21ST FEBRUARY

A few things for a Friday... 

The Garden Edit
 
Brian's photos for Fort Standard (and everything in them)

This space

A new (to me) blog

A weeknight recipe

And another

Citrus-spiked muesli bars

And some Steely Dan to send you on your way.

14TH FEBRUARY

Today I would rather be...

Watching 'Her' and reading this about how a photograph inspired a film.

Reading Edwin Morgan  

Eating brownies 

Drinking a Nardini Spritz

Painting my nails red

Listening to this...

Happy Valentine's Day xx 

BUILDING

I read this excerpt from Molly's talk at Food Blog South while I drank my coffee this morning. I thought about it while I was in the shower. I sat on the edge of the bed and wrote a scrappy version of this post rather than getting dressed. It stayed with me.

'But a lot of the time, to be honest, I’m disappointed. I look at something I wrote last month, and I wish I could have done it better. Maybe you know that feeling. It’s uncomfortable – it’s awful – but I’m trying to teach myself a different way to feel about it. I’m trying to see it differently. I’m trying to see that discomfort as a good thing. We’re all in this together. We’re all uncomfortable. I can only do the writing that I can do that day. You can only take the picture that you can take today. Tomorrow, with work, maybe I’ll be a better writer, I hope. God, I hope. Tomorrow, maybe you’ll be a better writer. Or you’ll be a better photographer. Or you’ll make a better recipe. The key is in the act itself, in the fact of showing up and doing today’s work.'

I've always been scared of getting things wrong, of failing. Happier to say I don't know rather than risk a wrong answer, good at reading and listening in language classes but terrified of speaking and making a mistake. I was good a high jump for a few days until they had to pick teams for our school sports day; up against the girl who was on all the teams, who ran, who played tennis, I froze. Now, thankfully past those school days, it is still there. Creative ideas stifled in case the reality falls short of the dream, classes that should be be fun, are fun, but where I have been told to stop looking so nervous (by the lovely Yotam Ottolenghi in one case). I think a slight look of terror is my default setting whenever I try something new, it's no coincidence that my biggest problem learning to drive was hesitation.

But there are moments when it works, moments when I don't add that anxious 'but'. An exercise class that I had been tempted by for years that I finally joined in January; reasoning that I would be one of many among the New Year's resolution crowds. I wasn't, it didn't matter at all and I've been back each week since, I'm not sure what I thought would be so terrible about those 45 minutes as the new person.

And then there's bread.

I knew the bread that I wanted to make. Crackly crust, air holes, well baked, an even shape. But the odd loaves I had tried in the past weren't quite there. I bought books and kept meaning to try again but those failures, the loaf that had to be sawn off the baking tray, the time when I guessed rather than weighed the salt, weighed me down. Until I bought a book on a friend's recommendation (a book that I had resisted thinking of those other books and the unmade loaves) and the basic recipe clicked. Until I went to a slightly oddly conceived but well executed show involving the author, a medical student wearing a Shetland jumper, baking stollen in front of a small crowd in a comedy club. Until I went home clutching a little clingfilm twist of sourdough starter that was given to almost everyone there. Until I got home and fed that starter knowing that if I was ever going to make sourdough this was the time.

I thought, briefly, that I had killed it. One type of flour turning it ripe, boozy, alarming. I poured most of it away and coaxed it back from the brink. I've made a loaf with it every week since. The first was pretty good, each week gets better, each time it feels like magic, that flour, water, salt can do this, can rise, can turn into bread, bread that I'm actually happy with, proud of. There's a metaphor somewhere in there.

Brian came to stay last weekend. I baked a loaf of sourdough on Saturday morning and we ate most of it for lunch, the rest for breakfast on Sunday. I baked again on Monday, sourdough, a little rye flour, hazelnuts, sultanas. Building on the foundation that I have been practicing. There's that metaphor again. I need to remember it. I need to keep building.      

TO READ

Sometimes it's a list in one of my notebooks, sometimes the books I pass on our shelves, the ones I always meant to but never quite got around to. There are the books that were too heavy to read in bed, the ones that didn't work for my mood at the time, the ones that got sidelined by something more compelling, more comforting, more. I go through phases with books, returning time and again to my comfort reads. The books I go to when I'm ill, tired, sad. Childhood favourites or all-out trash, books that cosset rather than challenge. I can admit to 'Anne of Green Gables' and 'Pride and Prejudice'; the ones I'm slightly ashamed to love sit in the second layer of the bookshelves.

I read 'Beautiful Ruins' last week. I started it at Christmas, read a few pages, put it down. I came back to it and ran through it, crying at the end, wondering why I had waited. I moved on to 'Friday Night Lights' and again have been rushing, wanting to know what happened to these boys, suspecting that the glory days of High School faded into, maybe, sadly, nothing. I read too quickly in my hurry to find out. Chris always says that I can't possibly read books properly, that it's all too fast. He may be right, but that sweet abandonment to the story is so good that I can't resist. 

I'm reading 'The Goldfinch' next. 

SEVEN

It's been seven years. Seven years with some posts I still like, some that I don't. Seven years with some concentrated effort, some clear gaps. Seven years... Gosh.

And this year?

This year I'm going to carry on, quietly like always. I'm going to write, sometimes more, sometimes less. I'm going to do my fourth, and my fifth, Moonwalks. I'm going to carry on cooking old favourites and hope that a few new dishes sneak into the rotation.

And, in the meantime, a few good food moments from the last year:

6TH JANUARY

Happy New...

I think it makes more sense to start on the 6th this year. The first few days of January were mostly spent sleeping and hiding from appalling weather, yesterday was all list making, food shopping, tidying away Christmas, and alarm setting. Today, so far, is sleepy with a large dose of email.

Christmas felt like the break we needed. Two and a bit weeks away from work. A few days with nothing much to do except bake cookies, granola, and sherry cake for presents. A Christmas spent dodging rain and wind in Sussex but with a day of sunshine perfect for a Boxing Day walk on the beach. Time in London with old neighbourhoods, friends, and much missed foods (gözleme, banh mi, good burgers), then back to Edinburgh in time to have a quiet new year, just us, some prosecco, and some kitchen karaoke. As I said, it was the break we needed, it feels like the start of a new year now.

On Saturday I bought a diary and a new green notebook and wrote a list of.. resolutions? Maybe not. Just a few mini goals. 

Bake bread

Go to yoga

Write a letter

Share photos from Greece (is it too cruel to do that in January?)

Fill our wedding photo album

Remember to eat at the table 

Happy 2014 x 

CHRISTMAS 2013: FOR KIDS

Clockwise from top left: a knitted fox, stacking penguins, and a wooden dachshund. A Christmas favourite to watch every year. A LEGO log cabin (complete with LEGO drumsticks). A red bike horn and magnetic blocks. A children's classic and clicking frogs for stocking fillers.

And, because it's always worth watching...