I was always hopeless at Maths at school. I looked at it like some sort of strange wizardry and my teachers used to be frustrated at how I just could not wrap my head around things as simple as calculus and I kept wondering why they would try to make me do something that seems as natural as a fish riding a bicycle. I maintain that to this day I’ve never had to use calculus in life-not that I know of course because I only have a fleeting familiarity with it. My maths anguish was combined with the fact that my sister breezed through 4 unit maths whilst I floundered in 2 unit and well you can see how when someone tries to talk maths with me I cringe. I much preferred English as a subject.

I grudgingly have to admit that ratios do play a large part in my life. Ratios and fractions are crucial for cooking and baking and if you get the ratio wrong, well you can change a dish completely and for the worse. Mr NQN is not fond of baked bready things-he finds them too stodgy and dry but I knew that when he tried this bread with what appeared to be a fabulous ratio of bread to filling then he might be won over.

Povitica is a swirly Croatian or Slovenian bread dough much like a sweet brioche that is rolled out until paper thin, slathered with a sweet spread like ground walnuts or poppyseeds and then rolled up and then baked. The resulting bread has a lovely marbled effect inside and resembles swirls or the layers of a tree trunk. And as soon as I saw it on the Daring Bakers website I knew I wanted to make one and not just screeching in before the deadline. Povitica are not easy to find here in Australia and our hostess Jenni told us of first trying these at a American Farmer’s Market where they were $25 each!

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I was standing in my kitchen basking in a wonderful mood. Sadly for those around me (the plants) I was singing off key and trilling as if I didn’t have a care in the world.

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” I sang. And then a packet of dried red lentils, without any visible prompt or nudge, fell off the counter in protest, probably of my singing.

“Ahh Hallowe’en ghouls, I do adore you” I said. I picked up the dried lentils and continued making my Hallowe’en snacks-chocolate rats made from double chocolate brownie mixture. I had originally intended to put them on pop sticks but my order of sticks hadn’t arrived in time and then I realised the best way for me to style these would be gnawing on an arm. I still remember visiting Kryal Castle’s “Wax of Torture” museum when I was younger and seeing all sorts of gruesome things there. The one exhibit that sticks in my mind was the one where a man was being tortured with a box of rats on his stomach and they had set the box on fire so the rats had to eat through him. That sort of thing tends to stick in your memory…

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August seems to be a month of lateness. No matter how much I try I can’t seem to gain any traction and I find myself constantly apologising to people for being late, for handing in things late, for getting back to people late or turning up to dinner late. The first words that tumble out of my mouth are “I’m sorry” combined with a sheepish smile reserved for such very occasions.

Cinnamon almond and sea salt dark chocolate bark

I’d get caught in queues and in traffic with people going at a snail’s pace. Just yesterday I was running late and in the supermarket where I spotted what I thought was a miracle, a checkout without anyone in the queue aside from one woman. I soon learned the reason why. She had insisted that the checkout lady clean every inch of the conveyor belt until it was sparkling clean and bone dry! The job that the girl did apparently wasn’t sufficient so she grabbed the paper towels and finished the job off herself. Everyone else of course had given her a wide berth but in my frantic state I hadn’t seen it. I ignored her as she glared at me for putting down my goods on her newly cleaned conveyor belt and rushed off without giving her a withering glance as I would have normally.

Lemon sherbert white chocolate bark

One thing I was determined not to be late for was Father’s Day this year this coming Sunday the 4th of September (for those of us in Australia at least). I got the reminder a week or so before when we were arranging Father’s Day lunches and dinners (and my uncle seemed to want in on the action so we have three fathers this year!).  I got the idea from a recent trip to Canada. I was gifted with a bouquet of chocolate bark from Edmonton chocolatier Kerstin’s Chocolates and when I saw it I fell upon it like a diva receiving an ornate arrangement of flowers. It was a fantastic idea and I immediately thought of my mother and making her one of Mother’s Day next year but then stopped and thought that this might be the perfect gift for Father’s Day too. After all fathers like chocolate too. Chocolate bark is one of the easiest things to make of course and it is simply melting good chocolate, spreading it out and then sprinkling toppings over it and breaking it up!

As for flavours, it’s easy to tailor the flavours to whatever sweets or toppings the lucky recipient likes. I liked the idea of balancing the sweet white chocolate with crushed tangy lemon sherbert lollies and experimented with a more adult sea salt and cinnamon toasted almond and dark chocolate.

Milo white chocolate bark

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