Robots in the kitchen

David and I spent a good Saturday a few weeks back just pottering around Watford Shopping Centre.  We sometimes do this without spending a penny.  Sometimes we spend quite a bit more than that.

Last time we literally just wandered from store to store pondering and noting items to place on our wish list.  Ever since I had seen the photo of the roasting chicken in a cast iron stock pot in Pippa Middleton's "Celebrate" I wanted the stock pot, and at John Lewis they have a "reputable" brand selling at a ridiculous price of course...  David has since managed to snaffle one from Sainsburys at a fraction of the cost.  It's wonderful, rustic, and will go exceedingly well with our Aga (the one that is in that little cottage in the Derbyshire forest that we haven't managed to get around to owning quite yet).

And then we saw it.  A cooking robot!  Jamie Oliver was promoting a cooking robot!!!  

Okay, admittedly this device doesn't look even remotely like the android's I'd imagined that we all would be owning by about this year (when i was a child, I kept hearing about how we'd all be driving hover cars and taking trips to the moon for the weekend, and, of course, we would have invented robots - I always wanted to believe them about the robots bit, not sure i ever truly believe them about anything else).

Somebody once joked that the real reason we don't have robots is because of Microsoft.... and I laughed but then suddenly thought to myself.... "you know that isn't  such a silly thought....") but I digress.... the Phillips Home Cooker... wow.... 

Okay... that black tower is little more than a very tall food processor with a funnel.  I immediately saw this "add on" to the home cooker and thought.... but why bother with buying yet another food processor?  This is kerazy talk!.  So ignore the black tower like thang.  Focus instead on the red arm that sits in the centre of the cooker.  What it does is stir.  Stir constantly like a very naughty drag queen that has had just that little bit too much wine.

At £250+ I am not going to be rushing out to buy this device any time soon.  Okay, so it will create the best risotto you've ever had since you had a little sous chef chopping and stirring for you?  Or you can just settle for second best risotto.

David bought me my very first Jamie Oliver cookbook a few months back for approximately £5.  Bargain! I was very excited.  The book is titled Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals and what it promises you is that you can cook a lovely dinner for your family of four (or large portion consuming family of three), including a desert and usually a salad or a side dish of veggies, in just under 30 mintues.  I got very excited indeed.  Everyone knew i was very excited because I ended up taking the book to bed and making myself really hungry after dinner by flicking through the pages and wondering how we were going to use this.

The first section deals with equipment.  I turned to David and solemnly said: "Well, we'll be needing to purchase a blender and food processor, you now realise?"  He wasn't at all amused.  It took some work (overtime, actually), but we are now the proud owners of our own little run-of-the-mill kitchen automation device: our Bosch Food Processor (and Blender... and Juicer.... and Squeezer....!!).

Anyway, I'll publish this post now, mainly because I have already written enough for one entry - and also because this post has been sitting in draft format for quite some time, but fear not, I will tell you of my first (and second) attempt to cook one of his easier meals in just under 30 minutes.  Let's just say I don't quite get the timing right.... but i don't want to spoil it for you... so stay tuned!  Promise I'll publish it by the end of this week!

Coffee, Curry, Khop Kun Krap

So the past few weeks have been a blur of work including overtime and coffee, much needed coffee.  I drink 'real' coffee whilst at work, and at home, an instant variety that comes in a beautiful reusable jar that I have been collecting for the past five years.  I use these jars to store just about everything in my pantry.  I like them because they are washable and come in two different sizes (in Australia, they also come in a mini tiny variety that is just perfect for herbs and spices and whenever I travel to Oz now I buy my coffee in these tiny jars just so I can take them home with me).

Of course having to work so much meant that there was very little time for anything else.  For a while there I was getting up at 4am so I could catch the 5:11 train to London.  Arriving at work at 6am I would put on one of the three hats that I am currrently finding that I have to wear whilst at work.  At about 10am I would switch to another hat and then I would alternate between this one and the other one and so on for the rest of the day.  Sometimes the day would end 12 hours after it began.  Then I would catch the train home and sort of veg out around David whilst he was cooking up something, barely making it through dinner and our obligatory dinner tv hour with Zack (Parks and Recreation of course....) before crawling into bed and off to sleep only to reset the cycle the following (early) morning.  This also included Saturday for a couple of weeks.... crazy.... but great for the bank balance.

So finally I am starting to pull back on the extra hours and find some time to do housework and of course some cooking and one of the easiest dishes that I find to cook is thai chicken curry - either the green or red variety.  This is also one of Zack's favourite dishes so it's a no brainer whenever I want to treat us as a family unit because David and I enjoy it immensely as well.

Being gluten free for a while now, I will not risk buying a store bought sauce so I always end up making my own.  It might seem like a lot of additional work, but nothing beats the flavour of your own green or red curry paste.  I sadly do not own a single cookbook in my vast collection that contains either of these recipes  (that I know of.... one of the joys of having a massive collection of anything is not actually being completely sure of what you actually possess and constantly stumbling upon something as yet undiscovered) but I do have access to the internet, and so I give you my favourite thai curry paste recipes.

Thai Green Curry Paste
Thai Red Curry Paste
 
They are both by the lovely Darlene Schmidt and they are a doddle to make (just throw everything into a blender (or use a hand blender and a large pyrex jug) and blend until smooth).  I am constantly varying these two recipes depending on what ingredients I actually have to hand, but I must add that I think that there is really no substitute for using fresh lemon grass - it is worth postponing your cooking until you actually buy these essential thai ingredients).  I always double up on the ingredients and store a pot of the curry sauce in the fridge for a second meal later in the week (it can last for much longer but rarely does in our house).

Now onto my next cookbook.  Ken Hom's Foolproof Thai Cookery (US try here).  Hom is a pretty cool chef.  He is famed for his Asian fusion fare and I own probably one of his more popular recipe books.  It's something that David picked up not long after he arrived in the country (having spent a good couple of months in the land of smiles on his way to blighty he became quite partial to thai food).  Looking back now on his time spent on the no-wheat diet (Thailand is pretty much wheat free) he was probably consuming one of the healthiest diets in his life, although the stress-free lifestyle he was living back then probably didn't hurt either.

I must point out, though, that Ken is annoyingly very much a chef and it becomes really obvious in his coobooks. Who measures out chopped onions in tablespoons?  Why only a chef who has somebody chop a bowl full for him every morning!  The good thing about such crazy measurements is that you end up just substituting your own vague portion quantities.  How much is 2 tablespoons of chopped garlic?  About 5 cloves maybe?  Yeah, let's err on the side of largess and make it 6.

Ultimately a green (or red) curry is pretty similar to cook once you have made your paste.  First, prepare your ingredients.  Chop 2 lemon grass stalks, 5 cloves of garlic, a 2.5cm chunk of ginger, 1 small onion and throw all of this into a bowl along with 4 kaffir lime leaves (or the rind and juice of a lime), 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, 2 teaspoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt.  Next chop your chicken breast (or thighs) - about 500g worth of boneless meat into 2.5cm chunks.  If you're making a red curry, also chop (into smaller chunks) 225g of potato.  Finally chop a handful of coriander leaves and some thai basil leaves (just basil if you don't have the asian version).  If making a red curry, also slice a red chilli or two for garnish, as well as crushing 50g roasted peanuts.

With your ingredients prepared, get your rice cooking.  Then  heat a wok, and splash in some vegetable oil
 once it's piping hot.  Next add your green or red curry paste and stir fry for 2 mins.  Then add the chicken (and potato if a red curry) and ensure everything is coated with the paste before adding the bowl of chopped ingredients.  Stir fry for a minute before adding a 400ml tin of coconut milk (or 150ml coconut cream and the same again of water).  Simmer for 15 mins or until the chicken is cooked.  Stir in the coriander and basil and if red, garnish with chilli and roasted nuts.  Serve immediately on steaming hot rice.  Delicious!

Hazelnuts and Cabbage Heads

Probably by the time you read this, David and I will be the proud grandparents of our second grandchild.  I'm still hoping his parent's call him "Arlo", because, well, that's what David and I have been calling him for quite some time now although I believe that they now are leaning towards "Kael" (which means I will be forced to call him "cabbage head") but maybe we will just call him "Arlo", in secret, whenever his parents aren't listening.

We watched the progress of our first grandchild with excitement via Facebook posts, every week an update explaining how big the baby was, what mother's normally experienced during this stage of gestation and various other tidbits.  At that point we had absolutely no idea of the sex or her name.  When she was born, it was a pretty special moment.  We weren't there, of course, being on the other side of the world, but when we received the call from the proud father a feeling of pure joy swept over us.  It was a true delight to hear Jimmy's voice, the excitement mixed with the exhaustion and overall, the relief in those few words.  "It's a girl!"

 

David and I skyping with the proud (and clearly very intelligent) parents of our grandchilden

Jarra had called us shortly after becoming pregnant and for weeks afterwards we had to keep everything a secret which, of course, makes it incredibly hard to feel anything at all.  Jarra was incredibly concerned of what we would think of her, mainly because she was very young, had just started university and, ultimately, had her whole life ahead of her and our attempts at being relatively responsible parents meant we ensure that we had the "don't you go getting pregnant now" conversations a few times.  After the initial shock of the call (where she made me guess what she was having difficulty in telling me) I realised that all she wanted was for us to say "Whatever you do, honey, we will support you".

These are words that all parents should practice over and over before their child is born, because it will be inevitable that they will have to say this phrase at least once in their child's lifetime and of course when they do end up saying it, they have to really mean it.  We found that we had absolutely no trouble in saying these words.  In truth, we have no trouble in saying these words to any of our children.

I recall how I broke the news of my own child's design to my own mother.  I was a little drunk, having begun celebrations pretty soon after I found out.  Apparently I went white as a sheet as the news was broken to me in front of just about all of my closest friends (and it is interesting to note that not that many of these "friends" are still in my life today).  My brother challenged me with the telling my parents, making out that it would be something of a hard thing to do, something to be fearful of and so I decided that I had to get it over with pretty quickly.

I set up a video camera in the lounge room, got my parent's to sit down with my brother in front of it and then told them the news.  My mother was never too happy about that little procedure and I do not recommend it to anyone – seriously this is not the best method.  It was quite funny though, at the time and I still smirk when I think of it today.  I'll let you draw upon your imaginations to determine how my family actually reacted to those words…. forever recorded…. on vhs…. I think my copy has degraded now, although I haven't checked for quite some time.  It's in the attic, in a box; somewhere.

So Jarra was determined to come first in the early motherhood competition that she had unexpectedly entered with her mother being the only other competitor.  Our daughter had managed to fool everyone (pretty much like I had by coming out to my parents a few years earlier as a gay man before presenting them with the news that they would be grandparents) by getting excellent marks in her final year of high school and then starting (and completing) her first year of university, where she was studying to become a Vet.  Suddenly she was pregnant and of course it did not take long for her to decide that she was going to do everything better and be much more organised than her own mother was.

Hazel wondering why her grandfather wants to devour her

 We've had a couple of years to see how that bold statement has progressed and, to be honest, on most levels she has done a fantastic job.  She is probably more stubborn than her mother was at times when it comes to dealing with members of her family although perhaps this is because she has me as a father instead of a partner, and she has David as another mother.  Have us as parents means that our kids are constantly challenged, which is probably a good thing but am learning that once they reach true adulthood (around 21 years of age) they can get quite belligerent towards this method.  I am already considering other options, but I haven't quite worked out what they will be as yet.

So which cookbook, out of all of my cookbooks, represents babyhood?  I guess I would have to go back to my all time favourite, Sarah Brown and my all time favourite recipe, Hummus.  There is something about this recipe that just says "baby food".  Of course the garlic and tahini will put off most toddlers but perhaps only those force fed the store bought jars of sweetened baby moosh.  Jarra, to our surprise, simply loved olives.  As did Brydie.  Sometimes kids' taste buds will surprise us.

To avoid duplication, I will pull another recipe from yet another Sarah Brown cookbook that I own – namely her book published by BBC books Sarah Brown's New Vegetarian Kitchen (US try here).  This tome has (naturally) some of my favourite recipes of all time:  Mushroom Soup with Tofu (whatever you do, don't replace the tofu with the same amount of miso, as my mother once did, thinking these products were the same!); Seven Seed Bread (my father used to beg me to make this as he could not stand "dish cloth bread" – the name he gave to mass produced sliced loaves from the supermarket); and Creamed Bean Pate – a favourite dip of mine, and one of the simplest dips to make if you've got a can of butter or any white bean (cannellini?) in your store cupboard and impromptu guests arriving at your door.

If you are forewarned, you can soak 175g of any white bean overnight, and then rinse and cook by covering in a pan with plenty of fresh water (boil fiercely for 10 minutes, then simmer for 40 minutes or so until soft).  Or you can use a can of any white bean.  Whichever method, drain and reserve some of the cooking water and then purée to create a creamy moosh.  Add 2 tablespoons mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 2-3 tablespoons of freshly chopped mint, chives or parsley.  Mix well and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with corn chips, or crudités.  Delicious.

Fashionable Finds

For the past two weeks our son, Zack, was given a wonderful opportunity to be independent by gaining some work experience in Liverpool at one of a series of cinemas owned by his great uncle.  David and I were a little worried to begin with but we secretly enjoyed this feeling of parental concern – having missed out on so much of his world over the years we possibly ramped up the feelings of anxiety a little, but the boy is eighteen years old, turning nineteen in under a week now, and so not really a 'boy' at all anymore…. 

Of course, the older you get the more you realise just how young you were at any age prior to the one you are living today and nobody could have explained to me that at eighteen I was actually still a "teen", even though it's quite obvious from meaning of the word that you are indeed exactly that.  In order to honor our son's naturally mature outlook and approach to life, however, I will from hereon in refer to him as "the lad".  This is partly because he has an insatiable desire for all things sport (but strangely, isn't really into Rugby… dammit!) but also because, like me at that age, he has a penchant for items of clothing that are also otherwise known as "labels".

A few weeks ago, after the lads went on a roadtrip to Derby, we spent a day travelling to Bicester and back  (oddly enough, the placename is pronounced "Bister", like Leicester is not "Lay-chester" or "Lie-sesster", merely"Lester"… and while we're at it, the river "Thames" is pronounced "Tems").  My boss, bless her, had mentioned that this was the place to go for the purchasing of clothes that are labular in origin (yes, okay, that word does not have anything to do with fashion but it truly sounds like it should).

On arrival at Bicester, however, it was raining and it soon became apparent that the shopping centre may have been built as an attempt to emulate a sweet village but of course ended up being just a series of shops on a fake cobblestone street (so pretty much nothing like it at all).  The lad was at first a little nervous but with our encouragement he soon got into the whole shopping experience. 

We cajoled him into buying a charcoal grey trenchcoat and then he got a smart purple jacket-coat which neither David nor myself would ever in a million years have purchased for him – mainly because what is now acceptable fashion for an eighteen year old to wear was certainly not acceptable when David and I were his age.

So everybody managed to carry a bag in the end.  David was the hardest to buy for, but in the end we convinced him to purchase a pair of light blue trousers that only he could pull off and I found a coat that the lads convinced me had my name written all over it.  As a result of these purchases, even though they were all reduced by 50%-75% off, our bank account was £500 lighter – although this did include a delicious meal at Carluccios, which, to our delight, we discovered has a complete menu dedicated to gluten free fare.

We managed to devour a starter platter of olives and cheese and oatcakes with other anti-pasta while Zack chowed down on some breaded scampi.  For our mains, Zack had the bolognaise, David the carbonara and I the mushroom pasta.  I was hoping for something creamy but instead three different mushrooms (including the oyster variety… superb!) were reduced in a simmering stock along with onions and garlic, and this was tossed in oily gluten-free pasta.  I could not get over the intense flavours that were produced with every mouthful.  This truly was something I wanted to try and cook up at home, and I made a note of every ingredient I could see and taste. 

We ended the meal with Eton Mess,a Cheese platter and Ice-cream.  I'd never had Eton Mess before (at Carluccios this is unimaginatively called Raspberry Meringue with cream, but they displayed their giant sized meringues as you entered the restaurant, so perhaps there really was no need to pay homage to that crazy overpriced scholastic tradition after all).  Whilst there, Zack searched the internet and then informed us that we have our very own Carluccio's in Watford.  That was news to David and I but welcome news all the same - it is the perfect place for a treat and we have long given up attempting to eat at establishments when we know that we could produce a better quality and tasting meal from scratch in our own home.  Why spend money on the mark-up only to feel disappointed with laissez-faire fare?  Carluccios most definitely ranks as a place that can cook as good as, if not better, than we can ourselves.

Now normally David and I don't buy designer clothes.  We once bought a pair of Hugo Boss suits for £200 each but these lasted a good ten years.  Coats are also worth spending a good amount of money on -again, they tend to last (hence Zack's expensive coats).  Was it worth spoiling our son?  Well of course - those years filled with our absence require a little bit of a splash with our cash, even if it is just to make us as missing parents feel a little better, a little less guilty (annoyingly, even though circumstances were often beyond our control with regard to access to our children, we still feel guilty about it to this very day) a little more like real dads.  These are silly (and expensive) illusions, of course, and our son knows we love him dearly and no amount of clothing will make up for the lost moments of course and everyone knows this, however, Zack did look very smart and quite happy with his purchases and we all enjoyed ourselves regardless of having that knowledge of the reality of the situation.

David, being a typical Gemini, loves fashion.  Myself, a Sagittarian, am more interested in the practicality of clothing.  Yes, there was a period when all I would wear was Calvin Klein underwear but this was more about how you looked when you were undressing (I was going for sexy at the time) and although I also purchased the jeans and the t-shirts, I soon got bored for being a walking billboard for Mr Klein (and paying through the nose to do so).  My parents attempted to create a middle-class environment for us as we were growing up, David's parents were often living on the breadline.  My mother owned a sewing machine and experimented wildly in the seventies with various fabrics (stretchy ones), David's mother received bags of clothing from wealthier members of the Catholic community.

So given the above, it should come as no surprise that David is the one that does the clothes shopping.  Even before we stopped the intake of gluten into our bodies we were always pretty much the same with regard to our clothes sizes.  This meant that we could share a wardrobe which is quite handy for a number of very practical reasons.  I, of course, balk at the mark-up on 'fashionable' items of clothing.  I remember when I worked at Canary Wharf and was starting to earn (what I then considered) a reasonable salary that I had a look at some of the items in the shop windows that caught my eye.  Some of the shirts, for example, where I was thinking "now that looks snazzy and I could see myself that" were simply ridiculous when it came to the price tag - a couple of weeks worth of my shopping bill or the price of a small electronic device - it just did not make any sense. 

On top of that, fashion requires followers, and half the time the recycled colours and nonsense that we were being fed looked ridiculous.  So pastels are in this summer?  Who cares??  I hate pastels.  David hates pastels.  They make us look pasty.  We will never wear them.  There was a time when darker shirt colours were all the rage, and shiny darker ties were worn with them.  This was the year that I wore ties.  Once the shirts started to go to pastel shades or begin to look like an architect's doodle with all that cross-hatching and lines a criss-crossing, I stopped wearing ties and started wearing pure black shirts again.

David, being the Gemini, still wears whatever he finds and thinks looks good on him.  Sometimes he gets this wrong (according to my taste, and rarely, to be honest) but most of the time he pulls off the most amazing outfits and because he knows I would get very annoyed if he spent our grocery bill on one item of clothing, he shops at thrift stores (or dead men's stores, as we now call them).  They truly are wonderful.  People deliver their unwanted clothing to them, he carefully sifts through the items and we end up with a wonderfully eclectic wardrobe.  I do not give a hoot whether something is in season or out – if I like it and it looks good on me, I will wear it (probably till it falls to pieces).  I'm certainly that way with shoes (or boots, as I prefer to wear).  I like to buy 2 or 3 pairs of the same shoe.  This way, I give them a rest while at the same time wearing something that I know I feel comfortable in (and I secretly enjoy the fact that I'm actually NOT wearing the same thing every day, even though other's may think I am).

So last Saturday, as it was a beautiful day and worthy of a walk, David mentioned that there was a particular cook book that he wanted to show me in one of the local Dead Men's Stores.  I was immediately interested, of course, I mean, you can never own too many cook books (I keep telling myself I don't own enough to fill a room…. yet!).  So off we wandered and at explored the various stores.  Our high street has a number of them all bundled together in one section, which makes it very convenient to check out the bargains (and help the various charities, of course).  Sadly, when we finally got to the store David could no longer locate the book – somebody had surely purchased it.

He was annoyed, but placated himself by assuming that it just wasn't meant to be.  I found a book on chicken, but after we both looked it over, it was clear that it was not really worthy of purchase – it's quite astonishing just how many terribly bad cookbooks there are out there!  The store was filled with various attempts to teach folks how to cook the silliest stuff.  We were very excited indeed when we discovered a MacFarlane doll of Kaneda from the cult classic Manga film Akira for only 5.99!  I nearly had to push an old man out of the way to get to it (although I did say excuse me…) but that doll was mine (or ours…. as is nearly everything that we own, not just with regards to our wardrobe).

As we wandered back down the high street, I spied a book in the shop window that caught my eye due to the large red font and the words "the cooking book" (America, try here).  I mentioned this to David who got very excited indeed!  Here was the cookbook he was after!  Sure enough, the staff of PDSA had moved it to the window which is why he couldn't find it on the shelf, and we rushed back inside to purchase it for a bargain price of £5!  Once we got back home I could immediately see why this book had measured so strongly on David's radar – it was such a wonderful layout – sections broken down into ingredients (I do love a well ordered cookbook) and every section with an introduction filled with thumbnails of recipe ideas. 

We researched the author and discovered that she wasn't a famous chef or TV personality but was instead just a lover of cooking and good food – these are always the best writers of cook books because without the actual love, you could end up with a bunch of recipes that the author has not even bothered to try out themselves and you tear your hair out as you serve up something that in no way resembles the author's description or photographs and, of course, somehow end up blaming yourself for the miserable failure.  I particularly fell in love with the mini insert in the front cover that is a small booklet of shopping lists for every recipe in the main book.... very thoughtful, Victoria Blashford-Snell and very, very handy indeed.

So whilst David set about cooking us a late lunch (sea food stir fry, while the lad was away, we got to eat prawns as he is sadly allergic to shellfish) I perused the pages of this latest purchase to find us a suitable meal for dinner, something creamy, something that used the mushrooms.. .and of course, I remembered Carluccio's and how I wanted my mushroom pasta to be – and there it was, the recipe I needed, on page 250.  With only slight modification, I made it like this:

Melt 60g of butter in a pan and cook 1 finely chopped onion and about 2-4 crushed garlic cloves until they are lightly browned and softened.  Add 450g mixed chopped mushrooms (I used Oyster, Shitake and Chestnut) and cook for 10 mins.  Then pour in 120ml white wine and a pinch of grated nutmeg.  Cover and simmer for 5 mins.  Stir in 300 ml creme fraiche (or sour cream... or even cream cheese mixed with water to a creamy consistency if you prefer).  Add 120g smoked salmon (or smoked tofu?) and season to taste.  Mix 1 tbsp cornflour with some water and stir into the sauce, then stir till it thickens.  Stir in some chopped tarragon (or parsley... or both).  Serve on toast, or with oily pasta spirals.... lovely!

Sweet memories from my childish youth

One of my good friends, Dee Head (that's actually her name, it's not a non de plume) commented on Facebook after reading my latest blog entry that I must have had a hard childhood.  It threw me sideways a bit as I've always felt that my childhood was quite special, idyllic even.  My brother and I grew up as the only children in the family unit, and my parents are still together.  There were issues, I won't go into too much detail right now - my mother's preferred method of disciplining us would make Dr Spock frown (and I don't mean Star Trek by the way, in case you were thinking that, try reading this) but ultimately it was a different time.  Over the past week I've been following another bout of letters published about the rights and wrongs of slapping children – it seems this one never grows old (and quite rightly so, parents are still using fear based methods of raising children - whatever the arguments for, I always find the most level-headed responses to be the following:  "We do not use physical violence in our home because we teach our children that no problem requires the use of physical force in order to be resolved.") 

 I have absolutely no problem for folks who grab their children and shout at them (for example, in order to stop them from sticking a fork into an electronic socket) but if you need to slap your child, even on the "fingers", then you have ishoos….and you're just transferring these to your children.  What parents really need to ask is what kind of message they are actually trying to get across to their kids.  Are they bringing them up to be afraid of the powerful angry person (who they can later just rebel and rage against) or are they installing skills in them as to how to become a rational and reasonable adult?  I'm really not against discipline but if your only option is to resort to physical violence, you probably need help with your child, and it is NOT a sign of weakness to seek that help.

There is far too much "acceptable" physical violence in this world.  Folks who think it is okay to punch somebody because they are mouthing off or just being plain annoying – this seems to me just a little disturbing.  I once knew a young boy who was hit in the head by a tennis ball in the school playground - he was suffering from a tumour and died instantly.  Whatever we consider is "acceptable" always has its terrible case scenario exceptions.  People who don't know their own strength sometimes kill somebody just by giving them a punch to the nose.  As somebody who was regularly bullied and punched and kicked many a time when I was younger, (by authority figures, family members and sometimes by complete strangers) I think I have some authority on voicing just how soul destroying this makes the person who is on the receiving end of the violence.

The last time this happened was at Notting Hill Carnival in the early naughties.  I raised my can of cider in the air and did a loud "wooo-hoooo!" as we watched the parade and a man who was walking along the crowd's edge smacked me in the mouth.  I remember being totally confused and him saying curtly before he stomped on by: "You KNOW what THAT was for!" Well, I'm still wondering to tell you the truth, although it probably had something to do with a girlfriend running past or maybe he was just an angry man and I reminded him of somebody he hated or who had done him wrong?  That was also the year we witnessed a group of youths at the carnival brandishing knives to one another and we were amongst the crowds who scattered.  Folks always want to shout about how this is all due to there not being enough discipline in the children's homes – it may be true for some of them but personally I think it is a knock on effect of the 50s hidden violence syndrome which has started to seep out of the cracks of every home that this psychotic method was applied in.

Some of us are repulsed by the violence that was inflicted in our supposedly loving homes, hidden behind the mesh curtains that are meant to let in the light but not the prying eyes of our nosy neighbours – we vow never to inflict such hurtfulness upon our own children.  Whether we succeed or not is down to ability to process the pain and if we receive the right kind of help.  Not everyone is lucky enough to take this road – for some, the pain is too much, the fears too great to even look at in the light of day.  For these poor souls, the pain becomes twisted and churns deep inside, only to explode when the pressure becomes too much.  Where and when this occurs, even the best psychics will be unable to predict.

Here I find myself speaking very publicly about painful things from my past – where do I get off, eh?  I really wanted to focus on something positive about my life in this post, mainly as a reaction to Dee's comment (and the silent majority too) although clearly I have much to work through as now I'm in the third paragraph and I'm having to take a breath and stop (or "Schtop!", as my German relatives would say) and just wait for the emotions to abate a little.  So back to my childhood days do let us travail – this time down happy memory – or as I like to call it, the Cookie Road.

It is such an American term, isn't it: "Cookie" but we're all pretty much aware of it in Australia because we all grew up with American pronunciation of the Alphabet (X Y Zeeeee) - I have a wonderful album that I proudly claim to be the very first album that I owned. I received it as a Christmas present probably around the time it was released in 1975 (for any readers who were born after 1990, an "album" is the musical equivalent of a CD – anyone born after 2000, I'm sorry, you'll have to pick up a history book in order to work out just what this antiquated terminology means). 

 The album I'm referring to is the Sesame Street Monsters and my favourite song still has to be the burlesque ballad belted by Marilyn Sokol ("I want a Monster to be my Friend") but there is also a song sung by Harry, Grover and Cookie Monster called "We'll do it together".  It's a song about a cookie tree, and how the three monsters work together in order to reach the cookies that hang just out of their reach.  It inevitably ends with cookie monster getting way too excited and everyone crashing to the ground (I believe Cookie stands on Harry and Grover balances on top of Cookie) and I still to this day find it hilarious how the cookies never actually go down his gullet but instead get mashed up into little pieces and sent flying in all directions.  I introduced my daughter to this album, or perhaps, as I was an absent father (usually found in another country on the other side of the world) it was my mother who played this record for her over and over again.  Whichever, she is the only other person I know who has memorised all the lyrics to these very special songs.

I loved Sesame Street as a kid and possibly more as I grew older.  My brother and I would religiously watch this show every morning before school (up until the time we had to leave, of course) but because the show was repeated in the afternoon, if I rushed home from school, I could catch the second half of to the program that I had missed in the morning due to the school commute.  I still find myself singing the pinball number song: "one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve!" in the shower. When I saw a parody of this on Family Guy (featuring baby Stewie in a perspex ball as the pinball) I nearly wet myself with excitement… probably much more than the segment actually deserved.  I had absolutely no idea at the time that this would be my first ever introduction to the Pointer Sisters! 

 However I was watching this show well before I went to school – and, in fact, I have incredibly fond memories of those very early days.  My brother would be sent off to at that time, I didn't really know where and I would have my goddess mother all to myself.  My mother (when not stressfully busy or in need of a nap) was a divine source of inspiration for any child who had the lucky joy of meeting her.  I've watched her with my own daughter and her ability to magically drop down to a child's level playing field is something truly wondrous to behold.  She was always happy to be looking after a small child whenever the parents needed a break and she certainly inspired me with regards to anything and almost everything imaginative.  She could draw like an artist, she could sew like a seamstress and her ability to organise inspired me to develop the best OCD qualities of all (useful and practical applications of obsession, as opposed to just being obsessive [although believe me, there are a few 'secret' things that remain purely just crazy obsessions]).

One of the best things to do with children is get them to be involved in the food preparation process.  My mother wasn't particularly good at this, I have to admit she was a bit of a control freak (which is pretty much where I got it from... and my daughter, Jarra, got it from).  When my brother and I first started Home Economics, we realised that we had little or no skills when it came to food prep!  We also had very little knowledge about things such as nutrition but that was more to do with the seventies themselves (and don't get me started on what was taught in the fifties and sixties when my mother was growing up.... I've mentioned before my parent's were war babies after all).  So nobody was really surprised by our lack of knowledge, especially not the Home Economics teachers - this was normal, sexist, behaviour but in truth my mother, like many women at that time, was in charge of the kitchen and they had no intention of relinquishing any of the power that they held had over that space.  I'll no doubt go into more detail in later blogs of the separate power spaces that my parents reigned supreme in but I'm still surprised to this day that my mother did not actually teach me or my brother how to actually cook.  We learnt how to boil an egg, for example, because my mother was sent an egg cooker by her best friend from Germany. 

I also learnt how to decorate a pizza possibly because my mother found the process tedious but also as it was a way to keep children occupied.  My mother could never be described as "lazy".  In fact, she would oh so rarely spend any time at all in front of the  television.  Much later in life she learnt how to relax more – and perhaps it was all to do with her quitting cigarette smoking, something she did shortly before I started school but there was always a lot of nervous energy around my mother and she was always doing something and frequently it was quite productive.  So she had tasks and whenever she needed to do something and she had bored children that also wanted to do something, she would find a task that would keep them occupied.  One of these tasks was biscuit making.

I still to this day love making biscuits and I think the reason why I love making biscuits is this early childhood task.  The German community that I grew up in still has regular Christmas biscuit making sessions – these are held at various members homes (there is a kind of rotation that occurs) and all the women (and one man) get together and bake a mass amount of biscuits together, all from scratch.  These are then divied out to all the families for the Christmas period.  I adore my mother's gingerbread (more of a soft, spongy cake version that is often sold at German Christmas markets in the shape of decorated hearts than the traditional hard gingerbread men variety) and her gingerbread (lebkuchen) house at Nikolaus is a tradition that my mother just cannot stop, even though I secretly sometimes think she wishes she could (it is a tremendous amount of work to make).

I've heard that this Christmas tradition has now split into two groups – the oldies and the ancients.  The ancients, my mother's generation, used to be the oldies of course, and the new oldies, who used to the be the youngies (until my cousin's children grew into adulthood, and my own daughter starting producing offspring) have a desperate need to create their own traditional spaces.  Sadly, of course, this usually ends up with fewer and fewer of us having any traditions at all.  I will attempt this year to create an English version of the Winter Solstice baking tradition, of course, I better start practising my gluten free baking skills – it is quite difficult to make anything with pastry, bread or biscuit when you cannot include wheat flour as an ingredient.

My mother used to make the basic sugar butter biscuit dough, but she would often make two types – one would have an added ingredient of cocoa powder to give it a dark chocolately colour.  I would get to roll out the dough and then use the various cookie cutters we owned.  These are vital ingredients to own for any budding cookie maker.  You really cannot make do without equipment.  I have been known to improvise and use a jar to both roll and cut out scones when challenged by a threadbare kitchen but cookies are made of much more delicate materials and a proper investment and outlay is required.

Seriously, you can never have enough cookie cutters....

I now own a variety of cookie cutters – when I was younger we used the same ones for play-doh (again, something my mother was extremely good at knocking up a batch of – I remember being amazed that she could just DO this!  Other children had to beg and whine and if they were lucky they would get those teeny tiny pots full of the stuff – my mother knew how to mix primary colours to create purple!).  I don't think you can ever own enough cookie cutters – I have a particular set that I like to use for Hallowe'en and there I recently picked up a Easter flavoured pack from the pound shop (for a pound!) – I am yet to find a good Solstice set, for either summer OR winter but half the fun is in looking.  I prefer metal cutters, but plastic ones are just as practical and whereas with the metal variety you have to be careful not to cut yourself whilst cleaning, you equally have to have a little more care when washing the plastic ones (to stop them from breaking).  Other vital equipment is a rolling pin and baking trays, 4 to 6 if you're into making larger batches (nothing is more annoying that having to wait for a tray to cool in order to get your next batch in the oven – it certainly extends the baking period from an hour to many, many more.

I'm fairly certain that my mother received the basic sugar cookie recipe from her own mother.  I, of course, have never committed a cookie recipe to memory, especially since I received as a Christmas present from our Jewish-English Mom the Readers Digest Cookies – 1001 Mouthwatering Recipes from around the World (US Readers, try here).  This wonderful tome contains every recipe imaginable (well, nearly... ).  It is truly a delight, although I have been known to question the measurements contained quite severely.  Exactly what is a "stick" of butter anyway?  Do Americans really buy their butter in sticks?  Where did this practice come from?  How do they stack them in the supermarket?  And the equivalent metric measurement of ½ cup seems excessive and awfully lardy for my liking, never quite creating that perfect elasticky dough that I remember my mother making but rather a sticky mess that I always have to add a little more flour to in order to achieve a rollable dough. 

To my delight, however, I have discovered that since I began using Gluten Free flour this recipe book seems to be ideal for the extra absorptive qualities of such flour mixes!  Normally I have to add approximately 100 ml more fluid for every 250ml listed.. not so with these recipes (although I did put that to the test the other day as I make a few batches of gluten-filled cookies to raise money for charity at my work - and sure enough, I had to add tons more flour to the mix (gluten free flour, as I ran out of the gluten filled variety).

Anyway, here's how I make 'em.  Sift 1 ¾ self-raising flour into a large bowl (or add 2 tsps baking powder to a plain flour mix) – add ¼ teaspoon ground allspice and ¹/₈ teaspoon salt.  In a smaller bowl, cream ½ cup butter and 1 cup caster sugar.  Beat into the creamy mix 2 large eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract.  Then pour this mixture into the flour mix.  Stir together all ingredients until this makes a soft dough – you really don't want a 'sloppy' texture to your dough, so add a bit more flour if your eggs are super size or your fat is particularly fluidic.  Into the fridge this goes (into a clean bowl covered in cling film) for at least half an hour.  While your dough is chilling (this is particularly important for the dough – the flour really needs to absorb all the fluid and expand a little) grease 4 baking trays (you can get by with probably 2 baking trays, but you won't be able to roll and bake all your cookies in under an hour, having to wait for your trays to cool down first before making your next batch) and pre-heat your oven to gas mark 4 or approx 350º F (180 º C).

Once your dough is ready, cut it in half, then half again and always return the parts you are not using back to the fridge.  Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface (if the dough sticks to the rolling pin, then flour it lightly before proceeding) and you want to get your dough as thinly as you can – the recipe calls for 1/8 inch (er…?), I try for about 5mm maximum.  You also need to have your dough rolled out as consistently as you can – although a portion of it being slightly fatter than the rest will add to the charm of your cookies having that home baked feel – after all, you don't want to completely emulate the store bought variety… you can go to the store to buy those and save yourself a great deal of time and effort!  I am a perfectionist first and foremost though, so I have been known to abandon my initial efforts, scrunch everything together and return the mixture to the fridge while I work on the next lot. 

 You need to be patient when making cookies – don't rush the process, the dough is brittle (especially if you are making a gluten-free variety) and your efforts will be completely wasted if you carefully cut out your shapes and then transfer them hastily to the tray so that they bulge and squish into misshapen entities!  Children make oddly shaped cookies because they haven't learnt the motor control skills that are required to .  You can forgive them for being unable to create a tray of uniform shapes (you'll find that most kids will want to use every cookie cutter in your collection anyway…..) but there is nothing quite like a tray of uniformly shaped and baked cookies ready for icing or filling.

I love to create creamy or jammy filled cookies and so I bake alternate batches - one with a hole (this will be the "top" cookie) and one without.  One of my favourite store bought cookies was the jammy dodger – there is an exorbitantly priced gluten-free variety available in most English supermarkets but like most "free from" confectionery, they use palm oil instead of butter (I'm not dairy intolerant…. well, actually I may well be but I refusing to consider it right now, I mean, seriously, if I give up the dairy on top of the booze, fags, wheat, rye and barley, red meat – precisely what will be left for me to consume??).

How excited was I too learn that my favourite Hazelnut spread is gluten free?  I add a heaped teaspoon of this (or your favourite jam) between two cookies and squish them together.  The recipe calls for "confectioners sugar" to be sprinkled onto your finished cookies but I have never bothered with this (presumably they mean "icing sugar"?) as I find them sweet enough, especially with a filling.  Then I stack 'em up and pack 'em up.  David got his served with coffee and my work colleagues got their own batches on Valentine's Day when my work did a promotion for Organ Donation Day, hence the heart shaped variety.  We raised over £50 for Kidney Research, and i discovered that this world is happy to take my organs when I'm dead but not my blood while I'm alive... but I don't want to digress into something less positive now, so I'll save that for another blog and leave you all with a photo of the fabulous display featuring my cookies!  They were all eaten by the end of the day I'm happy to say, whereas some of the store bought cakes were still sitting there the following morning when I arrived to dismantle it all.

God bless the child that's got his own (collection of Nigella cook books)

I attended church the other week.  Neither David nor myself are particularly fond of what has become of the Christian faith since growing up in the 70s but I had been meaning to visit this particular group for quite some time, ever since I learned that they had designed and built their own place of worship in Watford, a church cum community centre.

Leaders at the Watford Community Church - why are Evangelical
Christian's smiles always so white?

Approximately 25 years ago I gave up organised religion when I was forced to make a choice between my faith and my sexuality.  The fact that people believed that I had somehow "chosen" to be gay was pretty ridiculous in the darkness of the 80s (and, truth be told, it is even more so in this day and age).  Now I was born and raised by a Lutheran mother and an Atheist father.  I believe this has helped me to become the deeply spiritual person that I am today - that and a passionate amount of dedicated self study on the subjects of comparative mythologies and belief systems throughout history but back when I was growing up there was a sense that Jesus was real and even if you did not actually believe the whole bit about him being the son of God, you could at least accept that he was a good man.

When I was a child there were two programs (The Goodies and Doctor Who) that we used to watch religiously as a family whenever they were broadcast and prior to these being shown on the ABC (the Australian equivalent of the BBC), there was a regularly repeated screening of a five minute musical video segment brought to us by a Christian organisation (the name of this organisation completely evades me today, even after I googled "Australian Christian Network", as all I got back was multiple hits regarding the newly created cable channels - those money grubbing intellectually backward televangelists that exploit the fears of the insecure amongst us and coerce them into pledging their credit cards).

The 5 minute slots in the 70s frequently used to broadcast the same music video, over and over, to the point of annoyance.  One such transmission that actually didn't end up getting on my nerves was Francisco Henri's "Lord of the Dance" - if you don't know this song, you won't find it on you tube (although there is a version on Spotify, but not the joyous version I am familiar with).  We all, as a family, quite liked this rendition of this hippy like story about Jesus and how he "danced" for us all - some of those he danced for would join him in the dance, others would shun him.  It was wonderfully representative of how there will always be those in our society who will not allow themselves to be truly alive, to truly love.  This was the kind of message that was being delivered during this decade - we even had a guitar playing nun who came to deliver religious education at Mitcham Primary School (for a while there I thought this was normal nun behaviour).  Our family would regularly attend church every year on Christmas Eve (it was a special German language Lutheran Church in the city - again, I thought that every nationality in Australia had their own church.

Somehow, it never occurred to me that religion was meant to be anything more than a friendly reminder that in order to live well with one another it was always best to try to love one another as much as possible.  It wasn't until my best friend Alex, a Roman Catholic, began preparations for his first holy communion that I began to ask questions, the main one being why it was that I was not expected to attend similar classes.  In the end, I went along to his classes (again, it just didn't cross my mind that his religion was any different to my own).  I'm sure if he had been a Muslim or Jewish that I would have happily gone attended with him his place of worship without even for one moment believing that there was any difference between his god and my own.

Shortly after it was published, I read the magnificent novel The Life of Pi by Yann Martel.  In it, the main character as a young boy joins the three major religions of his country.  When he is confronted about this by each respective leader and he asks them to explain why he cannot be a member of all three as he feels he ought to be able to, he is told that he is just too young to understand.  I am now 43 years old and I still am not coming any closer to understanding why so many cannot comprehend the true nature of the universality of the concept that is the supreme deity of everything.  Sometimes I think they deliberately choose not to comprehend - they can see it but then they simply refuse to embrace it, because it means losing the certainty that their religion is 100% perfect and correct.

Australia in the early 1980s was just like everywhere else in the Western world.  The majority of people found homosexuality to be a vile and dreadful thing regardless of their religious beliefs (although it really does not take much effort to find evidence that the major religions of the world have strongly been influencing everyone on this subject for many years).  I had a terrible time coming to terms with my own sexuality and certainly did not want to believe that I was any different from all the other boys as I was growing up (although in hindsight it has become clear that I was very different indeed).

My mother was always a little annoyed with my "difference" - she would sometimes declare, even very recently "You always wanted to be different" as if I had some choice over the matter.  From a very young age I always had girls as my friends - I was naturally attracted to their games and to their sensitivity and of course I was equally repelled by boys rough and tumbles and their love of sport (my brother amusing himself for hours on end by throwing a tennis ball at my head did not help much either).  My parties were always attended by all the girls in my class, and my only friend Alex.  We later found another boy who was similarly considered an outcast and for many years afterwards there were three of us.  One of the most dreadful things occurred when my best friend left Australia to go and live in Italy for a while.

I remember attending a Grade 6 camp and realising that I was dreadfully, dreadfully alone.  Even the nerds did not really want me to be amongst their crowd.  The girls were all moving on to real boys and I was on my own.  It would take about 3 years of hell before I finally took up smoking and began to mix with the "cooler" crowd.  I've only just managed to kick that habit, 30 years on.  Needless to say I am no longer friends with any of that crowd (in fact I haven't even seen one of them for approximately 20 years!) but I'm still facebook friends with my oldest friend, Alex, although apart from our initial exchange after reconnecting after many years estranged, I haven't really reconnected at all.  He's married now.  Probably still a good Catholic.  His wife, whom I'm contemplating befriending on Facebook (as she seems to the one in the relationship that wears the social media trousers) is holding a small child in a recent photo... maybe he's a daddy now?

I ended up at Luther College in 1987.  It was to become a very interesting year.  I may go into more detail of how I got there in a later blog, but needless to say, I didn't get to stay there very long.  In fact, before the year was up I was expelled.  The reason?  Well ultimately the main reason was that I wrote in a rather large graffiti paint pen on a shopping centre window near the school that the principal, the vice principal and the head of my form year were respectively, an "arse", a "cock" and a "bitch".

The guy who's pen I had borrowed to make this rather public declaration ended up blaming me for everything, including all of his "tags".  In the end I took the blame without question - after all, my foot high letters were a little impossible to deny and I did actually mean what I had written.  As I was already on "suspension" for various "bad" behaviours" I was expelled without a moment's hesitation.  Ultimately, I would never get on with the school and I really only even tried to because my parents had made it one of the conditions for my returning home (it was completely idiotic and totally unrealistic of them at the time to give me such an ultimatum but attending the school did give me some interesting life experiences).

My second cousin once asked me about the tag name – local school gossip still believed that I was "Astro".  I'm here to clear that up.  Astro was never my name, I don't do "tags" and I never did.  That tag belongs to none other than Duncan McClean (perversely, I met Duncan many years later when he was an apprentice chef and I was a little surprised at how quickly he became the campest gay in the village…!)

A campaign that didn't exist during my high school years

Throughout my high school years I was called a faggot approximately every day of the year.  Clearly it wasn't actually once a day, there were days when nobody spoke to me at all and then there were days when I was called a faggot or gay or nancyboy so many times it seemed to make up for all the days when I wasn't.

I have no idea just how the other kids knew about this, we didn't have social media back then or mobile phones and group texting, yet everyone seemed to know that this was the one thing that you could call me that would secretly enrage me.  I certainly was not aware that I was ever different until much later, when it became really obvious that certain plumbing just did not work the way the other boys said it did. The difference, of course, between attending a state school that only vaguely tolerates religious belief and a school that is completely built around it is that at Luther College it became apparent fairly quickly that both the school principal and vice principal were amongst the most homophobic of them all.  I really didn't stand a chance.

I remember when I first arrived at the school and the form co-ordinator made a short speech at our first assembly on what was acceptable dress for the students.  On the subject of jewellery, she mentioned that girls could wear studs or small plain silver rings and of course the boys were not to wear any earrings at all.  I wasn't at all surprised by these incredibly backward fashion statements coming from the "authority" but what totally floored me was that the whole chapel full of students had started to giggle and snicker at the mere mention made of boys wearing earrings - as if this was somehow effeminate and a therefore a laughable matter!  With my already pierced ear (the left one!  it wasn't "gay" if you had a piercing in your left ear!!) I knew then that my days at this school were well and truly numbered.

I'm actually grateful for the experience at Luther, of course.  It taught me to toughen up.  It was unlikely to kill me (I'd already been through that, hence the whole reason for why I needed to change schools in the first place) and it taught me that most Christians are not only terribly flawed but also that most will do everything in their power to show that it is others who are much more flawed than they are.  The self righteous amongst us are truly the worst of the species – they will bully and belittle and gossip and slander and never consider the consequences of their actions.

I have to end this mini rant by pointing out that the following year I did manage to attend the sister school (or perhaps it is best described as a distant cousin?) of Luther College which was located 4 hours away in Hamilton, sheep capital of Victoria.  Good Shepherd College was run by the former Vice Principal of Luther College, Malcolm Wegner.  Now there was a true Christian.  He allowed me to complete my final year of school (without having completed year 11, and I attempted it twice) and he treated me like the adult that I then already was (I was 18 by the time I started this final year at his school).  I have the utmost respect for him and even though the school Pastor had an ego the size of a house and tried to upstage me when he played Judas to my Jesus in our school production of Godspell, I can honestly say it was one of the most spiritual years and the closest I came to experiencing a true version of Christianity.  Oddly enough, it was also the year that I was introduced to Evangelical Worship.  Something I discovered was frowned upon by more the conservative Christians in the town.

Our Clan back when they let us cuddle them.... ALL of them!

Our kids don’t practice any form of any religion.  Jarra once attended a riding school that was secretly run by an Evangelical Christian group.  She came back singing a song that completely freaked out my best friend Kymmers with the sheer banality of its lyrics (something along the lines of: "I'm a sheep [clap clap] I'm a sheep! [clap clap]).  Kari & Khyan have already sized up those that call themselves "religious" and put them in the idiot basket, as most rebellious (read: intelligent) teenagers are prone to do when they come across the judgemental amongst us.  Radha is just a gorgeous soul, full of love and light and it is unlikely that the darkness of the religious will ever penetrate to her inner core.  Sarah has had a particularly hard time in her early years, although with her foster mother's atheistic straightforward and practical love has come through this less damaged than she might have been.

Sam, Zack and Brydie's mum died tragically a few years ago and I have heard Brydie say that she will see her again one day (and her mother's brother, Richard, who was a very close member of their family unit and who passed away a few years prior to their mother's passing).  Ultimately these three are just way too intelligent to fall for the fear and nonsense that ensnares most kids into the fold if their parents are not practicing religidiots although Brydie has even made mention of looking forward to seeing her mother again, I imagine that this is more of a metaphorical approach to the subject of an afterlife and anyway, you don't need a religion to have a feeling that our ancestors are watching over us and awaiting for us to join them in the great beyond.  I'm yet to have an in-depth conversation about spirituality with any of the kids but ultimately I think they will live their lives without the fears and anxieties that both David and I grew up with.

So back to last weekend and my attendance at the Watford Community Church.  I hadn't been to an Evangelical service for literally, well, ages.  I pretty soon regretted my decision to go again.  The service mainly consisted of singing (which is fine, I love to sing) and although I found the music very uplifting, the lyrics were just dire.  I mean, I get that God is meant to be great (we are talking about the most supreme being in the whole universe here) but to constantly draw emphasis to the fact that this god OUR GOD is the greatest…. I started to believe that maybe there were other supreme beings in the universe jostling for the role of super deity pretty quickly (which I'm certain is NOT the aim of the Christian belief system).  To describe it in a word, I would have to use "vapid".

I did not mind the guest speaker that they had speaking (in fact, I was grateful because the woman who led the worship was starting to get on my tits with her constant "and I am just feeling so excited about all this!" and the whole message that the guest speaker had to deliver was actually quite positive overall – basically that you are greater than you can ever imagine and only you will end up limiting what you can actually achieve.  Basically, to quote a piece of juvenilia, as Richard O'Brien himself called it recently: "Don't dream it, be it!"

So why am I waxing lyrical about religion anyway?  Well, oddly enough, I have a number of cook books that have a religious or spiritual basis to them.  That, and David found my Christmas cake the other day and he and Zack ate it with custard.  Anyone that has ever tried to wish David a Happy Christmas will often get the standard reply "Do you believe that Jesus is the only son of God?" and woe betide anyone who does not and merely thinks that "it's traditional" (so is stoning unbelievers…).  I have spent many a year attempting to find an alternative seasonal greeting and the only one that David and I find truly acceptable and all encompassing and inclusive is "Happy Solstice".  Secretly, though, I'm with Nigella in believing that all the good things about Christmas, all the feasting, the gift giving – even that tree with its colourful decorations – all of these date back to a time before Christianity was even born – the Christian Church merely came along and supplanted their traditions over an already existing celebration, and like the Green Men in the churches of old, they could never quite rub out these heathen traditions entirely.

So it is no surprise that the Christmas cake that he enjoyed so much came from Nigella Christmas (US readers, try here) – Nigella's very own heathen interpretation of the joy of cooking for this season.  This book is a recent acquisition to my collection.  I truly want ALL of her works – I truly believe no home should be without them.  Ever since How to be a Domestic Goddess came out I wanted to own it (but perversely I still do not own a copy).  My boss at work actually gave me my first Nigella cook book because she ended up receiving two for Christmas 2011 and the day after we were discussing the latest programme in the office and I mentioned how I had made the peanut butter caramel cheesecake that was broadcast the week before (it was delicious) she brought it in and gifted it to me.

Now I adore Nigella – for one she shares (and totally surpasses) my love of cook books – and secondly, well, she's just sexy.  For a gay man, she is incredibly sexy and it isn't some vicarious desire to be her or anything like that (I'm really not that kind of gay) but I am totally in love with her ability to bring sensuousness to the kitchen table.  Now I did make quite a few of Nigella's recipes from this book but I won't go into them at this point, I mean, it's past Imbolc now and to dwell on the Winter Solstice at this time of year could bring incredible bad luck (or worse, freezing cold weather for the next month or so) and yet, David did find my cake after all.  So here's how you make it:

Basically it is a mash up of dried fruit (Nigella says use 350g pears, 250g apricots and 250g golden sultanas – I just used 850g of whatever dried fruit I could find – and this included mangos and pineapple.  Chop them into smaller pieces (obviously not the sultanas) and into a saucepan they go along with 175g butter, 200g sugar, 125ml white rum and 200g marmalade (actually the recipe calls for ginger jam… but yeah, you’re unlikely to find this at your local supermarket).  You simmer this for about 10 mins, and then leave to stand for half an hour.  Then you stir in ground almonds (225g), sesame seeds (35g) the seeds from 3 cardamon pods and ¼ tsp ground coriander.

What's left of the cake.....

After this, beat 3 eggs into the mix and then spoon everything into a 20cm high-sided tin lined with a double layer of baking parchment (it's important that the parchment extends about 10cm above the cake tin so you can completely cover the cake once it is baked).  Nigella then studs her cake with blanched almonds (in concentric circles) and I highly recommend this, as it really does look fabulous.  Bake it for 1 hour 40 minutes in a preheated oven (150 degrees Celsius / Gas mark 2).  Then leave everything to cool in the tin.  Wrap it in foil and then into a cake tin it goes (it must be airtight).  You don't need to leave it for a couple of months in the larder, but if you forget that you made it, well, what a lovely surprise for your son and his dad to find and to devour with custard.