Storms and junk food

Round about the middle of last week, the UK's Met Office showed prescience and accuracy in its forecasting - two qualities which rarely go together in UK weather forecasting - in warning all us Brits about an impending storm. It was going to track its way across the Atlantic, they said, before reaching the South West mid Sunday eve and hitting the whole of South England on Monday morning. It would be gone by lunchtime on Monday but in that brief period it was going to wreak havoc. Oooh, we said. And, aaaah. But I'm not sure how many of us actually believed it, not least because the weather forecasters stopped short of calling it a hurricane - a political exercise in definitions. It wasn't going to be a hurricane because the 90mph winds would only be felt in gusts. Oh well that's all right then, we said to each other. Not a hurricane. Well, at around 2am the entire population of South England was woken up, and thereafter kept awake, by howling winds and lashing rain, which pulled the trees almost horizontal. Particularly alarming if you live in the shadow of trees that are at least 10 times your height, as I do. By the following morning, anyone who owned garden furniture could no longer locate it. I put my nose outside the door and withdrew it in terror. The wind took my breath away. I wondered for a few minutes whether I couldn't just decide that my work was less important than my wellbeing, and stay at home as the travel advice sugested. But a misguided sense of duty made my mind up for me and 15 minutes later I was out in this weather. Walking up to the main road was like a scene from a science fiction film. Bins flying through the air. Tarpaulin howling, half ripped off scaffolding. Contents of a skip scattered across the road, complete with iron bars that twitched and slid. By the time I reached the main road I had been hit on the leg by a food recycling bin, and been blown over on my back twice. I made it to the station, only to see a tree come crashing down on the line, thus ending any prospect of rail travel for the day. I took my life into my hands and climbed on a double decker bus which pitched and swayed dangerously. I got off near my work 2 hours later, to see that a crane had crashed into the roof of the neighbouring building. I fought off leaves and refugee insects to get into the office. In a building of 2000, maybe 20 of us had made it in. When I left for home, I was exhausted. The storm had moved on but debris was everywhere. I walked back down the road to my house, still littered with bins, branches and iron bars. I let myself into the house. And proceeded to devour two chocolate bars and a tub of ice cream. Sometimes. Just sometimes. Junk food really is the only reward for a very, very hard day.

Pretzels and feet

I went to see my foot surgeon earlier this week. This man is fast becoming a member of the family. After all he has had more intimate contact with my left foot than anybody I've ever met. I've also howled over his shoulder twice (once because having 60 stitches removed from my new foot was so bloody painful, the other because I'd been waiting outside the X ray theatre for over 2 hours for my turn and was still too drug addled from prescription painkillers to be rational about it), clutched on to his shoulders while dragging myself across the room in my orthopaedic boot, and flung my arms around his neck after taking my first unaided steps. OK it doesn't hurt that he is serious eye candy. A friend of mine had a similar issue with one of her feet and I recommended my surgeon, and she hasn't stopped talking about his sauve good looks ever since her first consultation. Anyway. I digress (but you can see how that would happen, a bloke like him). I went back to see him as I have new pains in my new foot. Essentially the tendons that my fit surgeon rerouted in order to give the foot new stability, compromised its ability to complete the range of motion that it needs to take a step. Essentially, my big toe won't finish the job. And this tiny lack of movement has resulted in crippling pain across the bridge of my foot. This is all correctable, with even more physiotherapy and differently shaped orthotics - after all, this is me we are talking about, and if you are following this blog you will know I am not one to Give Up. But still it's wearing to find myself back in orthopaedic outpatients, subject to my usual 3 hour wait (though recently I've discovered that if you insist you can screw a 9am appointment out of the booking bureaucrats, thus cutting your wait to less than 15 minutes - this is tantamount to the invention of the wheel). My usual response to the next orthopaedic challenge is on a par with my response to any quirk in my daily life, which is to bake. The tougher the challenge, the more adventurous my baking session. This one was mammoth. It included a gateau St Emilion - no base involved, just a concoction of creamy dark chocolate with amaretti in brandy broken up and scattered across the top (yummmmm), tomato and oregano pizza for my cheese-hating eldest, and another thick cheese pizza for my cheese-obsessed Youngest.  Chocolate fridge cookies with white chocolate and creme fraiche buttercream. A crumble of squash and parsnip with nuts, mustard and blue cheese. And finally, Pretzels. I watched these being made with some curiosity on the Great British Bake Off. Things always look very easy on GBBO but of course you are watching the Heavily Edited version of events, so it always looks a bit weird when you see them turn out their beautifully rendered pretzels with deftness and ease, and in the next shot you catch them wiping their brows and swigging back water like they've just navigated the Karoo on an outward bound weekend. I want to see how hard these things are. And they are. They're really hard to make for my first attempt. No problem with the dough, which proves obligingly in a corner. No problem to make 12 doughballs out of the mixture. Rolling out each one while maintaining its integrity, and looping each long rope into a pretzel shape without breaking it, is a fantastic bicep/tricep workout, I discover as I do this. With each one I become warmer and more achey, I start to sweat - quite a lot, even for someone like me, experiencing my Personal Summer for the nth time this week alone - and when I have all 12 done I have to lie down for a few inutes before dunking them each into my water and baking powder, which by the way froths fabulously, not unlike a scene from one of Professor Snape's potion lessons. This is a perfect antidote to my orthopaedic encounter. You see, when the medical profession takes on the challenge of your malfunctioning body, either you instantly cede all control to He Who Knows What He Is Doing, which leaves you totally helpless. Or you take on the challenge of Self Help, which even the strongest patient will tell you can leave you staring, metaphorically, at Mount Everest. You're at the bottom. How to get to the top. Nobody would blame you for giving up and just seeing out the rest of your life with limited left foot mobility. Baking a pretzel reminds me that tricky though it is, control, even triumph, even a temporary win, is not just possible, it is endlessly satisfying. I sprinkle my puffed up pretzel dough with sesame seeds, slide them into the oven, and take them out 20 minutes later, deeply golden brown, crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside. They are delicious, especially with a last minute inspired addition of sprinkled rock salt on the outer edges. I made a pretzel (twelve of them). Surely I can get my big toe to take a proper step.

Learn from someone you love

There was a memorial service for my sister yesterday. It was very emotional, and very beautiful. Only slightly marred by the torrential downpour that comes with the unsettling shift into a British Autumn, and let me tell you, in case you don't already know this, that there are plenty of unfortunate places to be caught in a thunderstorm and downpour, but none quite so thankless, bleak or depressing than a cemetery. Five minutes in my feet were soaked, my hands were freezing, and my obligatory hat drooped miserably at the edges. Still, the service was a meaningful one, one my sister would have been gratified to have heard, a set of reflections that paid true tribute to her wonderfulness. Something that was said during the service set me thinking. A common strain of thought in my faith, and one which was repeated at the service, was that in trying to come to terms with the death of someone you love, one of the best ways forward is to replicate their virtues as a legacy of their life. What were my sister's virtues? She was extraordinarily generous and kind. At the service there were many people I didn't recognise. One, a woman in a wheelchair, wheeled over to me to say hello. She looked to be in her early seventies, more than 20 years older than my sister. I asked how she knew her. She said she was in the next bed in the hospital when my sister had had her mastectomy. My sister, even in recovery, had taken an active interest in her neighbour, and after they left hospital they stayed in touch and became very close. I was very touched by this story. In hospital wards, and I have spent time in a few, generally the last thing on most people's list of priorities is to make friends with your neighbours. My top priority is to get the hell out as soon as I decently can, and avoid catching MRSA comes a close second. In any case I am usually so drug addled I am too moody to communicate with my own family, never mind total strangers who are twenty years older. Not my sister. She had had a breast removed in a desperate treatment regime designed, ultimately, to claw back two years of life. And she still managed to take an interest in the people around her, even in her pain. I am sure I can learn from this, though I am also sure it will creep out my fellow commuters if I start taking an interest in their lives on the 0600 to Charing Cross. At the same time, my sister was an accomplished baker of occasion cakes, because she was arty and creative and loved making something  beautiful to celebrate a milestone in somebody's life. Well. I think I have the baking thing sewn up. And, like my sister, I love to bake a cake for others. I am rubbish at piping icing, my line tends to be in a damn fine chcoolate tart for someone who is sad or recovering from an illness or just needs some TLC. But it gives me extra pleasure to bake something with my sister in my mind.  I mull over this as I put together a massive chocolate pudding. It is about recalling elements of my sister's special gifts that form part of my healing journey, not about replicating them completely. At least, I hope not. She used to knock out four tier cakes shaped like computers and guitars. If I turn out a guitar shaped cake it's because the neighbour's dog has chewed the sides.

Moving on

Today is the stonesetting for my sister. It is just over a year since she died of secondary breast cancer, and today the tombstone, which was laid on her grave just a few days ago, will be consecrated. Really it is an excuse for a memorial service, and the year marks a point at which the bereaved should probably begin to think about moving on. I am one of the bereaved, and my response to this milestone is to bake up a storm. A tarte au chocolat. Chocolate crunch, made of honey, oats, Rice Krispies, coconut, cocoa powder, organic milk chocolate, honey and sunflower oil. Soda bread. And, umm, I dunno, other stuff. I'll just keep going until it's time to put on my purple outfit and go and commemorate my sister's life, consumed by cancer that killed her when it pursued its inexorable, unstoppable, toxic path from her breast to her liver, taking in her lungs, her ribs, her arms and her spine on its malignant route.  Baking might seem like a weird response to the memories of such horror (and by the way,while I totally agree with the view of Jennifer Saunders that cancer happens to loads of people and we should all get on with it, I also beg to differ on the grounds that she was lucky enough to have a survivable strain. I did too, when I was treated for thyroid cancer 5 years ago, and I don't make a song and dance out of it. I had it. It was treated. It's gone. It's unlikely to come back. End of. When you lose someone to cancer, though, the helpless process that takes hold is an hourly, living nightmare that changes your life. It is a horror for the suffering and for those who love them. So, baking.  Why? It is a therapeutic process like no other. And as a keen gardener, pianist, linguist and general cook, I think I would know. It demands concentration and creativity. It produces an outcome that is deeply satisfying. it looks beautiful. It has comfort written all over it. I bake to erase some of that nightmare quality. And I think I have to do this. Because after the stonesetting is over, and the last cup of tea has been drunk by the friends who will have joined us, I will have to find a place for all this pain so I can move on, and remember my sister in the shape of all the wonderful things she did and all the wonderful qualities that defined her (including her passion for purple, hence the dress). And right now that pain is just too, well, painful, to put away. It needs reshaping. It needs reducing. It needs rebalancing. My sister loved to bake. She was an extraordinary creator of Occasion Cakes. When I bake, my memories of her pain are overlaid by memories of her passion. So baking is part of my process of moving on.

Umbrellas

The weather changed abruptly in the middle of this week. After a really beautiful October of sun and calm, during which I congratulated myself on staving off the dreaded moment when 60 denier black tights would have to be excavated from the depths of my drawers, compete with runs and fluff, the moment finally came.Followed, of course, by the inevitable, panic stricken mass purchase of the bloody things. I HATE tights. They are just too risky. The number of tights related mishaps are just too many to list, but if it's a toss up between mud splattered calves and blue knees, I'll take the former any time thanks. Not much you can do about the mud in rainy and windy weather - wait till it dries, then scrub it off with a tissue, or just pretend it's part of the design (that has personally NEVER worked for me). No, the real challenge in this weather, is Hair. This is the best possible weather if you want your hair to look as if you have run the gamut of an alien invasion and electric shock therapy. I tend to look this way at weekends and feel cheerfully unselfconscious about it, but work hair has to be tidy if I am to hold my composure in meetings dominated by sleek looking blokes. And that means wrestly with the worst accessory in the world - The Umbrella. They are hopeless things really aren't they. Small portable ones manage to camouflage themselves in my bag. I can never bloody well find it when I need it. Or I stick it into my coat pocket, which is ungainly but then at least I know it's there, and I open it up and five minutes later it's broken. Or you spend several fortunes investing in a smart full size one, maybe with a wooden handle, or one of those posh see through ones like the Queen has, and you walk along wtih it to the tube station and by the time you get there you realise that the reason why the Queen uses it is because she has some lackey carrying it for her. You never see her struggle out of a train with a curved stick attached to some plastic and metal spokes that somehow manages to wrap itself round your legs, or if it's wet, create rivulets of running water down the tube floor, causing venomous looks from fellow passengers whose bags are getting soggy bottoms. But hey. At least I always have one. It's reassuring. Which is more than you can say for the average bloke, who seems a lot less unselfconscious about the prospect of being hurled on all over the shoulders of their suit. Presumably this is because the material is drip dry? I was at a work lunch on Friday with one woman and three men and when we came out of the restaurant into an Autumn deluge the only people who had umbrellas were the women. Who were also wearing coats with hoods. So, we put up our hoods and donated the umbrellas to our hapless male colleagues, who muttered things like, it wasn't raining when we came out (it was actually, you were just being macho and ignoring it). Sigh. Muddy tights. Frizzed wet weather hair. Flat, rainhood hair. Damp shoulder pads. Broken mini umbrellas. Welcome to Autumn.

Frangipane

Frangipane. That is a really, really great word. It's one of those words where, the more often you repeat it, the weirder it sounds. For a while I've known it's a type of sweet tart, but it wasn't until seeing it made on a foodie TV programme that I finally clocked what went into it. Problem, of course, with TV programmes is that even if they 'fess up and tell you how long it really makes to produce one of these creations, and that's if you know what you're doing, it doesn't feel like it takes that long because of course they've edited out loads. Like, the bit where you put the dough in the fridge to prove for two hours and you go off shopping or you sit in front of the telly with a cup of tea and a doughnut, or you do the ironing or text people or check your FB page, as this would all make for really boring telly. Consequently, they tell you it takes four hours, you think duh! You made it in 15 minutes!! Then you go off and have a go and two hours later you're kneading dough for its second prove and regretting, bitterly, that you didn't just go for the choc chip cookies which take 15 minutes from start to finish. So. Here I am in the evolutionary process of creating my raspberry, lemon and almond frangipane tart. It's not going to take me four hours to make. It's going to be more like twenty four hours. My dough for the tart is in the fridge, where it needs a minimum of two hours to rest but the recipe tells me helpfully, that an overnight residence in the depths of my fridge is more likely to produce the crust I need so I have decided to take this advice at face value. My lemon creme patissiere needs to be watched like a hawk to ensure it does not form a skin - I love custard skin myself, I used to sneak a skim off the top of the Birds Eye custard my Mum used to make when her back was turned (though it was the solidifying type of custard so I'm guessing that she clocked the oval indent in the side of the bowl, put two and two together with ease but was just too nice a person to let on) but you can't have a skin on your creme pat (this is the jargon of foodie professionals) if you want a perfect frangipane. After a few hours of this, I become slightly mesmerised by it. My brain slips into alchemy mode. Making a creme pat takes serious concentration if you want to hold the flavours right and get the consistency perfect so that you can like your jam across the top. And concentration is good for anyone who has had a tough week. And mine has been a tough one. Still in the early days of a new job, in that horrible bit where everyone around you knows more than you do, including the security guard (because he knows where all the bogs are and I'm yet to discover them), and the sheer  volume of information is overwhelming etc etc and you go home most days wondering whether this was all a terrible mistake. Of course it isn't, and in a few weeks I'll be climbing back up the hill of mental satisfaction which comes of saying something awfully clever in a meeting and clocking that I might have got with the programme. In the meantime, baking is a salvation. You can produce a beautiful frangipane even if you don't know where the toilets are on the 5th floor of your building and this is immensely confidence restoring. It's just lucky I'm not producing this frangipane for a TV baking competition. There'd be an awful lot of editing tape on the floor.

Neon Tweed

Neon tweed. There are two words you don't hear together very often.  I've just bought a skirt that describes itself as exactly that, which is why I bought it. Any item of clothing with that sassy an identity deserves an airing. Truth is I was on the hunt for a conservative suit. Something in , say, taupe. Skirt, jacket - nice white shirt, maybe some pearls, American Tan tights, sensible court shoes courtesy of some shoe manufacturer that puts extra padding in the insole. I have started a new job, you see, in a work environment I am not yet wholly familiar with but which looked terribly conservative from the outside so I thought I had better at least make an optical effort to fit in. But of course, face to face with said taupe two piece somewhere bland on the faceless, generic high street, I couldn't bring myself to take it off the hanger, never mind try it on. It was a good moment, an empowering moment. Though I knew this about myself - I may be tenuous on occasion, apologetic, a bit too ready to hide in my comfort zone - my public Me is enthusiastic, energetic, upbeat.  These qualities demand colour. The fact that I had signed up to spend the next three years of my career in a building with pillars, tiles, arty ceilings and entrances with personal names, did not mean I needed to blend in with its distempered walls to become worthy to wear my pass.  My eye wandered past the taupe two piece to a flash of colour. I head straight for it. It's tweed. Neon tweed. Brilliant. Five minutes later I'm out the door with the skirt in a bag. I haven't even tried it on but I know it is going to look great. It's going to make its debut with a black turtleneck, a metal rope of small multicoloured beads, patent knee high black boots, really big hair.  I pick clothes the way I bake. Start with the accepted recipe. Two minutes in, I've changed the plain flour for nutty spelt, the raisins for chunks of chocolate. I've whipped egg whites into the batter to give it height, and my buttercream has been whisked and whisked and whisked till it's so light it's practically taken off. It gets decorated with a riot of M and Ms, colours arranged in organised chaos. Neon tweed. Exuberant cakes. I don't know what my work legacy will be in three years. I do know those corridors will be the perfect backdrop for my neon tweed to sing.

Baking with a Tan

I have been on a holiday. Probably the laziest holiday I have taken in my entire life. One involving RyanAir from Stansted in the company of scores and scores of Essex boys and girls, the boys wearing Calvin Klein boxers protruding well above their neon sweatpants, the girls clutching Michael Kors bags over one arm and self tanner in the other hand. Car hire at Malaga, a brief scrum to get out of the airport away from everyone patiently awaiting their package tour buses, and into the hills, to a villa with beautiful fragrant flowers bursting from every crack in the wall and paving, two lemon trees, dusty window sills, and a pool to lie beside. Which I do. Practically every day. Aside fro brief forays to Granada, La Torcal, Nerja, and an ill advised afternoon attempting Malaga's market, I stay by the pool in a permanent doze. It is wonderful - the sun shines and I come back from Spain with a pool tan. Which, seconds after touching down in the grey dawn at Stansted a week after leaving it, I realise looked fabulous in the Andalucian hills, but positively tawdry on the commute to work. In fact the tan looks out of place even when I am up to my elbows in icing sugar. I decide the only answer to the tanned-arms-baking conundrum, is to bake tan-appropriate food. In the villa in which we stayed the owner had thoughtfully placed random Spain-related books - coffee table books with beautiful photographs, maps, tour books, and, yay, cookery and foodie books. One is Claudia Roden's Spain, and in between poolside snoozes, I leaf through it with increasing excitement. During that week I make her rustic egg, potato and onion frittata like meals over and over. I covet an opportunity to make the tuna pie but even I know pies are not things you make when on holiday, even a self catering holiday. Self catering holidays are about bakery bought bed, olives and a great bottle of wine. maybe frozen fishfingers for the kids.  Now I am home contemplating my bronzed arms, Claudia's Spanish tuna pie seems exactly right as a postscript to a fabulous week. I make the pastry (while watching The Great British Bake Off on I Player, which, uncannily, features a pastry episode), and an hour or so later I lift my beautiful, tomato-redolent, oozing creation from the oven. Yup, this is what someone with an Andalucian tan puts on the table for dinner.