Jubilee Day Looms . Cake Required .

Sonata:

Memo to self .... Find recipe for photogenic chocolate cake asap , present recipe ( below ) providing delicious but weirdly squidgy slices .

Not that Husband's complaining . But then his appetite for sweet things is legendary . We all sat fascinated one evening as he consumed an entire family-size container of chocolate chip ice cream , while telling stories about playing jazz in a youth festival in Moscow in the '50s .

__Chocolate Cake Recipe , origin unknown __

100 grams butter

80 grams sugar

100 grams plain flour

30 grams cornflour

1 tsp baking powder

100 gram bar of plain chocolate

2 eggs , separated .

Cream butter and sugar . Add egg yolks and flours alternately ( having already seived flours and baking powder together ) Add grated chocolate . Finally fold in stiffly beaten egg whites . Put in greased and floured loaf tin . Bake in hottest oven for 12 minutes . Rest before taking out of tin .

Or I'll have to revert to plan B . A large muffin decorated with a Union Jack ( I've already made some just in case ... and yes , Husband's eaten some of these , too . He'll only turn down a muffin if you tell him it's a muffin .... if you call it a cake , he'll eat two ) .)

Knee Deep In Possible Cakes

Sonata:
On June 2nd , Rattling On http://rattlingon.typepad.com/ is staging a Jubilee Cake Event on her blog .... the idea being that those interested bake a stunningly decorated cake for the Queen's Jubilee and post a photo or two of the result , which she will then link . A sort of virtual street party .
Now , why I put my hand up for this I couldn't begin to tell you . I very rarely bake a cake and , when I do , it's something fairly basic and hearty like a fruit loaf or bran muffins ( and my scones aren't bad ) . And cake decoration is a totally foreign and arcane idea ..... I've never piped icing in my life and don't think now is the time to start .
But I love the idea of everyone , as one , going "Ta-Dah!!" and whipping the cover off their signature cake . So I've been trawling the web for cake recipes .... exactly how many million do you think there are out there ? I did eventually find an elegant choco-strawberry creation and it looks suitably regal ... not to mention lethal . ( Have I told you I'm a diabetic ? )

Then there are cookery books scattered all over this house full of baked goods . A fair few are from the '50s to the '70s and have suitably nostalgic offerings . Though I'm not sure if H.M. is ready for Grasshopper Cheesecake , a sort of After Eight-ish affair flavoured with creme de menthe on a chocolate biscuit crumb base ... let alone Amaising (sic) Raisin Cake which seems to contain mayonnaise ( instead of butter? ) . So I'll put "Collections From Naples On The Gulf To You " back on the shelf .
Then there's the WI Recipes Round The Year with a very tempting Blodwen's Canal Cake ( lots of dried fruit and a quarter of a pint of stout . Husband would definitely like this ) and Rhubarb Streusel Cake and Ginger Marmalade Cake ( first make your Ginger Marmalade ) and ... But no real party cakes .
There's The Scots Kitchen by F. Marian McNeill which has Scot's Snow Cake which sounds wholesome , but involves beating the mixture for 20 minutes . On the plus side though , it's light , pale and fluffy and plonked on a doiley with a sprig of white heather tucked beside it , might look minimalist and very chic .
And then there's always Jane Grigson ... any one of these would please the most demanding guest

All I'd have to do is make praline powder , proper butter cream and one of three sorts of pastry .

We'll see . The final choice will be appearing here on June 2nd and throuh Rattling On you'll be able to admire them all .

What ?

Sonata:

Husband and I met in Spain where he , having arrived from Holland via Belgium and the Congo , had a book shop in one of those "I remember when it used to be a little fishing village " places . We stayed another twenty years and , since I spoke no Dutch , Husband's English was erratic and the world outside our front door was Spanish speaking , we developed a sort of "home language " .... basically bits of all three with French added .
Then we moved to Holland , the children left home .... the elder two to England and the youngest eventually to Amsterdam ... and he and I are the only ones now who tend to revert to EuroBabble .

This evening , my ballpoint pen having exploded , bits flying everywhere , I was hunting under the table for the spring and having no luck seeing it on the grey carpet . Husband came in and asked "What are you looking for under there ? " " The spring ... the spring from this boli "( boli , short for boligrafo , which is the Spanish for ball point ) . " The spring from your body ? "
After forty years together , I'm not taking this personally .

But the other day Elder Grandson , talking about his baby brother to Smitonius , said "He's fine but sometimes , when he cries , it's difficult to work out just what he wants . When he starts talking , I wonder what language he'll speak ? "
Let's hope it's one we're all fairly familiar with .

By Their Tablecloths Shall You Know Them

Sonata:

Have you noticed how rare it is these days to find a proper fabric shop ? It's been a while since I've been in one like this , now that everyone this age shops in H & M . But , thanks to recycling shops and Collectors Fairs , there's still fascinating stuff to be had , if not in vast quantities .

Last week , in Leiden , after walking past this splendid statue ( Leiden was a textile town , years ago ) , I found the red piece in this trio in a charity shop ... I have no idea when this design was manufactured . I should imagine it was used for household linen for quite a few years , since you see it fairly regularly . 1940s , perhaps .

But I couldn't resist this either .... a 1950s kitchen tablecloth .... this must have been so modern when some young housewife dished up supper on it ( something with a glacè cherry on top perhaps , followed by a bowl of lime jelly ? )

Then there's this tiny piece ... remember when everything had to be orange ? There's something rather Mary Whitehouse about the print , though , rather than trendy

On the 20th , Friend and I are hoping to go to the Amsterdam Traditional Textiles Fair at the Duif church , but it'll be just to admire and yearn . Vintage textiles are .... justifiably ... rather expensive , but nothing brings a period more to life than the clothes they wore and the sheets they slept in .

Sloth ... A Progress Report

Sonata:
This new Blogger is a monumental pain . I don't want Google Chrome and can't keep on installing and uninstalling it . Any tips ?
Meanwhile my slothfulness ( St. Thomas Aquinas defines it as torpor but The Catholic Dictionary , rather more accurately, as disinclination to labour ) has been leavened by the odd twitch .
Yesterday , I ventured as far as the center of town and wandered round the vast flea market that is the traditional way to celebrate Queen's Day in Holland . And I didn't buy anything ! Well , nearly nothing ... though three CDs came home with me , possibly to escape the noise and the cascade of chocolate covered rice-cake crumbs the seller was sprinkling everywhere . There was a girl in a beige nylon bunny suit pole-dancing next to the town hall , hundreds of orange sequinned hats and matching feather boas , thousands of children playing the recorder and millions of people eating hamburgers . And a David Attenborough moment when I was surprised by a rubber hippo

Oh , yes . I finished my dog ... and decided that , lovely though Charlotte Rion's book * is , maybe soft toy making might not be my thing . Though my mouse turned out rather better .

And , having discovered a dried up butterfly in the back of a cupboard upstairs

I've been hoovering for hours today which lead to tidying and dusting and throwing things out . Which makes a change which , after all , is supposed to be as good as a rest . But I think tomorrow me and my book are going off on a train . It might be quieter ....

* In case you're interested, it's original title is Doudous à Coudre . ISBN 978-90-5877-930-4 .

Sloth

Sonata:
It's the May holidays , and the schools are closed for a week .

So I've stocked the pantry ( don't go to the market when you're hungry . What else can I chop parsley over ? ) . I've downloaded a new audio book ( Steff Penney's The Invisible Ones ) and got a copy of War and Cinema , The Logistics of Perception by Paul Virilio in case my brain turns to mush before I go back to work , sewing stuff is spreading like spilt syrup over every flat surface and I'm making a dog ( no walkies needed )

I've rediscovered a CD of John Betjeman reading his poems in a wonderfully diffident voice , a real blast from the past , this , and there's a Day Out in Leiden planned with friends . So now I'm going to put my feet up and relax .

P.S. I haven't forgotten http://slowlanelife.blogspot.com/ 's request for a translation of the vegetables in coconut milk recipe but I need to get the definitive list of ingredients from a colleague's DIL , who's yomping round Scotland at the moment . I'll post it when she's back and has thawed out .

A big shark or is it a whale?

Smitonius:

 

This is disconcerting... No, not the whale (introductions to follow below), but blogger has changed its look within since I last posted. I am having to learn a new system at work too, having been used to one virtual learning environment we are now being trained in another. Although the difference in practice is often slight, it is odd how reliant one becomes with the look of a programme or virtual environment, isn't it? But then again, I am not 4 years and 11 months of age....

 

Anyway, I was actually meaning to blog about my nephew's first attempt at drawing on my iPad. This is a boy who did not really get on with pencils and paper until quite recently, but he was quite happy managing a drawing ap which has the tools (pencil, paintbrush, eraser) to select from and white pages. He erased most of them out very quickly, but I managed to keep a copy of this one. A big whale with teeth and big eyes. But then he went on to talk a lot about sharks with invisible fins when we all pretended to be animals. I was a hamster, by the way.