Croissants

I was doing a Q and A with my team the other day. A very brave one, in fact - one where no holds were barred, and staff were encouraged to ask whatever they wanted, and, leaving aside uncrossable barriers that was pretty much what they did. And the first question? Baking. Would I please share a baking secret. I said to them: if you don't have a passion for baking, you're never really going to get it right. Every cake, biscuit, tart, loaf I make, has joy in it.  Every time I go into the kitchen, it's an emotional release to pull out the flour and start sieving it. Where others might head for a bottle of wine after work, I head for my apron. Most looked at me uncomprehendingly, as well they might. And I reflected afterwards, that since I do all of my baking alone - unlike spas or shopping, it never occurs to me to invite a mate over to bake a Victoria sponge with - I have no idea, really, how others think about their baking. Perhaps this all seems a bit geeky and kind of sad. Well. This week I had my chance to find out whether others thought about baking the way I did. I've got myself pretty good at baking bread - I graduated from sourdough some time ago to more complex processes involving fresh yeast for a slower fermenting process, or understanding different grades of vinegar, or even saving the juice out of pickled cucumbers to add to a rye and black olive bread mix. But I haven't got up the courage to attempt a croissant. I look on in awe when people do this - rolling thing - effortlessly on foodie programmes. It has for some time sat firmly in the box labelled Too Advanced Even For Me. But recently I came across a cookery school offering a three hour session to learn how to make croissants. Irresistible. I signed up, and yesterday I turned up there. Borough Market, right at the back, in a long studio with a big, wooden table with stools around it, and white aprons folded at each station, with a rolling pin - large, Scandanavian, beech affair - and a bowl, digital measuring scales and flour - and 11 other people. And I realise I am about to enter Baking Nirvana. I have never, ever baked with other people. It reminded me of the first time I sat an exam at university in a hall with boys in it. I went to a girls only school for so many years that I couldn't concentrate for the first half hour of my first exam paper because the vibe was so different, just because boys were in the hall. And this was, well, just weird having bakers on either side of me. But also, just, so, well, wonderful. How long have you been baking, one asks me. I tell him, and we discuss how we got started, and just a few seconds later we are talking sourdough as if we have known each other for years. Our teacher works supportively, humorously and combatively with us for the next three hours, teaching us to roll out croissant dough, pile up the butter, fold the dough over it, chill, roll it out, fold it over, chill...the time whizzes past. I am delirious with the sheer happiness of being among people as passionate and geeky about this as I am. Each wants to get the perfect roll on their croissant shape, the right height, the right number of layers, the right crispiness outside versus the right buttery softness inside. We swap tips, we remind each other of the process, we comment on each others' dough texture. And we stuff our faces with the fruits of the teacher's labour - pain au chocolate, pain au raisin. When our croissants are ready, and how incredible they look! - perfect, even if they are not evenly sized enough to qualify for a Bake Off award, I pile them carefully into a box and drift off to the tube to catch my train home. I sit on the Northern Line in a haze of goodwill. Mmm, who's got croissants, a commuter says. I do, I cry, and I BAKED them. Myself!!! The carriage oohs and aaahs - supportively, I like to think, though in retrospect I imagine they thought if they applauded me and massaged my ego for long enough I would buckle and hand them all out (I didn't.  I might have been high on my achievement but I am not an idiot). And when I got home, complete with the cookery school's baking book, which I threw open at the Jammie Dodger page and got busy IMMEDIATELY, I felt like I'd just conquered Everest. It's just croissants right? Nope. If you have a passion for baking, turning out 13 beautiful croissants is so, so much more than making the family dinner. Right now, it feels like a lifetime achievement. That's the passion talking.

Pelvic Floor Exercises

I am making a tomato soup. One of those sumptuous ones with a million tomatoes, puree, bit of chilli, touch of mascarpone, basil, splash of wine...the works. I feel as if I deserve it. I've just shlepped round the West End with one of my kids, buying clothes. Said child is at the age of rejecting any of my suggestions on the grounds that even if my taste is impeccable, rebellion is the order of the day. Important at this time to maintain mental distance. Kid picks up horrible t shirt: "Of course!! Whatever you want luv...You get the picture. With mental detachment achieved, it is a not unsuccessful shopping trip - I now need a second mortgage on the house, but Child is equipped for fashion and practicability so it's a win win. But we're both whacked, and both also more than a bit resentful that having deliberately not travelled in the rush hour, we find ourselves in the Unofficial Rush Hour, i.e. the entire day between 9 and 4, when tourists and truants alike take to the tube in their droves. By the time we are back in the 'burbs, we are in need of comforting sustenance. And in this weather, it's soup. And bread. The great thing about making both of these, is that they are, generally speaking, slow and steady procedures. Plenty of time to think. I reflect on the tube ride as I pound my dough, then plait it up and leave it for its second proving. I was reading an article on the tube about how implacable faces are. How little you can tell of what a person is thinking. I'm not too sure about that. I'm close to certain - I would lay my money on it, in fact if I had any left after the shopping spree - that the woman opposite me was doing her pelvic floor exercises. Something about the way she was twitching her hips, ever so slightly, and screwing up her mouth, a lot less slightly. Level one...level two...level THREE. No idea what I'm talking about? Try having a baby. Or nine, in the case of Queen Victoria, which is a less random example than it sounds, as we also know of Queen V that she had a prolapsed uterus, something very common in women who have had quite a few pregnancies. And I'll bet her poor doctor, who was often not allowed to touch her when he examined her, was completely unable to teach her the Elevator Technique. It's an absolute must for women who do not want to be in daily need of Sanpro (or Monthly Care, as Boots so hilariously now calls it) for the rest of their post menopausal lives. This is taught efficiently by GPs, nurses and sex counsellors alike. What they don't tell you, is how to master your facial expression while you are at it. So those GPs who fondly imagine that all their midlife female patients are on the tube quietly getting on with progressing from Floor 2 to Floor 3 unobtrusively while reading The Times, have done them a horrible disservice. It's like that moment in the Karate Kid. No faces!  

Flatbread

I found a set of flatbread recipes I had added, diligently, to my folder into which I would throw, each week, anything that passed the tests of a) sufficiently tantalising and b) sufficiently doable (plus c) does not use a million ingredients - yes, I mean you Mr Ottolenghi). These were courtesy of Dan Leppard, the bread guru, one of whose books I have and whose bread recipes usually scare the bejeezus out of me. Fermenting times...add pickle juice...knead every 10 minutes for three hours...ok I exaggerate, but it is easy to be intimidated by bread recipes. So I cut out the flatbread pages, put them in my folder, and then ignored them every time I took the folder out. Until last week. One of those, don't-be-an-idiot-of-course-you-can-make-these things moment. In the blurb Dan tells me that once you have mastered them, suppertime will never be the same again. Hmm, I think. See, I am an enthusiastic cook/baker, I think we established that a long time ago.  But I also have a very busy, high octane job, and weekday nights are emphatically not for baking. Weekdays, if it's pizza it's takeout - though I will make a fabulous low GI high roughage salad to go with it.  I look carefully at the cornmeal flatbread recipe. It really doesn't seem too bad. I throw in the polenta, yeast, water, flour, salt, oil...at least, I don't throw them in, I actually treat every step of the process with great respect, because frankly guys if you are going to make bread, the number one rule is, don't mess with the instructions. Seriously. If it says use lukewarm water, then use lukewarm. Not cold, and not boiling hot. Yes, it will interfere with the yeast, giving you flat bread no matter what type you are trying to make. Etc. So I follow the steps, and literally 35 mins later I have a really cool, stretchy dough to make ball shapes out of, which I stretch out, create ridges round the side, and hey presto. Huge suppertime revelation. That, as I say, was a week ago, and since then we've had mozzarella and tomato flatbreads, feta, mushroom and mustard flatbreads with rocket scattered on top. Pumpkin and spice flatbread. Even chocolate flatbread with M&M's, for which I will not apologise. As Dan said, once you've mastered the flatbread, suppertime will never be the same.

Meanwhile, I'm about to experience Groundhog Day. In December I will be having my fifth orthopaedic operation. Surely I deserve a Loyalty Card at my local hospital (entitling you to a free blood transfusion with extra points!!) How much am I looking forward to the rebuilding of my right foot? there are no words for the plummeting awful anticipation of weeks back on crutches. But then, we are back where my blog started. Baking on one leg. Expect lots of experimental recipes in the weeks to come.