the imaginary café

Blueberry Macaroon Things

2011-04-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

I haven't done too much baking recently. I feel like I should probably prioritise sorting out 3 meals a day for me and the now-eating-solids-babe over cake, and that is quite enough work and kitchen mess most days.

However, this caught my eye and I happened to have just about the right ingredients and the baby was happily eating dirt off the floor or headbutting chair legs or something, so I seized the opportunity.

It's a bit of a Chinese whispers recipe now - originally from 101 Cookbooks' Heidi's new book, I saw a reinterpretation of it on Smitten Kitchen, then I've adapted it further to fit the contents of my kitchen.

Easy as 1-2-3 - check. Tastes like a kiss in the summer sun - check. Rustically pretty - check. My kind of cake/tart/thing.

I actually think blackberries or raspberries - something slightly tarter - would be better than the blueberries I went with, but otherwise I was pretty happy with this

Blueberry Macaroon Tart (adapted from Heidi Swanson)

Preheat oven to 180C/350F

Mix 1 cup wholemeal flour with 1/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and a generous pinch of salt.

Add 4tbsp (c.4oz) of butter, melted, and mix thoroughly.

Press mix firmly into base of a greased 7" square pan or equivalent and cook for c20 mins or until slightly golden/starting to brown.

Let the base cool slightly whilst you prepare the topping

Mix 2 egg whites with 1 cup desiccated coconut and 1/4 cup sugar

Scatter a cup of berries (blue/black/raspberries/whatever) over the base then use your fingers to drop the macaroon mixture around them so they are not all completely covered.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the macaroon peaks are browning.

Scatter with 1/4 cup chopped almonds (or other nuts).

Cut into bars once cooled a little

Something I saw in the park the other day

2011-04-15T02:36:00.000-07:00

I was trying to think up a smarter title for this post, but I am going to use my standard excuse de jour for that; that my brain is in hibernation right now. I don't know what I'm functioning on instead in its absence; some kind of standby generator for when the mains power blows I guess. Or a temp brain from an agency, who is more interested in checking facebook and painting its nails than actually doing the work of keeping up the impression I am a sentient, intelligent human being...

Right, moving swiftly on from the dodgy mixed metaphors to what I was actually sitting down to write about today...

It was just this. I was in the park, feeding baby some satsuma. Some older toddling children were running around on the slides and swings. Sun in the sky, but a bit of a chill. Mothers or carers hovered and chattered.

A tall, lean woman, sporting ankle-cropped trousers and battered desert boots, entered the gardens, buggy in tow. She unstrapped a baby similar size to mine, talked a little German to it, took it several metres away and plonked it down on the grass. Then she returned to the buggy, sat in it and tilted her face to the sun, looked quite marvellously relaxed.

German baby happily tested out her legs, moving from sitting to a legs-straight all-fours position, pulled at the grass, toddled over to the play area, experimented with standing, popping up like a mini weightlifter from squatting to upright, then back down again.

German granny (for so she was; she said her granddaughter was 10 months when we exchanged the customary 'how old is yours' baby small talk) dived in occasionally, when baby was about to crawl under a swinging seesaw, and dispensed affectionate cuddles, but mostly just left her to it and chilled out.

Later we were in the library over the road and granny got on with her stuff on the PC for half an hour or so, whilst baby sat first on the mat and then burbling away in her pram facing the baby area - no line of sight between the two.

Nothing particularly extraordinary in all that, you think... and I guess you'd be right. But it really struck me, because in the circles that I move, I've rarely if ever seen such laissez-faire, laid back parenting.

Oh, I've heard earnest discussions of the importance of letting babies play by themselves (usually supported with reference to some book or guru or website or other), and I've seen childminders chatting whilst their charges tear around the stay and play, but somehow this seemed entirely different.

I think it was the complete absence of tension or hurry. In contrast to the hovering, monitoring, multi-tasking, frowning, chiding, chatting, encouraging mothers/carers that I normally see.

And it made me think maybe I could be more like that. And then that made me think that how I am now is so heavily determined by what I see around me, whether consciously or subconsciously, though I might like to think I just do what I think is best regardless of what others think or do. That was all.

* I guess it could be that I move in first-born only circles and there's a bit of 'pfb syndrome' going on. How ironic that probably the only child with which you will get the luxury of being a bit more relaxed is the one that you will probably be most neurotic about! ** BTW I in no way mean this to be an opinionated/ideological piece, oh children today are so mollycoddled that's the reason civilisation is taking a nosedive, that kind of thing. Purely observational.

Mummy Chic

2011-03-18T03:59:00.000-07:00

Or, how I look like a scubber* most of the time, and what shall I do about it?

So, over at Tea for Two, K was lamenting a bad purchase, and thinking about shoes. And Fay was talking about those little changes (like a hair colour change) that make you feel more like you. All of which got me thinking too.

Because I wear pretty much the same thing every single day. I have two pairs of identical jeans - one black, one blue; four identical stripy tops in various colours; and a handful of plain jumpers and cardigans. I wear hiking boots because they are comfortable and waterproof. And a fleece if its cold. All of my clothes were chosen on the basis of their functionality and cost. I look like this:

(Well, I have a head and feet in real life too).

This is in fact, so typical for my 'tribe' that it is described in Naomi Stadlen's study of modern (mostly London-based) mothers, 'What Mothers Do', thus: "Mothers are sometimes thought to lose pride in their appearance and to 'let themselves go'. Perhaps some mothers do. The unofficial dress code for mothers today seems to be plain T-shirts and jeans".

She goes on to say by the way, "No longer, as mothers, can they assume that air of cool and detached elegance, which is so greatly prized today. Instead they glow with warm and tender expressions", and, "As mothers we have reached sexual fruitfulness. Some mothers seem to feel this, but the majortiy clearly do not. Most mothers apologise for their appearances, as if we should expect to see fully groomed women in immaculate, dust-free homes. ... It's striking how few mothers feel they are beautiful and sexually attractive when they look hot and dishevelled."(pp193-194)

Optimistic, at best, I think Ms Stadlen. Slightly deluded at worst. Yes, I get that we as mothers - and just as women and human beings - have wonderful bodies that do wonderful things - and that there is beauty in everyone.

However, when your legs itch from their hair having been cultivated for months, and your greasy hair is scraped back from your shadow-eyed face, and you sit beneath the weight of the perpetual ache of your shoulders, noticing how not one single item of clothing you wear has escaped being smurred with baby slobber or snot or regurgitate, believe me, it is very difficult to feel 'beautiful and sexually attractive', or even 'fit to mingle in general society'.

It is not enough to rest upon the hope that this motherly glow of which she speaks is somehow emanating from beneath the grubbiness. I need deforesting! cleaning! polishing! shininess and pretties!

Moreover, I need sleep. But as that is not likely in the near future I would settle instead for a good pair of shoes and a decent haircut. As regards the former, it is getting too warm for hiking boots, yet not warm enough yet to dig out my sandals. I need something inbetweeny.

To which end, I have just spent the time I could/should have been doing something useful, instead browsing shoes on the interwebs...

These Bloch flats are just lovely. I've tried on Bloch shoes before and they are so comfortable I jsut kept walking round and round the shop trying and failing to convince myself that I could justify a £180 spend on such flimsy little things.

Slightly more practical but still a little bit spangly, I quite like these KG sneakers.

Or would canvas pumps with pretty bows detract from the plainness of the rest of my garb perhaps?

Must get myself to some real-life shoe shops soonish I think... Any recommendations for good pretty but practical footwear?

*I think I made this word up; it just describes how I feel best. scubby. A bit plain and a bit grubby.

Happy Pancake Day!

2011-03-08T12:14:00.000-08:00

I took baby to the doctors this morning and we found out she'd dropped off her percentile line. So the health visitor advised me to stuff her full of dairy and fat. Or something like that.

Accordingly, I went home via Tescos and picked up some double cream. Which I whipped and mixed with yoghurt and boiled raspberries to create a delicious pink fool.

Baby being baby, she was having none of it. Not even having seen my biceps nearly combust whipping with a manual whisk because the electric handheld thingy is bust. Not a fan of the old spoon-feeding.

However, later I was trying to give her pancakes and slipped a bit of the fool on that, and she lapped it up! Result. Full of cream now!

Anyway, the pancakes...

I've being feeling a little bit odd about eating eggs recently. I don't know, I guess it's just that all those times I pick up a pack in the supermarket and wonder how free range they really are has added up to a critical mass and now I don't really feel right eating them. So I seem to be cutting down. In aid of which I decided to try out a vegan pancake recipe.

And guess what? You don't need eggs to make a good pancake. Who knew? Yep, these don't have a whole load of flavour, but you want to drench them in lemon and sugar anyway, and the texture is just fine. So, good.

Vegan Pancakes

Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Mix : 2tbsps sunflower oil; 5tbsps water; 300ml soy milk; a few drops vanilla extract; and a tsp agave nectar

Add: 5oz plain flour; 2tsp baking powder; 1/2tsp salt; and 1tsp cinnamon

Whip very briefly together and let rest

Fry one ladleful at a time in a medium hot pan. Flip etc.

Mmmmm vegetables!

2011-03-06T05:00:00.000-08:00

I don't want this blog to give the wrong impression - what with making its own granola, knitting(albeit badly) with a newborn, doing all its new years resolutions, and now telling you about a brown rice and vegetables and seeds kind of dinner... If it weren't for the general lameness in blogging frequency and the sporadic posts about angst and nothingyness, you might start to think I'm one of those macrobiotic, organic-proselytising, champagne-hippy types who are up at 5 every morning to do a few quick sun salutations before spinning some hemp to make their own sheets and then whipping up wheatgrass and goji berry smoothies, all whilst looking perfectly groomed and balancing the well-behaved babe on a hip.

Fear not. I am not even imperfectly groomed - barely even clean most days; we had Sainsburys pizza followed by dark chocolate digestives for dinner last night; and far from sun salutations and smoothies I spend much of my daytime perusing Mumsnet and watching America's Next Top Model (Tyyyyyyy-raaaaaaa!!!!)

However this is a very good dinner, I liked it very much, and I would like to share. It might sound like something you'd eat because you were on some strict diet to 'cleanse' yourself of sin and caffeine. But it tastes - I'm not lying - really more-ishly delicious. It looks so unassuming and meek, but it's full of flavour and satisfying in a really good-feeling way.

So, you slice a couple of carrots into large chunks and boil until just cooked (c5-10mins). Meanwhile you put 1 small cup brown rice and 2 cups water in a pan, cover, bring to the boil and then turn down to a very low simmer. It should then take c30mins to cook. After about 25 minutes cooking you throw a handful of sliced green veg in. The recipe called for spinach; I went for pak choi and sugarsnap peas. (and have since done a version with purple sprouting broccoli and celery cooked in with the carrot, which was great)

Once the green stuff is just wilted and the rice cooked, remove from the heat and - here's where the magic happens - you then stir through a mixture of olive oil, light soy sauce, lemon juice and grated parmesan. About equal amounts oil and lemon juice (maybe a few tbsps each) and about half that amount of soy sauce. A good couple spoonfuls of parmesan. And then - if you like - top with some toasted sunflower seeds.

And that's it. Try it, you might like it...

This is an adaptation of Skye Gingell's original, published in the Independent

Where did it go? (and will it come back)

2011-02-15T09:06:00.000-08:00

I used to doodle. All the time. I used to write stories and elaborate, carefully-worded, fanciful emails. I used to have fantastical daydreams and nonsensical plans I half believed in.

I used to have walls covered with 'inspiration' and spend tube journeys planning my site-specific specialist dance company, or the magazine I would create, or the books I would write.

I used to always include 'creative' or 'imaginative' if pushed to complete that annoying exercise of describing oneself in three words.

Nowadays 'sensible' springs to mind. 'Pedantic' perhaps. Restrained. Messy. Busy. Somewhat efficient even. But not imaginative. Not creative. Because I neither imagine nor create anymore.

I never doodle. I make lists. There are no stories in my mind, just a constant rolling inventory of what to do and when I should do it. My emails are brief to the point of curtness.

I sat down at a cafe the other day and 'allowed' myself to doodle. But nothing came. My mind just wanted to list what I need to sort and what I could make for dinner. My university notes were never more than about 10% comprehensible - they always became covered in nonsense and drawings. I used not be able to stop it, and now I can't start it.

Oh you could still say I was 'creative' I suppose. I mean, I create dinners out of really peculiar fridge contents sometimes. And I invent nonsense songs on the spot as I potter around with the baby. And I have little craft projects to do (but they are much more about relaxation and an activity for me than 'creativeness').

I miss it. I miss that bit of my brain.

Is it just being a parent, I wonder? Half my brain eroded by sleep deprivation; the other half crammed full of constant things to do.

Or did it start when I left my dead-end job (and my colleagues there - fellow idling amateur writers/designers/dancers/musicians) and fell into accountancy, somewhat accidentally. That intense training does rather warp one's thinking.

Either way, I do hope at some point that it will come back.

Spring!

2011-02-10T01:02:00.001-08:00

Crocuses! (crocii???)
Sunshine!!
Hurrah!!!

Let go

2011-02-04T08:01:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post about this (brown rice and carrots - mmm!) and that (my lost creativity) and the other (can't even remember)

I wanted to get through the unreads on my google reader and comment on the posts I've been enjoying on the iphone but not been able to comment on

The voices in my brain are holding an uninformed debate about childminder vs nursery and this location vs that location vs that location rather incessantly

I am - 6 months early - starting to worry about how it'll be to go back to work

We are not in our usual pattern today - less sleeping, more crying, more feeding, less getting anything done

I didn't load the dishwasher

(I did catch up with two nice mummies)

I have a lot of emails I ought to write

And I meant to make a phone call and I'm not sure I have the energy

I feel like a minger with unwashed hair, ill-fitting clothes and irritable eyes

I have things to send and friends I haven't contacted in an absolute age

I have to let go of all that right now. Sit down, have a cup of tea whilst the child is - mercifully - still asleep, work out what the priorities are again when I have refueled and ready to go. Maybe watch a dodgy mid-afternoon quiz on the tv. Maybe even breathe a little.

The Metaphor Scarf and Other Projects

2011-01-28T02:02:00.000-08:00

So, I started knitting this shortly after baby was born. I saw this pattern on the Purl Bee and thought it looked pretty achievable. A really nice effect with minimum thought or effort.

I didn't bother buying the recommended yarn - I had a ball left over from something else that I thought would work, so I just got stuck in. And in between changing nappies and waking up all night and rocking a screaming baby and feeling sore, I knitted a row here and a row there.

And as I did so, I thought to myself how nice it was to do something that I could see growing and that would be finished, in the midst of this new crazy hamster wheel of a parenting life.

It will be a lovely metaphor I thought, a physical enactment of the effort I have been putting in every minute every day with this new life. Something I can hold and use, that shows how all those little stitches make something big and whole.

Hmmm. So I came to the end of the ball of yarn, and realised there was no more, and realised it was really rather short (as in you couldn't wrap it round your neck in any way which would stay on), and also rather stiff and scratchy due to using the wrong yarn!

I stitched the ends up to make a loop - the only way to make it wearable, albeit slightly peculiar. And now, instead of making me think of the hard slog of those early days and how I worked so hard and am achieving things however much it sometimes doesn't feel like it, it just makes me think of how doing knitting projects with (not enough of) the wrong yarn, the wrong needles and no preparation results in something a bit disappointing. Not such a lovely metaphor!

Having said all that, it obviously didn't teach me its lesson as I am currently embarked on another project with the wrong needles and the wrong yarn. When you have leftover stuff to use up and you want to start something NOW its just too tempting. I'm hoping I can estimate/bodge the adjustments I need to make to make it the right size. We'll see...

The other thing about that scarf though was that I decided I had to finish that before moving onto any other project. I have a list of projects I want to do - things like clearing out my wardrobe and putting photos in albums as well as things I'd like to make. This approach has been very succesful so far. I'm an excellent planner, a relatively good starter and a terrible finisher of things. Making myself do one thing at a time has been a very good discipline for me. After the scarf I got stuck into filing of important documents and papers, and have just finished that. Finished something! The feeling is quite unusual. (Whether this kind of efficiency continues is another matter... )

That's the way to do New Year's Resolutions!

2011-01-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

They are so tempting. The allure of a shimmering mirage of an upgraded you. The moreish taste of self discipline and pointless achievement. The chance to luxuriate for a little while in the possibility that this time you might change.

But I have learned my lesson. I've done resolutions in the past. I've got all enamoured with them, believed in them, and then forgotten them or ignored them hastily and reverted to type.

I flirted with them this year. I let the ideas pop up in my head. I thought, 'I'd like to: grow vegetables - finish a knitting project that actually works - send people presents on time - eat hardly any sugar - create delicious veggie dishes and fruit-based puds every night - wear grown up night gear - change the bed every fortnight - have always stylish hair - be nicer to people - give more to charity - network at work - go on date nights - stop watching shit tv - crochet a blanket - keep house plants alive - go to yoga once a week - meditate every day - take brilliant photos - not leave the house looking like a bag lady - sort everything before it becomes a pile - stop having miseries - read more - blog regularly - keep things clean - write real letters to people............................

And then I walked away from all that in the comfortable knowledge that it will never happen. And I thought, 'Let's make this achievable!'. And brief.

I resolved to go to the dentist.

I haven't been since 2001 - keep meaning to but I have a particular talent for not actually getting round to doing things that are quite easy but non-urgent and sound to me like a bit too much effort.

And... I went! Slightly freaked out by the young and glamorous lady dentist - I thought they were all old men. But she was lovely and only found one little spot that needed a filling (my first ever). So yay.

The silly thing is, I know this resolution thing is quite arbitrary, and well, kind of a cheat, but even so I keep getting this satisfying feeling of achievement. I'm done for the year!

If at first you don't succeed, as the saying goes...

(....lower your standards, or cheat)

Granola

2011-01-19T08:57:00.000-08:00

Cereal is not an uncommon dessert in my household. Shreddies are satisfying after dinner; crunchy nut on top of a little muesli a pleasant pudding, but for the truly luxurious experience, a good granola is the way to go. Oh, and you can eat it for breakfast too if you're that way inclined.

The shop bought stuff is expensive and making your own is not only very simple but makes your kitchen smell delicious. And you get to choose exactly what goes in, which is fun. Endless possibilities for combinations.

I've experimented with a few recipes recently, and finally found one I really really like, courtesy of the lovely Clotilde , whose granola formula gives you the basic principles from which you can experiment with the details to suit your taste.

So, mine went like this:
3 cups of oats, rye flakes and barley flakes
1 cup whole almonds
2 tbsps sunflower oil
6 tablespoons golden syrup
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp sea salt

The above well mixed until thoroughly combined, then spread onto a couple of greased baking trays and baked at 150C for 30-40 mins turning every 10mins.

Then to the cooled mix, added:

1/2 cup dried sour cherries
1/4 cup coconut flakes

Seriously good.

January's almost over!

2011-01-19T08:18:00.000-08:00

Which is good, because whilst I do try not to wish time away too much, January is almost always a terribly miserable month. February is never much better, although at least it keeps itself to a more reasonable 28 days. I invariably start wishing I could hibernate around this time of year.

January started especially miserably for me with a bout of flu. I'm not normally a panicker when ill, but I have to admit to serial temperature taking and a little bit of the 'what ifs' over swine flu fears. Much easier to get sucked into the panic when there's a baby around is my excuse. It really wasn't all that bad - I managed to go out for a steak and chips lunch on day 2 so I was hardly on the edge of disaster.

Anyway, happily all in the past now, and what with that and then a trip back home to see the parents, I suddenly realised it's the 19th already which made me feel quite chipper.

Some very brief updates:

Sleep training - Ah, ha ha ha ha ha ha. 'Training'. Yep. I think I'm on something like day 40 and well let's just say all is not going as planned. Still, I'm actually quite okay with how things are at the moment so just going to be grateful for that and not stress it.

Reading - Nighttime wakings have allowed me to work my way through the entire archives of another blog - or two in one really - I've been following Fay's post-baby Baby and Wool. for a while but went all the way back to the beginning of the pre-baby Dreaming of an Aga . It really is nice to go through a whole blog start to finish and get a better sense of the story of things and it was a joy to go through craft projects, vegetable growing, house moving and baby growing with Fay. I got all inspired to make heirloom quilts and fabulous baby dresses. Then remembered I'm not so good at finishing projects and should probably just stick to the usual targets of keeping myself and babe relatively sane, clean and well-fed. Big believer in keeping things relaxed and achievable.

Cooking - I made this splendid cake for my blogoversary back in December. (A little late obvs, but the blog didn't seem to mind). Not a recipe to post, as it's just your bog-standard Victoria sponge, but my gift to you is the genius idea of sandwiching it with Nutella, Dulce de Leche and chopped nuts. I'm not really a cream and jam person. This was heavenly, and felt like a cake truly worthy of a celebration. I meant for it to have three layers, but I only have one cake pan so that would have been a bit of a mission.

Mmmm.

Snow

2010-12-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

I would like to be able to blame the snow for my current state of completely-behind-with-everything-ness, but sadly I don't think I can. It didn't stop me from posting cards or reading the mortgage stuff or tidying up or packing. It may stop me from getting to Scotland for Christmas, but that is a different matter.

It does make trips out of the house a bit more adventurous/treacherous though.

I still don't get how it makes everything so quiet.

There were quite a lot of other things I've been meaning to write about but my brain seems to have misplaced them. Oh well, I don't suppose you're missing much.

Do have a marvellous Christmas won't you? I think I'd better get on with the pile of things undone now, and love you and leave you until the new year...

Late adopter

2010-12-19T11:14:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit of a luddite at heart. I like things to stay the same; I don't really like the breakable, complicated nature of technology. A bit freaked out that I have no idea really how the internet works, or even this computer, or mobile phones. I like things that are understandable; fixable; take-apart-able. I hate that everything has to be replaced and upgraded all the time; that it is mysterious and ever-evolving so you can't get a grip on it. I hate how dependent on it we all are.

So, I'm a little slow in getting on the technological bandwagon sometimes. (Although, obviously writing all this on the interwebs so obviously not that committed to the luddite cause!)

Anyway, I had been given a second hand iphone ages ago but it seemed alien and like just another administrative hassle, so I put it in a drawer and there it remained for the best part of a year, until I couldn't hear people anymore on my old phone, and had to admit that it had to be abandoned. (Even that phone I hadn't really liked as the colour screen was so bright - the old green and black one was much less offensive on the eyes when checking the time in the middle of the night...)

So I got it all linked up and whatnot, and suddenly I get the appeal of this slippery little bright-screened toy. I check my email in the park on our nap-in-the-pram walks. I read blogs late at night when I'm feeding. I make little notes of things I need to remember, or that seem important at the time. After all my chastisements of B for playing with his phone during dinner or whilst talking to me, suddenly it's me hooked to the little device, not coming to bed, checking it whilst we walk along together. The shame!

Another little piece of technological know-how I've made friends with recently is google reader. I must have used it once ages ago because it contained a list of blogs already but I never really got in to it. Now, suddenly I get it. Wonderful! I don't have to use my blog roll to check new posts anymore; it's like having an email inbox filled with lovely and interesting things all the time. And now I can be a more consistent blog reader and commenter (though I don't think I've been able to comment via the iphone yet).

So yes, I guess despite my scepticism perhaps we can be friends, technology.

At last!

2010-12-16T08:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12005824

At last - an MP calling for an end to the criminalisation of drugs.

I'm not a supporter of legalisation because I think drugs are great and we should all be taking them; I'm a supporter of legalisation because everything I've seen and read on this subject seems to point to it being the most sensible thing to do if we want to limit the damage drugs wreak on people and society. To my mind it is screamingly obvious that prohibition is ridiculous.

Because it doesn't work.
Trying to stop the supply of drugs into the country is notoriously ineffective. Anyone in this country can get hold of anything they want to get hold of by asking the right people. Surely it's better to put all that time and money into trying to curb demand, regulating an official supply to improve safety, and trying to ameliorate the effects?

Because it's nonsensical

How can you ban a substance because it is potentially harmful but not ban similarly harmful substances? It's a crazy and impossible thing to try and do.

Witness the constant invention of new 'legal highs'; legal because that particular chemical construction has not yet been logged and documented, not any better than illegal substances.

Morphine is an effective and invaluable analgesic in a clinical setting; its close cousin Heroin (invented incidentally to try and cure opium addicts!) is seen as an evil and destructive power. It's not the slight chemical difference that causes this - it's the context.

And what about nicotine and alcohol? - if we have a system based on personal and societal harm we must logically include these, surely.

Because it supports criminals
You make a substance illegal; all those involved in its trade are criminals. Off the radar, unregulated. The demand remains, the trade flourishes despite our intervention; prohibition gives criminals business. Funds people traffickers and gangsters and terrorists and leaves these substances - that people will seek out and take regardless of the law - under the control of the unscrupulous and profit-motivated criminal gangs.

Because it makes criminals
Wouldn't addicts be better treated as patients? For their sakes, for the sakes of those affected by drug-related crime?

Because it is not a useful deterrent
I've heard an argument that if you make drugs legal people will think its fine to take them. Um, well its legal to drink weedkiller and its legal to jump off bridges and its legal to smoke. Does that mean everyone thinks these activities are safe?

I'm not saying legalisation would be a wonderful panacea, and of course I recognise that all the different substances that are illegal would need different strategies and that there are complex issues surrounding how and why and where drugs are taken and it would be an impossible task to devise policies that created good outcomes in every case. But I do think legalisation, regulation and information is the way forward, and I really hope that this guy speaking out leads to sensible debate and maybe some changes.

Pleasant surprises of a postal nature

2010-12-15T06:29:00.000-08:00

I picked up an envelope from the doormat the other day and thought. 'ooh, what's this. It doesn't look like a bill or a mailshot?'. Almost immediately I answered myself with the pessimistic reply, 'well don't get your hopes up, mystery envelopes are never exciting; they're always just junk or annoying bureaucracy'.

But lo and behold, it was exciting! It was a £25 prize from the Premium Bonds. Woop woop!

That very same week I came downstairs to the door and saw a Koala peeking out from the pizza menus and cleaning lady ads. It felt a bit like when you see something from your childhood that you'd forgotten about - like, 'oh yeah, I remember postcards'. It had been so long since I'd received one I almost forgotten they existed.

And then, a canary yellow envelope turned up and inside not only a card but a letter - real writing! in ink! on paper! from my dear dear friend. I put it in my handbag and saved it for a quiet moment later in the day - a real treat.

10 years ago I wrote letters regularly - to a school friend, a pen pal (remember them?), a particularly wonderful high school teacher who kept in touch - now I very rarely put pen to paper. Much as I enjoy the online world and can be cheered by a facebook message from a friend abroad or a lovely email hello, there is still something different and special about receiving something nice in the post. I hope written communication doesn't become just a curio of the past, my kids astounded that one would communicate without cut and paste and instant delivery. Expensive and wasteful though post may be, it's not only a more personal connector to friends in the present, it's also an easily preservable connector to the past. And it's nice to have that personal touch and solidity in the midst of the whirling rushing onslaught of electronic communication.

(picture of lovely cards I bought from Liberty recently - they have dove grey envelopes which are ever so chic and I like the picture of the little crazy girl on the bike so much I think I might frame it and hang it up - cheap art!)

Sleep training and blog-love

2010-12-13T10:04:00.000-08:00

Sleep training... doesn't that sound lovely? Conjures up images of perfecting the starfish position, getting in some warm bath and hot cocoa preparation and testing for the perfect flannel pyjamas. Preparing for the spooning finals, the afternoon nap contest, the tricky snoozing on a plane competition...

Sadly no. I'm talking screaming, shushing, patience-testing such as a saint would fail. The baby, obvs.

Our little one, despite being an evening screamer for her first three months, did, rather cleverly we thought, decide to settle into an 8 hour routine from about 8 weeks - she dropped off after a feed or a scream around 10 and woke us at 6. Ideal - one of us got to work on time; the other got to have a leisurely breakfast with baby and boy. We got into bed before we fell apart from tiredness.

Sadly, late nights began to pique her curiosity and she started only going down for the night around midnight, after a lot of feeding and screeching and wide awake playfulness.

I got into bed a week ago and said, "I can't take any more of this". It was the point at which I knew I needed A Different Tactic. So, time to turn back tail between my legs to the Baby Whisperer, whose book I had thrown against the wall weeks previously because it infuriated me with its calm 'just do this and the baby will do this' ridiculousness. But it had a plan for getting the baby to settle in the cot, and in the absence of any other, it now seemed the time to get serious and try...

So, for the last 6 nights we've been picking up and putting down in a darkened room for our evening entertainment. I liked the plan. I didn't feel mean putting her down by herself because I could cuddle and calm as soon as she got upset. And in between I got to lie down and immerse myself in blog land.

And it worked. Well for a few nights it did anyway - one night she even went straight to sleep with barely a whimper. Then last night I stuck out 20 minutes of trying to calm my wiggly little noise machine in the dark before I gave in and brought her downstairs to distract her with lights and TV (quiet immediately!). So we'll see what happens as we try to keep it up, BUT...

...there is one small problem, in that for the last several nights I've been working my way through the complete archives of a blog I came across the other week, which I was absolutely loving (the wonderful Mwa's Lost in Translation). It was like reading a good book, going 'oh yes, I so get that' the whole way through, then finding out your favourite character has come to life at the end. And it was like getting to know a new and fabulously funny and frank friend, chatting with her late each night.

But then I read my way right up to the present and there's no archives left. So now I need something new to keep me going whilst we pick up and put down some more tonight and doubtless nights to come. I'll trawl around a bit until something captures my imagination I think, then do another whole-archive read - it's nice getting to properly know a blog(/blogger) rather than just flit in and out.

Which brings me to my second post topic - this has been making me think about this blog and what I want from it. I wanted it to be a kind of notepad for me to refer back to - good recipes, ideas I'd had for when I eventually get this completely pipe dream cafe up and running (i.e. 2nd of never), projects I'd finished, pretty things I might want to buy or just look at. That kind of thing.

And for some reason I didn't really want it to be about personal stuff, mummy and baby stuff, 'musings'... Not quite sure why. I liked reading those kinds of blogs, I just didn't feel that that was what I wanted to do.

But now I think perhaps I do. And besides, I choose what I cook primarily on how easy it'll be to clean up nowadays, and I knit at a rate of about three rows a year so there's not going to be much of interest on the foody/crafty front.

So, not promising anything because anytime I decide what this should be, or how often I should post, or whatever, it's pretty much a guarantee that that won't happen, but just saying, perhaps I'll open up a little and share a bit more minutiae and mind-noise here from now on.

Two simple salads

2010-11-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

Not a terribly appealing photo there, but I just wanted to make a note to self on this little dish. I'm not really a repertoire cook - I have a couple of standard dishes I wheel out again and again but often I just play around with what I have. The experiments are not always super succesful, but every now and then I make something I really like, only to forget it and never make it again.

So, so that I remember. These two simple salads both deserve another outing.

First - romanesco cauliflower with roasted peppers and pine nuts. Roasted the peppers in olive oil in the oven for half an hour or so, then added par-boiled florets of the cauli to crisp it up. Dressed only in the roasting oil, topped with toasted pine nuts. Good.

Second - to cooked wild rice I added a little very finely sliced red onion, and halved segments of tangy clementines, dressed with lemon juice, clementine juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Surprisingly delicious.

Making friends

2010-11-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

It's strange, this new mummy club I now belong to. It reminds me a little of the first days of university, or secondary school. There's this whole new group of people I'm slowly getting to know and I feel like I'm sussing them out, trying to work out which ones I like, which ones like me, which ones will turn into friends.

It's a long time since I made any new friends. I've been content at work to have friendly colleagues. I have just a handful of truly close friends, with whom I have rich, deeply treasured friendships, all many years old. I am not a facebook friend collector, and I don't make friends easily - I take a long time to relax into really knowing someone, and find maintaining flimsy acquaintances effortful and tiring.

I also really prefer to have one-on-one friends. People who, like me, prefer a simple two-person conversation to the complicated chatter of a large group. I like groups, but I often feel a bit like a spectator in multi-way conversation; or if I enter into it I can find it unsatisfying; cut-off comments all mixing in a big, quickly moving pot. I prefer to take my time and talk and listen and engage; something it's much easier to do with just one or two others.

So now, there are all these groups and opportunities to meet mums. And we have ready-made conversations because we are all obsessed with the weight and intake and output and colour and sound and world of our offspring. And we like to compare and contrast and take comfort from others.

Frantically we skip from how many poos the little ones produce, to swimming lessons, then post baby blubber and cranio-sacral osteopathy*. We share tales of woe - perineal breakdown, multiple attacks of mastitis, infected stitches, babies who won't eat, or gain weight, or sleep. Dates and times are slung through the air - Mabels Monsters, Rhyme Time, Baby Bounce, Mummy and Me Yoga*. We discuss what to wear to a wedding when you're breastfeeding and how to get baby passports and what pushchairs you can take on aeroplanes. We compare slings and prams and clothes and babygyms.

It is wonderful, having this resource of fellow experience. And honestly, all of the mummies I've met are quite lovely. I've seen none of the competitiveness that is parodied in that mum-lit genre of books and columns, and although there is often a barrage of advice or 'well I've read that...' in response to quandaries, people try hard not to be judgmental or too opinionated.

But I'm getting a little weary of the hecticness of chatting in big groups and the need to be polite and thinking all the time about whether you could offend someone with your thoughts or opinions.

I can't wait until I click with someone; until I reach that point where I know I can call someone up with a stupid question, or issue a solo lunch invitation without it seeming a little weird. I'm sure amongst all these lovely women there must be someone with whom I forge strong bonds, but I don't know yet who it will be (almost all of my good friends I have been sceptical of, dismissive of, intimidated by or downright appalled by on first impressions).

I guess it will just - like so many things - take time. At least now I am old and wise enough to know to not get disheartened and to just keep pressing on being sociable and enjoying what I have - after all I am very lucky to have these networks so ready-made and easy to access.

And of course, maybe none of them will become my friends, maybe several of them will. That's the fun of being at the start of something I guess - we don't know what will be. We just have to wait and see.

*yes I know, it is North London we're talking about here!

Chocolate Almond Cake

2010-10-27T04:13:00.000-07:00

This is luxuriously soft, subtly almond-y and studded with rich dark chocolate chunks. I think it would suit a strong velvety latte, on a sunny but brisk autumn morning, setting the world to rights or reading the paper at a pavement table.

1. Butter a 28cm tin and line with greaseproof paper.

2. Mix 150g butter with 1/4tsp salt until soft. Cream in 100g sugar, then add 5 egg yolks and mix well.

3. Chop 150g dark chocolate, and add to the mix, along with 150g ground almonds.

4. Add in 100g flour and 1 tsp baking powder.

5. Beat 5 egg whites until stiff, then beat in 100g sugar to produce a shiny mixture.

6. Mix egg whites into other mix.

7. Bake at 180C for 50 minutes - done when a knife comes out clean.

8. Yum

(Recipe from 'Chocology', a leafet produced by some Swiss chocolate board or similar - sorry I can't give a proper reference; I found it at my parents' house and don't have to hand!)

Autumn

2010-10-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

We walk a lot, baby and I. I've got the zero to ready-to-go thing down to a number of seconds now. Sometimes some fresh air and a change of scene is exactly what's needed to change grizzly and potentially explosive to calm and potentially (hopefully!) sleepy.

When the weather's like it is right now - sweetly crisp and floodlit with cold sunshine - then it's a glorious treat to be able to meander round London's fine green spaces.

Watching others enjoying the seasons.

Looking down on my lovely vast city from a calm, green vantage point.

Rugged up in scarves and mittens, enjoying the cold night air.

(Hampstead Heath by day, Primrose Hill at night)

The saga of the indoor plants

2010-10-22T04:05:00.000-07:00

I like plants. I buy them; they look lovely. They die. I wait around hoping they'll revive. Eventually I sadly throw them out.

B said I shouldn't buy any more until I can keep at least one alive; he's not keen on the dying foliage school of decor. I had to agree.

I bought some mint plants feeling hopeful. They sat there for weeks until I managed to clean a pot and buy some compost for them.

I watered them (nearly) every day, felt quite proud.

Mint plants only suffer one disease - mint rust. Mine got it. According to the internet some 'stressed' plants can also get aphids. Guess what mine have millions of? How did I stress them out, poor loves?!

On the to-do list then:
1. Get rid of aphid covered rusty mint
2. Try rosemary

I will get one to stay alive!

Date, Walnut, Cardamom Cake

2010-10-20T03:53:00.000-07:00

I may no longer pluck my eyebrows every day, go to the cinema in the evenings or always know what day of the week it is, but one thing I can and do still do is bake.

This one is soft, sweet and warmly spicy. Would go beautifully with a light black tea - Jasmine perhaps - rugged up inside on a rainy day.

Adapted from The Glasgow Cookery Book

1. Chop 150g dates and sprinkle with 1tsp bicarbonate of soda. Cover with 250ml boiling water and leave 30 minutes.

2. Cream 50g butter with 100g soft brown sugar. Add 1 egg, soaked dates, 50g chopped walnuts, and 200g wholemeal flour that has already been mixed with 2 tsp ground cardamom and 1 tsp baking powder. Mix well

3. Put into greased, floured tin and bake for about an hour at 180C

Brevity

2010-10-19T05:50:00.000-07:00

I keep starting posts and not finishing them before I need to feed/distract/change etc.

I think I need to be more succinct!

And then...

2010-09-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

That last post was scheduled. About the time it was posting here I was meeting the little person who'd been growing inside me for the previous nine months.

So suddenly in a new world of baby. It did feel like stepping through a door and leaving behind the old life; things I used to think and do occur to me as though I dreamt them. Now she's here it's like she's always been here, she was always meant to be here, nothing else could have happened.

So, in short:

it's a girl

she weighed 8lb3

and had a lot of hair

ten fingers ten toes big lungs

birth was: objectively - quick, straightforward and very good; subjectively - just horribly painful and distressing

the first few weeks - bleeding, aching, lactating, learning, waking, feeding, marvelling, lots of crying, lots of lovely peaceful moments, everything new and fragile and wonderful, freezer meals, first few forays out, dad at home taking care of me and her and everything

then - days on our own, honing pram skills, healing up, meeting other babies, learning how to do everything one-handed, learning how to relax and trust it'll be okay, cooking, washing, feeding, changing, trashy tv, gaining weight (her), back in the biggest jeans (me)

now - smiles! 8 hour sleeps! finally feeling like emerging from immersion in this real now baby world and blogging a little again...

(PS Although I love reading about other blogger's babies, I feel a little weird about putting my baby out there on the internet for some reason, hence the foot picture. I don't intend to turn this into a baby blog; hopefully as I get back into cooking and crafting and cafés and thinking about things other than baby, I'll have enough else to write about!)

Tiny shoes for tiny feet

2010-07-26T03:04:00.000-07:00

Finishing the mittens kickstarted me into a little knitting surge over the last weekend. I finished these two pairs in about four days I think. Hooray for small things! They're both from Blankets, Bears and Bootees by Debbie Bliss .

These are my favourites. I had a bit of an issue with the pattern and had to change it a bit as I just couldn't work out how it worked as it was written, but happy with the end product. They remind me of mini ugg boots (in my household, having an Australian mum, uggs are not fashion statements but just the most practical and comfy slipper/houseshoe. We used to be terribly embarrassed when Mum wore hers outside and thought it hilarious when they suddenly got all trendy and our Mum had led Kate Moss et al by years!!!)

They're done in a merino-cashmere-acrylic mix, which is lovely and soft, and more importantly, machine-washable. Part of a stash I've been trying to use up for ages, so good to have little projects to just use the odd half ball.

These are cute too, and slightly easier, although they seem to be designed for very fat feet! I had a problem with this pattern too - there was an obvious mistake in the number of stitches at one point. Knitted in some Jaeger cashmerino I had left over from a sale purchase I meant to use for something ages ago and never did, so again good to use some of that up.

So, I'm sure there are a whole host of practical things I've forgotten to get in for when baby decides to make an appearance, but at least it'll have stylishly warm little feet!

Pear and Walnut Cake

2010-07-22T02:55:00.000-07:00

Given the choice of a fabulously pretty cupcake or a more plain looking fruit-laden cake, I'll choose the fruity one pretty much every time. I like to look at the pretty cakes, but I prefer to eat the uglier ones. You can't go far wrong with a carrot cake; a good banana cake will always make me happy, and anything with apples or pears in will generally be good in my experience. I like dense, moist satisfying cakes. This is one of them.

It's based on a Joy the Baker recipe for Apple, Walnut and Flaxseed bread . I'm not sure why I decided on pears rather than apples - they just looked nicer in the shop I think. I haven't adapted an awful lot - used a bit less sugar, swapped in oil instead of butter (just to avoid using a saucepan to do the melting!) and I didn't want to buy buttermilk and have a load left over I wouldn't know how to use so I used milk and cream of tartar, which I already had, instead. Result - fruit and nut laden soft cakey goodness.

Pear and Walnut Cake (adapted from Joy the Baker)

Preheat oven to 350F/180C and grease and flour a suitable pan (9x5x3-inch loaf pan specified in original recipe; I used a shallow pan about 9x6 inch)
In a bowl mix together: 1 cup white flour; 3/4 cup wholemeal flour; 2/3 cup packed brown sugar (you might want to break this up first or you'll end up with little brown sugar pockets in your cake like I did); 1/2 tsp salt; 2 tsps baking powder; 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda; 2 tsps ground cinnamon and 1 tsp ground nutmeg.
In a larger bowl mix together: 2/3 cup milk, mixed with 1 tsp cream of tartar; 2 eggs; 1/3 cup sunflower oil; and 1 tsp vanilla extract.
Mix dry ingredients into wet (I know all recipes say to mix wet into dry; I guess it's something to do with how it mixes, but I always mix dry into wet, as it makes the washing up easier).
Add: 1 pear, grated; 1 pear, chopped into small dice; and 1/2 cup walnuts.
Spoon batter into pan and bake for 40-50 minutes until a skewer comes out clean
Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then on wire rack.

Joy recommends toasting and buttering, which it suits very well, although it's equally good as it is.

Loving...

2010-07-18T00:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know how I came across Laura George, but just spent an enjoyable time browsing her etsy shop and smiling at prints such as the awesome Bonsai Party, above (I want to have a bonsai party!) and this cutie, below.

Aren't they wonderful?

Now, take the sage advice on this one to heart. I am going to...

I finished the mittens!

2010-07-15T02:27:00.000-07:00

I finally finished something I started knitting! (see this post for the whole sorry story...)

On the plus side, they look like mittens, and they fit. However, I'm a bit disappointed with my douple pointed needle skills. On the first one, I was knitting into the back of the stitch on the corners, as I'd read that made for a tighter join. But you can see on this photo that it gives a bit of a weird wiggly line where I've done that.

So, on the second I just knit it all normally, but the join on this one is a big line of loose stitches like train tracks. Possibly this is because I did them in bamboo, which stretches out a bit more on my hand than the last pair I knitted, I think in a cashmerino yarn.

Any knitters out there have any tips?!?!

So, not sure they're present-worthy, but they will at least come in handy come winter. I wore the last pair I knitted all last winter, but they were done in a yucky mint colour, just as a prototype and then got hidden in a cupboard somewhere and emerged a little bit moth-eaten, so they have holes. Nevertheless, they were so cosy and cocoon-like for my fingers; much more satisfying than the cheapo gloves I have.

Get thee to the cinema!

2010-07-10T02:00:00.000-07:00

Ah, if only all romcoms were this good!

Heartbreaker, a 'fromcom' (French rom com) starring Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis, follows a man who's paid to break up relationships, which he does in a variety of entertaining and innovative ways with the help of his sister and her husband, as he goes about on his most difficult job yet. Reasons to go and see it:

1. I laughed out loud a lot, and I am not generally a laugh-out-louder in the cinema
2. My boyfriend laughed even more than me!
3. There's a little schmaltz, but in quite a cute, feelgood way. I might even confess to shedding a tear.
4. Romain Duris is quite charming, in a skinny crooked French kind of way.
5. It doesn't have a terrible sappy and/or downright stupid heroine who is a disgrace to womankind, like many of its genre.
5. It's very snappy and fast-moving; you won't get bored.
6. Vanessa Paradis' wardrobe is quite lovely
7. The soundtrack works well.
8. I promise you'll love the Dirty Dancing scene.

One of the most enjoyable films I've seen in a long time. Do go.

Spelt Honey Pecan Cookies

2010-07-09T02:00:00.000-07:00

Following on from the choc-banana bars, yet more wholesome-y sweet stuff!

This recipe comes from the back of the flour packet (Doves Farm Spelt Flour). It takes literally seconds to put together, and the end result is satisfyingly dense, soft but crumbly little nuggets of slightly spicy goodness. Very good with a cup of tea.

Ok, so:

In a bowl, mix: 4 oz wholemeal spelt flour, 2 oz honey, 2 oz sunflower oil, 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

Once combined, shape into little balls, and place on a greased baking tray (a bit too sticky to roll with your fingers, I used teaspoons to shape) with space to expand.

Press pecan halves into the top of each cookie (I added this element myself - genius).

Bake in a preheated oven at 190C/375F/Gas 5 for about 10 minutes.

Cool on tray.

Yum.

(I have a feeling this would also work with black pepper instead of cinnamon, but that might just be weird. If I try it I'll let you know how it turns out.)

Pain, discipline and backflips...

2010-07-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

Just watched an incredible documentary that was shown on BBC4 last week. It follows children and teachers at the Shanghai Circus School through training and building up to a national competition.

Unfortunately you can't watch it again on the BBC4 site for some reason, although you can get an idea of it on this trailer, and possibly will be shown again, as it seems to have been repeated a few times over the past few years. If it is, do watch it.

Anyhow, found myself dwelling on a few thoughts as I watched.

1. You start to feel a bit of a wuss for thinking about how childbirth might be a bit traumatic on your body when you're watching an eight-year old hanging by her arms from bars and raising her legs to her nose over and over again as a teacher chides her for crying with pain and exertion. Jesus. We grow up with so little pain in general; it's easy to forget how exceptional this is in the world.

2. I (used to?) absolutely love acrobatics. Keep backflipping or balancing on one hand and I will keep gasping with glee. I don't really know what it is but well-performed acrobatics often incite a kind of childish delight in me. However, watching 12 year old Cai Yong's unquestionably beautiful performance, I couldn't see any beauty in it, or feel any excitement, because I'd seen a bit of how hard he trained to get there, and it suddenly felt very peculiar to do such things with our bodies.

And often I've thought how I should have found something to dedicate myself to and get really good at. How I would have liked to have really trained my body up at something. I started realising watching this what that really might have entailed in terms of sacrifice and sheer repetition and started feeling almost grateful that I'm naturally lazy and butterfly like in my interests, skitting here and there and never wedding to one completely.

3. These kids are constantly admonished and shouted at. For gaining 2 kilos whilst back home, for not being able to do a handstand properly, for crying, for not doing a perfect enough move. They don't answer back when scolded. It's an entirely different system. And at first it's just complete shock and sadness. You want to take them out for ice-cream and tell them they don't have to practice every day or be the best trapeze artist, they can just do their best. And then the parents or guardians are there shouting 'do you want to be a beggar? if you don't work hard you'll be a beggar. there's no other option' and it puts it in a whole other light. Again, a perspective on my own culture. It seems so obvious that parents want children to be happy, but suddenly I saw what a luxury it is to be able to want that.

4. Oh, and a little part of me still thinking how awesome it would be to be able to do flying trapeze. They do courses at The Circus Space. Maybe one day...

Anyway, good TV.

Chocolate Banana Bars

2010-07-07T05:57:00.000-07:00

These little beauties went down very well indeed in our household recently. Not surprising really as they come via two grand doyennes of the foodblogging world - I picked up on them at the marvellous Chocolate and Zucchini, which in turn was a slight tweak on an original post on the equally wonderful 101 Cookbooks.

They contain no sugar except for that in the chocolate, no flour and no dairy produce - pretty handy go-tos then for vegan/gluten-free/low sugar friends. They are also magnificently tasty in that satisfying wholesomely filling way, and go well with an espresso or a nice cup of tea.

I pretty much followed Clotilde's recipe albeit with olive oil instead of almond butter and a lazier technique - I just mashed everything together in one bowl, which worked fine, so another plus point - easy and not too much washing up!

Check out either of the recipes linked to above, or for my summary of how I did it, keep reading:

(makes about 12-18 small (finger-sized) bars)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a medium baking dish (I think the one I used is about 11" by 7" rectangle, about 1.5" deep) with vegetable oil.

In a mixing bowl, combine 1 cup rolled oats, 1/3 cup ground almonds, 1/6 cup shredded coconut, and a pinch of salt.

Chop around 60-80g very dark chocolate (I used 80% cocoa) into small chunks (this is easier to do if it's at room temperature rather than fresh out of the fridge).

Add two very ripe bananas, a couple of drops of vanilla extract and 1/8 cup olive oil to the oat mixture. Mash the bananas thoroughly and mix everything together until well binded.

Fold the chocolate in gently.

Spoon into the prepared baking dish, level the surface, and put in the oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the top is set and golden-brown.

Let cool completely before slicing into bars.

Orange and Pistachio Biscotti

2010-07-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

The Italians, in my opinion, are the best at biscuits.

Several years ago, I booked a last minute flight to Italy to accompany my friend Lucy to a tiny town on top of a mountain called Monte San Martino. We were both approaching final exams and she had decided that the best place to get the peace and quiet to concentrate on this was in a monastery on top of a mountain. (Her aunt is a nun at this monastery, and no I don't mean a convent, for some reason it was definitely called a monastery).

Anyway, it was exactly perfect for its purpose. We got lots of work done at a small table in a sparse room, overseen by Jesus on the cross. I had been having a somewhat turbulent time in London and the quietness and unbelievable greenness and beauty of the place could not have been better conceived to heal that.

But, the point of this story is the food. My goodness, I've never since or before come across such food. The nuns worked some fields a little way down the mountain. They had cloistered pigs and cows, and made their own cheese and ham. They received gifts of fruit and wine from the villagers. We arrived for breakfast, lunch and dinner at set times and dined with the local priest and various others at a big stone table.

Fresh tomatoes, oozing soft cheese, simple pasta soups, slices of meat and potatoes, wonderful bread...

And for breakfast, we got a bowl of milky coffee, soft fresh brioche style rolls, homemade jam, and a whole massive tray of homemade biscuits. They were divine.

These aren't quite up to that standard, but they are pretty good. This is an adaptation of a more normal Cantuccini recipe with almonds. I just happened to have pistachios to hand and thought I'd try that. Compared to commercial ones, I think they lack some perfume and sweetness, and wonder whether an addition of orangeflower water or fragrant honey would help.

Orange and Pistachio Biscotti

1. PREHEAT oven to 190C

2. MIX TOGETHER: 1.25 cups plain flour; a pinch of salt; 1/2 tsp baking powder; 1/2 cup ground pistachios; 1/4 cup sugar; 3/4 cup chopped pistachios; zest of one orange

3. ADD: 2 lightly beaten eggs and MIX TO A DOUGH

4. ROLL dough into a sausage shape of about 2cm diameter. Cut to fit baking tray and place the sausages about 5cm apart on the tray.

5. BAKE for 20 minutes

6. REMOVE from the oven and turn oven to 80C. Slice the sausages into 1cm diagonal slices and place back on trays.

7. BAKE for 1 hour, turning half way through. Cool on a rack.

"Holidays"

2010-07-02T03:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my last day in the office. So I'm now on what B likes to refer to as my 'holidays'...

I had been counting down the days for the last month or so. Work was manic right up to the end, with normal deadline pressures compounded with various 'people-problems', so I couldn't wait to be shot of it. Which is a little bit of a shame, to be leaving with a bad taste in the mouth as it were, but now only a number of hours on I feel quite a long way away from all that, which is nice.

And also a little weird. I was so looking forward to leaving work I wasn't expecting to feel any difficulty adjusting to being at home, but as I left the office yesterday it was like I only just realised that that meant I wouldn't be going to work for quite a while. And it felt bizarre.

Still, I have plans for how I'll fill my days so I'm sure I'll settle in just fine pretty shortly; there's heaps of admin, household, little nitty gritty things I'd like to get sorted, and I'm going to make sure I make the most of the last days I'll have to act like a lady of leisure with as many lazy lunches and meet-ups as possible. And possibly I'll have time to blog a little more!

Summer vegetable soup

2010-06-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this looks not a world away from a bowl of sick but please don't let that put you off; I promise it tastes better than it looks!...

A little while back the younger sister and I journeyed down to Devon to attend a day's cookery course at Ashburton Cookery School. I've been in one of my non-blogging moods since then and it feels too ages-ago to rehash too much now, so suffice it to say that I enjoyed the course, would definitely recommend the school, and its lovely accommodation, and recommend that if you find yourself there you also spend an afternoon in the garden of the Green Ginger Café in Ashburton stuffing yourself on an exemplary cream tea.

My travelling companion, Wife in the City, has a much better write-up, with pictures of the food we cooked, here.

Anyway, one of the things we cooked was a Curried Mussel Soup, which was a lovely summery yellow and very more-ish.

So once home I tried to recreate a similar soup, sans mussels. I tend to make pretty simple soups - essentially bits in water. This works pretty well for me; I like bits in water. But I want to add things to my repertoire that might appeal to people with less simple tastes, things I could cook for dinner guests and that kind of thing (which was a lot of the impetus behind going on the course in the first place).

The no-mussel soup worked pretty well, and was light but rich and very flavoursome although not quite as pretty as the mussel one had been somehow. I love the tomato in it, and the coriander finish. I still think I'd be as happy with some diced up potatoes and carrots and lentils in seasoned water, but for something a bit different and a little bit more sophisticated, this is pretty good.

This is how I made it.

1. Make small crosses on the non-stalk end of 2-3 tomatoes. Place in boiling or just boiled water for about 10 seconds, until the skin starts to split. Remove, place in cold water, then peel the skin off, remove the seeds, and cut into fine dice. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, boil 250ml white wine in a pan until reduced by about half. Set aside
3. Sweat one medium onion, diced, and a clove or two of finely sliced garlic in sunflower oil until starting to soften. Stir regularly so it doesn't stick.
4. Add a couple of spring onions, sliced, and one carrot, thinly sliced.
5. Once these are starting to soften, add about a teaspoon of ground, toasted cumin and a teaspoon of mild curry powder.
6. Then add the reduced wine
7. And a few cups of vegetable or chicken stock
8. Cook for a few minutes until veg is cooked
9. Add a cup full of frozen peas, and the diced tomato. Continue cooking for 1-2 minutes just to warm these through.
10. Add a large dollop of double cream and stir through.
11. Add a generous squeeze of lemon juice and serve garnished with chopped fresh coriander.

The world's slowest knitter

2010-05-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

That would be me.

I love poring over knitting books and making elaborate plans for what I will knit in which colours. But then it comes down to the actual accummulating of stitches on needles, and things never quite run like I plan.

Right now I'm completely stuck with two sorry projects...

Exhibit 1. The bamboo mitten

Back in January, I thought to myself that I wouldn't be unrealistic and plan to make birthday presents throughout the year, but instead I'd get a headstart on Christmas. If I 'whipped up' a few pairs of mittens and a couple of scarves, I thought, I'll have them tucked away in a cupboard by summer and be feeling very smug with a homemade present stash come December...

Ah, some things we never learn. Like how very uncommitted to projects I can be. I've had this mitten on the needles for goodness knows how long. I LOVE the bamboo yarn - it's silky and soft and a fabulous colour. But give it just a little room and it'll tangle itself up into an ungodly mess. And now I'm stuck with the world's biggest knot, and only a few rows to go... Untangling can be somewhat relaxing, but it's a slow process. At this rate, some lucky person will be bemusedly receiving one lonely thumbless mitten on Christmas day!

And on to

Exhibit 2. The lacy sock-yarn cardigan

Now I can't even remember when I started this. I have a blurry memory of doing the edging on the eurotunnel train and I last went over to France that way years ago. decades. centuries.

This yarn is quite possibly jinxed. I knitted it into a vest first of all, but found out on sewing up that the armholes were too small for anyone who ate or was older than 5. So I frogged it all and decided to put it to use in a lacy cardigan pattern from Kim Hargreaves' Breeze book.

The lacework border took FOREVER, so once I was through with that, however ambivalent I was feeling about the design, I had to go on and see it through because there was no way I wasn't putting the endless border to use.

So, I did the back - ever so slowly - then I gathered pace and finished the left front in a week or two.

I tacked it together and at this stage disaster struck. I hadn't measured properly. It was made for a midget. Armhole problems again, and I'm not sure I know anyone who'd willingly sport a cropped-to-the-navel lacy cardigan...

So, now I just look at it and sigh. What do I do? Finish it and find a small child to bequeath it to? Finish it and stretch it defiantly on, just for the sake of it. Unknit?!?!? Try and improvise some kind of shoulder extension (I'm pretty sure I'm not technically up to this option)...

I don't know. Maybe it's time to go back to chunky scarves...

Vegbox cooking - using bits up

2010-05-26T01:57:00.000-07:00

Picking up where I left off with the 'what I cooked from the vegbox' stuff, this was my final meal from the first vegbox - a simple stirfry using up asparagus stalks, mushrooms, onions and carrots.

I went off stirfries years ago - started to find them boring and thought them an appalling thing to do to nice vegetables.

Then, recently I saw some black rice noodles that seduced me with their exoticness, and I tried one out again. The noodles were great - purple in colour and very tasty, and the stirfry surprised me in just how yummy it could be.

Now, stirfries are still fairly boring to write about so I'll keep this short. All I want to say is 'Nuts!'. Just add some cashews, some peanuts, or something else with crunch, and suddenly a boring veg stirfry will seem magically elevated.

I couldn't find the peanuts I was hoping for in the shop the night I cooked the above, so I went for deepfried shallot and chilli to add a bit of crunch. Also helps to have fresh coriander and lime juice.

Quick and healthy and good for using bits up - the stirfry and I are friends again...

And if you have any tips to excitify your stir-fries, please do let me know!...

Hibernation

2010-05-23T01:03:00.001-07:00

I haven't been posting much recently. I haven't been replying to many emails either - even the normal work banter. Or going to lunch, or calling people, or getting anything done in the evenings apart from eating...

It's a kind of hibernation, like I'm curled up somewhere inside of myself, not letting too much of the outside in. Not to get through winter, but to get through work! We're very busy and I'm getting tireder and I feel like I have to put all of my energy into getting through the days in a reasonably balanced manner - getting stuff done but not over-working and stressing it. And this means that everything else falls by the wayside a bit.

Thank goodness next week is my last five-day week. Then - hooray! - an extra-long weekend, and then I just have four shorter working weeks, and I'll be done with work (of the office variety) for a year.

So, should be more posts soon. In the meantime, hope everyone (UK) is enjoying the weather FINALLY acting like summer's on its way... Glorious glorious sunshine this morning. Can it possibly last?...

Vegbox cooking - a summer salad

2010-05-05T02:00:00.000-07:00

Day two of cooking from my vegbox...

So, this feels a long time ago now. Those last couple of posts were scheduled (whilst I was enjoying the sun in south of Spain for a long weekend - yay! absolutely wonderful...).

Anyhow, to continue on the vegbox posts, this was a little summery salad I made sometime last week, when it was feeling quite summery here.

I had all the asparagus still to eat, and also happened to have some lovely hard goats cheese and pink grapefruits, so thought I would experiment with chucking them all together.

The salad is literally just that - segmented grapefruit with its juice, lightly steamed asparagus, crumbled cheese, olive oil, and then also some walnuts which I coated in a mixture of oil and honey and baked in a medium oven for about 10-15 minutes.

The honey-walnuts with cheese and grapefruit combination was delicious! Very moreish those walnuts (a trick I picked up off Masterchef, and haven't tried before). A forkful of asparagus, cheese and nut went superbly well too. Somehow, grapefruit and asparagus together however didn't quite work, so I would tweak next time I think by swapping in interesting leaves and maybe green beans for the asparagus, or leaving the asparagus in and taking the grapefruit out, eating with leaves and a lemon juice-olive oil dressing. Maybe some crispy bacon/pancetta with that too...

Vegbox cooking - the green soufflé

2010-05-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

Day one of cooking with my veg box contents...

I decided the sprouting broccoli needed to be tackled first, as I already had a heap in the fridge (love it!). And the massive bunch of wild garlic that I wasn't sure what to do with.

Just a day or so earlier I had been watching Tamasin Day-Lewis on some cookery channel making haddock soufflé, which had looked surprisingly easy.

I've never tried a soufflé before, but it struck me that it might work with some green veg.

So, I sweated down some finely chopped shallots in butter and oil, then once they were soft added a handful of shredded wild garlic and a couple of handfuls of sprouting broccoli, cut into fairly small florets and leaves.

I stirred this for about 5 minutes more until lightly cooked, and took off the heat.

Then I made a béchamel. Afraid I can't give you the measurements because I just do it by eye. About a finger's width of butter, a shake or two of flour, maybe 1/2 pint of milk?

Into this, I intended to add two egg yolks, but clumsily split the yolk when trying to separate the first egg, so it ended up being one yolk and one whole egg. I whisked the remaining egg white until stiff peaks formed, and then folded this into the bechamel and egg mixture and seasoned (salt, pepper, a little mustard powder).

The greens went into an oval oven dish, and I spooned the soufflé mixture on top, then popped the whole lot in a moderate oven (when in doubt put it on 200C is my general oven philosophy) for 20 minutes.

I popped a couple of the vegbox mushrooms in the oven also, with some butter dotted on them. I had been boiling some new potatoes that I already had in stock, and sauteed these as the souffle and mushroom cooked.

And...

... the result was one of the nicest things I've eaten in ages. Despite the broken yolk and missing an egg white, the soufflé was meltingly soft and light, and the creamy souffle top went perfectly with lightly garlicky broccoli underneath. The mushroom was big and meaty, and it all went together like a dream. I felt like I'd just been to a really nice restaurant (although admittedly it doesn't look that special!).

And then, carried away with the cooking bug, I also got together a batch of Joy the Baker's brownies.

Yum! Look at that gooey goodness...

I sliced and lightly steamed some of the hard green pears and apples in the veg box, and served these and a dollop of greek yoghurt alongside.

Delicious...

So nice to finally cook a meal I really really enjoyed. Recently I seem to have eaten far too much mediocre stuff, uninspiring stuff. And I really think it is down to the ingredients in the main. If they're right, then the inspiration is there and with a little bit of knowledge and some careful handling you're pretty much guaranteed a good eat. If the ingredients are just a bit crap, on the other hand - the watery peppers and tasteless tomatoes that supermarkets serve up for example - then it'll be much more difficult to salvage something delicious.

Vegetables in boxes

2010-05-02T06:24:00.000-07:00

We quite often end up talking about where we might want to live in the future (both of us have ended up being kind of itinerant - I've lived in London for almost 10 years now and am on my 13th address, and the next move can't be too far away given the new addition...). And when we do, I always list 'good food shops' in my top priorities for the area.

This is because I know how much the available food sources affects what I eat.

I've lived in a Greek/Cypriot/Turkish area and subsisted almost entirely on houmous, pitta bread and vegetables (substantially reducing my food bill as the little local shops were so much cheaper than the too-far-away-to-walk-to supermarket and its tempting 2-for-1 deals on stuff you really don't want or need).

I've lived round the corner from a 24-hour shop and not much else and developed a worrying microwave pizza in the middle of the night habit.

I've lived in an area seemingly short on shops, but with one little Turkish grocery store that always managed to have perfect avocadoes, which I really missed when I moved away!

And I've lived 2 minutes walk from both a lovely organic shop and middle-eastern supermarket, both of which I could stop off at on the way home from work, which was an absolute treat.

Now, my closest food provider is a small supermarket, which has a paltry and overpriced selection of produce. I try to get to my nice organic shop on the weekend, but if I miss stocking up for one reason or another, then I end up in the miserable supermarket, and my evening meals (and wallet!) have suffered as a result.

So, fed up with this situation, I decided to give veg boxes a try again. I sampled an Abel and Cole box once, but wasn't that impressed for one reason or another and never went regular with it.

This time, I tried Riverford* out. We have a convenient hiding place now, which makes it more viable, and they deliver on Thursdays, which is the same day the cleaner comes - I quite liked the idea of arriving home to a clean house and a new box of veggies!

And, this is what we got:

I was really pleased - a good balanced selection of fruit and veg which all looked lovely and fresh and delicious. It's £10.95 for all that lot; I added up what I think I would have had to pay in a supermarket for it, and my estimate is probably a few quid more.

It delivered the kick up the backside that my cooking needed as well - at least for a couple of days! I'll try and post on what I cooked with this in the next day or so...

Anyone else got tips for good box services in London area or how they work for you? Would be interested to hear your views...

* basically, I picked Riverford because a while back I spent ages looking into everyone who delivered in London, and there was no clear winner. This time I couldn't be bothered with all the rigmarole of researching it all again so just chose the one whose name I could remember!

I would like to...

2010-04-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

1. Make my own sourdough starter and bread
2. Do more crochet
3. Start composting
4. Get some nice houseplants (and keep them alive!!!) - succulents I think
5. Do yoga teacher training (one day!)
6. Get better at making *good* clothes purchases

I'm copying Wife in the City's neat little list of things she would like to do, because I liked it.

These are my preoccupations currently. What are yours???

Totally Scrummy Choc-Banana Bread

2010-04-28T02:00:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend and I are very different in many ways. One of these ways can be illustrated through the following story... We had invited friends over for brunch and B was going to go out to get some milk. He asked if I needed anything. I thought perhaps a banana would be a good addition to the fruits I already had for fruit salad, and asked for one, adding to pick up maybe a kiwi or some other more exotic fruit if there was anything nice.

45 minutes later, guests were due to arrive and he finally returns (he'd been for milk via the bike shop to check on progress of his new handlebars - another way in which we differ; I'm a little more 'time-sensitive'...), bearing a bunch of 8 bananas, and two mangos as big as rugby balls. Fine, if we were expecting 20, but no, I only had 6 mouths to feed...

Me? I probably would have come back empty-handed because the choice between fairtrade bananas that looked nice but you had to buy in 6s in plastic packets and the normal bananas which were looking just slightly too ripe for my liking was proving a bit taxing. And then I might have started thinking about airfreighting and whether maybe another pear would be better, and then the decisions would all get a little too much and time would have been ticking on and I'd just turn back round and go home again...

Anyway. After I'd used the one banana that I actually needed, we had a whole load of ripe bananas that sat there steadily ripening. Something had to be done before they were only good for the bin, and that something is normally banana cake... (do you know of anything else to do with overripe bananas?)

I tried Joy the Baker's Oatmeal Banana Bread recipe on the Friday, and we wolfed it down so fast, I made it again on Sunday, with a few tweaks this time. This is the kind of cake I absolutely adore. It's got a wholesome satisfying feel to it. It's soft and not too dry and pairs beautifully with a cup of tea. It feels at home as breakfast or dessert, or afternoon tea. It leaves you feeling like you just ate a warm hug. And you get the benefit of knowing that there is all kinds of goodness in there - vitamins and minerals in the wholemeal flour and oats and bananas, some protein from the eggs, complex carbs so it's not too sugar-rushy. Why it's practically a health food.

So, my adaptation of Joy's recipe is as follows:

First, preheat oven to 350F/180C/Gas 4. Grease and flour a loaf pan.

You are going to need three bowls.

In one, put:
- 11/4 cups wholemeal flour
- 1/2 cup muscovado sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 3 tsps cinnamon
- 1 cup porridge oats
and stir together

In the second, mash 2 or 3 ripe bananas. Add:
- 3 tsps sunflower (or other) oil
- 1 egg
and mix, then add:
- about 50g dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks

In the third bowl, beat 2 egg whites until medium stiff peaks form.

Fold bowl 1 into bowl 2 (recipes always say put wet into dry, but I always put dry into wet, just because it leaves the dry bowl less messy for washing up). Then fold bowl 3 in as well, in three additions.

Pour batter into tin and bake for 45-50 minutes until top is firm to the touch.

Let cool in pan for 5 minutes, then cool on wire rack.

oh weekend!

2010-04-26T07:24:00.001-07:00

oh weekend! the first breath of your air as I leave the office behind, so sweet and full of promise.

the long, sumptuous hours of yours I can relax into. the luxury of laying head on hands and squinting up at budding branches from sun-warmed grass.

the pottering, the sorting, playing around, getting bits done, smelling the fresh baked bread as it sits and cools on the side.

the gloriousness of the ordinary moments - walking down the road to get an ice cream after dinner; being on a bus but not commuting; wandering the heath and seeing all the others at leisure with dogs and kites and prams and picnics; stopping for tea and talk; relaxing with a magazine; snuggling up to watch the snooker.

oh, i love you, weekend, you beautiful thing.

Etsy (and more) round-up - Homewares

2010-04-24T03:33:00.000-07:00

I've expanded my sights this time to include bouf, a shop full of interesting things by independent designers, which I recently came across. It's not the nicest site to browse in navigation terms, but there's plenty of interesting stuff on there. So, this time, home-y stuff...

And first up, some glasses with pretty winter trees on. I'm really quite taken with these - I think the trees on the glass is really lovely. From Snowden Flood at bouf.

We get through a lot of coffee at ours, and have between us something like 5 stovetops, so I think this teatowel would be apt, as well as pretty chic. From Mengseldesigns at etsy.

Love this scorched cherry bowl by Makye designs at etsy. Perfect for fruit, although I almost wouldn't want to cover it up I like the look of it so much (and I think it's actually a bit small).

It helps that a long time ago I was involved in one of those ongoing work email-chats which had touched upon my colleagues fascination with cephalopods and went into further and further detail about his escape from the land of petty publishing into owning a magnificent cephalopod centre... (ah, those were the days, I work with auditors now - stories about crocodiles in suits and cephalopod dreams have been replaced with questions about the technicalities of International Accounting Standards). Anyway, even if the sight of a squid didn't make me smile for that nostalgic reason, I would still like this graphic cushion from olofsdaughter on bouf a lot.

Neat little wooden coasters by peppersprouts on Etsy. I don't know why chairs look so good drawn out, but they invariably do. (e.g. this cute print by JaniceJ)

And finally, finishing where we started with Snowden Flood on bouf. This crockery set has rivers printed on it. My map-loving mother and any other geography nerds would like these. I think they're pretty cool too.

Top banana

2010-04-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Just a little note about a new (to me) ingredient. I actually know a good number of people who find bananas and their smell in particular quite offensive, and who would be wrinkling their noses in disgust right now just at that picture above. If you're one of theirs, move along - there's nothing to see here!

For those still reading, I don't know about you, but I've only ever come across those hard glazed banana chips before - bananas + oil + sugar. Then I was picking up ingredients for muesli the other day and came across these (from Tropical Wholefoods, a fairtrade company), which are just dried banana and nothing else. So I gave them a go, and am quite smitten. They're incredibly banana-y. Great chopped up in muesli (I tend to chuck in whatever I have to hand - a mixture of grains, always loads of toasted seeds and coconut, then some dried fruit and maybe nuts), I think they would also go quite nicely in a muffin, with toffee maybe, or pecan. And good for no-sugar snacks (although I realise all dried fruits have pretty high natural sugars, I guess they still have most of their nutrients and much better to scoff a handful of these with some nuts than a Kit Kat).

I got mine from a local organic shop, but apparently they're sold in Boots and Morrisons too.

Bump update

2010-04-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

I never intended to put much pregnancy stuff on this blog. In the beginning there was very little I wanted to talk about, I just felt sick and a bit grumpy and that seemed to be the sum of pregnancy for a couple of months. And I really wanted this to be a spot for cooking, craft, cafés and all that jazz, and I didn't want to muddy it too much with personal stuff (I'm not what you'd call a 'sharer'...).

However... As the bump has grown so too has my interest. I've lost the nausea and the grumps, started picking up on my reading and research - both hard copy and online - and there's several little things I thought I might like to share, so I'll interrupt what - let's be honest - is not much of a coherently-themed blog anyway to go all preggo for a minute.

Blogs

For personal stories, I've really been enjoying That Wife . Beautiful photos and very open, eloquent, fascinating and funny posts covering all aspects of her pregnancy (stretchmarks, incontinence, perineal massage and all). In particular, I nodded along with her thoughts on taking risks whilst pregnant, found her birthplans really useful and interesting, enjoyed the week by week shots (have become completely fascinated by other womens' bumps!), and was introduced to the idea of having a birth photographer (not for me, but those photos are amazing aren't they?). (update - since I started writing this post TW has now had a beautiful baby boy! absolutely amazing photos on her site)

Project Subrosa finished with the whole pregnancy part a while back and is now well into motherhood. I've really enjoyed her insights and sharing too and in particular was shaken up recently reading this on postpartum depression, or the 'baby blues', which is beautifully written and seemed to be a very valuable and important thing to have read.

From the personal to the professional, I've recently gotten into a couple of midwife/doula blogs.

Stand and Deliver - lots of interesting information and food for thought on this blog by Rixa, who is a doula and has written a doctoral dissertation on the modern unassisted birth movement. Also a great links list which I am delving into slowly.

Helping Mothers Give Birth Joyfully Without Fear - from a doula and childbirth educator in Israel - is another blog I've found lots of interesting posts on.

Books

I haven't done an awful lot of reading yet, but these are those I've read so far:

Up the Duff by Kaz Cooke - I read this during the early stages, and it really suited me then. It's light-hearted and silly and made me feel comforted talking about silly thoughts and icky things in a comic manner. Early on I shied away from anything too 'involved' so this was perfect for easing me in. It goes week by week with a fictional diary and some information and I still like to flick to the appropriate week every now and then to get a little nugget of information to informatively share with B ("it can hear us now", "it's all hairy and red now" etc.)

The New Experience of Childbirth by Sheila Kitzinger - I just finished this and really thoroughly enjoyed it. Throughout my second trimester I've got progressively more and more happy and excited about what's ahead, and this is a really positive and helpful book that has helped me put down some more solid knowledge about childbirth and think about the psychological aspects of pregnancy and childbirth. I like that she is writing from a position of a lot of very varied experience and I really like that she emphasises 'preparedness' - of body and mind - rather than putting an emphasis on a particular style or method of birthing. Very helpful.

I've just started also on Ina May Gaskin's book of childbirth. If I do another bump update I'll do a brief review then.

Shopping

I was impressed recently by a new-mum colleague who hasn't brought a pram yet because she uses a sling all the time. It looks so comfy and easily manoevrable. I'm hoping the baby and I both take to slings, as this would be a great option for a big city. Big Mamas Slings has a great range.

I want to try out cloth nappies, but the choice is completely overwhelming, so I'm planning on going to a 'Nappuccino' event, where various different types are demonstrated and sold. They arrange afternoons all over London.

For maternity wear, I've found Mamas and Papas to be very good. Everything I've bought from them (so far, two bras, two pairs maternity tights and two dresses is the sum total of my bump wardrobe) has been a big success. I tried some maternity jeans from Topshop, but they seemed to be all style over substance as they didn't actually stay up - not sure they'd quite worked out how to make elastic top work! So I returned those and will stay away from high street maternity ranges in favour of specialist shops I think. Hoping not to buy much more now.

Other

I've been going to pregnancy yoga at Triyoga twice a week most weeks since 13 weeks and absolutely love it. There's a lovely warm and communal atmosphere, you get to chat to other bumpy ladies a little, and the movement and exercise always makes me feel really good. Definitely recommend for those in the London area.

The bump

And finally an update on my belly - this is the bump at 25 weeks. I can see what my yoga teacher means about needing to sort out that dip in my spine. Must tuck that tailbone down! (and yes, btw, that is a sporran on the wall - B is Scottish and it was hanging around the house so I hung it there one day, as is my style of 'tidying up' - i.e. just kind of moving things around - and it's stuck there ever since.)

Smile!

2010-04-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

Just got an email with the title 'why can't my holiday snaps look like this?' and this pic attached...

Hilarious. Made me smile anyway - hope it does you too.

Etsy roundup - jewellery

2010-04-18T02:00:00.000-07:00

Another collection of lovely handmade loot from the labyrinthine realms of Etsy. Concentrating on jewellery this time...

I like this pendant from yoola a lot. Even more, I like the fact that she sells pdf patterns for her unique crocheted wire products on her shop too, so budding craftistas can create their own. How much fun...

I like the natural feel to these leaf-inspired earrings from Liz Kennedy. Check out her shop for lots of very classy silver pieces.

This is very cute isn't it? And kind of clever. A bow made of recycled glass. I like that a lot. Lots more recycled glass products at Fox and Clover.

These are both from eninaj, whose shop I love browsing. She does some amazing stuff with leather cut with lace-patterns, which is very unusual. But my favourites are these very modern and interesting pieces - a brass and leather bracelet and architecturally-inspired gold earrings.

This gorgeous Hawthorn cluster necklace by Abigail Percy would make any outfit look special, I think. It's super super pretty.

I'm a big fan of rose gold, and am completely enamoured with this rose gold, opal set ring. It's classic enough to go with everything, but really unusual and intriguing with those hollowed-out bands at the same time. I love it. From artisan look.

And finally, I think this simple but bold pendant by Mischief by Loki would be another piece which you could wear with virtually anything, and which would work really well to brighten up the plain and quite dull clothes I usually wear to work. I like the weightiness it looks like it has.

Have you come across any etsy (or other handmade) treasures recently?

Etsy roundup - ceramics

2010-04-15T02:30:00.000-07:00

I've been trawling etsy for more goodies again (work is getting on my nerves and it's the perfect late afternoon time-wasting/relaxation technique I find)...

There were so many tempting lovelies, I decided to separate into categories. Today I'll show ceramics; more categories should follow (unforeseen interruptions to my procrastination sessions notwithstanding!)
1. yogagoat's hibiscus mugs. I love the solid chunky shape of these - just like my favourite tea mug - and the pretty colours. There are a whole host of other patterns and some stunning patterned plates in the store.

2. Not strictly ceramics - this plant pot is made from concrete! Which appeals to me and my clumsy nature as I'm assuming that would be pretty sturdy. I think this would look cute on a patio or terrace with other random pots in similar shades. From impure vessels.

3. These dinner plates from Cloudwest really appeal to me - simple but with a satisfying weight (I imagine) and curve. There's also enough dip there to hold some serious sauce - we only have one deep plate that is perfect for stews and other saucy dishes and I wish I had more.

4. Two gorgeous pieces from Kim Westad - a vase and bowl. I love the lines and the pattern like little bubbles fizzing all over the surface.

5. And finally, I'm a real fan of the colours on these big cups - cappuccino, soup, cereal, hot chocolate; all sorts would be suitable for these beauties from JD Wolfe.

More elementary sewing

2010-04-13T04:14:00.000-07:00

I'm really not a very good sewer. (Is that a word? As in one who sews, not the thing that transports sewage...) I get impatient with all the measuring and pressing, which really seems to be the most important part, and then I get on the machine, and it feels a little like trying to control a wayward puppy - everything just bouncing along towards the end helter skelter. My lines are rarely straight.

There's a little part of me that thinks I ought to just quietly lay the sewing ideas aside and concentrate on getting better at the things I can do. But then I really really yearn to be not just a competent sewer, but a good one, one who can make myself dresses just how I want them and create clothes that will fit and last (in my dreams, I can whip up beauties such as this from the very desirable Sarah Seven shop on Etsy...). Absurdly unrealistic as that may be, I find myself slowly persevering at my most basic skills, hoping somehow some super sewing skills will unexpectedly blossom.

So, I got down to cushion covers the other weekend. I'd found some lovely patterned linen from the Cloth House (thanks for the tip on that to London Zest) and I had a book from the library. It instructed me to cut two pieces of cloth - one a square with sides equal to my cushion plus 3 cm, and one the same but with an extra 15 cm on the width. The larger was cut in half and the two halves got one hem each. These then get put overlapping, right sides together on the square, and the lot is sewn together. As Alexander the Meerkat would say, seemples.

Except for when you get a bit lackadaisical with the cutting out and end up with not quite a square... I learned my lesson and recut.

And finally... corners snipped, cover turned inside out, hems pressed and cushion inserted, it actually looked pretty decent and I felt quite proud to have made something I can actually use. Not quite a master seamstress but not bad for now.

Vegan chocolate cake

2010-04-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know I'm a little late for an Easter-themed cake, but after a manic week at work I'm finally catching up on some posting, and I really wanted to tell you about this lovely recipe I used for these cupcakes, which were served up to general appreciation for brunch desserts on Good Friday.

They're from Joy the Baker, which I've only just discovered, and is an absolute delight. I made two of her oatmeal banana cakes this weekend because the first one was so good it didn't even last a day.

This particular recipe is unusual in that there are no eggs or butter, and instead avocados provide the fat. I've made vegan cakes with tofu before, and I've made cakes with potatoes, parsnips, beetroots and carrots in, but never seen an avocado recipe. My curiosity was piqued!

I liked to let people eat them first before telling them what was in them; in my experience people can be ever so prejudicial against vegetables in their bakery products. They were pretty impressed at the alchemy. As was I. They rose beautifully, produced lovely shiny cracked crusts and were soft and moist and springy to eat. Lovely.

Free seeds!

2010-03-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit swamped at work recently, so no free time to play with the blog. Lining up exciting posts on almost-perfect pastry, more rudimentary sewing, misshapen crockery and there would be a cardamom brioche one too if it hadn't turned out like a lump of lead...

In the meantime, just wanted to point you in the direction of this offer from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/digin/apply_for_seeds/

Put down your name and address and they'll send you mixed salad, courgette, french bean, basil and carrot seeds with a booklet on how to grow them. For free!!!

We have outside space for the first time in years in our new flat, and I am eager to get some soil and seedlings up on the terrace, so perfect easy way for me to get back into growing. I can't wait...

A treasure trove...

2010-03-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

So this imaginary café, I'd like it to be a place you can buy nice bits and bobs, as well as be nourished with yummy wholesome food. There's a lovely little place round the corner from us in Kentish Town, MAP studio and café, which was shut for refurbishment last time I looked sadly, but they sold a whole range of pottery there, which they also served the food and drinks in (see photo, left, from their website). I really liked the look of it and the fact you could read about its maker and browse it there. (I can't remember the name of the collection for the life of me though!)

I also like Frevd in Covent Garden, with its ever changing art displays you can purchase. It makes the place interesting, and I like the idea of being able to take home something you fall in love with whilst eating a toasted sandwich (at which Frevd are rather good; see also their milkshakes and evening cocktails).

So, I envisage my café with art works on the wall, and little displays in nooks and crannies; just a few interesting bits and pieces you can buy. Probably quite present-suitable stuff; pottery, jewellery, accessories, kitchen items, small home furnishing type items. And from local independent creators.

I'm rambling... the point is, that all this musing was inspired by being on Etsy today, browsing through lovely handmade things, looking for things to put in the present cupboard*. So I thought I'd share my favourite picks today - the kinds of things I think would be absolutely super in the imaginary café:

From left to right:

Rosebud necklace by Calexandra, who also has lovely hairclips and brooches
Wool necklaces by Kjoo
Seahorse vase by oneblackbird

I always find Etsy incredibly difficult to browse, tending instead to come across good finds through blogs; if you've found anything lovely recently I'd love to know; please do tell!...

* my attempt to mitigate my terrible habit of never getting people birthday presents on time because I can't find the 'perfect' thing; I snap up lovely things as soon as I see them, then see if there's anything in there that's suitable when it comes to birthdays. It's a new initiative so yet to see if it really works...

Woo! I made something I can wear.

2010-03-09T08:33:00.000-08:00

So, the weekend just gone, I finally got round to hemming the A-line skirt I made in the Make Lounge workshop I posted about a little while ago. Miraculously it fits snugly around emerging bump and managed to withstand a day at work. 100% cotton fabric is very creasable though and could do with a lining. Still, feel quite impressed that I finally managed to sew something passable. Now, I need to maintain my budding sewing skills and find a new project to start on...

29 gifts - week 1 report

2010-03-03T01:00:00.000-08:00

A little while ago, I mentioned I was thinking of taking on the 29gifts project. The idea being - very simply - to give something every day for 29 days.

So, a week's gone past and I thought I'd update on how it's going. I've been making notes/scribbles on paper (above) which I'll transcribe below...

Day 1: I give positive comments to all the bloggers of blogs I enjoyed today. At first it feels like a cheat, especially as I am putting my link on hoping they might visit me. But when I read them back I feel a little warmer and hope the recipients do too.

Day 2: I took cakes to work but Andy bought some in too so I took mine home again... I sent a birthday message to an old friend instead.

Day 3: I have had emails from birthday friend and a blog I commented on - it's coming back to me already! BUT, I fail to give anything today :-(

Day 4: A packet of coffee for a work friend who has shared her cafetiere with me recently.

Day 5: My attention and patience is my "gift" today. Which makes for a nice dinner to end the week. Coffee-friend thanks me and there's new sweet comments on my blog - I am definitely feeling the ripples from my small actions.

Day 6: I take some bits and pieces to the charity shop. Does that count? I feel like I miss an opportunity when I chat to a lovely woman in pregnancy yoga who is due to give birth in two days time and fail to wish her good luck at the end of the class.

Day 7: Dinner cooked for sister and brother in law. I offer a DVD I've watched and don't want anymore but sister's already watched it so dinner will just have to count for today!

So, my observations at the end of week 1:

Firstly, it occurred to me that a lot of the 'giving' I was doing was plain old-fashioned politeness and it shocked me what a lack of politeness I ordinarily had. It's not 'scatterbrained' to miss birthdays, as I often do, it's rude. And it's only polite to thank kind sharing with a gift, and to thank bloggers for the enjoyment and inspiration they provide. One of the best 'gifts' I received all week was when I accidentally bumped into a woman walking down the escalator on the tube, and she turned and smiled and said 'don't worry!'. And, honestly, just that small gesture, made me smile and relax and feel more amenable all evening. And that's just politeness. It's not just me that is lacking in that - 99% of tube travellers act outright rude to each other. But that is no excuse for me to do so too.

Secondly, it was clear through the whole week that the benefit was mostly mine. Whether it was the delight of receiving my own comments through my increased commenting, or enjoying a meal with my boyfriend more through making an effort to be patient and listening, or feeling relieved at de-cluttering the shelf of the stuff that went to the charity shop. I can't be sure whether the gifts' recipients benefited but I know I definitely did.

So, I'll update in another week and see what else comes out of this experiment. One thing is for certain; this should not just be a 29-day blip in my life. Giving, in the form that it's taking so far, is not like a cherry atop a perfectly good cake - pretty and delicious but essentially just an optional extra - it's like the proper butter and eggs and other ingredients that you need to make the cake. Without it it's a hydrogenated vegetable oil and e-numbers cheap and nasty cake - kind of looks the same but it doesn't have any goodness, any delightfulness. The cake will hold up but it will make your mouth feel nasty and always slightly underwhelmed. The proper butter cake will fill you with a little touch of happiness.

I always know it's time to bow out when my metaphors are getting this dodgy...

Blue skies and purple cakes

2010-03-02T08:37:00.000-08:00

Woo! Two days in a row now I have walked out the front door to greet not the familiar grey drizzle of the last few months, but brilliant blue skies, and even - craziness of craziness - the weak warmth of winter sunshine... Oh, what a difference it makes.

(NB - no, you eagle-eyed readers who are wondering where the beach is in London town, those photos aren't of London today; just the only blue sky photos I happen to have on this computer - of the west coast of Scotland, Andalucia and Queensland. )

After feasting my eyes on the fabulousness of the cupcakeblog I posted about on Friday, I decided in the end that attempting something complicated would only end in disappointment and a sugary mess. So I decided to follow Baby, Picture This' lead and go with plain vanilla cupcakes, using The Hummingbird Bakery recipe she linked to. And I'm glad I did. They were springy and soft and perfectly cupcake-y. I added a bit of lemon zest to the recipe and iced with blackcurrant icing (butter icing with blackcurrant jam and lemon juice) which made for a deliciously sharp contrast to the sweetness. Scrumptious (although not nearly as pretty as BPT's! - I'm no artistic icer)

Although I've confessed to not being a big cupcake fan, these would definitely earn a place in the imaginary café.

I also made the peanutbutter and chocolate cookies over on Color Me Green, and thought I had photos to put here, but must have got too distracted eating them - definitely one of the best biscuits I have ever made (I normally find biscuits disappointing). Salty and crumbly and chocolatey and all-round good. Mmmmmm.....

oh my goodness

2010-02-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

Grape Cupcake by Cup Cake Blog, as below

I just came across Cup Cake blog via Baby, Picture this...

Goodness

I'm not normally a big cupcake fan, but how can I not be seduced by all this amazingness? It's Friday afternoon and I have piles of work to do, but work shmork when there's browsing of this calibre to be done.

Happy weekends all!

Cafe Inspiration: Jikari, Granada

2010-02-25T03:38:00.000-08:00

When I started this blog I thought one of the main items would be cafés I visited, loved, was disappointed by, admired etc. Using these examples to concrete my ideas of what the Imaginary Café would be. What works and what doesn't. What must I have and what can I do without. That kind of thing...

But I haven't been café-ing much recently, and I never seem to have my camera on me when I do (and THEN, when I do I get all shy and then just take covert snapshots that make the place look really boring - see above)...

Anyhow, I do have this pic of a place we found when staying in Granada last September. Granada was very very hot and I liked it a lot but not as much as Seville, although maybe that's only because we spent an entire afternoon in Seville eating The Most Delicious Dried Jamon I've Ever Tasted and sipping beers and that's just about as perfect an afternoon as any I can think of.

Anyhow, back to Granada. This little place was right next to our hotel and we spied it as we trundled past in 40C heat with our suitcases, feeling hungry. It looked open and relatively welcoming, so once checked in, we popped back to try its wares.

The seats weren't all that comfortable and the murals slightly overwhelming. There were plastic laminated menus and you couldn't see out the windows. But there are three reasons why we liked it and why it deserves a place in my Hall of Café Inspiration:

1. The Menu
Basically, lots of stuff on toast. I had avocado on toast and the toast was crunchy, the avocado was ripe and tasty. It cost about €1.50 and it was perfect. I LOVE a place that serves good toast. And I love a menu which offers you simple, cheap options done really well. You could also get combos of eggs, cheese, tomatoes, jamon, all sorts of other stuff on little tostadas. AND they had milkshakes.

2. The Coffee was Good
This is an absolute necessity. The coffee must be good. I'm not a huge coffee-drinker like my boyfriend, who is constantly fueled by the stuff, but I know the difference between a good cup and a bad cup and I just wouldn't go back to a bad coffee place.

3. I liked the feel of it
eh, the mural's not my style, nor most of the decor, but they had a little blurb on the back of their menus about Jikari, this cactus-derived kind of psychoactive drug I think (my Spanish isn't all that super) and how it encouraged creativity, and that was the vibe they wanted to create in their little space. And I really liked that. There were lots of happy, talking, lazing people in there, and the staff were friendly. It had a nice feel. And that is also, definitely, essential

Monday

2010-02-22T01:55:00.000-08:00

Image: Claire Hartigan, Valentine Bears, via Elphicks

So, how was your weekend? I hope it was a good one.

Mine?:

Sunshine! - We had one day of glorious sunshine on Saturday. It was back to grey and rain by Sunday but so nice to be reminded that the sky can be blue.

Baking, smitten kitchen style - I don't know how I've never looked at smitten kitchen before - I've seen it linked to on enough blogs. Anyhow, I was thinking about making homemade pizza on Friday, and found a pizza dough recipe on sk, and then saw these little lovelies, which just about made my heart jump with glee - I'm not a big cupcake fan but they looked stylish, sumptuous and intriguing. My version were not nearly as pretty, but still very very chocolatey good. The pizza was glorious too.

More bread - using the recipe I posted last week, but this time with toasted mixed seeds. I'd really like to get into a weekly bread habit if I can. Last week's batch lasted perfectly just up to the weekend.

Columbia Road Market in the rain - Haven't been for years, but it's always nice to wander around the flower stalls and eclectic little East London shops. Unfortunately the weather was beastly, so we spent most of our time trying to dry out and warm up, but I was really glad to come across Elphicks, a lovely art shop, which I have now discovered has an equally lovely blog. I've used one of their cards as the image at the top of this post - does that not make you smile?

Thinking about giving - Wife in the City's got me thinking about a project I read about a little while back - the idea is to give something every day for 29 days; anything from a cake to an old piece of furniture to a smile to a compliment to some time. I really think this is something worth doing and will endeavour to start today. Updates to follow.

But now, it is Monday, and about time I did some work I think...

Treacle scones

2010-02-19T00:51:00.000-08:00

Aaannd, back to baking...

Following on from Saturday's breadfest, on Sunday I just felt like scones. Not a common feeling, but it was definitely scones I was wanting to make. So I turned to my new favourite cookbook for a recipe - it's called the Glasgow Cookery Book and it's gloriously no-nonsense. I like books with no pictures; just recipes. I love to read my penguin paperbacks of Rick Stein and Jane Grigson in bed - I like to imagine the recipes, rather than to look at impossibly perfect creations that I'll never quite create (though I do have some lovely books with pictures I'm fond of too).

The GCB takes the no-pictures approach to its limits, with virtually no descriptions either. It's all kind of: "mix ingredients, bake for 20 minutes" brief and to the point. A welcome change from some recipes which adjectivise every ingredient and interject with metaphors about the mixture and so on. It covers absolutely heaps from basics to some quite complex stuff. There's some quaintly old-fashioned stuff in there but some really interesting recipes too. And the baking section is top-notch.

So, I tried their treacle scones. Intriguing, I thought, I've never tried a treacle scone before. But treacle tastes a bit like sunshine or hugs I think. It's undeniably warm.

And they were lovely - soft, big crumb, nicely lightly spiced, warmly treacly and perfect with some raspberry jam.

RECIPE (for a small batch - just 4-8)
100 g self raising flour (or 100g plain flour plus 1/2 tsp bicarb and 1 tsp cream of tartar)
1 tsp mixed spice
salt
12.5g butter
1/2 tbsp treacle
milk, to mix

Mix dry ingredients. Rub in butter until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Mix in treacle and milk until a smooth pliable dough is formed. Roll out (I did mine only about 1cm think, though it advised 2cm I think) and cut.

Place on a greased and floured tray and bake for about 10-12 minutes at 200C until browned on top.

Lovely.

Apocalypse Angst

2010-02-18T08:51:00.000-08:00

Have you seen that film 'The Road' yet? Based on the Cormac McCarthy novel, it follows a man and his son as they journey through the bleakest possible imagining of a future earth. It's relentlessly grey and desperately despairing. My boyfriend thought it a great film, I just couldn't cope with the grimness; 'why would anyone want to live like that?' I thought, and the whole way through I was tensely willing for the relief of death for the two main characters.

Anyway, there's a scene in it where they find some food in a bunker and they can finally feast. They're eating tinned prunes by lamplight and it must be glorious after such deprivation that they have had. But they know it's going to run out and there'll be nothing again.

I was eating tuna and salad last night and for some reason I was suddenly struck by the feeling that that tuna was like the man and the boy's tinned prunes. That it came from a cupboard which would soon be bare, and whilst I sat there happily eating the stocks would be falling and falling and soon there would be none, with whatever horrors come with that.

It hasn't helped that I've been reading Straw Dogs by John Gray, which is a really interesting and thought-provoking book, but also very bleak. It argues fiercely against any ideas of progress, of the human race bettering itself, finding a way to live within its means, because, it says, the species is not a 'thing', it is just the name for all us individuals en masse. And if you look at individual humans they are not made to be like that, to work out the way to a better future for everyone and to follow it.

It likened us to an infection that the earth has. It pointed out that population growth can be a survival strategy (e.g. for Kurds and Palestinians). Claimed that we were animals and nothing more.

And I think because I've brought about the future birth of another human being, all this was weighing on me more heavily than normal. 'What kind of world am I letting you in for?', I thought, to that little thing inside me, happily ignorant in its amniotic bath.

And then I listened to programmes on how children see awful things on the internet, and watch TV in beds so much they get diseases from sleep deprivation. And how young children use mobile phones, and the crashing newness of the world this one will know as How Things Are shocked me too. I wanted to move to the country and pretend it was the 19th century. Whittle reeds or something; cut off the outside world. And wait for the apocalypse.

I am feeling slightly better today. Less hopeless and pessimistic. I reflected on how almost everyone at every stage in history probably felt this fear of the future and a clinging desire for the supposedly simpler past. I guess it just means I'm getting old. I stood in line at the supermarket and pretended it was 2050 and I was wistfully dreaming of when I stood in line at supermarkets and everything was simple.

Sure, there are very real problems linked to overpopulation and our plundering of our resources. And new technology can be difficult to negotiate. But, I'll cope with the latter when I come to it, and as for the former, I'm convincing myself again that it's better to be delusionally optimistic and feel like I am doing something by recycling my tins or buying less clothes or whatever, than to be nihilistic and panicky about it and think it all hopeless.

So, vent over - next, back to baking...

(PS - it helps that I read this review of Straw Dogs which lets me see how biased and absurdly negative it is http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/sep/07/highereducation.news2)

My favourite bread recipe

2010-02-14T14:13:00.000-08:00

This weekend was quiet. I've felt tired, my brain vague and struggling, energy low, concerned about a friend, needing quietude and the self-permission to be quite slow and un-productive.

I baked because it felt like what I needed to do. First, Saturday, I devoted three hours to proper bread (after last week's soda disaster). This is a tried and tested recipe. When I ate it toasted for breakfast Sunday morning, I must have exclaimed at least four times how incredibly good it was. It tastes like goodness, like comfort and warmth and love. I really truly am besotted with good bread and this is good bread.

This is a recipe I've done so many times I haven't needed to refer to a book for ages. It's super-easy; do it once or twice and you too might feel moved to commit it to memory...

You take 1 cup of yoghurt (I use various size cups to measure, it doesn't matter that much - about the size of an individual yoghurt pot works well)

And add 1 and a half cups of warm water (I mix boiled with cold)

Mix and test with a finger - it should be lukewarm - too hot and the yeast will die; too cold and it will never develop. If it's too hot, let it cool a bit before adding yeast

Add one sachet or one tablespoon dried fast-action yeast

Then six cups of flour (I use 2/3 wholemeal and 1/3 white, or all wholemeal depending on how I feel and what flour is available) and a pinch of salt.

Mix flour in until it becomes something like a dough

Tip it out and knead on a floured surface for at least 15 minutes until pliable and starting to show little wrinkles

Put in an oiled bowl, cover and leave in a non-draughty place to rise for about an hour until doubled in size - it's ready if you push it with a finger and the dent stays there; i.e. it doesn't expand to fill it out

Punch it down to knock out the air, knead a little more, and shape into loaves. If you want to make any additions, make them at this point. I made one plain loaf and one walnut one.

Put on a greased and floured tray, cover and leave to rise until about doubled again - about 40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180C, pop the loaves in and bake for about 40 minutes until brown on top and sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom with your knuckle.

Leave to cool on a rack.

(The short version of that is this: 1 cup yoghurt; 1.5 cups water; 1 sachet yeast; 6 cups flour; 15 minute knead; 1 hour first rise; 40 min second rise; 40 min bake at 180C)

NB - I thought I'd bought natural yoghurt, but when I went into the fridge discovered it was actually Apricot flavoured. Not wanting to go to the shop, I just chucked that in, and happily it was a great success - no apricot flavour, but I think the little bit of sugar helped it rise nicely and gave it a very slightly sweet taste. Can't say for sure whether it was down to the yoghurt, but it was one of the best loaves I remember making.

This is of course a very basic loaf. To see a different league of breadmaking altogether check out Clotilde's recent post on sourdough baguettes - how amazing do they look!? Sourdough is definitely on my to-do list of things to try.

I was going to move on to treacle scones but this post is already too long so I'll leave that for another one...

Degrees of (baking) success

2010-02-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

So, I'm not quite sure why I have such an urge to keep blogging about things which hover between disappointing and disaster, but such an urge I appear to have.

As a prelude to a post on this weekend's baking - which actually was quite a success - I present last weekend's baking - a bit of a wash-out all round. I would have posted last week, except I was on a 'leadership' course, where I was encouraged to reflect on teamwork, my 'core self', and the difference between leading and managing. Most of it such utter nonsense that all it left me with was a steely determination never to end up in any job where I have to mix with anyone who spouts that kind of jargon non-ironically.

Anyway, back to the baking poor show. First, there was soda bread. I hadn't the requisite three hours for my usual bread recipe, so I tried my hand at soda bread for the first time - instead of yeast as a raising agent, it uses baking powder so is a lot quicker to knock up. It looked ok, it smelt reasonable, but when cut it crumbled into little chunks, and if you managed to somehow end up with a slice, and even to get some butter somewhere on top of it, when eaten it reminded me more of cake than bread. We ate most of it so not a total disaster, but somewhere near.

Next came the Seville Orange Tart. I couldn't resist buying some Seville oranges, as you only really see them in the shops for one month a year. But, still having marmalade in the cupboard from last year's batch (which was great - see recipe here), I didn't feel like any more and plumped for Moro's Seville orange tart instead. It was on the next page from a dark chocolate and apricot tart my sister's made several times to great acclaim, so I was hoping this might also turn out to be a winner.

Alas not. My orange curd looked promising, but once in the oven it rudely refused to colour and set before separating, and on removal from the oven looked like a lumpy, greasy, spotty mess. It tasted better than it looked, but just like a lemon tart, so I couldn't really see the value in using seville oranges. I'd rather perfect a really good tarte au citron. Disappointing.

The tart required 6 egg yolks, and I don't know what else to do with excess whites but to meringue them, so that was the third project of the weekend. Here's where this entry segues neatly into next, because both include a recipe I have committed to memory. With meringues it is this:

To each egg white, 50g caster sugar
Whisk egg white until stiff
Whisk in half of sugar bit by bit
Fold in remaining half of sugar
Bake in very low oven about 1 1/2 hours

Now, these weren't in and of themselves a failure - they looked quite perky and magical, and I experimented with coconut in some, and lime and lemon zest in others, both of which were quite pleasing. They were crucnhy and sticky and chewy. All good stuff. It's just - I don't really get meringues.

On our course we divided people up into introverts/extroverts, intuiters/sensers, thinkers/feelers etc. What would have been more interesting I feel would have been to divide us up into those that would buy a meringue and those that wouldn't.

I see them in bakeries and cafes looking perfectly delightful, but I don't understand why you'd want one over a cake or a flapjack or a toasted teacake. I mean, they don't go with tea, surely! They're really just a way of eating neat sugar, and they splinter all over the place, leaving you with little sugary crumbs everywhere (or is that just me and my appalling meringue-eating habits?...) Do you understand the appeal??!! If so, please do enlighten me...

Experiments in Rye

2010-02-02T06:04:00.000-08:00

So, this will be terribly dull but I'm going to expose you to my evening meal thought processes...

It was a week or so ago and I started thinking about dinner around lunchtime, as usual. Throughout the afternoon I was thinking about the half a head of broccoli languishing in the fridge, and about what vegetables might be cheap and available at the shops. Winter - root vegetables right? I thought about carrots and celeriac and swede and turnip and parsnip and about roasting, mashing, soup, sauces.

But nothing was really calling out to me. It was when I was on the tube that I suddenly thought about cauliflower - quite a wintery vegetable I think, and one that I love when it's roasted - crispy and sweet, quite elevated from the usual boiled cauli one comes across.

But what with? It's nice with a tomato and caper sauce, maybe some potatoes on the side. But something about capers wasn't sitting right with me that evening.

Half way down a rain-sodden street towards the food shop, I hit upon lentils - little nutty green ones; perfect with roast cauliflower. But what else, what else? Lentils plus vegetable does not a meal make...

I reached the shop and popped in some butter, some bread, eyed up the posh and delicious but seriously expensive apple juice, as I always do, and managed to walk away from it. I came to the grain shelves, and quinoa presented itself, and I thought, 'Hello!'. Just recently I'd read about a lovely sounding red quinoa salad. And I've had success in the past with bulghur wheat salads.

But the quinoa was nearly £4! I held it a while, realised that was absurd, and replaced it on the shelf. My eyes alighted upon some other grains I hadn't cooked with before - spelt and rye and some stranger things I can't recall... The rye was a steal at under a £1 and only required 40 mins cooking.

So, rye, lentils... I headed for the veg. Disappointingly dwarfish cauliflowers led me instead to think about squash - another good partner for lentils. And the broccoli in the fridge could go nicely with all that too. A little smattering of sundried tomatoes, perhaps something crunchy - hazelnuts? pine nuts? Finally I had a kind-of recipe sorted!

Seriously, if I didn't think about food all day long I don't know what my head would be full of...

Anyway, the rye was a huge success. Easy - just boil for 40 minutes (I used 1 cup rye to two cups of water, which was a good proportion, and about enough for 3-4 servings) and really nutty and satisfying.

I added the lentils to the rye after about 10 minutes - 1/2 cup with another cup of water - and cooked together to save space.

Meanwhile, I roasted parboiled squash and broccoli florets with some dried tomatoes I'd rehydrated in boiling water (these burnt - I should have just added them at the end!)

The whole lot was mixed together with a load of olive oil and a little red wine vinegar, and topped off with an avocado.

It seems great minds think alike, as Julia posted a delicious sounding similar kind of dish recently, with farro, another grain I've never cooked with, but am now keen to try. I definitely think her suggestion of a squeeze of lemon juice would have been ideal for my version. Perhaps a little parmesan too.

The possibilities with this kind of thing basically are endless - a grain, a pulse, a softer vegetable (roast squash, avocado, roast peppers, courgettes... ), something for crunch (red cabbage thinly sliced, pomegranate, pine nuts, celery...), perhaps even some cheese (feta, parmesan...), and a simple dressing. And there you have an easy-ish, healthy and really delicious meal (the leftovers of which are perfect for lunchboxes too!)

New kitchen!

2010-01-25T06:49:00.000-08:00

We've spent the last two weekends moving house. First, just the essentials came across and we revelled at how we echoed in the big new space like pinballs in a giant game. Then we spent a day packing and a day shifting boxes into a van, out of a van and into our lovely new space (I of course didn't do much lifting or shifting - bizarre to be incapacitated when you don't feel as though you should be...)

So, there's still a lot of unpacking to do. We are amazed and slightly disgusted by the acquisitions we've amassed. But the kitchen stuff is all in its new cupboards and I have already been baking. We've gone from having a tiny kitchen with no windows and very little space, to having this:

There's space! Light! Lots of surfaces! Loads of cupboards! Chairs and a table! I've been listening to a lot of Radio 4 and pottering around. Knitting at the table whilst potatoes bake; taking the time to wash up as I go along; spending all evening in the kitchen - that kind of thing. It's absolutely lovely.

This chocolate sandwich cake I baked yesterday, as a celebration of having all the baking stuff finally moved in. It's nothing spectacular - I won't bother giving you the recipe as I don't think it's worth it, but it comes from my newest cookbook, which produced some super scotch pancakes a couple of weekends ago - I will post the recipe for these soon.

And finally, here's me in the new space, looking very pleased with myself, and showing off my little 14-week bump (which I have to admit just looks like I do normally after a big meal and sticking my tummy out!):

The Make Lounge

2010-01-19T05:56:00.000-08:00

So, yesterday evening I spent three hours tussling with zipper foots, interfacing, unruly zigzag stitching and a whole host of other sewing vocabulary that previously read like a foreign language to me.

I was, with 9 other women, attending the second part of an A-line skirt workshop at the Make Lounge in Islington. The concept is social, short workshops on all things crafty in a friendly and stylish atmosphere.

I bought a second-hand sewing machine last year, and leapt into trying to sew without any real idea of what I was doing. Unsurprisingly my attempts were a little disappointing, to say the least. The Make Lounge appealed because it only required a one or two week commitment rather than the longer courses that I'd found at local colleges or sewing shops. The idea of nibbling and drinking while you learnt also appealed to me, so I signed up first for a cushion cover workshop.

That was pretty good. It turned out that the proffered snacks only extended to tea, warm Pinot Grigio and those little packets of biscuits you get in hotels, but we learned a lot, and I loved being able to take home something complete (and quite cute, if I say so myself) at the end of it.

This time - the A line skirt workshop - the sewing stepped up a notch, and I found a little streak of sewing rage emerging (not surprising given the tube rage, road rage, not-winning-at-board-games rage, people-who-don't-say-thankyou-when-you-hold-the-door-open rage, and various other afflictions I suffer). First of all my fabric was too light, and the zigzags wouldn't work. Then I found I hadn't got the right type of zip and I had to rip it all out and re-sew.

I started to feel a little bit like I was back in Mrs White's textiles class, circa 1995. Albeit, a textiles class with Lily Allen on the ipod, the aforementioned white wine, and a much lovelier teacher than Mrs White ever was. (Do they still do 'Textiles' at school btw? Ridiculous name really - I didn't learn anything about textiles, just how to do some dodgy batik and tie die).

However, when I finally got to take home an (almost!) finished skirt I did start to feel a small sense of accomplishment. My aim in taking the course was to equip myself to be able to read a simple pattern and to sew - properly - by myself. I think now I should be able to make something very simple to a decent standard.

So, rubbish snacks, nice environment (though pretty cramped!), nice teacher, ok teaching, pretty expensive, all-in-all though a worthwhile use of three hours and a good concept.

They've recently also expanded the little shop that fronts the workshop space, which is full of terribly trendy embroidery patterns and sewing books. They could do with adding a nice little café; somewhere people could stop by in the day and grab a juice and a flapjack after they've browsed books or patterns, or where they could get hot drinks and snacks from during or before doing a workshop. It would be full of people stitching, knitting, planning, discussing craft projects. Could be pretty nice.

I would love to have some kind of workshop space attached to the imaginary café. Or just to use the space after hours for classes, courses, clubs. Sewing requires a huge amount of equipment and materials, but there would be other easier things peripatetic teachers could use the place for. It would be nice.

See more Make Lounge workshops here: http://www.themakelounge.com/workshops

Picture from Make Lounge website, as above

nice chairs!

2010-01-11T06:16:00.000-08:00

This furniture set, sweetly named 'Seating for Eating' was featured in the FT weekend this weekend, and I don't know what it was about all that wood and straight lines but I just swooned.

I love it.

I know, it doesn't look especially comfortable on those little stools and the upright backs of the long chairs, but don't you think it's got a stark and simple kind of beauty?

Though I think The Imaginary Café is more likely to have a mish mash of second hand furniture that I can pull together, I would be quite quite delighted if it could have lovely looking 'Seating for Eating' like these.

Photos (and lovely furniture) from:

http://www.studioilse.com/productdesign/seating-for-eating/

Inspiration: Paris

2010-01-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

Three days in Paris to start the year. Absolutely freezing cold, but glorious food.

How lucky they are, Parisians, to have beautiful looking fruit and vegetables seemingly on every street, and to have markets full of such lovely wares as in the pictures here.

We pigged out a little bit. A perfect posh croque monsieur (goats cheese, another cheese and ham and the most delicious bread) for lunch. Steak, frites and tarte au pommes at Le Relais d'Entrecote (strange place, we both had been meaning to try for a while). A good meal in a Chinese/Thai restaurant. Bounteous salade nicoise. A smattering of chocolat chaud. Several pastries. Mmmmmmmm......

Above: an omelette stuffed with sauteed potatoes and lardons, and my poshed up croque monsieur. I adore the French for their salads. I like the lettuce tasty and the vinagrette vinegary. This was a perfect example!

PS - also; recommend the Musee Carnavalet, a lovely little museum which 'tells the history of Paris through Objets d'Art'. Incredible recreation of an Art Deco jewellers and lots of interesting old furniture and recreated interiors, as well as Paris related paintings and drawings. And free!

Tortilla

2010-01-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

I made my first proper tortilla the other night. They always seem such simple things, I was surprised at how much time and prep it took, but the end result was just about worth it and it's a marvellously cheap dinner.

The recipe I followed fairly faithfully from the first Moro book which I like but rarely use.

The first stage is preparing your onions and potatoes. I used 1 and a half medium onions and about 5 small-medium potatoes, which worked out well (I don't have scales, so I always have to estimate if the recipe gives me grams).

You slice both fairly thin, and then put the onions into fairly hot olive oil in a frying pan, turn the heat down and let them cook slowly for 30-40 minutes until they are dark and sweet and soft (stir every couple of minutes to prevent sticking).

Potatoes you can do in a deep fat fryer or - as I did - in a couple of inches of sunflower oil heated up in a big heavy-based pan. The oil should be hot enough to cook them but not too hot - they take about 20 minutes to get tender. Drain and reserve the oil once they reach this point.

(As an aside - I added rosemary and garlic to my oil thinking it would add a nice 'twist', but any flavour they imparted was completely overwhelmed by the sweetness of the onions, so it was pretty pointless. Don't skimp on the onion cooking by the way - without their deep flavour I think it would have been much the poorer).

Once your onions and potatoes are cooked, beat 5 eggs, and mix in the vegetables. Season.

Heat some olive oil until it's just smoking in a frying pan, then pour the mixture in with one hand whilst shaking with the other. This bit is fun! After about 3-4 minutes, once the underside is golden brown, put a plate on top of the pan, and carefully flip the whole lot over.

Put a little more oil in the pan and let it get hot, then slide the tortilla back in, runny side down. Breathe a sigh of relief as it all stays together.

3 mins more cooking and it should be cooked through.

I served mine with a hastily put together ratatouille-type-thing, and a simple salad. It was a pretty good dinner...

Happy New Year!

2010-01-04T06:07:00.000-08:00

I would think that 'readers' of this blog at the moment would be mainly of the imaginary variety, but I'd like to wish you anyway a very Happy New Year for 2010!

I am a real sucker for new year. For as long as I can remember I have been a planner, a list-maker and an improver. I love blank sheets and I love the promise of a better, newer, shinier me. I shouldn't fall for the seduction of new year's resolutions I know, because they never work, but my brain can't help itself. It starts out small, thinking maybe it could just commit me to sticking to my budgets. Then it thinks, oh and why not add yoga twice a week, because that's not so hard and I do really want to do it. And then I read something about Buy Nothing New promises and start thinking I'll maybe only buy food and nothing else new this year. Then I just get carried away, and things start popping up and being added to an imaginary list and before you know it I am vowing to swim twice a week; always cook from scratch; do my hair differently every day; smile at at least one person on the daily commute; wear high heels more; write letters the first tuesday of every month; host dinner parties; learn how to make hollandaise; sauce do a photo course; knit seven items; grow some vegetables on the terrace; read Seneca, and keep the bathroom clean!

It seems such a lovely vision, this organised, healthy, fulfilled life, that I get reluctant to give up these notions and to accept that I make these plans every single day of my life, and I have never yet in my 28 years had the right balance of time and willpower to feel like I am fitting in everything I mean to.

So, I think I should try and set intentions instead. Unlike resolutions which are focused on an end-goal and which you can either fail or pass at (most likely fail and become disspirited), intentions are ways of doing things, ways of being. And if you feel yourself slipping you refocus on it and get back on the path.

It's more difficult to set my intentions, because it's more inviting to think of the collectible and measurable achievements that my resolutions tend to be. But when I think about what is behind all of them, I can see some common threads:
- using my time wisely by doing things I know will make me feel happy and satisfied (e.g. going for a walk, knitting, phoning friends) rather than anxious and dissatisfied (watching TV, slobbing around)
- keeping myself and my environs in a manner which makes me feel pleased rather than a little depressed
- keeping up old and making new connections.

So, my intentions will be these:

- to pay attention to my need for creativity and fulfilling and energising activities
- to be open to others and open to connecting to others

For more on intentions see the following articles:
http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/1526
http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/926

Apple Chutney

2009-12-20T09:05:00.001-08:00

I love chutney. I love it most with fried breakfasts, but also on a good cheese sandwich, or with some nice ham and a salad. I've loved it since I can remember, though I rarely eat it nowadays.

The chutney I ate through my childhood was always homemade - normally green tomato or plum, the former a lighter, spicy relish; the latter dark and thick and tartly divine.

I love making chutney. Yes, it makes your house temporarily smell as though you have doused everything in vinegar, but you need no more technical skills than chopping and lighting the hob, and you get a satisfying sense of homeliness and country craft - preserving the overflow of fruits of the season (even if those same fruit you just picked up at the supermarket on your busy city street).

This apple chutney recipe I used, comes from one of my favourite books, The Country Kitchen by Jocasta Innes , which a good friend brought for me from a second hand shop a few years back. I read it in bed, enjoying disconnecting from my London life by reading about how to make cheese, or cure meats, or make wine from hedgerow fruits. It's nostalgic and old-fashioned and comforting.

The instructions are as easy as this:

First, assemble your ingredients. I made a relatively small batch and used:

3 medium onions, diced

1 knob of fresh ginger, finely choppedd

1 tbsp salt

2 long red chillis, finely chopped

1 tbsp brown mustard seed, toasted and bashed

200 g dark brown sugar

7 medium Bramley apples, cored and roughly chopped, but not skinned

200 g sultanas

400ml malt vinegar

Then, lump all your ingredients together in a big pot, bring to a boil and then simmer until dark brown and thick, stirring occasionally. This takes a while, so you can read or watch TV or whatever, safe in the knowledge that you are all the time being quite productive.

Wash your jars, and put upside down on an oven shelf in a very low oven to dry and heat for about an hour before potting. Cut squares of greaseproof paper to go between jar and lid (if you don't have proper pickling/chutney jars the vinegar will erode most ordinary metal lids. I just used a collection of old jars we keep in the cupboard for this kind of reason.

When it's ready, pot in to the jars hot from the oven and cover.

I'm thinking a little homemade chutney could come in handy in the café if I wanted to do a little cheese platter...

Let me tell you a little bit more about myself...

2009-12-17T01:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I have these big pangs of regret. Especially if I'm walking across a bridge, with wind in my hair and music in my ears. I regret not taking up the place I was offered on Birkbeck's Dance Diploma, because my sodding boss said I might not always be able to leave work on time to get there. And I regret not having pursued the myriad creative dreams I once had. And not taking advantage of time and money I had in younger days to go and seek all those adventures in foreign lands that everyone else seemed to be doing.

But sometimes it seems to me perhaps 'doing' isn't so much my calling. I've often lamented being an observer, but actually I think I'm good at it. I never ended up publishing a novel before I was 18, as was my childhood plan, but I'm really good at the reading that inspired that plan. I can appreciate some lines with a kind of tangible thrill of love. I can get so caught up in worlds that everything looks different for a couple of days; even my internal narrative can be swayed by the prose patterns of whatever I'm reading.

And whilst I didn't 'do' much at university, opting for hours spent browsing bookshops and record shops rather than joining clubs or paragliding for charity, I think I really have idling down to an art. I can recall time spent in the simple pleasure of a good cup of tea, a pastry and a notepad with a huge amount of detail and a lot of fondness. I mused and sipped and wandered and wondered away most of my twenties. I spent hours sitting on benches and sofas and stools. I rejoiced in light on leaves and hidden puffs of smoke from chimneys. I loved evening sunlight on stone, I lay in parks for hours with half a baguette, a hunk of cheese and a paper, watching the grass, the beetles, the people.

I really appreciate the art of simple idling. And whilst I recognise too the importance of doing, and am really glad I have got better at doing (I got a job! I went on holidays! I did awesome courses!), I know that doing alone would be a robotic kind of life, and one that would really miss those moments of tea-aided relaxation, and cake-abetted introspection.

If I run a cafe, I'll be doing, doing, doing. But I'll be nurturing a lovely cocoon where others can choose to happily idle, dream, sit back and reflect and appreciate at their will.

Welcome!

2009-12-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

I'm an accountant who would like to run a little cafe. A cafe where you feel at home, where you really rate the coffee, where you love the homemade cakes. A cafe whose walls are adorned with the work of local artists, and where you can buy unique and more often-than-not eco-friendly crafts and handmade items. Where you can find out about what's going on in the community, where you can sit and dream and plan and scheme. A cafe where the herbs in the salad were grown in the little yard out the back, and where the bread comes from an organic bakery round the corner, and where I greet you and am pleased to make your acquaintance.

I work from 9 to 5 every day, earning enough to sustain a comfortable north London existence. I get home and I put my bag down and get into the kitchen to listen to Radio 4 and to chop and fry and boil and bake things. It's the most relaxing and satisfying bit of my day.

I don't think I can start on the real cafe just yet. For a start there's a little person growing in my abdomen, who I am reliably informed will eat up all my time and energy when - god willing etc. - they come out of the womb and into the world. Then there's the issue of capital.

But I can plan, and practice. I can build a repertoire of failsafe recipes. I can scout around for the kind of art and objects I want in the shop. I can seek inspiration in other lovely cafes. I can elicit your opinions and I can create a little space here where I build up my dream with more and more detail. And then maybe one day it will creep out of cyberspace and into this tangible old world.

I want the cafe to be as sustainable and low impact as possible. I want the food to be healthy and delicious. I would love - though I know I'm getting really ambitious now - for it to be attached to a studio where yoga and photography and dance and painting and all sorts are taught.

So this blog will be a collection of all those things I want to pull together - the food, the green issues, the decor, the art and craft, the other activities that might take place, as well as some idle chit chat from me as I lean across the counter when it's quieter and strike up a conversation.

Welcome!