The Friday photo: please look after this bear
So after months of planning, #1, the Mad Professor, has gone to visit The Disreputable One and EnglishGrandma (not together, obviously) - they have five days of carefully planned custody each, plus two neutral territory days with my brother, the Lycheeni demon: Uncle I, Auntie L and the fleas (what? no of course I wouldn’t let him stay with Mad Uncle Alg. Are you mad? – he’ll no doubt take him out for alcohol and loose women somewhere during the trip).
The build up to this event was more than stressful, and involved me doing this approximately every five minutes:
‘So keep your passport and boarding card safe, and don’t talk to anyone, and don’t wander round the shops and lose track of time, just get to your gate quickly okay? And don’t put your bag down at all. And leave plenty of time to walk to your gate…’
#1: ‘Yup’
I was worrying that it wasn’t all sinking in, especially when, in the car on the way to the airport, his précis of the task in hand went:
‘and I have to go to the checkpoint place and, like, sign in yeah?’
Oh God.
So anyhoo, I took him to the airport, I signed a disclaimer at the Aer Lingus desk (basically a piece of paper that says ‘no of course I don’t give a shit about my child, otherwise why would I be letting him travel on his own all the way to England without anyone to look after him?, and if you happen to lose him or kill him well sod it, that’s fine with me, I didn’t want him anyway’), and walked him through to security.
We hugged. We kissed. We hugged again. I squeezed tighter. I might have detected a little tremble.
He went through.
He looked back at me with a slightly wobbly smile and all of a sudden didn’t look like the clever 14 year old Mad Professor, but like a little lost and slightly bewildered toddler again.
I sent him a text from the car park which said: ‘now remember, don’t go shopping, just get to your boarding gate, it shuts at 4.30′.
No reply.
I send another: ‘oy. Are you at your bloody gate or not?’
Finally the phone beeps:
‘Yeah mam. Of course. Lol.’
So I drive home, worrying, and by the time I get home he’s in the air (hopefully) and there’s nothing I can do but wait for the phonecall. It comes. It’s my Dad’s mobile. Oh good grief…
Disreputable One: ‘Did the child not get on the flight? I waited ages at arrivals and there’s nobody here…’
I think I might actually be sick.
And then…
#1: ‘Ahaha yeah, I’m here. Everything’s savage. Grandad was here to meet me. Oh and I spent all my money at the airport. What? Yeah, the Euro and the Sterling. What? On some savage PSP games! Ah it doesn’t matter, I’ll get some off Grandad. Yeah, and I had to sit squished between these two massive Polish blokes, and one stole my window seat. No of course I didn’t say anything, he was, like, HUGE! Yeah love you bye’.
So that’s it. My world is a quieter place for a week and a half. Bert will have to find other comfy perches in the garden:
And his Grandparents? Well, I hope they’ve got plenty of food in…
Which leads me swiftly onto other news and here, in all its glory, is Anouk’s rather luscious version of my Rhubarb Crumble Traybake thingy, which has the right amount of rhubarb, and which looks a lot more gorgeous than mine:
The Friday birthday photo: the pinkest raspberry meringue pie
So I had a lovely birthday, thank you so much for all your good wishes. I got lots of donations to my KitchenAid fund, which is now looking quite healthy, plus lots of lovely bits and pieces for my garden (including a fantastic Eucalyptus tree from the boys), and 6 new sparkly Denby mugs from Hubby to add to my collection:
Sensible Uncle I and Lovely L bought me Ching He Huang’s new Chinese cookbook, and Mad Uncle A gave me a nice wodge of cash (although I’m pretty sure the empty card was provided by me Ma as he didn’t seem to know a lot about that bit). Jen sent me the wondrous flowers you saw yesterday and the Disreputable One stumped up an eye-wateringly generous cash donation, which arrived via an enormous white courier van (well you can never be too careful) and so did my Ma. And yes, I probably accept that at my age I shouldn’t still be getting cash in the birthday cards from my parents.
As you know, the tradition here at English Towers is that the birthday person gets free reign to choose whichever birthday cake they like. Unfortunately, being Chief Domestic Goddess, that means I get to make my own. Still, I had me Ma here. And plenty of sodding about and giggling later, we came up with this:
First for the easy peasy pastry:
115g butter, melted
100g caster sugar
200g plain flour
Pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 180/gas 4. Pour the melted butter into the sugar and stir. Then add the flour and salt and mix it around until it becomes a thick paste. Press the mixture into a loose bottomed (steady) flan dish or baking tin (about 24cm should do it), then bake it blind (scrunch up a bit of greaseproof paper, then smooth it over the pastry and pour in the baking beans) for about 15 minutes. Then take it out of the oven, remove the baking beans and put it back in to cook the base for about another 5 minutes, then take it out and leave to cool. Turn the oven down to gas 2/150 degrees.
Meanwhile, make the raspberry curd. We couldn’t find fresh raspberries, so we used a decent tinned brand and just squished the contents through a sieve, but you can use the bought stuff or just purée some fresh ones:
100g butter
4 tbsp raspberry purée
1 lime, zested then juiced
150g caster sugar
2 eggs plus 1 extra yolk (keep the white for the meringue)
Take a saucepan and bung in the butter, raspberry purée, lime juice and zest and caster sugar. Melt it all together slowly until the sugar is all dissolved. In a bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until well combined. Now, take your beautiful pink mixture and gently pour a little bit into the egg, whisking all the time, then a bit more, then a bit more, until you’ve combined about half of it with the eggs. Now pour that lot back into the saucepan and keep whisking and simmering until the mixture thickens – remember it’s going to be baked in the pie, so don’t worry about making it really spready consistency at this stage. Turn off the heat and leave to cool. Remember to just stir it occasionally to keep it from getting a skin on. When it’s about room temperature, pour it into the pastry case.
Then for the meringue:
4 egg whites
225g caster sugar
Whisk the eggs in a very clean bowl until they form stiff peaks, then keep whisking while you add the sugar, spoon by spoon, until it’s all incorporated and the meringue is thick and glossy. If it’s your birthday and you’re rather prone to things pink and gorgeous, you can add a couple of drops of raspberry juice or cochineal here to give a delicate pinkness to your billowy meringue. It’s best not to do this after several glasses of wine because it all gets a bit silly and giggly. What? Oh, no, of course I don’t mean me. Pile it all on top of the raspberry curd and fluff it up a bit. Bake in the very low oven (gas 2/150 degrees) for about 40 to 50 minutes, depending on how squelchy you like your meringue.
Garnish with pink edible glitter (okay so you don’t really have to do that bit) and serve with a nice bottle of chilled rosé Prosecco and the company of your wonderful family. Cheers!
And no, I have no idea what the jar of Hellmann’s is doing in the background completely spoiling my shot. I blame the alcohol.
Counting my blessings
So I spoke to me Me Ma yesterday. I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you that she’s had a bit of a rough time recently. She’s just retired, too, and that’s a big life change when you’ve worked at the same place donkey’s years; your colleagues become your friends, and suddenly not seeing them every day is a pretty big deal. ‘Still’, she said, ‘when I get a bit down, I remind myself to count my blessings: I have my health and strength, and there are plenty of people worse off than me’.
Too right, said I. We had a chat with the fellas about Christmas: you don’t want to terrify the little sods, but we tried to explain how the credit crunch affected everyone, even Santa, and that maybe Christmas would be a little smaller this year. Still, they’re going to have a house filled with fun and laughter for Christmas, stuffed with Uncles, Auntie L, their cousins and their Grandma, which will definitely make up for it. I told me Ma about Lou and Little C. They came to dinner on Sunday evening as D was out with Hubby. When I offered her sprouts, Lou said ‘erm, can I just have one?’ (I’m sure she hates them, but didn’t want to be rude). After dinner, the boys went off to play Xbox or PS3 or whatever, and Lou and I sat and watched MTV and talked about phones (she wants a pink one for Christmas) and shopping and stuff. She told me that they’d got all their Christmas decorations out, and I was struck by how hard it must be for them: unpacking everything that their Mum had packed away last year. Mr and Mrs Lovely are fantastic and do so much for D and the kids, but blimey it can’t be easy. Don’t get me wrong: they’re kids and they’re not perfect, but they’re always upbeat and they’re absolutely no trouble to look after. Their Mum would be so proud of them.
So like my Ma, I’m counting my blessings today. My kitchen is warm and fuggy with the delicious smell of the Christmas cake that is cooking in the oven, I’m filling the freezer in anticipation of my family arriving and I’ve just made a fire, which will be crackling away nicely by the time #1 gets home (#2 is in bed with a cold – don’t worry, he’s happily watching Monty Python’s Holy Grail on his PSP).
And next time I hear someone moaning, I shall wish that like the Ghost of Christmas Present, I could transport them to the window of the house next door, where two little ones are preparing for their first Christmas without their Mum.
A postbox full of loveliness
Ooh, I love post. One advantage to living here is the extra excitement that builds on the walk down the drive to the postbox. Nobody in Ireland seems to have a letterbox in their front door. They all have a lovely little tin box thing on the front gate that you have to open with a key. A key! Hubby hates post because he gets all the bills and crap, so I get the special job of walking down and emptying the post box. Sometimes it’s even a parcel. I reallylove a parcel. I must be the only 38 year old woman who still gets excited opening her pressies on her birthday (and I got some right corkers this year). I am also lucky to have incredibly thoughtful parents. Me Ma sends little cards and letters (often with a very welcome €10 for the boys) and The Disreputable One will often send jokes and stuff to the boys, and cut clippings out of the newspaper about things that he thinks will interest me. A recent photocopy of an article about censorship in Ireland being a good example: did you know that as late as 1967 (when the Censorship ofPublications Act was finally reformed) Ireland had probably the toughest censorship laws in the ’free’ world? And did you also know that the list of authors whose books were banned by the Irish Censorship of Publications Board included Hemingway, Steinbeck, Shaw and even Raymond Chandler (my goodness, how did the people of Ireland live without Philip Marlowe?)? Anyhoo, digressing. The point is that my Disreputable Dad knew instantly that I’d like it, and was kind enough to stick it in the post. Ripping it open and reading it as I wound my way back up the drive absolutely made my morning – like a little chat with the aul’ boy even though he’s not here.
One downside of this love of parcels is a serious Ebay addiction that knows no bounds. This, though, combined with the memory of a goldfish, means that I’m permanently pleasantly surprised by my purchases. I’ve been trying to cut back, as you know, but this morning even our seriously overworked Postie had to admit defeat and leave one of those little yokes in the box that means you have to pop to the Post Office and pick up your bulky items (I love those too).
Four parcels offered up such wonders as ‘The Water Boy’ DVD (LOVE that film: ‘Youuu can doooo it!’), a DVD of the original ‘Italian Job’ which I really want the boys to see (‘you were aownly suppaowsed to blaow the blardy doors off!’), a copy of Helena Frith Powell’s ‘Two Lipsticks and a Lover’ which I’ve wanted for ages (I just really need to learn the secrets of Parisian women), and the pièce de résistance: a signed copy of Nigel Slater’s ‘Eating for England’. I just love a deliciously new pile of books by the side of my bed. And you can almost guarantee that by the time the pile’s back down to two or three, the ‘To Do’ list in my phone will have another huge list of books and films that I’ve read about, or been recommended, or just remembered that I liked, and after a couple of glasses of Merlot and a lubly Ebay session, the little tin box at the end of the drive will be full again. Bliss.
Mini Fruit Soda Breads
So we’ve got a house-load this weekend. Me Mam’s over with my twin niece and nephew (The Fleas). The house has echoed to the sounds of thudding little feet, MarioKart wars, raucous laughter and (occasionally) indignant argument. Cries of ‘I’m hungry!’, ‘ow, get off!’, ‘it’s my turn!’ fill the air, and I’ve yet to sleep in past 7am (6am this morning with the clocks going back).
But it’s lovely to see them and fantastic for my two as they miss them loads. So this morning we had a huge, final breakfast with croissants, pains au chocolat, baguettes and these yummy little fruit soda breads, adapted from Rachel Allen’s recipe which I must have tried ten times and just couldn’t get to work for some reason.
1lb (450g) plain flour
1tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
25g sugar
100g sultanas
1 egg
350 – 400ml buttermilk (or just sour some normal milk with juice of ½ lemon)
So first, whack your oven on as high as it’ll go and weigh out your dry ingredients. Make sure you sieve the flour, salt, and bicarbonate of soda really well. If you don’t, little bits of soda will show up in your finished scones as green lumps. Not very appetising. Then stir in the sugar and sultanas.
Crack the egg into a jug and give it a whisk, then add your buttermilk (or if you’re not using buttermilk, remember to add the lemon juice to the milk), topping it up to about 400ml altogether. You might need a bit extra but I never do.
Pour the milk mixture bit by bit into the flour, stirring with a fork. You’ll probably find you won’t need all the liquid but that’s fine as you can use it to glaze them at the end. It’s a bit messy but be patient as it’ll come together into a nice soft dough. Turn out on a floured board and pat into a big flat squareish shape. Cut into 9 or 12 or whatever, depending on how big you want them. Brush with the leftover milk mixture and sprinkle with crunchy brown sugar.
Stick your little soda breads on a baking tray (non stick preferably) and bake them on the high setting for about eight minutes (I had to turn mine round half way through as my oven doesn’t cook very evenly). Then after the eight minutes turn them down to about 200 (gas 6) for the last five or six minutes. Watch them just in case as the smaller the buns the less time they’ll need. They’ll sound hollow when you tap them if they’re done.
Serve warm with lots of butter to melt into them and enjoy the (brief) silence.
