One day while out and about I picked up a copy of a book called “211 Things A Bright Girl Can Do” by Bunty Cutler. The book caught my eye for the wrong reason. I am half blind even with my contact lenses in so I mused aloud “Why are there only 21 things a clever girl can do? Surely there are more!” before a kind soul pointed out that the title said 211. Oops! I’m like your confused half blind friend-embarrassing!
I took it down and flicked through it and started chuckling straight away. There was “How to escape a vicious swarm of bees”, “How To Hide a File in a Cake” and “How to survive a plane crash” with tongue in cheek advice like “Survivors are the ones who don’t stop for family or friends. Just walk over all the other people, screaming loudly” along with actual sound advice. Then there is more practical advice such as “How to manage an umbrella in the wind” and “How to forecast the weather like your grandmother used to.”
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| February 22nd, 2012 by Not Quite Nigella
I stood in front of the garage door beaming proudly. I’m not one to boast usually but I was smiling like a proud mama.
“Look at that park!” I said to Mr NQN. He had started walking to our apartment and looked back.
“Errr yeah” he said giving it a quick look and nodding.
“But look at it! And it only took me four goes to get it parked like that!” I said proudly.
A few of you have asked how the driving is going. Well so far I’ve been driving for a total of 10 months. In that time there has been one accident-not my fault I promise! But apart from that it has been fine. A funny thing started to happen this week too-I started to notice potholes! I know that may sound strange but Mr NQN used to get frustrated with me when he was a passenger and we would go over potholes. I would tell him that I was too busy concentrating on the traffic and cars in front of me than to look onto the dark bitumen. But only this week I started noticing potholes!
Anyway what do driving and potholes have to do with ricotta? Not very much except for the fact that the day that I first tried to make ricotta I was in a hurry and that was when I did my magic park (ok magic would be overstretching it). And it was when I collected some of these edible flowers from the lovely chef Darren Templeman-chef at Atelier restaurant in Glebe, after enquiring on twitter where I could buy some.
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| October 7th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
“You’ve got a great talent” Mr NQN said to me one evening.
I smiled, I wondered what he was going to say. Cooking? Singing (ok perhaps not)?
“You have a talent for getting in my way whenever I’m trying to do things” he said giving me a look.
Hmmm… well that wasn’t the sort of compliment I was expecting. But as Queen Viv calls me Pollyanna I took the compliment and ran with it. “Why thank you! I do try” I said sunnily while he shook his head pityingly at me.
It may be true that I do try and complicate things but that is not a route that I purposely choose. Also there are some things that on the surface appear complicated but in fact aren’t which is actually a favourite combination of mine. Case was point was a recipe for three day strawberry jam from the new Rose Petal Jam cookbook that I was sent to review. It is a recently released travel memoir of a Summer in Poland by Beata Zatorska and Simon Target. It’s a stunning book with evocative prose and photos reminiscent of Tess Kiros’s Apples for Jam and makes you want to visit Poland and explore its cuisine and with each page you turn, you let out a sigh.
The three day strawberry jam was the second recipe that I tried from the book and it was spurred on by the glut of strawberries that we seem to have in the stores and markets. The first recipe I tried was their Polish poppyseed cake which I am sad to report didn’t turn out at all. There was some technique missing from the instructions (like activating the yeast initially) and the result was something of an exploding, non rising disaster. However this jam seemed easy enough despite the protracted name. The method simply involves simmering the strawberries in an equal weight of sugar to release the juice and then leaving it on the stovetop. Then on the second and third day doing the same but on the third day you pour it into jars.
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| September 15th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
I often wish that through life we would have to wear name badges. I have a terrible memory for names. Faces, I remember even with carefully rejigging of hair and makeup and the erosion throughout years, but names, forget it. That part of my memory is now taken up with all thoughts of food. Hang on! That’s an idea! Name everyone that I meet after a food.
“Oh hello yes sausage roll, we met a few weeks ago. Nice to see you again!”
or
“Yes of course New York cheesecake, we spoke last year!”
Anyone up for this? Whilst my memory for names is shaky, my memory for smells is acute and if I smell anything vaguely like that of my childhood I turn into a small, skinny, odd young girl all over again. The smell of vanilla is of course one of the most desirable and in baking it is an essential ingredient in the kitchen. It enhances so many baked goods. I of course go through loads of it and I was thinking that I should start to buy it in bulk.
When first added, the liquid is clear
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| August 24th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
My friends and I were talking one day at an article that recently appeared on The Smoking Gun about singer Katy Perry’s rider. A rider for those that don’t know, is a list that someone puts together of a celebrity’s must haves. In Katy Perry’s rider she had: Finncrisp, fresh cut crudites, organic fruit, pinot grigio, pretzels and a list of other items. She also specified the type of furniture that she wanted – two French ornate floor lamps, a refrigerator with a glass door if you’re curious. Apart from this she also needed the Presidential suite at a 5 star hotel, 5 junior suites and 45 rooms for her people. And absolutely NO CARNATIONS.
We giggled, after all a part of us thinks if you get called a diva are you expected to come up with a huge list of things?. Do you sit down with your friends and debate about whether to add “neutered Zebra” or “cross eyed unicorn” to the list? Or do you already have your list of wants and desires and a tantrum worthy of a 2 year old ready to explode if you don’t get the right things or the right brand? We asked each other what our riders would be and it turns out we were of much simpler tastes. One friend asked me what I would have and I answered “A super fast wireless connection, sparkling mineral water with fresh lime, something to crunch on and REAL butter. Oh and I will take the Presidential suite too if you’re asking.”
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| June 3rd, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
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