camera roll: March

March just blew by in a bit of a blur to be honest. Most of the month was spent feeling very much out of things, not myself at all, just trying to keep head above water really.

I read a lot of books and watched a lot of mediocre TV. I cried by myself, with others and while reading books and watching mediocre TV. I kept to myself a bit. One doesn't like to burden others with ones gloominess, there's a feeling of needing to maintain a stiff upper lip, but there's also the inability to to do so, or even really care ... sometimes it seems easier to just keep to oneself.

Awetumn arrived in all it's annual loveliness. And dogs (even naughty ones) proved to be a very comforting balm to the soul. I spent a lot of time admiring both.

There was of course, a birthday, and then another one a week later for my dearest friend's daughter. Both were hard, but there's nothing somber about gaggles of 8 yr olds, regardless of the circumstance. Both were healing also.

Late in the month we had a magnificent thunderstorm. It started with the above sunset which had all the neighbours outside. Gasps, exclamations of delight and shutter clicks echoed up and down the lake. Minutes later the first rumble rolled in and for the next few hours we were treated to an exceptional light show, followed by heavy rain - hallelujah!

The next day I heard from a friend whose car had been struck by lightning, with her in it, while driving down a narrow urban street! In the grasp of an ear-splitting, retina-scorching Faraday Cage all she could think was that an airplane had landed on her car. She came out unscathed - the car's electrics fried, tyres smoking, later a numbing migraine but best of all - a great story to tell!

The month ended with the beginning of the school holidays, a road trip to our friends up the coast. A few days of lazing, catching-up and the best the local sea and vineyards have to offer.

That's our lopsided tent in the background, pitched on our friends lawn. That's the long table at which we spent an afternoon eating delicious food, harvested from the sea down the road and prepared outdoors in the garden by these sweet menfolk of ours. That's the wine we washed it down with, pressed from grapes grown withing a few hundred kilometers from where we sat, made by the hands of the friend sitting with us.

These are the magnificent things of life, the bountiful things, the precious things - it was good to end March being reminded of all this. Life is bitter, but also very very sweet.

'braaibroodjies' as a metaphor for us

We had a braai on the weekend (that's a barbecue remember?).

In South Africa (well, in lots of families in South Africa) a braai will never happen without braaibroodjies (aside: the best autocorrect can offer for this word is 'broodmares'. Not the same.).

I'm sure I've spoken about this before, braaibroodjies have been one of those tropes of our relationship.
It took me years to take them seriously. I mean, who has essentially a cheese & tomato toasted sandwich as a side dish to an otherwise perfectly satisfying and fulfilling meal? We do apparently.

Husband confessed some time ago that he only really, deeply, fell in love with me once I embraced the braaibroodjie.
Which I have done, in all its smoky, cheesy, extra-unnecessary-carb glory.

However.
There are different ways of enjoying the braaibroodjie, and on Saturday I realised our family, of 4, each require their own, taylor-made, version. And the conversation which ensued made a whole lot of sense.

Me, to husband: 'So I'm making four different types of braaibroodjie??'
Him: 'Why, how are you and Frieda different?'
[Interesting. How are we different, this child to whom I so deeply relate? Well, in lots of ways obviously, but in some not at all. To answer his question, I have tomato, she doesn't, but bigger picture we're similar in that, if she was served a braaibroodjie with tomato in it she'd just turf the slices out and carry on eating it. We're not hugely particular, she and I.
It's weird when your kid gets to an age you remember being. I look at Frieda aged 8 and I think I know what that feels like, I think I see myself in there.
Another aha moment is that I think sometimes I want to believe I'm a lot like Frieda. Because she's pretty cool. I like her world-view, I'm sure she gets it from me. Right?]

Husband to me: 'This onion is so mild you should put some on Stella's one.'
To which the only conceivable response is: 'Are you high?'
No really, are you actually stoned?
[No idiot puts onion on Stella's braaibroodjie when Stella Does Not Like Onion. The very notion is impossible to compute.
Yes sure, 'try something new' and all that, but not Stella. Stella will decide when Stella would like to try something new. Stella will decided when Stella will eat onion. Stella is not interested in change, deviance from the way of Stella and certainly not suggestions from mere other parties on how she'd like to reform her braaibroodjie. Seriously, are you smoking something? And if yes, why are you not sharing?]

Me, to husband: 'Do you know the most concentration I employ while making braaibroodjies is when I make yours?'
Him: 'Good.'
Me: <flat stare>
But no seriously. Husband's sandwich construction is like a work of mathematical genius. A calculated feat of engineering. A creative construct in which every bite is to perfectly encapsulate the very essence of braaibroodjie.

So, here goes:
Husband: Onion. Cheese, Tomato, Italian Herbs.
Me: Onion, Cheese, Tomato, Italian Herbs, Chutney. Or whatever.
Frieda: Onion, Cheese, Chutney, Italian Herbs.
Stella: Cheese. ONLY CHEESE.

Construct. Butter the outsides only. Intricately code to discern one from the other. Toast over coals in grid recently vacated by sizzling lamb chops or perfectly spiced chicken thighs.

Relish.

Viva la difference!

easter past and present

I quite like Easter.

It's not as frantic as Christmas, but there's still a big focus on family, food and indulgence. What's not to love right?
You can't really go wrong with a 4 day weekend and a free pass to eat as much chocolate as you like.

I have very fond childhood memories of Easter. We didn't get a lot of sweet treats so a pile of chocolate was a big deal, and hunting for eggs in our big fynbos garden with lots of nooks and crannies was an adventure.
We often went away over Easter, or had friends from the city come to us, and I remember dying eggs with tea and drinking hot chocolate in rainy cabins in the woods.
One year we had pink and white cut-out cardboard bunny ears and paws from some far off exotic place (like London!) - in ye olde early 80's this kind of thing was not as commonly available as it is now.
I cringe to recall an Easter morning as I entered adolescence when, thinking I was being droll, I asked if 'anything exciting was going to happen or can I go and shave my legs?'. My mothers face was hurt and her voice sharp when she retorted that my (younger) brothers were going to hunt for Easter eggs but if I thought I was too old for such things I was free to do something else.
I felt awful, and obviously I was not too old for such things. I felt like an Easter ass.

It's also such a good break, after the madness of the first quarter, we're all in need of lazy days come April. And it's traditionally the weekend we get the first real winter rain. This year did not disappoint and Saturday dawned grey and chill.
There is still novelty in that.
Especially when it clears right up again and the weather returned with a beauty unsurpassed by any other time of year.

In April 2011 I wrote:

This time of year, my god it is sublime. It's ... subtle. Subtle in a way that February in Cape Town is utterly not. Clarity, cut, colour - it's like the seemingly endless days of late summer/autumn are each perfect diamonds, most definitely gems, each one handcrafted for perfection.

The temperature is perfect, subtle. The breezes are soothing, subtle. The light is clear and gentle, subtle.

It's marvelous.

 I could've written that about today.

Easter has not always been so idyllic. Most notably Easter 2010.

And I had fun recalling some failed Easter crafts from 2011, and the time Frieda made my heart explode with love, also 2011.

And of course how could we ever top the excitement last Easter brought?

That teeny-weeny little guy is now double the size of his older sister and a great big lovable stinky brute of a thing, adored by all.

This Easter weekend was low-key and lovely. Friday afternoon with friends, Saturday walks and movies and cuddles ...

Sunday chocolate and colouring and Peter and the Wolf on audio ...

... rounded off with a massively indulgent evening meal - roast lamb etc and a pudding so good (and so not present on the internet I discover while trying to find a link) that I'm going to have to make it again just to blog and photograph. As an act of public service you understand.
All four of us rolled away from the table and out the door, for a necessary wild and windy night walk, laughing together in the moonlight as we walked off our food babies and tumbled home to bed.

This morning we could barely contemplate anymore sweetness but we had a family get-together planned, and we'd promised to bring the cake, so we pulled ourselves together and just managed to produce one.

It was a happy weekend. Here's to Easter!

the gender divide

Funny story.

This last weekend, while my girlfriends (it is one word isn't it?) and I were gleefully sitting down to a magnificent salad-medley lunch while camping, and giggling at how unimpressed our assorted husband-types would be ...

... my husband-type, alone at home with the puppy, was sending us this text message.

Sometimes I wonder how heterosexual relationships can possibly work long-term. Culturally, emotionally, genetically - the differences between men and women seem so vast that on paper it seems like a very bad idea.

But realistically it works for so many of us, and surely acknowledging our differences, and making time to celebrate them apart, is one of the keys to that success.

melting moments

It was yesterday morning, on discovering an unsightly patch of eczema on my arm, clearly caused by my crutches, that I had a bit of a meltdown.
I didn't cry, but I kind of wailed, pathetically.
I mean, really?

I needed to bake. I've been so restrained since Christmas, and have in fact lost weight since turning my ankle. (I call it the Inertia Diet - so far it's working for me.)
But therapeutic baking was required so I whipped up some biscuits for tea.

Within minutes the smells of lemon, butter and vanilla soothed and comforted me. The pulse of the mixer, the twanging of the oven shelves as they warmed up, the expletives as the piping bag I was using split, the hilarity at watching husband continue regardless, pushing the biscuit dough through the piping knozzle with his thumb ... the baking zone is a happy place.

And then tea on the stoop, the stoop which knows me so very well at the moment, tea and homemade biscuits with my loved ones on the stoop.

It's handy to be a homebody when you're stuck spending a lot of time at home.

'shrooming

Burp.

Dinner last night consisted of home-grown oyster mushrooms, sauteed in garlic and white wine, tossed with arugula (that's rocket to me), slathered in freshly grated pecorino and served over pasta.
Sounds pretentious no? And ... yummy.

What was not so yummy was watching these things grow. Unlike these gorgeous photos of mushrooms growing in the wild, growing them in our kitchen was a decidedly un-visually-appealing experience.
You'll thank me for not sharing any pictures.

Mushrooms grow from spores right? Spores being fungus, fungus being mold. Mold don't look so appetizing.

We got a Home-Gro oyster mushroom kit (go look at their pics - ours looked nothing like that) from a friend a month or so ago. We duly opened the box, sprayed the soggy hay inside with water a couple of times a day, moved it around the kitchen looking for the best light. Nothing happened.
Then the mold.
Then the fungus.
Then the spores and finally, just when I was ready to throw up in the towel, 3 trumpeting oyster mushrooms.

'You're not going to eat those?' asked Sylvia who works for us. 'Are you serious?' asked Frieda when I told her we would.
I wasn't so sure myself. But we did, and they were yummy.
Now we're 'sposed to turn the hunk of hay over in the box and start again on the other side but I'm not so sure.

As yummy as they were I think possibly that mushrooms, like steak, are best not grown at home.

today we made ...

... bread

... a batch of brownies

... use of our democratic right by voting in the local government elections

... new friends

... a lot of noise

... lasagne

... it through supper and bath time (barely).

And now I'm settling in to make some art.

Today was a busy day.

such a bad idea

Nutella Cookies.

I could happily consume a jar of Nutella very quickly, now it seems I could happily consume a jar of Nutella plus 125g of butter plus more sugar than I like to think about in almost the same time.Such a bad idea.

Another bad idea?

Baking these cookies when one's youngest is battling serious constipation. Need I elaborate?
Didn't think so.

Sadly that didn't put me off the final product in the slightest.

mein gott it's goot!

Stella can't eat bananas. Seriously, I may as well feed the child a bag of cement.
Frieda's not that into them.
I'm not a huge fan having eaten far too many when I was pregnant with Frieda (Oh wait, I'm seeing a correlation here ...).
Husband likes bananas but can't really be expected to solely consume all the bananas which still somehow manage to make their way into our house.

Banana bread however - we'll all happily eat that. (Except Stella who still has the whole er ... solidity ... issue to contend with.)

And really, when it comes to banana bread there is no contest. Julochka's Grandma Goot is The Ultimate Banana Bread Babe of all time.
Don't take my word for it. Make one today.
With or without chocolate.

And incidentally, a good Mama, when baking banana bread a couple of days before Easter, takes the time to blow the eggs required in order to have blown eggs (or hollowed eggs) available for decorating over the Easter weekend.
This Mama was good, but who knew blowing eggs was such hard work!
I think I may have had a harder time than the chicken who originally produced them.
Seriously, for someone who narrowly managed to avoid natural labour twice this was some exertion. I had to check my eyes for burst blood vessels afterward.

I think we'll only have a few eggs around for decorating this year ...

sunday evening

Maybe that's all I got this month: Sunday evenings.

I got plenty to say, could make time to say it. Admittedly I've been spending plenty of time on Pinterest but still, I really should be able to manage more than this. But you know, sometimes you just don't feel like doing your homework.
I guess I'm holding my breath, sliding up that squeaky bedroom window, and with my shoes in my hands darting across the damp dark lawn to swim in the lagoon, pretending there's no school tomorrow.

~8~

This time of year, my god it is sublime. It's ... subtle. Subtle in a way that February in Cape Town is utterly not. Clarity, cut, colour - it's like the seemingly endless days of late summer/autumn are each perfect diamonds, most definitely gems, each one handcrafted for perfection.

The temperature is perfect, subtle. The breezes are soothing, subtle. The light is clear and gentle, subtle.

It's marvelous.

I've been cooking. Clafoutis, it's my new best thing. Ragu, it's my other new best thing, and just to stir things up a little, we're eating it with yoghurt Naan. We're like, so cosmopolitan.

I've been dusting off the old CV (not updated since 2009 I discovered), and have made a list of potential people/companies to send it out to. Nothing like expressing your satisfaction to make one dissatisfied. 

I'll send some emails this week. 

Wait, maybe next - who takes anything seriously in the short week before Easter? Who takes anything seriously in the short week after Easter for that matter?

I'll send those emails soon.

But mostly I've been remembering this and this and omg actually just all of this - wowee to the motherfucking zeee, life this April is good.

[insert title here*]

*options:
baking with leftovers
human rights day cookies
ebony & ivory
must.bake.cookies.
take that crappy oreo filth

Any of these would be applicable here. Cookies baked with leftover chocolate cookie dough and white chocolate melts, on an important public holiday, for no other reason than I had to bake.
You know when you have to have to bake?
Yup, like that.

one big one, one small one

It's the second time this week I've found myself cooking dinner like this:

Seems crazy hey?
Especially as we're virtually eating the same meals these days, the four of us.

But still, the girls like things chopped finer, flavoured slightly blander, and so weirdly it's easy to cook the same meal in two pans. Chop the same onion, a third of it smaller, the same carrot, diced a little finer.

And then of course I can do this:

Decide to whack in a load of chillies and spices without having to hold back at all. Makes for much more adult eating.

Just got to remember to keep the right spoon to the right pan!

PS I promise with my hand on my heart I didn't notice that phallic butternut on the right 'til after I'd taken these. No really.

16 hour cookies

I never pay any heed to the 'preparation time' given in recipes. It's always bullshit in my experience. Especially when baking. I bake to relax, it's all about the journey.
Which is reason the one why I've not been baking lately, not enough time.

Reason the two involves the extra kilo's I'm still carrying courtesy of young Stella.

Reason the three involves the relative unpleasantness of baking in 30+ degree heat. Not so relaxing.

However despite all the above, I've been achin' to be bakin' (alternative title for this post) and this weekend I overcame these obstacles like so.

Last night after the girls were asleep, while finishing up supper, I weighed out all the ingredients. Much later, post dinner and the final episode of Sons of Anarchy, season one (part of our life quest to find a series as good as The Wire, we're not there yet), I mixed up the two batches of dough and refrigerated overnight.
This morning, I took the dough out to soften first thing, and then tackled the cookies during Stella's morning nap. Resourceful no?

They worked out grand.

They worked out so grand that Frieda went around with the recipe and a cookie exclaiming, 'They look just the same!' Clearly I don't get it right often enough.

Of course in an alternate universe, involving less 3 year old participation, I'd have made them like this ~ checkerboard. Now that'dve been impressive. Maybe one day ...

So I made the time, thoroughly enjoyed the journey, didn't die of heat exhaustion turning the oven on during the day but I fear I confirmed just why I shouldn't be baking right now... when it comes to the eating I have no restraint.
Just one more before bed ...

tasting the love

Dinner tonight was risotto, with wild mushrooms collected by my youngest brother in the forests of Saarsveld.

Mushrooms, garlic, wine, parmesan, risotto, topped with fresh rocket picked from my mother's garden not two hours before.

For dessert, chocolate brownies baked this afternoon by my sister-in-law.

What's noteworthy about this meal is not how incredibly delicious it was (and it was!), nor that it seemed to taste better for it's parts coming to us from those we love. What's worth noting is that that is what was exceptional about it, we knew where the ingredients came from, we know the kitchen in which those brownies were baked.

How is it we can say that about so few of our meals?

23 dec 2010

Some of my youngest brother's mates are joining us tomorrow evening, Christmas orphans coming to scavenge off our turkey carcass. They're lovely boys (and damn cute) so I've no problem with this at all.

In a rare burst of energy I've been baking up a storm so I put together these little gift boxes for them.

Smarties cookies (I have an addiction), knobbly meringues (wtf's up with that?), peppermint bark (made with humbugs instead of the still elusive candy canes) - from Lego of course - and root canal inducing fudge.

Candy for the eye candy.

green yellow red

the beginnings of husband's utterly awesome curry sauce ...

another batch of marmalade, and I think my last, it's not as pith easy as I'd thought ...

red velvet cake for Women's Day, epic icing fail meant it got 'drizzled' rather than iced ... recipe from here

 

Yup, it's been a foodie weekend. Our favourite kind. And on the subject, check out a Durban pal's new vegetarian foodie blog - that sugar bean curry is lurking in my future ...

meringuetangs

A friend's son loved my chewy rose-water meringues so much that for his 6th birthday recently I made him his own batch.
In blue this time.

Meringuetangs is what Frieda calls them.

daddy moose

Last weekend Father's Day was rather over-shadowed by The Birthday. Compensation felt in order.


Spicy with a hint of lemon zest, Big Daddy Moose biscuits seemed a worthy cookie with which to celebrate the father in our household.

The biscuit cutter was a gift from our favourite Heather. When I drooled over her haul from IKEA in NYC I did particularly like the look of the cookie cutter set. And when she got home, she gave it to us.
Thanks Heather!

And thanks babe, for being a wonderful Dad.

the fearless baker

If I had a food blog that's what I'd call myself. The Fearless Baker.

It perfectly describes the gung-ho approach I have to baking, and food preparation in general. I'm not bragging here, this um ... style ... of cooking and baking regularly backfires. I have a history of some godawful kitchen disasters.
No, my fearlessness is based on two things.
1. I'm lazy.
2. I'm inadequately kitted out.
For people who like to cook and eat as much as we do in this house we're woefully under-applianced.

Case in point: we have nothing with which to measure grams. Can you cope? How do you bake without being able to measure things in grams?
By guessing - not good for baking. And by using the ml/gram convertor on the last page of the Huisgenoot Wen Resepte circa 1977. Not ideal.
Also, we don't have a food processor. Nope. A stick blender and a hand-held mixer are our some-what primitive tools.

This, coupled with the laziness makes for some interesting recipe adjustments and leaps of faith. The laziness is how I come to make 'intricate' custards (read: from scratch, no instant powder involved) in the microwave. The lack of a food processor is why I made crumble with the stick-blender this evening. Surprisingly (check how I spelt that correctly), it worked.
Necessity being the mother of all fuck-ups invention and all that.

Fearless I tell you.

But also a little bit skanky ...
My grandfather (the girl's great grandfather) and his somewhat exacting second wife came to tea yesterday. Firstly I cheated and whipped up a cake from a [gasp] packet for them, iced with [gasp] the last of the icing left-over from my birthday tea which I had stashed in the freezer
But where it all got a little murky was when, as my guests walked in the front door, I went into the kitchen to turn on the kettle and discovered to my horror that the cat had licked half the icing off the cake!
Options: cut half the cake away, confess, look like a skanky housewife and cast doubt as to the integrity of the rest of the cake OR,
be a skanky housewife, grab a knife, redistribute the remaining icing to cover up the disaster and serve it anyway ...

The Fearless Baker. That's me.

in the pink

In keeping with the Year of the Girl Child ~ pink rosewater flavoured meringues.

I had to do something with all the left-over egg whites from making creme brulee.

And I hereby pledge not to open the baking section of my recipe folder again for a long time.

At least a week.