Saltimbocca and Housework

I cannot believe I'm about to type this next sentence. We are about to complete on the house. On Monday. On Monday at some point we will have keys in our hands to what could potentially be the house we live in for the rest of our lives. Or the next 5 years. This is of course of no interest to anyone else but us, but you must suffer along with if you want the recipe.

So I'm packing. And when I say "I", I actually do mean just me. MCD Sr says often and ineffectually "I must pack" and vanishes into the study on the top floor for an hour and a half ostensibly to do so, but upon inspection, I find 7 boxes. Seven. I've packed around 30 so far, which accounts for the rest of the house. His packing seems to cover folders. Mine covers... um... everything else: lounge, books, dining room sideboard, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, clothes, toys, linen, weird shit you accumulate without meaning to, which then includes the sorting and throwing away of useless junk before you can pack.

I'm not about to go off on a rant about my husband again; too too dull for everyone but I would faintly like to raise the spectre of division of housework labour as it has been topic of the week for Woman's Hour on Radio 4. What do you all do? Are you fair about it? Have you fallen into ruts hoed so deep they're now trenches from which you can only come out fighting? I'm vaguely disquieted about it all, I have to admit. What are women SUPPOSED to do? What are men SUPPOSED to do? How do you divvy it up? Our situation is probably pretty common, but I've finally categorised it as Intellectual and Physical: He works (at the moment - see last post) full time Mon-Fri, but he also takes care of absolutely everything financial and intellectual. You name it, insurance, car stuff, dealings with rental properties, bills, licences. I am absolutely incapable of doing any of it. So I, working much less in an earning sense, but also a lot in a "taking care of MCD JR" way, take care of what has become the Physical: cleaning, cooking, washing up, mowing the lawn, gardening, really really minor DIY (I once fixed a loo seat and I can put up pictures without the spirit level he deems necessary), shopping, school stuff, birthdays and so on.

Where I'm wavering over "fairness" is the small stuff, the stuff that you shouldn't apparently sweat. Sometimes, when I'm washing up after having cooked MCD Jr's part of the dinner, bathed him, put him to bed, then come back down and done it all over again for us, I wonder if it's "fair." But then he does bath and bed at weekend (so I get to cook and wash up without having to interrupt myself with bedtime, I guess...!). I also was slightly taken aback at his comment the other weekend that he doesn't mow the lawn "because he works" which rocked me back on my chair slightly. I was under the impression I did it because I like to see my child through the grass, not hunt maniacally for him as darkness approaches. I didn't realise he had made a conscious decision not to do it, due to other labours. And there's the thing, no? The old saw about whose work is MORE. More important, more time, more draining and exhausting. When I'm feeling resentful about the small stuff I find myself counting hours: he comes home and is done around 7pm each night, I'm not done till 8.30/9pm sometimes. But then I also get to have time to myself 2 1/2 days a week, time when I actually can grab half an hour with a book which he doesn't, so really I'm on flexi-time.

And here's the other thing: it's what you're good at. I'm really REALLY bad at dealing with money. He's really REALLY bad at cleaning up and cooking. Seriously, last week I had to ditch a portion of tomato soup because he "didn't see it" on the hob when he was tidying up in order to put it in the fridge. He also didn't see the washing up or the messy work surface - it was at this point I finally put this idea of him partaking of housework to rest. He cannot do it. I have to redo it. Therefore, I just do it and it is done. And he has always been this way. Always. I cannot change him. It's true, leopards do not change their spots. So you come to accept it and this is the way it is and if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have a position of security from which to bitch and moan about the trivial shit.

And so on to saltimbocca, that "jump-in-the-mouth" Italian dish that sounds really complex and isn't. I like to do it with pork, but chicken or rose veal would be fine.

Per person:
1 pork escalope
1 slice Parma ham or prosciutto
1 sage leaf
1 cocktail stick

For the beans:
1 onion
1 clove garlic
1 courgette, diced
1 can cannellini beans, drained
2 sage leaves
4-5 ripe tomatoes

Place the escalopes between 2 sheets of clingfilm and bash them until they're quite thin - about 1/2 cm. Wrap a slice of ham around, place a sage leaf on top and secure with a cocktail stick. Pop them in the fridge until needed.

Meanwhile, sauté the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until softened, then add the courgette (or aubergine or other greens) until tender. Add the beans and chopped sage leaves then roughly chop up the tomatoes and add to the pan. Season and simmer for 15 minutes or until thickened.

Heat a knob of butter in a frying pan and fry off the escalopes for 2 minutes each side max, pressing down on them with a spatula to get the sage leaf nice and crisp. Spoon a little butter over them while cooking too. Remove to a place, tip out any burnt butter and deglaze the pan with a little white wine or marsala and a little extra butter for shine. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the meat, serve with the beans and knap over the sauce. Buon appetito.

A few ways with broccoli; or a bit about living with depression

It's been a tense few weeks at Dodsley Towers, tbh. It's enough moving house - or rather waiting to move because the damn thing doesn't seem any nearer being built than in March, but to add in a few dollops of stress from other quarters and suddenly life borders on the near-despairing.

It's very hard when you hit despair. It's even worse when someone you love hits despair and there is nothing you can do. You watch them sink into themselves, a sort of right-way-round version of The Twits, disappearing from view; conversation becomes monosyllabic or downright emotional, an endless repeat of "why me?" and "what can I do?". You aim for staunch and supportive, bluff and stiff upper lip, but get accused of being actually unsupportive. You hug and cuddle and make myriad stupid, meaningless gestures they don't see anyway, like always doing all the housework, looking after the children, and end up feeling resentful and unsupported yourself. You veer away from making conversation - any kind - other than to relate something funny a child did today to lift their spirits, because conversation always ends in the same way: "I hate my job/my life," or "another shit day" or another rant about the new house not being built because that's something tangible to focus on. You can't actually face those phrases again so you choose to say nothing. You dread waking up because the day ALWAYS begins with them saying "Another shit day..." (It ends with it too). You find yourself tensing, waiting for the familiar soul-deep sigh that seems to emanate from them at almost minute intervals. You find your eczema, sensitive to mood at the best of times, appearing in places hitherto unexplored and want to yell "Why is your mood ruining my body?" (Remember: staunch and supportive at all times). You want to - and in fact do - repeat platitudes IN THEIR FACE like the one about the light at the end of the tunnel, but then see that they can't see that light; they're just stuck in the howling darkness with the freight train rushing down on them AND THEY CAN'T SEE THE DAMN TRACKS. You cry. A lot. Over nothing. And hide it. Or sometimes you don't in order to get a response, some notion you exist in their heads too.

We've been waiting for some news that will potentially change all this and finally, yesterday we got it. And it was good. So now, in theory, all this goes away. MCD Sr is bouncing away like Tigger on ketamines - suddenly all the despair has vanished, he found the tracks and is running, helter-skelter, towards the light. And I'm wondering why I still feel low, as if nothing's changed. And I think it's because it's become a habit. Because for months now, I haven't felt another way other than that of feeling my way blindly round a timebomb, constantly tiptoeing so that all that feeling, all that sadness, doesn't come surging out again like a tsunami taking us under again and again, leaving us blindsided and gasping and fighting to get to shore and security. Husbands, we are told, are not supposed to cry, are not supposed to be the ones making us feel unsafe and insecure just by being "a bit sad". They go manfully off and strive through their jobs, just as we do and crucially, get on with it. When, suddenly, they can't, when that MANLINESS becomes just a frightened child waiting on the hills for the wolves to come, you have to rush in on your charger, holding up the light so they can see it. And sometimes it takes a fucking long time before they can. Meanwhile, on you muster, a very pillar of wifely support, trembling, frightened, resentful, sympathetic, loving, hating, exhausted and wired. Because that's what you do. Because that's what marriage means. But no-one talks about that.

So every little helps and eating your greens at such times at least keeps your iron levels up when all you want to do is eat nothing but macaroni cheese. MCD Jr maintains he only likes broccoli "in stuff" so I've been exploring a few ways to get it in. Moronic, I know, but over-achievement has always been my byline.

3-veg Pesto:
This is dead easy: Take a big handful of spinach. frozen peas and broccoli and a peeled clove of garlic and cook in boiling water till just tender. Drain and bung in a food processor. Add a small handful of toasted pine nuts, a squeeze of lemon, olive oil and a good handful of grated Parmesan and whizz together to make a pesto consistency. Cooking the garlic with the veg softens the flavour if you've got, like me, a child with sensitive tastebuds that hates the heat of raw garlic.

Ham, Cheese and Veg Quesadillas
Blitz a good handful chestnut mushrooms and a few stalks broccoli with a clove of garlic in the food processor then add to a pan with a good lump of butter and a splash of water and cook until softened. Lay a tortilla wrap on a baking sheet and top with a slice or two of nice ham. Spread a thin layer of the veg over the top then sprinkle on grated cheese of your choice. Top with another wrap and bake in the oven until the cheese has melted. Cut into small wedges and serve.

Broccoli Cheese Sauce.
Blitz some broccoli again in the food processor then add to a basic cheese sauce, either the béchamel variety or cream with cheese stirred in. Use to coat pasta, cauliflower, leeks, chicory, anything really.

This blitzing is a great way with greens: I'm trying it with kale and leeks but would also work with cauliflower or even Brussels sprouts, which love cream and cheese.

A Smoky Porky Tex-Mex Baked Beans; Or What To Do With Leftover Roast

I really love a Sunday roast. Really love it. Plan it all week, down to the glass of very cold, dry sherry that I have while preparing it, which reminds me almost painfully nostalgically of Ma making the same meal, drinking the same drink while we swung off the wooden chair in the kitchen watching Antiques Roadshow and irritatingly asking on a loop "Is dinner ready yet?" Summer Sundays seem to have a bit of a gap in them because there's not two hours spent in the kitchen chopping, par-boiling, roasting, stirring.

Last Sunday was when I broke. We were having roast pork shoulder come what may, weather-wise. As the weather gradually brightened up, even I had to admit roast potatoes and creamed leeks and luscious gravy were perhaps not the way forward as we sat squinting in the sunlight. So I changed tack, nicked a recipe out of Delicious magazine for an apricot, sherry & hazelnut stuffing and slow-roasted the joint while we went blackberry- and damson-ing. Leftover pork is obviously never an issue, given that I'll make apple sauce just for the sandwiches the next day (mayonnaise and stuffing also obligatory), but 3 days on, I needed it out of the fridge. So...

Serves 3

1 onion, finely sliced
1 red pepper, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
6cm-ish piece of chorizo, choppped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1-2 chipotle chillies (or dried chilli flakes or Tabasco or whatever you have, however much you want)
1 x400g can butter beans (or haricot or cannellini or whatever you have)
200ml beef stock
1x 400g can tinned tomatoes
Leftover pork, chopped (This would work really well with beef, lamb and chicken as well)
S & P
To serve: chopped avocado, sour cream, chopped coriander, tortilla chips...

This is dead easy. Cook the onion, pepper and garlic in a little olive oil until golden then throw in the chorizo and spices. Cook until the oil runs from the chorizo and turns everything reddy-brown, then add the beans, tomatoes and stock. Simmer for 20-25 minutes until reduced a little, then add the pork and heat through. Check for seasoning and spice, then serve with the accompaniments. MCD Jr had his with buttery corn on the cob which would also hit the right notes.

You can add any vegetables to this you fancy and use any beans or meat, but it's a wonderful sweet, smoky take on chilli and baked beans. We ate shed-loads and I've got some leftover for lunch. You can extend it easily with more beans and more tomatoes if you want to bulk-cook and freeze.

PS: MCD Jr's veg count is at the moment a bit low - he seems to be on another picky phase. So I'm back to putting out batons of carrots, cucumber and sugar snap peas as an appetiser if he's hungry before dinner, which means at least some fresh veg is eaten.

Root Vegetable Rosti

So tonight, in reaction to all that beige last night, we're going Technicolour. This root vegetable rosti is almost neon with carrot, beetroot, apple and potato. You can spice it up with garam masala or other spices, tart it up with a sprightly tomato sauce, keep it veggie or use it as a side to meat or fish. And feel free to vary the vegetables: celeriac, parsnip, kohlrabi and swede all have their place here.

Serves 2-4

1 large potato, peeled
2 small beetroot, peeled
1 large carrot, peeled
1 apple, peeled
1 onion, peeled (optional)
Salt and pepper
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp. plain flour

Grate the veg and mix in a bowl. Whisk in the egg and flour and season well. Add spices now if you're doing that. Pour a good covering of oil into a non-stick pan and add the veg mix, flattening it down. Leave it to cook and brown over a moderate heat for 10-15 minutes or until golden-brown and you feel brave enough to turn it onto a plate, then slide back into the pan to cook the other side. If you don't feel like you want to do that - and the key really is to leave it to cook long enough - do individual ones; just cook until properly golden on both sides.

We're having ours with roasted chicken thighs and some fresh tomatoes diced and cooked with garlic and a little ground cumin and coriander. These do go well, however, with some kind of pig.

Smoked Haddock Chowder - Beige Night

Digression: In 5 or even 6 weeks time - and it's wholly uncertain which - we get to move again. Third time in 3 years. This time it's just around the corner, quite literally: we can hear the diggers from our back garden. We're buying a new-build and we're putting down roots: the two aren't quite as mutually exclusive, it seems, as you might think.

Renting's an odd thing. Get the right house and you can kid yourself for quite a long time it's all good. The beige walls and carpet can be coloured up with a few wall stickers and picture, the lounge can withstand the red rug everyone hates, even you, though you bought it to cover the carpet a little and "accent" the throws you bought to lighten up the furniture. But still it comes down to the boring mantra "Don't swing/bash/colour that - it's not ours" and you all feel slightly dampened; it's not yours and you can't touch it. Hard with a small child, harder still when you just want to colour the damn beige in yourself. I'm going mad with wall stickers when we finally move in. MAD.

Anyway, tonight's dinner is also distinctly on the beige side. Tbh, I needed to use up milk, which seems to multiply in my fridge like pigweed in the night and so this, as well as the mac cheese that is no doubt coming later in the week, is just the thing. V easy and feel free to use smoked cod, or bacon as well, or different veg: this is just what we had in. Mussels make a very fine luxe version, for the weekend maybe.

Serves 3

400g or so smoked fish
300ml milk
100ml double cream
bay leaf and peppercorns
knob of butter
1 onion, finely sliced
1 leek, finely sliced
Handful small potatoes or indeed 1-2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
Frozen peas and sweetcorn (optional)
Handful raw prawns
Chopped parsley or dill
Squeeze of lemon juice

Simmer the smoked fish in the milk and cream with the bay leaf and peppercorns for 5-7 minutes or until it flakes away. Discard the skin, reserve the liquid and set the fish aside.

Sweat the alliums in the butter until truly soft and slippery. Add the potatoes and cook for a few minutes without browning, then add the milk/cream and simmer for 10 minutes or until soft. Add a little more milk or cream or even fish stock if you feel it needs topping up. This is a soup so you want generous amounts of liquid.

Add the haddock, prawns and peas and corn if using. I like the idea of corn in a chowder, MCD hates it, but I'm cooking, so ho-hum. Simmer until the prawns are cooked, then adjust the seasoning and add the herbs and lemon juice. Serve in deep bowls with crusty baguette for dunking.

Spanish-style Fish Stew

I'm not one for "family-friendly" food. I think I might have said before that this whole "family-friendly" schtick really pees me off; I'm not even sure what it's supposed to mean other than an assumption the entire family is only happy if eating gristle nuggets, limp microwave chips and bowls of ketchup. It's as patronising and demeaning as it is irritating, and even more so when you happen to have a child who - I kid you not - will order fish and chips with peas and spend happy hours peeling off the batter to get to the fish and scoffing it, eating the peas, leaving a beige collation of cold chips and batter on the side of the plate. Service staff have been known to raise their eyebrows in a questioning "Seriously?" before tentatively asking if everything was alright - because if the batter and chips are left, what could have been eaten? I tend to balk at those places, tbh.

Actually he's a fantastic eater full-stop but that's because I really believe in what I'm doing and I'm really stubborn. I don't honestly recall having bought fish fingers, nuggets or anything of that ilk, EVER, but that's not to say they're wholly bad; some - my own family included - have called me mean, as if I'm depriving him of some obligatory sensory experience necessary to validate the life of a 3 year old, but he was already occasionally having those things at school, so I don't see why I should narrow his palate profile - which sounds as if I just made it up and I did - by serving the same at home. If we have burgers, we tend to make them; we have sausages, just not with chips, and we only tend to have chips if we have steak or fish....

Also - and I will get to the recipe in a minute but bear with - I have to tell you about a recent triumph which has everything to do with persistence and patience and nothing to do with bourgeois snobbery AT ALL. MCD Jr has always loved smoked salmon, to the point he used to make my sister gag with the alacrity with which he shoved it down, but over the last year decided he no longer liked it. So we said nothing, kept buying it occasionally, offering it and telling him the story of how he ate it "when he was a baby" and hoped he'd change his mind. Finally, a few weeks ago, I was putting some out for lunch and asked him as usual if he'd fancy some. MCD Jr thought solemnly about it for some seconds then asked if he could. Then ate a slice in much the usual fashion before announcing it was once more acceptable to his palate and he now liked that AND little prawns. Next challenge: mussels.

So the thing I cooked last night was not "family-friendly" but it was the sort of thing I tend to cook and expect everyone to eat or go hungry, which is sort of the rule in our house. It was Spanish-style because I had some chorizo from Aldi and some Serrano ham and I wanted to do fish because I always want to eat more fish. I found some Cape Hake in M&S which was marvellous, but you could use any firm white fish. Also feel free to lose the ham and add mussels, clams or even bacon if you want. The meat is optional but you need to substitute the flavour punch. Also, add olives and capers if you like it really piquant. I just always have to fish them out onto my plate and last night I couldn't be bothered.

Also, I know it's a bit odd to only use 2 tinned toms out of a can but I didn't want exactly the same richness of tomato as we had in the pasta. You could use chopped fresh tomatoes instead quite easily.

Olive oil
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
1 courgette, chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp smoked paprika
8cm piece of chorizo, finely sliced
1-2 slices Serrano ham, finely chopped
Glug of white wine or even dry sherry if you have it
Handful small new potatoes, quartered
400g tin butter beans, drained
2 tinned tomatoes (save the rest of the tin for a pasta sauce or something....)
300-400ml chicken stock
1 bay leaf
300g white fish
Parsley, chopped

Sweat the vegetables in olive oil until golden and soft, then add the paprika, chorizo and ham and cook until the fat runs and turns it reddy. Add the wine, potatoes and beans and stir well and simmer for a couple of minutes, then add the toms and chicken stock and bay leaf, season and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Chop the fish into decent sized chunks and slide in for 10 mins or until cooked. Check the seasoning, sprinkle with parsley and serve in deep bowls with good bread.

Um.... Hi... It's been a while....

So, erm, Hi. Again. Sorry, I keep doing this - ducking in and out, avoiding commitment, scared someone will ask me for a key if I stay too long. However, this time, I'm going to try to stick around a while, so we'll take some time to settle in, get used to each other again.

God, this is embarrassing, but anyway, an old friend asked me to resurrect the blog because apparently my Twitter (yeah, I'm on Twitter now too) updates on what I am feeding MCD Jr are interesting suggestions, but what with the word count and all, there's no recipes and now you people want recipes. Want, want, want.... Anyway, I'm going to try to keep up with that because I happen to think it's really fucking important what we feed our children and even if this only helps my friend get through the long lonely winters of Minnesota, then that's one person who's reading and that's ok. Alright, Sar....

So, we'll start with an easy one. Well, it is easy in that it's a meatball pasta bake, but the cool part is that a) there's no less than six vegetables in it and b) it's a classic make-ahead/freeze/expandable and adjustable recipe that you can substitute whatever you like in. For example, I used veal mince but that's because it was on offer in Sainsbury's - you could use pork, beef, lamb or turkey if you wanted. Everything else is non-negotiable. Well, sort of. The veg are kind of non-negotiable.

This serves a healthy 4-6 people. I am anticipating meatball sandwiches tomorrow.

450g mince
4-6 balls frozen spinach, defrosted and really squeezed
Zest of 1/2 lemon
1-2 tbsp. Parmesan, grated

Mix together the above ingredients into small balls not bigger than walnuts really. Or golf balls. Just something you can pop right in and will look nice. Add a little olive oil to a really nice wide pan and fry the meatballs in batches until really browned on both sides, setting aside in a bowl when done. Then whizz...

1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 stick celery, chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 stalk rosemary, leaves only

...in a food processor and fry in the leftover oil in the pan until soft. This will add real sweetness and depth to the sauce. Then add the meatballs back in and add...

....
a gurgle of red or white wine (I had about 100ml red leftover - optional)
1 can tinned tomatoes
200ml chicken or beef stock
2 sprigs thyme

... and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the sauce is reduced enough that you can see it saucing the pasta comfortably and it tastes good. Season it, for god's sake. The sauce will taste quite rich and grown-up. If you think it needs sugar, add a pinch.

Meanwhile, cook enough pasta (I go with 80g per adult, 40g per child) and drain, then toss it all together, strew with sliced mozzarella and bake in a good hot oven for about 25 minutes until golden and bubbling.

You could up the veg content more or make it veggie but adding aubergine and courgettes and even peppers. Parmesan is nice added after cooking. Garlic bread is unnecessary but thanks to the friend mentioned above, I seem to make it far more than I should.

Have a go, let me know what you think. Or not.

And…. I’m back in the room; or Black Pudding Bread and other stories

Whew, well that’s over. One project and a short break finished and I’m back to the world of blogging. Sorry little blog, how have you been? Everything ok? How’s the world out there? Apocalyptic as far as I can work out. Dear oh dear, what a mess.

Let me fatten up the blog with a few recipes, to start with. It’s been fairly meagre times so shall we begin with a nod to the Star Inn’s black pudding bread? Revolting, you may think, but really, give it a go. All you need is a breadmaker. If you make your bread by hand, really well done (clap clap), but you’ll have to do your own experimenting on the recipe.

Place ingredients for a standard size loaf – white or brown, though I prefer white for this – in your breadmaker. Take the skin off your black pudding – a loop of it is just enough for this size loaf. Chop into small pieces and add to the other ingredients. Close the lid and set as for a standard white loaf. Leave to cook. Remove from pan to rack and leave to cool. Slice and serve with an excellent fried breakfast. Complicated, no? But seriously good and very filling, as you might expect.

What else….? Hmmm there was that 3 hours of summer in the middle of June when I made bbq ribs according to John Critchley, King of BBQ. They were A-mazing. I simply followed his recipe, substituting very slightly as I went along with smoked chipotle sauce rather than dried chillies and so on. We had them with cornbread and coleslaw and a pert little green salad and as summer goes, it was brilliant. We’re back on recipes for cauliflower soup now.

I’ve been experimenting with the whole food ‘thing’ with MCD Jr. Although he (objectively speaking) eats very well, we’re coming up to the famous neophobia phase and I wanted as much as possible to circumvent it, so went out and bought every book on the eating habits of French children (and you may have seen them around) that I could buy, read them obsessively and developed a plan. No, I’m not paranoid, just prepared. The most important lesson I have learned over the last few months is DO NOT MAKE A FUSS. I can’t say that enough. I might even say it again. DO NOT MAKE A FUSS. Oh and HUNGER IS YOUR BEST FRIEND. No substitutes, no snacking, lots of praise. Actually I might pass on this gem, in the hope of some other new-ish mother noting it: lack of familiarity and reference is what causes your child to be cautious. For example, you can serve mashed potato 100 times, but the first time you serve it adorned with a sprig of parsley, they’ll no doubt reject it because it comes to them as a completely new dish. You have to be prepared to serve the same dish a few times the same way for it to be assimilated and overcome any potential hesitancy. That’s all I know.

I suppose I have to mention the rain. In fact I am going to mention it because thanks to it, and the consequent proliferation of slugs and snails (and a family of ducks that now sail straight from pond to garden), not a vegetable has made it past puberty up here. We have high (well, medium) hopes for the tomatoes, in that there are flowers, but no fruit yet. I have one teeny-weeny courgette on one plant (I planted 12) that I expect to not see the end of the week. Even my fennel and oregano have been got at. It’s been more Margo and Jerry than Tom and Barbara and that’s been very disappointing.

On the food news front, Tarporley is now in possession of a farm shop, Blythings. If I can make a swim for it, I am off to explore it later today and will report back. Of course, if it’s rubbish I won’t but Tarporley’s not known for the rubbishness of its retail outlets.

Oh and if anyone needs a friendly, helpful, professional food or recipe writer in any way, just let me know. I’m available for the summer and it’s not like we’re going anywhere because we don’t have a boat.

Technorati Tags: black pudding bread,barbecue ribs,children eating habits

Hunting and gathering

The weather cannot have been more dreich, no? Today we had a brave morning of sunshine, a caesura crammed full of hope, only to relapse to yet more woeful rain. And I left the washing out, so my mood wasn’t the best.

But quick, there are always little food-encrusted jewels (slightly revolting) glimmering away and I think I might start listing some of them. It seems Cheshire’s golden triangle, away north of here, gets some press, but we east of Chester are without victuals and it’s not true.

First up, the new shining star in our firmament: Gastronomy Deli in Tarporley. Finally breathing vigorous, sustained life into a bit of a Bermuda hole of a retail spot, they are the bees’. Excellent cheese, even more excellent meats, imaginative and tempting menu, good deli sides to explore and a nice way with children. If I had one minor criticism, it’s to up their bread game a bit, but the stuff they sell is still miles above anything else in the village.

I took a ride up to Davenport’s Farm Shop today, away up the A49. We are a bit overrun with farm shops round here and the good ones are very good indeed – if a little pricey. This one was notable for selling Jane’s Handmade Bread, some very fine dry good, own-grown fruit and veg and a bit of everything you might need in a hurry. More wonderful than all of that though, were the donkeys, the rhea (pretty sure it wasn’t an emu), the enormous Dorking chickens and the black ducks. MCD Jr thought it very heaven.

This one is a bit of a cheat, I can’t help feeling. I’m on a bit of a mission about good bread at the moment; can’t help feeling I’m missing out on something. Popped into Waitrose in Chester and tried one of their own-baked artisan ficelles – and actually it really was pretty good. They use French flour, so the crumb is that lovely creamy colour and warmed for breakfast, with some French jam, it was actually very lovely. I’ve yet to find a baguette to match it. The hunt is on.

To eat, we finally tried The Fox and Barrel up the road on the A49. A very upmarket pub, it serves slightly cheffy restaurant food in hearty portions. It has a roaring fire which, you know, in May is all you want and the pub bit at the front is just lovely to sit in with a pint and which, in fact, is all I wanted to do.

More to follow. I like the idea of popping into the blog to tell about the latest place to eat or buy. I shall keep it up.

DIY Pasties

So, ho-hum, looks like that was Spring. Spiffing. What a tease March is. So bracing is it in fact that for tonight I have dug some oxtail from the deeper reaches of the freezer to make a stew with spinach dumplings – in a way, something of a relief, otherwise I would have found a frozen lump of bone come November and thrown it in the bin.

Anyway, pasties. Yum. Depending on your preference of course. And so topical right now. However, I’m not really talking about proper Cornish pasties and the like; gorgeous though they are (and for the record I’m a West Cornwall Pasty Co girl), there are trillions of recipes out there for the real deal. I’m talking pastry and filling and lots of both.

You will need 2 sheets ready rolled puff pastry and a beaten egg. This will feed 4-8 people, depending on how much restraint you can show after they come out the oven. I got carried away because the first one looked so good, I had to make another because I didn’t think there could possibly be enough to satiate. I might have been a tad ambitious in my thinking, but they reheat well enough for lunch the next day.

Lay out your puff pastry sheets and slice each rectangle in half to make 2 squares-ish. Place one half on a sheet of baking paper on a baking sheet, then top with one of the following fillings, leaving a small margin round the edge with which to seal it.

Filling no 1: Slice a large handful waxy potatoes the width of a pound coin. (NB I was using Sainsbury’s Vivaldi potatoes, which are actually incredibly delicious – much recommended here and baked with herbs and olive oil). Boil in salted water until tender, then drain and dry thoroughly.

Meanwhile sweat 2 finely sliced leeks in an indecent amount of butter with a touch of salt until slippery and soft and sweet. Add to the potatoes, along with 2-3 tbsp crème fraiche, a tbsp wholegrain mustard and a good 2 handfuls grated Cheddar or other similar cheese. Stir gently to combine.

Filling no 2: In plenty of olive oil, cook a chopped onion, a finely chopped aubergine, 1 large chopped field mushroom and some garlic until tender. Drain off any excess oil, then add a good handful sliced salami and sprinkle in some dried chilli if desired. Check seasoning then stir in  some cubed mozzarella – you may not need the whole ball.

Back to the pasties. Top with the remaining pastry half, squidge firmly round the edges to seal, brush with the egg and make a couple of slits in the top. Bake at 200C for 40 minutes until golden brown and cooked underneath. Leave to cool for ooh, 30 seconds, before picking at the corners then slicing off thinly, then again, and again….

Cooking–The good bits and the bad bits…

I fear this blog is getting rather patchy, which is not the point at all. I get all gung-ho and blog properly, then get caught up in life and time drifts by and shyness sets in and no matter how many times I think I should put so-and-so on the blog, I never do. Madness.

So, to recap I have been cooking from Heston Blumenthal at Home. And actually I still am. I’m not going to reprint recipes, unless you specifically want them, but I would urge you to buy the damn book. I think, if I’m being honest, it has made me change the way I think about cooking meat. Heston’s method of cooking low and slow is not without merit, despite it being a bit of a lengthy kitchen job at times. However, having sounded that cautionary note, I used his method of cooking a leg of lamb (studded with blanched garlic, rosemary and anchovy) in a 100C oven for about 4 hours and not only was the cooking time very hands-off, the meat tasted extraordinary. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

On the other hand, not so much with the Pommes Boulangère. Now, this may be something to do with me and my ovens, but I have never had any kind of potato gratin, be it cream or stock based, cook in less than an hour and a half. In fact, I’ve gone with Jeffrey Steingarten’s method after much experimentation and found his slightly fiddly method the most successful – recipe reprint on request. So when Heston tells me my mandolin-sliced potatoes will cook in 50 minutes in a 150C oven, forgive if I am sceptical. TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER, having turned the oven up to 180C, we had a gratin. Luckily the lamb is very forgiving… Again, the taste was extraordinary, the cooking stock comprising reduced white wine and lamb stock infused with rosemary, but I would love to know – if anyone has any tips on this – how you do cook a gratin in less than an hour.

Last night, just to throw it into the mix, I made his cauliflower macaroni cheese, albeit with penne. Although I didn’t add the deep-fried florets, the dish was a hit. To prècis – because it’s not complicated – you simmer most of the cauliflower head florets in around 400ml milk until tender, then blitz until smooth. Cook the pasta. Add 240g of grated Gruyère and half as much Parmesan to the cauliflower sauce, then cook until melted. Add a good 1/2 tbsp wholegrain mustard, then toss with the pasta and the reserved raw cauliflower florets. Scatter with more grated cheese and bake until bubbling. You could add ham or cooked pancetta if you were being cavalier about your red meat intake, but both my boys wolfed it down, despite allegedly not liking cauliflower.

Cauliflower – it’s a man’s food

In which I roast a chicken (no, really)

I have not gone mad. Of course I roast chickens all the time. Of course you know how to roast a bloody chicken. The last thing we need is yet another way to roast a chicken. And yet, and yet, there might be something else to try.

Last Sunday was a bit of a shocker. Still limping through the after-effects of flu, iced in (because of course we move to the North and become the only place in Britain not to get beautiful dreamy drifts of snow but blanket sheet ice literally falling in lethal lumps from a dour sky) with nowhere to go and dying of boredom, I decided I would cook the roast chicken I had planned for dinner The Heston Way (cue ‘dah-dah-DAH!’). This involved brining, a slow cook, a long rest and a final blasting roast. It looked to be a bit of a haul and I was sceptical as to how worth it it would be.

I had to cut corners not least because I decided to embark upon it at 10.30am, a good 14 hours later than Heston would have you start. First you theoretically brine your chicken in a 6% salt solution overnight. Do not panic: I too have no idea what that means so I followed his instructions of 300g salt to 5 litres water in a stockpot and plop in the untrussed chicken. I left it for 3 1/2 hours; this was all I could leave it for as I have a rule on Sundays we all eat together and that means dinner about 5.30 and this sucker had to cook for at least three of those hours left. I drained it, dried it off, smeared it with butter and shoved a lemon up its bum then stuck it in the oven at about 110C. Now, he stipulates 90C but my oven doesn’t have such a low temperature on the dial and I wasn’t even sure it would come on, so I upped it to visible temperature.

After 3 hours (about 4.30pm) I took the chicken out of the oven. It did not look promising. Pallid, flobby, and practically swimming in its own juices. Blee. There is a reason Heston tells you to put it on a rack. Do it. However I gamely stuck my thermometer into the thickest part and checked the temperature. He wanted it to be about 65C; mine read just over 70C. ‘That’s cooked enough for me’ I thought as I poured off the juices into a measuring jug and left it to rest sweatily on the side. I mean, roast chicken looks great, no? This really doesn’t. You have to keep the faith a bit at this point. Heston rests his chicken for 45 minutes before a final basted roasting for 10-15 minutes to crisp up the skin – but he forgot about the roast potatoes. This is where timing goes out the window but I don’t think it matters a jot.

Your roast potatoes are going to need, say, 45 minutes in a really hot oven, so get them boiled and ready to go in when the chicken comes out. Whack the oven up, get the potatoes in and get on with your gravy (if you make it separately like I do). If you do, spoon off the fat from the top of the juices, then pour those juices into the gravy to really concentrate the flavour. If you make yours in the tin, hold onto them for later.

20 minutes before the chicken is ready, melt a little butter and white wine together in a pan and baste the chicken with it. Perhaps brush it on with a sprig of rosemary. Season. Place the chicken in the oven and cook until the skin is golden and crisp. Mine took 12 minutes. Remove from the oven with the potatoes and foil over to keep warm.Working  quickly, either reheat your gravy or heat the leftover juices in the roasting tin and season.

Finally, carve your chicken. Now, this is the thing. I think this method is really going to show results on a supermarket chicken; I think the better quality the chicken you buy, the less difference you’ll see in the end result. However, the point is the chicken meat is firmer, it tastes amazing and it is of course juicy (although I have never cooked a dry chicken, so I can’t possibly comment. I don’t know how you do cook a dry chicken.) The gravy with all those flavours returned to it is also knock-out. And the leftovers are where it gets really good; as the chicken remains so moist, the leftovers really do stay good for some time.

I have made the monumental decision to buy the book Heston Blumenthal at Home; not because I was so overwhelmed necessarily with the result, but because the method was interesting, easy to follow and methodical (if tiresomely long – my recommendation would be to do it for a Sunday lunch and then your afternoon is free) and, having watched the Channel 4 series, I long to have a go at his cheese sauce and fondue for the same reasons. Not because I can’t cook them, but because I want to know how I can cook them better.

Self-improvement. The name of the game for 2012.

Relocation, Relocation; or, in which I lost my heart

Sometimes the only way you know you’re home is when you return. Sometimes you don’t even know that you have returned and found home in something you didn’t know you wanted in the first place. (Too cryptic? Try me after my next coffee). Sometimes your whole being throws out little anchors you didn’t realise were holding you safely in place until you try to tear away from them.

I’ve always loved moving around, perhaps because we never did as children, so I still love discovering new places. A particular joy of such a big move up to Cheshire is the constant discovery of new roads, new places, new people. It is a buzz. I knew I liked it up here; we’re enjoying ourselves, the slower lifestyle, the new friends and so on. I didn’t know how much till we left.

This sounds terribly melodramatic, so let me clarify. We merely went down to London for 48 hours to see my sister and for MCD to go on some almighty marathon piss-up with his friends under the guide of ‘sorting out a stag do.’ We drove to Bromley via the sat nav’s weirdly circuitous route of the Olympic site (big thrills for MCD there) and, as we drove through E London, as the buildings drew ever inwards, as the skyline grew greyer and contracted to glimpses of blue, I felt my innermost being contract as well. Something inside huddled a bit closer. The traffic got a bit more impatient and aggressive, the high streets looked surly – it all looked, well, unfriendly.

We had a fine weekend. Despite MCD Jr deciding to push his canines through and consequently spending much of it streaming from every orifice and wailing hysterically, it was a good weekend. I saw two of my best friends, I hung out and drank Champagne with my sister, we went to Chapter One where they thought MCD Jr a riot, fed him fishcake and he helped himself to vast quantities of rhubarb sorbet and crème brulée. It was fun.

But. And here’s the thing. As we turned on to the A500 off the M6, a mere 25 minutes from home, I felt my entire soul lift. I felt myself breathe in again; as if all weekend I had been holding my breath in tension. It was a feeling of home, of belonging, of right-ness. ‘This is where we should be, we are fools ever to leave it’, were my persistent thoughts as we came through the final leg and passed the Snugbury’s bear. I felt like I was coming back to my husband after being away, that same sense of slight desperation and excitement to see each other again. Is this love, I wondered?

It is a similar feeling to coming home to my parents’. I still refer to it as ‘home’ which still irritates MCD. ‘We have a home’ he insists, and he’s right, but in my head I had two homes: one where my parents are, and one where we are right now. I suspect it’s not that unusual. But now we are here in Tarporley, and even though we rent, the word ‘home’ has taken on a deeper resonance; as if I have indeed come home. I feel the same sense of security, of familiarity, of contentment as in my childhood. That makes it more ‘home’ than any place we lived in – and loved living in – in London.

Home is where friends and family are. That is a fundamental truth and not one I shall strive to overturn. However, I would like to make a plaintive plea for Place. Sometimes it’s not where your family is, or where you hang out with your mates, or where you grew up; sometimes it’s just a place that evokes all of those feelings in you, that conjures up that same sense of comfort and holds you tight when you leave.

Famine and feast

As previously mentioned we’re doing a bit of a carb-free push. It got to the point where sadly, I could no longer pretend that I was carrying  Caesarean scar tissue and baby weight (16 months on) alone, and that I was fine with it. So we picked up the Idiot-Proof Diet book again, put ourselves through no-alcohol hell for two weeks and we are slowly losing poundage. Well, I say we. MCD is has lost about 10lbs so far. Every week when I stand on the scales it starts at 0, climbs to 1 or 2 lbs under the weight I started (I’m not telling you) and then wobbles; when I descend the needle is no longer at 0. I think I have lost weight: I have a waist and my jeans are very loose; the scales are against me.

Anyway, it means I’ve been scouring my books for food that is both carb-free and non-diet-y. So far the runaway success has been the onion bhaji recipe in the IPD recipe book which I reproduce here, if only to point out that not only are they still good the next day, but if you lost the spices and the onions and substituted vanilla extract, perhaps cinnamon and blueberries or raspberries, they’d make fantastic pancakes too.

• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 200g ground almonds
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 fresh green chillies, chopped and seeded
• 4 eggs, separated
• 100ml double cream
• 3 onions, finely sliced into half moons
• Groundnut oil for frying

1. Roast the cumin seeds in a dry hot pan until they darken and start to smell fragrant. Remove from the heat and cool.

2. Mix together the ground almonds, cumin, turmeric, salt, baking powder and chillies, then beat in the egg yolks and cream. The mixture will be quite stiff but never fear.

3. Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, then fold in, a third at a time, into the batter with a metal spoon.

4. Gently fold in the onion slices a few at a time until incorporated.

5. Heat about 0.5cm oil in a large pan and, using a dessert spoon, fry spoonfuls of batter on both sides until crisp and golden.

6. Serve sprinkled with mint and dipped in yoghurt.

Another hit (sort of) was the Highland mussels out of Jamie’s Great Britain. I was really taken with the sound of this recipe – a base of leeks, garlic and smoked haddock and double cream, then throw in 6 shots of whisky and 2kg of mussels and simmer until the mussels open. I thought it sounded smoky and peaty and delicious. We made it and although MCD thought it was fabulous, I was a bit more ‘meh’. Grumbles: there was too much whisky – I would have halved the amount. I’m not sure I like mussels in a cream sauce; my marinière is always cream-less. The smoked haddock was yum but it was overpowered by the whisky. It was all a little sickly.

[Interlude: And while I’m on the Jamie topic, another moan: the serving amounts in this book are way out. Allegedly the above mussels recipe serve 6. We finished it between two of us. I also made the Worcestershire beef brisket sandwiches (I only ate the middle out of the bread… so sad, so very sad) for Sunday lunch the other day. Apparently 1kg of beef brisket will serve 10. My ass. It fed 5-6 and there was enough left over perhaps for 1 very generous sandwich. However, if you should care to restrict your friends, do make it. It is fantastic. If you want the recipe, let me know and I shall publish it up here.]

On the other hand, there’s MCD Jr who is going through his own classic toddler phase of famine and feast. Last night I made him a macaroni cheese with fish and peas. It went down like a train. Here’s the recipe – it makes enough for 3-4 generous portions. It’s good for adults too.

Cook 2 generous handfuls of baby pasta in a pan, adding 2 handfuls of peas 5 minutes from the end of cooking. When all is tender, drain. Meanwhile, heat a good 100ml of full-cream milk and a good splash or two of double cream in a pan and poach the fish fillets (I used pollock) for a few minutes until they flake apart.

Flake the fish into an oven-proof dish, then add as much grated Cheddar as you like into the poaching liquor. Stir until melted. Add the pasta and peas, coating them in the sauce, adding more cream if necessary. Tip into the dish and toss gently, then top with more grated cheese. Grill until bubbling.

This is him licking out the bowl after MCD made carb-free chocolate mousse. I do have my standards, so it was 70% cocoa…

Technorati Tags: idiot proof diet,recipes,atkins,carb free,childrens recipes,mussels,onion bhajis

The cleverness of Japanese crows

As promised… This was actually part of a BBC2 programme about amazing natural events presented by Chris Packham which I wasn’t officially watching glued as I was to the campest fitness programme ever on C4. (Fatfighters, in fact. I was quite unable to believe what I was seeing with my eyes. However I justified the horror because my brain cells were being fed amazing snippets of information from the BBC2 programme.)

Anyway, it turns out the crows in Japan were very keen on  the local crops of walnuts – I think walnuts. They don’t sound terribly Japanese – but had to figure out how to crack the shells. First they realised, being clever corvids, they could drop them from a height on to a hard surface, such as the road and that would weaken the shell. They then brilliantly progressed onto using traffic on the  roads as giant nutcrackers, timing the drops so the cars would crush the shells. However, the retrieval of the crushed nuts meant for crushed crows, and the exercise was fraught with danger. So – and this is so unfathomably amazing I cannot get over it – they learned to drop the nuts on zebra crossings (again I question whether this was actually Japan, but on we plough) and then retrieve their bounty when the lights stopped the traffic. Hoorah, I cheered.

I shall treat you with another amazing crow story. The next unexplained phenomenon was the case of the exploding toads. Now, I missed some of the finer points in this due to the sheer inanity of the rival programme, but in short: somewhere in the world there was suddenly a mass number of toad carcasses found exploded. After examination they realised each toad had the same-sized puncture mark in the same area of the skin. What could have made the hole? It was a complete mystery. Bring on the crows (you could hear them being lined up in the wings, chattering about how finally they get their moment in the sun.) Toad skin can be so poisonous as to be fatal to any hungry predator. The toads also inflate themselves to make themselves look bigger and harder to tackle when under threat, ie from a peckish crow. What they discovered was that  - and what I missed was whether this was through trial and error, because otherwise those crows should be summoned forthwith to the NHS – the crows would get the toads to inflate themselves, then, once the target area was increased and easy to get out, stab the toad with their beaks at precisely the place where the toad’s liver is located (the most nutritious part), snatch it out and cause the toad to explode. How they learnt about toads’ anatomy I simply don’t know, but there it is. Precision surgery.

I suspect next time we shall be told they have mastered light aircraft and were the first on Mars. I would not be surprised.

I haven’t written about food for a few weeks because I haven’t wanted to bore with our slight regime change. Essentially we allowed ourselves to indulge shamelessly over December and come January 2, I felt just disgusting. So we have turned to India Knight’s Idiot-Proof Diet, based really on Atkins, to get ourselves right again. I did it five years ago and it was easy and lovely and I can heartily recommend it.  The joy of it is that it works and is really not only painless but enjoyable; the sadness is that it isn’t really worth blogging about eating lots of meat, fish and green veg and not drinking for 2 weeks, so I have sought to distract you with amazing facts. Normal service will be resumed soon.

Thought for the day; Or Thank god for the Irish

otherwise everything you read wouldlooklikethis. ‘Twas the Irish who invented spaces between words. Based at the further reaches of the Roman empire as they were, they had no native Latin speakers and so any communications from Rome came in Latin, written without the spaces between words, as was the custom. The Irish, realising this was all a load of gobbledegook without a native Latin speaker, came over all practical about the matter and shoved spaces into the written documents to break down the barriers of communication.

And thank god for Radio 4 who offers you gifts of facts like these to brighten the day.

Next time, the cleverness of Japanese crows.

In which we get a little teary

So how was it for you? Lack of snow aside (and how very disappointing it was to be snowed in the week before, yet cooking with the door open on the Day), was the festive season all you hoped it might be?

I’m going to come over all sentimental and say that perhaps Tarporley is one of the nicest places I’ve ever celebrated Christmas. On the Eve we – as in us three and my parents – took the dog for a bracing walk around the back lanes of the village and called in at my NEW FRIEND’S for a glass of Prosecco and a mince pie. I LOVE things like that. Back when I was small, people were always dropping round to our house for drinks, even on Christmas morning, and even now occasionally it can seem a bit flat, being ‘just us’. Anyway, the Prosecco was a swift one because we all simply marched off to sing carols outside the church. In my defence, I hadn’t realised it was DIY, but actually it was rather lovely; about 100 people just standing with their dogs and/or children singing carols at a swift tempo – which is important if you’re to avoid them being too dirge-y – and we romped through them for about 20 minutes. NB St Helen’s Church: How nice it would have been to put the lights on round the tree while we chorused… But it was still very Christmass-y, if a little dim at 3.45pm on a dull day in December.

Christmas Day was glorious, as it would be with a 15 month old who has recently perfected the art of walking backwards and whose favourite toys were the helium balloon and my Dustbuster. We have a very clean house. The beef was – may I say – cooked to perfection and I even managed whole mouthfuls of the Pudding. It’s taken me 34 years but I’m starting to not mind its yearly outing. Needless to say, MCD Jr ate it by the handful.

Boxing Day is the day of the hunt meet in Tarporley and it is – whatever your feelings on the event itself – so soaked in goodwill and community-mindedness it’s hard not to love it. Although it’s also hard not to love the acres and acres of coloured corduroy abounding up and down the high street; it’s clearly where mustard and poker-red cords come into their own. I wanted to clap my hands over my face and shout ‘MY EYES’ every time a pair approached but it might have interfered with the ‘goodwill to all men’ bit. All the pubs were open, offering bacon sandwiches and mulled wine. Santa rode through at a fair lick. MCD Jr stroked a horse with his Grandpa and nearly fainted with delight.

It was all so very lovely it left me feeling quite tearful and sentimental. The community here really is all for one and one for all, it’s a rare thing and to be a part of it is quite tremendous. I can think of no other place I’d want to bring up my son and I think that’s something worth striving for. The warm glowing embers of Christmas feeling are fanned all year round here and even just those three days went a long way towards convincing us we want to stay. If life here is as rich as the festive season heralds, we’re in for a blast.

Celeriac & Barley Risotto

Rose Prince gave a recipe for this the other week in one of the weekend papers and it sounded so good I made it as soon as I got my hands on some celeriac. It doesn’t sound terribly promising, indeed I might even apply the adjective ‘worthy’, but it’s filling and warming and not at all stodgy. This makes enough for two.

Melt a good knob of butter in a pan and sweat a finely chopped onion. Cut half a head of peeled celeriac into matchsticks and add to the pan with a clove of chopped garlic. Stir in the butter for a couple of minutes, then add 150g or so of pearl barley. Coat in the butter, then pour over enough chicken stock to cover by 1cm. Put a lid on and leave for 15-20 minutes. Check how the barley’s cooking, it might need a splash more liquid. Cook until the barley is tender, but don’t expect it to amalgamate like risotto. The grains will stay completely separate. Season and squeeze in as much lemon juice as you like, but lots is the key, Serve topped with a good dollop of creme fraiche or sour cream.

Technorati Tags: celeriac,pearly barley,risotto,recipes,Rose Prince

It’s beginning to feel a lot like winter

Or at least, it is up here. The skies are menacingly grey and low, the wind is actually howling (no doubt exacerbated by the gaps around the front doors), we’ve had hail and even a little snow. And yet, at the Tarporley Christmas Lights Switch On last Friday, I definitely overheard someone who sounded like he knew what he was talking about, saying how the multitude of holly berries meant we were in for a mild winter. Since then I’ve been carefully examining all the holly I can see and I can categorically state – and the people of Scotland can rise up in chorus – there really aren’t any berries on any holly up here. Maybe he has a special, sheltered one. In the Caribbean.

But it is definitely starting to feel a bit Christmas-like. I don’t need a small child to feel excited about it; I genuinely love the run-up and up here it’s all a lot less frenetic and – dare I say – a lot more fun to do the dreaded shopping. I’m not going to lie and say I’ve spent mere pennies on buying locally-crafted wooden toys for all made by cherry-cheeked Cheshire people, but there just isn’t the stress of a mass of humanity rushing to do the same thing in the same place at the same time. I’m also a bit more reliant on the internet which does take the fraughtness out of it. And I am sailing through a short but defined list of achievements.

1. We have decorated. See random picture (which for some reason I can’t crop) of our big tree.

It is purple and silver and the photo really doesn’t do it justice as I think it’s so so beautiful. I bought proper decorations (actually from the lovely garden centres round here) and it is splendid. We even have a small (real) one in the lounge for MCD Jr to stand and – oddly – rub his face against like a small cat. Whatever makes him happy.

2. I have ordered the Christmas meat. This year it’s a gigantic rib of beef. I follow Nigella’s Christmas book like a mantra, although in reality it’s no more stressful than a roast. On Christmas Eve we shall have a ham with her parsnip, potato and porcini gratin, which feels like the start of a tradition in itself.

3. I have mostly done the shopping apart from one last Amazon order and a little more internet magic. This I am incredibly proud of but I have been like a general, sending people spirit-crushing emails along the lines of IF YOU DON’T TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT BY THE END OF THIS WEEK, YOU SHALL BE GETTING NOTHING AT ALL. Two family members are in hideous peril of this actually happening; it makes me quite ill to think they might not have a gift to open.

4. I have organised our first ever pre-Christmas drinks. Actually what happened was I sent a text to my new friend asking if she and her husband wanted to come over. She phoned and said, in a terribly efficient manner ‘And shall I bring trifle or a cheeseboard?’ I leaned my head against the patio and admitted I had gotten no further than the excitement of making poinsettia cocktails out of Nigella and could we not make do with crisps? She countered with fried chicken from the kebab house. I am now making a lamb and date tagine (Nigella again!) to continue the illusion I am a grown-up and I hadn’t thought we might just sit and drink and everything would be fine in the morning.

5. I have bought a really large tupperware box to freeze the tagine in as I shall make it before we go away for a few days.

6. We stop and look at the nativity scene in the village every time we go past. This is in the vain effort to educate my 14-month-old son in the ways of a nativity sheep (he is one) and that they go ‘baaa’ and stand quietly, looking solemnly at the wonder of the new baby. I have an inkling his strategy is to employ his three new favourite noises which is to snort like a pig if he doesn’t know the animal noise; to follow with a slightly dampened roar (unlike his dinosaur roar which is full-on) which is his version of hee-haw (like a donkey) and then (his latest and never fails – alas – to send us both stupid with laughter and I know I shouldn’t encourage) to strain to make a fart because apparently it’s very funny when he does so.

It’s going to be a very noisy Christmas.

Rockett St George

There is hardly one thing on Rockett St George I wouldn't want at any time of the year, let alone Christmas. Possibly everyone I know will be getting something from here. Love it. A lot.