I Must Get To Bed Earlier!

I know I should be feeling like this...

 

...but after a long hard day I often feel more like this...

[thanks to Mike Licht for these - more blogger pictures here]

Prior Agreement

My good friend Floss in France did a lovely post on Saturday about old musicals and also Steeleye Span- I too enjoy these styles of music. I have a couple of later Maddy Prior CDs of hymns and carols, in which she sings the songs in a style as near to the "original" as possible. That is, before churches introduced "new-fangled" things like pipe organs, and the musicians were still playing lutes/guitars and flutes etc. Oh hang on a minute...

I found this on YouTube. This was our "College Hymn" when I was doing my PGCE in Oxford

Not sure where all these Anglican churches are. If you want pictures of Maddy, listen to this one instead...

She is obviously having such fun singing this one. Which is how it ought to be [religion never was designed to make our pleasures less, and all that]

And All Because The Lady Loves...

Here's hoping that Kraft realise what an important responsibility they have, now they have taken over Cadbury's, to maintain our important Chocolate Heritage. After all, Mackintosh's chocolate factory in Norwich, and Terry's chocolate factory in Bristol were both closed after takeovers. And they don't make Smarties in the UK anymore [or put them in proper tubes]

Cadbury's chocolate is wonderful [see here]

And I love their adverts as well as their chocolates

Only the crumbliest, flakiest women...

...let their bathwater run over the floor!

Bargain Of The Week

A very busy twenty four hours - visiting five different family members in 4 locations, and collecting/delivering the remaining Christmas gifts [for 14 people] And part of the trip included a visit to Maplin and IKEA at the Lakeside Shopping Centre [well, it was Monday!]

Happy to report that all family are well - and it was good to see everyone, albeit briefly. The IKEA trip was not as successful as we had hoped - having carefully prepared a list of items for Cornerstones, we didn't find any of them in stock. But Bob found this in the Bargain Basement...

This is a coffee set in "Dinera" which is the crockery we use for 'everyday' at home. It was labelled "One saucer missing"

The catalogue price for a set of 6 cups and 6 saucers is £7.99.

I've always resisted this, on the grounds that we have other mugs, and things don't have to match.

But Bob found this set of six cups, and five saucers reduced to £1.50. Seemed good to me.

THEN he found a stack of saucers, each labelled 10p

So we now have a complete set of six cups and six saucers for only £1.60p instead of £7.99.

I cannot for the life of me work out why some staff member didn't put one of the spare saucers in the open pack and charge full price for the set!

But I am not complaining. Well spotted, Bob!

Mea Culpa!

I picked up this book in the library on Thursday, and on Saturday decided to make up one of the recipes - it looked easy, I had most of the ingredients to hand - and it was one of those Saturday night/Sunday lunch things that would do two meals. Perfect!

The recipe was "Spaghetti Beef, Olives, Capers and Anchovies" and RA describes it as "a good and gutsy pasta dish adapted from classic pasta puttanesca [whores' pasta!] Leave out the beef if you wish"

I had a small tin of black olives in the cupboard, also half a jar of anchovies, and half a jar of capers. No beef though. But I did have the necessary olive oil, garlic, onions and pasta, and tin of tomatoes. I figured I could substitute mixed herbs for the tarragon and basil. So I made the simple sauce as the book suggested - but realised that I only had about 2½oz of capers, and the recipe said 10oz, and the tin of olives looked very small. There was half a red pepper languishing in the fridge, so I chopped that up, and threw in three chopped mushrooms too. It bubbled away happily and looked and smelled good [4 garlic cloves is more than I'd usually put in one dish, but I am upping our garlic intake, believing it helps our hearts!]

It tasted fine, although Bob said "These peas are a bit strange"

"They are capers" I replied

"There are quite a lot of them" he said.

"Well - the recipe called for four times as many, but I only had part of a jar" I said "so I stuck in some peppers and mushrooms instead. there are anchovies in here too" [I carefully didn't mention the absence of beef]

Today, when he got in from church, Bob said "What's lunch?" and I said "same as yesterday". "I'd suggest putting in a can of baked beans but I don't think we have any" "I've got chickpeas" "That'll do"

So I put the chickpeas into the sauce, cooked the pasta and it was great. "The chickpeas certainly help, they dilute the impact of the capers" said Bob. It was at this point that I had an awful thought!

I dashed off to get the cookbook - and I realised

I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO SPECSAVERS!!!

The recipe required not 10oz but 1oz of capers!!

Bob was wonderfully forgiving about it all. He did not marry me for my cooking skills. He says he may organise a dance in celebration of this dish and call it a caper-ceilidh

 

But he insisted that I make public confession of my error. Mea Culpa!

2010 - Living In The Future

My friend Elizabeth, teaching out in India, has alerted me to Daniel Sinker's website about this fascinating book [click here]

The book was published in 1972, and written by Geoffrey Hoyle, son of Fred Hoyle, the astronomer. GH is a science fiction writer. The book is quite...imaginative... but do check out Daniel's site.

Some of his ideas of life in the future now have worked out, but not quite as envisaged [e.g. online shopping, 'wet-rooms' for bathrooms, webcams, fingerprint recognition, distance learning etc] other parts - especially relating to food and transport are more fanciful.

The fashions he predicts are AWFUL - "In the year 2010, everyone wears a jumpsuit and shoes" I think not!!

Daniel's comments added to my enjoyment of looking at this book. I thought back to 1972, and what I would have been doing on a typical Saturday in January then...

Well, I was in the sixth form, studying for A-levels, and I worked on Saturdays in our local supermarket as a checkout operator. Customers slid their purchases along the shelf to the till [no conveyor belt] where I punched in prices [no laser scanners] and put goods in paper carrier bags. And the shop shut at 5pm on Saturdays and did not open again till Monday morning! [so staff had the option of buying 'expired' food very cheaply at the end of the shift]

I walked to and from work, and after work, probably finished homework [all hand-written in fountain pen, using reference books from the library] then hemmed the skirt which I'd made the night before [from a fabric remnant bought on the market]

We would have our meal - perhaps sausage and beans, then apple pie. In the evening I'd walk to church for some Youth Activity or other - or if nothing was happening there, I'd stay home and watch TV [black and white - and only 2 channels!] or perhaps reply to the letter I'd received that day from my Grandmother [which she had written and posted the evening before]

But all that was back in the last millennium!

And whilst I am glad for some of the progress we have made, there are some things from 'the old days' which I am glad I can still enjoy - like writing with a fountain pen, choosing a book from the library, dressmaking, the postman bringing a letter, home-made apple pie, and walking to church for an evening of fun and fellowship.

As far as I am concerned, these simple pleasures can never be completely replaced by the speed/convenience of a laptop, a Kindle, M&S fashions, emails, ready meals and Internet Chatrooms!

I wonder which aspects of 'progress' other people appreciate - and what aspects of 'the Old Days' are worth hanging on to?

Sands Of Time

I am not a big fan of those "Talent" TV shows, so I admit to being six months late catching up with this one- but I found it mind-blowing. If you have ten minutes to spare, read the information below and then watch the clip.

The 2009 winner of "Ukraine’s Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, is drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.
The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about £75,000.
She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.
It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.
She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier. This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.
In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye. The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.
Kseniya says "I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there’s surely no bigger compliment."
Please take time out to see this amazing piece of art.

[Thanks Pamela for alerting me to it!]

Stamp Out Customer Dissatisfaction!

When we got back from Norfolk, among the mail awaiting us was a card from the Post Office saying there was one item they could not deliver as it had insufficient postage. 8p to pay - plus £1 handling charge. Well, I dithered for over a week then decided I would go and collect this item- in case it was something important.

The lady showed me the envelope - "It is too large and too thick for this 37p First Class Stamp,, so it has to go Large Letter Post" she explained. [That's 47p for Second Class]

I am incurably nosey, so I paid up £1.08 and took the card.

I came home and measured it with Bob's Postal Ruler

Yes, it is in fact 194cm² - and the maximum size for the small slot is 165cm²

Inside was, indeed, an attractive and artistic card

And on the back it says "Hearing Dogs for Deaf People" and also "designed exclusively for Tesco Stores Ltd"

If Tesco is dedicated to helping its customers, with its mantra "every little helps" tell me, why are they producing cards which require fancy 47p stamps and not basic 30p stamps?

And was there any indication on the packet of cards that these were too big for regular stamps? I sort of resent that people sending these are forced to give an extra 17p to the Royal Mail for each envelope. [Or did senders just stick 1st class stamps on and hope?] I would rather give the money to charity.

I do not know how much Tesco charged for their cards - but the Hearing Dogs website [here] has its own cards, all of which are standard size, and no pack of ten costs more than £3.50 - in fact you can buy and post ten of their cards for less than £5. So why does Tesco feel the need to make such large ones?

It was good to get the card though and read the greeting inside. I shall display it for a week or so [even though we are at mid-January]

Bob says I just like ranting about Tesco's!!

Matthew 25:40

The woman next to me in the Pork Pie Shop said "Isn't this rain DREADFUL?" ...and as she handed me my change, the assistant replied "Could there BE anywhere worse to live than here?"

As calmly as I could manage, I said "We could be in Haiti" and walked back to the bus-stop. I really wanted to yell at her!

 

Bob has mentioned the situation in today's KMFC Prayer Post, [here] and my friend Chrissy has posted about donations for Haiti today as well [here]

Please pray - and give - this devastated nation is in such great need right now.

Milk And Honey [and Cranberries and Cornmeal]

There was a bag of cranberries to be used up, so I made this

"Honey Cranberry Cornmeal Quick Bread"

This recipe is adapted from www.joythebaker.com, and makes two 8x4x3 loaves. I served slices with a spoonful of creme fraiche.

2 cups plain flour

1 cup cornmeal

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1½teaspoon baking powder

½cup (4oz) butter, melted

½ cup honey

1¼cup milk

2 tsp lemon juice

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1½ cups fresh cranberries

2 tsps icing sugar

1 tbsp flaked almonds

Arrange a rack in the centre of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter and flour /line two small loaf pans.  [8x4x3-inches] Set aside the greased and floured loaf pans. 

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder. 

In a smaller bowl whisk together honey, eggs, milk, melted butter and vanilla extract. 

Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir just until blended.  Fold in the cranberries.

Divide batter between two smaller loaf pans or into one large loaf pan.  Spread evenly.  Sprinkle with almonds and icing sugar. place in preheated oven.  Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes of clean.  Cool loaves in pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes.  Invert onto a plate or board.  Serve warm with butter or wrap and freeze for future use.

Two Decades of 'Doh!'

So, The Simpsons is 20 years old. Woohoo! as Homer would say.

I think it is a brilliant cartoon - one of my favourite parts is the initial shot of Bart at the blackboard. That is mainly because I loved writing on a blackboard with chalk myself. It is much more satisfying than using a 'drywipe pen' on a whiteboard [they so often run out] - or a stylus on an interactive board [so often not calibrated - so your words appear an inch away from where you are writing]

This is one of his earliest offerings...

Now he has a green chalkboard, and there are loads of sites out there where you can generate your own slogans

Who is your favourite Simpson's Character? and what would you write on Bart's Board?

Thursday Thaw

...Edmund stepped out into the snow - but it was really only slush by now - and began helping the dwarf to get the sledge out of the muddy hole it had got into. And now the snow was really melting in earnest and patches of green grass were beginning to appear in every direction.

Unless you have looked at a world of snow as long as Edmund had been looking at it, you will hardly be able to imagine what a relief those green patches were after the endless white. Every moment the patches of green grew bigger and the patches of snow grew smaller. Every moment more and more of the trees shook off their robes of snow. Soon, wherever you looked, instead of white shapes you saw the dark green of firs or the black prickly branches of bare oaks and beeches and elms. Then the mist turned from white to gold and presently cleared away altogether. Shafts of delicious sunlight struck down on to the forest floor and overhead you could see a blue sky between the tree tops.

Soon there were more wonderful things happening...

 

 

 

...a strange grey dustsheet appeared all down the stairs...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and the man finally arrived and started putting in new windows!

God Bless You

I was reading Jim Gordon's blog and came across a great prayer for the New Year, written by a Franciscan monk [Jim found it on Michael Gorman's blog]

I thought it was really good, and worth sharing, so I was about to send it to Bob for possible inclusion in our Month of Prayer...only to discover he had just e-mailed it to me for that very reason! So I am sharing it with you

[If you want to follow the Month of Prayer at KMFC, find it here]

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

May The Force Be With You

So I drew a diagram a bit like this on the board and asked the children to label the forces acting on the sofa. [Think Forces, Think DFS - every Force has Direction and Strength]

I was expecting things like 'push' 'pull' 'friction' 'gravity' etc

Not "Police Force, Royal Air Force, Armed Forces"

Supply Teaching is never dull!

Job 37 [The Message] plus pictures [The BBC]

"Whenever this happens, my heart stops— I'm stunned, I can't catch my breath...

Listen to it! Listen to his thunder,
   the rolling, rumbling thunder of his voice.
He lets loose his lightnings from horizon to horizon, lighting up the earth from pole to pole.
In their wake, the thunder echoes his voice,
   powerful and majestic.
He lets out all the stops, he holds nothing back.
   No one can mistake that voice—

His word thundering so wondrously,
   his mighty acts staggering our understanding.
He orders the snow, 'Blanket the earth!'
   and the rain, 'Soak the whole countryside!'

No one can escape the weather—it's there.
   And no one can escape from God.
Wild animals take shelter, crawling into their dens,

When blizzards roar out of the north
   and freezing rain crusts the land.
It's God's breath that forms the ice,
   it's God's breath that turns lakes and rivers solid.

And yes, it's God who fills clouds with rainwater
   and hurls lightning from them every which way.
He puts them through their paces—first this way, then that—
   commands them to do what he says all over the world.
Whether for discipline or grace or extravagant love,
   he makes sure they make their mark.

[...I love that final part - 'discipline, grace or extravagant love']

Breaking News!

A wonderful story on the BBC News Website caught my eye, and really made me smile today.

Dan Simmons, of the techie programme "Click" has managed to break [apparently quite easily] a mobile phone declared "unbreakable". Watch the video clip here

In The Bleak Midwinter...

The Church Times Blog re-publishes this one

Thanks Sarah for pointing this one out!

How To Recycle A Mince Pie

I am indebted to my friend Carole, whose recent comment regarding ricotta and Yorkshire Curd Tarts inspired this idea.

Take some leftover mince pies

With a sharp knife, carefully cut round the lids, remove and discard**

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Using a teaspoon, carefully scoop out the filling and place in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine one beaten egg and 2 tbsp leftover ricotta cheese. Stir in half the mince pie filling. [Discard** the rest] Beat well.

Put a generous teaspoonful of the curd mix into each case, grate a little nutmeg on top.

Bake till risen, and the tops are just firm and golden brown.

These were delicious served warm - despite the peel, Bob greatly enjoyed two at lunchtime!

[**discard in this recipe means 'throw some out for birds, eat some as cook's perks']

That has recycled eight of the leftover pies - and all my leftover ricotta.

Votes For Women!

Look, I know the election campaign machine has already started rolling - but does anyone else find it odd that Thomson's are currently advertising Sense-A-Tory Holidays?

There you are, on the beach, in a bikini, reclining on a beach towel, relaxing with a good book, and some rosette-wearing politician may sneak up on you and ask for your vote. But with Thomson Holidays, you can sense them coming and quickly put down the book and pretend to be asleep!

[Actually, last time I was on a beach, on holiday, it was East Anglia, I was fully clad, including hat, scarf and gloves, and it was snowing...and I didn't see any politicians]

In Which The Pastor Becomes Miss Muffet!

As well as mince pies, we also managed to end the season with 9 pints of milk left over. I somehow miscalculated how much would get drunk in tea/poured on cereals etc. So I decided to make a huge quantity of rice pudding* and freeze it in smaller portions. But one of the library books I took to Norfolk was this...

Gennaro Contaldo is the Italian chef who is Jamie Oliver's mentor.

The book is fascinating in its details about Italian country life and cooking, but he mentions that 'any leftover milk was made into ricotta'

So Bob thought we should try that.

It is remarkably simple - put 2 pints of milk in a pan, bring it to the boil, and then immediately remove it from the heat. Wait 30 seconds. Repeat this twice more. Then after the third boiling, add the juice of a lemon, stir with a wooden spoon, bring to just below boiling point. Stir again and leave to cool.

The ricotta [curds] and liquid [whey] separate out. Allow to cool and then pour through a sieve and allow to drain.

It looks wonderful in my blue china bowl...

...but you don't seem to get much cheese for your 2 pints! We haven't decided what to do with it yet.

Gennaro says it is a good afternoon snack spread on bread. It can also be used in cooking - sweet or savoury. Its blandness means it marries well with more strongly flavoured ingredients -  with spinach in a flan or pasta dish - or with dried fruits and honey in desserts.

If it stays cold like this, I may just use it to fill some jacket spuds - artistically sprinkled with some smoked paprika perhaps.

The 500ml of whey produced will be useful for making scones - and I may try using some of it in my next loaf of bread.

 

*Very Easy Rice Pudding In Pressure Cooker

Melt a small knob of butter in bottom of the pan. Pour in milk, and for every ONE pint of milk, stir in ONE ounce of butter and TWO-AND-A-HALF ounces of pudding rice. Grate a generous amount of fresh nutmeg over the top. Bring almost to the boil - then place a circle of greaseproof paper/baking parchment on top [this is ESSENTIAL - it stops the liquid foaming up and clogging the vent]

Place the lid on the pressure cooker, and all the weights. Bring to pressure, and then turn the heat down and leave to cook for 12 minutes. At the end of the cooking time, turn off the heat and leave the PC to cool down completely and pressure to reduce.

You will be rewarded with a wonderfully creamy rice pud.

I do like the fact that all round the world, for years, people have been milking their cows [or sheep] and making simple home-made soft cheese like this - ricotta in Italy, cottage cheese in the UK, khoa in India, and requeson in Mexico [not sure what it is called in Russia, where they use it for Pashka, a fabulous Easter pudding]

And dairymaids [or clabber girls as they were often called in the US, clabber being another name for buttermilk] were always regarded as wonderful young girls.

...and I love all those paintings by the Flemish masters, of young women with jugs of milk