Last year I had my own tree but I couldn't find the perfect angel for the top of it. Instead I just put a bow on the top. This year while out doing the christmas shopping I've kept my eye out.

I've found her!

She's actually a work in progress at the minute as she had the most hideous dress on. I found her in Pound Stretcher so the fabric was rather tacky and her wings were awful! But she has the most beautiful china face and hands and a lot of potential. She looks sort of like disney's Cinderella. I have taken her dress off and put her back together again (with a chemise for now!) I've designed the perfect wings for her and now I've just got to get fabrics and put together her gown. She's going to be silver and white and sort of regency in style as that looks like her style. I've named her Angeline.

I'm kind of glad I haven't found the perfect ready made angel as now I'll be able to put my own spin on her and she will be mine completely, something I made rather than bought and she can be with me for the rest of my life!

I got a new phone, yay! Only since I've had it about 24 hours now I'm spending most of my life clutching the user manual, which is pretty damned useless, and googling things. It's a Samsung Jet and it is very pretty and speedy and since I have almost no signal in the house I can use all the pretty widgets and stuff over the house wifi... it does many other things but I haven't firgure those out yet.

I cooked dinner tonight and it was absolutely delicious. Complicated and fiddly but absolutely bloody delicious! I'm working on a theory that swearing a la Gordon Ramsey makes food taste better coz I swore like a trooper putting these together!!!

That is all. I have reached the point with christmas stuff where talking about it here is risky as people may see what they're getting!

When I was in France in September I bought a kugelhopf mould coz they're pretty. (I'm not so much a fan of eating the stuff but I love the look of it!!!) I have been searching on and off for instructions for how to temper it before I use it. Finally tonight it has occurred to me to search in bloody French!!! The English speakers obviously don't have a clue but it's a French thing so they will have the answer! Why did it take me so long to think of this???

ETA: Now a whole new world of French food blogs has opened up to me. YUM!!!!

Ha!!! I had to read this email 3 times before I believed I wasn't having a minor fannish breakdown!!!

I was just idly browsing the flist while unable to sleep coz I may stop breathing and came across a meme question, "What is one of your happiest childhood memories?". It's taken me nearly 10 minutes to think of something!!!!!! Now I didn't have a bad childhood. I wasn't beaten or neglected or anything like that. In fact I was spoiled rotten and taken to loads of great places. I DO NOT REMEMBER ANY OF IT!!!!

Eventually after those 10 minutes I came up with a generic 'Holidays in France' and specifically eating crepes from the market in Le Mans every year for about 5 years. (I've visited every major chateaux in the Loire, probably twice. I now have to go back and actually visit them again now I'll remember it.) And I also came up with the time I fell down the steps up the hill at the end of the garden and bounced off my head a good few times. (I've decided this is probably the reason I don't remember much!) Now the bouncing on my head thing hurt and I had an actual bump the size of an egg but what was happy about it was that afterwards I sat on mum's knee with a Mr Freeze on my head, wrapped in a blanket watching The Fraggles. Which is a nice comforting memory.

( Wherein I struggle to remember a whole bunch of things.  )( Read more... )

But I don't remember much about the great things we did. I really had an Enid Blyton childhood and I feel kind of cheated now coz I don't have concrete memories of it. May be that's it. I have a very visual memory. The memories I can remember play out like a video in my head when I recall them. The ones I know to be true have no video to go with them and sometimes not even a picture, just knowledge so I doubt them to be true and give them less worth than the others because of this. Is that odd? Who knows! But whatever the answer I have very few actual memories before the age of 12. After that I've got plenty. Just in time for the horrific embarassment of puberty and growing up and all that entails to kick in! Joy!

I've just posted my 100th recipe over at AnnaintheKitchen! A celebratory chocolate cake. I'm so proud!

There was supposed to be a layer of fondant icing over the top of this but I don't want to talk about it right now. I made it from scratch!!! *sobs*

This one is at least the size I planned... more or less. It makes a lovely centrepiece. If only we didn't usually serve at the table! No idea where it'll go when we eat and Robyn's home for the holidays! Also, I bought a new tablecloth! A wipey plastic jobby! I bought a wee bit too much material but that just means we really won't spill in our laps! I think I'm done for now with the holly. It hurts! My hands are scratched up beyond all recognition, I look like I have some kind of disease! But yeah, taking a break until we decorate properly on xmas eve or Robyn's birthday, whichever I feel like, methinks.

And, yes I'm jumping the gun a little but I have so many projects to do this christmas I need all the time I can get! And I always argue for a first sunday of advent as the kick off, not 1st December as mum says, in any event so it's only a 24hr head start... if you don't count yesterday's one... 48 hours? Look at least I don't start in September like the supermarkets!

No offence to any Americans out there but never do I find the whole "separated by a common language" thing truer than when reading recipes. What's cake flour? Or all-purpose? What's semi-sweet chocolate? Why are you calling that scone a biscuit? What's light corn syrup? Why can't you use weighing scales?

Ok, that last one I totally understand but I'm a clutz so filling cups of flour is the quickest way for me to get it everywhere! Sometimes more complicated is better. But even acknowledging that it is quite a good idea in general why doesn't it convert easier? Whenever I see a recipe calling for 1 cup cake flour, 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 lb semisweet chocolate and 1/2 cup light corn syrup* it doesn't matter how good the finished product looks, I'm outta there! I'm sure it works the other way too and I scare off many Americans but this is my LJ so I'm on my side!

*I wonder what I just made there?

My hands are scratched to hell but I had fun doing it! This morning I picked everything from within a mile of my house then this afternoon I put it all together. Should see us through to Christmas, I love evergreens!

ARGH!!! Why does it have to be so hard???? I've found dozens of things that I want, although nothing I would ask for, but finding things that other people would like is just being needlessly difficult this year. I've spent the last year being a hermit, I don't know what people are into or if that's what they liked last year, I don't know if I see something and go "oooh!" it's because I think it's cool but the person I'd get it for would just be bemused.

I haven't got a clue what to ask for for christmas. What I really really want is a cocker-poo coz I met one while out shopping the other week and fell in love. But I'm not going to be able to get a dog of my own for years yet I should imagine, if ever. I'd also quite like the bright pink Laguiole cake set from Habitat or the Laguiole 'Brights' sets from John Lewis but when I pointed them out in a magazine mum was all dismissive saying that £35 was a ridiculous price for some forks. I see lots and lots of little things but you can't really ask for things so specifically, I just have to assume that my family, having spent 25 years with me, will actually have a clue what I'm into... I'm usually wrong. Ordinarily I'm easy to buy for, if it looks like something you'd find in Cath Kidston I'm sold! But I don't want homeware this year because I have no home. I'm in limbo here and I don't want to get loads of kitchen and home stuff just for it to sit in a box in the garage waiting for life to finally cut me some fucking slack.

I see stuff around and I think it looks good but if I actually ask for something I get told it's not suitable, so no doubt mum'll just buy me whatever she thinks I should have and pay no attention to what I actually want... if only I could make up my mind about what I want. This is yet another lesson I leanred from a young age. Don't ask for what you really want coz you sure as hell won't get it. Perpetual disappointmet is better than hope any day. If life has taught me anything it's that hope is the shittiest emotion going coz there's never any point. Life has fucked me over at every opportunity. Christmas presents are no exception.

( And this is where I veer off on a little emotional breakdown so I'm cutting this.  )

Cake is popular apparently. I just passed 200 views on AnnaInTheKitchen today after posting my Black Forest Cupcakes to food_porn .

200!

Gran's birthday present from us was a trip to the hairdresser for the first time since the war. She always used to cut her hair herself but she's hurt her shoulder recently and can't do it any more. As a bit of a pamper we thought she'd like this. Luckily, she did! I took her this morning to act as translator and make sure she didn't come out with a mohawk or anything.

Then my uncle and aunt and other uncle and I took her for lunch at the village pub. I had to dash off for a few hours as I had an appointment in Northallerton but then I was back for more family time with mum in tow too. I'm lucky, I have a small family and we usually only get together for gran's birthday, used to do christmas too but since Uncle John and Auntie Mavis moved to France and their daughter Claire moved to Wales and had Ellis, now 4, we don't do a big family boxing day anymore. Instead we have gran and uncle Richard (divorced) over for christmas day.

Thank god we don't do this more than once a year coz my family are all batshit crazy and can talk the hind leg off a donkey. You haven't heard rambling til you've sat in a room with my family for 4 hours. Oh and John, the Uncle Knobhead of my family, is apparently writing a book. May god save us all!

The bastard dog just jumped up onto my laptop and has snapped of the bloody Q key!!!!!!!!

Does anyone know if I can get replacement keys online anywhere from the UK?

I phoned the helpline and the guy said I'd have to send the laptop in for an assessment and then they'd probably send it back with a quote coz it's accidental damage and then I could send the laptop back in for repair. Which is fucking stupid! I need a little white clip thing not a whole new sodding keyboard like he said! ARGH!!!! Could cheerfully kill the dog and the "help"line guy too!!!!

ETA: FIXED IT!!!!!!!!!!!! There was a bit of plastic that had flown across the room and once I found that it all went back together again!!! Yay!!! The dog is forgiven, the helpline guy is not.

OMG, I LOVE these things!!!!  I used ot eat these nearly every day in Japan, always had some in my freezer.  They're essentially a little rice cake/ mochi filled with ice cream and they are lovely.  I was bopping about York after my interview (I don't want to talk about it) and found a tiny little oriental supermarket, mostly Japanese stuff too and lo, in the freezer there were the yukimi daifuku!!!  I never thought I'd be able to find them outside of Japan.  Now if only I could find Pino too I'd have all of my Japanese ice cream needs seen to.  Oh and if Mr Donut could launch over here that'd be swell coz I've been craving an angel cream for an age!

Oh yeah, the other thing, we harvested our mushroom crop today!  I bought dad mushroom plugs last christmas and today we ate the delicious results.  Mushroom Bruschetta and pictures of our monster oyster mushrooms over at Annainthekitchen. 

*sigh* I tried to make Italian Brioche/Cornetti this evening.  FAIL. 

When we're in Italy staying with Emily she brings up brioche for breakfast and they are divine!  They're shaped like a croissant but they're made of a delicious sweet bready dough and often have jam inside.  I think they're particular to the Como region.  I have been desperately searching for a recipe to make these lovely things for months and I could only seem to turn up two recipes that even seem to come close.  Well, strike one off the list, it's very nice but it is so not what I was after!

The dough was HELLISH to work with.  I dug out mum's kenwood to do the mixing for me as it was so wet and even then I had to add tonnes of flour to even begin to roll it out.  This dough was a right diva.  Absolute nightmare!  Took me a good 4 hours to get, well it'll do for breakfast tomorrow... and the day after that... and the day after that for that matter (didn't think the recipe was going to give that much as it did, when I wrote it down I got the conversions wrong and then once I'd started had to scramble to get it right).  Anyway, the hunt for a brioche recipe continues.  If I spoke Italian I'd probably be away, alas I don't.  But I'm totally getting Emily to ask the local bakery for their recipe.  Hopefully they'll give it to me on the basis that I'm in another sodding country and can't nab market share!

After weeks of searching for the perfect madeleine tin I gave up and bought the almost perfect madeleine tin.  As a result I have made madeleines twice in the last two days.  I bloody love madeleines!  Essentially it's a sponge but it's so light and airy in little easy bite sized scallop shapes. I may be in love!  Recipe and pics over at Annainthekitchen as always. 

Another discovery was that I am allergic to hyacinth bulbs.  Seriously allergic.  I'm allergic to a lot of things but usually it takes a while before I notice symptoms.  This evening I was putting the bulbs in the bulb vases to force them and within 5 minutes I felt like my face and neck were being bitten all over by ants.  It was awful, spiky, prickly, itchy, nasty!  I was trying to claw off my face within a minute of it starting.  I gulped down an antihistamine and the second I was able I raced upstairs to wash my face, hands and neck and slather on antihistamine cream but it took a while for the redness to fade.  Luckily it wasn't more serious than that but it was the most unpleasant feeling.  I thought the way my hands swell up and itch when I'm exposed to some plastics was bad but this was torture!

I slept for 12 hours and woke up feeling remarkably better.  Hopefully I will continue to be better coz I have an interview next Tuesday for another Legal Sec. job.  I can only hope I get this one.  I haven't been doing much recently other than staying in bed and being ill.  I made bread on wednesday but other than that I haven't even cooked (a major benefit of living at hope, when sick other people cook for you!)  So nothing to report on that front either. 

I did drag myself out to the village bonfire last night though.  It took them an age to get the damned thing lit, it was hilarious!  Back in the day Big Ron would be in charge and put a massive fuel soaked round bale in the middle with little bales leading out the the edge under the rest of the stuff.  It would go up a treat!  Last night no such planning had occured.  They just had a pile of stuff, wet stuff, and a few handfuls of straw.  The best part was when the curate's husband clumbed up the lit bonfire (only parts of it were burning at that point) and grabbed some dry stuff off the top to try and get it going.  Also the bloke with a jerry can of fuel liberally splashing it on the burning heap.  We were just waiting for him to go up in flames but it must have been diesel, or just incredible luck, coz nothing happened... in fact the bit he splashed all over didn't even catch light, it just smouldered a bit round the edges.  The fireworks were, well, fireworks to be honest.  I may have been spoilt for fireworks forever by Chinese new year in Hong Kong.  But, hey, we're a small village we don't really have a budget for anything, it's just a social event with added fripperies like a sausage-in-a-bun (I don't think any of the people on food duty read Pratchett as I was sniggering away to my self).  Anyway, it was fun and having worn myself out in the cold I came home, ate my dinner then crashed. 

Here is the problem:

Can I actually sleep sitting up crosslegged?  I can't stretch my legs out coz the dog is fast asleep at the end of my bed!!  If I move my legs I wake up the dog and he looks so confused and upset and his little sleepy face just says "why?!"  So may be I will keep playing on the internet until the dog moves.  *sigh*  This dog is so spoilt!