yarn along giveaway :: when the going gets tough...

... the cat hits the crack pipe and my thoughts become increasingly haphazard. Don't say you weren't warned.

It seems that if you completely gut much of your house, you also obliterate all of an old cat's pheromone spots (the things she rubs her chin on so happily). If you move her food and litter trays, wash her bed, and put away those deliciously wiffy brogues that have been getting in everyone's way for six months, you're probably just adding insult to injury. The result? Unhappiness. She no longer rubs her chin on anything and cries a lot. At 3am, 4am, 5am, 6am... you get the picture. I know we're awaiting the arrival of a newborn, but this level of preparation is ridiculous. So my stinky old shoes are back under the coffee table, and a pheromone plug-in (aka: the cat crack) has been installed. I hope to God it works.

I tell you all this as a way of (emotionally) fiddling while (my personal) Rome burns.

I now have only 100 minutes left to kill before I'm allowed to go and pick up The Boss from her first day at primary school. Her hand has never been held so tightly as it has been this past week, as I desperately try to cling on to the last few hours of me'n'her.

The 'A' team.

Five-and-a-half years spending most of every day together, just us.

Now there's school and an imminent sibling - surely it can never be quite the same again? Naturally she has responded to all this frantic maternal warmth by being simply adorable, only making the lump in my throat larger with every gulp. Only 95 minutes to go now.

Thank goodness it's Wednesday and there's Yarn Along. The 0-3m cream and ecru puerperium (that I started months ago) is finished, all but the buttons. But the only thing I'm more hopeless at than choosing buttons right now is choosing names, especially the male variety. So my reading material is limited to the boy section of the baby names book for the twentieth time.

On the subject of yarn (and because I want to keep that clock ticking on) I'd really like to give some wool away to a more suitable home. I found a Laughing Hens crochet shawl kit during our recent migration.x.renovation marathon - it was a gift a few years ago from a generous relative who doesn't know the difference between knitting and crochet (and doesn't realise that I cannot crochet to save my life). The kit contains two huge lumps of merino lace yarn (one cream, one teal), a hook and a shawl pattern. I'd much rather spend a few pounds posting it to someone who will value it than stash it away for another few years. There have been so many beautiful lace-weight pieces on the blog circuit this Summer that I figured, even if you don't want to make this particular pattern, perhaps you'll find a use for the wool?

So, if you would like it, do the usual sorta things:

• You can follow on Google 'friend connect' if you like (though it's not necessary to take part, in real life I don't ask for stuff in return for company so I'm not about to start now).
• Please do make sure I can contact you directly by email though; either leave your email address in your comment, or make sure I can find it on a 'contact me' blog page or via your blogger profile (in other words: please switch off your noreplyblogger thingummy, even just for the duration of this giveaway. If I can't email you to get your address then I'll choose the next person.)
• Leave a note in the comments section here saying you'd like to take part before 2200 BST (British Summer Time) on Friday 24th August. I'll pick someone using a random number robot.

Only 90 minutes to go. Instagram will take care of another five...

the ones on the bottom left?

Frill-edged shawl kit giveaway

the reluctant addict

how did this happen?

random recipes :: money from old rope

There's a talent I admire. It may not be big and it may not be clever, but people who are able to, almost literally, make money from old rope? They deserve the props.

Those designers who charge twice the price for past season jeans with newly incorporated rips? If punters are daft enough to go for it, then why not. The genius who had the idea of putting tiny handfuls of raisins into little matchboxes and flogging them (at a billion times the price of a big bag of raisins + an Ikea tub) to harassed parents labouring under the misapprehension that it's a healthy snack because the box is mostly green? Thoroughly deserving of his or her convertible. It's not that I like the product necessarily* but I admire the gumption. And I really like the word gumption (apparently a Scottish word incidentally).

The recipe book world is full of such examples - cooks and food writers making money out of either a) tweaking recipes so generic that no-one can claim the intellectual property and publishing them between glossy covers for £17.99, or, b) giving you recipes on how to pour boiling water over [a teabag/egg/pasta/rice/insert blithering obvious] and publishing them between glossy covers for £17.99. I'm not criticising it - I just wish I'd thought of it first.

My Random Recipe selection this month is kind of one of those. But in a good way. Having (rather obsessively) numbered all my recipe books last month for Dom's Random Recipe challenge, it was nice and easy to use a random number generator to pick a book for this month. It chose number 6: Jamie's 30 Minute Meals (so we're already getting a meal rather than a recipe for this one) and page 55: spaghetti in tomato sauce, garlic bread, salad and melted chocolate puds (obviously he used fancier words like puttanesca and ganache, but you get the idea).

I had an old friend coming for the weekend, so this would be perfect. We would cook it together on Friday evening. We are both more than capable of making red gloop, garlic bread, salad and melted chocolate without Jamie's assistance, but we followed his instructions anyway (more or less) which naturally meant that it made twice the mess it needed to, took at least three times his estimated 30 minutes, and some vital kitchen equipment perished in the chaos. (My darling friend is a ham-fisted klutz,** but I'm trying to forgive her.)

Like everything I've made from this book, it was very tasty. You simply can't fault him on that. But a plate of quick spaghetti, garlic bread, and homemade version of a Gu pot was never going to exactly set the gastronomic heather on fire. Mind you, the fennel and radish crunchy salad really was a tasty new idea that I wouldn't have had myself.

No wonder JO's a squillionaire though. I own a book in which he tells me how to make garlic bread and melt chocolate. I spent my (husband's) hard-earned on it. I use it. And I tell people how tasty it is. Talk about money for old rope, the man's a genius. Now I'm off to work on my big idea.

To read more random recipes (usually by people who remembered to photograph their plates BEFORE they ate) hop over to Belleau Kitchen at the end of the month.


* Yeh, yeh, naturally I have, in my time, bought both.
** I suppose there is technically no such thing, the ham and the Yiddish and all...

yarn along :: positive ease

There's a many-hinged creature inside here. Sometimes it hiccups, like a weird internal metronome. And then it flexes all its hinges at once, stretching in every direction over and over and over again, digging its hard corners into my tightly-stretched ones. It always seems to be in a foul temper, desperate to tell me something.

Mr Breadwinner: "It is trying to tell you something: sit down."

But even the small stuff is thwarting me. Everyday tasks become fraught with frustration. Laundry involves numerous dropped socks that take a dog's age and old lady sound-effects to retrieve. Likewise every cup of tea: the spoon, the teabag, the milk top, something is guaranteed to end up on the floor. Every step I take in the slippery shower feels illadvised and high risk. And any attempt to simply 'keep on keeping on' is met with a barrage of taut practice contractions. Not regular, not breathtaking, but sore and impossible to ignore.

Last night reached a new peak. Something had to change.

Him: "How's your knitting going?"
Me: "The blanket's getting there, but I guess you might say it's got positive ease."
Him: "What does that mean?"
Me: "It's enormous, far too big for its intended body."
Him: "Why don't you sit down with it for a while, I'm going to make an apple crumble."

250 stitches
There's some scratchy and experimental Prom concert on the radio. My belly is thrashing painfully from side to side. He chops apples and talks baby names. I'm tearfully uncomfortable in my tight skin.

500 stitches
Him: "I'm going up to the garage to sort some boxes for the charity shop while the crumble cooks. I'll leave you with the oven timer."

750 stitches
Him (returning from the dark garden): "Here, I've brought you a walkie-talkie. I've got the other one in the garage, let's see if they still work."

1000 stitches
The radio is playing Delius now, much smoother. The internal struggling is starting to subside.
Crackle-crackle-fizz: "Don't get up when the oven timer goes off... blip... just tell me and I'll come and get the crumble out... blip... over and out."
I look at The Boss' new pile of new library books and check their return dates. They're due back on September 12th. There's every chance we'll be a family of four by then, and therefore only the slimmest possibility I'll remember to take them back. As the panic rises, I get a couple of thrashing blows to the ribs.  Deep breaths, listen to the Delius.

1250 stitches
beep-beep-beep-beep... beep-beep-beep-beep...
Me: "That's the crumble ready... blip... over and out."
Him: "Roger that"

Sitting on the sofa with bowls of hot apple crumble, the many-hinged creature inside seems to have fallen asleep.

That's what I call positive ease.

Linking in with Ginny's Yarn Along (a day early).

47th party menu :: happy birthday Singapore

As holiday celebrations go, this may be a bit niche, but please indulge a big ol' heavily pregnant girl for just a few minutes.

Singapore celebrates its birthday on the 9th August every year with National Day. As an outside observer over our past few green-card-holding years, it appeared to be a display of military might (think Edinburgh Military Tattoo x 10), combined with an outpouring of National flag-waving pride (think Queenie's jubilee), and a great excuse for family gatherings that veer dangerously close to woozy schmaltz (think Hogmanay). Singapore's a young nation, with a harrowing twentieth-century history, and a hugely varied population (both in race and religion), so celebrating a common patriotism actually has a critically important role to play. National Day is wonderful.

In addition (for me at least) National Day marks the start of an endless season of festivities. One set of decorations, lights and school projects barely makes way for the next from now until next Easter: mid-autumn (lantern) festival looms, followed by the roaring arrival of the Formula 1, Deepavali, Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year... and many more besides.

And so, thousands of miles away, in a suburban Scottish garden on a warm weekend afternoon, we tried to bring a little bit of the National Day fun home. There were lanterns, Good Morning towels and bags of kopi-O. There were little girls in cheong-sam and sarong kebaya, and little boys in merlion t-shirts. There were henna tattoos and faces painted with the Singapore flag. My hormonal nostalgia levels were cranked up to the max. But naturally, the most important element was the food (and whether my new kitchen would stand its first major test). And since nearly all the food was gleaned from the pages of some most delightful blogs, I thought I'd share some pictures and links with you here.

If you need to cater for 10 adults and 10 grazing kids, this menu works - I've done the test drive so that you don't have to!

Double quantities of these braised pig cheeks from North 19, using divine meat from Donald Russell online. This was an absolute triumph. I wasn't brave enough to attempt genuine cha siu bao, but if there was ever a wonderful, effortless second best, then this is it. 24 hours marinading in the fridge and then four hours in a low oven. With the gravy seeping into a white bread roll, it was simply delicious. Not authentically Singaporean perhaps, but I should've made double the double quantity. This recipe is a keeper.

marinade for the pig cheeks

And on the side? A huge double-quantity sized jar of Shu Han's Nonya achar. Now this really is Singaporean. And it was the absolute winner with the three guests who had actually lived in Singapore - proving that their spice tolerance has been well and truly recalibrated. My husband has been eating the leftovers straight from the jar since the last guests left.

pig cheeks on the left, achar in the yellow bowl

On the BBQ were three times the quantity of this Singaporean satay recipe from Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan's website (author of the wonderful "Tiger in the Kitchen" - a beautiful memoir of Singaporean home cooking). Spicy and delicious and served with hacked up cucumbers and red onions.

satay and braised cheeks

A few sausages on the grill, salads brought by friends, platters of watermelon, BBQ pineapple skewers, and cones of Jamie Oliver's frozen mango yoghurt covered all the bases.

Jamie's frozen mango yoghurt, from his 30 minute book

And once everyone had eaten their fill and gone home? We were, in true Straits style, famished! For more food, more festivals, and more Singapore.

Majulah Singapura!

garden journal :: musing while we walk

Walk with me for a wee bit while it isn't raining. In fact, let's update the garden journal for this month, I'll fill you in on my top 10 random musings while we walk.

one ::
I really hate weeds. Wow, they are everywhere. How my neighbours keep on top of the weed situation is a mystery to me. Oh look, there's Bill, down on his hands and eighty-year-old knees. Huh, fancy that, he's pulling out weeds while they're small, before they explode like bombs all over the place. Jeez, I hate weeds. I wish I could afford a gardener. D'you think Bill would... no, that's just WRONG.

two ::
Oof, this baby is huge. I need a wee sit down.

three ::
I just can't figure out the 3 x 3 rounded corner Photoshop thungummy-jiggy that Project Alicia was giving away the other day. I wish Photoshop didn't make me feel so inadequate. I used to publish magazines in my sleep forchrissakes. But, oh yes, I had a lovely designery type do the Photoshop stuff for me. No, I'm not going to be a drip, I'm gonna email that Alicia girl and see what the heck I'm missing.

four ::
Gosh, aren't there a lot of purple flowers in this garden? Seems I like purple.

five ::
What's the best thing about the Olympics so far? I reckon it's getting a re-run of Wimbledon, with our boy Murray still winning matches. (Either that or Mayor BoJo getting stuck on a zip slide over Vicky Park. What a total plum.)

six ::
I've never been to Russia. Never given the place much thought (I like matryoskas a lot mind you). But the volume of blatant spambotting Russian gitsites that are skewing the stats on my blog are really getting me baity. You get them too huh? What is to be done? Have you heard any good ways to make them go away? It's enough to put you right off your blinis.

seven ::
Better keep walking (excuse the groan while I get up), seeing as how I've now officially reached the maximum weight gain for my height during this pregnancy, and I still have six weeks to go. Ach, I know, I can lose it all again later if I try, but it is not going to be easy.

eight ::
So the veg patch is actually producing things at last. Not enough for actual meals (don't let's get ahead of ourselves) but enough to snack on while we walk. A handful of rasps here, a blankety bed-full of tender broad beans there. Do you think shallots are ready when they look like a cat has sat on them? Or do you think a cat has actually sat on them? Better pull them up anyway because they're bound to rot in all this wet weather if I don't.

nine ::
I wonder if that song that's always on the radio at the moment, Small Bump (who's it by again... Ed something, Ed Sheeran, that's the one, thank you) I wonder if it makes my husband feel any paucity of emotion towards the dragon baby? It certainly does me. I haven't so much as packed a hospital bag or planned a place for this poor little scrap to sleep, let alone penned a multi-squillion selling love song to it. There just hasn't been time. Note to self: must make time to bond with bump. I did try the other day, but I fell asleep.

ten ::
Jeez, I hate weeds.

As you can see, wonderful Alicia showed me how, and I eventually approximated a vague attempt at using her 3 x 3 template. Isn't it pretty? Happy days - thank you Alicia!