Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Teaching an old fish new tricks
You know that kid at school who was last in all the sports races? The last to be picked at team-picking time?
That was me.
Swimming was the worst. It would completely exhaust and humiliate me. Other children would glide through the deep end with ease, whilst I stayed at the shallow end with a couple of girls who cried every week and another who was slowed down considerably by wearing her full PE kit.
I avoided swimming for a good few years after school.
About 15 years ago I learned how to do breast stroke properly from a magazine article. It transpired that the stroke they had taught us in school, where you stuck your head out of the water and bobbed along, was old news. It was reserved for those middle-aged women who chatted whilst swimming and kept their perm dry and all their make-up intact.
With my cutting edge skills I was the New Generation - goggles and all - and I overtook all the elderly women in the pool. Whoosh. It felt amazing. I thought about learning front crawl, but I was already too mightily impressed with myself to find the motivation. So I rested on my laurels for a bit, and finally stopped swimming altogether.
Then the Littlest Latte started to learn to swim.
The Littlest Latte is a natural. She jumps straight into the deep end and splashes off as if it is as natural as walking. Watching her joy in the water reminded me of my abandoned plans for front crawl.
So I convinced my mother to buy me a 10-week course of swimming lessons as a Christmas present, and since January I have left the house every Saturday morning at 7am to go to the sports centre. In the early weeks, it seemed insane - leaving a warm bed to chip frost off the windscreen in the dark whilst my children were still asleep. I went from a freezing cold car to a freezing cold pool, and didn't really warm up until lunchtime.
However, I am proud to report that I can now jump straight into the deep end and swim half the length of the swimming pool in a deadly slow front crawl.
And now the morning skies have started to look like this, I am really wishing I had a few more lessons left to enjoy.
That was me.
Swimming was the worst. It would completely exhaust and humiliate me. Other children would glide through the deep end with ease, whilst I stayed at the shallow end with a couple of girls who cried every week and another who was slowed down considerably by wearing her full PE kit.
I avoided swimming for a good few years after school.
About 15 years ago I learned how to do breast stroke properly from a magazine article. It transpired that the stroke they had taught us in school, where you stuck your head out of the water and bobbed along, was old news. It was reserved for those middle-aged women who chatted whilst swimming and kept their perm dry and all their make-up intact.
With my cutting edge skills I was the New Generation - goggles and all - and I overtook all the elderly women in the pool. Whoosh. It felt amazing. I thought about learning front crawl, but I was already too mightily impressed with myself to find the motivation. So I rested on my laurels for a bit, and finally stopped swimming altogether.
Then the Littlest Latte started to learn to swim.
The Littlest Latte is a natural. She jumps straight into the deep end and splashes off as if it is as natural as walking. Watching her joy in the water reminded me of my abandoned plans for front crawl.
So I convinced my mother to buy me a 10-week course of swimming lessons as a Christmas present, and since January I have left the house every Saturday morning at 7am to go to the sports centre. In the early weeks, it seemed insane - leaving a warm bed to chip frost off the windscreen in the dark whilst my children were still asleep. I went from a freezing cold car to a freezing cold pool, and didn't really warm up until lunchtime.
However, I am proud to report that I can now jump straight into the deep end and swim half the length of the swimming pool in a deadly slow front crawl.
And now the morning skies have started to look like this, I am really wishing I had a few more lessons left to enjoy.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Is that a poached egg, or are you just pleased to see me?
There is a scene in Season 5 of the US television show 24 where everyone has been sacked from the anti-terrorist agency due to an evil conspiracy. It is about 2am, no-one has eaten or slept (as usual), and the computer expert Chloe has to hide out at the home of the piercingly blue-eyed silver fox Bill Buchanan in order to continue their unauthorised world-saving activities.
Bill's home looks cosy and full of books. He has removed his tie and undone the top button of his shirt. In my dreams, I am Chloe, and in these dreams I imagine that when I have finished my complicated satellite tracking I adjourn to Bill's kitchen to find that he has prepared me the perfect poached egg on a slice of toast.
Bill has not made something too over-the-top. His poached egg is a tacit demonstration that he could cook more elaborate things perfectly well, though he does not need to show this now. Not everyone can poach an egg properly. He is playing a subtle game, and it makes him irresistible.
I'm going to leave things there for now, to save us embarrassment. (And also because I have given a good deal more thought in this fantasy to the quality of the imaginary egg than I have to any imaginary sex. If you are looking for cheap thrills, you have come to the wrong blog.)
For me, a poached egg is just about the perfect meal, and it is what I have almost every time I eat alone. There are a variety of different approaches - Jill Dupleix piles hers on a bed of lemony courgettes; Bill Granger has eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce and a slice of ham. So when I was sent a copy of the new book Cookery School to review, the first recipe I tried was the one with the poached egg.
Cookery School is the official tie-in cookbook to Channel 4’s Cookery School daily series, with recipes by Richard Corrigan. (I must admit I haven’t watched it. Far too many series of 24 have been made to give me time to watch cookery programmes.)
Richard Corrigan's egg comes on red onions, red wine and balsamic vinegar, with herb butter on top. Be warned - if you are used to a familiar egg with a few asparagus spears to dip, then Corrigan's version is a little bit like being hit in the jaw by your own egg. (In a good way.) It is a sit-up-and-take-notice egg. It is not the egg that Bill Buchanan would make.
Cookery School separates recipes into different ability levels - basic, intermediate and advanced. The poached egg is in 'Basic', but don't let that fool you - the recipe still takes four different pans. Working your way through the recipes, the ultimate aim of the book is to make you cook like a Michelin-starred chef.
The book includes step-by-step photographs which demystify quite a few cooking processes - including preparing scallops, boning a fish, preparing ravioli and making a proper custard. What I do like very much about this book is that it is neither too patronising nor too showy - whilst assuming you have the confidence to cook oysters, it does not assume you can cook a poached egg, and provides some rather fine instructions.
Poached eggs aren't rocket science, but not everyone knows how. Just look at the success of poach pods. (Bill Buchanan certainly would not use poach pods.) Most of us have gaps in our cookery skills - I can happily joint a chicken, but I'd never been told before that you should fry a pork chop propped up on the fat for a minute or two. Turns out it really makes a difference.
Later in the week I treated myself and Mr Coffee to pork chops with an apple and grain mustard sauce with colcannon. This was a beautiful, subtle and delicious meal, which we followed up with the fine apple tart with maple and pecan.
The tart was from the Advanced section, but was actually very easy to make, with a few simple ingredients, and was utterly gorgeous. It had that "I made my own apple tart - what of it?" insouciance that you are looking for when you want to show off without trying to look as if you are showing off.
Just the kind of dessert, in fact, that Bill Buchanan might make for me.
Cookery School is published by Michael Joseph Hardback.
Bill's home looks cosy and full of books. He has removed his tie and undone the top button of his shirt. In my dreams, I am Chloe, and in these dreams I imagine that when I have finished my complicated satellite tracking I adjourn to Bill's kitchen to find that he has prepared me the perfect poached egg on a slice of toast.
Bill has not made something too over-the-top. His poached egg is a tacit demonstration that he could cook more elaborate things perfectly well, though he does not need to show this now. Not everyone can poach an egg properly. He is playing a subtle game, and it makes him irresistible.
I'm going to leave things there for now, to save us embarrassment. (And also because I have given a good deal more thought in this fantasy to the quality of the imaginary egg than I have to any imaginary sex. If you are looking for cheap thrills, you have come to the wrong blog.)
For me, a poached egg is just about the perfect meal, and it is what I have almost every time I eat alone. There are a variety of different approaches - Jill Dupleix piles hers on a bed of lemony courgettes; Bill Granger has eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce and a slice of ham. So when I was sent a copy of the new book Cookery School to review, the first recipe I tried was the one with the poached egg.
Cookery School is the official tie-in cookbook to Channel 4’s Cookery School daily series, with recipes by Richard Corrigan. (I must admit I haven’t watched it. Far too many series of 24 have been made to give me time to watch cookery programmes.)
Cookery School separates recipes into different ability levels - basic, intermediate and advanced. The poached egg is in 'Basic', but don't let that fool you - the recipe still takes four different pans. Working your way through the recipes, the ultimate aim of the book is to make you cook like a Michelin-starred chef.
The book includes step-by-step photographs which demystify quite a few cooking processes - including preparing scallops, boning a fish, preparing ravioli and making a proper custard. What I do like very much about this book is that it is neither too patronising nor too showy - whilst assuming you have the confidence to cook oysters, it does not assume you can cook a poached egg, and provides some rather fine instructions.
Poached eggs aren't rocket science, but not everyone knows how. Just look at the success of poach pods. (Bill Buchanan certainly would not use poach pods.) Most of us have gaps in our cookery skills - I can happily joint a chicken, but I'd never been told before that you should fry a pork chop propped up on the fat for a minute or two. Turns out it really makes a difference.
Later in the week I treated myself and Mr Coffee to pork chops with an apple and grain mustard sauce with colcannon. This was a beautiful, subtle and delicious meal, which we followed up with the fine apple tart with maple and pecan.
The tart was from the Advanced section, but was actually very easy to make, with a few simple ingredients, and was utterly gorgeous. It had that "I made my own apple tart - what of it?" insouciance that you are looking for when you want to show off without trying to look as if you are showing off.
Just the kind of dessert, in fact, that Bill Buchanan might make for me.
Clockwise from top - fine apple tart with maple and pecan,
pork chops with an apple and grain mustard sauce with colcannon,
sticky red onions with a poached egg and herb butter.
Images from the book.
Cookery School is published by Michael Joseph Hardback.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
My life is just like it is in the magazines
The other day I read that a print we bought last summer had appeared in a magazine. Here is Jax's blog post to prove it. And here is the print in my house. Her Folksy shop is well worth a visit.
It's very easy to get carried away worrying about the mess on the floor and not look up at your walls. It's quite a while since I looked properly at this picture below, for example, but I still love it.
We bought it at a print fair - Eldest was just a baby in a sling, and we stood in front of the lady's stall for ages, unable to choose which one to buy. It's a view of Bradford, a city we used to know quite well. (It doesn't matter which part of Bradford. Most of the roads that lead into Bradford are uncannily similar to each other.)
Sadly our print is a little faded now due to being put in a light spot. There are similar images on page 2 of her portfolio - I've been googling her like a stalker this morning - her name is June Russell. I love the one with the crashing waves. Part of the joy of buying this print was the knowledge of all her other versions of the same image, all the other possibilities - I can still see them in my mind's eye every time I look at it.
To finish off my little art tour, last year I won a giveaway on Silverpebble's blog and she made me an utterly gorgeous necklace. She has a lot of beautiful things for sale at a special online market you can visit this month. All of them are lovely.
It's very easy to get carried away worrying about the mess on the floor and not look up at your walls. It's quite a while since I looked properly at this picture below, for example, but I still love it.
We bought it at a print fair - Eldest was just a baby in a sling, and we stood in front of the lady's stall for ages, unable to choose which one to buy. It's a view of Bradford, a city we used to know quite well. (It doesn't matter which part of Bradford. Most of the roads that lead into Bradford are uncannily similar to each other.)
Sadly our print is a little faded now due to being put in a light spot. There are similar images on page 2 of her portfolio - I've been googling her like a stalker this morning - her name is June Russell. I love the one with the crashing waves. Part of the joy of buying this print was the knowledge of all her other versions of the same image, all the other possibilities - I can still see them in my mind's eye every time I look at it.
To finish off my little art tour, last year I won a giveaway on Silverpebble's blog and she made me an utterly gorgeous necklace. She has a lot of beautiful things for sale at a special online market you can visit this month. All of them are lovely.
Blowing in the wind
I do think there's something rather regal about windfarms. Out in the sea, on the hills, on the horizon, they always make me happy – whirling quietly, storing energy from nothing more complicated than air.
Before I had Eldest I worked as a journalist in a nice, windy northern area. It was during a story about a proposed new wind farm that I first heard about Baywind, the UK's first community owned wind farm.
Baywind Energy Co-operative was established in 1996, and favours investors from the area served by its wind turbines. It now generates enough energy per year to power around 30,000 homes, and every year its wind farm is visited by hundreds of school children.
Baywind - who had a loan from the Co-operative Bank and grants from the Co-operative Enterprise Hub – is one of the community success stories at the centre of a new campaign highlighting The Co-operative Bank's ethical credentials.
Every year The Co-operative supports thousands of initiatives both in the UK and the developing world, helping people to change the world around them.
A new TV commercial launched this week tells how the Rochdale Pioneers established the first successful co-operative in 1844, starting a revolution which continues today.
The Rochdale Pioneers was a group of 28 workers in Rochdale. Founded in 1844, as the Industrial Revolution was forcing workers into poverty, the Pioneers clubbed together to open a shop – and their principles provided the basis for the modern co-operative movement in Britain.
The Co-operative
Join the revolution
Get involved
Sponsored Post
Before I had Eldest I worked as a journalist in a nice, windy northern area. It was during a story about a proposed new wind farm that I first heard about Baywind, the UK's first community owned wind farm.
Baywind Energy Co-operative was established in 1996, and favours investors from the area served by its wind turbines. It now generates enough energy per year to power around 30,000 homes, and every year its wind farm is visited by hundreds of school children.
Baywind - who had a loan from the Co-operative Bank and grants from the Co-operative Enterprise Hub – is one of the community success stories at the centre of a new campaign highlighting The Co-operative Bank's ethical credentials.
Every year The Co-operative supports thousands of initiatives both in the UK and the developing world, helping people to change the world around them.
A new TV commercial launched this week tells how the Rochdale Pioneers established the first successful co-operative in 1844, starting a revolution which continues today.
The Rochdale Pioneers was a group of 28 workers in Rochdale. Founded in 1844, as the Industrial Revolution was forcing workers into poverty, the Pioneers clubbed together to open a shop – and their principles provided the basis for the modern co-operative movement in Britain.
Today in the UK, as well as The Co-operative Group, there are thousands of other co-operators who share the same heritage.
There are more success stories on the Co-operative's Join the Revolution page, or you can visit the Co-operative on Facebook.
If you have an idea for your own area, you can tell the Co-operative about it – and the most popular revolution from each region will receive a £5,000 cash injection.
If you have an idea for your own area, you can tell the Co-operative about it – and the most popular revolution from each region will receive a £5,000 cash injection.
If you have an idea for your own area, you can tell the Co-operative about it – and the most popular revolution from each region will receive a £5,000 cash injection.
The Co-operative
Join the revolution
Get involved
Sponsored Post
Friday, 4 March 2011
Energy
I've managed to get quite tired and run down recently, so yesterday I gave myself a break. I spent most of the day lying in bed reading this blog, which is my official new favourite. In it, an impossibly cute and elfin woman buys hideous second-hand dresses, transforms them into impossibly quirky little outfits, and then sets out on a series of impossibly stylish nights out in art galleries and bars.
It is just about the perfect blog to read as you sit in bed in your middle age, patting a stomach entirely made of different types of cake, whilst wearing a huge brown fleece poncho bought in a charity shop and not altered a bit. Unless you count cutting the price tag off.
When I saw the poncho I thought how lovely it would be for camping. I imagined folding it up neatly until it was time to pack up the sleeping bags in summer. I have not taken it off. I do not look in the least bit elfin in it. I resemble a large, misshapen easy chair that someone has attempted to cover with a blanket.
I was obviously thinking a lot about summer and camping this week as I borrowed a camping cookbook from the library. My holiday cuisine is mainly based around emptying jars of sauce onto packets of gnocchi. In this book, people in wellington boots dig large pits in the ground in order to bake whole roast ducks which are decorated with slices of orange.
It's not comforting, when you barely have the energy to get dressed and put some oven chips on a tray, to know that elsewhere people are refashioning clothes and going to bars and cooking ducks in pits. It only brings home the importance of rebooting the Happiness Project I started last year which has somehow found its way onto the back burner.
Chapter One is called Energy. Expect updates.
It is just about the perfect blog to read as you sit in bed in your middle age, patting a stomach entirely made of different types of cake, whilst wearing a huge brown fleece poncho bought in a charity shop and not altered a bit. Unless you count cutting the price tag off.
When I saw the poncho I thought how lovely it would be for camping. I imagined folding it up neatly until it was time to pack up the sleeping bags in summer. I have not taken it off. I do not look in the least bit elfin in it. I resemble a large, misshapen easy chair that someone has attempted to cover with a blanket.
I was obviously thinking a lot about summer and camping this week as I borrowed a camping cookbook from the library. My holiday cuisine is mainly based around emptying jars of sauce onto packets of gnocchi. In this book, people in wellington boots dig large pits in the ground in order to bake whole roast ducks which are decorated with slices of orange.
It's not comforting, when you barely have the energy to get dressed and put some oven chips on a tray, to know that elsewhere people are refashioning clothes and going to bars and cooking ducks in pits. It only brings home the importance of rebooting the Happiness Project I started last year which has somehow found its way onto the back burner.
Chapter One is called Energy. Expect updates.
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