Cooking 9/10ths of the time

In the beginning there was the Baker and the Baker said "Let there be cake". And there was cake. And when the Baker said that he/she was surely referring to the rainbow cake. Six multicoloured layers, each one held together with a meringue icing and then completely covered. A towering monument with a smashing reveal, the most secretive and party stopping cake I have ever made. It was Gabe's birthday again.  It appears to be rolling around with worrying frequency at this rate he'll be 20 and I'll be.... I'll be... GAH! Gabe saw a picture of the cake and his enormous brown eyes grew by another magnitude, his voice grew breathy and he gripped my arm uncomfortably tightly with his precious little pink fingers. "I want that for my birthday. Will you make that? Please? Please? Please" He made that request 8 months before his actual birthday. I said yes because I knew that he, much like a capricious wind, could change at any moment. But no. He never...

I occasionally attempt ambitious cooking projects. This occurs because I have been  lured by keywords "rich, indulgent, silky" etc or by pictures. I am very susceptible to pictures. So when I saw this... I mean. Come on. I am helpless in the face of this. Raspberry and meringue and white plates and scattered fresh raspberries. I was lucky not to eat the computer. As it turned out it was my turn for bookclub and in a totally inadvisable move I decided to make two BRAND NEW dishes. One dish could be seen as clever, two is simply showy and ostentatious and that is why my second one failed. Not miserably, but sort of in a melancholy way - a regretful, half hopeful manner. I wish it had been miserably, then I could have thrown them away. As it was I ended up serving them. I also made a hedgehog slice with dark chocolate and prunes soaked in Cointreau - they were freaking excellent. Very decided. Forceful. Like a naval officer returning for one night and then heading out to...

I am amazed that I haven't ever once before commented on my worship of fudge. I adore it, I love it to pieces, I love it with my mouth - until it is gone. Then I love them with my tummy and then I love it with my colon. I could continue but this is a food blog and too much intestinal chit-chat brings the tone down. By about 5 cm, just below the stomach - which is really where we should stay. Fudge. Swoon. Suddenly I am all switched on to making fudge. Somehow I don't think that I ever actually recognised that I could make the fudge! It felt a bit like chocolate to me. Chocolate just comes from the Valrhona factory. I can manipulate it and cook with it, but I can't create chocolate! I'm not some sort of chocolate God . I am just a disciple. This is how I felt about fudge too. A disciple in a happy, chubby, pagan conga line. But, but, I can make fudge. I can. And I have been. What started this? A recipe of course, and a picture. A nice picture of beautifully cut dar...

There's comes a time in a woman's life when she looks in her "freezer" and sees all the "bananas" piling up in there and she knows that she has to do "something". Everything in the quotes is literally true, but they add something don't they, a sort of mystery. Too many bananas. That's what always prompts banana bread round here. I buy bananas with excellent intentions - they are filled with potassium and a nutritious snack for a child. I tenderly lay them in their own bowl on the bench so that their weird ripening gas doesn't make everything else age prematurely (what exactly is the banana's plan there by the way? Is it to make all other fruit appear so old and wrinkly that they are only attractive option? If that is it then I respect them all the more). And no one eats them. Or everyone does, in one day. We are either crazy for banana's in my house or we HATE them. And those hated banana's go on to be frozen. They get a...

Just the other day it was, it was just the other day that I was saying to my neighbour Tracey "I will never make lamingtons! Nevah!". I went on to list so many good reasons why you wouldn't make them and why you'd buy them instead. Just so many good reasons, they really were pertinent, well expressed and reasonable. Anyway, I made lamingtons. All my good reasons flew out the door like so many budgerigars attempting to evade capture when I saw a good looking recipe. I am a sucker for a recipe with pictures. Words? Well words are ok, I like words a lot too, but I cannot get excited by the words "butter cake". A picture of butter cake is a different matter, I can get very excited about that. This recipe was bursting at the seams with pictures, it was excellent and it made lamington making sound like a walk in the coconut and chocolate park. Like a doddle. Much like crucifixion. And that really is the only Monty Python joke I'll make in this blog, The pi...

Yikes, has it been that long since I posted? What the hell do I do with the my time, apart from you know, all the damn stuff that we fill every waking minute with. I don't know how effervescent and amusing this post with be, because my husband hit me in the head with a large porcelain salad bowl and I have been feeling really calm and loose ever since - along with craving pepperoni. He didn't mean to, it was one of those unfortunate "head meets bowl" timing incidents - he felt very bad. Not as bad as me though because I sustained a big ole hematoma to the forehead. Like a stubby unicorn. Anyway, it is going down and whilst being tender to the touch is not a florid colour - sadly. Sue, Michelle and I did that thing that we do, it's a tradition. You may recall that I blogged about it last Christmas too, and referred to it as a tradition then as well. I'm not going to say tradition next year, as I feel like this might be labouring the point. Anyway, this is the...

My neighbours gave me lemons. It warmed my heart no end as I HATE paying for lemons! Why should I? Lemon trees are everywhere and I don't understand why we all don't have mountains of lemons at our disposal at a moments notice. If I have to buy lemons I am at my most crabby and disagreeable. I disgruntledly mumble like an old bag lady with 23 cats who can't find her shopping trolley full of crap. I moan and sulk, I pick up lemons and then put them down and frown and then snort out my nose, fast. Then I put the stupid thing in my basket and move on. Did I spend time photoshopping a lemon in between those hands? Yes I did, that's how much I like lemons. But, my neighbours gave me some. Sarah's grandmother has a tree, which is only right and proper, all grandparents should have a lemon tree, that should be legislated on. And all lemons on the tree should always, always be pressed fervently onto family members. Because even if they don't need the lemons, then ...