I was very busy last month as I prepared for Christmas. My cooking ventures included making three soups from The Soup Book: zuppa di verdure, Brussels sprout soup and kichidi, which I first made in January 2013, December 2010 and November 2011 respectively. I'm not sure what happened to the kichidi when I made it two days ago, but pouring out the water in which I simmered the lentils, rice and ginger was probably not a good idea.
I spread the Christmas love by making Nigella's and Jamie Oliver's Christmas rocky road. Nigella uses amaretti biscuits, Brazil nuts and glace cherries while Jamie uses popcorn, coconut and stem ginger syrup. Cut and put into bags left over from the older offspring's wedding, both types of rocky road were well received as gifts. A large cake tin full of Nigella's was put to good use at my sister T's house over Christmas.
One of my colleagues put in a request for a trifle for the office Christmas dinner. I obliged by making Nigella's boozy trifle from her book Christmas. Another treat for the office and a friend's brunch was a batch of Bronte Aurell's Nordic ginger and orange biscuits.
Last year I used about 100 recipes, including some old favourites: pecan toffee shortbread, chocolate Brazil nut cake for the spouse's birthday, banana gingerbread, fig and apple cake, Bronte Aurell's Scandinavian banana cake and lemon crusty bake, to name but a few. New favourites include walnut and halva cake (Ottolenghi), Felicity Cloake's simnel cake, lemon, olive oil and bay leaf cake (Ottolenghi again; I owe him so much as I won a prize for this cake in a local baking competition), princess fingers, salted coffee, pecan and lime rock road (Ottolenghi, with these recipes you are spoiling us!), and Levi Roots' ginger, rum and pecan brownies.
... A new one just begun
This is the time of year when people reflect on what they've been doing, what's happened and what they'd like to do in the coming year. 2020 is the year in which the spouse and I will have milestone birthdays. His attitude can be summed up thus: there's no need to do anything special because you have a milestone birthday - why not do what you want when you want? People have been asking me what I'll be doing for the big birthday and I hadn't made up my mind. But I am coming around to the spouse's view. There'll be no big party like the one we had ten years ago, no special requests, no cramming in new ventures for the sake of a birthday.
On the subject of endings and beginnings, I finished a book yesterday. The Assassin's Cloak (edited by Irene and Alan Taylor) had been on my bookshelf since 2007 and I hadn't read it. It's an anthology of "the world's greatest diarists", consisting of almost 700 pages of diary extracts, a few for each day of the year. At the beginning of 2019 I set myself the task of reading each day's extracts. Those that were particularly poignant were written by Jews and PoWs during World War II. I found Leo Tolstoy's and Samuel Pepys' selfishness quite repellent. There were very few amusing extracts, but I quite enjoyed those by Tommy Lascelles.
I'll finish now with this extract from the diary of Adrian Mole (aged 13 and three quarters), New Year's Day, 1983:
These are my New Year resolutions:
1. I will revise for my 'O' levels at least two hours a night.
2. I will stop using my mother's Buff-Puff to clean the bath.
3. I will buy a suede brush for my coat.
4. I will stop thinking erotic thoughts during school hours.
5. I will oil my bike once a week.
6. I will try to like Bert Baxter again.
7. I will pay my library fines (88 pence) and rejoin the library.
8. I will get my mother and father together again.
9. I will cancel the Beano.
Just as I have no specific plans for 2020 and the milestone birthday, neither do I have any new year's resolutions.
All the best for 2020!
Minnie
 |
| Jamie Oliver's Christmas rocky road |
I spread the Christmas love by making Nigella's and Jamie Oliver's Christmas rocky road. Nigella uses amaretti biscuits, Brazil nuts and glace cherries while Jamie uses popcorn, coconut and stem ginger syrup. Cut and put into bags left over from the older offspring's wedding, both types of rocky road were well received as gifts. A large cake tin full of Nigella's was put to good use at my sister T's house over Christmas.
 |
| Nigella's Christmas rocky road |
One of my colleagues put in a request for a trifle for the office Christmas dinner. I obliged by making Nigella's boozy trifle from her book Christmas. Another treat for the office and a friend's brunch was a batch of Bronte Aurell's Nordic ginger and orange biscuits.
 |
| Nordic ginger and orange biscuits |
Last year I used about 100 recipes, including some old favourites: pecan toffee shortbread, chocolate Brazil nut cake for the spouse's birthday, banana gingerbread, fig and apple cake, Bronte Aurell's Scandinavian banana cake and lemon crusty bake, to name but a few. New favourites include walnut and halva cake (Ottolenghi), Felicity Cloake's simnel cake, lemon, olive oil and bay leaf cake (Ottolenghi again; I owe him so much as I won a prize for this cake in a local baking competition), princess fingers, salted coffee, pecan and lime rock road (Ottolenghi, with these recipes you are spoiling us!), and Levi Roots' ginger, rum and pecan brownies.
 |
| Anise shortbread (Good Housekeeping, December 2019) |
... A new one just begun
This is the time of year when people reflect on what they've been doing, what's happened and what they'd like to do in the coming year. 2020 is the year in which the spouse and I will have milestone birthdays. His attitude can be summed up thus: there's no need to do anything special because you have a milestone birthday - why not do what you want when you want? People have been asking me what I'll be doing for the big birthday and I hadn't made up my mind. But I am coming around to the spouse's view. There'll be no big party like the one we had ten years ago, no special requests, no cramming in new ventures for the sake of a birthday.
On the subject of endings and beginnings, I finished a book yesterday. The Assassin's Cloak (edited by Irene and Alan Taylor) had been on my bookshelf since 2007 and I hadn't read it. It's an anthology of "the world's greatest diarists", consisting of almost 700 pages of diary extracts, a few for each day of the year. At the beginning of 2019 I set myself the task of reading each day's extracts. Those that were particularly poignant were written by Jews and PoWs during World War II. I found Leo Tolstoy's and Samuel Pepys' selfishness quite repellent. There were very few amusing extracts, but I quite enjoyed those by Tommy Lascelles.
I'll finish now with this extract from the diary of Adrian Mole (aged 13 and three quarters), New Year's Day, 1983:
These are my New Year resolutions:
1. I will revise for my 'O' levels at least two hours a night.
2. I will stop using my mother's Buff-Puff to clean the bath.
3. I will buy a suede brush for my coat.
4. I will stop thinking erotic thoughts during school hours.
5. I will oil my bike once a week.
6. I will try to like Bert Baxter again.
7. I will pay my library fines (88 pence) and rejoin the library.
8. I will get my mother and father together again.
9. I will cancel the Beano.
Just as I have no specific plans for 2020 and the milestone birthday, neither do I have any new year's resolutions.
All the best for 2020!
Minnie
You are a marvel. Thank you for all the tasty things you make. Your readers should know that you are also a skilful and energetic knitter and calligrapher. x
ReplyDeleteThank you. You're pretty marvellous yourself.
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