Holly Golightly

I had a dinner date with Holly on Wednesday night, a regular monthly thing since we got back in touch late last year. We went to the Old Bookshop on North Street and it's a great little venue. A mish mash of rickety wooden tables, benches and chairs with bunting strewn across the ceiling. The whole place is stuffed with old style typewriters, rusting brass instruments and weird stuffed birds of prey but there's a really good vibe and a cracking tapas menu boasting local(ish) eats such as Brixton sardines, Exmouth mussels etc and I really like it in there.

But the company is what really makes it - as long as I've known her, Holly is the most upbeat, enthusiastic, positive and happy person and I really enjoy any time I spend with her. She doesn't complain, doesn't bitch and it's so refreshing. I'm so glad we're back in touch - if only to hear her boast about how loud she claps and how high she jumps.... :)

Hubble, Bubble, with not much Toil or Trouble...

I've become rather obsessed with my sourdough starter - I dumped the first one on Monday afternoon after it started leaching liquid with no bubbles to be seen and started again. Yesterday morning I was met with a rather large mass of bubbly stuff, having doubled overnight. I sought reassurance from my lovely chef friend, Amelia who said that it was fine and she had one that punched its way out of a glass jar once...

On returning home after a lovely dinner with Holly (more on that later), the starter was madly frothing like a rabid dog. Cue much cackling and rubbing of hands from me - I very much felt like Dr Frankenstein bringing his monster to life. I only hope that we end up with a more joyful tale and that the starter doesn't come to take revenge at some point...

That's one big mother!

It was Mother's Day yesterday and for the first time in a long time, I've not been back to Chez Wong to visit my Mum or cook her a meal. The main reason being because of my family situation at the moment (le sigh!), my old bedroom is now being used by my Dad and I refuse to sleep on the bed in the spare room. I might as well sleep on razorwire and potatoes for all the good it does your back. But this is one Mother's Day out of many more I'm sure and I'll make it up to her another time.

We did have Si's parents over for dinner though and I decided I would bake bread from scratch for the first time (apart from flatbreads - they don't count!). As always, not settling on learning to walk before I run, I dove head first into the culinary version of the 110m hurdles and decided to make focaccia using HFW's recipe.

Now, let me make this clear. Whenever we've had home made bread, I've only ever used the breadmaker. I've not even made pizza dough from scratch, much as I fancy twirling that round my head and shouting, 'Bella! Bella!' whilst I'm doing it. When HFW says the dough is gonna be sticky, it's going to be sticky. I kneaded and floured, floured and kneaded, scraped and floured, kneaded and scraped with Si looking on telling me I had worn the wrong top to make bread (I suppose wearing something with bell sleeves was a mistake) but then realised that I had no idea what the dough should feel like. Yes, it said silky and smooth in the book but just how silky was it meant to be? Like 200 thread count bed sheets or 800? I settled for a high end 4* hotel with a thread count of 400 and left it to rise.

45 minutes of gardening later (alright, Si gardening and me watching), I had a sneaky peek at my dough but was quite disappointed it hadn't ballooned to double the volume as HFW has said so I took a leaf out of Dan Lepard's marvellous 'Short and Sweet' book in which he advises to take 10 minutes as marvelous things can happen in the world of bread in that time. A rather large mug of tea later and the dough had risen a bit more and was ready for the knock back and second rise. I won't bore you with the rest of the process but will tell you that I can see why people love to bake their own bread. Not only do you get the pleasure of handling the rather tactile dough baby in all of it's squidgy glory but to have that delicious aroma wafting through and permeating every room of your house makes it all worth it.

Also, in honour of Mother's Day, I decided to get cracking with a sourdough starter or as it's otherwise known, 'The Mother'. It's basically a gloppy mix of flour and water which you continually feed with more flour and water. It fizzes and ferments away until you're ready to make your loaf when you take some of the starter mixture and make a sponge which is the base for the dough. I'm not a huge fan of sourdough but I'm totally in love with the concept that a jar of gunge that's living in your fridge, with a little maintenance can provide you with a daily loaf of bread.

Picture time!

I've been taking pics of my food for quite a while now and wanted to start a Flickr album so I could share them but as per my post yesterday, I haven't done it. Sooo, moving on from my post I've set it up. It's not fancy, I've not fiddled with the layout and I don't completely understand it but it's there in it's barest form. Et voila - http://www.flickr.com/photos/77945541@N07/

I haven't posted any pics using my super duper fancy camera yet, these are all from my I-Phone. Who said the 3S's camera was rubbish? You just need ample amounts of light and a steady(ish) hand. :)

xx

Making time = Making sense

Last night I spoke to one of my best friends who I haven't spoken to since Christmas. Not because of a falling out or because one of us had been on exotic adventures round the world. Our very lame excuse was that we've both been 'too busy'. During the phone call she was telling me how if anyone threw anything at her at work she'd deal with it and make it a priority but when it came to personal matters, even medical ones, they'd be put on the back burner until she had the time to deal with them.

Admittedly, I do the same. I fill in forms every day at work, I tot up expenses, I dot the i's and cross the t's, I chastise cameramen for not giving me the right name for air tickets etc but when it comes to me, I haven't even changed my name on my driver's licence yet and I've been married for nearly a year. There are medical insurance forms sat on the coffee table, a doctor's appointment I need to make, my CV to update, not to mention my friends who I don't talk to as much as I would like to. And look at this blog that I was so enthusiastic about setting up... #blogspotfail

I have no-one to blame but me and some strange in-built thought process that I'm not important enough to take priority. I will definitely try to make room in my life for me, even if it's only 15 minutes a week. And I'll start with that driver's licence (and more blogging!).

Lemon Drizzle Sunday...

As Marjorie Dawes once wisely said, 'Man, I love da cake!'

I'm not overly fussed with eating cake, I'm much more inclined to hunt down something savoury and crisp shaped but I do LOVE making cake. It's got something to do with the alchemy of it I think. Powdery flour, crunchy sugar, oily butter and slimy eggs can, with the right persuasion, turn into something wonderfully soft and fluffy and fill your house with the aromas of childhood.

While I can take or leave Victoria sponge, chocolate cake and carrot cake, I do have a soft spot for lemon cake either swirled with pretty, pale yellow frosting or dripping in sharp, sugary lemon syrup. This is my recipe, a combination of the two that I've made over and over again...

For the cake:

225g softened unsalted butter
225g golden caster sugar
225g self raising flour
4 eggs at room temperature, beaten well
1 tsp baking powder
Zest of 1 lemon & two tbsps lemon juice

For the drizzle:

2 tbsps golden caster sugar
2 tbsps lemon juice

For the frosting:

1 tub of marscapone cheese
5 tbsps lemon curd (home made or bought - my favourite shop bought is Waitrose's Zesty lemon curd)

1) Grease and line 2 x 8 inch sandwich tins and preheat your oven to 190 degrees (electric) / 175 degrees (fan).

2) Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy - this will take me about 5 minutes in my trusty Kitchen Aid or 10 minutes with my hand mixer

3) Slowly incorporate the beaten eggs into the butter and sugar, beating well after each addition. If the mixture begins to curdle, add a tablespoon of flour and mix well.

4) Carefully fold in the flour, baking powder, lemon zest and lemon juice until ingredients are well combined.

5) Spoon the mixture into your lined cake tins and level out the surface. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until the sponges are risen and golden and the tops spring back when pressed lightly.

6) While the sponges are still warm and in their tins, combine the ingredients for the drizzle. Prick holes in both sponges with a skewer or a fork and slowly spoon the lemony syrup over both. Leave to cool in the tins.

7) When ready to serve, pop one of the sponges on to a plate or stand and spread 2 tbsps of the lemon curd over. Combine the other 3 tbsps with the marscapone and spread half of this on top of the lemon curd. Top with the other sponge and slather the rest of the marscapone mix on top.

8) Devour

Tips:

* Don't skimp on the time you spend creaming the butter and sugar - this is where you start to incorporate all of that precious air into your batter, those extra couple of minutes beating your batter will ensure a lovely, fluffy sponge

* Obviously add more lemon curd into the marscapone mix if you want it extra zingy - it's all about personal taste!

* The best self raising flour I've found is Sainsburys own fine sponge flour and eliminates all need for a sieve (and let's face it, the less washing up I have to do, the better)

* Make sure your baking powder is in date or you might as well be throwing talc into the mix for all the good it'll do.

* Lick the spoon! This batter is particularly good at inducing yummy noises.

Peas = Peace?

As mentioned in the previous entry, I'm a total foodie. I love cooking for friends and family but it's a relatively new hobby. I've 'cooked' since I was a student but have only started honing my skills in the last few years or so. Student food was relatively simple - toad in the hole, pasta bakes and the ingenious one tray roasts which, I'll be honest, could probably have scraped a C+ in home economics, but not much else. I didn't realise garlic, salt and pepper could change a chicken so much until Nigella draped herself across my television screen. Nowadays I'm pretty confident in the kitchen and can hold my own in a tarragon vs oregano conversation but I will happily profess that I've still got a long way to go before I can call myself a master-chef.

My love of food comes from my entire family. My dad has been known to hotfoot it down to Chinatown in the middle of the night in his younger days to slurp up a bowl of noodles and my mother looks like she's won the lottery several times over every time she cracks a new recipe. My brother just has fun eating the products of everyone's labour... However, the primary reason I love food (I think) is because I find food = peace. And here, dear ones, is why.

I have grown up in a noisy, emotionally charged family who all lack a sense of tact and see no reason to hold back criticism even though taking it themselves is impossible so you may be forgiven for thinking that I mean peace as silence. In some ways I do but silence is normally the added bonus. The peace I mean is a truce.

Throughout my youth I was involved in countless shouting matches with both my parents and even now, they pull the, 'I'm-not-having-a-go-at-you-because-I-enjoy-it' card, adding a pinch of, 'I-know-I-said-I-wouldn't-mention-it-again-but-I've-got-to-say-something...' along the way but everything always seemed to come together peacefully at the dinner table as if someone had stationed a white flag above the centrepiece of steaming dishes. Dad would spoon things on to my plate - normally things with a lot of sauce that I would otherwise decorate the table mats pebble-dash style with and Mum would push the near empty bowl of broth towards me at the end of the meal telling me to drink it. Ed would eye the last piece of meat sat in the centre of its serving dish and put on a show of humble gratefulness when we all said he could and should finish it. Criticism would be forgotten and instead reassurances that the toyu pork had enough chilli in or that the stuffed tofu was tasty would take precedance.

Even when my parents had one of their huge arguements resulting in radio silence on both sides of for weeks, if we kids were at home, dinner was always served around the table. A swift jerk of the head from Mum towards the lounge where Dad can normally be found, lost in a programme about extreme fishing or silently committing how to build a set of collapsible, rotating shelves out of old floorboards, cotton wool and belly button fluff to memory, is the signal for one of us to alert him to the fact that dinner was ready and he should come and play happy families. It wasn't the most natural of circumstances but everyone always seemed to be quiet, and more importantly, happier when we were all eating together.

I cook now for Si, but I cook to show him I love him and want to take care of him and eventually, our family. I often grumble because he doesn't eat fish and he tells me to cook it for myself and he'll have something else but it's not something I'm happy doing. I don't want to be one of those families with three different meals on the go because it's disjointed and doesn't signify togetherness. I hope that I can distance myself from my family's method of using food as some form of truce and place more emphasis on the connection to love and happiness. So I hope that with further blog entries that I will share particular recipes or meals that conjour fantastic memories of love and laughter not just for me, but for anyone who reads this.

And for one girl, peas definitely don't equal peace. I can't stand the bloody things.