Dancing in public (part 2)

Yesterday, I left London (“Urgh! Why?” I hear you all ask). I’ve come north to see the friend I did a lot of travelling with years ago. We haven’t seen each other for years so I decided it was time to make the trip. He met me at the station and there was lots of hugging and catching up. We found a lovely Italian restaurant and I had an amazing fish skewer thing which had swordfish, scallops, prawns and cherry tomatoes on them.

Unfortunately, I only remembered to take a photo once I’d already tucked in.

I finished up with a ristretto, because my ‘coffee habit’ is going ok now.

We were a bus ride from my friend’s flat so we popped into a bar first and each got a cocktail, as they don’t taste too alcoholly (I don’t like the sharp taste of most alcohol, hence being a non drinker). We then went to a ‘cool’ cafe where lots of cool kids were jiving to the Super Mario theme tune…..

On our way to the taxi rank, we passed a bar we’d come to last time I was up and decided to go in. As we entered, our feet stuck to the alcohol-covered sticky grotty floor. Immediately, I knew it was that type of place. You know. That type of place.

We ordered drinks and lingered by the bar and watched the dancers. And it was brilliant. One woman, with badly dyed frizzy blonde hair, was giving it everything, hindered only by the fact that she was in her late forties and extremely out of place.

My friend and I, with our two cocktails on our systems to prevent the usual awkwardness on the dance floor, were ready to join in slightly. We bobbed rhythmically at the side, laughed and joked, reminisced about times abroad, sang along, pointed to the overly drunk people, dancing so vigorously that they almost fell over.

After a while, my friend stopped dancing, looked at me and said, “Laura, I can’t do this anymore.” And we left.

Even though we had had something to drink and danced a little, we didn’t actually want to go tearing up the dancefloor. I’d previously thought that it was the lack of alcohol blocking me from getting into the spirit of things. But I don’t actually think that anymore. I think it’s because it’s just not what I do. It’s not part of my social activities to get drunk and dance like a maniac anymore. And that’s ok.

I think I’ll stick to dancing in the front room to the music channel.

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.

Yaya’s Meltdown

The other day I was hanging out with Yaya at his house. We were watching Mr. Bean. It was loads of fun. We had just been out for dinner where I had eaten scallops, braised pork belly and a goats cheese crostini with walnuts and an onion marmalade dressing. It was amazing. Yaya had turned his nose up at his dinner, declared ‘it doesn’t look nice’ then fallen off his chair, taking his apple juice with him. Later he had eaten a bit of chocolate brownie and ice cream and had a long conversation with me about the milkman who delivers his milk.

I should mention now, in case any new readers are unaware, Yaya is a four year old boy.

While watching the TV, he decided he wanted to sit on his dad’s knee. So he pottered over and plonked down. Dad got up for a minute so put Yaya in the space while he got up. He came back a few minutes later and sat back in his space and invited Yaya back onto his lap.

This is when Yaya’s Meltdown happened.

Yaya wanted Dad to go and sit on the other sofa. Dad, confused, said he wanted to sit with everyone else on the same sofa and didn’t Yaya want to sit with him? Yaya was angry. Yaya wanted the space Dad was in. Dad tried to reason, he had been sitting in the space just a few minutes ago, he wanted to stay in the same spot.

So Yaya formulated a plan (which was ultimately flawed). He would push Dad out of the space. He stands up on the sofa, gets his hand behind Dad’s back and pushes. He pushes, pulls, squeezes, tugs. We were all stifling giggles at his loud effort noises. We did not realise how serious this was about to get. So his plans started to it’s flaws pretty quickly – when you pit the strength of a four year old boy against his father, the four year old boy is always the weaker.

He makes valiant attempts to squish himself in between Dad and sofa, to reclaim the space.

I attempt a solution.

“Yaya,” I say, “there’s a space in between Daddy and me here, it’s just the right size for you. Why don’t you sit here?”

It is as though I have not spoken. The struggle continues. Dad is getting annoyed. Eventually Dad threatens Yaya with bedtime. Yaya freaks. He cries. He screams. He’s going, “I don’t want to go to bed!”

He’s told he has two options. Sit nicely with everyone on the sofa together. Or go to bed. He sobs loudly, “I don’t want to do ANYTHING!” and sits in the doorway in the other room whimpering and calling, “Mum! Mum, come downstairs, I need you. Mum!” Mum is busy with child number two and doesn’t hear.

Eventually, after ten long minutes of the whimpering, Dad goes to Yaya and asks him if he wants to come in and sit nicely. Yaya whimpers. The Meltdown has sapped all his energy. He lets Dad pick him up and bring him in and sit on the sofa with him. In the exact position they had been in before Dad left his spot and The Meltdown happened.

So here we are, all on the sofa, Yaya whimpering and no-one quite able to understand what just happened.

Maybe it’s because I’m a non-parent but whole thing seems totally illogical. I can’t stand things/people which are illogical. That’s why I’m not too keen on animals, I think. Animals and children. They both don’t make any sense.

If any parents can explain to me this situation, I would appreciate it. Here are the events as I see them:

Yaya sits with Dad on the sofa.
Dad gets up.
Yaya occupies the space.
Dad returns and sits in the spot again, offering his lap for Yaya to return to.
Yaya wants Dad to sit on the other sofa.
Yaya freaks and ends up in another room crying for Mum.
Dad gets Yaya, brings him back to sofa and sits with him on his lap.
Yaya is fine again.

WHAT. ON. EARTH!

This is why I do not have any children.

I’d be going, “Don’t be so illogical. It offends me.” And they’d be going, “I want that! Now! Waaah! I hate you! Give me lots of things now!”

P.S. Very exciting news. Following the Food Fair last week, at which we discovered truffle butter, the manager is considering stocking it. I am delirious with excitement!