Domesticali

Mona

Want to see a 4 year old trying to look enigmatic?

I'm not so sure - he looks vaguely in pain to me. But who am I to say.

Went on a post pay-day yarn buying spree today for my ready-for-winter project. A Sarah Dallas Blanket Cardigan. Not that I'm wishing the summer away or anything. Through frankly, with hayfever this bad, Autumn will be most welcome. At leat when my yarn arrives I can hide from the pollen indoors and knit.

Happy weekend. 

Broad beans are sleeping in a blankety bed*

Having friends with allotments has got to be the next best thing to having one yourself! At the moment there seems to be a glut of broad beans which I have been overjoyed to make use of.

Especially since I came across Sarah Raven's way of preparing them  (from her Garden Cookbook).

Blitz podded and jacketed broad beans with olive oil, lemon zest, mint and salt and pepper.

She suggests using the resulting puree on crostini with a sliver of pecorino, but I reckon Parma Ham would be fab too.

We ate ours as an accompaniment to some roast lamb and cous cous. One of the lovely things was that it didn't loose the bright green zingy colour at all. I would have taken a photo, but we were too greedy.

*Oh, takes me back to Harvest Festival...

Cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green,
Strawberries sweeter than any I've seen
Beetroot purple and onions white,
All grow steadily day and night

The apples are ripe, the plums are red,
Broad beans are sleeping in a blankety bed

Blackberries juicy and rhubarb sour,
Marrows fattening hour by hour.
Gooseberries hairy and lettuces fat
Radishes round and runner beans flat

The apples are ripe, the plums are red,
Broad beans are sleeping in a blankety bed

Orangey carrots and turnips cream,
Reddening tomatoes that used to be green,
brown potatoes in little heaps,
Down in the darkness where the celery sleeps

The apples are ripe, the plums are red,
Broad beans are sleeping in a blankety bed

 

Whitstable or Knitstable?

This weekend, the planetary alignment of a snot-ridden child and a mother only recently out of hospital found me in Whitstable with only the junior element of my brood. But things were not entirely as normal. There had been an invasion.

Knitted graffiti - all over the place.
And while Johnny played on the beach

 I did a little knitting of my own.

You can't tell what it is? Why, it's a beach hut cosy of course. I kid you not. A group project, that I am very much looking forward to seeing completed.

Questions, questions

Manda was asking about blog preferences today. How we all love wading in on this topic -  unsurprising, given that blogging (or at least blog reading) is the common element we all share. Anyway, I'm feeling particularly opinionated today, so here's my tuppence worth. I would love to hear your take on this stuff too.

What makes you enjoy a particular blog (not just this one, any one that you read)?
Honesty, reality, humour and the opportunity to raise my game. I want to have a garden as gorgeous as yours, a wonderful relationship with my children when they are as grown up as yours, to cook the same foodstuffs as you do - simply and beautifully and to have a magazine spread worthy house. Oh and knit all my own socks, sew clothes and have a quilt on every bed, handstitched by moi. Just don't be too bloody smug about it or I might stop sighing wistfully and want to throttle you instead. Remind me occasionally that you too are human.

What type of post is your favourite?
Something that really makes me think. The very very best of posts stay with me all day. Posts which generate discussion around our community. Posts which make me determined to try something new or do something differently.

How important are the photographs?
They help. Because I suppose we're all a bit lazy and pushed for time. Bad photos are a bit of a turn off. Sarah+h gave me some great advice on blog photos ages ago and it really helped me. I unearthed her e-mail so I could pass it on to you in her own words:

The beauty of the digital age is that you can take a lot of pictures without wasting a single frame of film.  You should see the number of pictures that I delete.  Occassionally even when I've taken dozens of pictures I don't end up with anything that I consider useable.  I'd like to think the same is true for the bloggers whose photographs I admire.
Second, get up close and personal.  I almost always like the way a closely cropped photo looks better than one taken from a wider angle.  Framing a picture as your taking it takes practice (another way that taking billions of pictures comes in handy) but if all else fails you can always manipulate the image with your photo editing software.

If photos are not your strongest point, try to find a blog whose photographic style you enjoy and work out what it is they are doing. Is it their lighting, their use of macro, their colours? Then have a go yourself. In my opinion, photographic style is an area you can copy completely without guilt.

Does the design of the blog attract you or even stop you from reading it?
Not really - probably because I tend to read in bloglines and just pop over quickly to comment. I have never stopped reading a blog on the basis of design. I have, however a big issue with blogs whose whole feed doesn't show up in bloglines. It drives me mad!

Do you like blogs to be colloquial/regional or fairly generic?
I like to be able to place a blog. Feel comfortable enough to use your native vernacular. We don't all have to call it a Thrift Store. I'm sure readers are intelligent enough to figure out what a Charity Shop or Op-Shop is. When I first started blogging, most of the people who stopped by were from North America or Australia. I think because craft-blogging wasn't terribly established in the UK then. But these days, I notice that more and more of my comments come from fellow Brits. Are we more insular than we like to think? Or is it just that when someone talks about buying shoes, we like to know we can get our hands on a pair without International Shipping. I would never want to read only my own nationality blog - diversity is king! But local has charm too.

An equal amount of craft and family, or does too much of talking about the kids put you off?
If I only wanted to read about crafts, I'd buy a craft encyclopedia. I love love love the backstory. Why you made it, what your Dad said about it, how you fed the children cereal 3 meals running, just so you could finish it. And while we're on the subject of children, don't brag too much about yours. Because then I just think you're a big hairy fibber - they are never perfect all the time. At least, mine aren't.

What else? What are the best words of advice you can give a blogger?
Enjoy the process of connecting with like minded people. A 'successful' blog doesn't need a certain number of hits or comments - it just needs to make the owner happy. Do it your way.

Did you get this far? Even with no photo? Bravo! What's the most memorable post you've read of late? Pop a link to it in the comments. Blogging - it's good to share.

Muuuuummmeeeee!

Dis cupcake doesn't taste very good.

Just for fun, from One Skein.

A rose by any other name..

It looked like rain this afternoon, so I thought I might go and salvage a precious flower from the garden, before it was spoiled.

Having a cutting garden is a long standing fantasy of mine. To head out through the dewy grass, load up my trug, and enjoy the blooms inside the house. I even got as far as buying the book many years ago. But I find I have a guilt complex when it comes to actually harvesting the flowers. The empty spots in the borders look at me accusingly and I feel I have wasted the life of the plant for a brief moment of satisfaction.

Strange emotion, guilt. I feel the same way about ditching a product I bought but didn't like. Take this surface cleaner for example (matches my flower, dontcha think?).

I was seduced into buying it by the pretty, yet understated packaging and the unusual colour. But I'm sorry to say, that the smell reminds me of vomit. So why am I still feeling that I have to use it up? Guilt over waste has a lot to answer for.

Small pleasures (on a large scale)

Friday was picnicing, with Johnny's pre-school buddies, to celebrate Father's Day. We went up to the top of Wittenham Clumps. There were plenty of Daddies, lots of happy small folks and Felipe, from Orange Lobster.

He's a bubble sculptor and we had the most magical picnic watching him. Bubbles are truly one of life's simple pleasures. There's something hypnotic about watching them float away

But these were no ordinary bubbles - they were the big Daddy of all bubbles. Bigger than the children. We had a turn on the smaller giant bubble wand (the kids couldn't have lifted the big one).

And of course, one had to come home with us. So we needed industrial quantities of bubble mix. Luckily, Felipe has a recipe for the homemade stuff on his website. It does require glycerine, so off I went to Boots to get some. It was a rather strange shopping experience.

Me: Can I have some glycerin please?
Pharmacist: Here you are (giving me a teeny weeny bottle).
Me: Oh, I need more than that. Could I have 500 ml please?
Pharmacist: Weeell, I'll sell you 200ml.

I mean, what was I going to do? Lubricate my throat into oblivion?? Do I look untrustworthy?

Anyway, it was enough to get us started.

 So if you want me, I'll be out the back perfecting my technique. Or back at the chemist, begging for my next glycerin fix.

Nothing doing

Nothing to see here. No, really... nothing.

I've got bloggers block.

It struck after someone paid me a really lovely compliment about my blog - now I'm all paranoid about not living up to it.

I may have to go and eat a jam sandwich instead.

While I remain tongue-tied, here is another place to visit. D'you remember blogless Kristina? Well, she is no more, because here's her blog - Jolly Hockey Sticks. Go and say hello - tell her I sent you. She has really great china (which I am becoming more and more obsessed with). Clearly I need to get a life.

Feeling foodie (not guilty)

Some weeks I feel really uninspired food-wise. I trot out the same old same old and no-body really complains, because face it, round here it's my cooking or my cooking. Not that hubby can't cook - it's just that he always takes the path of least resistance. Which usually means something on toast. And the something is usually beans. Or an egg if he's willing to push the boat out.

But this week has been saved by Waitrose Food Illustrated. I really like it as a magazine and this month, a couple of very fast and yummy things emerged from the pages.

First the worthy - Chicken and Vegetable soup, which managed to capture all the early summer goodness of young courgettes and green beans and little carrots. Here's the recipe link. I had to borrow Waitrose's photo, because although I like taking photos of food, I don't like faffing around while my glorious dinner goes cold.

But I took a photo of the main ingredient of the next course.

Oh, Toblerone. How I worship your nougat studded pyramids. I like your dark version even more. And the children's verdict on these cookies has been very positive. Recipe link (of course).
In fact the only thing I don't like about these cookies, is the way that the page where the recipe is printed, bears the header 'guilty pleasures'. Of all the things in life to berate ourselves over, eating the odd homemade treat should just not register on the richter scale of maternal guilt. Not in my book anyway.

So when this makes it into my tried, tested and enjoyed recipe collection, you can be sure that I'm snipping that header straight off. I have better things to feel guilty about. Like falling off the Project 365 wagon. Half way through the year and it's time to throw in the towel. I think the final nail in the coffin is the realization that there are people out there who are just doing it SO much better.

Fuzzy fun

Project ingredients:
One book (on loan from Monica)
Circular needle
Pencils, sharpened at both ends to substitute for DPNs (strangely effective)
Fuzzy wuzzy wool, which makes me think of a favourite childhood poem of mine...

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear

Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair

Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?

I made a little felted bowl, which just makes me happy.

But it has already been colonized.

So it's a good thing I've made two more. Even if felting them in my machine makes the utility room smell of rank sheep. But that seems a small price to pay. I have visions of a whole rainbow family.

 

Woe betide anyone who fills them with potatoes for chitting though.

Glorious weekend

What could be better than a sunny Sunday spent in the strawberry patch?

They always taste amazing straight off the plant.
I ate so many I gave myself stomach ache.

Luckily, the boys are made of sterner stuff (or are a little less greedy).

But I think the evidence on Mark's chops may have blown our cover at the pay station. When the man said "You've got a lot of washing to do", I thought he was referring to the fruit, but it seems he may have had an eye on my laundry pile.

The first strawberry picking session of the year seems to signal the official start of Summer for me. I've got some freshly made scones waiting for me downstairs and a bowlful of berries in the fridge to try a go at the Tessa Kiros strawberry jam recipe from 'Apples for Jam'. But before I go and get stuck in, I need a bit of inspiration.

The scrapstore yesterday yielded these cones of chenille - the colours were totally irresistible, but I'm slightly stumped as to what to do with them. Any ideas? I had intended to knit with them, but they have zero elasticity and the swatch I tried didn't look great.

Ten year trauma

I don't think Tracy realized the paper rifling that tagging me with this thing would unleash. A simple meme. But the first question has got me in a tailspin.

What were you doing ten years ago?

What, in days BC (before children)? I sincerely hope I was living it up, but the sad thing is, I don't really remember the details of my life then. Now, I know the headlines - where I was living (sweet Victorian semi on the edge of a wonderful park, close enough to walk into town) and working (science and engineering based consultancy), but what was I really doing?? I wanted to check, so I tried to find some hard evidence. No e-mails from back then, because I used my work account, pre digital photos only, so no handy dates. I've even binned the credit card bills from way back then, so I have no idea what I was spending money on. In fact, the only paper records I came across which could be positively identified as being from 1998, were a list of seeds I planted in the garden that year (it was deep in my gardening love affair period) and a Project Management award. This is scary stuff. What happens if I am accused of a crime from 1998 and I need to provide an alibi? I'm stuffed. This is why blogging is a good thing. Not that I've done anything illegal you understand. Just for the record.

I am obviously justified in my old diary preserving habits. It's just that pre 2003 got tossed out when we moved house.

5 things on my to do list for today
Buy one of those librarians date stamping gizmos, so I can catalogue the paper elements of my life. To avoid any similar panic 10 years from now.
Put the chicken and ribs in to marinade. For these. Yuuuuum.

Go to work - try to remember how to use the b****y till after 10 days away.
Pay the outstanding balance for our holiday to Cornwall.
Laundry. Today, tomorrow, probably every day until those grubby little boys of mine leave home.

Snacks I enjoy

Leftovers - I rival Nigella herself in my gleefulness at raiding the fridge.
Nuts.
Peanut butter on toast.
Radishes.
Post supermarket treat of whatever looked best that day on the bakery counter, with a coffee. Almond croissant, muffin, tart, doughnut - I'm flexible. Just not thin.

Things I would do if I was a billionaire

Panic, stress, pretend it hadn't happened. Vow not to let money spoil my children. Then go shopping.

Places I have lived

Oh  really, I am not the right person to ask. I moved a lot as a child.Do you really want the list? Birth onwards? Hamilton, Bermuda; Broadstairs, UK; Suva, Fiji; Doha, Quatar; Whitstable, UK; Georgetown, Cayman Islands; Folkestone, UK; Benin, Nigeria; Nuku'alofa, Tonga; Dover, UK; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Sheffield, UK; Edinburgh, UK; Yokohama, Japan and 3 locations in Oxfordshire. Phew. Let's just say, I'm very adaptable. Not to mention good at packing.

6 people I want to know more about

I want to know more about everyone. I'm congenitally curious. So tell me in your comments, what was the last thing you ate? Or you could 'fess up and do the whole thing, if it grabs you.

Cracked

Today was a day for hiding quietly. I went to the dentist and was left post anasthetic with a leer that would have frightened small children. Hell, it frightened me. Be grateful there are no pictures.

Normally I am irritatingly perky about the prospect of going to the dentist. It helps that he is lovely (Hello Mr Buckley) and allows my children to call him Mr Broccoli without comment. But I realize that the other reason is that I haven't actually had to have anything done (bar checkups and cleaning) in the last 20 years. But this time, the number was up for my two geriatric fillings. Out with the old, in with the new, on with the paper bag.

I scuttled surrepticiously round the supermarket, trying not to drool on any of the produce from lips that no longer met in the corner. But it was all a bit of a strain, so I decided to wait for the numbness to wear off in the safety of my own kitchen.

Because I had an idea brewing, which involved my underused ice-cream sandwich moulds.

And hard boiled eggs and this tutorial for making lunchbox fun. Because what could be more fun than a pig shaped boiled egg? Perhaps a pig shaped boiled egg made by someone who had bothered to re-read the directions about wetting the mould to prevent sticking.

Are you ready for a shock? Because this piggy is slightly worse for wear. Hey, perhaps he'd done a few rounds of anesthetic with Mr Broccoli.

Poor piggy. I blame bigbucketgirl and all her laptop luncbox come hither talk myself. I'm going to try the chicken mould tomorrow. ..