Nest building


Blast from the past


RETRO designs have been popular for some time now and it looks like this style isn't going anywhere. It is easy to see why people love the quirky, bold designs so much.
To achieve a retro room first choose kitsch wallpaper with a colourful and brash look, stripes will work well for this.

Next fill the room with quirky bright furniture, to achieve a true nostalgic vibe steer clear of wooden furniture and instead opt for plastic or glass.

The Voido rocker from Barker and Stonehouse (www.barkerandstonehouse.co.uk) is a perfect example of the type of design you should be looking for.

Finish the look with a sheepskin rug and then admire your quirky retro pad.

Recommended by Clare Jobson, creative stylist at Barker & Stonehouse, Leeds.


Get fit

Exercise of the week

Name: Walking lunges

Targets: Leg endurance to help build up running strength

Reps: 2 x 50 fast

Progression: Hold weights (5-10kg)

Easier option: Don't go too far down

How to: Drawing your abdominals inwards, step forwards and downwards together and repeat on the other leg travelling forwards. Keep your back straight and try to keep good balance throughout the exercise. This is great to do after going for a short run to help build up leg endurance and stamina.

Recommended by personal trainer Richard Hill. Richardhill.org


Eat it


Simon Stanley is the executive chef in charge of the kitchen at Sam's Chop House in Leeds. The restaurant is famous locally, nationally and internationally for its modern take on traditional British cuisine, made from fresh local produce, and for its fine wine list.

Chop house-style steak & kidney puddings

Ingredients

To serve four large individual puddings

The steak and kidney mix

1.2kg diced chuck steak – 2cm chunks

0.5kg lamb's kidneys

1 level teaspoon of salt

1 pinch of ground white pepper

Vegetable oil or beef dripping

Unsalted butter

2-3 Spanish onions – chopped into 1cm dice

1 level tablespoon of tomato purée

1 Oxo cube

1 tablespoon of Worcester Sauce

2-3 level tablespoons of strong white flour

750ml water

The suet mix

600gm suet mix (suet and seasoned pastry flour)

170ml water

Or

400gm self-raising flour

200gm suet

½ a teaspoon of salt

Freshly ground black pepper

170ml water

Four 450gm pudding moulds or bowls. Either crockery or foil

Method

Halve the lamb's kidneys, de-vein them and halve them again until they are no larger than a 2cm dice. Mix in with the chopped steak and your seasoning. Fry this gently till golden in either a vegetable oil or beef dripping for the purists amongst you.

Cook the diced onion till soft but not discoloured on a medium heat in a separate pan. Add the tomato puree and warm it through for a couple of minutes.

Introduce the meat mix. Add the flour to thicken the gravy and pour in the water a quarter at a time, stirring in thoroughly after each slurp. Crumble in the stock cube and add the Worcester sauce. Simmer gently for 1½ to 2 hours. Season to taste.

Create a well in your dry suet mix. Pour in the water a little at a time. Then bring it together with your hands, kneading it thoroughly on a floured board until you have a firm doughball. Split this into four with a sharp knife and roll out each piece into a 3-4 mm thick circle roughly 20 cm in diameter.

Butter the pudding bowls. Place the pastry mix inside, fitting it to the shape with your fingers, leaving the overhang outside. This should be large enough to cover the top. Introduce the previously cooked meat mix right to the brim. Fold the overhang across and gently press it together with the palm of your hand. Completely wrap each pudding in cling film.

Steam them upside down above a large pan of boiling water for two hours or more. Remember to top up the boiling water.


Listen to it


The legendary Tina Charles is back.

The disco phenomenon who set dance floors (and hearts) alight in 1976 with mega hits including I Love To Love (But My Baby Loves To Dance), Dr Love, and Dance Little Lady Dance has, in the intervening years, become a mother and a grandmother.

This year, after some 30 years away from the studio, Tina has returned, to her fans delight, and made a brand new album.

Listen to the Music is a collection of some of her favourite songs.

Not surprisingly many of the songs on the new album have some rather impressive connections with Tina. Blame It On The Boogie for example, was offered to Tina two years before The Jacksons made it a hit in 1978.

I Love To Love, the song that launched Tina to global stardom is freshly re-recorded, as is Dance Little Lady Dance, another Biddu-penned classic which reached No.6 in the UK on its release in August 1976.

Other songs, such as Carole King's Natural Woman and The Doobie Brothers Listen To The Music, from which this album takes its name, are just personal favourites of Tina's.


Read it


Crossed Bones

By Jane Johnson

Viking £12.99

This is a rip-roaring tale based on fact.

On a Sunday morning in July 1625, Barbary pirates sail into a quiet Cornish bay and storm the church. Their loot: sixty men, women and children, kidnapped and bound for northern Morocco, where they are to be sold in the thronging slave market of the Souq el Ghezel.

Amongst them is Catherine Anne Tregenna, a talented young embroiderer. But as her diary reveals, Cat is anything but the subservient and compliant slave that her captors were expecting – and as the coast of England fades from sight, adventure beckons in the East.

With handsome pirates, beautiful slave girls, exotic mysteries and Moroccan markets, Crossed Bones is an enthralling adventure of the high seas, based on the real-life raids on the Cornish coast by 17th century Barbary corsairs.

Recommended by Waterstone's, Albion Street, Leeds.