Christmas Cooking and Baking

I have a number of allergies, so I decided this Christmas would be the season I finally bake delicious things for myself. I can't eat gluten or eggs, so baking can be bit of a nightmare (and has been utterly heartbreaking most of the time.)

However I've had some success.

The most exciting piece of news pre-Christmas was the delegation of the Xmas ham to my capable hands. Ham is a big deal to me, and the Christmas ham is basically the Academy Awards of ham-making in our house, and this is how it went:

Dance to the beat of my HAYUM.

It was GOOD.


I followed this with a nutella cheesecake made with gluten free digestive biscuits. It was absolutely delicious.

Unfortunately the cheesecake met with a disastrous end after being knocked off its stand by my aunt in law. I won't show you that picture...it's too hard.


I decided then to turn my hand to some pastry - puff pastry. This was gas craic, pummelling a pound of butter into the dough, turning it 4,5,6 times and then dividing it into two batches, one of which I froze. With this, so far, I have made sausage rolls:

Stephen's Day Pie (turkey, ham, mushroom and onion pie):

and Vol Au Vents:

I have a load still left in the freezer.

I also had a mad urge for something I haven't had in a long time - sponge cake. This is NOT an easy thing to make when you can't use eggs or gluten but with a little experimentation with liquids etc I threw this one together. You'll notice it's not very big - the rise with non-gluten and non-egg based recipes is not as good but the texture of this cake was perfect. Wonderfully spongey and soft.

Today I had a mad urge for a scone so I threw some of them together, they are very very good:

And using the same recipe for the sponge cake above, I've made these beauties and have iced them using a very basic glace icing. Nom nom. Beauties is an unusual word to describe them alas, as they are incredibly ugly. I even left the really ugly ones (if you can pinpoint them) in this picture as I felt bad. I'm no good with presentation at all - and as long as they're delicious and they're only for me, why should I be? ;)

I've had a very delicious Christmas this year, and I'm really dreading stepping on to the scales once the party officially stops (I'm not back in the office until Tuesday, Christmas holidays until then! :D)


The cakes above come from a number of different sources, a lot of which are adapted, including:

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/nutella-cheesecake

www.glutenfreeonashoestring.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/eggless_sponge_cake_70634

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/23618/simple-homemade-scones.aspx

Dear Miss Smarty Pants

I read Stephen Fry's letter to his 16 year old self and felt inspired. His is here, and absolutely wonderful.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/30/stephen-fry-letter-gay-rights

I started this a few weeks ago but have been editing it now and then.

It was a really interesting thing to do - I wasn't sure whether or not to publish it. But sure, why not?


Dear Rebecca,

I'm writing to you, 10 years from the day you're reading this. I'm 26, you're 16. I'm about to go back to college to do a masters degree, you're just going into fifth year. You're young and stupid. I'm slightly older, but still young and still quite a bit stupid. That's ok, everyone has their own kind of stupidity - ours has been serving us quite well so we'll struggle on with it.

You've had a tough few years, and I'm sorry, but the next few years are tough also. You get through it, you survive, you don't cope very well at first, but you learn techniques and soon you start to thrive and enjoy your life. You fall in love and you have many many friends. Lots of them are gay - I swear, you're not the only one on the planet!- most of them are wonderful, some of them are awful fuckers but you'll be able to filter them out yourself in time. Helpful tip: just because someone does something awful, it doesn't negate anything wonderful they've done or the good memories you have with that person.

I like a lot of things about you. You do your own thing, you try your best. You're smart, but not overly precocious. You will learn very quickly that there are people more book smart than you once you leave school - but you're clever and resourceful enough to get by. You can make people laugh and you work your butt off. None of these things leave you (most of the time) - cherish them. You will achieve a lot through grit and determination.

I can't correct your mistakes - and we both know there's been a few already - or the things I don't like about you(you will retain your love of whinging). I can't make your life perfect back then anymore than I can make mine perfect now - I wish I could. I wish I could tell you what I know now - that the world isn't as hateful towards you as you might think, I wish I could tell you to talk to someone, to admit that you're lonely for something you can't even describe yet. That you yearn for a place that's yours - something I know you still haven't quite found. It's a kind of loneliness that you have got used to, that you get comfortable with, so much so that anything that shakes you out of that makes you unsure and uncomfortable.

There are big challenges ahead - I wish I could tell you to ready yourself for them, prepare yourself to be challenged in terms of who you are, what makes you Rebecca, what gives you strength.

You know who you are, and that's something I envy from my position of mid-twenties drift. The certainty and clarity you have about everything, right and wrong, friends and enemies, black and white. That leaves you to a degree, as it does everyone. It never abandons you entirely, and we never lose that streak of pompous self-righteousness - you will learn to not be as annoying about it though (or so I hope!).

Happiness in every life comes and goes, the trick is to enjoy it while it's here but not wait for it to end - I still haven't learned. The rug can get pulled out from under your feet, and it will be. This happens to everyone. We get over it.


I'm sorry that I underestimate you so much - I'm sorry I called you a brat the other day after I read my diaries. Seriously though, you need to stop judging people so much. They may not judge you as much if you do - when you presume everyone is an arsehole then they may see no reason to show you any different.

I know you believe you have all the answers, I wouldn't deny you that experience for anything - but be more open minded. You can listen to people's points of view without accepting them, it's a sign of an enlightened mind, which you can have if you just listen. And keep reading - what was the last book you read? Turn off the computer and go out into the real world.


Keep writing. Please just keep writing and writing even when you think it's crap and no one else will like it.

Please be kind to yourself and to others. Give them a chance.


ps eat lots and lots of eggs and gluten now while you can.

pps The Leaving Cert is actually grand. Noone else will say that to you - but c'mon, who are you going to trust??

pps Even if you are bit of a brat, you're wonderful and worthy of every respect and love.

So I went to the Wesht

The wesht of Ireland called myself and Lady R for a weekend post-exams and post-illness, so off we went to Galway city for one night, where we went for a delicious meal in Kumar's Taste of Asia (nom nom) and for a trad session in The Crane Bar. Wonderful stuff. I also saw the smallest Claddagh ring in the world in the Claddagh Ring museum as well as getting the overwhelming urge to ram raid the cutest toy shop in the world and steal everything there. Bring me a child upon whom I can lavish these ridiculous gifts.

The best part of the trip was of course the Aran Islands, and our stay in The Pier House on Inis Mor. We cycled around the island - I couldn't walk for 2 days afterward - and the highlight of the trip was Dún Aonghasa.

Lady R stood about 6 feet behind me almost getting sick as I took the photo below:



The scenery at Dun Aonghasa (an old fort, parts of which are over 1000 years old) is incredible. It's perched at the edge of a 300 foot cliff making it one of the most inpenetrable defensive structures that can be seen around Europe, if not the world.




We went in search of the Wormhole, but we didn't find anything particularly awe-inspiring. We're pretty sure we went to the wrong place, but we're not too bothered as we'd had a long lovely day at that point, and we saw barren landscape like this. So rugged, beautiful and oddly haunting.




What a wonderful holiday, would highly recommend a trip for anyone - The Pier House is great also, and Joe Watty's has lovely food and tasty hot ports!

Oh and did I mention there were donkeys??

Stand Up! For your LGBT Friends

www.standup.ie

BeLonG To Youth Services have released a new ad for their Stand Up! LGBT Awareness Week.

It's really great and interactive - it links with your facebook and mobile (but doesn't cost you anything unless you choose to donate afterward!). Check it out and stand up for your LGBT friends! :)

A poem for herself

One of my favourite poems:

You by Carol Ann Duffy


Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head,
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.

Falling in love
is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger ready to kill; a flame's fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in.
I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone's face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me

and I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream.

This is probably a terrible idea

See below for terrible ukelele playing (i'm taking lessons) and odd faces

re: The Sindo and its gay-baiting

This was in response to this article: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/loud-and-proud-gays-want-to-take-over-rest-of-society-2920975.html



Dear Editor,

As well as undermining the dignity and respect to which all couples, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity are entitled, Eamon Delaney in his article “Loud and Proud Gays want to take over society” managed to make some sweeping, hurtful statements about a community that resists generalisation. The basis for his opinions appears to be the gay nightlife of New York in which he immersed himself as a younger man and the magazines he has somehow managed to peruse in his research on “the gays”. If one was to form their opinion of the heterosexual community based solely on a jaunt to Copperface Jacks and a reading of Playboy, followed by a morning-after tea in the Shelbourne and a glance at “Irish Brides” magazine one could infer a similarly skewed and contradictory impression of the straight community.



Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people comprise approximately 10% of the population – in a city the size of Dublin alone that means over 50,000 openly claim or quietly struggle with LGBT identity. I challenge Mr. Delaney to take a random sample of this size of the non-LGBT community and find a consistency of sexual norms, preferences, political ideologies, economic circumstances, family values and background. I would be very interested in his findings.



Is mise le meas,

Rebecca Murphy
etc