It was a late afternoon in April, like those warm ones that suck you into the lure of summer but still haunted by the memory of dark nights. Walking along Blackstock Road on the way to the tube nothing seemed a surprise, everyone idly stagnant in the stupor of London haze. There was blossom debris on the ground, Baban’s smelled great as ever and the traffic noise irresistable in its familiar untrained harmony.
The flavour profile changes as you get closer to Finsbury Park, cross Somerfield Road towards merguez, burgers and chicken. Passing Al Bahia I saw two of its shopkeepers standing next to each other on the customer side of the counter, in silence, catching a little of the springtime sun but mostly observing their rotisserie oven in a trance of spinning meat, bones and fat. Later on in the evening I met my friend Marine who was playing music in the library lounge of an upmarket hotel in town. One of the tracks she played that night was Know Your Chicken by Cibo Matto.