Becky Bakes…

The Christmas tree has been persuaded back into its’ box and hauled into the cupboard. Some of the decorations are destined for donation to a charity shop – not yet though. I’ll save them until October as I’m sure the shops don’t really have the space to store them till next autumn. Epiphany has passed me by – no Galette des Rois this year. Candlemass doesn’t get celebrated, nor St. Agnes Eve (“…ah bitter chill it was. The owl for all his feathers was a-cold. The hare limped trembling thro’ the frozen grass and silent was the flock in woolly fold”- Keats) so our next festivals will be St. Valentine’s day and Shrove Tuesday, only three days apart this year and both chances for some edible treats. Hopefully by then there will be signs of Spring, Winter just isn’t my favourite season. Stay warm – and dry! x

How are you feeling? I really have lost track of the days and suddenly realised it’s Friday! We have had a lovely time with family enjoying time together – getting everyone here is a challenge and happens rarely, so you can imagine the levels of excitement and noise as our adult children and their spouses (spice?) caught up with each other on Boxing Day. Hubby and I had enjoyed a delicious piece of Topside from our favourite local butcher on Christmas day and then it just had to be turkey for our family on the evening of Boxing day. I particularly enjoy eating the cold meats with pickles and chutney, but we try to send the young people home with whatever they’d prefer from the leftovers 😉 The freezer is also looking pretty empty right now as some of them went home with boxes of minestrone and also tomato soup so I think a restock is needed. We’re all out of mince pies too, thanks to the beleagured shopkeepers…but it’s the New Year..and we look forward to it and hope you do too ;

Not a sonic boom, but something of a shock no less 😉 During the course of each week we keep a constant eye on the website and YouTube in case there are any red dots – that means someone has commented or asked a question. Obviously they need a prompt response, so I try to deal with them as they arise. Imagine my surprise when I checked the website on Monday. Normally there might be a dozen or so views on any given day but there were 276. Quite a shock! That lead us to check YouTube which had a similar spike of views for Mincemeat Slice. I was worried in case I’d said something inappropriate so watched the video myself, but it was fine. Drilling down further into the stats it was instantly apparent where these views came from…South Korea! Looks like a Western Christmas treat is heading East this year 😉 x

Thankfully Hubby is now much more mobile and very pleased to be able to drive again. I’m wary of him carrying anything too heavy, but, rest assured, he’s behaving and doing as he’s told 😉 Before his surgery we wrote The List. The Master List, you understand. With all the stuff we needed to acquire before the big day. I’ve been working my way down it, but panicked about the bird flu situation and bought a frozen turkey. Usually we have a fresh crown from M&S but they aren’t cheap and often are a bit indifferent. So to keep this one moist I’ve put a dozen rashers of smoked streaky bacon from my favourite butcher’s shop in to the freezer, trying to avoid too many last minute purchases. I still haven’t made any mince pies as there’s barely any room to store them, so having promised them to the Beleagured Shopkeepers next Friday, I might make a batch on Thursday and then more for the family during the following week. Next job on The List is to get some decorations up…tomorrow maybe ?

After a busy morning yesterday, I came home to make cake for the beleagured shopkeepers – #cakefriday. Because some of our local young friends aren’t too well I’d decided to make a double quantity of Ginger cake – it’s soft, sticky and has a great flavour to tempt their tastebuds. So, ingredients and equipment ready, I began…lots of flour, sugar, bicarb etc and also water. As I poured the mixture into the lined tins I just knew something wasn’t right, it wasn’t wet enough. Looking at the recipe it dawned on me that although I’d doubled the dry ingredients, I had forgotten to double the water. So I cooked them to the point of being solid, then had to jettison that batch and start again. This time, less distracted, it worked as it should have and it’s been delivered today. Phew! Earlier in the week I made Braised Red Cabbage to freeze ready for Christmas. Going through the method I realised there was no mention of the Bramley apple . So that’s been amended. I need to concentrate to avoid basic blunders… we all make mistakes, let’s hope they aren’t too costly!

This is not my favourite time of year. I much prefer long, balmy summer days when I can potter in the garden, stroll by the sea and hang washing out to dry. Instead it’s a quick nip to empty the bin, with coats, scarves and gloves any time I venture to town on these short, dark days of winter ( which arrived suddenly this year I feel). However it’s the perfect time to be making soup – our freezer is full! We all like my Tomato Soup with its’ hidden vegetables – red pepper, carrot, potato etc, but our real favourite is Minestrone. When we first moved to Milan I was amused to find “Minestra di Verdure” in Esselunga, the local supermarket. It’s a mixture of veggies, perfect for soup. This time, though, I hadn’t bought a cabbage but had an untrimmed cauliflower, so decided those outer leaves might work just as well along with the leeks, carrots, tomatoes etc. It made ten portions, so five 2-person boxes to find room for. We really need a bigger freezer! 😉

There are certain tasks I simply don’t want to be involved in, they are the Blue Jobs. So into this category I put anything to do with cars, except driving them, lawn mowing, vegetable growing, wallpapering ( the only time I tried it the paper peeled right off straightaway) and cleaning toilets. You get the picture. I’m happy to have a go at other things like pressure washing the patio or a bit of painting, but of all the Pink Jobs my least favourite are ironing, cleaning windows and worst of all, cleaning the oven. That’s been on the “to do” list for longer than I dare admit, but this week I tackled it and I have to say it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. I used one of the products specifically designed for this purpose and the shelves really shine, as does the base of the oven. Now I just have to work out the best way to deal with the black trivets which I mistakenly put in the dishwasher when we had the old Rangemaster. One day I dream of paying someone to just come and deal with it for me…true confessions! (don’t tell anyone 😉 )

All credit to her, Mary Berry has been working in the food industry for the last seventy years. She never achieved any qualifications at school in Bath, where I trained, but she did get a City and Guilds in Food and became a Home Service Advisor for the Electricity Board. That had seemed like a good career for me too until the demise of both the Gas and Electricity Boards. The role had been to advise customers on how to get the best from their new cooker, but obviously that was a non-starter. So teaching it was, thank goodness! Mary has been a great influence on so many of us over the years, going right back to the Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook. I still have mine, do you?

Last weekend we bought a broadsheet newspaper as usual – we like the puzzles section as well as the glossy magazine etc. I came across an article which went into great detail about the standard of British food and cited Ebbw Vale, a town in Wales, as proof that “the British diet is killing us”. Whilst there are plenty of places to eat there, it’s all fast-food. It seems that we now need to be able to have coffee at all hours of the day and night, many people don’t want ( or don’t know how) to make a meal at home. Delivery is available for anything, even a cup of tea. Whatever has happened? “The teaching of Food in schools is of low priority to the Government” is quite an understatement and still a serious mis-step for society today. I have been made aware of young teachers who are given the responsibility for teaching whatever food lessons are on the timetable and have to practise with their parent/grandparent in order to give the lesson. Let’s hope that the new curriculum being devised by the Government which is going to include mortgages and savings will also include some proper food lessons, but without the specialist teachers, how is this ever going to be meaningful?

Yesterday afternoon I had a lovely chat with Sarah on her Suffolk Sound radio show. It was loosely based on preparations for Christmas, but as a novice, she was particularly intrigued by the process of making a Christmas cake. We talked it through, starting with soaking the fruit in brandy to plump up the raisins etc and ending with advice on decorating the finished result. She knew that the cake needed “feeding” so I explained what that meant – unwrapping the clingfilm on the baked cake and spooning a little brandy over it each week to keep it moist while the flavours develop. Rolling out marzipan on icing sugar and fondant icing on cornflour – marzipan as a layer to keep the icing white… you know the processes. But then she asked if cooking was art or science? That’s a question I’ve never been asked, but without hesitation I said science. Part of my training was the study of Organic Biochemistry. It’s a shame Domestic Science is so undervalued by schools when it uses Biology, Chemistry and Physics in equal measure. The clue is in the name!