Becky Bakes…

This week I was reminded by Facebook that it’s six years since I retired from teaching. I wondered what on earth I’d do with myself – would I become a lady who lunched? There had been opportunities in the past, when, without the required work permits, I’d enjoyed plenty of leisurely meals with lovely friends in both Italy and the U.S.A. Accompanying the captain of industry on a trip to Washington D.C. and North Carolina was the first retirement treat and later another to Miami, then supporting the work of Macmillan kept me busy. The last 16 months have been interesting – videos, website, blog…you know what I mean…but no lunches. This week has been quite a challenge though, waiting hours for an ambulance for a 98 year old, the early arrival of a poorly baby, stitching like crazy to finish a project and the central heating turning itself on in July ! Often the only support we can offer is a hug or a chat over lunch, but not now. So, at this very moment, there is Brownie in the oven to bring a smile to the face of a beleaguered friend x

After the torrential rain and flooding last weekend we were left with a double rainbow just hanging over the sea. Trying to take a picture with my phone wasn’t a great success but it was quite a sight to behold. It reminded me of one of my favourite phrases when teaching nutrition to young people – “Eat a rainbow”. It perfectly encompasses the value of all those vitamins supplied by foods of different colours. There was a summer holiday when I decided to make a (big) poster with each band of colour made up of tiny fruit and vegetable pictures. It was quite a labour of love but I was pleased with the result, even if the children took little notice of it as they passed by! More effective was the creation of a rainbow by arranging real foods on a bed sheet spread over the floor. We had such fun rolling lemons, oranges, limes, apples and sprouts across the floor. The blueberries, grapes and strawberries didn’t fare too well but the result was stunning. A much easier project than trying to cook with a whole year group in the school hall….but that’s another story!

It depends where you put the emphasis as to how you feel about this…. Right now we have a very dark evening and thunder rumbling overhead. I found myself saying to the cats – “It looks like rain in cherry blossom lane! “, am I the only person who recites poetry to animals…probably not. However June has not been kind to us in the far east of Suffolk. There was far too much rain for too long, then too much hot sun so that some plants rotted and others just didn’t take off. Most disappointing has been the asparagus – just a few spears early on and nothing since. There are some very impressive fields to the west of us and whilst I’ve never seen anyone cutting the spears (probably because they get up before me 😉 ) by the autumn there are swathes of fern swaying in the breeze. Just beautiful. I’ve found that one of the best ways to serve it is to roast it for 10 minutes – nestled between sausages or in a tray with olive oil and pepper. Delicious. Worth persevering for sure. Now the heavens have opened and we are inundated. So much for flaming June !

Several of our young friends are relieved that they can finally have the celebration they had hoped for. All these revised plans reminded us of the most complicated wedding we’d been to. We took a very early flight from Heathrow to Paris, checked into our hotel, changed our clothes then took a taxi to a church somewhere in the northeast of the city. Our young friend, a teacher at a school with which my school exchanged pupil visits, looked so different. Since I had last seen her she had sadly lost both her parents in a car accident on the Peripherique. A few years earlier we’d spent a lovely evening with them in their apartment overlooking Sacre Coeur. So sad. Now our friend had become blonde and was wearing an enormous meringue-style dress. After the ceremony we were taken to the Chateau de Chantilly where we waited many hours in the sun whilst endless photographs were taken, with just a glass of champagne. Our young son bravely dealt with the long, long wait until eventually we sat down to enjoy the meal. It must have been about 10p.m. when a spectacular suckling pig pierced with sparklers was paraded through the different rooms. It was delicious and probably my favourite of the dozen or so courses. By midnight we were exhausted but still impressed by the croquembouche which appeared, then we found a quiet corner to just try to doze. By 2 a.m. we found a ride back to the city, woke the hotel night porter and eventually fell into bed. When we finally woke at about 10 a.m. our poor son was covered in spots which the local pharmacist insisted was a fish allergy, even though he’s never liked fish. Chickenpox was the real diagnosis and the flight home was awkward…To cap it all, when we arrived home I was expected to go straight out again to a baptism party. So tired, but what a weekend.

How could I have chosen such a hot evening to make and film our next video? You’ll see it very soon – I’m standing at the cooker stirring and stirring….. Lost in thought, it reminded me of one particular Sunday lunch at La Scogliera near Arese. We had booked our usual table and were surprised to see a wedding party arriving for the reception and subsequent party. Intrigued, I asked Pietro about their menu – he was delighted to explain it to me all in Italian of course, then proceeded to bring us a taster (well, a morsel really) of each course they had chosen…all 12 of them. It was such an experience and so delicious, but the one that has stuck in my memory ever since was the risotto. It was simply champagne risotto. How romantic is that? Now maybe you’ve worked out what I was stirring on that hot, sticky evening x

As a child one of the naughtiest things I did was to drink the vinegar from the enormous jar of pickled onions sitting on the floor of the pantry. The cupboard was under the stairs, so I could shut myself away and nobody knew what I was up to. Fast forward many years and when lunching with a colleague, she ranted at length about “undressed” salads, resulting in a sharing of recipes for vinaigrette. My first version was 3 tabs olive oil/1 tab wine vinegar/ 1/2tsp french mustard to stabilise the emulsion, all whisked together well. I’ve used that for many years, but it often isn’t enough and so I double everything and use some balsamic vinegar too. So 6/2/1. More recently it has become 8/2/1 so it has less of a “bite”, with the balsamic vinegar enriching the colour as well as the flavour. Funny how our childhood preferences have long-reaching implications!

You might be aware that we adopted two cats recently. They are lovely – so gentle, lap cats through and through. They really enjoy fishy cat food and crunchy treats, watching the seagulls soar by and the pigeons courting on the fence. Since their favourite food has to contain fish I thought I’d be safe roasting a chicken. Not so. Chaos ensued. The smell had brought them downstairs, so that serving dinner was almost impossible. We managed to distract them with jingly toys and empty promises, eventually exiling them to the conservatory. Eventually we got our dinner…..but the looks we got…… I felt so bad. Now we have new strategies- not least giving them their dinner first.

There was a recent addition to the shopping list which left me (almost) speechless, shocked – certainly discombobulated. This postcard size piece of paper had been sitting on the dresser awaiting all the usual additions… eggs, milk, flour etc…. but in the bottom corner it suddenly said French Fancies! I had to stop and think what that meant, these are not the sort of thing I grew up with or have bought, never mind made. They once appeared on the Bake Off though as a technical challenge – is that what reminded the tech. team of their existence? In the box there were 6 square mini-mountains in brown, pink and yellow. I was offered one, but declined. In no time they were gone. What is it that makes them special? Honestly, I have no idea, except that they make me cringe…so sweet and sickly. Totally retro. What tickles your palate?

Do you remember that programme? Bernard Braden, David Frost and Millicent Martin who sang (badly) when they reviewed the past week. It’s been a bit of a week here too – not least because we’re still trying to settle our rescue cats amid trips to the vet. They are very nervous, easily spooked by unexpected noises and one of them needs medicine for a few more days, still unable to go outside till they are really settled and we’re confident they will come home. As well as this we’ve had a plumber to do small jobs…leaking taps…you get the idea. He happened to notice a leak from our hot water tank and decided to fix it, but that didn’t go well. I’ll spare you the details but, suffice to say, we’ve had no heat, hot water then cold water, for quite a few days. I don’t like upheaval or being cold at the best of times and we’ve had a mixture of weather this week, today being very chilly. Meal plans have gone out of the window and I’ve just become more and more cross. But now, by a minor miracle, we are warm and have water that’s hot. We can wash up and shower with impunity. The moral of this tale? Value your tradesmen, keep them sweet and make them copious amounts of tea/coffee. Oh, and if it’s their birthday, make them cake.

Do you remember the egg crisis of the late 1980’s ? Edwina Currie MP made a passing comment that most of the eggs in the UK were contaminated with salmonella (at that time) This caused chaos – with her resignation designed to calm the situation. The egg producers and farmers all denied her claims and tried to reassure the public, but the immediate panic led to vast numbers of chickens being culled and hardly any eggs being bought for quite some time. Only yesterday I read a report of one journalists experience at the time…whilst she and her family as well as their neighbours all suffered the effects of salmonella. They had all eaten chocolate mousse – it was a popular, speedy dessert made with melted chocolate and raw eggs. Later, there was a Whitehall inquiry into the sorry situation and it was found that Mrs. Currie had been absolutely right, but the damage was done. Public confidence in eggs was at an all time low. With the trailer for a comedy show frequently airing on TV at the moment, the reflection of the anxiety is perfectly illustrated when raw egg is mixed into a cocktail – Alan Partridge’s advice to camera is always to cook your eggs thoroughly. Isn’t it interesting how just a few words spoken in haste can have such a lasting effect? I still can’t bring myself to encourage anyone to lick the cake spoon even though salmonella in eggs has been (almost) totally eradicated.