Tales of a new lecturer

Thanks Winston

I recently acquired an academic lecturing role, a position to which I have strived for the majority of my adult life (post-I want to write a fiction novel days).

Linked to this I recently had an interesting conversation over a few pints of local ale about belonging to a place. Various international friends discussed where they truly felt that they belonged and why they felt this way. Coming up to the end of my 20s I've begun to think about belonging a lot, it's something that suddenly matters when the haze of dropping everything and moving at the drop of a hat calms down and you begin to value stability. Where do I belong?

During the conversation I began to think back over the adult years of my life. I belonged in Swansea, it was my home, a place that formed me and shaped me into the person I am now. I equally belonged in Australia, a place where I felt my esteem suddenly rose, facing endless challenges that I previously believed were impossible with relative ease and meeting people who I related to, loved and who loved me back exactly as I was.

Re-tracing my mental steps I stopped and realised where I've always felt an unwavering sense of belonging, and that is at University. I remember vividly when this epiphany happened. I was standing outside of Swansea University library armed with a reading list for a dozen new modules and faced with the challenge of navigating the library and the journal archive. It was exhilarating, frightening and for the first time I had the sense that I had complete control over my destiny, and not only that. The people who surrounded me were interesting and all dying to learn.

I knew from that moment as a lost 18 year old I knew that I'd never leave University.

So fast forward 11 years later and I'm doing what I love. Academia cops a lot of stick, Psychology has often been branded as a University's cash cow, drawing in hundreds upon hundreds of students each year, some of them leaving with no direction upon what to do next. Academia also involves a lot of postulation, a lot of thinking and drinking coffee at relative leisure. It certainly doesn't require the same amount of emotional and physical energy to run around a busy Emergency department at midnight cannulating a bunch of drunk teenagers.

However, academia despite all of it's flaws, is a wonderful and noble profession, made more wonderful when you love and believe in what you research and care about what your students learn. As i'm slowly learning the ropes, collating a number of year's post-doctoral experiences into one I've started to learn the lesson of what it takes to be a successful lecturer. Good organisation.

Being a lecturer is like collating every single role you've adopted over the course of your academic training. Whereas I spent a year musing over a paper and analysing data, suddenly you only have an afternoon. Whereas I had been paid full time to write grants. Now I have to write them on a Sunday afternoon whilst squeezing in a little bit of pleasure reading. Whereas I had months to think about lectures, now I have days. Academia is about juggling and prioritising.

Upon preparation for my new role I did what I do best and that's do my research. I searched for resources and accounts of experiences to tell me what I should expect and what I should do. I came back empty handed, only finding depressing articles documenting the abysmal success rate for young female academics rising within the profession (http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2012/may/24/why-women-leave-academia).

So here are my top 10 tips of how to not lose your marbles in academia:

1. Study what you love and think about what you truly want to change
2. Be prepared for research to be slow, at times agonising and for no change to ever happen overnight
3. Get involved in periphery projects that you might not have considered before. It's because of helping out with an obscure paper that I research what I do now
4. Be persistent and don't take things personally. There's no point crying over reviewer 3 implying that you are an idiot. Re-write, take it on the chin and move on
5. Try and put yourself in the student's shoes when they are nagging and generally being a pain. They are 18, hungover and away from home for the first time
6. Treat students like adults and try to inspire them rather than tell them what to do
7. Go to smaller, more focussed conferences of 100 people rather than huge international generalised meetings
8. Keep abreast of what's actually going on in the real world to get perspective on your topic
9. Believe in your ideas, twice I doubted myself and my credibility only to find that a big wig at Harvard published a paper on the exact thing 6 months later
10. Stop feeling guilty about everything. You don't have to be writing 24/7, sometimes the best ideas come when you're not thinking about them

And finally, the best thing you can do is to take good advice from people you respect. I learnt very early on that until you've held an academic position for a long time, you are an amateur. I slowly learnt to collate advice from an assortment of people prior to making any major decisions. The biggest turning point in my career was deciding to leave Australia, something that held an enormous amount of emotion for me independent to what I did. My boss (most handily a psychiatrist) told me one thing, take the emotion out of the situation and make a decision based upon what is right for you next.

And there we have it, I boarded a plane, took a job that was right rather than struggling to get by in a million different smaller positions. Something that incredibly tough but was absolutely the right decision at the right time.

So there you have it young, especially female, aspiring academics. Be bold, believe in your ideas and yourself, take risks, throw yourself by the neck out of your comfort zone and prepare for life to take you in exciting, wonderful and life changing directions.

Good luck!
HYKAEI

An Ode to Summer and to Stonefruit

The dessert equivalent of a fruity snog from someone you rather fancy

This little piece is about the humble stone fruit. It's been a great season for apricots, nectarines, peaches and plums this year. Early summer as the days hinted at warmth I ate them as they were, early sunlight streaming through the skylight, hacking off pieces with a little paring knife while I distractedly read the paper.

As August progressed and the weather settled into a constant steady heat I felt they needed jazzing up a little, one sunny afternoon they accompanied a fruity Wensleydale from the local farmers market and some idle girly chatter. Another relaxed evening they happily plonked themselves in some honeyed Greek yoghurt stacked high with bashed walnuts.

As the season draws to a close and the nights get colder, they, just like I, deserve to be warmed up a little.

Last night I roasted a whole heap of them with some vanilla and served the hot syrupy, sweet and gooey fruits with some beautiful cold organic ice cream.

If you aren't salivating yet, I don't want to speak to you any more.

Also, here's the recipe.

Roasted Stonefruits for a Chilly September night (c/o BBC GoodFood)

Ingredients 

175g of golden caster sugar
1 vanilla pod (split in two)
5 cardamom pods
Zest and the juice of 1 lime
6 apricots, halved and stoned (no illicit substances here)
3 peaches, quartered and stoned
3 nectarines, quartered and stoned
I also added 2 plums because they looked lonely

First, pre-heat your oven to get a bit of warmth in your kitchen brrr. Next get out your trusty food processor. If you don't have one, then go buy one! Now! They are only around £30, you have no excuse.

Once you've returned back from John Lewis with your brand new food processor (welcome back and congratulations, you won't regret it), blitz your sugar, lime junk, cardamom pods (not the whole thing, just the seeds- I probably should have mentioned that earlier), your vanilla pod (callously split in two and hacked to pieces) and all your sugar.

Now, I know what you're thinking, holy fuck that's a lot of sugar. And you are right. But just go with it.

So whizz all of that together until your sugar goes all soggy and awesome and then pour into a baking dish over all your nicely cut up fruit. I added my desecrated vanilla pods into the mix as well, mainly because they cost me a bloody fortune and they make it look all 'Jamie Oliver'.

Stick it in your hot oven for about 20-25 minutes, keep an eye on it and move the fruit around if some are looking more sticky and brilliant than others.

I served mine with Green and Blacks Organic ice cream, and whole lot of laughs.

Bye bye Summer, Autumn, let's be 'avin you!

Foodie Sitting Still

I’ve recently discovered the wondrous joy of sitting still in my life. It has been a conscious effort to do so, a mysterious warm comfort blanket of stability, of knowing where I’m going to live and work for the next couple of years, of setting down roots to nurture into a sturdy oak upon which I can lean and read my Kindle. For a frantic frequent traveller who has been a post-doc in flux for four busy years. This feels remarkably nice.

I made the decision to sit still after a recent spate of awful travelling luck. It began in Stockholm, having been privy to a delayed flight and having the misfortune to arrive into Heathrow as bewildered as a baby deer as the whole terminal was in a state of chaos due to wayward plane catching fire resulting in a temporary shut down. You don't need me to tell you that Heathrow in crisis at 2am is not a fun place to be. The mania of fraught, worried and wordless Swedes, the screaming of understandably cranky children, the patience-wearing-thin-but-still-wearing-a-veil-of-politeness British Airways Terminal 5 staff handing out baggage reclaim forms to snatching dismissive hands, the bad Costa coffee. After dragging my sorry behind home at 3am sans suitcase, I was a bit pissed off.

I returned home 10kg lighter to find that to add insult to injury, some genius criminal mastermind had stolen the majority of my money and was living it up in Singapore. I imagined him/her gleefully withdrawing hundreds of pounds at a whim, presumably to sit in fancy hotels and drink Singapore Slings, glasses clinking in the hazy afternoon sunlight, the muffled sound of the busy city below punctuated with endless toasts: ‘to fraud!’, ‘to illegal cash withdrawal!’, ‘to the poor girl in her overdraft at the age of 29!’ . Or at least that’s how I imagine it.

A few days later after navigating a mind-boggling British Airways baggage reclaim system and eventually resorting to Tweeting them directly because it was easier (what have we become?), my sorry suitcase made it’s triumphant return, the slight squeak of the wheel mirroring my residual emotional trauma.

After my money was returned, my credit cards reinstated, clothes unpacked and Buddhist abandonment of all possessions ceased. I made the decision to stop flying about for a bit and stay at home more.

The decision has been a rather fruitful one. I’ve begun to read more. I have time to make espresso and listen to the Archers on a Sunday (poor Lilian). I know vaguely what’s happening in Syria. I’ve swapped permanent shoulder damage from heavy bag straps to resting and reading in the bath. I've swapped consumption of dubious WHsmith sandwiches at a dingy train stations to crusty homemade bread topped with in-season crab and a dollop of glistening homemade mayonnaise.

So this weekend I will be sitting still and making Welsh Rarebit. The food of my people. Such a dish combines some of my favourite things: Wales, cheese and a lovely ale.

Recipe and obligatory insta-grainy photo to follow.

Bon weekend

HYKAEI: The One with the Comeback

Just when you thought the Instagram hyperbole was over

It is with great joy and shame that I return to the world of blogging. I have dragged my poor, unfortunate wordless soul back to a land of verbs and hyperbole and thoughts and food. Thus clearing the empty space I have left by my notable absence. Day after day of not writing the words of my life guru TES pounded in my head: 'It's not a blog if you write in it once a year'.

Correct TES. Correct.

Drama aside, I've been a bit busy with a house move and a new job (yay) and haven't had the time to write long posts about my recent American, Swedish and Scottish adventures. The longer the duration that I didn't write, the more difficult it became. Hampered by the fact that my internal cookery chip suddenly activated, I went on overdrive, rustling up seasonal bounties of fruits and vegetables in abundance.

I feel very guilty not to share that with you.

But not to despair, inspired by a technique from genius quickfire blogger CJS I have decided to write as I eat. Little and often.

So hello again world. It's lovely to be back. I will write shortly to tell you what I'm going to do with the last of the season's nectarines.

I bet you're on the bloody edge of your seat.

Much love HYKAEI x 

The Art of (Coffee) Happiness at The Bean

The art of frothy happiness

I've been spending a lot more time in Nottingham recently, mainly due to cleaning out my bank account on spontaneous trips to America, having lots of work on and freak weather conditions making me not want to leave the house.

My weekends have settled into a happy routine, Friday night laundry, Saturday morning brunch at home with the paper, Saturday night dinner with friends usually huddled around a heater with a glass of red wine, and Sunday at The Bean.

Since my return to the UK, a good cup of coffee, much like a good man, is hard to find. Just when I was on the brink of giving up the thought of ever experiencing frothy milked joy in this country, The Bean came upon it's glorious milky horse to come rescue me. Ok this is a little over the top, I've had two coffees from there today.

The location of this aforementioned wondrous place is nondescript, in fact, you wouldn't even give it much thought. Curiously tucked in a side street next to Sainsbury's, it's view and location isn't what you would call beautiful. However, on closer inspection, the place is perfect.

The formula is simple, expertly made coffees with great milk art (I'm a sucker for a milky leaf or heart), simple and cheesy toasted sandwiches and a happy, friendly atmosphere. I almost always sit downstairs amid the Sunday papers, but upstairs has a tranquil atmosphere where you could type away on your laptop for hours on end without being disturbed. If it's there I always go for the tuna melt washed down with a large cappuccino. And I nearly always end up staying for far longer than I anticipated.

I've taken many a coffee connoisseur there to obtain their opinion. International coffee lover DP commented that it had a mild, drinkable quality (the taste of the beans not overpowering). New Zealand arrival SI noted that there may well be some kind of illicit drug laced within the milk that makes it so moorish. You can't usually stop at one.

So, to an unexpected lovely place. The site of coffees with old and new friends and sometimes many solo hours of contemplation about life, love and what to have for dinner.

Thank you Bean for making my winter that little bit better

The Bean
1 Stoney Street, Beeston
http://www.coffee-beans.co.uk/

2012: A year in food

Yep it's that time of year again, the end of one food era and the beginning of another. This year has been marked by not only things that I never thought i'd ever do (go to China solo, sign up for a half marathon, drive a car....) but also things that I definitely would do. That is eat, a lot.

So I thought I would share with you my personal food highlights of 2012.

Best breakfast out

My two stints in Sydney have made this one difficult but I'm going to go with the place with not only the nicest food but also the best memory. Bills. My breakfast here was a simple affair, a good old British meets Aussie fry up. Except each element is delivered to perfection, the scrambled eggs are of course legendary, the heart stopping slab of butter positioned between two perfect pieces of sourdough and the delicious sausages. Washed down with a much too small cup of coffee (pyramid scheme). Additionally to the food I have great memories of that breakfast, it was a warm morning, I was sat opposite a school watching parents drop their children off, I'd just read about how interconnected we all are in the world and I was exchanging eye contact with the barista who was far too good looking for his own good.

Runners up: Greek eggs at Demitri's Kitchen (Melbourne), a classic fry up at Boston Tea Party (Exeter, UK), simple but beautiful avocado and tomato at Elizabeth Bay Cafe (Sydney) and the £10 French platter at Enoterra (Shanghai)

Breakfast fail of the year: Element Fresh (Shanghai), 4 poached eggs, sausage and sweet toast...really?

Best breakfast in

Smashed Avocado on Toast

This year i've spent a lot more time in my self-proclaimed fabulous kitchen. I've spent many a solo Saturday taking in the papers and aeropressing the hell out of my coffee. But one breakfast moment in particular stands out, that's my smashed avocado on toast.

I think this one was so significant because it was my first weekend back after Shanghai and I had dragged my weary hungry self to Sainsburys for the first post-jet lagged feast. With hunger and greed ravaging my soul, I had eagerly filled my basket with treasures, some super fancy golden yolked eggs (I'm pretty sure laid by hens that were fed exclusively with organic feed from Fortnum and Mason), a loaf of sourdough, some beautifully ripe hass avocados and some Greek feta. As I began to consume my eggy masterpiece I had one of those moments where I wished that somebody had been around to taste what a wonder I had created. The best I could do was take an arty farty hipsomatic instagram of it and as my friend TES would say, promise to 'blog the shit out of it'. So here it is:

Best Scrambled Eggs when you haven't eaten scrambled eggs or decent bread for 2 months
Serves one greedy person

Really good quality room temperature eggs (3 if you are feeling crazy)
Cubes of feta
A handful of rocket
A splash of cream
Butter (the good stuff, I like the one that's flecked with sea salt)
A nice ripe avocado
A couple of slices of good white bread
A squeeze of lemon
A scatter of chopped fresh parsley

Toast your sourdough or whatever nice thick bread you have cut. Lavishly spread with that beautiful butter. Mash some avocado in a bowl with a squeeze of lemon, a bit of sea salt and some black pepper. Spread generously on your hot toast. Next melt some butter (I know, I know...) in a pan and add your eggs with your handful of parsley and splash of cream. Scramble until gooey, don't let them go too far, take off the heat and let them firm up a bit. Arrange beautifully over your bread with a scattering of feta for saltiness and a handful of rocket to make you feel better. Serve with a fresh pot of coffee, the newspaper and Etta James.

Best fancy lunch

M on the Bund Brunch (Shanghai)

Dessert Platter, China Doll (Sydney)

A tie between my hatted lunch at China Doll with blushing bride VC and Welsh hottie GPR. We were spoilt with cocktails, duck pancakes, delicate and tender sashimi and a flurry of desserts (pictured).

Another incredible lunch moment of 2012 was lunch at M on the Bund with my wonderful Shanghai ladies. Not only was the food, view and atmosphere beautiful but also this was the moment, a week before I left, that I took the moment to appreciate the incredible experiences I had, and the amazing people that I had the pleasure of meeting. The fact that this moment also involved a Swedish smorgasbord and champagne was the icing on the cake.

Best absolutely mundane lunch

In my whole year my lunch highlight involves me crouching over my desk (which I made into a kitchen) in my little room in Shanghai, indulging in what might have been the best sandwich experience of my life. I think at this point I hadn't eaten decent bread, ham or cheese for a month and I had just discovered that you could get all of these things in my local supermarket just a hop, skip and a jump away. So I greedily constructed the best sandwich I've ever had, a slice of French cheese, some ham that I'm pretty sure on retrospect was a week out of date and butter all crammed in a huge crunchy and miraculously non-sweet baguette. I stuffed this with expensive salt and vinegar crisps imported all the way from the UK and for the first time in a month felt the culture shock melt away.

Best fancy dinner

Let's not beat around the bush here, my two best dinners out both involve Australia. The first, Porteno, two hatted heaven, specialising in meat but trumping with vegetarian delights such as quail egg salad with cauliflower puree. The second, one hatted happiness at Lolli Redini where I had a triple cheese soufflé foodgasm. Bravo Australia, you've done it again.

Notable mentions: The steak at Tonic (Nottingham), incredible pizza at brand new Scarpetta (Shanghai), birthday Yunnanese at Lost Heaven (Shanghai) and Duck at my beautiful friend's wedding (Corn Barn Exeter)

Best dinner in

Ronald McDonald eat your heart out

My stand out dinner also involves a solo Saturday night, for the whole week i'd had a hankering for a beautiful chicken burger. Having sneakily visited McDonalds that Tuesday for a McChicken Sandwich and still not satisfied, my attention turned to home made. I wandered around Waitrose hoping for inspiration and a few ingredients captured my attention, some beautiful fresh chicken breast strips, a packet of fresh breadcrumbs, some crunchy fresh rolls and some garlic mayonnaise. My dinner was set.

A Chicken Burger Supper for a blissful night in
Serves one girl with a hankering for a burger

A packet of chicken breast strips (you could do this yourself but I find this easier)
Either fresh breadcrumbs or a packet of panko (both are fantastic)
A crusty roll
A handful of whatever leaves make you feel better about yourself, I went for baby spinach
Half an avocado
Either homemade or really good quality garlic mayonnaise
Some mozzarella if you are feeling really naughty
An egg and some flour
Some skinny fries and Dijon mustard for dunking

Get yourself three bowls and whisk up one egg in one, some flour in another and your breadcrumbs in the final. Douse your chicken strips in flour, then egg, then roll generously in breadcrumbs. You could add some parmesan to your breadcrumbs here if you are feeling particularly mental.

Once you have coated your chicken heat some oil up in a shallow pan and fry each until golden. Pop them on a baking tray and finish off in the oven. Use your judgement depending on thickness, this should only take 15 mins max.

Prepare your lovely roll and get your chips cooked. Fill the roll with whatever you feel like. I added a strip of mozzarella, a smear of mayo and a handful of lovely peppery rocket. Add your hot chicken strips straight from the oven and serve with salad, fries and a dollop of Dijon for dunking.

Goals for next year

I have many food goals for next year, I want to visit Nottingham's very own Michelin Starred gaff. I'd love to eat a burger at Electric Diner in London. I want to try the new Scandinavian cuisine that is all the rage right now for my hopefully impending trip to Sweden and finally I'd like to bake my own bread and make some pate upon which to spread (if I can bear the sight of those livers).

So here's to an amazing year in food. I wish you all the best for 2013, may your plates be bountiful and your heart full of joy.

Lots of love and kisses
HYKAEI x

Cold Night Cookery Part 2: A Tomato Tart

I recently made a list of 29 things I wanted to do before I was 29 whilst cowering in a hotel room in the middle of a typhoon in China. The list was a whistle stop tour of philosophical whimsy (#24 change somebody's life, #21 discover Buddhism) to materialistic glee (#6 buy a fabulously expensive winter coat) to travelling wonder (#25 explore the icy North) to more time dedicated to food with friends (#14 throw an amazing party for friends). With the festive season approaching my flatmate and I decided that there wouldn't be anything better than to warm our beautiful home and host our even more beautiful friends with celebration of everything: of Christmas, of Nottingham, of being happy, of being together and being in the presence of wonderful food.

With that in mind I excitedly started menu planning, I was most excited about a deliciously simple pesto tart a la my ideal man (if he was straight) Nigel Slater.

A Tomato Tart for a Room full of your lovely friends (v)

Ready rolled puff pastry (one block)
Home made or good quality pesto from the chiller (I used Tesco's finest- award winner apparently)
A variety of interesting tomatoes (I used on the vine beefy ones and little mini yellow and red piccolo) . Room temperature please. What are we animals?
Some fresh basil- torn
Some mozzarella (a variation on the original recipe)

First of all flour a baking sheet and plonk your ready rolled pastry on top. Take a moment to bask in how easy that was. Take a knife and lightly score a 2cm border around the pastry like you are carving out a pastry photo frame (where I like to display my best snaps).

Now grab your delicious award winning pesto and slather the whole lot generously in your little picture frame until you start salivating. Next slice your tomatoes how ever you darn well choose and scatter in a thin (but not too thin fashion). That sounds vague, and it kind of is. But it's OK  Now scatter over your basil with a nice twist of sea salt, fresh black pepper and dot with torn mozzarella.

Take another moment to bask in culinary smugness before bunging it in the oven on a moderate heat. Remove when the pastry around the outside has risen and is looking golden and awesome.

The tart was a roaring success, as was the party of many highlights. I particularly enjoyed the Serbian home brew, the conga line and the realization that Mariah Carey's 'All I want for Christmas is you' will melt the heart of even the most cynical hipster.

So a very Merry Christmas to one and all. May your festive season be filled with warm houses overflowing with love, happiness and bloody delicious tarts.

Cold Night Cookery: Vegetable Lasagne

If you don't like this, I don't like you

With the nights drawing in and the cold weather howling outside my window every morning I have decided to do something wild and spend more time at home. Over the last 12 months most weekends have been spent jumping on expensive trains to visit loved ones around the country. While I have enjoyed every minute of these visits, my winter plan was to spend more time enjoying my home, taking in some music, having lots of baths, writing and of course cooking.

This Friday night was a rare gem, my housemate and I were miraculously at the same place at the same time on a weekend and we also had a lovely visitor. No better time to cook my extra special vegetable lasagne.

In our household growing up we didn’t eat a lot of minced meat, my dad couldn’t really stomach it and my mum followed suit so rather than fry minced beef for our lasagnes and and chillis we either used vegetables, and later on in my childhood, Quorn.

Quorn is a marvellous thing when added to hearty meals, adding bulk and if you ask me actually tasting nicer than mince (I hate the look, sound and smell of minced beef cooking). So in my endless quest for the perfect vegetable lasagne I have finely tuned and crafted the ingredients until I have found the ultimate combination of taste, texture and nutritional value (ish, ignore the cheese).

The inclusion of the soft jarred peppers in oil is a 2012 revelation as a result of doing my weekly shop at Sainsbury’s. Sainsbury’s own jarred peppers are wonderful, slightly charred and sitting in a delicious, delicately flavoured oil that I like to keep and add to other dishes. I personally can’t have a vegetarian lasagne without a courgette or two and I couldn’t explain to you why. The jury is out about how to chop them and it depends on my mood. Sometimes I want a fine dice, sometimes I want them a little more chunky, other times I go for circular cuts to fully absorb the flavour. Tonight I’m feeling circular. I don’t usually use aubergine (or eggplant to the foreigners), tonight I feel like it. I’m probably going to layer it with the pasta after separately chargrilling it, maybe slopping it about afterwards with some olive oil and basil. We’ll see how we go.

I’ve experimented with different kinds of pastas, blindly believing that fresh is best I recently used fresh sheets to find that they disappointingly shrivelled up when I added them to the hot sauce, like they were ashamed of their long durum wheat yellow bodies (it’s Friday afternoon, it’s getting a bit abstract). So now I’m of the mind-set of screw you fresh pasta and I’m back to good quality dried stuff, sometimes I go for the green, today its traditional.

The cheese sauce is quite possibly the glue that holds the whole wonderful construction together; I obtained this wonderful recipe from my mother who can’t half make a mean cheese sauce. I understand that I’m supposed to be making a béchamel but who cares, I’m adding cheese. I’m also sprinkling the top with cheese and blobs of mozzarella. Lighten up, it’s Friday.

Finally to top it all off a lovely glass of red wine at room temperature. Pinotage should do it tonight. Ah. What a week. Oh and I appreciate I haven’t updated you on the running training for a while. Yeah..it’s going um....well....

Cheerio

HYKAEI BEST vegetable lasagne for a cold Friday night with friends

(Serves 6 or 4 hungry people)

Quorn mince (one bag)

2 onions or 3, whatever

Some garlic, diced, sliced, jarred. Whatever you have the energy to do with it

A couple of big jars of passata and a tin of tomatoes (preferably organic)

Some soft peppers in oil (I like Sainsbury’s own)

Olive oil

1-2 Courgettes and maybe a nice looking aubergine

A ball of mozzarella

Some fresh basil

Either dried or fresh lasagne sheets. I used fresh the other day and they weirdly shrivelled when I put them on the hot sauce so maybe go with some good quality dry ones

For the sauce

A block of good cheddar (just some nice mature/extra mature- nothing too extreme otherwise it will be overpowering)

Milk

Butter (real butter please not margarine). I like the French stuff

A little flour

Method

Firstly chop your onions up to a relatively fine dice, they should at least not be huge. Get a bit of olive oil going and fry until tender, adding some garlic until your kitchen starts to smell like mamas kitchen (I also appreciate the irony that Italians don’t EVER use garlic and onions at the same time). At this point add your veg, if you chopped the aubergine into small chunks add this now, you’ll probably need more oil, these things drink oil like Jamie Oliver on a slow day. Also add your courgettes ensuring that you have the heat high enough to get some colour on them all. Now it’s time to add the Quorn, ah magical, from freeze dried to mince in 0.2 seconds. Done.

Now you need to start adding your tomato based things to the mixture, either chop your peppers up or just throw them in whole adding a bit of the oil as well for good measure (not too much). Pour in your passata and tomatoes, a bit of water if you like and even some tomato puree if you want to go tomato crazy. Leave this to bubble away like a tomato sauce nightclub for a little while, use your instincts, if it starts thickening and looks awesome, it’s nearly done. Tear up some basil and add some seasoning, sometimes I add sugar sometimes not, always a bit of pepper, maybe salt. See what you think. You can EVEN throw a bit of your glass of wine in for depth of flavour.

If you are layering your aubergine like me then use this moment to fry in batches and set aside.

Right sauce DONE, set aside.

Now you are on to your cheese sauce, you need to watch this because it will cook quite quickly and then you will frantically need to construct your masterpiece (two people are better than one). First of all you need to make a roux. I never have exact measurements for this, just throw in a good old dollop of butter, a fair slice from your beautiful French stuff. When it starts to melt add a couple of heaped tablespoons of flour. I never add enough at this stage so don’t listen to me, add more. Stir until it makes a paste and now you need to add your milk whilst whisking, you can add some nutmeg at this stage if you want to be traditional. I never do, that stuff gives you hallucinations. Again this is a judgement call, it should be relatively thick now and this is your moment to throw in handfuls of salty amazing cheddar until the sauce can barely take no more.

Now to construct, layer sauce with pasta, a smidge of sauce, eggplant and repeat until you slather the top with cheese sauce. Dot with torn mozzarella and basil and sprinkle with the remaining grated cheese (stop eating it). The key is to make sure all of the pasta is covered by liquid or it won’t cook.

Time to select a wine, gutsy Pinotage wins!

Put it in a hot oven, make yourself a simple green salad, cut some bread and dunk it in olive oil, and pour yourself a glass of red.

I saw you eating that leftover cheese sauce!

Bon appetite!

On love..

In the most sentimental entry of this blog's history I report live to you from Sydney International Airport with a few words about love (I promise next week ill get back to talking about pastry).

This later part of my 20s has been marked by the loss and gain of great love. I'm coming around to the idea that life is a constant ebb and flow. People coming in and out of your life constantly, changing little or big aspects of you. Brief encounters, people who change your outlook or perspective, people who teach you things, those who show you a path that you don't want to go down, those that shock you, those that comfort you.

But what of great, enduring love? That bit is trickier, the quest for lifelong love. That bit may require sacrifice and compromise but never ever the changing of yourself.

Today I am lucky to have that perfect luxury, the enduring love of friendship, that higher order kind of love that doesn't judge or anger but rather supports, nurtures and changes you into the person that you were meant to become.

So to all those that I love dearly. I am grateful daily to you all for changing my life. I'm so happy to be part of your world.

So wherever you are reading this, on the train, at work (naughty), over toast and tea or wine and steak. Take a moment to be grateful for those you love because its these small moments of gratitude that form the beautiful patchwork quilt that is your life.

So with love, thanks and in the search for the perfect cheese toastie.

Goodbye for now Sydney.

How not to train for a half marathon: The aerobics class

It's been a running joke (pardon the pun) for the last two weeks (usually when i'm sitting happily with a slice of pizza and a glass of wine), when my training is going to start. I usually smile, laugh and say soon (trying to look serious). But it's always followed by the thought...when is my training going to start?

With that in mind I decided to get my cardio up to semi normal levels by attending a weekly aerobics class a mere 10 minute walk from my house, so no excuses.

It's funny how our perception of ourselves never map on to reality. In my head i'm wonderfully co-ordinated, positively graceful. Gliding through the world with the greatest of ease, salsa-ing my way through life doing a constant two step.

It's times like aerobics class when that illusion falls apart.

I arrived and the peppy, lovely perma tanned lady greeted me and handed me a form to fill out. After she was fully reassured that I wouldn't drop dead in her class, I stood amongst the usual characters, clasping what looked like a giant deflated balloon, bopping to the obligatory blasting house music, ready to get fit.

Five minutes in I caught a glimpse of myself in the window and realised how utterly and comically ridiculous I looked, flailing around in a crazy fashion, with not even my arms co-ordinated with the rest of the group. I began to get the giggles, feeling like Louis Theroux investigates the aerobics class or feeling like this may be great material for a short story. My giggles were compounded by the most remarkably fit old lady in front of me who was using her stretchy giant balloon as a ninja belt as she effortlessly sashayed backwards as I spun the wrong way and collided into strangers.

As the music continued from one bad dance track to another, hundreds of squats down and my heart rate up I began to feel a little euphoric. By the time 'We are young' came on and we were doing horrendous sit ups I started to feel positively giddy.

So as I happily bounced home, I thought three things: isn't exercise fun, i'm so uncoordinated and boy do I want quiche.

So that's what I had, but that's ok. The peppy lady with the freaky abs would say I deserved it.

The Loneliness of the Not So Long Distance Runner

Running isn't so bad

In a slight change of tac, rather than write about the time I ate a butter encased cheese filled croissant, I've decided to write about something a little crazy that I did recently. Sign up for a marathon.

It's safe to say i'm not runner, nor am I sporty. I have an aversion to the gym, I can't catch to save my life and I have repressed memories of PE where I was kicked off the netball team after one terrible game as Goal Defence.

That aside, this year is all about challenges and distancing myself as far as possible from my comfort zone. So here I am, four and a half months from the marathon, slightly terrified, slightly in denial with a faded print out of my bootcamp style 'training schedule'.

I decided that it might be quite amusing to document the highs and lows of my 'training', the times that I don't bother because I have to eat a 3 course meal or go to Australia. The times that I go and want to throw up after 11 minutes (that happened today) and the pure of euphoria of doing something new.

In true researcher style i've already done the groundwork about how to be a runner, apparently you have to have good shoes, a lot of will power and dedication and an acceptance that you will get blisters and occasionally want to cry.

Glancing at my beginners 'how to get around the marathon without dying' schedule today I decided to test out my stamina by going for my first run in a year. The back drop was idyllic as I huffed and puffed my way around 4k going through a range of emotions, the low point 10 minutes in where I actually wanted to keel over and get into the foetal position and the high point 33 minutes in when I realised that I was over the hump and could actually keep going.

Sights of my run included a couple going to 2nd and maybe 3rd base as I jogged by, a few lovely squirrels, some lazy walkers eating ice cream (who I scoffed at in a smug runner satisfaction) and the chicks of Spring that have now grown into lovely scary ducks.

Level of pain post run..hard to say. It's been 5-6 hours and I can already feel my legs seize up. Maybe I went in too hard.

As I came home a little out of puff tucking into my yoghurt and blueberries and nuts, I realised why some people do this. The euphoria of pushing your body is quite rewarding, I got into a little world of my own with the backdrop of Hot Chip thinking about life and the future and how nice the park looked drenched in orange.

So run 1 over, 4k done. I will update on the highs and lows of the rest of my training.

Now if you'll excuse me I think I've earnt a piece of cheese on toast, if I can get up.
Ouch

Lunch and Love at Auntie Fu's Inn

Auntie Fu's Inn

There were many highlights on my China adventure but none so rustic and memorable as my lunch at Auntie Fu’s. Auntie Fu’s is located about 2 hours South of Shanghai and a little into the countryside amid the farms full of chickens and green tea. Fu’s had become famous for rustic organic produce and of course a great lunch. A trip to Fu’s had become a middle class mecca, hippy Westerners driving down to pick their organic chicken and neighbours stopping by for the best corn in town.

My journey so far had opened my eyes to the real side of delicious Chinese food, rice, usually steamed or fried, usually a whole fish simply steamed with soy or a fresh school of prawns, many vegetables sometimes pickled, sometimes fresh with a little vinegar and meats flavoured with star anise and sticky with sugar.

Today at Fu’s things were a little different, it was a hot 35 degree day and we were led up a rickety staircase into a tiny room barely able to fit the signature round table. Our first delectable treat was a bowl full of freshly made date and logan tea, it was delicate and cool and beautifully fresh, we all happily downed it with a smile.

Next were the signature ‘starters’ some small crab with endame beans, a school of fried prawns and a pile of unidentified steamed greens with garlic. Next came the meats, sticky belly pork with seaweed (delicious), one of Fu’s golden skinned chickens hacked into delicious pieces, a big pile of fried rice and the most delicious steamed yams ive ever tasted. To conclude a big bowl of ham hock and sweetcorn soup was presented with thick juicy corn delicious doused with some rice.

Dessert was my favourite xi gua, sticky rice cakes and some sugar cane that we all peeled ourselves.

Rustic dessert

As I sat there in the unfamiliar surroundings listening to the fast conversation that I couldn’t understand with it’s now familiar tones I thought how oddly normal this meal was, a simple deconstructed good old fashioned Sunday roast with the ladies. Odd how something so foreign to me a month ago had become so normal.

The conversation turned to love, as all the women shared their stories I felt warm in the fact that no matter where we are in the world or where we are in our lives, some things never change. In this case, get a group of women together over lunch and talk will inevitably turn to boys. As stories got thrown around, some sad, some hopeful, some fresh wounds and some old ones, collective words of wisdom were gathered from around the table. ‘Love yourself first’, ‘keep your options open’, ‘wait until it’s worth compromising’ and never lose yourself.

And finally, my favourite gem of wisdom from a lady with the best sugar cane bite of the lot of us, translated of course.

If you like him, never call. Never stop flirting no matter how old you get and surround yourself with men who fancy the pants off you.

So here’s to never giving up on love, Sunday lunch, Auntie Fu’s pumpkin and loving yourself first. All the way from China.