The Big Issue newspaper defines a cost of living crisis as "a situation in which the cost of everyday essentials like groceries and bills are rising faster than average household incomes." The think-tank Institute for Government defines the UK's cost of living crisis as "the fall in real disposable incomes (that is, adjusted for inflation and after taxes and benefits) that the UK has experienced since late 2021.”
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Nothing frightens my American friends more than when I suggest cooking some English food for them. Dishes such as “spotted dick” and “toad-in-the-hole” evoke bemusement and stifled disgust (don’t worry there are no toads used in toad-in-the-hole, it’s essentially a pop-over with sausages.) British food, in the minds of Americans, seems to be locked in era of wartime rationing. The words ‘English Cuisine” apparently conjure up images of greying meats and boiled vegetables and, to be honest, I’ve no idea why.
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On the evening of 3 March 2021, Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, was kidnapped in South London, England, as she was walking home. Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens falsely arrested her under the pretense of having breached COVID-19 regulations and drove her to woodland where he raped and strangled her, before burning her body and disposing of her remains in a nearby pond. The case sparked widespread debate about the safety of women and gender violence in the UK.
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The year my poor dad spent hours building my Barbie Dream house was one of my best Christmases ever (thanks Dad!) Barbie has always been an aspirational figure for little girls the world over. In recent years though she’s become a little more relatable. These days Barbie has a job, plays football, appears as different races, and some Barbies are disabled. I decided to take Barbie to another level, I created the Barbie I need today. So, behold: Anxiety Barbie, British Barbie and Quarantine Barbie.
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During the endless lockdown of 2020/21 the boredom really crept in. I read more books and I really missed my local library (shout out to NYPL Epiphany - so glad you’re open again). As I read I started to wonder how famous literary characters would have survived lockdown. So here they are: Miss Haversham from Great Expectations, Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Little Mermaid all chilling at home, waiting for the restrictions to be lifted.
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Walking around an art gallery in London was an activity I was pining for during lockdown. As I couldn’t go to the art, I brought the art to me, via the best medium of all: food.
Here I recreate Damien Hirst’s “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” in jelly, Louise Bourgeois’ “Spider” with Twizzlers, Jeff Koons’ “Balloon Dog” using hot dog buns and Antony Gormley’s The Angel of The North in chocolate fingers and wafer.
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