Tag: food

Categories
writing zero moment

Jam (and writing, but mostly jam)

raspberries.jpg

I woke up this morning thinking that I really wanted some homemade apple-and-raspberry pie, a sure indication that pie season has begun. However, a simple idea of pie became a trip to the pick-your-own followed by a big jam-making session. It’s been ages since I made jam, and never from your fancy farm fruits like strawberries and raspberries. Before it’s always been jam from the wild blackberries that grow on a mass of brambles on Sunnymead meadow. But last week a friend from Manchester dropped by with a pot of homemade strawberry jam from his own family’s trip to the PYO. It was so delicious – and nearly all gone by now.

So now I have 5 jars of strawberry jam, 2 pots of raspberry and since I had 500g of jam sugar left over, thought I might thaw the left-over blackberry pulp and jam that too.

That’s a year’s supply of jam, in one evening. More, to be honest. We’re not big jam eaters. Now I have to make scones to go with that jam. Jeez. I’m going to wind up a blimp.

This has to be my most boring blog post ever…apologies. I WAS going to write some thoughts about how important it is to develop a writing method and how listening to a Radio 4 programme this morning about Method acting made me realise that there might well be some parallels with writing. Then I remembered that my agent has firmly instructed me Never To Tell Anyone How I Write. Not for fear of being copied – for goodness sake! But for fear of casting light on some mysterious process, exposing it for it’s quotidian normalcy.

A writer and actor I greatly admire, Victoria Wood, recently said – I think on Desert Island Discs – that she learned how to write jokes. And that she wouldn’t tell her method – for the same reason.

Anyway. I hope readers have as much fun reading Joshua book 3 as I’m having writing it. Yesterday I wrote the first scene of High Drama, which occurs around 55 pages into the book. Very exciting, set in the giant sand dunes of Genipabu, Brazil… (well I found it exciting to write. Only time will tell if it actually makes for an exciting read…years in fact! March 2010…?)

Categories
raves

Summertown is getting a Starbucks!

Summertown is getting a Starbucks!Originally uploaded by mgharris

Forgive the excitement but it seems that the charming yet overpriced, much-missed Bakehouse is to be replaced with a Starbucks!!!

M&S food, Costa coffee and starbucks…the anti-glob hand-wringers might get in a tizzy but I predict that like Costa, the place will be full all day from day one.

Summertown has a lot of caffeine-hungry people! There’s all the year 11s and older from Cherwell, the mums-with-babies, the big-haired lads and lasses from Teddy’s, the Oxfam and Oxford Uni employees.

Not to mention the itinerant authors with wayyy too much time on their hands.

I hear that JK Rowling has been spotted writing in cafés again. Good onya, Jo. Get cracking. I don’t see why being a squillionaire should get anyone off the hook, when there’s a hungry audience waiting for the next fix from a creative mind.
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Categories
readers

Doughnut Time

Doughnut TimeOriginally uploaded by mgharris

No New Year diet for me!

Can you believe we blew off the weekly visit to the pool in favour of a trip to the temple of doughnuts…?

And you know what else? I’m not even going to feel guilty about it.

Because it turns out that I actually lost a couple of pounds over the break. There weren’t all that many bloatation opportunities after all.

I’m in a ridiculously good mood.

My best friend just texted me from Havana, where she’s having a great birthday with her Cuban boyfriend.

And the Waterstone’s website has ‘The Joshua Files: Invisible City’ listed in their ‘Coming Soon’ selection.

The only downer is that the Oxford Krispy Kreme plays non-stop 80s’ music. Well, I didn’t like it much the first time around.

Next to me a crowd of Spanish women are having a grand old gossip. They haven’t worked out that I’m listening to every word. Muahaha.
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Categories
raves switzerland

Things I Learned in Switzerland


Tree opposite my brother’s Swiss chalet.

I’m back. It was an awesome week in which I got to swap being a mother/wife for being sister/aunt.

My nieces and nephews are so cute it hurts. I miss them already. My brother and his wife’s twin babies are still at that adorable little baby phase where they make cute little sounds and curl up against you to burp, and stare into your eyes as you rock them to sleep.

Broodiness alert…beware of spending a week with small ultra-cute babies!

My sister’s kids are also fabulous. I hadn’t seen my 22-month old nephew since he was 4 months old. Now he’s racing around, but occasionally stops asking to ‘Cuddle’ or ‘Kiss you’. And my ten-year old niece/goddaughter listened to me read out my new opening chapter of ‘Jaguar’s Realm’, and spent quality time with my sister and me down at Charly’s Tea Room.

But I’m back now, full of useful information for fellow travelers. Such as:

1. A winter’s supply of wood for a wood-burning stove costs around £45 and takes 4 hours to carry up stairs and stack in neat little piles near the door. In my brother’s Swiss mountain village, all houses have a lovely pile of wood outside the door. It’s probably an offence to stack it wrongly. Neatness is very high on the agenda in Switzerland.

2. Charly’s Tea Room will make any cake you like to order for a reasonable price and deliver it. After scouring the bakeries my sister-in-law was about to resort to baking her babies’ christening cake herself, until her older sister told her this useful bit of information. The chef at Charly’s loves to make imaginative cakes. He did wonders with a request for lemon sponge and white glaze icing. He’s quite some pastry chef, his mille-feuille is to die for.

3. The older version of the Catholic Rite of Baptism includes a mini exorcism, just in case the Devil’s already starting to get ideas…A few grains of salt in the mouth of the babes and a few exorcising prayers (which are best said in Latin) go a very long way with innocents. Fr. Julian of the London Oratory flew out to perform the ceremony and explained all the way through a very full-on christening service. My nephew and niece were good and baptised!

4. You can leave Gstaad at 3pm and take a train, plane and then bus to Oxford without waiting more than a few minutes for anything, except for the long airport check-in.

5. Even though the official ski season starts in December, an early dump of snow on the mountains will prompt the efficient Swiss to start preparing pistes and running the ski lifts. My brother and sister-in-law managed to get some skiing in on the Wispile, before the early gift of snow melted away.

6. You should eat a mille-feuille (vanilla slice) by first knocking it over and then tackling it side on, using the tines of the fork to snap the delicate layers of crunchy pastry, mixing in enough creme patissiere and jam to make each mouthful a little slice of heaven. If you don’t have jam on your mille feuille it is substandard; you have been ripped off.

7. Skiing is for people with strong legs. I learned that one a few years ago. Don’t ski unless you are fit and strong!

See, this is the kind of thing you won’t hear from Taki – a famous resident of Gstaad – in his Spectator column. With him it’s all about the Eagle Club and the Palace Hotel…

Categories
mexico raves

Reasons to visit Mexico #1 Breakfast

mexican breakfastOriginally uploaded by mgharris


Here’s one of the things I really miss about Mexico; food!

Yesterday cousin Rodrigo explained how come he left Manchester so suddenly last year.

“I missed my Mexican food, and my mum. I’d had enough of sandwiches, pizzas and kebabs. So I bought a ticket and surprised everyone.”

The photo shows chilaquiles (fried corn tortillas cooked in stock and green tomato and chili sauce, with onions and optional sour cream), refried beans and fried potatoes and peppers.

The relief of eating this after 3 years…