Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Food

Mystery berries tracked down

I have tracked down the mysterious juniper berry. Delia Smith mentions this delicacy in one of her books, but I have never before seen such a thing with my own eyes. I confess, in my darkest hours, I wondered if they were a myth. Then, last Friday, I happened to be buying venison from our local butcher. Cook it with red wine and juniper berries, they advised. "Yes, I know about juniper berries," I wailed. "But where can I find them?" It turns out, as so often with these things, that the berries have been under my nose all these years. A small local shop stores them, hidden at the back on a shelf in a large jar, like one of those you used to find in old-fashioned sweetie shops. No casual shopper would know the juniper berries were there, unless they went in and asked.

Harry Potter moment?

It was a Harry Potter moment when they brought that jar down, magic revealed in the everyday. Inside this jar were no pear drops, sherbert pips or gobstoppers. Just thousands upon thousands of tiny, purple berries gathered from juniper bushes on the Scottish hills. Thirty years ago, I would have been disappointed by this, last week I was jubilant. We had a bad moment when the assistant keyed in £16 on the till. "That's my budget gone," I worried. That was the price for a full kilogram. Even I didn't want that many of them. A small pot set me back just 80 pence. The berries were everything I hoped for - and more. Even after three hours in the oven, cooking with venison and red wine, each one burst on my tongue. Like a taste of gin and tonic.

Posted 16 February 2010 14:12 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

Food

Teaching my daughter to cook

Granny arrives out of breath. She has climbed two flights of stairs. In her waterproof coat is a pamphlet of recipes. She hands it to me with a look of significance in her eyes.

It is a 1930's edition of Be-Ro Home Recipes, familiar from my own childhood. This book belonged first to Granny's mother, then to Granny, and now, so it seems, to me. From mother to daughter, over the generations.

Link to the past

Splotches cover the browning print. It feels like a precious link to the past, almost too precious to risk in the kitchen. I am to use it to teach my daughters to make scones, just as my mother used it to teach me.

"Good home baking is something to be proud of," states the author, in blissful ignorance of the decades to come when so many women would disagree with that statement.

What is a puff ball?

Its black and white pages are testimony to a vanished world of more than just sponge castles, eve puddings and puff balls (whatever they might be). Although these forgotten confections feature plentifully among the recipes.

It harks back to a world with values different to our own. One where little girls dreamt of learning to cook for their families, a world of simplicity and decency. Where nobody grew up aspiring to be a pop star fairy.

Jurassic Age

As I open the book, it feels like stepping back in time, to a place without Marks & Spencer ready meals, take-aways and out-of-town supermarkets.

"The woman who can cook well and bake well has every reason and every right to be proud of her cooking," says the author. "In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she has a happy home, because good cooking means good food and good food means good health." Easy to laugh at, yes, but any nutritionist would confirm the truth in these simple words.

Girls only

Only female cooks feature in Be-Ro Home recipes. And only female offspring. Neither men nor boys cook themselves, but they figure occasionally as consumers of tempting delicacies.

In the section "Teach your daughters to cook" it states: "The mother who allows her little daughters to 'help her' in the kitchen on baking days may find them somewhat of a nuisance at first, but if she will only encourage them by kindly and patient example to learn the rudiments of cooking, they will become a great comfort and help to her when they grow older."

Homes of their own

Also, says the author: "They will learn one of the most important sections of homecraft, in preparation for the great day when they themselves will have homes of their own."

An insert in the title page, no doubt added after the outbreak of war, tells women how to adjust recipes for World War Two rationing. "Although a pre-war publication, these recipes are economical and suitable for present recipes. Good results are obtainable with dried eggs and dried milk."

Effect of rationing

It continues: "As National Flour varies in its capacity to absorb moisture, a little more or a little less liquid than stated may be desirable. Owing to rationing, many ladies prefer to use only half the quantities."

Granny brought me the book to help me with a cooking demonstration at Beanie's school later this week. Leafing through its pages, I felt a sadness at the vanished world of simplicity and decency these recipes represent.

Nostalgia

The world where you saved the last potato for the next day, where you made do, where you showed love by baking food. Sexist? Yes, certainly, at least judged by today's standards. But it cannot be so very wrong to take pride in learning how to feed our families.

Posted 26 January 2010 13:40 | Number of comments: 5 | Comments

Domestic chaos Etiquette Food Granny Love

Christmas update

Expect to queue for up to an hour on Christmas Eve when picking the turkey up, the butchers warned. "You need a stooge for that job," said another, older woman in the shop, giving me a knowing look. Then she added: "I'm sending my husband." Nice strategy, sure, but what do you do if you are married, as I am, to a vegetarian? He has chosen nut roast for Christmas lunch. Forcing him to wait an hour in the cold to pick up meat for the rest of us does not seem right.

Posted 18 December 2009 13:53 | Number of comments: 3 | Comments

Domestic chaos Food

Delia's Christmas army

It is a rite of passage that almost every woman will experience at some point in her life. Not quite as life-changing as first boyfriend, first job, first baby. But cooking your first Christmas dinner for extended family must surely still count as one of life's turning points, something that leaves you changed in all kinds of ways, just as you're not the same person after a broken heart, or a month travelling in India or or a stint working with the homeless. Christmas dinners can change a woman.

It has finally come round to my turn to cross this milestone. Thinking preparation might be key to handling this transition, in an attempt to make things easy for myself, I persuaded Granny to give me a copy of Delia's Happy Christmas as an early Christmas present. What a mistake. An aspirational book setting out standards of culinary perfection that only a professional cook and full-time masochist could achieve, it has put the fear of Christmases past, present and future into me. I am as Scrooge, terrified before the ghost of Jacob Marley at mistakes too late to rectify. Why did I not start on my puddings in October? Where can I find juniper berries at this late hour? What is 'sauce flour'? What is the difference between 'silver or gold standard' muffin cases and the ordinary ones? Do other people know about this stuff, or am I alone in my ignorance?

Before reading this book, I thought turkey curry was just a joke from the pages of Bridget Jones, that nobody could actually make such a thing. But no, wrong again. Delia actually features something called an English Colonial Curry with Turkey. She suggests (well, more like orders) that you serve it on December 29, as part of her Gant Plan-style, project management approach to celebrating the birth of Christ. She has detailed and difficult menu plans for eight days. The D-Day landings could not have been planned with more military precision than Delia directs into Christmas menus.

"Christmas lasts for eight days," warns Delia. "Be prepared!" For those tempted to buy mince pies and Christmas pudding on-line from supermarkets, there is the inevitable reminder that home cooking not only tastes so much better, it's cheaper. Delia has costed out comparisons between shop-bought and home-made Christmas staples that show how much money you'll save making stuff yourself. Interestingly, though, she does not factor in the £25 cost of her book, which would buy you the short-cut to quite a few shop-made mince pies. Or even a temporary respite from the onslaught in the form of a take-away.

Reading the book I felt not just worried for my own pathetic attempts at Christmas - but also for Delia herself. Delia's Happy Christmas makes it sound as if Delia is released from the kitchen just once during her two-week festive ordeal - for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve - before being reshackled to the Aga. What a drilling of pickling, freezing, cutting, peeling, grinding, marinating, chopping and basting takes place in these pages! I felt exhausted just reading about the relentless grind. No wonder that in her recommended lists for Christmas shopping she suggests, under the heading "General Non-Food Shopping" that you buy 'Hangover Remedy'. You may need something to cushion the pain should you forget to buy any of the cornichons, sweetened chestnut puree, shredded suet and fine capers Delia also recommends as essential Christmas fare. In fairness, this is a beautiful book, with lovely illustrations and lots of ideas for making nice meals for family and friends. There are lots of good ideas for a vegetarian Christmas, which I plan to adopt. Also, I must confess that, like millions of others, I rely heavily on some of Delia's other cooking books, which have never let me down on timing, ingredients etc. But oh, for the days when a satsuma was the height of Christmas sophistication.

Posted 10 December 2009 13:57 | Number of comments: 10 | Comments

Domestic chaos Etiquette Food Fun Missing sanity

Apple a day

JCAYSCTBLCAV3P577CAH0SA2YCAJEPWMRCA3XWXC5CA0MZ23LCAU7X04OCAMLUSSTCA26OADJCAC9CGEACAOCJ4N1CAUNYYJICAOWM68CCACF27KDCAKRK8A2CAO3K2X7CAUARIJICALKG4D4CA3Q807Z_Small.jpg Friday was one of those glorious autumn days when much-discussed hopes of an Indian summer finally materialised, so it seemed only right to indulge in a spot of apple picking in Granny's back garden. After all, the sun was shining and ripe apples were - quite literally - dropping about our feet in what felt like a series of Keatsian moments. It would have been a shame to let all that lovely fruit - and ambience - go to waste.

I began by picking fruit with my hands from the lower branches, being careful, of course, not to get mud on my new sheepskin boots while stretching across flower beds. Then I moved on to a clothes pole, which proved just the thing for knocking fruit down from higher branches. Granny sensibly removed Button to a place of safety as apples tumbled down around us. Not so much clothes pole as mediaeval jousting spear.

In no time at all, we filled up two large plastic bags with the cookers, easy to forget how much bigger they are than eating apples. Granny brought out more bags; we filled those too.

That evening, back home, we feasted on baked apples, stuffed with raisins, honey and cinnamon. Topped off with a tin of custard. I love eating in tune with the seasons, I am the most die-hard townie, but that makes me feel more in harmony with nature.

The next day I gouged, cut, cored, peeled, quartered, sugared and boiled about twenty more apples. Husband Va-vay even made a special trip to the shops to buy more plastic tubs for freezing the apple puree.

Oh, the satisfaction of a job well done. The pleasure of packing away rows of small boxes, each with their freezer-proof label stating date and contents. A proud moment, if I might be allowed to say so.

Granny rang on Sunday evening to enquire about the apples.

"How did you get on?" she asked.

"Pretty well," I said. "I've done a big batch of them."

Then she popped round on Monday morning and looked round the kitchen.

"I thought you said you'd done a big batch of apples," she said.

"I did," I told her, trying not to sound hurt. "I made a tonne of puree and we've been baking them too."

"What are all these, then?" she said, pointing to half a dozen repurposed plant pots, scattered around the kitchen, each one of them packed with apples.

"Those are the rest of them."

"Ah," said Granny. "Don't worry. Plenty of time yet. They used to keep cookers until Christmas."

Posted 19 October 2009 21:47 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Button Daughters Edinburgh Food Fun Granny Health Home Out and about

Have your cake

I was stood at the kitchen table, wearing one of Beanie's aprons, when the treacle tin exploded. I had warmed the treacle in the oven's bottom shelf, as instructed, so it would mix more easily into the flour, sugar, fat, spices and fruit. Unfortunately, after putting the treacle inside the oven, I forgot all about it and left it too long. By the time we needed treacle, the tin was so hot I had to use gloves to remove it from the oven. I carried it over to the table and put it down. It was then I made my big mistake; using a fork I prised the lid open. Hot, black gloop spurted out like lava from a volcano, bubbling up uncontrollably over the oven gloves, the table and the cake mixture. The explosion left a layer of caramelised tarmac over the recipe, preserving it like a relic from the Cretaceous Period. A sticky, sweet-smelling relic.

Despite this set-back, making the Christmas cake (well, two of them, actually, as we made an extra one for Granny) was a delight; the flat was filled all weekend with that evocative smell of baking fruit, nutmeg and cinnamon. The cakes are now packed away tightly in tins, wrapped in layers of grease-proof paper to marinate for three months. The plan is to feed them with brandy at intervals before December 25, dripping alcohol in via holes made by knitting needles. Cake-making: an honourable exception to the evil of premature Christmas preparations, worth braving exploding treacle tins for any day.

Posted 05 October 2009 10:34 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

Activities Food Fun Granny Home Likes/Dislikes

The family that eats chocolate together

The postman arrived early yesterday with a special delivery for us, which three year-old daughter Beanie, correctly sensing something good was afoot, persuaded him to hand over to her. "No, daddy," I heard her say, dismissing her father's efforts to help. "I do it." Despite her apparent will of steel, Beanie likes to remind us that she is 'still small'. She is prone to issuing these reminders when she perceives that her parents are giving too much attention to her smaller sister. Looking through some of her old toddler clothes the other day, I asked her: "How does it feel that you're not the baby anymore, Beanie?" She sighed, in a tone approaching resignation, and said: "It hurts." Anyway, yesterday's package cheered her up. It was so large that Beanie's diminutive stature meant she had to part-drag, part-carry it through to the bedroom. It was a bit like Christmas - lying in bed, waking up and already unwrapping a package that turned out to contain the most fabulous chocolate. Like Christmas, except for the glorious sunshine filtering through the curtains. The kind people at Hotel Chocolat, who specialise in chocolate gifts, had sent us a box of Exuberantly Fruity chocolates to sample. It was a good start to the day. Va-vay is fond of both chocolate (cocoa pods are pictured, above) and fruit, and nothing if not exuberant in personality (except when his laptop breaks down) so this was the perfect treat for him. He headed off to work in anticipation of gourmet delights later. Beanie's younger sister Button was delighted too - with the cardboard wrapper containing the chocolate box, and sat on the bed boffing at it. After lunch Beanie selected a Baltic Truffle, an understandable choice if I tell you if was sprinkled with fruity sugar - not just any old fruity sugar but pink fruity sugar. I had a Blackcurrant Bombe, and my mouth is watering as I sit here writing and remember the intense tang of the blackcurrant, set off by the chocolate's delicate sweetness. Beanie earmarked a Cherry Panacotta for later, swayed by its pink swirly writing. When Va-vay got home he had a manly Cognac and Orange - since he loves dark chocolate. We often joke that we're meant to be together - he loves dark chocolate, I much prefer milk, and we have a daughter who favours the white stuff. We all got a lot of fun and pleasure from the chocolates, which have the added bonus they're made with real fruit - though I doubt they'd qualify as one of your five-a-day. I'd recommend them to anyone looking for birthday gifts. Oh, and they do corporate gifts too. They also have a section of chocolates designed for men and lots of gift ideas. And, as our early-morning experience shows, they deliver.

Posted 10 June 2009 11:42 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Food Fun

Butcher's girl

My husband is a gentle sort of character. A teetotal, poetry-writing chap who would - no, has - crossed a road to rescue a stranded caterpillar. A man who brings me flowers almost weekly, who runs up two flights of stairs to see me and the children in the evenings, who looked after me every step of the way through two difficult pregnancies and a miscarriage, bringing me supper and breakfast in bed, while making endless cups of tea, a man who allows my mother - his mother-in-law - to be a daily part of our family. However, our otherwise idyllic relationship has hit a stumbling block.

It's about diet. He is a committed vegetarian. Since having Button in July I have become a carnivore. I need lots of meat. Not just the odd bacon sarnie. But roast chicken, lamb and steak. Sausages. Burgers. Slices of ham. Daily. For the protein and iron? I don't really know. I just know I MUST HAVE MEAT. Like a junkie needs a fix. The cravings are as bad as in early pregnancy. When I wanted peanut butter, fruit and nut chocolate and strawberry milkshakes. Sometimes together. When I ate mushroom papardelle every night for a fortnight, Washed down with the aforementioned milkshake. Urgh, I feel sick just remembering.

Now I absolutely must have steak. At least every other day. Maybe it's the breastfeeding? Which, by the way, is going well now. After a shaky start. When it hurt so much my tears of pain and frustration were dropping onto poor Button's head.

The problem, well, no, not problem, but, let's say, the dietary challenge is that husband is a veggie of firm principle, unshakeable in avoiding all meat and fish. Shellfish actually makes him violently ill. And he can't bear animal suffering. For years now I've eaten the same veggie diet as him. Mostly for convenience. I can hardly remember the last time I cooked chicken or ate steak, except in a restaurant.

But now I need to produce two meals each evening - one veggie, the other with meat. New for me, and not as easy as it sounds. I am but a novice in the world of carnivores, as events yesterday proved.

It was with some trepidation that I yesterday manoeuvred the three-wheeler buggie containing Button into our local butcher's shop. We passed what I think were probably a brace of dead grouse (well, maybe not, they might have been pheasants, hard to tell; as I said, I'm no expert in the subject, but some manner of colourful, dead feathery birds, anyway). The smell of blood, meat and animal made me want to retch. Again, a happy reminder of early pregnancy.

Bits of guinea fowl, partridge, venison, veal, wild boar, haggis, black and white puddings lay in front of me, wrapped in plastic, the blood seeping to the edges of the packets.

"Can I help you?" asked one of the several men in bloodied uniforms behind the counter.

"Well, the thing is I need some more iron in my diet. But my husband's vegetarian...."

Cue hysterical laughter from all four men behind counter.

"So you've come here to buy him some meat?"

Mentally I cursed my tendency to talk too much when nervous. But found myself unstoppable.

"No, I haven't. It would need to be something you could serve for one. For me."

"How about a nice piece of liver," said one of the younger of the men. He held up something that looked like a human placenta.

"If you can stomach it," he added, concessionary.

"Errrrr...It's not really my thing, to be honest."

Another female customer piped up with a suggestion. My God. The whole shop was taking an interest in this ridiculous inquiry.

"How about beef stock? You could drink it? Or add it to a vegetable risotto"

Yuck! I thought. Plus, it wouldn't really be a vegetable risotto, would it, if it had beef stock in it? I mean, strictly speaking, Trades Description and all that.

But, brought up in Edinburgh, I said nothing and resorted to my polite laugh. The one that really means she's got to be taking the proverbial. No way am I replacing Twinings English Breakfast with some vile concoction of ground-up cow flesh. No way am I deceiving my poor vegetarian husband into consuming the same. I wanted to talk more about what she meant, but felt we had both the wrong venue and subject for a girly bonding session.

The first, older butcher produced a metal hook from behind the counter, the kind pinning the grouse/pheasants/patridges to the wall, which he waved in front of my face. I really wasn't sure where he was going with this gambit. Then all became clear.

"You could have this. Plenty of iron in this," he guffawed, pleased at his own wit. Oh, for goodness' sake.

Clearly, I have spent too much time with other new mothers, sensitive and thoughtful types who have forsaken high-flying careers for motherhood and take nutrition seriously. I had no idea how to respond to the hook's appearance. No repartee came to me. My hands were shaking. My only ally in this horror of blood, guts and border-line misogyny (or misplaced attempts at humour) was Button. Though only three months old, I sensed a mute sympathy from her. She gave me her crafty sideways look that seemed to say: "Together we're strong enough to get through this difficulty". Anyway, I felt better for looking at her.

I also looked at the other female customer, Beef Stock Woman, expecting a brief eye-meet between us, expressing shared horror at the medieval attitudes of these people, but nothing came back. I lowered my gaze. I couldn't help but suspect she was offended at my lack of warmth in response to her beef stock sally. And, although she could not have been in more than her mid-thirties at most, she had a shopping trolley with wheels by her side. Yes, one of those trollies. Like the ones people's grannies used to own. An indicator, just perhaps, that she and I might not see eye to eye on humour.

"Perhaps I'll just have some fillet steak," I said, injecting an artificial jollity into my voice, pride forcing me to try and preserve the pretence that I was in control of the sitation.

"Aye," said the older butcher, nodding as if I was a teenager who had seen sense at last, bowing to parental widsom on the dangers of late nights, bad boys and lentils. "How much would you like?""

We settle on a slab that would fill half a large frying pan.

I pay. But by this point I am so flustered by being plunged into this alien world that I drop some of my change. My eyesight is especially poor at the moment and I feel even more panicked than before. But, somewhat to my surprise, it is the first, older butcher, the one who thrust the hook in front of me, who insists on coming out from behind the counter to help me look for the missing coin. Even though it takes some minutes, and I suspect his eyesight isn't much better than mine, he sticks with the search until we find the money. All 5p of it. I feel relieved by the man's kindness. The world is a better, nicer place than I was beginning to suspect.

As Button and I (finally) reverse out of the shop, I catch another glimpse of the grouse/pheasant/indeterminate birds, still hanging on the wall where they were when we came in, having failed to attract any takers. Not only dead, but unwanted too. Oh dear. But perhaps I had more allies in the shop than I first feared. For was it my imagination, or did one of the birds give me a wink as I wheeled the buggy past her? Help comes in unexpected places, at unexpected times. We exit. I breathe deeply.

Posted 30 October 2008 14:51 | Number of comments: 14 | Comments

Angst Breastfeeding Edinburgh Etiquette Food New baby

Free fruit in pregnancy

Pregnant women and pre-school children are to be given free fruit, as part of a Scottish government £40m initiative to tackle obesity over the next three years. I'm hoping this means a fruit basket could be on its way over as I type.... I could quite fancy a kiwi, mango or papaya with my tea.

Posted 24 January 2008 18:24 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Food Health

Hell's kitchen

"I've got us a lovely supper," warns Va-vay.

"Oh yes, love, what's that?" I say from my bed, trying not to glance at the 'sick bin' that rarely leaves my bedside these days. Some days the mere idea of food is enough to make me hurl. I'm hoping today isn't one of them, though the rising bile at the back of my throat suggests otherwise.

"Spinach and potatoes," he announces.

"And?" I think, waiting for him to unveil the crowning glory of our evening meal that he's led me to believe awaits.

Some salmon? Steak? Even bean burgers or pasta would be alright. Maybe stew or pizza?

The pause stretches on uncomfortably long.

"Were you expecting... something else?" he starts, accusingly.

"No! Spinach and potatoes. How... lovely."

"I'm going to cook the potatoes so they come out all fluffy. You know how I showed you the other day, when you make them explode." Va-vay's little-boy enthusiasm for the ways of the kitchen is sometimes endearing, on other occasions (this one) just perplexing and annoying.

Briefly, I remember Va-vay doing a Nigella on me and bashing an innocent-looking baked potato with the blunt handle of a carving knife, because, or so he said, doing so led to a superior interior texture of spud. I tried to marvel at the sight of the thing's innards spread across the plate, but couldn't see quite what we were meant to be excited about.

"I thought that would be a good supper," he says, going all huffy.

"It is! It will be," I say, with a touch too much jollity.

He disappears into the kitchen. For much, much longer than it would take to cook some spinach and get some baked potatoes going. Eventually, well over an hour later he reappears.

"There's been a small delay," he says.

"What's going on?" I ask meekly.

"Oh, nothing," he says airily, as if I couldn't be expected to understand. "Just the potatoes cooking."

At nine thirty - more than two hours after Va-vay got home - supper makes it entrance. I'm desperate for food, as I alternate between cravings and aversions to the stuff.

"This isn't baked potatoes," I point out, in what even I realise to be a statement of the blindingly obvious.

"I could tell from your tone of voice you didn't want baked potatoes. So I've made this instead!"

"This" turns out to be potato and spinach gratin. Unfortunately, undercooked potato and spinach gratin.

We try to ignore that fact as we sit up in bed and listen to each other crunch through the potato. I wonder if a wobbly lower crown will survive the night. My mind turns to the Irish potato famine.

"Are you enjoying it?" asks Va-vay, in utter defiance of any realistic observation of the situation.

"Va-vay, I don't mean to be ungrateful or anything, but it's a bit undercooked."

"No, it's not!"

"Look, I'm sorry, but it is undercooked."

"Then just don't eat anymore," he tells me.

Sad to say, I'm so hungry I would eat a bag of mouldy old potatoes by now. I push on through to the end, then fall asleep.

A couple of days later, Va-vay has recovered his good humour and admits the gratin was not his finest culinary hour.

"Why didn't you just do the baked potatoes like you said?" I ask him.

"I wanted to do something nice for you," he says. "I could tell you didn't want a baked spud and spinach. It's alright for me, being a veggie face. You wanted something else." My heart wells.

Later, I confide in him that I'm nervous about a big Christmas meal with assorted people I haven't seen in months.

"You don't have to go," he says.

"I do, Va-vay. Really, they're expecting me to be there."

"If you stay here, I'll cook you a nice potato gratin."

He knows the way to a woman's heart, that man.

Posted 13 December 2007 14:52 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Food Husband Mistakes

Jammin'

For years, I aspired to be a domestic goddess. I had all these fantasies about how when I got married I would practise the arts of cooking, knitting, patchwork, pottery, quilting, tapestry, gardening and jam-making.

My future life as wife and mother was so perfect in my singleton imagination. I was going to be the kind of earth mother who made her own organic stock from scratch, could run up a pair of curtains on her machine and had a pasta-maker I used, oh, more than once. Since I only got married at 37, I had a long time to polish up the fantasies, without much of a reality check. Now here I am at the coal face. And I realise how very difficult a job being a good housewife can be. This stuff is tough. Much, much tougher than people acknowledge. But I'm no quitter.

Here is my progress report so far.

1. Cooking

Two or three nights a week I manage a proper home-cooked meal for Va-vay. The rest of the time it's ready meals via M&S. Beanie is refusing to eat anything I cook her. She downs her spoon and bangs on the table for Petit Filou. It's pretty dispiriting. I try not to take it personally.

2. Knitting

Reasonable success here. I've made Beanie a blanket, stuffed hippo and monkey and am half-way through a cardigan for her.

3. Patchwork

Zero progress. Nul points.

4. Pottery

Attended class. Managed to make and glaze large plantpot, of which I am disproportionately proud. I love it. Gave Va-vay evil looks when he suggested re-patriating it to one of his cupboards.

5. Quilting

Thought about going to class. Decided against, on grounds of lack of time.

6. Tapestry

Have stitched in another tulip on a canvas I bought four years ago. My sister came round. Looked at the canvas. Said: "Is there any woman in the world who doesn't have a half-finished tapestry kicking round somewhere in the house?" I don't know. Is there?

7. Gardening

Have applied for an allotment. Estimated waiting time: five years. They are all the rage in Edinburgh after Antonia Swinson wrote her enchanting book about them, You Are What You Grow. Meantime, I have geraniums.

8. Jam-making

Have tried hard here, with mixed results. Two nights ago I made my first attempt at this, after Granny gave me two pounds of plums from her garden. It was all going so well.... then we got to the part where the recipe said to turn the heat up as high as it will go, and then in seconds my beautiful red jam turned into caramelised brown treacle (pictured). Gutting. It's still edible, despite being carbonised.

Other News

I've been lucky enough to get a couple of awards recently.

Lovely Omega Mum at 3kidsnojob, a daily must-read for me, kindly gave me this one:

Many thanks, Omega Mum. There are lots of people I'd like to award it to. I've decided I'd like to pass it on to DJ Kirkby, since her blog Novel with No Name has got me so involved I'm hopping up and down with rage at what's happening to her heroine, a new mother with a less-than-supportive husband.

Lou at the Wonderful World of Anna Gibson was good enough to give me this Nice Matters award. Lou has a young daughter close in age to Beanie and writes about so many experiences I've had as well. Her blog has helped me realise I'm not alone in many of my fears and worries about being a new mum. Many thanks for the award, Lou. Much appreciated.

I'm sorry I couldn't award this to more people. In the end, I've had to choose two, so here goes: I'd like to pass it on to Erica of Littlemummy and British Parent Bloggers, because I enjoy her blogging tremendously, she truly is a nice person and we're friends.

I'd also like to give it to Vicky, of Little Legends, the free guide to places for kids in the UK, and Manic Mama, an entertaining mamalogue about life looking after her three little boys.

Posted 12 September 2007 22:16 | Number of comments: 16 | Comments

Activities Blogging Domestic chaos Food Older mother

World's oldest dad

Age is all in the mind. Or so the world's oldest new dad would say. He has fathered his 21st child at the age of 90, and says he plans to continue breeding for at least another decade. After reading about these exploits I feel I hardly even qualify as a slightly older parent, despite having The Bean at 38. Next to this guy, I'm an upstart.

Nanu Ram Jogi, a farmer in the Indian state of Rajistan, told The Times he can't remember exactly how many children he's produced with his four wives but estimates he has twelve sons, nine daughters and at least twenty grandchildren. He attributes his success to eating all kinds of meat: rabbits, lamb, chicken and wild animals. "There is a dense forest around the village," he told the paper. "I go hunting most days and eat whatever I catch." The only slight hitch to meat eating in my home is that my husband, who's 39, is staunch vegetarian. So while we're loving the veggie cooking ideas from Lily and Chew, there's no chance of imitating Nanu Ram Jogi's lifestyle. Perhaps just as well.

Posted 23 August 2007 10:58 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Dads Food Older mother

Food fight

Following my Wednesday rant here about how nonsensical it is to blame working mums for the rise in child obesity, it seems the food companies are getting worried they might end up taking the rap after all. Maybe passing the buck to working mums isn't, errr..., working so well.

Eleven US food firms are about to announce voluntary self-regulation on how they advertise to children. The UK's Chartered Institute of Marketing is urging British companies to follow suit. The Institute's David Thorp said: "Companies must now face up to their responsibilities and decisions must include the likely impact on society. Responsibility no longer ends at the retailer's shelf and those who market to children must look for ways of promoting a more healthy [sic] diet and lifestyle."

I'm sure the thought never crossed their minds that voluntary self-regulation was a palatable pre-emptive to legislation. Still, any development that stops the ridiculous suggestion that working mothers are responsible for children's expanding waistlines is welcome.

Posted 27 July 2007 14:03 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

Food Guilt Work vs mothering

Leave us mums alone

The children of working mothers are more likely to be obese or overweight, says a new study. Around a quarter of the 13,000 children studied by the Institute of Child Health in London were overweight or obese by the age of three. No prizes for guessing who's allegedly to blame.

"Long hours of maternal employment, rather than lack of any money, may impede young children's access to healthy foods and physical activity," said the researchers.

The more successful mothers are, the worse the problem, which I find hard to believe. Children in households earning £22,000 to £33,000 were 10% more likely to be overweight than in households earning under £11,000.

In the last 25 years stay-at-home mothers have fallen from nearly 55% of the total to just 21%.

Reading studies like this, I wonder why working mothers seem to attract more flak than convicted criminals/fraudsters/estate agents.

What's behind these studies that attempt to guilt-trip hard-working and loving mothers, doing their best to keep a roof over their families' head?

Why don't we see reports criticising the government for lack of affordable, flood-free UK housing that would mean more mums could stay at home?

Or a study calling for better-paid, higher-status part-time jobs, with more flexible working, that would mean fewer parents have to work full-time?

Or more criticism of the food giants that make their money peddling fatty convenience foods to young kids?

Leave us mums alone, I say.

Posted 25 July 2007 12:51 | Number of comments: 21 | Comments

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Food, food, glorious food

Cevennes hills My friend and fellow Edinburgh blogger Erica from Littlemummy, one of my favourite parenting sites, has tagged me in a food meme. Yum, yum, yum! Lots of lovely food in my tummy! So has dear DJ Kirkby from Exquisite Dreams (and Random Ramblings from an Anxious Mind) and Adventures of a Wild Hippie Child.

Ladies, are you trying to tell me something?!!! Well, okay, I confess, you've got it right. I am fond of my nosh. Though I'm not that large..... actually I'm normal-sized (but tall).

The Hippie Child blog, by the way, is excerpts from DJ's fascinating and colourful novel in progress about her bohemian childhood. Anybody who liked Esther Freud's enchanting child's-eye view novel Hideous Kinky would do well to head over there and have a read. It's good stuff.

DJ's already changed the food meme rules, so I'm feel less bad that I'm going to write about one of my favourite eating places, as well as restaurants (as requested in the original meme). I didn't even know what a meme was until a few days ago. Oh, the shame of it. Here goes, then.

1. Hilltops (like those in the picture!)

Even the grottiest cheese sandwich tastes like manna from heaven if you've had to climb a hill before eating it. Same for a thermos of tea. Warming, refreshing, comforting in the great outdoors. Ordinary in most other places.

I take the time to appreciate food more when I've had to carry it on my back up a gradient all morning. And I've worked up an appetite. The last mangled sandwich I'd throw away at home becomes treasured sustenance outdoors.

Husband and I still rhapsodise about some Waitrose plum tart we shared atop a hillock on the South Downs when we were still "just friends".

2. Sprio & Co, 37 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh

Stylish and friendly Italian cafe in one of Edinburgh's loveliest streets. It rubs shoulders with the second-hand shops that reportedly inspired Edinburgh writer Anne Fine, author of Madame Doubtfire. It's like stepping into a small slice of Milan. The owners put real love and attention into the food. And being Italian, they love children!

3. A Room in the Town, 18 Howe Street, Edinburgh

Great for larger get-togethers. Convivial and bustling. Its big mural, pictured (left), gives an idea of what to expect. We go mostly at weekend lunchtimes, nowadays with The Bean. Lovely, warm atmosphere. Great food - at surprisingly reasonable prices. Meals work out cheaper than at Pizza Express. Locally-grown produce. Lovely, friendly staff. They still tease me about waddling in there 42 weeks pregnant with The Bean.

4. Petit Paris, 38

Posted 10 July 2007 22:33 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Daughters Edinburgh Food Fun Husband Out and about

Never-good-enough Mum

You just can't get it right as a parent. Hours of my life spent grafting at the coal face of motherhood, hacking up wholesome organic vegetables and reducing them to pureed slime, of which my daughter might, on a good day, consent to eat a grudging spoonful, and now look what happens.

I finally master an RSS feed from the BBC and one of the first things I see today is the latest directive from Mothering HQ telling me I've wasted my time, my sweet potatoes and my freezer space by pureeing all this food.

In all honesty I always knew The Bean preferred fromage frais to anything I made. Now it seems that pureed food is not just unpalatable, but bad, bad, bad.

For it seems purees are in fact the work of evil food manufacturers who want parents in their commercial thrall for years to come.

The Unicef Baby-Friendly Initiative almost equates pureeing food with formula-milk makers peddling their evil powder to third-world countries.

Truly, motherhood and martyrdom go hand in hand. I know now how poor old St Sebastian must have felt. Not so much plugged full of unfriendly arrows, as, in my case, pierced to the heart by my own Moulinex whizzing wand, stoned by a flurry of small plastic food receptacles, shamed in the village stocks by the liberal daubing of pureed parsnip thrown at me by my own daughter.

Like all parenting gurus, Unicef wheels out a battery of dire consequences for any parents foolish enough to consider ignoring the received wisdom on pureeing.

You see, babies get addicted to pureed food.

And spoon-feeding babies pureed food is unnatural and unnecessary.

Why, it could delay the onset of their chewing skills. Babies unlucky enough to be fed pureed food by their reckless parents have little control over how much they eat.

Which in turn makes them vulnerable to getting blocked up. Oh, and they could also become fussy eaters in later life.

If Unicef had their way babies would survive on a milk-only diet for six months and then move straight onto solids. Bypassing evil gloop altogether.

I've yet to meet a mother who made it to the six-month mark before breaking out the Organix baby rice. If anyone reading this has a child who made it that far on milk alone, I congratulate you. Please could you let the rest of us know how you managed it.

So, here's my idea, how about we expand the Unicef remit. It could include not just a Baby-Friendly Initiative, but a Mother-Friendly one too.

Ideally, one that publishes research proving what we all know - that once babies are onto baby rice at four or five months, their mums can get a decent night's sleep, without waking twice a night to open up the mini-bar.

Actually, no, forget about baby rice. If I'd known Unicef's ideas on purees sooner there'd have been no mulched-up carrots or rice. No, I'd have served up a nice, tasty steak and chips to my daughter. Start as you mean to go on. Medium rare, I think.... Softer on the (non-existent) teeth that way.

Posted 19 June 2007 02:38 | Number of comments: 22 | Comments

Daughters Food Mistakes Parenting gurus Perfectionism Breastfeeding

Job for life

Apparently if the typical stay-at-home mother were paid for her work, she'd earn the annual equivalent of £70,000, at least according to a set of so-called "compensation experts" based in the US. Unfortunately, the survey doesn't make clear who's going to fork out the moolah for all our hard work. Government? Husband? Children? Will our kids add this to their student loans? But still, it's nice to know we have some earning power left, even if it is mostly theoretical. I first read about this at Manic Mama.

My main objection to this survey, produced by Salary.com, is that I think they've missed quite a few important activities from their list of maternal roles, which falls far short of covering the full job spec. So I've listed a few additional roles they might want to consider next time they're doing the survey.

This is their list of jobs making up the £70,000 salary: 1. Housekeeper 2. Cook 3. Psychologist 4. Day care centre teacher 5. Laundry machine operator 6. Van driver 7. Facilities manager 8. Janitor 9. Computer operator 10. Chief executive officer (though try telling that one to Dad).

And here are the ones I think they missed. Apologies for some of them being so medieval. Please let me know your thoughts on any others that should be on the list.

1. Nightwatchperson   Okay, gone is the lantern or candle of yesteryear, replaced by more up-to-date equivalents, like the Tomy baby monitor. And it's more dressing gown than big caped cloak and boots. But there's still the same lonely, cold pacing around after midnight, to check that all's well, investigating cries in the night. And what about some extra money for unsociable hours, I'd like to know?

2. Dancer/Singer   Before having my daughter I considered myself a fairly shy and inhibited person, except when drunk. Now I never drink but will sing, dance and cavort almost anywhere if I reckon there's a chance it'll make my daughter stop crying. "Old McDonald had a farm, ey-ay-ey-ay-oh!!!"

3. PR Officer   "You'll never guess what our beautiful daughter did at nursery today! She pulled herself up to standing using just a shoebox for balance!" I almost have to stop myself from issuing a press release.

4. Health and Safety Officer   Detaching Mr Bear's pink nightcap, lest my daughter swallow it, nagging long-suffering husband to nail bookshelves to the wall, covering sockets, hiding toilet cleaner, keeping daughter away from dishwasher and oven, begging kind neighbours not to paint their front door while we're around...

5. Journalist   I've filled notebooks with detailed accounts of my daughter's exploits that I plan to keep for posterity.

6.Nutritionist   Poor performance appraisal here. People brandish Annabel Karmel books at me all the time, and I do my best, but follow her recipes in vain. Actually, I spend ages agonising over my daughter's food intake, still currently limited to apple puree, porridge and bread sticks, because I know it can't be that healthy. Her dad persuaded her tonight to add banana, raspberries and raisins to the list, which she did grudgingly. Anything I cook is a big no-no. Last week I had my head in my hands at suppertime, crying, I felt such a failure for cooking up this food she instantly rejects. She throws it at me, or on the floor.

7. Speech therapist   Daughter: "Haahlaahla" Me: "That's brilliant! Let's say it again." Daughter: "Laaaaaaa" Abrupt stop. Me: "Look, the little monkey in the book is saying 'Hug'. Isn't that clever? Let's try and say 'Huuuuuuuug'." I could go on.

8. Stylist   It's not as easy as it looks to achieve that casually thrown together boho-chic look for the under-twos. Especially when the under-two in question is determined to shed socks, shoes and cardi wherever she can, before regurgitating Annabel's rejected gloop onto her top.

9. Entertainments Officer   Playgroup, nursery, "playdates" - urgh, terrible expression, park. It all takes organisation, you know, even if the babies and toddlers mostly ignore one another at these various social events, except to "borrow" each other's toys.

10. Nurse   Bathing gunky eyes in salt water, kissing scratches better, clearing up sick, administering Calpol. Oh, I forgot, nurses are like stay-at-home mothers, another largely disempowered social group, being (mainly) female carers on a low wage.

Posted 20 May 2007 20:11 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

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Home working: 10 drawbacks

Much as I hate to use this dreadful terminology, I joined the ranks of 'WAHMs', or 'Work at Home Mums', when Katie reached ten months. Before that I was a full-time 'SAHM' (Stay at Home Mum), though I didn't even know it at the time - it's only since I got back to work and had a chance to waste time browsing the net I found out all these new terms. The first six months looking after Katie I didn't miss work at all. Then my friends starting going back to work, one by one, and I got lonely.

Often when I'm talking to people about my work (journalism), they say something encouraging about how it must be easy to do that from home, combining it with looking after the baby. Well, it's not.

In my experience, the reality is that homeworking is really only for people with iron self-discipline, who are motivated and well-organised and aware of the drawbacks as well as the benefits. I am not one of those people.

Listed below are some of the things to bear in mind if you're thinking of becoming a work-at-home-parent. Most are based on personal experience, some from talking with other parents who live, work, eat and sleep in the same small flat.

Today I've written about some of the disadvantages to being a 'WAHM'.

It's not all doom and gloom. There are very real upsides to working this way. Please visit the site tomorrow, to read about the benefits to young parents of working this way.

DRAWBACKS TO BEING A 'WAHM'

1. Don't be deceived into thinking you'll spend more time with your children this way.

You won't. You still have to organise proper childcare for them. Anything else, and you're shortchanging yourself, your clients and them.

2. Home-based childcare will make it impossible to focus on your work

If you choose home-based childcare (for example Granny or childminder coming to your home), you'll find it hard to knuckle down while your children are playing next door.

3. Sleepy head. Just had lunch? Feeling like a little nap?

I'll put my head down for ten minutes. Oops. The afternoon just slid away again. All those hours gone, taken up with what was meant to be a short snooze. And no work to show for it at the end.

4. You may think you're only working two days, but will your clients and contacts?

Once, an all-important contact I was chasing like mad at the start of the week called back unexpectedly a few days later at the nadir, nay, the very trough of my day - Katie's supper-time.

6. You get landed with most of the housework

I'm really lucky in that my husband more than pulls his weight around the house. But being at home all day, I still end up loading, unloading dishwashers, vacuuming, cleaning away dishes, wiping worktops, and doing the endless laundry. As soon as I've done it, it all needs doing again. And it's so very, very dull.

7. Lack of company

It's lonely, being at home on my own all day. Chatting to the postman and the old lady two doors down doesn't fill the gap. Even my husband starts winding up phone conversations after ten or 15 minutes. It's why I've turned to blogging. You start to fall behind professionally, as well, if you're not in offices where you can keep up with latest ways of doing things.

8. You've got to have real self-discipline to get through the work

Otherwise the lure of the biscuit tin will get me every time. I falter and stumble, but have to keep things together because I need the work.

9. I can't appreciate my home anymore, it's also my place of work

I spend too much time here. I notice every piece of dirt, every crumb. I need to go on holiday before I can enjoy where I live again. Home's stopped being a retreat.

10. It's hard to draw a line under the end of each day.

Is it obsessive-compulsive to check emails at midnight?

Posted 08 May 2007 12:18 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

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Pros and cons of nursery life

Having spent the last few days fuming at stories about greedy 'have-it-all' mothers repenting their wicked career-minded ways by shunning nurseries and staying home to look after their kids, here are some of my thoughts on the pros and cons of nurseries, based on personal experience.

PROS

Making switch from bottle to breast

It was nursery staff who first persuaded my daughter, then aged 10 months, to take a bottle, something I'd been trying for weeks, with no success. Since then she hasn't looked back. I was beginning to fear I'd be breastfeeding at the school gates. Thanks to that breakthrough, people have now stopped saying things like: "Did you see that programme on extraordinary breastfeeding?"

Healthy balanced diet

At home, K survives on a diet of porridge, apple puree and biscuits. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying on my part. I have my Annabel Karmel cookbook and I'm not afraid to use it. But I cook up spaghetti bolognaise, fish pasta and cauliflower cheese in vain. Even my old stand-by of sweet potato and chicken is out of favour. However, the nursery staff can get her to eat chicken papaya, no less. I've been asking for tips on how they do it.

Keener to walk

Don't know if peer group pressure is altogether a good thing, but it seems to me that since K has seen other children about her age, or a bit older, starting to toddle, she's keener to do the same.

CONS

These probably reflect my shortcomings as much as the nursery's, but here goes:

Separation anxiety (mine, not hers)

I haven't quite come to terms yet with my daughter being pushed around the streets of Edinburgh, in the nursery's three-seater buggies, by someone other than me. The thought I might bump into her out on a walk at lunchtime is wierd.

She's comes home smelling of someone else's perfume.

Disconcerting. I get a bit jealous. But I also take this as a positive, since it means that she must be getting lots of cuddles.

It's painful to be disabused of fantasy everyone loves K as much as me

Almost all the people who look after her at nursery are fond of her. Everyone is well-disposed to her. Nobody, strangely, seems aware of how special and wonderful she is.

Picking up bad habits

No long after starting nursery K started sucking thoughtfully on pieces of toast, before allowing them to slither out her mouth and down onto her front, where they linger, transformed into repellant brown slugs. Could never prove it, but suspect it's a lark she first saw at nursery.

Hotbed of germs

Babies pick up every bug going as soon as they start at nursery.

You can't get the days or times you necessarily want

Which seems to contradict the story about all these empty nursery places left vacant by repentant career women.

Posted 02 May 2007 11:04 | Number of comments: 3 | Comments

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Teatime shift the hardest in mothering

The hardest shift in mothering is late afternoon. The stairs to our second-floor flat become steeper than only hours earlier, as my daughter and I struggle up them to face the shared daily ordeal of tea, bath and bed-time. I clockwatch as the minutes crawl by from 5.30pm to 7pm, awaiting my husband's return from work.

Tea-time last night was fraught. Unlike we adults K does not engage in social pretensions. When she doesn't like food, she waves it away with an imperious gesture. I admire her honesty, as well as resenting it.

Enthroned in her ergonomic high chair, which I wish I could say I scrub down nightly, but don't, she watched me scrabble in the freezer for food, heat it, decant it, and ferry it to her. Cue the dismissive wave. Still just 5.30pm? Surely not.

Sweet potato and chicken was rejected, before she relented slightly and consented to eat a little. Apple puree got a warmer reception. Her biscuit was an outright success. She placed it in her hand, then put her bunched up fist, containing the biscuit, in her mouth, and sat like that for about ten minutes, sucking in a contemplative fashion.

At 5.45pm my husband got home and caused me to rethink my views on this time of day. For in his hands was a bunch of luminous pink roses, for me.

Posted 28 April 2007 06:39 | Number of comments: 0 | Comments

Daughters Home Husband Food

Daddy on porridge strike

I have to wonder about the wisdom of complete candour in these posts. After making fun of J for his fanatical concern about K's morning porridge intake, he's done what any sensible person would and downed his spatula, tidied away his recipes and gone on porridge strike.

He hasn't actually mentioned my cheekiness, but said with unusual firmness a couple of days ago that K needed milk, not porridge, first thing, the time when he's looking after her, and would I mind doing her "pairritch", as Robert Louis Stevenson calls it in Kidnapped. So when I got up this morning, just before he set off for work, the Jordans Organic Porridge Oats lay unopened on the worktop, awaiting my ministrations.

I forgot to ask him before he left for the recipe he created to make specially small baby-sized quantities and couldn't face ploughing through the crusty recipe books where he might have left it, so decided to wing it. As I might have mentioned, I'm not really much of a morning person, and this turned out to be a mistake.

First I tried the porridge in the microwave but it all boiled over so there was nothing left in the bowl. Like a porridge volcano, really. I wiped up all the mess with kitchen towels.

I thought it might be easier on the hob, but had to keep adding more oats, as it looked too runny. It still didn't look right and the oats somehow bloated outwards, which meant I had to add lots more milk to get the texture like I'd seen it when J made it.

Unfortunately I ran out of the full-fat milk that K's meant to have in her food and had to resort to semi-skimmed, before I ran out of that too, and got the skimmed out. Of course, what with hunting around in the fridge for milk, it all burnt horribly and even now, as I write this several hours later, the pan is still sitting in the sink, waiting for me to scrub it out.

The quantities came out wrong too, but I've dolloped scoops of the stuff into little plastic boxes and put them in the freezer. K seemed happy enough with what I finally produced for her, though not as ecstatic as I might have hoped given the effort involved. I'm wondering how I can face serving up more of the same frozen gloop. As a Scot, I don't think I have much choice. This is my country's national dish. I shall have to show some Scottish grit and return to the oat face tomorrow.

Posted 23 March 2007 14:12 | Number of comments: 0 | Comments

Food Home

On weaning

"When do you think I'll stop actually making milk?" I ask J, as we discuss plans to wean Katy completely.

"I don't know," he replies. "I have no direct experience of the subject."

Posted 11 March 2007 21:03 | Number of comments: 1 | Comments

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