Six Degrees of Separation - Like Water for Hot Chocolate

Last weekend, I was clearing out the shed where I store boxes of books acquired nearly 20 years ago. There were a few reading memories there, I can tell you. On the shelves, I found my copy of Like Water for Hot Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. I remember buying it on a lunchtime walk to Paperchain Bookstore in Manuka. In those days, a friend and I often spent our lunch hours walking to the bookshop, browsing the shelves, and inevitably carrying something new back to the office. Like Water for Hot Chocolate is this month's choice for 6 Degrees of Separation. 

You might already know that Annabel Smith and Emma Chapman began the 6 Degrees of Separation meme in 2014 and now it is managed (is that the right word?) by Kate at Books are my favourite and best. The idea is that Kate nominates a book and, on the first Saturday of the month, participants reveal chains of six books that all connect in some way. If you are curious to see where other people's reading leads them, Kate's blog is a good place to begin. But I owe my introduction to Whispering Gums, another very good place to start.

So where will Like Water for Hot Chocolate lead? There are a few paths we could take to begin - Chocolat by Joanne Harris; perhaps to Isabel Allende who I also discovered at Paperchain. But as Like Water for Hot Chocolate is 'a novel in monthly instalments with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies', it has made me think of another book about cooking - Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. Do you remember it? Blogger Julie spends a year recreating the 524 recipes Julia Child included in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Still on the cooking in fiction theme, my next book is a novel, The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. It also includes recipes but these were secondary to the story of a widowed American food writer who travels to Beijing to unravel her husband's past and her own present. 

The Taste of Memory leaps to mind. Marion Halligan's memoir about food and families and life is one of the few books with recipes I've read where I did attempt one of her recipes. For a little while there, I made her pizza dough - until Jim broke a tooth biting into it. Let's blame the cook, not the recipe. It's still one of my favourite books about life in Canberra and also in France.

Food is very much on my mind because now I'm thinking about the series of archaeological detective fiction created by LJM Owens, another Canberra writer. In the first book in the series, Olmec Obitutary, librarian and super sleuth Dr Elizabeth Pimms is adjusting to life in Canberra, only to be distracted by the mystery of a royal Olmec cemetery. 

Suddenly I'm not thinking about food at all. Now I'm onto graveyards. Specifically Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, which is set in London's Highgate Cemetery. I wanted to love this book as much as I loved her first novel, The Time Traveller's Wife. I didn't, but Highgate Cemetery was a very impressive character.

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, on the other hand, will stay with me forever. I discovered Gaiman relatively recently (I know, the rest of the world fell in love with him years ago). I adore that moment of discovery. The Graveyard Book tells the story of Bod Owens, who is adopted by the supernatural inhabitants of a graveyard after his parents are murdered. I seem to recall food playing an important part in the story too. Bod's adopted family have no need of food - unlike Bod himself.

We haven't travelled very far today, have we? We began with recipes and magic in Mexico and we've ended with food and fantasy in England, with short visits to New York, France, China, Canberra, France, Canberra, and Mexico in between. 

Next month, it's back to the 80s with Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero. 

PS Thank you to those who have commented on previous posts. Being a 'comments novice', I've only just discovered them lurking, waiting to be published! Will try to get myself organised so it doesn't happen again. It was great to hear from you.

Rankin, Rebus and Irn-Bru

I'm feeling a little bit haunted by Ian Rankin and particularly by Inspector John Rebus, the character for which Rankin is most famous.

Rankin appeared at the Cheltenham Literary Festival (the one I missed - see earlier post) and was quoted in the papers talking about how comics are the most difficult form of literature to write (apparently he wrote one after 'retiring' Rebus). But when we reached Edinburgh, Rebus was everywhere. Well, more accurately, the places Rebus goes in Rankin's 'tartan noir' crime novels were everywhere.

'Hey, we're in the Grassmarket!' I said on our very foggy Edinburgh walk.

'What's the Grassmarket?'

'No idea - but Rebus used to go there.' Of course, I couldn't remember whether he went there to have a whisky at the end of the working day or to investigate a crime when he shouldn't have been. There are a lot of Rebus books to carry in your head.

As we drove through Paris from Gare du Nord to our apartment, the word 'Rankin' kept catching my eye. It was on advertising posters on the Left Bank, seemingly everywhere. For Ian Rankin has just released his new Rebus novel, Standing in Another Man's Grave - which brings Rebus together with Rankin's new character, Malcolm Fox (of whom I'm growing rather fond).

Nothing, though, inspired thoughts of Rebus as much as discovering Irn-Bru - pronounced 'Iron Brew' as I learned at Loch Leven, where I also discovered Irn-Bru gelato. Pale, pale apricot and tasting like sherbet.

Irn-Bru is the drink Rebus always turns to when he's had too much whisky the night before. So in the spirit of culinary adventure, I decided to try some (note that I also ate black pudding and mussels (for the first time in about 25 years)).

Here it is - it's hard to believe that this violently orange soft drink has been Scotland's number one soft drink for decades.

According to the label, it's been 'Bru'd in Scotland to a secret recipe for over 100 years'. The ingredients include: carbonated water, sugar, citric acid, flavourings (including caffeine and Quinine), preservative (E211), colours (Sunset Yellow and Ponceau 4R), Ammonium Ferric Citrate.

Sounds delicious, huh? But please note that 'Sunset Yellow and Ponceau 4R: may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children'!

This picture doesn't quite convey how outrageously, artificially orange the drink is. It looks to me like something you'd find in the mad scientist's laboratory, so much so that I had to work myself up to drinking it. It took a couple of days before I convinced myself to buy it - we were in Arbroath by that time.

And when I did finally drink it, Irn-Bru reminded me of something. Not oranges, or Fanta or any other soft drink you've ever tasted. What could it be? Jim had a taste. Yep, reminded him of something too. I had a bit more, and a bit more, and then I got it.

Irn-Bru tastes like BEROCCA! Did you know that Australians were among the first to claim Berocca as a hangover cure (the things you learn on the web)? Seems the Scots may have got there first with Irn-Bru - no wonder Rebus drinks it the morning after.

PS I tried to get a photo of the Rankin posters but by the time I thought to do it, this was the face decorating Paris - and the back of this week's Hello magazine. Recognise him?

Brad Pitt for Chanel No 5
 

Dinner at Jamie’s or How I Missed the Cheltenham Literary Festival

Sunday evening. Our attempts to find accommodation at Gloucester (after first humming the Harry Potter theme in the Cathedral cloisters) had failed. In some English towns, finding even the town centre is like working your way through a maze. So we drove onwards, ever onwards, looking for the next town.

A winding country road, hedgerows, failing light, and then the sign ‘Cheltenham 6 miles’. I knew the Literary Festival was closing that night. I’d deliberately avoided Cheltenham for that reason. Too crowded and what would Jim and Miles do while I queued to listen to Ian McEwan, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall-Smith, Nigella Lawson, David Walliams … who wasn’t going to be at the festival? But we were tired, it was getting dark, so we took the turn in the road and found ourselves at the Queens Hotel.

Across the road, the festival tents glowed white in the twilight. The festival bookshop, run by Waterstones, was in full swing and a queue was starting to form for one of the final sessions. And I didn’t have a ticket!

Instead, we went looking for dinner. A long walk through a dark town centre - always a pedestrian mall. A man in his sleeping bag in the Debenhams doorway. A Pizza Hut with teenagers queuing. Miles and I both tired, hungry and a little dispirited. And then, around a corner … Jamie’s Italian. Suddenly, the evening took a turn for the better.

We were lead up a winding staircase to the court room of the old County Courthouse. We were ushered into the Press Box, seated in a row, looking across at other diners seated at the Judge’s table. A children’s menu for Miles - with pencils. Menus for Jim and I. Drinks order taken. 

Our Albanian waiter ran through the menu -  no lamb, no bream, no fritto misto, and no pork belly advertised on the chalkboard on the street. But they still had pasta and the other special of the day, pumpkin risotto.

Jim was thinking of leaving. Thinking very loudly of  leaving. We'd eaten a lot of Italian lately - how much pasta can a man take? I was in no mood to leave - too tired, too hungry, and determined to have a ‘Jamie’ experience. Miles was just happy to have spag bol (again). So we stayed. Jim ordered ‘Funky Chips’ - here’s what he got.

The waiter was embarrassed - embarrassed that so many things were off the menu. He sent the manager to have a chat with us. He wasn’t at all embarrassed and couldn’t rustle up a single serve of lamb, pork belly or fish. He was grumpy and probably a little fed up - it was, after all, the end of the festival. What did we expect?

We soldiered on. We laughed (slightly hysterically). The chips were ‘funky’(doused in garlic) - and definitely a ‘side’. The risotto, though, was delicious and Miles begged for a second helping of the spag bol.

And our Albanian waiter proved to be an angel - he was so embarrassed, he convinced the manager to charge us for our drinks only, turning a potentially awful evening into a highlight of the trip.

As for the Literary Festival, this is what I saw on Monday morning.

But I did buy a signed copy of Alexander McCall Smith’s new Isabel Dalhousie novel from Waterstone’s, a momento of the festival I missed.

Weekend Inspirations

I wish I could claim these exquisite morsels as my own. They are from The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook by Jennifer Graham. The book was published by Penguin in 2007 and you can see a little more of it if you follow the link. It's a book I have browsed a number of times in bookshops because it is delightful to look at. There is something about page after page of gorgeously decorated cupcakes that makes me smile. So when I spotted it on the shelves at Academic Remainders yesterday - at roughly half the RRP - I decided it was time to stop browsing and take it home. It is a 'feel-good' book if ever I read one and it doesn't really matter if I never make a single cupcake. I can dream.

The dream, though, appears not to have lasted long for The Crabapple Bakery. According to the book, the story begins like this:

Jennifer Graham started out making cupcakes to display on the range of old-fashioned cake stands she was selling at craft markets around Victoria, in a bid to encourage customers to buy her wares. After only a couple of weeks the customers were not coming to buy her cake stands but to buy her beautiful cupcakes.

Sound like a fairytale? Success followed success and Jennifer and her family opened a shop in a 'village'. After three years, they opened a factory, became a company in 2006 and opened a retail store in the Prahran Market. And why wouldn't they when their cupcakes look so cute?

But when I logged on this morning to look at the website and see how business was faring, I encountered a dose of harsh reality. The Crabapple Bakery is no more. It seems the receivers were brought in and, from what I could gather from the various comments I followed, the company was sold earlier this year and the doors were closed.

I now suspect that this little book that I find so uplifting is something of an embarrassment to its publishers. But it shouldn't be. Despite the sad ending of the Crabapple Bakery, the book is a joy to look at and read. And it still brings a smile to my face - although the joy is tempered by the fairytale's sad ending.

Hibernating

It's been two weeks since I posted! Shame on me. But I have to confess that winter has got the better of all my good intentions. On such chilly nights as we have been experiencing lately in Canberra, it's much more appealing to snuggle under the covers with a good book than it is to sit in the coldest part of the house staring at the laptop screen and wondering what to write. And blogging has been even less tempting when I know I could be in bed with a small boy snoring beside me (well, it's more like gentle snorts really) and heating the bed like a furnace. Tonight, at 9 pm, it's already icy and Mr M is in bed in his summer Buzz Lightyear pjs. Can you believe it? I even heard myself saying in my most 'motherly' voice: "If you must wear summer pjs, don't let me hear you complain about freezing."

I have, though, enjoyed a couple of really good books in my absence. I read Murray Bail's new novel, The Pages, which is a terrific, although somewhat slim, book. It doesn't matter that it's a slim book but I so wanted it to keep going for just a little bit longer. I have such fond memories of reading his previous novel Eucalyptus, that it doesn't feel like 10 years since it was released. In that book, I think he created a modern Australian fable. Reading The Pages I was alert to every single reference to eucalypts - and there were quite a few - while being thoroughly absorbed in the story of wanna be philosopher Wesley Antill. I enjoyed Bail's digs at psychotherapy. For a slim book, this is enormously wide-ranging, both in its geography, its timespan, and its ideas. When I reached the end, I felt I had only just begun to get my head around all the ideas Bail is exploring.

A less intellectually demanding but no less engaging book was The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. I gave this to Alice at Christmas having been intrigued by reading the first couple of pages in a bookshop. The Australian edition is also very pretty to look at. What a great read it turned out to be. A bit of romance, a bit of intrigue, a lot of China and brimming with the most amazing food. Now I am inspired to try Eight Treasure Dongpo Pork or perhaps Beggar's Chicken should I ever find them on a restaurant menu. I romped through through the book over the space of a few days, reading late into the night and early in the morning only to reach the end too soon. Ah well, I have ordered Mones' two earlier books from the local library so I can satsify my craving. But although both are set in China, I don't think either is about food.

On the Table

I can't claim this photo as my own. It comes from a new magazine I discovered recently, Mindfood (incidentally, it was this magazine that provided the recipe for last weekend's citrus delicious). This weekend, though, Mr M and I attempted to create our own version of Apple Cake with (or in our cast without) Apple Wafers. We enjoy baking together and I'm trying to let us become more adventurous with our shared cooking. When we decide to bake a cake, Mr M runs to the bathroom and chooses a towel to spread out on the kitchen floor. Then he finds the big red mixing bowl in the cupboard and the silver measuring cups and is ready to go. He is slowly mastering the art of stirring so all the flour is blended in, has nearly got his head around the idea of taking turns with the stirring, and has conquered the art of the taste test. Sad to say, though, that on this occasion the apple cake looked better than it tasted. Mr M wasn't impressed at all - he took a couple of bites and returned to playing. Nor has he asked for another slice since.

Have you heard of Michael Pollan? It seems to me that he is everywhere at the moment. On the radio, on blogs, in the gardening pages and book pages of the weekend newspapers. He has just published a book called In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, which opens with the following seven words:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

From the little I have read and heard, his central premise seems to be that you shouldn't eat anything that wasn't available to your grandmother to eat. This rules out diet soft drinks and "fast food". It also rules out the breakfast cereal that is my daily staple and most of the things that come in packets and cans. But I'm intrigued by the thesis and by the number of times his name has come up in the past fortnight so I suspect I shall be buying his book soon. I'll keep you posted.

A Week in Dot Points

• Tuesday: worked.
• Wednesday: worked.
• Thursday: worked a very long day due to corporate function held at 6pm.
• Friday: worked ... with the assistance of a couple of skim cappucinos.
• Saturday: took the little one to watch his cousins play footy. On the north-western edge of Canberra. Not a house in view, just large green playing fields (despite the drought) and scrubby paddocks on the other side of the carpark. The under-8s playing footy were vigorous, enthusiastic scraps of energy - except when they were distracted by their new mouthguards or the play moved too far away from them and they were free to watch the clouds or kick tufts of grass. Made a delicious citrus delicious for dinner - why have I assumed that you can only use lemons? The combination of oranges and lemons was uplifting.
• Sunday: slept through the middle of the day, thanks to the thoughtfulness of the two boys. Even the littlest one kept his attempts at playing Superman to the non-bedroom end of the house. This meant I had the energy to stay awake and watch Emma on ABC1. Hmmm, it wasn't inspired but it was a pleasant enough reminder of why I love the book. Did Mr Knightley have to look so ghastly, though? And why was Emma lit so that she looked like she had a moustache? Obviously, I wasn't fully engaged or I wouldn't have noticed these things.
• Monday: swimming lessons. We have started again this term after having to abort last year's attempt due to my illness. This year, we are trying a company that uses the term 'tots' in its name. This has caused some problems because Mr M insists he is not a baby and doesn't need to learn to swim with babies. He has, however, almost mastered the art of floating and can't stop smiling when he is in the water with his teacher. I can't stop smiling because at this swim school I don't have to be in the water with him. Although the pool is small and other classes are going on in various parts of it, I can have a little swim of my own, on my own.

Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake

This is a not-so-great photo of the Wiggles cake Mr M and I made to 'celebrate' his return to playschool after our holidays. Well, really it was a bribe to get him to go. Mr M loves to bake. He loves putting the ingredients into a bowl, doing a bit of stirring with the smallest spoon he can find, and then using the biggest spoon he can find to conduct a taste test. He's also very concerned with the kinds of cakes we make - Wiggles' cakes are popular and often requested. So, too, are Bob cakes, Thomas cakes and Spiderman cakes. These requests have created some challenges - then I realised that all I had to do was put a picture of the Wiggles, Bob, Thomas or Spiderman and that would satisfy our director of cakes. He's quite explicit about what colour the icing should be too. The cake above was originally going to have purple/Jeff icing, then the request was changed to blue/Anthony icing. I was very relieved when the final request was for white icing.

I have been doing quite a bit of baking lately. This week alone I have baked Nigella Lawson's blueberry muffins (which have to be one of the world's most forgiving recipes), banana and chocolate cakes for a work afternoon tea, and Vicki's wickedly delicious chocolate slice (it's incredibly easy to make but incredibly difficult to resist). Partly it's the result of having been on leave and having a bit more time to potter in the kitchen but also I just love to bake.

I blame Sheridan Jobbins who, when she was eight-years-old, made a television show called Cooking with Sheri. That was in 1967, the year I was born. So I must have been watching re-runs when I was three, four or five. Her cookbook, my copy of which is still on Mum's bookshelves, was published in 1970. I remember baking simple things like scones from that cookbook while pretending I was filming my own cooking show. Sheri was probably the first 'celebrity tv chef' and, until 2006, she held the record for being the world's youngest television host (this is according to Wikipedia. I suspect Bindi Irwin stole her crown).

It was baking that precipitated my cookbook collection. I wasn't really into buying cookbooks until I discovered How To Be a Domestic Goddess and Nigella's style has influenced the kinds of cookbooks I buy. I'm not particularly interested in those that just list ingredients (although I do have two of Donna Hay's books that follow that style). But I am a sucker for those that include a bit of narrative - I've been known to sit up late into the night just reading Nigella. You've got to love a woman who writes about baking like this:

The trouble with much modern cooking is not that the food it produces isn’t good, but that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin-of-the-teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure. Sometimes that's the best we can manage, but at other times we don’t want to feel like a post-modern, post-feminist, overstretched woman but, rather, a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake.

(From How To Be a Domestic Goddess)

Milestones

It has been a big week for Mr M. Back to playschool on Wednesday, he enjoyed his last two days as a playschool toddler. Next week, he'll be joining the junior preschoolers in another room. Fortunately, one of his favourite teachers will be with him, as will a number of his pals. But the prospect of moving has caused him some anxiety. We tried to allay it by baking a 'farewell' cake for him to take in on Thursday. Of course, it couldn't be just any cake. It had to be a 'Thomas the Tank Engine' cake! This caused me some anxiety. I had white icing, store-bought red icing to pipe with (having never piped icing before) and a Thomas sticker squirrelled out of a sticker book given to Mr M at Christmas. The result was, I thought, truly horrible but when Mr M saw it on Thursday morning, he declared it 'perfect'. If only he was always that easy to please.

Last night, he had his first sleepover. Completely unplanned but perhaps that was the best way. We were invited to dinner at his cousins' and had a lovely evening sitting under the pergola in the rain (what relief it was after the heat of the last few days - the thing I love most about a Canberra summer, I think, is that it comes to an end) talking with family. Amy and Ruby did a wonderful job of babysitting before dinner, encouraging the littlies to 'be a fruit'. Mr M chose his favourite, watermelon. Then he decided he'd like to stay the night. So he did - although I suspect he might almost have been sent home, as he partied on until 11. That, though, meant he slept through the night and was quite determined he was sleeping over again tonight.

But tonight we have decided to try for another milestone. Mr M is having his first night without a nappy! It's been a long time since he's had a wet nappy at night so, with the heat giving him a heat rash, he decided he'd like to try going without. Fingers crossed I'm not changing sheets at 3am.

J took this photo of the back garden in early spring. If you stand in the same spot now, it is impossible to see the shed. The peach tree is heavy with rusty peaches and I've discovered the ease of making peach granita (this recipe isn't the one I used but it gives you the idea) and the joy of eating it in the heat of summer. The boughs of the Japanese plum are dragging with the weight of the fruit and the nectarine (whose fruit never seems to ripen before the birds get it) is now entwined with the grapevine. Tonight we ate the first plums from the tree behind the shed. This means that soon it will be time to try to make plum jam or plum sauce. Which probably means that the hottest day of summer is still ahead of us.

The First Sunday

Christmas was a big hit with the wee man this year. I think three-years-old is probably the perfect age for the celebration. We said 'hello' to Santa's helpers at least six times, never once questioning why they all looked alike. We went for night drives to look at the 'big' Christmas tree in Civic Square (a disappointment for someone brought up on the Christmas tree in Sydney's Martin Place) and the gardens and houses lit up in the streets near us. We put out grass to feed Santa's reindeer ... and took for granted that the reindeer actually ate it. And there is no doubt in Mr M's mind that it was Santa who left the Jeff Wiggle doll for him. Little wonder that he has now told me twice that he 'wants to have Christmas again'. The only problem was that, after giving someone else a gift (which he did very graciously), he turned to me or to J and asked, 'Is there another present for me?'

We also managed to do quite a bit of Christmas cooking. Mr M really likes making cakes - in the past few months we've made Shrek cakes, Wiggle biscuits, birthday biscuits, more Shrek cakes. In the week leading up to Christmas, we made Christmas biscuits (Nigella Lawson's recipe is very versatile - cookie cutters are marvellous things), jelly, fruit salad and Baz balls with our own variation (crush a packet of Scalliwag chocolate biscuits, add a can of condensed milk, a cup of sultanas and the same of choc bits, mix together, roll into small balls and then role in coconut - the variation was leaving out the crushed nuts, which I couldn't possibly put in now we live in world of nut allergies). These last, however, were topped by Vanessa's twist on a similar family recipe, Chocolate Winnies. Simply by leaving out the cocoa and adding white choc bits, instead of milk chocolate ones, she created a winner - and as they melted in the heat, they tasted even better. Here's the revamped recipe for White Chocolate Winnies:

Crush a packet of Arrowroot biscuits.
Add a tin of condensed milk and a cup of white choc bits.
When everything is mixed together, roll the mixture into small balls and then roll the balls in coconut.
Keep in the fridge until ready to eat.

We've had a slow start to the new year. The heatwave, which hasn't been as severe in Canberra as elsewhere, wreaked havoc with Mr M's sleeping patterns. He's taken to falling asleep at 4pm, worn out by the heat. This means he is ready to party on until midnight so we have had to adopt some strategies for keeping him awake through the day. Too many dvds are the result - as well as trips to the pool and KidCity with Jack and Charlie. Next week we'll be back to 'normal' routines.

The unexpected daytime sleeps, though, have given me some time of my own. I've read books - A House in Fez by Suzanna Clarke, which didn't quite inspire me to head off to Morocco to renovate, and Australian Classics by Jane Gleeson White, which has inspired me to add some Australian classics to my reading list for the year. (Yes, how nerdy is that? I have a 'reading list' for 2008. But I would like to catch up on some Aussie novels I've never read, including Helen Garner's Monkey Grip and Tim Winton's Cloudstreet.)

I have also, finally, finished organising Mr M's photos into albums, even annotating the photos so, when he is 50, he will know who is who and what happened when. Horrid realisation ... I have taken over 700 photos of Mr M and his life and he is only three! I can't even blame J for contributing to the number as, with the digital camera, I am the main photographer. It's made me ponder how personal photography has changed. With a digital camera, it costs me nothing to snap away, often taking half-a-dozen photos to get the one I want. I'm not limited by my poor photography, having a roll of film that allows me to shoot only 12 pictures, having to wait to see whether my photos are any good. This current generation will probably be the most photographed yet. Nothing that happens to them will be undocumented. But perhaps I should think about easing up on the photography now that he's reached three? How many cute photos can you have?

This blog is as close as I'm going to get to a new year's resolution. I enjoyed writing and sending my group emails last year. So here's the plan: every Sunday this year (or Saturday or Monday or, maybe, Tuesday) I hope to post about the week just passed. Let's see if I can keep it up and if, at the end of the year, I have 52 posts. Fingers crossed.