyone there together. I find most people I have met to be delightful, warm and really really nice. I am always touched by people who often bring me flowers, chocolates, cheese and things they’ve baked or cooked. Then I would get the nicest thank you emails or hand written letters sent in the post. People have traveled long distances to eat my food. Once a beautiful eighty- something year old lady had traveled 4 hours in the car to see me. Her family knew how much she missed her travels to Vietnam and how much she loves Vietnamese food so had brought her all the way. Or those who flew over from far far away lands and end here, somewhere in London Fields, it could look like the ends of the earth to those whose never been to Hackney!

And now, three years later, the supper club still happens every Friday, people still book to come, word of mouth still spreads. I’ve met and connected with some great people who have opened doors for me and its all lead me to become even more busier than ever, more creative and very excited! What I do depends on the day of the week. Sometimes I am a stylist, sometimes I am a photographer, a film maker, a writer, a consultant, a cook…. I never know what the day brings but it always brings something.

As a treat to some of friends, those I have known for decades to those I have met in the last three years, I threw a barbecue. Unfortunately, it was on the rainiest day of the year and my dog Kodi, the white West Highlander, caught and proudly killed his first rat in the garden (I do live in Hackney after all, he is the gangsta rap on this East side of town). However, forty people ate the best barbecue ever, courtesy of Donald Russell whom I visited in Aberdeen on a butchery masterclass a few months ago. As I have previously mentioned, they do really really good meat. I swear by them and seeing as they have a royal warrant, I needn’t say much more.

As I am always cooking, I tend to try to do as little as possible (especially) at barbecues or dinner parties so I can spend time with my friends. I wrote to everyone and gave them a list of things to bring along including drinks and the odd ketchup, spices, ice cubes and lemon and limes. Everyone obliged apart from the weather. The boys fired up the barbie (boys are always very sexy in front of a fire, they become men) and o my goodness, said everyone! Hmmmm noises were all you could hear around the house as the condiments went to waste. No one wanted to eat the meat with anything other than itself because it was just utterly mouthwateringly succulently delicious! Its like butter melting in your mouth people would say or yumm or delicious or o.m.g, wow, etc etc. The best noises ever!

We must have had about 30 kg of meat, from tafelspitz, rib eye, rump steak, lamb racks, noisettes, valentines to pork sausages and beef burgers. I love those sausages! And on behalf of all my friends and I, truly, highly recommend the barbecue meat selection from Donald Russell or any meat from Donald Russell! Its incredible! You order it online at their website and its delivered to your door: www.donaldrussell.com

my boys from St Martins, all grown up and becoming daddies!

Thank you Donald Russell for letting me treat my friends and to thank them for all the support they have given me during my three years of cooking like a maniac!

I am the luckiest person! I am so thankful and grateful for all those who have supported me and everyone who has been to the supper club and the cooking classes and who keep coming back.

I am most thankful to my mum and my brother and my waiters/ waitresses who always help me in the kitchen, for without them, I would be quite stuck!

Thank you Thank you Thank you
Hope there will be loads more fun to be had.

I had a very special guest, Raymond Blanc, in my kitchen the other day. I will write more about it in the near future.

Photo Credit: Edward Smith/ Rocket & Squash

I first learned what the English ate for breakfast back in home economics class with Mrs Dooley when I was about eleven years old. Its all about timing, she would say to us wives-to-me, mother-of-children and discussed the general-rule-of-thumb-rule-of-how-to-be-a-woman, the best way to a man’s heart is via his stomach, she’d roar. Easy as that, huh? I thought as I conspired my life with Matt Goss from Bros.

Bacon, eggs, sausages, bread, butter, milk, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots & hummus, was, as agreed (blindly by me), kindly sent to me (or someone called Hannanh Yeadon who apparently lives at my address) by Sainsbury’s So Organic. There were no raspberries in stock! – A month prior, I had agreed (without much thought) to write a recipe for them on a specific date in return for “a range of organic ingredients”. Its Sainsbury’s, giant hand of God, I thought… how lovely of them to be in touch.

Hence, this post.

Usually, when I need to make an English Breakfast, I have not had much sleep the night before and am completely hung over so I am often burning everything, or one thing has gone cold and something is still burning in the oven, the scramble egg goes rubbery while I set the fire alarms off. With head hammering, I’d slip on a piece of bacon that had fallen off the counter onto the floor and someone laughs as they just sit there and watch or drink juice.

Or, I’d be the one sitting there drinking juice and watch it all slide downhill because a) they are still pissed/ hungover b) completely incompetent because i) they didn’t hear the wise words of Mrs Dooley at home ec ii) they are rubbish in the kitchen iii) trying too hard to impress c) making a perfect fry up is quite hard.

So, its just best to go to the nearest cafe and order one for the same price as these ingredients. Fry ups are usually for soaking up last night’s mayhem or when you stay at a hotel and someone else mucks it up.

Sometimes though, when you are in a relationship and no one gets drunk anymore or you live with someone because you can’t afford to live alone, you can achieve these fry ups and feel really proud of yourself, as you sensibly read the Sunday papers and think about having a stroll along the canal and buy china from a vintage market.

Sometimes you just fancy one, because you do, because they are quite yummy. So here’s how you make it and as rule of thumb, I always burn the best free range, organic, friendly farmed ingredients!

Ingredients
For two

4 x back bacon rashers 
2 x sausages
4 x toast bread (I prefer white, lighter bread)
some butter for the table
2 x eggs
some tomatoes (brought from my local organic green grocers)
some mushrooms
olive oil
cooking oil

Utensils
2 x medium sized frying pans
1 x oven proof dish
1 x anti splatter device (optional)

Method

1. Set table, don’t leave to last minute

2. Lay out ingredients, open packets, have things ready

3. Turn on grill, 275 should do it

4. Make a pot of tea or coffee

5. Pour juice

6. Cut cherry tomatoes in half, and slice mushrooms, place on oven dish, season with salt, pepper and olive oil. Once the oven is heated, place dish inside and try not to forget they are in there (set timer 5 mins)

7. Heat two frying pans, pour some oil in when they are both hot enough

8. Get the toast in the toaster – ready – don’t toast them yet.

9. Fry sausages in one pan on medium heat, turning occasionally for a few minutes.

10. Fit the bacon around the sausages and use the other pan if it doesn’t fit.

11. Break open eggs and fry them. If the pan is nice and hot, they get nice and crispy on the edges.

12. Don’t forget about the grilled tomatoes and mushrooms

13. Turn sausages and bacon.

14. Toast toast.

15. Don’t forget about the mushrooms and tomatoes.

16. Remove bacon from pan and place on plate.

17. Remove tomatoes and mushrooms from the grill, place on plate.

18. Turn sausages

19. Remove eggs if they are crispy enough and place on plate

20. (you might have wanted baked beans with this) – quick put that in the microwave!

21. toast more toast.

22. Remove sausages, place on plate.

(23. place baked beans on plate).

24. congratulate yourself

25. Eat and discuss what happened last night! Or keep it zipped!

Here’s what happened when Meemalee’s Kitchen got the same gift.

Thanks Sainsbury’s So Organic range. Thanks.

one of the best books I have read – Man Walks Into A Room – Nicole Krauss

This summer, I have spent the most joyous weekend afternoons and sunsets at Burnt Enz. Rihanna themed my tunes as bottle after bottle of prosecco, the holy water of my religion, filled flute after flute. We ate the best steak burgers, eels, roast quails and even a whole piglet. The banter, continuous. The love, everlasting, lustering between sunsets and dawn. It is truly glorious living in London Fields.

It all started when I was rocking up to The London Fields Brewery on my birthday in June with a bunch of my friends as the Cuban band played underneath the bunting. It was post Jubilee, pre Olympics and there was a perfume of optimism just hanging in the air like a smog of goodness, promising fun and laughter. The sunset swung its deep red rays onto  the faces of my friends who were puffing cigarettes, swigging pints of beers and talking endlessly to each other. Perhaps the sun was so forbidden this summer that every glimpse we had, we made the best of it.

After this, I lost my voice for two weeks solid. The silencing brought on a depression I had never felt before and like any (mute) cry baby, I wept for days, abstained in bed, frightened that I would never be heard again until I wrote and wrote and wrote and found a certain voice, somewhere in La Bouche and the library, a literary one, I would hope. And there, I saw how everything happens for a reason and once I found my inner voice, the vocal one also came back, a rebirth.

I did lots of nice things like a shoot and interview with Sophie Dening at Editer.com to The Daily Express (which I wasn’t sure about – he made me smile very forcibly – am no good at that!) Sophie also invited me over and cooked the most delicious Jose Pizarro recipe of hake and peas. Even though I am put on ice, I met with some incredible publishers too and didn’t think I could ever be so lucky to even get an appointment. I did some more amazing supper clubs and classes where I met loads of wonderful people. A hen do where they all came on a double decker bus; a cooking class where we cooked, learned, ate and watched The Men’s Wimbledon Final.

was featured in Scout Magazine

Did a food demo at The Vietnam Festival

Went to Rocket & Squash Supper Club Summit

did a few photo shoots

Did a show with ITV2

I also joined The Skinny Bib and cooked a Thai/ Vietnamese night at Global Feast and had lots of fun giggling and doing yoga afterwards in the cold courtyard. There wasn’t a lot of sleep involved, especially when we partied with Rankin at a book launch at his studio and what with running down Mare Street with a(nother) bottle of prosecco, whooing at the fire works during the opening ceremony and laughing my head off.

Rankin & Ayami

had lovely dinner parties with friends

didn’t go to bed a few nights and cycled around Victoria Park

was in a few magazinea

My ex next door neighbour had an impromptu cocktail party, she told us to get dressed up and actually there were only five of us and we danced to Graceland all night with diamonds on the soles of our shoes. After a bet, (and with thanks to Chris Hendrie) I managed to secure tickets to see Paul Simon at Hyde Park the next day which was Ah.Mazing.  I went with my friend Azzz who like me, loves living it up and we had so much fun munching on hamburgers at a Drive Thru after wards, sat in my roofless car, gazing at faint starry tinkles.

I still own the records my father left behind with his clothes when he left in the mid 80s. My brother and I favourited Simon & Garfunkel, Live in Central Park, 1981, a record we would play over and over. If you open the record sleeve, you can see the crowds of people at Central Park, a view Simon & Garfunkel saw as they sang. We always wanted to be there, in the crowd. We would shut our eyes tight while blasting the volume loud and imagine.

After the Graceland set, Paul Simon came to the stage, solo, with his acoustic guitar, just a blue beam on him, above his pork pie hat. Hello darkness my old friend, he sang, in a voice that have aged deeper than what is engraved. I’ve come to talk with you again… At that moment, I was transported back to the age of seven, or eight or nine years old. Like a therapist’s dream, I stood, awakened.  My childhood mind thawed as my thirty something year old self froze, I stood in Central Park in 1981, with ten thousand people, maybe more, holding my little brother’s hand. We looked at each other in astonishment and we smiled like we had never smiled before and he, being a five, six or seven year old boy hugged my long arm dangling beside him.

One rainy July day, I went to Pub On The Park to meet someone (impromptu) I had never met before. I am wearing jeans and a white shirt, I said. I am wearing suit trousers and a blue shirt he said. This is looking like a blind date, I said… the best ever! He was fit! Especially when we met weeks and weeks later as the summer sun was mounting low and we decided to go up and down, up and down, up and down the glass lift of the Heron Tower and also had a really enjoyable meal at Duck & Waffle on the 40th floor.

View From Heron Tower

Duck & Waffle

Previously, Richard Vines had taken me for a belated birthday dinner at Sushi Samba which is below Duck & Waffle. Great thing about dinning with Richard is that we can order many things and I loved a lot of it, especially the sushi. We drank champagne on the terrace over looking a beautiful breathtaking view of London. The man always has to walk in front of the woman when she is climbing down the stairs, he says as I vertigo over the see-through steps (on the 40th floor by the glass window). So that he can catch her if she falls.

Richard Vines & me

Without any sleep after a supper club I went directly to The South Of France, to Gaillac, a little town an hour from Toulouse to a mutual friend’s wedding. I went with my old friend and ex flat mate Will, whom I’ve known for over a decade. The wedding had a little pool party too and afterwards we travelled around the South Of France. While running with our bags and eating baguettes we caught all the trains. Remember this, Luu, Will said, as we laid bare on the beach, toasting with sun cream and sea salt in our hair. We had a picnic of tinned tuna, baguette and la vache qui rit, a can of Kronenberg and some iceberg salad. Remember it, he kept saying, because this is the best day ever! It really was.

When I landed back at Gatwick, I received a good ask, to work with Bill Granger. I was terrified. I drank a lot the day before (obvs, if among gorgeous boys and the sunshine at Burnt Enz) and had no sleep (because I was packing props and terrified). But I did it! 

One night, after a poor meal and a lot of booze later, I enjoyed one of the best bowls of pho at midnight. It was a left over from the supper club and there wasn’t enough herbs or spring onions and the meat was getting kind of old from being in the fridge for a few days but it was so good. Ever so good. A memorable good! Oh na na, whats my name, sings a handsome boy with a creased linen tie, Ohh naa naa… Then, just like that, as if like clockwork, I forgot about the house of cards, the one I had spent all year building so carefully … .. .

Dang! I have had the most amazing summer!
Sorry for the lack of blog posts then, now you know why.