59

There's a reason that bakers start work in the middle of the night, it take a *** of a long time to make "real" bread.

Now that the weather has cooled down (in theory at least as it's very summery today), it's time to start bread making with a leaven/mother. There are no gloriously golden crusted loaves to share with you, just this slow developer. It's now just after 5pm and I started this baby off just before 8am this morning. I would say we have at least another 2 hours before I can bake them.

Reading through it suggests that you do the final 4 hour rise overnight in the fridge (so it becomes 8), but then you need another 2 hours in the morning to bring it up to temperature before baking. I'll try that next I think, because the satisfaction is not the same when it comes out of the oven at 8:30 PM! Anyone with any tips on doing it this way, I'd love to hear.

PS The loaves came out of the oven at 8:30. They are delicious. A 12 hour loaf sure, but absolutely worth it. Dense bouncy crumb, real crunchy in a real sourdough way crust. Really wonderful.

58

On my bedside table right now. After my recent reading blitz I seem to be taking a breather for a moment, although am a little spoiled for choice. I don't read more than one book at a time, I know some do, but I just don't find it appealing.



And this is the mess on my bed. I used to think that I just disliked ironing, but as I only ever resort to ironing things I'd be ashamed to wear wrinkled, I've come to realise that I just don't like putting laundry away either. I view it a little like filing and only do it when it's completely out of control, which is now.

57

Yesterday my inlaws celebrated their 5oth wedding anniversary with immediate family and their closest friends. We had a sit down lunch for 30 at my brother in laws house and the children and inlaw children all contributed to make it a special day for them. This time we had the lunch catered, it's just so much work when we are all working during the week. So I was on flower duty. I was really pleased with how they turned out, but with a very small window to get them ready in the morning I have a new appreciation of just how labour intensive floristry is, even if also so very rewarding.

56

Leila and I don't have enough weekday adventures. We cook, we draw, we do a lot of home based activities, but in comparison to how much Ella and I got out and about at the same age, we don't do much at all.

I've been reading this book which was gifted to me some months ago by a dear reader (thank you Helen), and I'm finally reading it thoroughly rather than just skimming. Not all of it applies to Leila, but a lot does and I need to take on board a lot of the suggestions in making life less complicated for our little one.

We had a wonderful few hours at Heide. We ran down hills, smelt almost all the deliciously fragrant old fashioned roses, hid in bushes, looked through the Sunday's Kitchen exhibition and ate macaroons at Cafe Vue.

I always feel revitalised, inspired and renewed when we do something out of the routine and I think she does too. We will have more adventures, my little one and I, we'll make a point of it.

55

We love chicken and corn soup in this house, or more accurately I should say that we love my chicken and corn soup, which was in fact my mums. Like so many good things it really is that simple to make and a really inexpensive meal too.

In the cooler weather I could eat soup a lot of the time, Geoff not as much or the girls either, aside from my chicken and corn soup. It doesn't have the gluey texture of a Chinese restaurant soup, but that could be achieved with the addition of a little water and cornflour and even stiring through some egg at the last moment. If, however, the look of this bowl tickles your fancy, here's how it goes.

For this serving, which probably yields around 4 "I love this and can't get enough" sized bowls, or 6-8 "normal" serves. It's not a precise recipe, but a method, so if you need more, up the quantities.

Take 2 chicken marylands. Remove the skin, trim any extra bits of fat and I scoop out the goopy giblets as they tend to really muck up the stock. Put in a saucepan and just cover with cold water, gently bring to a simmer and hold there to a light (but not rolling) boil. Skim the stock as it cooks and continue for about 5 minutes or until cooked.

Remove the chicken from the pan and allow to cool to a temperature you can handle.

Strip all the meat from the marylands, again removing any sinewy parts and shredding into decent sized (but not mammoth) pieces.

At this point I pour the stock into a bowl, give the saucepan a good clean as the impurities tend to adhere to the sides and return it to the clean pan. You now have a very mild chicken stock.

Return the shredded chicken to the stock and then add the corn. For this serving I added 2 425g cans of creamed corn and an additional 425g can of corn kernels. I prefer a stronger chicken flavour so also added one chicken stockcube (I prefer Starr brand).

Bring the soup up to a simmer, season if you feel required, although I generally don't est voila! It's that simple.

I have jazzed up with ginger in the stock, sprinkling finely sliced coriander and spring onions over at the end, but honestly, it's perfect just as it is.

54

We've made a few changes to our diet of late. We have never eaten a lot of red meat, perhaps we have it once a week. We have at least 2 vegetarian evening meals each week and one fish and I include meat in smaller portions and include such things as proscuitto as a meat component.

Geoff and I don't usually eat until around 8:30, borne of habit but also Geoff's long working hours mean we honestly couldn't do it much earlier. So we are eating much smaller portions and although I didn't think we had huge portions to begin with, it's amazing how quickly you can train your body to need and then want much much less. Geoff also had a high cholestorel count at a recent checkup so we're tinkering again, not so much cutting things out, but getting more things in.

Last night we had "Geoff's chicken", which is actually Thomas Keller's chicken. I've been roasting chooks for many a year, but have honestly never had a juicier more delcious bird than this - you must try it, Ella begs for it! So Geoff made, his chicken and I made some vegie side dishes, one of which was from Moro The Cookbook - a favourite from our London years visiting the restaurant. I did copy out this recipe, but in tinkering with the html coding to TRY and get paragraph breaks in the right place, stuffed it up completely. So being lazy I've found another link to it online - Cauliflower with saffron, pinenuts and raisins.

I used brown over purple onions as I prefer the golden caramelised colour to the grey colour the Spanish ones take on. I also used currants instead of raisins as that's what I had.

Delicious, so good in fact that we're having it again tonight!

53

I am a darned reading machine at the moment - you'd rightly wonder how I am managing two small children on holidays while doing so. The answer would be reading while cooking, while children are bathing, staying up late to do so.

Just finished this book and enjoyed it as much, although in a different way to The Road.

The characters again drew me in, most particularly John Grady. No description in terms of physical attributes, his age, but nothing more aside from the affects of the circumstances he finds himself in - weathered, beaten, dirty etc. I have a very vivid image of him in my mind's eye, a youth in terms of age, but so manly, so mature.

The Spanish/Mexican is a challenge for me with very basic knowledge, but somehow it wasn't offputting at all.

I liked it a lot, so am going for a Cormac trifecta next!