The big 200 and an Italian feast

So it’s my 200th post! Very exciting. I haven’t been swimming in a little while as I’ve had a cold so I’m going to try, from next week, to swim 200 lengths in honour of it. Not all at once. I’ll try a bit each day. I need to do 30 each day, right? Wish me luck!

I’ve got lots of birthdays and excitement this week so am going to give it til Monday to start the challenge. Thanks for staying with me or joining me along the way. It has been lots and lots of fun. To celebrate this milestone and to embrace my recent trip to Italy and in honour of seeing a friend for the first time in ages, I prepared an Italian feast!

I got a beautiful cookbook the other day. The most beautiful cookbook I’ve ever seen.

It’s full of Venetian recipes and the antipasti section is amazing. In an effort to impress, I insisted on making one of everything!

I finished work at 3pm and had timetabled in when to start everything so that I’d be ready by 7pm. I suddenly realised, at 3.35pm, that I didn’t have almonds for the cantuccini biscuits. I set my white wine and white wine vinegar and juniper berries to boil (for the pickled chicory) then I quickly grabbed my purse and ran down to the shop. I got the almonds and ran back to the house…. When I said ‘I quickly grabbed my purse’, that’s exactly what happened. I grabbed my purse AND NOTHING ELSE! I was locked out. There was no-one else with keys who would be back before 6pm. We had taken the spare key from the next door neighbour because it didn’t work anymore, it was always getting stuck. We kept meaning to get another cut, but didn’t. O no! The next door neighbour walked by and I explained my predicament. We went in her garden to see if I could climb over her fence into my garden and try and figure a way to get in. It’s not really a climb-over-able fence so I was stuck outside, pan boiling inside, on a tight schedule for preparing dinner, with no way into the house.

We eventually got in but another neighbour played a very risky game of almost falling through a roof to do so and it all took about an hour. I was VERY behind schedule.

When I was back in the kitchen, I pickled my chicory, made my duck stock, grilled my aubergines and dressed my rocket. I was back on track. As I was whizzing the almonds in my food processor for the cantuccini, it popped and stopped working! This was NOT on my schedule! It wouldn’t have been a very big deal had I not needed to whizz the duck breast fillets for my duck and porcini mushroom meatballs. My only option was my handheld whizzer thing. You know the type that you stick in a pot of soup to whizz all the lumps out?

So there I was, with a handheld whizzer thing, trying to whizz duck breasts. I got it done in the end but it wasn’t easy and bits of mashed up raw duck kept flying about and sticking to my face and arms.

I threw together an apparently Italian drink, minus the alcohol – elderflower cordial with mint, lemon and ice, then topped up with ginger beer.

I was nervous about attempting the Carta di Musica (music paper) as it needed to be rolled really really thin. It’s basically a paper thin cracker made with semolina. It went surprisingly well. I had some rocket and walnut pesto I had made that morning and after grilling some aubergines with parmesan, mozzarella and basil then rolling them up, I was almost ready to go. I just wrapped the end of a few grissini sticks in salami and pickled chicory and stuck them in a glass, put some dressed rocket into the braesola and rolled it up and put some truffle butter in a dish and we sat down and dug in. (Yes, you heard me right, truffle butter! I finally got some! And it was totally worth it.)

At this point, I noticed that the caster sugar was on the side, unopened and realised that in my panic over the food processor breaking while I was making cantuccini, I had forgotten to put the sugar in! What I had was a savory almond dough! I whipped the biscuits out of the oven and binned them then mixed some sugar into my remaining dough. It didn’t really mix in very well though. I just wrapped the dough in clingfilm, fridged it and hoped for the best.

Next was the main course. We had a parmigiana, a roast tomato risotto, a duck and porcini meatball in a duck stock and tomato sauce, and scallops and pancetta on a bed of minty pea stuff.

The parmigiana looks quite large and intimidating, I didn’t realise that when I cut it!

After eating everything and having a bit of chitchat and sneaking another meatball or two, it was time to address the cantuccini disaster. I cut my dough into six pieces and put it in the oven. It did not go well. Because there wasn’t enough dry stuff in the mixture, it didn’t bake hard enough. It also wasn’t sweet enough. I made us espressos in a percolator, which were really strong, and we dipped our biscuits in.

I felt a bit feeble, with my savory, slightly soft almond thingys. So I implemented a back up plan. There was ice cream in the freezer! Mascapone, cherry and pistachio. Score! The dinner was rescued and we tucked in.

All in all, a success, I think.

Happy 200th post to me! What a fabulous way to celebrate.

The Game

There was a girl who lived on my road when I was growing up and we would always be playing out together. One time, we balled up loads of grass from the green in the middle of the cul-de-sac we lived on and ‘painted’ the road sign green. I remember there was definitely a distinctly green tinge to it for a few days afterward.

Another thing we did was pretend we were estate agents and go round the road ‘selling’ the houses to each other by loudly proclaiming what a ‘wonderful gold letterbox’ this one had, for example.

We had lots of games of this sort. But at some point we came up with The Game and honestly must have played it for a few years. Whenever we were playing out or at each other’s houses, we’d check we were out of earshot of everyone and start playing The Game. It was top secret, although I’m not really sure why.

The basic outline of The Game went like this. We were grown ups. My friend was married to Gary Barlow from Take That. I was married to Mark Owen from Take That.

And that, in essence, was the whole game. I remember that we both divorced our husbands later because they were cheating on us. I think my new husband was called John. I remember my friend being more ethnically enlightened than I and calling her new husband Ahmed, or something like that.

We both had children with our first husbands, I think I had a girl. Mark was constantly trying to win me back but I was happily settled with John. At one time, there was a heated moment when my character in The Game, fell out with my friend’s when she and Mark fell in love briefly and tried to have my child taken into care.

We clearly had both been watching waaaay too much Eastenders….

I was very shocked when I heard my friend announce that, as a grown woman, in The Game, she was not going to wear any make-up! But all grown up women wear make-up, don’t they?! It was the first time I had ever heard the idea suggested that a grown woman was not going to wear make-up! I just thought everyone did it.

One time, when we played The Game, we were teachers in a school and spent the whole time speaking in robot voices. I’m not sure how the two are connected, teaching and speaking like robots. Maybe that’s what we thought they did….?

The secret of The Game was highly guarded. My brother once hid in my wardrobe in my room so that when my friend and I went in there to play, he could listen in and discover the secret of what The Game was. Except that day we decided to play Neighbours instead, so I was Gabby and my friend was Lauren and we picked up from the last episode which had been on. After ten minutes or so, my brother burst out of the wardrobe, laughing and saying he knew what The Game was! We were like, ‘The joke’s on you actually, because we were just playing Neighbours. We weren’t even playing The Game!’

But now I’ve blurted it out. I’ve just said it, as though it wasn’t the most closely guarded secret of my childhood. I feel a bit bad towards The Game, that I’ve blogged about it in such a casual manner. Well, I had to get it off my chest. The weight of carrying the secret for so long was becoming too much…..

Update on my Friendly Mission

My latest challenge has been interesting. Sometimes it barely makes a difference and is quite easy. Other times, I really have to force myself.

Examples of times when it was easy to be friendly:

When a friend visited with her new 6 day old baby and slept peacefully the entire time.
When a customer complimented my homemade flapjacks.
When the weather was nice and I was walking along happily.
When I was swimming and someone moved out of the way for me.
When I was buying presents for a friend’s birthday and getting excited.

Examples of times when it was not easy to be friendly:

When I was getting my tooth pulled out.
When there were lots of people standing around chatting in the supermarket and blocking the aisle with their trolleys. For ages.
When a customer shouted at me that it was “a korma, not a curry!”
When the same customer shouted at me “I’m in a bad mood today! I’m a manic depressive! Do you know what that means!?”
When I wanted to post a letter and had been waiting in line for ages then they closed when I got there, because it’s Wednesday afternoon. All Post Offices close on Wednesday afternoons, didn’t you know? (Who made this rule up? It is a stupid rule.)

Despite such adversity, I have pressed on with my mission. I find that smiling a lot more gets me in the friendly zone. Being helpful easily translates into friendliness. So if I’m not feeling friendly, I try to be helpful instead and it appears as friendliness, so helps me stick to my mission.

I must admit, I have not picked up any new best friends in a cafe or discovered I’ve got tons in common with my next door neighbour. Although when I was having my tooth out, I didn’t see the dentist till 20 minutes after my appointment time because he was late and I was really friendly about it. That might possibly have been because I wasn’t dying to get into the room and have my tooth out! Then when the dentist was tugging and pulling with a huge pair of tweezers (I’m sure they’re not called that), I didn’t fuss. I was all cool and chilled and friendly, although it wasn’t nice at all.

I think the mission is going well so far. As long as no-one tests me too much!

M is for…

MARSHMALLOWS!

This was a very nerve-wracking experience for me so I thought I’d do another ‘What runs through my head when I’m…’ about it.

Ok, marshmallows! I’m going to make marshmallows! This will be amazing! Marshmallows. I can’t wait. Ok, the recipe. Nervous! Nervous! Ok, concentrate.

Sugar and water in a saucepan. Heat it to 216 degrees! What?! That’s so hot. Ok, jam thermometer, in it goes. In the meantime, whisk egg whites. I’d better do that now! Quickly before the sugar heats up! O goodness, it’s a race against time. Crack the eggs in, whip them up, ok, phew, done.

The. Sugar. Is. Taking. Ages. It’s been forever. The egg whites are settling a bit. Should’ve done them later. Why is it taking so long to heat up? O, wait a minute, the end of the thermometer has been touching the bottom of the pan, not the liquid! O no, I think I may have overheated it?! Quick quick! Get whisking the egg whites, pour in the sugar syrup. I think I burned it. Great. I think it’s burned. What do I do? I’ve just wasted all that sugar and those eggs now. Right, just keep going and see what happens.

It’s definitely burned.

Whisk, whisk, whisk. Dammit. Omygoodness, everything in the bowl just suddenly mixed together and swelled up and became one huge marshmallow! One huge bowl-shaped marshmallow. Amazing. I still think it’s burnt, I’ll just keep going and see if you can taste it after they’ve set.

Put half in a baking tray. Roll raspberries in icing sugar and cornflour and dot them over the marshmallow mixture. Other half of the marshmallow mix on top. O no, it’s sticking and the raspberries are going all over the place. Never mind. Just splodge it all on and hope it settles. Leave it for an hour and a half to set now.

Ok, hour and a half up. I’m definitely nervous again. Let me just turn it out of the tray. It’s stuck!! It’s stuck. I have the tray upside down and I am shaking it around like crazy. It’s stuck. Hmm. Calm down, calm down. Think. Spatula, slide round the edges, help it a little bit. Phew, it’s coming out, in one piece. A miracle! Loads and loads of icing sugar and cornflour and it’s sticking to me and to everything in sight.

Ok, breathe, calm. Cut into squares. Icing sugar. Cornflour. It doesn’t look burnt. I still think it might be. Taste one. O thank goodness! Not burnt. I knew it’d be fine. I knew all along. Phew. Need to get a second opinion. I wonder if any of my neighbours are in. Fill tupperware with marshmallows and find friends to get an opinion from.

That was fun. I think I’ll do some more soon.