out of the corner of my eye

The corner of your eye is a very deceptive place.

When we left our old cat in London in 2010, en route to the Far East, every dark cushion or discarded swimming towel in our new Singapore flat was, to the corner of my eye, a black cat. It took a long time for our minds to adjust to her absence.

Likewise, when we moved back to the UK two years later, every dark knot in the floorboards, every clump of black cat fur that blew across the floor, every dark piece of playmobile under the sofa was - to the corner of my eye - a cockroach. Any number of double takes couldn't convince my brain that they do not exist in freezing cold Scottish houses.

It's playing tricks on me again today. In a fit of optimism borne of seven whole degrees of Celsius, I hung out washing this morning for the first time this year. Now there is a perpetual intruder in the garden according to the corner of my eye. He or she is not a very stealthy intruder and appears to be wearing flappy wet pink leggings on his/her arms. Wetter since it started raining.

Is that pathetic fallacy or something? The Easter break has been a wee bit of a disaster. The Boss got the chicken pox which forced us to return from our holiday after about 36 hours. We're housebound, watching kids' movies on the computer every afternoon and subsisting on Easter chocolate. For a former dentist that eschewed telly a year ago, that's a weird old week. 

You'd think I would have got some knitting done? Lots of reading? Studying? No chance. The table is littered with bank statements and gently ageing clementines. Crumbs are amalgamating with paint flecks, puree and glitter in depraved corners of the room, and I seem to be wearing my husband's clothes. I've genuinely no idea how or why that has happened. A misguided glimpse in the mirror shows that the dry shampoo I sprayed in this morning hasn't been combed through, resulting in a weird grey patch.

It may or may not be dry shampoo actually, it may be a bit that I "missed" while dyeing in a hurry last week. Let's face it, neither of these possibilities is glamorous. But out of the corner of my eye, I'm going to go with the dry shampoo option. (Never let it be said that I project a phoney perfect life here, eh.)

Strangely, if you caught sight of us out of the corner of your eye you'd see that we're all having rather a nice time. And for once it wouldn't be deceiving you. I'm just grateful that the corner of my eye doesn't have a chicken pock on it.

a wee bit oof varjo has been started, but as you can see, it's being overwhelmed!

because there's always baking...

Easter holidays loom and it's STILL SNOWING. 

If you're trying to figure out how to entertain the children during the break, here's something that should resist the lure of the telly for an hour or so at least. My six year old can get on with this pretty much unassisted while I tape padding to the most accessible walls.

Because if it stays this cold she'll be bouncing off the walls and I'll be hitting my head off them. Repeatedly.

So, y'know, Happy Easter and all that. I shall be celebrating by printing off engineering vacancies in Singapore and using them as my husband's table mats.

almost parenting... gingerly

Turns out there's one real drawback to parenting a really brainy child. (That is in addition to the fundamental flaw of her being brainier than me, you understand. "Flight of the Bumblebee was written by a man called Rimsky-Korsakov you know Mummy." Erm, no. I didn't as it happens.)

No, as far as I can tell, the main issue is this. The brighter the child, the sooner they realise that you, as a parent, have absolutely no effing clue what you're doing.

Which is fine while we're bumbling along in our everyday shambles of Oxford Reading Tree, damp laundry and glitter glue. But when it comes to actual parenting (I'm talking discipline, behaviour, Ural maestri, that sort of thing) she can tell, without a shadow of a doubt, that I'm making it all up on the spot. And she's not convinced.

After a week of particularly feckless parenting, I'm working on a solution while she's at school: crystallised ginger, date and walnut cake. And while that's baking, a batch of Nigella's meatballs from the Kitchen book.

Why?

Because the former might trick her into thinking, for a valuable minute and a half, that I'm one of those awesome, capable Mums that knows what she's about. And the latter? Well, they're turkey meatballs, so presumably there's no dobbin in them. Though it turns out you can't be too sure...

Crystallised ginger, date and walnut cake (a variation on an old favourite)
Ginger is supposed to boost the immune system isn't it? So with the fibre-rich dates and walnut Omega-3s, you can pretty much convince yourself that it's good for you.

120g chopped dates
large pinch bicarbonated soda
170g sugar
50g  room temp butter
170g self-raising flour
50g chopped walnuts
finely chopped crystallised ginger to taste (I used 15g)
ground ginger to taste (depends how spicy you want it, I used just half a tsp)
1 egg
1tspn vanilla essence
1/2 tspn salt

• preheat your oven to 180*C and line your cake tin
• cover the dates with one cup of boiling water with a pinch of bicarb and set to one side while you weigh everything else
• blitz all the other ingredients together with a hand-held mixer
• mix in the dates and their juice (then put it in the oven for two minutes before realising you've forgotten the walnuts, so burn yourself whipping the tin out and stirring the nuts into the batter, like one of the more hopeless GBBO contestants you love to scorn)
• bake for 35 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean.

Joining in with April's 'Fred & Ginger' edition of Just Desserts over on Domestic Sluttery.

the magical moment when...

The weather here has been unbelievably bad for the past couple of weeks. Howling gales, horizontal hail, sleet and snow. And the kind of driving cold rain that makes my frontal sinus ache on the way home from school. It makes The Boss whimper on the way home from school (because she doesn't know what a frontal sinus is yet but just knows that it's miserable).

I always feel bad for the Posties on days like this. We have two regulars and I wouldn't do their job for the world, yet one of them is always cheery, and the other is always (there's no way around this) hot. The kind of purdee that you almost never discuss with your female neighbours over coffee... very rarely anyway.

Anyway, cheery Postie made my day today by delivering the most magical moment of any project. After weeks of browsing online, humming and hawing about colour combinations and which brand would give me the best result for the lowest price, at last the little squashy parcel of wool from Loop arrived. They always deliver within a matter of hours and wrap it in beautiful apricot coloured tissue, the opening of which, for me, has become a wonderful rite of passage for any special project. The possibilities!

do you know what I mean about this moment? or have I totally lost it?

This time it's for a Varjo shawl by Veera Valimaki, something I've been aching to make for months.

The Postie delivered a magical moment for The Boss too. A lovely wrapped Amazon surprise for when she gets home from school, a belated birthday present from a busy Uncle. She's going to love it (I know what it is!).

And as luck would have it, the sun's come out at last.

Joining in with Ginny and Yarn Along; a global exploration of reading and knitting.

my child is unique :: just like everyone else's

Everyone knows that their kids are uniquely remarkable.

But it never hurts to get a bit of proof.

The Boss is now six. Which is reason enough for me to get misty-eyed and nostalgic this weekend, but chronic sleep-deprivation and a couple of glasses of celebratory prosecco certainly sped things along.

While I was looking for something totally vital and utterly lost yesterday, I stumbled upon this farewell letter from her Singaporean preschool teacher. It sums up everything we loved about our years there. It was such an affectionate, happy, joyous time, and I can't believe another year has passed!

Watch out blubberers, this one might make you wobble (or maybe it was just my delicate emotional state). It's awfully nice to have someone else say this sort of thing about your child (ignoring the strong probability that she writes the same letter to all the children).

In the past two years you have amazed me with your wisdom and knowledge. You are my sunshine girl who slowly became the apple of my eye. You have matured beautifully this year, more confident and self-dependant. It is indeed a joy to teach you.

You are doing extremely well in the understanding of phonics. I am confident that with proper guidance and support, you will soon embark on the reading journey.

It really breaks my heart to see you leave Singapore. Alas! We will not be able to see our little bud blooming into a beautiful flower. However you will always reside in the core of my heart and we have no doubt that you will be a pleasant addition to any institution you join.

Already missing you immensely, your class teacher, March 2012.

I know. I KNOW. Some teachers are worth their weight in marshmallows aren't they?

you say flapjack, I say flapjack

Everybody knows that in America biscuits are called cookies. And I'm led to believe that they call scones* biscuits. And by scones, I mean scones, not what sassanachs refer to as drop scones. Drop scones are pancakes. By which I mean pancakes, and not what the French call crepes or what the Americans have for breakfast. And then I heard that Americans sometimes call pancakes flapjacks.

So what do Americans call flapjacks?

Confused yet? Let's not even get started on macaroons...

The Boss' new best friend was coming over for tea after school, and I had no shopping in. What to do? The answer was flapjacks. Because every Scottish household has porridge oats, and everything else can be cobbled together.

While I knew the principles, I'd never actually made flapjacks before. So it might have been a bit of a risk to allow the quantities to be dictated by what I had left in various packets. But they turned out pretty good.

They are so quick too. I put the Dragon Baby in his bed at noon, and the flapjacks were in the oven with the dishwasher loaded twenty minutes later.

It might have been beginners luck. Meaning that I'll have to make these many more times. Just to be absolutely sure.

spiced seed flapjacks
makes 20

200g unsalted butter
2 tablespoons runny honey
6 generous tablespoons golden syrup
325g porridge oats
1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon sunflower seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
generous pinch ground nutmeg

- preheat oven to 180*C
- roughly line a tin of some kind with parchment (mine is... hang on let me go and measure it... a 20cm x 26cm rectangle. A touch smaller might be better because the flapjacks will be thicker.)
- oil your tablespoon measure (this prevents the syrup and honey sticking to your spoon)
- put butter, honey and syrup in a pan to melt
- mix the dry ingredients together and pour into the pan with the liquids
- mix together and press into the lined tin
- bake for 20 minutes
- let your tea steep while you cut the flapjack into squares in the tin
- let them cool on a wire rack (except the warm one that you have with your tea)

*Scone rhymes with gone in my house btw. When scone rhymes with phone my skin crawls. No idea why.

the award for 'dinner least attractive to children' goes to...

Embarking on my random recipe at 5pm on a weekday night, with The Boss bouncing off the walls and The Dragon Baby babbling on his mat, was not a recipe for domestic harmony.

The rules for this month's challenge found me randomly selecting page 117 of Nigella Lawson's How To Eat, and a recipe for aubergine moussaka. But, as she points out "This is a Lebanese version, very different from the traditional Greek". It's basically aubergine stew.

While I use it now and again, I'm not a huge fan of How To Eat. This might have something to do with the complete lack of photography (which in this case is probably just as well, because a photo of aubergine stew isn't bonny). I'm not wild about the prose style either, because sometimes you have to work quite hard to find the actual recipe. But, gripes aside...

I couldn't buy baby aubergines or pomegranate molasses, and I couldn't be arsed soaking pulses. So I used big aubergines and canned chickpeas. Oh, and since we do actually still seem to be griping, I didn't peel the aubergines "to look like like Edwardian circus tents". (Really Nigella? Really? Give me strength.)

Bugger it, ground-level babbling has turned to wimpering, but we're too far in to stop now. Dance my love, dance to amuse your brother, dance like a dervish!

She says the aubergines smell like a grocery shop. I know what she means.

Bugger it again. Nigella wants the tomatoes rinsed, peeled, seeded and quartered. Not. on. your. life. They'll be roughly chopped if you're lucky. (And isn't all the flavour in the seed jelly and skin anyway? Why on earth would you chuck them?)

The wimpering has turned into wailing. Sing sweetie, sing to him like our lives depend on it!

It's all getting a bit fraught, and rather noisy, but here's the bit I was looking forward to: adding the cinnamon and allspice. Nice festive smells will make it all better.

But hang about, the combination of vegetal grocer aroma and Christmassy spices equals... what is it? It's very familiar... YES! It's that gag-worthy section just before the checkout at the garden centre where houseplants and artificially scented candles combine to form a collective speech bubble above everyone's heads saying "why the hell is all this odourous tat in a garden centre when all I wanted was a bag of compost?".

I don't really want to eat the stew-formerly-known-as-moussaka. And very forcefully, neither does The Boss. She says it's too brown (pronounced 'braaaaan' invoking her cockney sparrow heritage) and it's hard to disagree. I end up having to make a more child-friendly alternative. While the poor Dragon Baby cries himself hoarse.

It tastes absolutely fine, with couscous and yoghurt, but I'm too scarred by the whole experience to ever consider it again. And there are many, many better things to do with cinnamon and allspice at this time of year. Just please don't put them in a frakking candle.

liebkuchen, my contribution for my first visit to a local baking club last night, and a much better way to use cinnamon

oranges and lemons :: a healthy halloween snack

Him: Why have you bought ten organic lemons... and dare I ask about the vodka?

Me: To make limoncello for Christmas gifts... obviously.

You mean the stuff that everyone brings back from their first Italian holiday only to sit at the back the in-laws' booze cupboard for the next twenty years?

Mmmmn-yah...

The stuff we didn't even drink in that place in Naples where they kept trying to hand it out for free?

It's for putting in all those pretty blue beer bottles you got through a few months ago.

No-one in the history of the world actually likes limoncello...

But they might from a pretty blue bottle. Maybe?

...because even the stuff made by actual professionals in actual Italy with actual lemon trees tastes like mosquito repellent.

Well, okay, so he might have a point. I hate the stuff too.

But that's not really relevant where homemade Christmas gifts are concerned. They're about forcing your friends and relations to rave about "how fabulous it is to get something homemade darling", and "oh aren't you sweet, how did you know I love blue glass!" Before shoving them at the back of their drink cupboards for the next twenty years.

And a few of my friends don't even drink.

Making stuff I hate seems to have been the theme for this October holiday. Because at the end of the day, it was more about keeping my five year old's hands busy while I nursed the dragon baby for two solid weeks. The end products of all our industry were, like homemade limoncello, frequently irrelevant. Mixing and casting tiny clay bricks with which to build a tiny brick house was a particular low point for me. (No, I am not even kidding. I now have a renewed respect for Lego.)

And Halloween forced me into my least favourite activity. AGAIN. Namely, sewing eyesight-sapping black fabric together with black thread in what's left of the failing autumnal daylight and 10 minutes before we have to leave for the party. This year it was in aid of a bat costume. Next year it's going to be a white ghost suit and a trip to the optician, not necessarily in that order.

But in the (ahem) "spirit" of Halloween (yes, that's right, I'm allowed to snarl and you won't even know if I'm hating on Halloween or just being scary), here's a last-minute party snack idea if you need one before the big night. Now I know that Halloween is an exercise in stuffing kids so full of refined sugar that they vomit on the neighbours' carpets (I've done Halloween "American-style" once before and it was simply terrifying) but this has the advantage of being a snack that children are attracted to while remaining sugar-free and fruit-based. Just call me Scrooge... sorta.

Orange jellies
makes 24

ingredients
6 oranges
two packets of jelly powder (I used Hartleys sugar-free sachets in Strawberry and Blackcurrant)

equipment
very sharp knife
ice cream scoop
large bowl
two 6-hole muffin trays

- half the oranges
- scoop out the flesh into your bowl (I found an ice cream scoop ideal for this) and juice the pulp roughly (just squeeze it with your hands)
- balance the half skins in the muffin trays
- make up a slightly-stronger-that-usual mix of jelly (you want it to be firm enough to cut well: I used 200ml boiling water to dissolve the jelly powder and then topped up to 350ml with orange juice from the pulp)
- pour into the orange skins and refrigerate overnight   
- once thoroughly set, place flat side down on a chopping board and slice in half with your sharpest knife

I'm already having ideas about using this technique for other holidays - little sparkly clementines for Christmas perhaps, or fuchsia dragonfruit for Chinese New Year?

Of course it goes without saying: I hate jelly. So I have no idea how this tastes. Can't be any worse than limoncello though. Can it?

trowel to table in three short hours

Four posts in one week? Yes, I'm staying rather close to home and need something to take my mind off impending labour. I thought last night might have been the night. Turned out it wasn't. Can't be far off.

So, let me share something tasty and seasonal with you instead.

A little over a year ago, my second ever blogpost was only read by one person I think (and she kinda had to, she's one of my best friends). A mawkish piece of navel gazing that we won't dwell on. But the subject matter, carrot cake, is very important and deserves to be revisited.

Yesterday, The Boss and I pulled up all of our remaining crop of Chantenay carrots, amounting to about 1.5lb. Actually, she pulled them up, and did the comedy falling over backwards thing when they popped out of the soil. That's why I left it to her, it's funnier on a leggy kid than a massively pregnant heifer. She bounces.

And so, here's a revisit of the yummiest carrot cake recipe I know (even better with homegrown carrots rather than jumbo imported Australian ones that we had to use in Singapore). Details follow the photos.

It's so delicious that I actually think icing slightly ruins it. And it's perfect for making with kids because a whisk and spoon suffices: no need for electronic gadgets with scary finger-chopping potential. (Though I do use the grater attachment on the food processor these days, turning the tedious carrot-grating bit into the work of mere moments.)

with homegrown raspberries - therefore virtually a health food

Carrot cake

6 oz wholemeal flour
3 oz self-raising flour
6 oz muscavado sugar
6 oz soft brown sugar
3 large eggs
6 floz sunflower oil
55ml sour cream
2 tspn vanilla essence
1 tspn grated nutmeg
2 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn bicarbonated soda
½ tspn salt
11 oz grated carrot
3 oz dessicated coconut


Bowl 1: Eggs, oil, vanilla, sour cream. Mix the wet ingredients together (by hand is fine, no need to whip it into a frenzy) and then sieve in sugars.

Bowl 2: Sieve the flours, nutmeg, cinnamon, soda, baking powder and salt together.

Fold the dry mix into the wet mix.

Fold in the carrot and coconut.

Bake in a large tin at 150C for 90-120 minutes. (I find 90 long enough, but test with a skewer.)

These James Grieve apples that are ripening so beautifully had better watch out. I've got treacle-y plans for them next... but in the meantime, I'm off to eat some cake.

almost impossible to believe these colours are straight out of camera!

Post Script:
So strangely it seems that today is THE day for blogging about carrot cake. What can I say, great minds thinking alike?! Here's a gluten-free version from the Domestic Sluts, and for something completely different, here's Shu Han's Singaporean carrot cake (warning: this stuff is seriously delicious).

diversionary tactics

This is proving to be a very tedious but effective diversion.

endless garter stitch on the baby chic blanket - procrastinator's paradise

A diversion from what you might ask?
Well, from this... and from this...

book group in 36 hours... as you can see it's really not happening for me, and a corner of my current kitchen - truly vile

Professional procrastination does have its inherent rewards though. If you turn your back and half close your eyes, you can make-believe Nigella. Even in the world's most repugnant and dilapidated kitchen. 

project 52: playtime

See what happens when you turn your back for five minutes? Okay, so it's been more like six weeks since I fell off the P52 wagon, but in that time it's vacated the delectable Darcy's website and is now hosted by someone handsomely-named Kent. (We're all about names round here at the moment, and I have to say, Kent sounds dashing don'cha think?)

But this week I caught sight of the fact that the theme is 'playtime'. Something I clearly haven't had enough of lately, because I haven't been taking many photos or generally joining in. I blame that on physically feeling like a faded, slightly-too-squashy space hopper. One from the actual 1970s. (Btw, have you seen these - if I wasn't totally neurotic about injuring children, I'd definitely have bought one by now. Like all of the most potentially limb-threatening head-cracking toys, it looks awesomesauce.)

Anyway, I happen to have loads of photos from various childish playful activities this past week due to the fairly tolerable weather. We've had a new swing built in the garden, resulting in about forty bazillion virtually identical photos of shoe soles or undercrackers... or both. And today, my beloved progeny decided to set up a yard sale in the front path, specifically selling granite chuckies to passersby. Yes, individual bits of gravel, in a city that's entirely made of granite. Gravel from the actual path she was sitting on. Many hilarious photos. Especially after she, rather impressively, made 90p.

But here's one picture that I really like. Taken, I confess, with no skill or merit using my iphone and a brazenly-applied instagram filter (I forget which one - I think LoFi). Sorry - must try harder next time.

My daughter's bedroom is absolutely my favourite room in our house. It's dark, cheaply decorated, small and crowded, but I've always loved it. And (call me crazy) but when there have been friends round to play and it looks like a bomb has dropped, I love it even more. Looking at all the debris, I always get the feeling that it's this wild abandon and colour that allows kids to be so much happier than adults. Wouldn't you be?

Now, here I really want to add the clever linky P52 banner, but I'm too much of a numpty to know how to plop it here from Kent's website, where it sits there looking all snazzy... but where's the bit of html that I paste into my post? Do let a luddite like me in on the secret and I'll promise to do it all proper next time. Cheers.

when the sun shines...

Often Scotland is quite wet and cold. Very often it's extremely wet and cold. Oh, and dark in the winter too. This makes young people frustrated, old people ill, and most everyone in between illogically fond of sunburn and cheap sangria.

But when the sun shines (and it does you know) there is no more beautiful place to live. And not just in a gliding eagle, crystal loch, soaring mountain kind of picture-on-the-shortbread-tin way (though that stuff does happen too).

There's the first poppy of the year, and the last apple blossom, flowering on the eve of the Chelsea Flower Show.
There's broad bean soup with homemade sourdough, and baked ricotta on pancakes. Al fresco.
There's elaborate mud pie making and flapping lines of laundry. Hopefully not in combination.

Domestic Scottish life, you gotta love it. Especially when the sun shines.

(Though if someone could magic me to Chelsea for tomorrow afternoon, I'd be theirs for ever after.)

project 52: made with love

If it's not too dramatic for a Friday morning in January, my heart's actually breaking. Seriously. Pretty much chest pain. Almost.

When we moved to this wonderful country, we were delighted that the local preschool employed a creative attitude. But nearly two years later, when I need to start planning/rationalising/streamlining for our next move, we have an entire wardrobe full of "creative attitude". And it doesn't help that, at said preschool, they refer to every piece as an "artwork". Talk about guilt trip.

Regarding this week's p52 theme, Made with love, I'm not under the illusion that my daughter made all these artworks out of love for me, for her teacher, or indeed for for anyone. But boy does she have a passion for making them! So (without wanting to sound like too much of a luvvy) I guess they're made with love for the creative process dah-ling (air kiss, air kiss).

Throwing any of them away feels like a betrayal that's almost certain to crop up on the therapist's couch in twenty years time. But I can't keep it all... can I?  

Can I? (remember, chest pain...)

No don't tempt me, I'm resolute: I can't keep it all. Trouble is, I went to art school for a while here too, and I haven't even started on my boxes full of drawing exercises. January is going to be a loooong month.

Samsung nx10, ISO1600, f22, 1/60s. Cropped in Photoshop, contrast adjusted using s-curve, 50% smart sharpen.
I forgot that I'd last used my camera on ISO1600 and not turning that down was a mistake I think.

Just a small sample of the output! I love the patterns it all makes, and if it's not too insulting to her, it kind of reminds me of the amazing textile seascapes by this wonderful artist! Seriously, look what happens with the palette knife filter in Photoshop, it becomes a Hebridean seascape! (I'm thoroughly enjoying my Photoshop course, can you tell?!)

buttons

I am lucky enough to be a stay at home mum. I get to spend all the time in the world with my girl - something that I know many women aren't able to do. I chose this, and I try to value it every day. I have a very generous 15hrs a week to "get stuff done" thanks to a divine local nursery school. But once the daily grocery shopping, cooking, washing and cleaning are finished, that doesn't seem to amount to all that much.

Just occasionally I wish that - by virtue of a paid job, nearby relative, or live-in maid domestic helper (lets not even get into that debate just now) - I could, just once, throw my hands up in the air and sod off to go and do my own thing without a backward glance (...or a quick look down at my watch for the ever-looming school run/babysitter deadline).

I realised last week that there have only been two nights in nearly five years where I have slept away from my daughter. On the one hand, how incredibly lucky am I? (And this hand is definitely the winning hand, I know it holds the top trumps.) But on the other, I felt the need to scream for my lost independence.

But I can't do that because I live in a block of flats and it would've woken the neighbours. How bloody frustrating.

If you've ever felt this way, and you're the parent of a preschooler, I've found a sort-of short-term solution. It's simpler than you would ever have imagined. I can't magic up a childminding granny, a full-time Mrs Mop, or an undemanding morning job in a divine local boutique (aaah dreamy)... I don't have the cash or the work permit to make any of those things happen.

But I can do buttons.

Seriously, if you don't have a tin of buttons, go to your local cheapo craft shop and buy the biggest mixed bargain bag they have. They induce remarkably long periods of contented, educational quiet time, during which I retreat to my room to knit and read. Knitting and reading isn't exactly asserting my independence to the world, but sometimes a bit of peace and quiet is all I need to restore perspective.

And when I start to crave her company again, I can always go and join in with the colour sorting, the threading, the adding, the size grading, the tiddlywinking, the endless mesmerising possibilities...

Buttons.

They've been known to save my day.

it's all relative

Can there be such a thing as a scarf that's too long? No, in fact, don't answer that. I'm making one anyway because it turns out that there's more of this leftover wool than I thought... At the moment it's measuring about four feet, and I'm pretty sure it'll hit six before the scraps are all used.

But what are the optimum scarf dimensions relative to the wearer? There must be a formula out there. A knitted theory of relativity.

In an effort to justify the length of this particular project, the intended recipient is tall (5'10"). And she lives in a cold climate. And it is a skinny after all (just 4" across) so it could be worn doubled up... But what if this well-intentioned gift puts pressure on my best friend to gad about like Dr. Who in his Tom Baker incarnation? Not quite the effect I was after (nor her I suspect).

While we're talking about things being relative, we had one of our tribe pass through Singapore last week, bearing gifts from Granny. So for Yarn Along this week, here are the new books I'm reading to The Boss. This amazing collection of stories by Jill Tomlinson is perfectly age-appropriate for her (at nearly five), and the chapters are exactly the right length for bedtime stories (something of a problem that we've had with other chapter books). In less than a week we've finished The cat who wanted to go home, and we're half way through The otter who wanted to know. They're gentle, would be enjoyable for boys and girls alike, and are simply a pleasure to read to her.

Clever Granny.

Linking in with the Yarn Alongers, stop by to see what others are making and reading this week.

cake: the origin of the species

ev·o·lu·tion
[ev-uh-loo-shuhn] noun. change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation

I have this cake recipe, no in fact, I'd go so far as to say I have the cake recipe. I expect most home cooks have one. It symbolises the purest essence of the art form. It needs no introduction. It's not Orange Cassava Cake, or Simnel Cake, or Lemon Drizzle Cake, or Date and Walnut Cake...

It's just cake.

It was provided by my Granny as the first recipe for my first cook book. It was the recipe my Mum used to teach me the basic principles of baking. It was the cake delivered by emotional parents for my eighth birthday, a month after I started boarding school. It was every birthday cake we ever had before or since. It was the cake that turned my older brother on to baking. It was the recipe that he was looking for on the shelf when he yelled at me for daring to taking my cook book away to university with me. I suspect it's the cake he uses to teach his new wife how to bake.

It's the cake that always welcomes us home from wherever we have been. It's the cake I've made over and over with my wee brother whenever we've run out of other ideas. It's the cake I make for my husband when he just needs cake. It's the cake I've learnt to expect when any of my close family says "I made a cake!". It's the cake I teach my daughter how to bake.

I must have made it a hundred times or more. Every motion is precious and memorable for me. But it does evolve through the generations. Slowly and in the most minute ways; but that's evolution for you. For example, where the recipe instructs 6 tbsp of boiling water, I've always opted not to stop the trickle of water from the kettle between spoonfuls - the inaccurate addition of "a bit extra" water making the cake moister.

While baking this cake together today, The Boss added another intangible detail to the recipe. When I was showing her how to test whether the cake was ready with a skewer, she said "it's like the cake is sick and you're taking it's temperature to see if it's better". I'll never be able to bake this cake again without thinking of that metaphor, and I suspect (and hope) that the image will stay with her forever.

When I was growing up, I had a penchant for coffee-flavoured buttercream icing, and it had to be smoothed on with a spatula and then run over with the tines of a fork in wavy lines. But my daughter prefers to go with Granny's original chocolate icing. With one small modification: in her eyes, real cakes MUST have sprinkles.

It's evolved.

If you don't have a good basic cake recipe, one that defines the very essence of the word cake, please be my guest. It's not big and it's not clever, it's just cake.

cake
no apologies for the imperial measures - that's part of the charm for me. If it matters, please feel free to do the conversion yourself

• 2oz cocoa
• 6tbsp boiling water
• 6oz butter
• 6oz caster sugar
• 6oz self-raising flour
• 2tsp baking powder
• 4 eggs
  

1. line a 7" round cake tin with parchment
2. preheat your oven to 325F
3. mix the cocoa and the water together into a paste in a small bowl
4. cream the butter and the sugar in a mixing bowl
5. sift in the flour and baking powder
6. add the eggs and the cocoa
7. blend
8. bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean

icing - beat the following together until blended

• 1oz melted plain chocolate
• 6oz icing sugar
• 2oz butter
• 1tbsp milk
• 1tbsp cocoa 

the wee lebowski

The only personal outdoor space in our rented apartment is a patio measuring about 15m by 2m. So narrow that we can hardly fit a table and chair on it, and we certainly can't hoola hoop. Lined on one side with glass windows and on the other with glass balcony panels, we're hesitant even to play bat-and-ball games. About a year ago, a dear friend pointed out that our patio's not much use for, well... anything. Except perhaps a bowling alley.

I must've mumbled something about going to a toy shop to buy some skittles and, being the good thrifty Doric quine that she is, my friend choked on her coffee and told me to wise up and use plastic bottles full of water. She's clever and imaginative and... in Scotland. My friends: I miss them.

Anyway, I'd quite forgotten all about her suggestion until I saw this post by minieco about making ink from old felt tip pens. Coincidentally The Boss had, just the same week, sheepishly coveted some grossly cheap-and-nasty plastic skittles in the supermarket. So I figured that with a bit of judicious bottled drink slurping, we could make coloured bowling pins for (almost) nothing.

Now, minieco's tutorials are always a gauzy haze of rainbow-coloured perfection (just look at those pictures; amazing) and my life is very far removed from that. But here is my haphazard version. The low effort:high fun ratio with this project makes it well worth a try (particularly if you have a hopeless, bowling-alley-shaped patio).

cut off labels and fill with water

dig out any and all scratchy or dried up felt-tip pens and drop in (de-lidded)

the motley crew

the following morning (remove pens with chopsticks!)

tape up the lids with electrical tape

find a ball

jamie's 30 minute meals: the secret to success

Despite the fact that Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals was never on the telly here, the craze for the book seemed to be global last Christmas. Nearly everyone I know in Singapore has a copy (though I've yet to meet anyone who's tried it, and my neighbour's is still in cellophane).

I set myself a little New Year challenge to work my way through it, and like most New Year challenges, it waned pretty quickly. But I'm proud to say that I've done about a dozen of them, and I've really enjoyed the (slightly frenzied) process. They all took more like an hour, but that's OK, I'm not in any particular hurry, and if I do each one a few times I'll get much quicker. In fact I'll defend any of the criticisms levelled at this book on the Amazon rant feedback pages because (a) they taste so damn fine that (b) my child eats it all.

Now I said that I had never managed one of the meals within 30 minutes before... until last night. The secret to my success? Enlist the help of a child. Seriously! There was nothing about the dessert in this meal that my four year old could not handle. Once I had weighed out the ingredients, she mixed them, then she spooned them into pastry cases alternating jam and frangipane mixture, and I put them in the oven. I'd actually say we managed the preparation for this meal comfortably within 30 minutes. And it was d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s.

I hope you don't mind my not writing out the recipes here - if you know the book, you'll know that it would mean a lot of typing. But if you do have a copy, and if you've been nervous about giving it a go (or put off by the global marketing hype and ensuing backlash), I urge you to give this a try: Pregnant Jools's pasta with crunchy chicory & watercress salad and little frangipane tarts. You can see the website for the book here.

Seriously, give it a try. If a four year old can do it...
 

mixing the frangipane

filling the (shop-bought) pastry cases

actually, I couldn't get pastry, so this is some mysterious thing called graham cracker crumb (?)

just a bag of mixed salad rather than the chicory & watercress which I can't get

meanwhile I was making the easiest pasta sauce in the world

et voila, The Boss' first puddies that she made (almost) all by herself!