Henry King WHO CHEWED BITS OF STRINGS, AND WAS EARLY CUT OFF IN DREADFUL AGONIES

By Hilaire Belloc

THE Chief Defect of Henry King
Was chewing little bits of String.
At last he swallowed some which tied
Itself in ugly Knots inside.
Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
'There is no Cure for this Disease.
Henry will very soon be dead.'
His parents stood about his Bed
Lamenting his Untimely Death,
When Henry, with his Latest Breath,
Cried 'Oh, my Friends, be warned by me,
That Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, and Tea
Are all the Human Frame requires...'
With that, the Wretched Child expires.

***

No time for photos.  Busy as.  The eldest is at school camp.  In the wet and wind.  I'm indulging in some separation anxiety thinking of mud slides, treacherous seas and group tomfoolery.   That is when I'm not being driven into the ground with catering for the remaining crowd.  We got by with Steggles chicken fillets and steamed vegies tonight.  Somebody smuggled the bottle of BBQ sauce to the table.  The feta cheese in the home-made spinach pie did not go down well with the junior brigade.  Little S. was visiting and declared that she only ate peas with mint jelly and roasted carrots.  They're a tougher lot than those Masterchef judges.  Then the dastardly routine will all roll around again tomorrow.  I hope there's bread in the freezer.

Dinner Dealbreakers

When I see in a recipe with:

goat's cheese

440 grams of frozen raspberries (500 gram packs)

quinoa

muscovado sugar

sour cream

polenta

200 mls of white wine

chopped mint

rice flour

***

However, I can pull any number of meals together blindfolded with:

tuna in olive oil

tomato paste

mixed Italian dried herbs

dried yeast

frozen peas

balsamic vinegar

thickened cream

eggs

strawberries

rosemary

frozen spinach

oats.

***

It is amazing how I can stock the fridge drawers with a bag of limes and have to hand a tub of fresh ricotta cheese, and not find a suitable recipe using these items.  Then, just when I don't have these items in stock or they have turned rancid waiting,  I'll find a recipe for something perfect requiring the juice of one lime and 200 grams of ricotta.  Meal planning is not my forte.

A platter of dip and crackers and carrot sticks and tortilla 'pizzas' are not to be sniffed at for a quick dinner when you get home after six.   But having got the food to the table, it's as much effort again to have it consumed. Does anyone else's meals take five minutes to prepare but (seemingly) five hours to consume?  Ours go on and on, and on and on ... 

It's Show Time!

Banquet Night  
by Rudyard Kipling

"ONCE in so often," King Solomon said,

Watching his quarrymen drill the stone,

"We will curb our garlic and wine and bread

And banquet together beneath my Throne,

And all Brethren shall come to that mess

As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less."

***

What a day.  If I were Julia I'd need to break my Lenten commitment to forsake alcohol.  I haven't given up coffee though and I'll bet the coffee machines at Parly House were on overdrive today.

I love my new pretend paper cup from the two dollar shop.  I've taken to using the Italian expresso pot on the stove and pouring myself a double-shot flat white.  I can pretend I'm a hot shot executive too busy to breakfast when in fact I'm drinking from it in my jarmies at the kitchen bench while stuffing carrot sticks and frozen banana cake into plastic lunch boxes designed like miniature space shuttles with flaps that open in all directions.  The kids think the cup is 'awesome' too and have visions of taking hot chocolate to soccer in one.  They've got another thing coming.

We had a busy weekend what with a go-karting birthday party, the usual cricket match, World Thinking Day for Girl Guides on Aspen Island (in the rain) and a trip to the Royal Canberra Agricultural Show for the littlest gull and me.   The coffee injections were indispensable to enable me to get from this:

to this:

Fabulous from start to finish!

Berry Delicious Summer.

Blueberries 

by Robert Lee Frost

"You ought to have seen what I saw on my way

To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day:

Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,

Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum

In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!

And all ripe together, not some of them green

And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!"

***

What is it with berries?  The supermarkets are full of them.  Raspberries, blueberries and blackberries are standard fare in the big chains not just the farmers markets or roadside stalls.  Not so when I was growing up.  There was a time when they were a rarity. I'd pick mulberries from the tree in my grandparent's back yard and we had a few measley strawberry plants in our own vegie patch.  These days however, we can recreate some an English pastoral scene in the kitchen with bountiful punnets of berries... at three dollars a pop, or less.  (Perhaps not so cheap for raspberries, the most delicate of all the Rubus genus.)

In fact, our 2011-12 summer dessert hit has been pavlova shells stuffed with mixed berry goodness and chopped kiwi fruit, topped with Gippsland double cream and syrupy passionfruit.  Look what Not Quite Nigella has to say on the topic.  I haven't been brave enough to make my own pavlova just yet but I feel the need to do so some time soon.

Our smoothie of choice this season has been a creamy concoction of frozen berries, milk and yoghurt.  It makes an impressive sight in a long, tall glass with a couple of bent straws and a parfait spoon.  Yum.  Sluuurrrrp-able! The folk at Creative Gourmet (Australian suppliers of frozen berries)* have a neat website with plenty of mouth-watering recipes the kids would go ape over.   Just as well we keep the freezer well stocked with the frozen variety so we always have a box on hand when we feel a berry craving coming over us.

* Not sponsored.  My own views. :o)

School lists, pantry lists and timetables

Come up here, O dusty feet! Here is fairy bread to eat. Here in my retiring room, Children, you may dine On the golden smell of broom And the shade of pine; And when you have eaten well, Fairy stories hear and tell.

{From a Child's Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson} *** The school lists aren't out as it turns out.  Massive disappointment.  Due apparently, to unanticipated "walk-ins" last week.  Presumably this means late enrolments.  I suggested to the young teacher we encountered in the hallway that perhaps the school shouldn't make promises it can't keep when it says in the final newsletter for the year that the lists will be up at a specified time.  All fell on deaf ears of course.   She took my name like like I was being pulled over for doing 80km in the 40km zone.  We'll be lampooned in the staff room. There's goes my kids' chances of scoring the popular teachers, getting good grades, breaking the job market ...  Meantime, I am bracing myself for next week when the SSO is away travelling for work and not, I might add, to glamorous destinations, but to places which are one ring out from the Great Australian Outback, if a map of the continent were the geographic equivalent of the growth rings on an ancient eucalypt.   He's also driving long distances when not being flown in very small charter aircraft.  Makes me nervous.  I'm also not sure how I am going to accommodate the school run and mounting number of after-school commitments.  Some deft organisation, abundant frozen meals and pre-packed lunches will be required. In fact, it's the crowd catering which stresses me the most about next week.  I plan to follow Jenny Rosenstrach's advice on marinating chicken legs ahead, deconstructing meals and following the cook once, eat twice mantra.  I've replenished the pantry with sesame oil, soy sauce, red curry paste, nori crackers and Angostura Bitters (oh, that's not for family dinners) and even bought items, such as semolina and soba noodles, which signify a level of culinary ambition I may not be able to achieve.   But I am emboldened by my holiday reading.  The danger is of course that I spend more time basting and crumbing than I do reading and playing.  Postscript: The school rang a little later to tell me the lists were up and advise who were my children's class teachers.  The staff member couldn't have been more obliging.  I take back all I said.   The children emailed the SSO and he phoned back to celebrate and commiserate their mixed fortunes.

Mozarella cheese, pizza, pizza please

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again. ~ George Miller

We made our pizzas last night with ham and fistfuls of mozarella cheese on a base of tomato paste, and whatever else could be found in the fridge to perk them up for the grown-ups.  It was also 'movie night' when we bunker down with water bottles, slippers, knee rugs and cushions.  This week's feature was Casper and Wendy, a 1990s rendition starring a young Hilary Duff.  It was awful.  I dithered about cleaning and made a chocolate pudding instead of sitting down.  It seemed to appeal to the children enough for them to persevere without collective moaning but I don't think it is up there as one of their all time favourites.  It received a bit of a bland reception - no belly laughs, shared intakes of breath or intense subdued moments.  The pizza was more memorable by far.

Their homely fare dispatch’d, the hungry band

Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,

To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour.

Ascanius this observ’d, and smiling said:

“See, we devour the plates on which we fed.”

Virgil, The Aeneid.

Sunday Pancakes

Mix a pancake,

Stir a pancake,

Pop it in the pan.

Fry the pancake,

Toss the pancake,

Catch it if you can!

Sunday ritual in the Silver Gull's nest.  I use the recipe from the Marie Claire cookbook, Food Fast, by the seemingly ever-present, one-woman empire, Donna Hay.  It's a fabulous, miracle adaptation of a basic batter recipe.  The toppings of choice round here are either 100 per cent Canadian maple syrup or lemon sugar.  We roll 'em up and eat with our fingers, or if we are feeling more refined, use a knife and fork. 

Favourite parts of this ritual, apart from eating, are cracking the eggs into the bowl and flipping the pancakes over.  There are queues and some tense bargaining for these tasks.