February 2016 - Hello Farrah

Late to the trend party as ever, I’ve been pining after going to a supper club. I’m the sort of person who loves the social side of food- bonding over carving a roast or tasting a forkful of your friend’s dish is the most important part of any meal- and supper clubs are that bit more personal than your typical eat-out experience. Unfortunately, I’m also the sort of person who will have something on my ‘I must do that’ list for months, so despite it being on my radar for a good long while, I’d never got round to going to one.

Until, that is, I was invited by the very lovely Tazz along to a Tabl event. Tabl is all about making dining experiences more fun, more personal, and more social. Their website, tabl.com, is a litany of cool one-night-only pop ups, home kitchen supper clubs, and innovative food + something special mash ups. To say I jumped at the chance is to massively overstate the grace I had in accepting her invite.

So that’s how I found myself flying solo in the private dining room of Tramshed, Shoreditch, for a tattoo-inspired menu and discussion with The Inksiders and food-hero Gizzi Erskine.

Long tables lay in the centre of the dining room, with people milling around holding glasses of Brighton Gin. I knew nobody. Recognising Erin, IslandBell, from Twitter, I walked over and shyly interrupted her and her friend’s chat to introduce myself. Erin and Charlie were so sweet, and immediately accepted me as part of their evening as we got chatting about the towns we had in common and our shared love of Gizzi Erskine’s books.

Welcome drinks swigged, it was time to take our seats. Seeing a gap in the crowd surrounding Gizzi, Erin took us to meet her, we were greeted with hugs like old friends and asked to join her at the table so we could all keep chatting. As I was shaking off my fangirl, a hand tapped my shoulder. Lydia, a girl I haven’t seen for years, was right there in front of me. We freaked out, sat down together, and the meal began.

Simultaneously in reunion and making-friends mode, I chatted an laughed and swapped Twitters and took photos all night. Each dish was designed to be carved out for groups, a glowing convivial spirit of carving roast chicken and sharing out plates of salad, pouring drinks for people I hadn’t met yet. If this sounds gushing, then that’s as accurate as I could be. I loved it.

Between mains and dessert (pure salted caramel fondue with cakes for dipping- the most heart-eyes-emoji dish I’ve ever seen), there was a Q&A with Gizzi and Mo, a renowned tattoo artist. They chatted about the ink and food industries, fielding questions from the crowd as we swigged wine. Though I’m no tattoo afficianado, you could really get a feel for their passion and expertise.

Dessert rounded up and with plans to meet all four of the girls I got chatting to again, I tottered off back home feeling incredibly connected to London. Without really trying, I’d found myself alone in an awesome restaurant with food by a chef I love, met new friends and found old ones, discovered a new way of entertaining that I’m dying to do again and left full and happy. This was more social, more dinner-round-mine than any restaurant I’ve ever been to. I’m already scouring Tabl for the next opportunity to arrive alone at a dinner party and leave with new friends and a stomach full of great food.

PS- if anyone wants to hit up a supper club, shout and I will 100% come with you!

I used primer. I never user primer. I also used my foundation brush, instead of my fingers. Eyelash curlers in hand, I realised I might be taking this too seriously for a girl who has used the same Boots-own brand BB cream for two years and never understood the appeal of ‘nude’ lipsticks. I put the eyelash curlers back, brushed my skirt down, turned to my boyfriend and asked how I looked.

‘Like you’re going for a date’.

Good. That’s a constructive compliment from a man who’s go-to response is usually ‘fine‘. (Ah, ‘fine‘. What every girls dreaming of looking like.) Off I scrabbled, into the hazy Putney winter sun.

Frazzled as I was, I was just heading off for a Sunday brunch with a friend. The nerves- though unexpected and completely undue- had come on as I was readying to leave the house, as though this was an interview rather than a buffet. In my haste to not be late, I’d developed a bubbling uncertainty.

This was the first time I had spent with this particular person alone. What if it went, well, terribly? What if when we sat down across from the all you can eat buffet line up and had resolutely NOTHING in common? This was increasingly feeling like a first date- like a Channel Four TV crew were going to rush on and powder my face/rig me with a GoPro any second. Dispatches: A Grown Woman Tries to Make a Friend.

They arrived. We had a wonderful lunch together- laughed and chatted and stuffed ourselves silly and plotted our next dinner party. No nerves required, whatsoever, and I almost instantly forgot that I’d felt anything silly at all.

This- this sensation- goes to show how odd I have found making friends since turning twenty. Now I do not spend time in packed meat-market clubs twirling around with a VK in hand, or have a well meaning teacher doling out group presentations, I have come to rely on work and Twitter for meeting new people, both of which come with their own restrictions (one doesn’t want to hear from me post 6pm on Fridays, one is potentially a masquerading bot).

Where do all my new friends come from now I’m post-education? Now I’m in a big city without my old reliable groups to call upon for coffees and outfit lending? Am I going to dwindle in relationships from here on in, pestering the same people on Whatsapp to go to brunch until they snap and all change their numbers, collectively, until I’m left eating avo on toast with no one?

My early twenties have been about meeting people in ways I’m not used to yet. People that intern at my work, people that write blogs I love, people that flatshared with other friends. People that are parents, are artists, are clients, are bosses, are from the other side of the world, are half or twice my age. I might not be meeting people on the same course, from the same town, in the same club and from the same background the way you do when you’re at school/university- but that doesn’t mean these relationships are any less valuable.

I think that that’s where this feeling comes about- once you hit the big two-oh and propel yourself away from traditional friendship-enducing hotspots (playgrounds, houseparties in halls, etc)- you kinda assume you’ve this friend thing nailed. Then, it dawns, that the people you have things in common with, your potential BFFs, don’t hang out in convenient hubs anymore. They’re far spread across all aspects of your life now. You have to go get them yourself.

So that’s what I’ll be doing, and I’m not going to let myself make it weird. Brunch, anyone?

Month: February 2016

At the Tabl: Gizzi Erskine & The Inksiders

Dispatches: A Grown Woman Tries to Make a Friend.