New things

Short hair

Yesterday was full of new things:

• a new haircut (I had a whopping 25cm cut off),
• a new mustard-yellow hat,
• and a new little niece. 

All these things are making me very happy indeed.

Mustard-yellow hat

Snowflake pie

It snowed copiously last night.  Which meant that the children were out of the house and chucking snowballs around before breakfast.  They came back in briefly, bolted down some toast while their gloves dried on the radiator, and then disappeared back into the streets and parks of East London to make more snowballs.

Snow wasn't going to stop G from going for a long training run either.  A two hour fifteen minute run through Epping Forest was scheduled and he saw no reason why having to hop through snowdrifts or skid on the ice should stop him.  So he disappeared into the white stuff after breakfast too, wearing all kinds of peculiar technical running gear, designed to keep out the cold.

Home alone, I put on the coffee, switched on the radio and settled down in the kitchen to make a pie while I caught up on The Archers omnibus, Denise Lewis on Desert Island Discs and the latest episode of The Unbelievable Truth.  I love the Radio 4 schedules on a Sunday morning.

My pie had a warm, wintry, simple filling of carrot, potato, celery, onion and corned beef in it, bound together with some herbs and a good squirt of ketchup.  It is one of my favourite recipes from The Hairy Bikers Perfect Pies.  I decorated it with snowflakes and every last scrap of it was eaten up.  It's tiring work being out in the snow.

A day out

Trains are a good way to come home after a day out, because you can stare out of the window and think.  With me on the train late this afternoon were teenagers heading for an evening out, mothers heading home with snuggly toddlers, young men carrying guitars, and weary workers, with supermarket carrier bags hooked over their arms, leaning against the doors.

I wondered about their days and reflected on my own: chatting, listening, sharing, laughing, eating, comparing and relaxing with friends.  We had planned to spend the day crafting, but in the end spent more time eating cake and drinking tea and coffee than knitting.  You know they're good friends when you're too busy laughing to knit more than a row of shawl.

But it was such a productive day in other ways.  I came home with ideas for new things to try, support for the things I am doing right now, and a liberating new technique that will completely revolutionise the way I finish my knitting.

Many thanks to my friends:

• Little Cotton Rabbits
• ...the sight of morning...
• Domesticali
• Dotty Cookie
• Quilt While You're Ahead
• Silverpebble

And especially Dragonfly, for organising us all.

Crunch

I do love coleslaw - but I only realised this a few years ago, after making it myself for the first time.  Shop-bought coleslaw is not to my taste at all: sickly mayonnaise, raw onion and tasteless carrots are the things I complain about most.  But homemade coleslaw is a whole other thing entirely.  Crunchy, fresh, light, full of flavour - it's an energising, satisfying thing to eat - not a weird, creamy garnish to be pushed to the side of your plate.

The key to a coleslaw which I will enjoy eating lies in the dressing.  I knew I didn't want plain mayonnaise, so I experimented with various other dressings - some with mayonnaise and some without.  I eventually settled on a blend of yogurt and mayonnaise, sharpened with cider vinegar and spiced up with a great deal of black pepper.

I love mayonnaise made by the French brand, Maille.  I particularly like this one, flavoured with a subtle hint of mustard.  I bring back several jars of it whenever I go to France, but they sell it in Waitrose too.

I don't like raw onion in coleslaw either - its flavour overwhelms everything else.  A finely sliced spring onion can be a nice addition, although is not essential.  The two key ingredients you need are cabbage and carrots.  I like coleslaw made with any cabbage - red, green or white are all good, although red cabbage does tend to bleed its colour a little and make the coleslaw a pale shade of pinky-purple.  This is not really a bad thing, mind you. 

In its simplest form the coleslaw I make is a quarter of a cabbage, sliced very finely, two fat carrots, peeled and grated, and a spoonful of dressing.  This can be put together for supper or lunch at very short notice - I usually have all the ingredients I need in my fridge.

But coleslaw can be fancified too.  Today I made a cheese and grape version, which was wildly successful.

The List Writer's Crunchy Cheese & Grape Coleslaw

For enough to feed a family of four, you will need:

• a quarter of a large green cabbage, cored and finely sliced
• 2 fat carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
• 50g mature cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
• a small bunch of seedless green grapes, sliced into quarters
• dressing to taste

For the dressing, mix together in a little bowl:

• 1 tablespoon of good mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons of natural yogurt
• 1/2 a tablespoon of cider vinegar
• lots of freshly ground black pepper

Put all the coleslaw ingredients together in a large bowl and mix together with the dressing  - a spoonful at a time until it looks right to you.  Use your judgement here - you may like your coleslaw more or less creamy than I do.  Any leftover dressing, or coleslaw, will keep in the fridge for several days.

Good things to add to simple coleslaw (in place of the grated cheese and grapes above):

• cheddar cheese and diced apple (I find if you grate the apple into the coleslaw the whole thing becomes watery and sour - dicing the apple is a much better idea)
• toasted sunflower seeds and sultanas
• sliced radishes and chopped roasted peanuts
• chopped walnuts (serve this walnut coleslaw with sourdough bread and slices of parma ham - completely delicious)
• a finely sliced spring onion

We eat our coleslaw with all sorts of things:

• cheese on toast
• jacket potatoes
• sandwiches
• peppery cumberland sausages
• a good pork pie from the local butcher

And once every few weeks, when I am feeling in need of a little lunchtime indulgence, I walk up the road to our local Pakistani cafe, buy one of their VERY spicy lamb samosas, and come home and eat it with a big pile of cooling, homemade coleslaw on the side.  It's a crunchy, spicy, flavoursome feast fit for a queen (or king).

I looked away...and when I came back it was nearly the end of winter

Today we start the last month of winter, and as if by magic it feels as though spring is nearly here.  Every year the lengthening of the days takes me completely by surprise.  I look out of the window one late afternoon at the beginning of February, and realise that it is still light outside.  When did that happen?

The view from the sitting room window - 5pm today

It makes me a little sad, because I love winter very much.  I feel more alive and energised in winter, and I drive G mad by flinging open windows, wittering on about how wonderful it is to feel the bracing wind on your cheeks, and enthusing about knitting and woollen garments.

Spring leaf cowl

I have added another winter woollen to my collection today.  This green leaf cowl is the perfect end-of-winter-start-of-spring item.  The glorious acid green reminds me of new spring shoots, and it has an abstract pattern of leaves winding up it.  It was a very quick knit - and should you wish, you can see the full geeky details on Ravelry here.

But my goodness, it's cold enough here in London to need to add woollen things to your neck both indoors and outdoors.

This is me at about 10 o'clock this morning, burrowing into my new cowl to try and stay warm.  By lunchtime I'd added a shawl, a hat, some armwarmers and two pairs of socks to my outfit. I looked like Mrs Tiggywinkle, so I gave in, turned the central heating on and removed a couple of layers.

The days are getting a little longer, but the temperatures are still thoroughly wintry.  This makes me very happy - winter still has a while to go after all.  Now that the cowl is finished I'm turning my knitting attentions back to the sock yarn shawl, which is now so big that it takes me over twenty minutes to knit a row.  I am wondering if it will be ready for its first wear in winter or spring?

The view from here

It is the time of year where I buy a bunch of daffodils every time I happen to be anywhere near a supermarket.  These ones from Waitrose are glorious - a fluffy cloud of yellow sunshine on the mantelpiece for only £1.99.

I have come to realise that if I don't take photographs, I don't write blog posts.  I've been cooking, knitting, writing, stitching, thinking and planning a great deal over the last few weeks, but not blogging about it. I've stayed around the house, and the house is dark, so I've not been taking photos.  But in a way this suits January, which I love for its quietness, wintriness and sense of hibernation.  I'm happy to have some daffs on the mantelpiece and a hot cup of coffee on my desk.  I'll be out in the world again soon enough.

So from my desk, my kitchen, and my computer, this is what I've been doing lately.

• Loving this panoramic photo, taken from London's newest skyscraper, The Shard: http://www.willpearson.co.uk/virtual-tour/shard-360-dusk/ 
• Adoring this blog post from the awesome and talented Teen Granny.  If my daughter ever knits a model of me, I will burst with pride.
• Thinking of a great group of women I met twelve years ago this week.  Some of them are amongst my very closest friends, and two of them have lovely blogs.  I just wish I still lived close enough to Nina that I could pop round for a coffee and eat some of her cakes!
• Cooking in my slow cooker (and not photographing the results). 
• On Tuesday I made lemon chicken: a whole chicken sat on a bed of chopped carrot, onion, fennel, rosemary and garlic, with a whole lemon chopped into chunks tucked underneath too.  150 ml of chicken stock poured over and left on low for about 6-7 hours.  Then chicken removed and the meat pulled off the bone.  We ate the veg, half the chicken and the lemony sauce with rice and peas.  The other half of the chicken will become a pie.
• Yesterday I made Indian potatoes: about 6 big potatoes, peeled and cut into large dice, along with an onion, a tin of tomatoes, a spoonful of curry paste, a spoonful of mango chutney and 100ml of vegetable stock.  Cooked on low for about 5 hours, and then stirred in 100ml of double cream before serving with naan bread, cucumber and yogurt.
• Putting all the postcards we've received this year into a tin, so that in December I can make one of these.
• Loving these two new London food blogs - The Skint Foodie and The London Review of Sandwiches.

And in between, gazing at the daffodils again.

Winter knitting

My knitting basket

This winter I've been steadily knitting.  My basket comes everywhere with me and I knit in the school playground, at a 2 year old's birthday party, at friends' houses, on the tube, and in the evenings while I am watching all this fantastic winter tele that's on at the moment (Sherlock, Call The Midwife, Edwin Drood and Earthflight - what a great month it's been on the BBC).

My Victoriana shawl

Just before Christmas I finished my Victoriana Shawl, and I have worn it pretty much constantly ever since.  I love it - the yarn is soft and thick, the shawl is stylish, and I can use the hairpin I wore at my wedding as a clasp.

Circus socks for C

Last week I finished some socks for C which had been hanging around in my knitting basket for a shocking eleven months.  I don't honestly know why they took me so long - the yarn (a Regia 4 ply sock yarn called Circus) was lovely, the pattern was a straighforward one I'd knitted many times before.  I guess I just wasn't in the mood for socks in 2011.

C loves them though.  I knitted them with growing room, because his feet are practically expanding in front of my eyes at the moment.  They also fit me, so when his feet are so big that the socks no longer fit (which won't be long), I can have them. Cunning heh?

Junior Toast for O

My winter knitting for O has been much speedier.  It only took me a month to knit this pair of purple armwarmers for her.  I used the very popular Toast pattern on Ravelry, and adjusted it to fit her slimmer, shorter arms.  They fit her perfectly and she loves them.  If you want to make Junior Toasts of your own, you can find all the details here.

And now that my knitting obligations to my children have been discharged, I am back on the shawls again.  I am knitting myself a very simple lacy shawl using all the little balls of leftover sock yarn I have. 

Sock yarn leftovers - to become a shawl

I don't know how big the shawl will end up.  I'm just going to keep knitting until I've used up all my leftovers.  The pattern is this one, and is as simple as the name suggests.  I think simple is good with all this crazy multicoloured yarn.

Multicoloured sock yarn shawl

I am hoping to get it finished before camping season, as I think a warm, multicoloured lacy shawl around my shoulders as I sit by the campfire drinking mead, will be just the thing.

10 things

• I have a big bag of kumquats and no idea what to do with them.  We tried eating them raw but they are horrid.
• I don't like making or eating marmalade at the best of times, and I think making it with teeny, tiny kumquats might send me over the edge.
• Check out this recipe.  The writer de-piths and de-seeds the kumquats before turning them into marmalade.  Once I'd seen how tiny the kumquats were, and how many of the little blighters there were in my bag, this task seemed truly epic and way beyond my levels of patience or enthusiasm.
• A friend suggested turning them into a compote, with almonds, which sounded nice.  And simpler.
• But kumquat compote (try saying that quickly) sounds to me like marmalade in disguise.
• Another friend suggested adding them to vodka.
• But I don't really like vodka either.
• The BBC Good Food website - my failsafe recipe search engine - has just three recipes involving kumquats.  One of which uses a single kumquat as a garnish.
• I was wondering if the hens would eat up the kumquats for me.  But I suspect not.
• Any other suggestions of what to do with them would be VERY gratefully received.

Friday afternoon

It is the end of the week and my mind is full.  Full. Of. Stuff.  I feel a little spaced out as I walk to the tube station to pick up O from school.

Everywhere I walk I see patterns.

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The exercise and the cold sunshine did me good and cleared my mind.  This weekend I shall mostly be reading Dombey & Son, in an effort to fill my mind with Something rather than just Stuff.

The ordinariness of January

I love January for its ordinariness - its everyday qualities.  After the excitement, busy pace and indulgence of December I relish the plainness of January.

The first daffs are in my glass vase above the fireplace, good meaty things are in the slow cooker, and I write and read as much as I can, immersing myself in imaginary worlds which contrast nicely with the ordinariness of life in January.

Yesterday morning I went to the British Museum to see the Grayson Perry exhibition, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman.  Visiting this exhibition is to enter into someone else's madly imaginary world.  Perry has created an exhibition celebrating the life of unknown craftsmen through the ages.  The exhibition has a great deal of Perry's work alongside objects from the British Museum's collection, arranged in themes to do with death and the afterlife such as pilgrimage, worship, magic and relics.  

There was so much humour and thoughtfulness in the way the objects were selected and displayed.  I wandered around with a big grin on my face, chuckling at the captions beside the items and the cartoon-like quality of the big, beautiful ceramic pots that Perry has made.  Everybody else in the exhibition was smiling too.  Have a look at the little 2 minute film on this page to hear from Perry himself about what he was aiming to do with the exhibition.  It exceeded my expectations, which were very high to begin with.

His beautiful pastel-pink custom made motorbike, which is on display just outside the exhibition, is anything but ordinary.  It dazzled the senses against the beautifully plain cream stone and clear glass of the rest of the museum's Great Court.

January - I love your ordinariness, and your calm.  But just a little bit of colour and jazz is very welcome too.