Tomorrow I turn twenty six

I know everybody says this, but it definitely feels like I should have things a bit more sorted than I do now. I’m at least supposed to have taken the first tentative steps towards my career or a goal of some kind, aren’t I? It’s not like I have done nothing over the past 8 years (JEEEEZZZ! Has it been that long?), but life has definitely got in the way. I was going to give you a quick run down, but it ended up not being so quick so let’s see if I can really cut it down....

School (ill). Leave and get internship. Go travelling, return unwell. First year of uni, ok. Summer travelling, end up in hospital (also get wisdom teeth out), lots of antibiotics. Start second year, get very ill and have to defer. Move home, try lots of remedies, get a little better. Start second year again, get ill again and defer. Get job, goes ok until I get ill. Have to quit. Get better, go travelling. Return (well!) and start second year (again). Get ill within a month and defer year (again). Get job, goes ok until...I get ill. And that pretty much brings us up to now, where I’ve been significantly unwell since this time last year (I remember because it was the week before my birthday in which I decided I had to quit my job again, what a fun birthday present!).

Some other things have happened too, I’ve loved, been heartbroken and then fallen in love again. I actually moved cities in between the first second year and the second second year. I’ve travelled alone through Vietnam and sat on the roof of one of the highest buildings in Hanoi eating sushi. I’ve taken photographs at fetish parties and food festivals, and of course I’ve set up Charley’s Little Kitchen (a children's cookery school in case you don't know). But as I sit here now, I don’t really feel like I have gotten any further than I was a year ago, or even a few years ago. I’ve learnt a lot, and yes that counts. But in all the ways that society measures success I have achieved nothing. I’m less financially independent now than I have ever  before been in my life. I’m still ‘trying to get better’ when people ask what it is that I do.  In essence, I have nothing to show for myself since I left school. I haven’t even got a degree.

I'm not sure where I was going with this post, it’s starting to sound a bit doom and gloom. I guess it's that society seems to have these ideas for how we are supposed to progress through life. You go to school and get your qualifications. Go to uni and get a degree. Get a job and climb the ladder. Save up and find a wife/husband/non gender defined life partner. Get a house, get a mortgage, have babies... but what happens to those of us that don’t fit in the mold? Who neither get a degree, a job or a husband? What are we supposed to do? I certainly as fuck don’t know, but I made some mighty fine ribs tonight and I think it is a high time for a recipe on the blog...

Barbecue Ribs (that never see a barbecue)

This recipe is more of an art than a science, my measurements are sometimes approximations as I generally go a splodge of this, a splash of that...Also I've recently started using cup measurements because they are just so handy to have, but I've included the ml measurements in case anybody doesn't have 'cups'. 

Pork Ribs (as many as you want to eat, you can always scale up/down the wet ingredients)

½ cup (120ml) soy sauce

¼  cup (60ml) tomato ketchup

2 tablespoons Worcester sauce

¼ (60ml) cup honey

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 clove garlic (smashed to get rid of the skin, but left whole)

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons (sweet) paprika

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 teaspoon cumin

This is a really taxing dish...

Rub the spices onto the pork ribs. This can be done up to a day ahead to really allow the flavours to permeate the meat.

Preheat the oven to 160 C (140 fan) Pour all the liquid ingredients, the bay leaf and the garlic into an ovenproof dish. Ideally one that has a lid (I use a cast iron le creuset style casserole) but this can be improvised.

Place the ribs in the dish and add enough water so that the liquid comes ¾ way up the ribs.  Put the lid on and put them in the oven for 3-4 hours, until the meat is falling away from the bones. Check every hour to make sure they aren’t drying out and give everything a mix around. After two hours, check the seasoning of the sauce. If it is too sweet add more vinegar (for sourness) or soy sauce (for saltiness). If it is too sour/salty, add tomato ketchup and/or honey.

For the last 20 minutes, take the lid off so that the sauce can caramelise and coat the ribs in its sweet and yummy stickiness.

And now it is time for me to go to sleep, because it is already my birthday! I'll also be updating this with pictures of the ribs, but I cannot for the life of me find my connecting cable at the moment...

A few recent Victories

Today hasn’t been a great day, I’ve not been able to get to an appointment in London and as I result I’m not feeling too pleased with myself. When I first sat down to write something today misery and self doubt were plaguing my words and what I was writing was just reinforcing the negative emotions that I felt. So instead of allowing myself to wallow in that I have decided to write about recent victories in my life. Though some of these may not seem like achievements to other people, they’ve all been accomplishments in my life that I wasn’t certain I could achieve. I’ll go from the most recent back.

I just poached an egg to perfection for a light dinner. I love English asparagus season! Ok, perhaps this wasn't something I doubted of myself, but I still love the satisfaction of cooking something perfectly.

Sorry for the iphone pic!

I got out both days this weekend to see two old friends for lunch, enjoyed good food and got to catch up with people. It wasn't very long ago that I wasn’t getting out of the house more than once or twice a week - either because I wasn’t feeling physically up to it, or because anxiety was stopping me - so this is a big step forward.

I spent the evening at my boyfriend’s house. Maybe this is not something that most people would call an achievement but recently my ‘safe zones’ have been getting smaller and smaller and I haven’t spent an evening at somebody else’s home for three or four months previously.

I think I have finally perfected the French fry. Crispy, fluffy, soft in the middle and not too oily. I’ll be posting a recipe on here very shortly.

My sister’s wedding cake. Like a crazy person I decided to offer to make my sister’s wedding cake. It’s not like I’d ever made any kind of large or tiered cake before, but hey, how hard could it be?! Well luckily it wasn’t too stressful (Mr SF is laughing right now!) and I was so pleased with the way it turned out. The flowers and petals are all handmade from edible flower paste (similar to fondant but stronger and more elastic) and the layers are as follows...The bottom is a chocolate sponge with salted caramel swiss meringue buttercream, the middle is lemon and poppy seed with a lemon SMB and the top is coffee sponge with caramel SMB. The whole cake was eaten and the chef said he'd never known that to happen to a wedding cake!

Wonderful photos courtesy of Lisa Dawn photography (http://www.lisadawn.co.uk)

My sister’s wedding. Having not made it to any of the dress fittings or the hen party because of both pain and anxiety, there was definitely a concern that I wasn’t going to make it to the wedding at all. But I did! And more importantly I had the most wonderful weekend and would have been devastated not to see my sister so wonderfully happy and welcome her man (Mr Sister?) into the family.

So there we go, instead of thinking about what I haven’t done, today I am concentrating on what I have done recently. That and it’s my birthday on Thursday!

Spoonie Helpers

I felt like I should really post a recipe as my first post on this blog, but unfortunately that isn't what ended up coming out on the page when I allowed my fingers to type what they felt. Thus my first post is on my list of kitchen gadgets that will help any spoonie foodie (or just someone who doesn't enjoy hand mixing!).

Being a spoonie means that  energy is something of a precious resource and this doesn’t always correlate with what i want to cook or eat. Sometimes this means that I have to scale back my grand ideas or put them aside for another day altogether, but for all the other times I have these little helpers to save my spoons.

Essential

A high stool/chair. High enough that it means you can work at the counter without standing. Perhaps not much of a gadget, but essential none-the-less. I don’t use this too much whilst chopping and prepping, but if I need to stand over a pot stirring, or if I’m using my electric hand mixer, this is vital to ensure I don’t wear myself out. I want to add some wheels to it too, which would mean I don’t have to ask the boy to carry it around for me (plus, chairs with wheels are always fun!).

Electric hand mixer. Without this I couldn’t make cakes, meringues, whipped cream or anything that involve beating or whisking. I will warn you that although this saves loads of spoons, it still can tire your arm out holding it above the mixing bowl. Also – ALWAYS start on the lowest speed possible, otherwise you’ll be in a cloud of flour and sugar!

Mini chopper. The next best thing to a food processor. This can chop vegetables into rough dice, mince garlic and ginger and even make peanut butter. Although it is easy to over chop some vegetables which can turn them into mush, with some practice this can become your best friend.

Stick blender. This is necessary for anybody, not just spoonies.

Optional

Food Processor. Ideally one that slices, grates and chops (mine also cuts chips and has a blender. I got it free from freecycle, but Asda sells one without these extras for £15. Boot sales and charity shops are great places to pick up a kitchen bargain). Once you slice your potatoes for dauphinoise in the food processor once, you’ll wonder why you would ever do it by hand! Although this isn’t in the essentials list, it has opened up a whole new world of food for which I wouldn’t usually be able to put in the prep work, particularly when cooking for a crowd.

Dishwasher. I know that the majority of people probably don’t have the choice in whether or not they have a dishwasher, but getting this installed in my kitchen is BY FAR the best decision I made to enable me to cook. If you live with other people why not exchange your cooking for their clearing up? Without somebody or something to wash my dishes, my kitchen would be revolting and I would never be able to cook like I do today.

Kitchenaid Stand Mixer. Ok, so I accept this is a MASSIVE luxury and it is my most prized possession. However I cannot explain how this has been able to transform what I can do in the kitchen. For one, I’ve been able to tackle baking techniques I’d never have dreamed of before. I use it nearly every day for everything from recently making my sister’s wedding cake (!!!) to kneading bread (homemade bread had long ago become something I just didn’t have the energy/strength for and is something that I missed greatly). Kitchenaid is by no means the only stand mixer around and although I can’t attest to any of the others, anything that stops you having to hold an electric mixer over a bowl for twenty minutes or is able to knead bread for you is going to transform your cooking, spoonie or not!