Yum yum delicious

Why this doesn’t work when you want to lose weight:

2012-01-11T07:33:00.000-08:00

This I know for sure:

If you get out of your way, your body wisdom will always make a choice for wellness.

You’ll choose to carry less weight on your knees.

You’ll choose to give your pancreas an easier time.

You’ll choose to be kinder to your long-suffering liver.

And the best part of it is you don’t even have to know you have a pancreas or liver or even heart.

Your body knows it wants to be well right now, and it already knows how.

You don’t have to try.

A tree doesn’t have to know about photosynthesis to seek the light it needs.

A baby doesn’t have to count calories to know when to stop suckling.

And you too as a living being on this planet know what you have to do.

It’s not will-power that you lack or a trainer or a diet or a better understanding of the Krebs cycle.

You only need the ability to see your human thoughts as the human condition and to tune-in instead to living wisdom we all have.

So relax. Don’t do anything except things that calm you down. Breathe. And go about your day.

Sooner or later you’ll probably have a thought about food.

I hope you have the privilege of seeing yourself at the moment you think one of your crazy thoughts that you think are so true.

I hope you see in that moment you have a choice.

I hope you see the difference that makes.

It’s quiet and it flickers, so be gentle on yourself.

Don’t shout. Don’t try. Don’t grab.

Let go and let love.

Let me know how it goes.

Body Nirvana

2011-12-20T14:22:00.000-08:00

Since I wrote about when it clicked for me a year ago, it has continued to click for me.

I’ve clicked that I don’t need sugar in everything I eat.

I’ve clicked that wine isn’t necessary every day.

I’ve clicked that I can do yoga even though I can’t touch my toes.

I’ve clicked that I don’t need to be perfect.

Last week I clicked that my body needs to run, be strengthened and stretched.

Without trying to, I have clicked my way from a UK size 14 to a UK size 10.

And there was no suffering involved.

I’m more and more convinced that the best way to get into shape is through insight.

And that you don’t get insights by being mean to yourself.

Sudden realisations and aha moments come when you get out of your way.

It comes when you start seeing that you have created a reality for yourself for years and that “reality” is often just a figment of your imagination. (With me, I was convinced I needed sugar in everything I ate, that I had to have wine to be mellow, and that I had to be perfect to be worthy.)

Having an insight is a bit like a butterfly landing on your hand. It’ll come when you’re peaceful.

It’ll come when you’re listening out for the still, quiet voice that knows what’s good for you.

It’ll come when you’re talking to someone who loves you. It’ll come when you feel safe and heard.

It’ll come when you stop running and trying and grasping and thinking and rushing.

It starts by being kind to yourself, instead of judging yourself.

It starts by having faith in yourself, by being grateful for everything you have and by looking after yourself.

It starts by stopping.

You could even start by cooking delicious food and enjoying it.

Let me know how it turns out.

Three things I cooked this week that were yum yum delicious:

Leek and potato latkes

6 largish potatoes peeled and grated

2 leeks grated

3 tablespoons flour

2 eggs

Half a teaspoon baking powder

Salt and pepper

Mix and place in a sieve and encourage water to leave the batter. You don’t have to go crazy. Gravity will do most of the work.

Fry in lots of hot oil

Michelle’s baked cod with crème fraiche and zatar

Dab bits of butter on cod fillets. Bake uncovered in hot oven (200 degrees) for 10 minutes.

Let fish cool down. Cover with crème fraiche and sprinkle with zatar.

Put back in oven for 15 minutes. Check fish for doneness. If cooked through take out and serve.

Thai chicken curry soup

One tin coconut milk

2 teaspoons lemon grass paste

1 piece of ginger (size of two thumbs) sliced small

3 kaffir leaves crushed

1 chicken breast per person eating – chopped up small

5 tablespoons nam pla (fish sauce)

2 tablespoons sugar

Half a lemon squeezed per person eating

A sprinkle of dried chilli flakes

One teaspoon per person Thai red curry paste

Mix white basmati (one a half cups) and wild rice (half a cup) and cook with 3 cups water.

Boil the chicken pieces in one cup coconut milk, kaffir leaves, lemon grass paste and ginger for four minutes. Add rest of coconut milk and boil for another 3 minutes.

For each person eating: in a bowl mix the lemon juice and the red curry paste. Add a ladle of the ckicken coconut mix on top. Add a half a cup of rice. Stir. Sprinkle with chilli flakes.

Add chopped coriander if you have it/want it.

Es gesunteheit.

I love Yotam Ottolenghi

2011-11-16T11:43:00.000-08:00

I love his two cookbooks (The Cookbook and Plenty) and his restaurant Nopi and how he tweets. I love his way with sesame seeds, capers and Dijon mustard.

I love the recipes he publishes in the Guardian magazine. I try them every week.

So last week while I was chopping up the ingredients for his Vietnamese Beef Salad, I thought about the difference between him and me.

His people are German and Italian.

My people are Litvak and Litvak.

He comes from a food tradition of refined abundance and I come from a food tradition of primitive austerity.

His people’s food traditions taste good, and my people’s food traditions drew the short culinary straw.

Chopped herring, helzel, ptchar and teiglach are foods that are hard to make and hard to love.

But that’s too bad.

This is what I’ve inherited. It’s a tradition of simple food made from the cheapest cuts and two or three basic ingredients.

There were no preserved lemons in the stores of Dvinsk in the Nineteenth century. There was no coriander or fennel seeds to be had in Pinsk. Though apparently there was flour, sugar and onions. And whole chickens, un-plucked and unprocessed.

I don’t live in Dvinsk in the nineteenth century. Like the great Ottolenghi himself, I live in London now in 2011, cooking with a wider range of ingredients and food experiences than my ancestors ever had.

I like how freedom tastes. But I wonder if I will be the last person on earth who knows how to make Kichel.

Kichel

3 eggs

1 tablespoon oil

Half a tablespoon salt

Flour

Method:

Two secrets: the dough has to be very thin. The baking has to be watched because it burns very easily. Beat yolk whites separately, and then fold the yellow into the whites. Add salt, oil and flour to a good rolling consistency. Beat well after adding the oil, then beat in the flour.

Roll out thinly and cut into rectangles and place on an oil tray. Prick all over with a fork and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 200 degrees until shiny and done.

Kichel are like crackers and are basically edible plates for chopped herring or chopped liver.

Essentials

2011-11-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

When I was ten, I read a book called My Side of the Mountain. It was about a child who runs away from home and survives in a forest by living off the land. I was so impressed with this story that I packed a sweet-tin with essentials. There was a safety pin, a pocket knife, salt and sugar in tinfoil wraps, some plasters, matches and a magnet.

I took my survival tin to school with me every day for over a year. I kept it with me everywhere I went, until the sugar and salt came undone and made a mess at the bottom of my school-bag.

I still have the pocket knife. And even though I am now a grownup, I still like to make imaginary lists of things I need to survive if I was to run away to a desert island.

These are my lists:

Ten kitchen tools I use every day:

Knife, cutting board, a frying pan, a pot, wooden spoon, Microplane grater, little whisk, spatula, peeler, juice squeezer.

Things in my kitchen at all times:

Butter, onions, milk, bread, lemon, sunflower oil, tinned tomatoes, eggs, barley, flour, potatoes, soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, sugar, vinegar.

The real essentials that I try to carry with me:

They are love, memory, pleasure, hope, kindness and belonging.

The essential sense of belonging

I belong to the tribe of Litvaks who immigrated to South Africa over 100 years ago from cold, impoverished European Shtetls.

In my mind, I can see my grandparents on the boat as they land in Cape Town. They are stunned at the beauty of Table Mountain. They are relieved their long sea journey is over. They are clutching leather suitcases that contain all their essentials: vests, socks, passports, photographs, prayer shawls, warm clothes and recipes for the food of their mothers.

The recipes are all that are left.

My grandmother’s teiglach

6 eggs minus one egg yolk

Two tablespoons oil

2 tablespoons brandy

Add enough cake meal or flour for soft, but not sticky dough. Add a teaspoon of ginger.
Beat. Roll into little doughnut shapes and leave for two hours. (in the sun if possible)

Boil 1kg golden syrup, mixed with 3 cups of sugar and 3 cups of water.

Boil for ten minutes.

Lower them into the boiling syrup.
Leave them in for ten minutes.
Then uncover, wipe the inside of the lid to remove condensation,
stir quickly and then replace lid.
Boil for another 15 minutes with lid on. Stir again. Wipe again.
Replace lid and cook till brown stirring occasionaly. Remove from heat.
Add two cups of hot , strong black coffee, but not boiling.

Remove teiglach from pot.

Place them on wet board to dry and drain. Sprinkle with sugar.

Birth stories

2011-10-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

What helped the most to prepare me for the birth of my first child?

Twenty years ago, every Wednesday morning, the Birth Unit of St John’s and Lizzie’s used to hold sessions to prepare women for birth. I was lucky enough to be part of those sessions.

After yoga, we would eat a delicious, home-made lunch, and the pregnant women would listen to the stories of the women who had graduated to the other side. The swollen, uncomfortable women would listen in awe to the experiences of women holding their tiny babies in their arms.

I learned that birth is intense and personal, and I heard stories of unique journeys to new lives and different selves.

It also helped that I had experienced the mind-set necessary to keep going a bit more even when the exercise hurt. And, most important of all, I knew not take the pain personally.

What’s the pain like?

You know when you’re running or doing a press-up and you’re in that place where you can’t do any more and it hurts and you want to stop? And then you hold yourself there and you keep going?

That’s what the pain is like. Then it stops and you have a rest with no pain for a bit. And you recover and then you start again. And as the pain builds, your ability to cope builds.

In the end, the last five contractions say, you feel like your head is coming off.

But it doesn’t start like that. No, it starts gentle and you think, look at me. I can do this. Now that stage is just the beginning and in no way resembles what’s coming.

It builds up and up and it breaks you down, till you are an animal, without politeness. The layers of up-bringing are stripped back and you are laid bare to your essential animal body. The pain is just a way to get you there, to the place where you don’t care and you can do what you need to do to get that baby out of your body and into life. It’s not pretty.

What helped me the most during the birth?

Focus was what got me through. Anything that supported my concentration helped me, which is why I needed complete privacy, quiet, dim light and a fully-functioning brain. Sometimes I needed help concentrating.

What was I concentrating on?

The outbreath was my salvation. In the face of the rising pain of the contraction, I breathed out slowly and consciously through pursed lips.

For my first two births, I also moved my hand in circles over my thighs as I breathed out. I did four breath circles on the right side, then four breath circles on the left side. I also kept my eyes open for half and closed for half. Weird I know, but it helped me visualise and find my place in the contraction. I knew when I was half way and how far I had to go.

And in the bliss of the no pain between contractions, I was so relaxed I think I fell asleep sometimes. I used that time to recover and prepare myself for the next one.

What made things go faster?

It helped being in deep water and for two of my births, having my membranes broken.

How it looked on the outside?

I was quiet and concentrating intensely. I probably also looked quite silly.

How it felt on the inside?

I had complete faith in my gifted obstetrician Yehudi Gordon, in my skilled midwife Patricia Scott and in my powerful body.

This is the birth story of my first, precious daughter:

Two weeks after my due date, I had mild contractions one night that went away during the day. When it really hurt the next night, I went to the hospital. I was only one cm dilated so the hospital sent me home again. We didn’t have a car, so we went by taxi.

What followed was a night of terrible pain alone in my bed. I coped by doing a complicated breathing dance (see above) but I panicked sometimes, forgot to breathe and then it all fell apart.

At seven the next morning I insisted on going to the hospital. When we got there, I was fully dilated.

At 12.40 I pushed a tiny baby girl out into the world. In between, through the standing and the squatting, through the pool and the bed, through stage 1 and stage 2, through the pain and the panic, I kept breathing.

That was 18 years ago. Last Sunday afternoon, she went to University.

I’m still breathing.

What your child with ADHD wishes she could tell you

2011-09-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Mom,

You’re never going to fix me.

All the shouting, lectures and punishments in the world, are never going to make me learn to be organised and focused. I’ll never be person who doesn’t lose things and follows things through, the way you want me to.

It just makes me feel bad about myself when you do that.

I can feel bad about myself without any extra help, thank-you. I live in a world of competent, well-organised people who seem to know where their things are and what they’re doing at all moments. At school and at home, I compare myself daily to these perfect creatures that never seem to put a foot wrong.

I can feel you get irritated when I lose my bus-pass (again) I can see your disappointment with my performance at school. I know you get worried when you think about my future. I know you think that if you don’t fix me, I’ll wonder around in a lost, fuzzy cloud forever. You worry if you don’t teach me to take responsibility for myself; I’ll never function properly as an adult.

But you’re so busy worrying about me and trying to fix me, that you don’t give me what I really need.

So how can you help me?

Get my medication sorted, please. (And don’t have any second thoughts about it. The pharmaceutical industry has really come through for me on this one.)

Encourage me to exercise regularly, to eat properly and get enough sleep. (Because weirdly, that’s what I really need)

Teach me about Mindful meditation (and do some yourself).

You know that one thing I do really well? The singing or writing or dancing or playing the guitar or acting thing that I am really good at. Facilitate that for me to the max. I need to do something I’m easily good at (and one day, I could make a living out of it. You never know.)

But this is the most important thing you can do for me: show that I’m loved, even though I make mistakes.

Tell me that I’m loved as I am now, unfixed. Convince me that I am loveable as I am, without the grades and prizes my siblings bring home.

Be willing to let go of who you think I should be, and see me for the wonderful creature that I am.

For a moment today, let go of your vision for me, and see me as I really am.

See the party-bringing, buzz-seeking, gifted, interesting, unique and loveable phenomenon that I am.

Let go and let love.

After Kohellet

2011-06-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

When I was 16, a friend of mine told me she was so depressed she wanted to end her life.

So I wrote her a letter describing all the wonderful things in the world – a baby, a kitten, chocolate, the colour of the ocean and other 16 year old girl things.

I spent ages on the letter and gave it to her with much sincerity. But I don’t think it made much difference. As things turned out, although my friend was very depressed, she didn’t kill herself.

She went to hospital, and when she came out she went to university, graduated, got married, had children, made friends, made new friends, changed careers, changed cities and has had a life richer than either of us could have imagined.

Not everyone is so lucky.

This week, in our community, a 14 year old girl took her own life.

Mothers around me are hugging our children tighter and we’ve stopped caring about homework or exams or even tattoos anymore.

And I realise I should have written a different letter to my friend forty years ago.

I should have said this:

Sometimes you’ll be hurt and sometimes you’ll heal.

Sometimes you’ll be strong and sometimes you’ll be broken.

Sometimes there’ll be abundance and sometimes you’ll have nothing.

Sometimes you’ll laugh and sometimes you’ll cry.

Sometimes you’ll dance and sometimes you won’t be able to.

Sometimes you’ll get the guy and sometimes he’ll break your heart.

Sometimes you’ll find what you need and sometimes you’ll be lost.

Sometimes you’ll be at peace with yourself and sometimes it’ll be war.

Sometimes you’ll love him and sometimes you’ll hate him.

Sometimes there’ll be pain and sometimes there’ll be pleasure.

Sometimes you’ll feel bliss and sometimes you’ll feel bleak.

Nothing is forever except love. And although you don’t always see it, you are connected in all directions. You are so loved. And life gets hard, yes it does, and you feel lost at times, oh yes you do, but it passes. And waves come and they go. And time passes.

And life can surprise you.

Truly out of the blue surprise you in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine.

So hang on. A day or a decade.

Endure.

Let life and let love.

salad for lunch

2011-05-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a friend came over for lunch.

I tucked into my standard lunch of tuna and toast and a cup of tea.

She said she wanted a salad.

“That’s not what you should be eating” she told me, pointing to my sandwich.

She sliced up tomatoes for her salad and said: “This is what you should have.”

(Which I thought was interesting because I have noticed that people who habitually have salad for lunch generally struggle with body image)

My friend knows a lot about dieting. She’s pretty much an expert. Ask her about how many calories are in an egg, for example, and she’ll ask you fried or poached.

But I know something that she doesn’t know.

I know how to eat in a way that honours my body.

She has spent her life believing that salad is the answer and that dieting is the only way forward. And that her desire for food is the thing that she must conquer. And that she is a failure because she cannot conquer her desire. And that if she tries harder, she will be successful.

She has another choice. She could let go. She could stop trying and berating herself for failing.

She could stop believing in magazines that tell her how Jennifer Anniston achieves her bikini-body.

She could tear down the eating-plan taped to the wall in her kitchen.

She could stop trying the Dukan diet or the no carbs after 5 rule or the substantial protein for breakfast rule.

She could stop having salad for lunch and buying bags of sweets to eat in the car.

She could make life easy for herself.

She could live with ease in a world of alluring food.

She could eat only with dignity, and never with shame.

She could accept that only she is responsible for what goes in her mouth.

She could have the pastry or not have the pastry, without a drama.

She could stop believing them, and start believing herself.

Breakfast

2011-05-03T07:11:00.000-07:00

On Thursday afternoon, while running down the aisles for a quick food shop, I asked my daughter to choose the breakfast cereals. She was taking ages so I doubled back to see what the problem was. She couldn’t decide between Cookie Crisp (40% sugar) or Frosted Flakes (41% sugar) or a new one from Kellogg’s called Krave (30% sugar)

The boxes told the whole story. They looked yummy, fun and sugary. I told her another story. I said no.

There was a stand-off in the cereal aisle at Waitrose. As I was paying, I felt I had the right to the final choice. I choose Rice Crispies (10% sugar), Shreddies (14%) and Weetabix(4%)

The new guidelines by the US government want to limit cereals to 8gm of added sugar. (Froot Loops contains 12 grams of sugar a serving. That translates to 48% sugar)

I sympathise with my daughter. Sweeter is yummier. There is something about sugar that calls its sweet siren song. Just hearing the word fudge or chocolate is enough to make me want it.

Offer me a piece of cake or a slice of bread, offer my daughter chocolate spread or unsweetened peanut butter, offer my son ice-cream or vegetable soup, and you know which way the cookie’s going to crumble.

We want sweet before we even see any advertising. But it’s not good for us.

And it’s not good for our children.

I’m not asking for Kellogg’s to stop making Krave. I just want them to stop advertising it to my children. (In the USA the food industry spent nearly $2.3 billion to advertise to children.)

The huge advertising budgets of the food industry normalises unhealthy eating.

There are no messages out there that say anything else in a language me and my daughter understand.

There’s no fun TV commercial that says water is a better choice.

There’s no exciting on-line game for toast and peanut-butter.

There’s no beautifully illustrated billboard for oatmeal porridge.

And without messages that tell the other side of the story, it feels like I'm fighting a losing battle for what my children eat for breakfast.

Is there anyone out there on my side?

A free meal

2011-04-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

I was in Cape Town last week and I saw an exhibition at the National Gallery by a photographer called Ernest Cole.

His pictures powerfully document the dehumanising effects of apartheid and the mining industry that funded it.

One picture particularly stopped me in my tracks.

The caption read:

“Kitchen helper dumps food on men’s plates with shovel. Diet is nyula, a vegetable mixture, and maize-meal porridge served twice a day”

I don’t know what Nyula is. I’ve never eaten it although I lived in South Africa until I was 23.

I grew up on a weird hybrid of Litvak Shtetl food, International Classics and Cape Malay dishes -
Spagetti Bolognaisse, sardines on toast, Tomato Bredie and Tzimmes.

It doesn’t really matter though. All food is basically just chains of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

What matters though is how we serve it and how we eat it.

It is dehumanising to have food dumped on your plate with a shovel.

Food prepared without care and slopped on a plate, feeds a sense that you are a person without value.

This is food not eaten with a knife and fork, but with shackles.

And it makes me wonder about how food is served in prisons, schools, old-aged homes and institutions of all kinds. And what that says to the adults and children standing in-line, waiting their turn for their food.

I took comfort from another picture in the exhibition. It was of three men sitting around preparing their own food. One is playing the guitar. There is no table or plates and probably no electricity either.

The caption reads: “On Sundays many prefer to give the “pig’s food” a miss and will cook something themselves. Whenever possible, the men go outside the compound to buy some extra food – corn meal, for instance – which they cook themselves”

It may still be just cornmeal, but these look like free men, and forty years later, in a black and white photograph it still shows.

Eight cruel truths about getting into shape

2011-03-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

· Dieting is cruel because diets don’t work and then you think it’s your fault.

· The food industry is cruel because all they want is for you to buy more of
their stuff so they make it easier for you to eat more food faster.

· Scales are cruel because you are not good or bad depending on a number.

· Magazines and television featuring too thin models are cruel
because they stop you seeing your own beauty.

· Diet Coke is cruel because water is better.

· Snack shops are cruel because they tempt you with ice-creams, popcorn
and muffins which spoil your appetite for supper.

· Super-sized portions are cruel because no-one is going to stop
eating halfway.

· The way we live now is cruel because we don’t have enough time
to cook properly and sit down at a table with plates and knives and forks
and loved ones to enjoy food together.

The only way to get into shape is to decide to be kind to yourself
moment by moment,

starting with this moment.

Stuffed peppers

Ingredients

6 large red peppers

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups chopped onions

6 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

3 garlic cloves crushed

3 cups cooked rice

1 tablespoons paprika

1 and a half teaspoons salt

1 tin chopped tomato

1 egg beaten

500 grams minced meat

Method

Chop of tops of peppers and put to side. Clean out insides and put
peppers in large cooking dish.

Fry onions till soft, add, parsley and garlic.

Add meat and cook till brown. Add cooked rice, paprika, salt tomatoes
and egg. Stir. Cook for twenty minutes.

Scoop mixture into peppers and put extra mixture around the sides.

Put the lids on and put dish in a 200 degree oven for 20-30 minutes.

How to get children to eat well.

2011-03-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

Everything I know, I’ve learned from books.

Every meal I’ve eaten, I tasted first in words.

I’ve waited for breakfast with Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White): “Skim milk, crusts, middlings, bits of doughnuts, wheat cakes with drops of maple syrup sticking to them"

I’ve eaten dinner with Heidi (Johanna Spyri): “...hungrily beginning her bread, having first spread it with the cheese, which after being toasted was as soft as butter."

I’ve made candy with Laura and Mary in the Little House in the Big Woods. (Laura Ingalls Wilder): " Pa and Ma showed them how to pour the dark syrup in little streams on to the snow. These hardened at once and were candy. Laura and Mary might eat one piece each, but the rest were saved for Christmas Day.”

I’ve shared potato latkes with the family in Ten and a Kid. (Sadie Rose Weilerstein):

“...soon the first pancake was sizzling in the hot fat. It covered the whole bottom of the pan. The children stood by watching and sniffing, each with an earthenware plate in hand."

This is what I learned as a child from hours of reading about lives far away from mine:

Sometimes you have to eat leftovers
Bread and cheese and milk equals a meal
You can't eat all your sweets in one go
Hunger makes food taste better.
There is not abundance for everyone.

That’s what I’ve tried to teach my children.

I cook whatever I think is delicious and serve it to them like they are the luckiest children in the world. When they try something new and tell me they don’t want mushrooms or beetroot or lentils or whatever, I ignore them, giving them a tiny look of “are you joking me?”

In the evening and in the morning, meal after meal, day after day, I show them what I know about food and eating. There is pleasure and conversation. There are rhythms and occasions. There are no short cuts.

Here is how I make potato latkes.

Ingredients:

1 kg potatoes

1 onion grated

2 eggs beaten

30 g flour

Salt and pepper

Sunflower oil for frying

Method:

Peel and grate potatoes. Squeeze out extra water.

Mix all ingredients together.

Heat oil one finger deep.

Drop dessertspoons of batter into oil.

Fry. Turn. Fry some more.

Drain on paper towel.

My favourite books years 0-4

2011-02-14T06:29:00.000-08:00

When you’re pregnant with your first child, the list of things you think you need seem endless. (And I’m not even getting to the second circle of madness, which includes things like a baby bath)

But the truth is, you don’t really need it all.

All you really need for your baby are your boobs and these 17 books.

Reading to your kids and breast feeding do more than just reduce clutter though.

They’re also both nourishing and most important of all, they’re both best done lying down.

These are the books I enjoyed reading over and over and over again:

*Where’s Spot - Eric Hill

*Dear Zoo - Rod Campbell

*The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle

*One Fish, Two Fish - Dr Seuss,

*The Sneetches and other stories - Dr Seuss

*Fox in Socks - Dr Seuss

*The Cat in the Hat - Dr Seuss

*Are You My Mother – P. D. Eastman

*A Fish Out of Water – P. D. Eastman

*Go, Dog. Go! – P. D. Eastman

*We’re Going on a Bear Hunt - Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury

*Madeline - Ludwig Bemelmans

*Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendack

*The Story of Barbar - Jean de Brunhoff

*Ant and Bee - Angela Banner

*Best Word Book Ever - Richard Scary

*Bread and Jam for Frances - Russel Hoban

Meat Roll

Ingredients:

A roll of puff pastry

500 gm minced meat

Tin of chopped tomatoes

Small tin of tomato paste

Teaspoon sugar

Salt and pepper

Oregano

Chopped onion

Sunflower oil

One beaten egg

Method:

Fry onions in oil till brown, add mince and fry till brown, add tin of tomato paste and tin of chopped tomatoes. Add salt, pepper, sugar and oregano. Cook for 30 minutes.

Unroll puff pastry and roll it a bit flatter on floured surface. Cover with meat sauce. Roll up from one side. Brush with egg. Put in 200 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Serve with rice and peas and salad.

Worried that your daughter is overweight?

2011-01-26T11:58:00.000-08:00

I have friends who worry their daughters are overweight.

But you know in that polite way friends have with each other – on some subjects, you can’t say what you’re really thinking.

So I see fruit and vegetable star charts.

I see mothers taking their daughters to dieticians and paying for personal trainers and putting their daughters on “eating plans”

I listen to mothers transmitting all their years’ of accumulated expertise in dieting to the next generation.

Ultimately, I hear about daughters crying in their rooms, because they think they’re fat.

And this is what I want to say:

Stop worrying and start cooking.

Show your daughter the delights of food transformed by fire and knife.

Create daily occasions of coming together around the shared pleasure of a good meal.

Don’t make children’s food that you wouldn’t touch yourself like fish-fingers, boiled veggie sausages, or pasta and ketchup.

Give your food every advantage and cook with butter, olive oil, sunflower oil, salt, sugar, fresh herbs, ginger, spices, garlic, lemon, vinegars, chicken stock, vegetable stock, toasted sesame seeds, capers and anchovies (although not all at the same time).

Show them that food is wonderful and not forbidden.

Show them that our appetites are good and not shameful.

Teach them to eat at the table.

Throw away the scales, and don’t talk about diets or have diet books in the house.

Instead tell your daughters that their bodies are gorgeous and strong and capable.

Tell them how beautiful they are. Because they are. And you are too.

Then tell them to lay the table because supper is ready.

Limor’s turkey drumstick casserole

This is the best way I know to cook turkey drumsticks. It is truly delicious, plus thrifty. One drumstick has enough meat for two hungry people.

Sprinkle paprika on drumsticks and roast for an hour each side in 200c oven.

Shred meat from the bone then add meat to mix of balsamic vinegar, Worcester sauce, soya sauce, teriyaki sauce, lemon juice, olive oil and honey. Cook for another hour and a half with sweet potato cubes and chopped carrots that you’ve peeled and pre-nuked for 5 minutes. Serve with rice.

How to make the most delicious fish in the world

2011-01-19T06:31:00.000-08:00

I used to think I knew the best way to make fish.

I come from a long line of fish lovers, from my grandmother’s gefilte fish to my mother’s fried fish to my own baked fish. I grew up eating sole, hake, yellow tail, herring, sardines, mackerel, hake, salmon, snoek and kingklip.

As a child, I stuck my fingers in the eyes of the big fish at the fish-shop and turned those cold, firm globes round and round. I saw the ladies at the fish-shop skin those big majestic fish in seconds. I saw where fish came from and how it got onto my plate.

I read recently that my children could be the last generation to eat fish. Scientists are predicting that if we continue to fish at the same rate, our global fish stocks will be largely gone by 2048.

(Please permit me a tiny rant. I’ll be gentle I swear)

I think the enemy is the fish-finger.

I think boxed fish, frozen fish, tinned fish and anything where the food industry designs a lovely label, prepares it for you and separates you from the source of what you are eating, is the problem.

I think we need to buy, prepare, cook, serve and eat our fish with the ceremony, gratitude, mindfulness (and maybe even love) that it deserves.

(Rant over)

I was at the Ocean Basket in Cape Town and I asked them to show me how they make their fish.

As I do not have giant hotplates, staff and squeezy bottles at home, this is how I adapted what they showed me:

Fish Ocean-Basket style

Ingredients:

Cod fillets (or kingklip or hake or sole)

Butter

Lemons

Flour

Fish rub (or a mix of salt, Aromat, coriander and paprika)

Olive oil (not virgin)

Method:

Put a half a cup of olive oil in a plate with a lip

Put a half a cup of flour and a tablespoon of fish rub in a plate with a lip.

Heat up frying pan/s with a bit of sunflower oil.

Melt half a cup of butter and add juice from two lemons.

One at a time, dip fish into flour plate then into oil plate and then into hot frying pan.

Cook for about three minutes a side depending on the thickness of the fillet.

Take out fillet, plate it and pour over a trickle of the butter/lemon sauce.

Face the contradiction of keeping it all warm till ready to serve by putting each plate in a slightly warm oven.

Put a sprig of parsley on each plate and serve to a hungry table of family and friends.

Serve with celeriac root and potato mash, and a crunchy, colourful salad.

Full disclosure now; it was an expensive, messy business. It needed all hands on deck and the fire alarm went off in the middle of the proceedings. It was stressful and I swore I would never try this method again.

But then I sat down to eat.

How to get what you want

2010-11-03T16:06:00.000-07:00

When I was 18 I wrote a list of five things that I wanted.

I wanted to give up speech therapy.

I wanted a boyfriend.

I wanted to be thin.

And I wanted to leave home.

When all those things came true, I wrote a new list.

I want to work in NYC/London. Tick

I want to win an award. Tick

I want to have a child Tick. Tick. Tick.

Last year’s list is almost ticked off. (Except for one thing: being in nature)

It’s nearly time for a new list.

This is how I do it:

I admit what I really, really want. I write it on a piece of paper and I stick it on a pin-board in the kitchen.

Then I check my actions are in-line with my intentions. I keep checking for discrepancies.

That’s the hard part.

Have a go. I’m sure it’ll happen for you. Not quickly and not easily, but in ways you never anticipated.

Don’t be hard on yourself. Forgive yourself. Be kind to yourself.

There are good reasons for doing the bad things we do: Ben and Jerry’s Phish food is delicious. Smoking makes us look cool. Wasting time on Facebook is entertaining.

But one day, you’ll look at your crumpled-up old list that’s been on your pin board for years and you’ll get it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ottolenghi’s Koshieri:

Ingredients:

300 g green lentils

200 g basmati rice

Splash of sunflower oil

50g vermicelli noodles

400ml chicken stock

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

1 ½ teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

4 tablespoons sunflower oil

Three onions sliced thinly

method:

Wash and boil lentils for 25 minutes.

Fry vermicelli in oil till brown. Add rice and mix. Add stock and seasonings. Bring to boil and simmer for 12 minutes. Cover with tea towel.

Fry onions for 25 minutes. Mix onions, lentils and rice together.

How to be happy

2010-10-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I picked my daughter up from school and I could tell straight away that she was not happy.

She moaned and snapped and generally abused me all the way home.

I tried asking her about what had happened at school.

I tried feeding her.

I tried shouting and forbidding TV.

I said: “Go to your room and read a book”

She said “In your dreams”

She’s nine.

I don’t know how it happened but somehow we both got to be standing next to each other in the kitchen, peeling the giant pumpkin she grew over the summer.

We cut and sliced with sharp knives. We passed each other boards, graters and peelers. We talked quietly.
We worked hard. In the midst of growing piles of peel, pulp and neat pumpkin slices, we were smiling at each other. Suddenly, I realized we were happy.

Funny that. You think that you’ll be happy when you lose the weight, get the guy, make the money, change the job, go on holiday, go back home, win the Nobel Peace Prize, but instead you get happy when you are peeling pumpkins, washing dishes or sharpening pencils.

It’s hard to remember in the midst of a sliding funk, that the thing to do is not to analyse yourself, distract yourself, practise your chosen compulsion or compare yourself to others.

When you want to lie down, you have to get up. When you want to crawl under your duvet, you have to get back to work. When you want to put your feet up, you have to put your trainers on.

And in a way, it doesn’t matter where you go or what you do.

Kohellet, one of my favourite books, says this: “Only this I have found is a real good: that one should eat and drink and get pleasure with all the gains that you make under the sun, during the numbered days of your life... Whatever it is in your power to do, do with all your might”

Yesterday it was in my power to peel a pumpkin and turn it into pumpkin fritters which are unbelievably delicious sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

Pumpkin fritters

Two cups of fresh, grated pumpkin

Half a cup of flour

One teaspoon baking powder

Half a teaspoon of salt

One teaspoon of sugar

One teaspoon of cinnamon

One egg beaten

Four tablespoons milk

Mix it all together. Fry spoonfuls slowly in vegetable oil (about half a finger-width in depth). Turn them and pat them a bit flatter as you do.

When golden brown on both sides, drain on kitchen towel.

Serve with cinnamon and sugar mixed in an egg cup.

Enjoy.

The most useful thing I know - part 2

2010-09-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

A while ago I wrote about the power of the out-breath. ( March 9 2010)

I wrote that it helped me go further when I ran.

I wrote that I didn't understand why it worked, but that it did.

I recently discovered a whole new dimension to its freaky power.

You can also use the out-breath to improve focus and self-control.

I'm almost embarrassed to tell you this, but I have started meditating daily.

For 15 minutes a day anywhere - on the train, on a sofa, in the park, I stop and separate myself from my thoughts, my feelings, my sensations, my worries, my plans and my dreams.

For a little while, I see me underneath all the stuff.

For some-one with as noisy a head as mine, it's a huge relief.

Most mysterious of all, it's also a huge pleasure.

This is how I do it:

I use a guide to Mindfulness that I downloaded from Amazon onto my iPod. Written by Dr Zylowska and Goldstein, it shows me how to use my breath as the anchor for my attention and how to make the other stuff take a number.

To balance out this slightly esoteric suggestion for better living, I offer you my killer mash potato recipe.

Peel potatoes, cut into threes, and place in pot with lid and about an inch and a half of water, boil till soft, purée with enough salt, crème fraiche and butter. Serve with fried fish and a good salad.

The difference between Oprah Winfrey and me

2010-08-24T07:25:00.000-07:00

Oprah Winfrey is the richest woman in America. She is strong, powerful, driven, capable, intelligent and resourceful. She’s truly helped thousands of people around the world.

I am a pleasure-seeker with no willpower what so ever. I can’t organise. I can’t prioritize. I am seriously useless with numbers, details and focus. I can’t really figure out how to help anyone.

I will never be rich and famous.

Yet I can do something Oprah cannot. I can stay in-shape.

This is why (I think):

I’m not as rich as Oprah so mostly I don’t let other people cook for me. Most days, I don’t let chefs in restaurants cook for me, or men in deli’s prepare my sandwiches, or the food scientists in factories make my dinner. I seldom get take-out. It’s too expensive.

I am not nearly as clever as Oprah. I have a type of dyslexia that makes me number-blind. So I can’t weigh things or count points or calories. I need things very, very simple.

So I do portion control for idiots - for breakfast I have one of those tiny sachets of whole grain porridge oats. For lunch, I grab a little tin of tuna and a slice of bread and usually borrow someone’s mayo at work.

I don’t have Oprah’s willpower. I don’t even try. So I make life easy for myself by not having dried mango or Ben and Jerry’s Fish Food or homemade fudge in the house. (If it finds its way into my house, I do not rest until it is all eaten up.)

Because I am not building schools for girls in South Africa or TV networks in the US, I have more time on my hands. So I can go to the gym often or run or dance or cycle more or less, whenever I want (and not just at five in the morning because waking up that early doesn’t feel pleasant to me)

Sadly, I don’t have Oprah’s social life. I am not invited to parties catered by celebrity chefs and I am not tempted by mojitos, red wine, sushi and tiny cakes. I would go and go crazy day and night.

Lastly, I know when it comes to my weight, there is nothing I can delegate, nothing I can buy in and nothing I am entitled too.

My ambitions are small. I am content to tend my family, spend time with my friends and work a bit.

I know how lucky I am to have a roof that doesn’t leak, running water, flushing toilets, and all the vaccinations and medications available in the 21^st century. I am grateful to live in the Digital Age and in a country not at war. I am grateful that the sky is blue today and for my time on our planet right now.

I realize not everyone gets to be Oprah Winfrey. But no-one else gets to be me either.

I made this for supper last night:

I baked cod fillets, with lots of butter, lemon juice and salt. I wrapped it in tinfoil smeared with butter and put it in the oven at 200 degrees for half an hour.

I chopped up and fried a carrot, an eggplant, three celery sticks and one zucchini in sunflower oil. Then I threw in loads of chopped parsley, sunflower seeds, Aromat and soy sauce.

I also served noodles. It was delicious. It was enough.

The secret to being the shape you want to be

2010-08-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

Some of the cleverest, strongest, most capable women I meet are not at ease with their bodies.

It makes me sad because it’s not rocket-science that allows people to be in-shape.

There’s no magic out there. There's no special metabolism. Any one can be the shape they need to be.

It clicked for me when I realized this:

Only I decide what I put in my mouth. No-one else has a say in the matter.

I don’t listen to smug, over-weight, over-accessorized instructors from Weight-Watchers, or to any diet ever invented, or expensive private dieticians armed with scales, or beautifully designed weekly eating-plans, or Dr. Phil, or Jenny Craig, or the makers of Special K, or a hypnotist, or any of the hundreds of books written on the subject.

Only I decide what’s going in. (and believe me, I put lots of yum yum delicious things in my mouth on many different occasions)

On the other hand, I know that because I need to be in-shape, I can’t feast every meal.

That’s the bottom–line.

I hope you throw your scales away, that you never consult another expert or put your hopes in another diet. I hope you trust yourself to act in your own best interests. I hope it clicks for you. I hope that you eat well and live well. I hope you realize we are the lucky ones.

Artichokes and Hollandaise Sauce

Cut the top off the artichokes so that they will fit in the pot. Wash under tap. Put artichokes in pot of boiling water for 40 minutes.

Hollandaise

3 egg yolks

1 table spoon fresh lemon juice

Pinch salt

1 cup melted unsalted butter

Whisk egg yolks and lemon juice and salt till thick and creamy then place on very, very low heat until tracks form on the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat and slowly oh so slowly whisk in the melted butter.

Sit around the table with loved ones and enjoy.

Willpower is bullshit

2010-08-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

I was bothered about something my running partner said to me recently about her lack of willpower when faced with cakes. She blamed herself unkindly and unfairly, I thought.

Trying to stop over-eating with willpower is like trying to get a French waiter to understand you by speaking English louder.

It's never going to work because that's not where change comes from.

Being the shape you need to be is not about willpower. It’s not about deprivation. It’s not about pain. It’s not about dieting.

It's about being kind to yourself and still and mindful and waiting for the seasons to change and knowing that when the time is right, you can make the changes you need to make.

I saw a lovely quote recently in Elisha Goldstein’s blog on Mindfulness

He quotes Victor Frankl who says:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”

Right now, my response is to make Ottolenghi’s aubergine cheesecake which is unbelievably delicious.

This is how you do it:

Ingredients:

2 small aubergines, sliced in 2cm discs

150 gm feta

150 g cream cheese

60 ml double cream

3 eggs

150 gm baby plum tomatoes cut in half

2 tablespoons oregano leaves, torn

Lots of olive oil

Method:

Grill aubergine slices with lots of olive oil on greaseproof paper in 190 C oven for 40 minutes.

Whizz together feta, cream cheese, eggs and cream.

Put aubergines, tomatoes, the creamy mix and the oregano in an oiled baking dish. Add salt and pepper.

Bake at 150 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes.

What we talk about when we run

2010-07-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve had the same running partner for years now. We run together twice a week, up hills, through woods, on roads, on rainy days and sunny days.

It's like running therapy really.

So this is the one conversation we’ve been having for two hours a week, for years and years and years:

She tells me about her diets.

And I tell her that diets don’t work
That she shouldn’t eat in the car
That she should cook good food properly and take pleasure in eating it with family and friends
That she should eat sitting down with a plate
That she shouldn’t miss meals
That she shouldn’t say mean things about her body

Yesterday, we ran past a pretty young woman who was walking her dog. The dog was small and fluffy and the woman was very, very plump.
While panting up the hill, I asked my running partner how she thought the woman with the dog got to be so round.

She told me she believes it’s because the woman eats the skin on her chicken, that she cooks with oil and that she doesn’t diet.

Now while I know for sure that dieting makes you fat, that cooking and eating normally is the only way to love your body, what I realize I don’t have the foggiest idea about is how to change a person’s mind.

On tomorrow’s run, it's my turn on the couch.
I’ll tell you how it works out.

Meantime, here’s the gazpacho I've been making

Blitz together some nice ripe tomatoes
One red pepper
Half a cucumber
And half a teaspoon of crushed garlic
Put it is a tall jug
And add three cups of tomato juice
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon paprika
Chill

Getting Lost

2010-06-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

The other day my husband went on a very long cycle-ride during which his chain snapped. I went to fetch him and got very lost. I got so lost in fact, that I had to pull over to the side of the road and cry.

At times like that I always forget that this is a moment that will pass. I think the sky is falling on my head and I will be lost forever. I forget that I am in a tunnel and that the tunnel has an end and that the light will shine.

I always forget that Summer comes back, that I will once again run by the brook, that the tide will wash up shells on the beach, that I will laugh with my sisters, that I will make new friends and that I will dance and sing with my children. I forget that I will once again hear Mozart and be amazed by a poem and eat an artichoke and be loved.

I know that I am going to get lost again some time soon but next time will be different, I swear.

I am going to be still, breathe out and remember that this will pass.

I will find my way again.

Beef and Broccoli stir fry

Ingredients

3 cups chopped broccoli – bite sized

1 onion chopped

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

4 garlic cloves –crushed

I teaspoon garlic

Bola steak- sliced bite size

1 teaspoon beef stock powder

½ cup water

3 tablespoons soy sauce

Method

Fry onion and broccoli in oil for 4 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and steak. Fry for 5 minutes.

Mix the beef stock powder, water and soy sauce in a bowl, then add to the meat and broccoli. Stir.

Serve with rice or angel-hair pasta to which you’ve added 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons roasted sesame oil and 2 tablespoons of sugar.

What I've learned from 10 000 hours in dance-class

2010-05-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

For over 40 years I’ve been shaking my tail-feathers to music in front of large mirrors. I’ve done ballet, jazz, aerobics, step-aerobics, Nia, ball-room, Groove F/X and this morning I did Zumba.

This is what I’ve learned:

Everything looks better when you smile.
No-one is watching you.
Don’t get left behind.
It feels fantastic to move to music.
Let go.
Men sometimes go to classes, but mostly they don’t.
I like to stand in front.
The level of joy in the class depends on the teacher.
A dance-teacher is like sushi. There’s no so-so level that’s acceptable.
It has to be great or not at all.

Talking of food, here’s a recipe I have started to make. The kids love love love it.
(It must be the cream and the sugar).

Cream of Tomato soup

50g butter
Two onions, sliced
Two sticks celery, chopped
2 x 410g tins tomatoes
4 tsps tomato paste
2 potatoes cubed
1 Telma vegetable cube, crumbled
I cup water
2 tablespoons sugar
6 bay leaves
Salt
I cup single cream

Fry onions and celery in butter. Add all other ingredients except the cream and cook for 45 minutes.
Remove bay leaves and blitz. Add cream and blitz to mix.

Some dirty words

2010-03-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

I got an email today that contained some dirty words. Three dirty words in fact. Those words were weight-loss and diet. The email came from Woman’s Health, an on-line magazine that generally I find very useful. This is what they said:

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/diet-help

This is what I wished they’d said:

1. Accept yourself

There was a gorgeous woman in my dance-class today. She looked strong and fit.

We chatted between songs as you do in a class. She said she thought she had a fat-arse.

It was like hearing a lovely, shiny Labrador wishing it was a Whippet.

2. Seek pleasure

Find your joy. Some people like digging potatoes in their allotment. Some people like kickboxing like my friend Berenice who can do 100 military style press-ups in a row. Some people like walking their dog along cliff tops. Some lovely people I know like yoga. It’s all good.

3. Be normal

It is normal to eat when you are hungry. It is normal to eat at mealtimes. It’s normal to enjoy your food. It’s normal to eat sitting down at a table with a plate.

4. Be balanced

Sometimes we eat cake, sometimes we eat soup. Sometimes we drink wine, sometimes we drink water. Sometimes we work up a sweat and sometimes we lie down in front of the TV.

5. Don’t be unkind to yourself

Don’t watch programmes like America’s Top Model. Don’t weigh yourself. Don’t compare yourself. Don’t diet.

6. Be grateful

I was once fortunate to meet a special man who stood for justice, freedom from oppression and equality for all. He literally gave his right arm for something he believed in. Before anyone complains about their body being the wrong shape, think about what Albie Sachs achieves with his.

7. Cook

8. Accept responsibility

You decide what you eat, not a diet sheet, or a diet book or a diet method or a diet company. It’s up to you what you put in your mouth, not anyone else.

Fried rice

This is the most useful recipe in my repertoire. It’s our classic Sunday night supper.

My children love to eat it. All the ingredients are always in my kitchen at all times.

It’s quick and easy and all food groups are represented.

This is that recipe.

Cooked basmati rice (one cup per person)

Sunflower oil

Eggs (one for each person eating)

Half a cup frozen peas

Half a cup frozen sweet-corn

Soy sauce (loads)

Method

Oil in frying pan.

Rice in frying pan.

Make well in rice. Fry the eggs in the well. Add veggies. Stir around till all cooked.

Add Soy sauce.

Serve

The big picture

2010-03-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

On Friday night I bless my children. Weirdly, my teenagers who usually scowl at me love this one moment of intimacy.

Instead of shouting at my 17 year old daughter (“watch out for cars”) when she leaves for school in the morning, on Friday night, I whisper in her ear “May God bless you and keep you”

Instead of the usual morning checklist I yell at my son(“glasses, phone, Oyster card, wallet and lunch card”) on Friday night I stretch up and whisper, “May God shine his face upon you and be gracious to you”

Instead of yelling at my little one (“switch off the TV now, no you can’t have more ice-cream, and have you practised the piano?”), I put my arms around her and whisper: “May God turn his face to you and establish peace for you”

I am the one who is blessed.

Chicken soup

I could only make this soup properly when I went out and bought myself an enormous soup pot.

Ingredients

Slug of sunflower oil

Four chicken carcasses

(Go to a butcher for this, not a supermarket)

Three carrots sliced

Three sticks celery sliced

Bunch of fresh parsley

Two leeks sliced

One turnip sliced

Two Telma chicken stock cubes

Lots of boiling water

Method

First put oil in the pot, then veggies, then carcasses, then stock cubes and finally water.

Boil on low for three hours.

Pour soup through a sieve. Add salt to taste.

Make kneidlach from a pack. Boil kneidlach in salted boiling water. Add to soup.

What 10 000 hours of practise have taught me

2010-03-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, suggests that we acquire unique expertise through 10 000 of practise. So I was thinking about the 10 000 hours I have spent as Londonmom and what unique expertise I have from that.

But before I tell you mine, I want to hear about yours. What do you know that you’ve learned through practise? What do you know that you almost take for granted that other people might find amazingly useful?

Ok, now I will tell you one of mine. I know how to get rid of lice. It doesn’t exactly fit into the focus of this blog, but I can bend the rules a bit, after all you can’t live well with nits in your hair.

This is the secret:

At night, before bedtime, take a huge tub of Queen Helene conditioning cream.

Slather it over your child’s scalp, row by row onto the scalp. (You need to use loads)

Wrap child’s head in Clingfilm. Put a bath cap over that. Put child to bed.

In the morning, rinse the child’s hair and comb.

Repeat process within eight days to catch the little hatchlings.

In my 10 000 hours, I have learned less disgusting things too, but more of that another day.

To conclude on a nice note, I will give you the best stew recipe I know:

Lamb Tagine

One tablespoon oil

600 gm pack of lamb shoulder chops (at least two per person)

Three stalks celery sliced

Three carrots sliced

One onion sliced

One tin of Canelli beans

One tablespoon Ras El Hanout spice mix

One tablespoon tomato puree

One tablespoon honey

100 apricots halved

Fry lamb in oil till brown both sides

Put lamb in oven dish. Fry veggies. Put in oven dish. Add 500ml cold water, tomato puree and seasonings and put in medium oven for about one and a half hours.

Add honey and apricots and continue cooking for another 30 minutes. Serve with rice.

What I think about when I'm running

2010-03-09T10:08:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about the most useful thing I know .

The most useful thing I know is the power of breathing.

In particular, breathing out.

When I think I can’t go another five minutes on the treadmill, I breathe out long and audibly.

When I think I can’t do another rep on the shoulder press, I breathe out as I pull down.

When I gave birth, I used breathing out instead of medication.

It’s a mystery to me why this is, but it works for me every time. The out-breath makes me stronger and allows me to endure more pain. Has anyone else noticed this? Does anyone know the scientific reason for this?

The other thought was what shall I make for supper.

Eggplant stew

One eggplant cubed

One onion chopped small

Some capers

Some black olives stoned

Some chilli flakes

Salt

Teaspoon of sugar

Tin of chopped tomatoes

Sunflower oil

Fry onions in oil till very soft, add egg plant and fry for about ten minutes. Check if you need to add oil, as egg plant needs loads of oil to taste yum yum delicious. Add all the other ingredients and cook for another ten minutes.

Although this is my favourite way to eat eggplant, I don’t expect the kids to eat this, but I will offer it to them.

I am also making cod baked in a hot oven. As I write this, the fish is in a buttered dish , dotted with butter and salt and I've squeezed the juice of one lemon over it. The fish will cook for no longer than thirty minutes.

I also made vegetable soup with barley. And rice.

where I confess some things

2010-03-08T07:26:00.000-08:00

I have an insanely sweet tooth.

I love sugar in all its yum yum delicious forms including liquorice, toffees, Turkish delight, ice-cream and chocolate. I only have two rules for myself. I eat the most premium, most delicious, freshest version I can find. And I refuse to think about the teeth, calories and health effects. I enjoy it with every fibre of my being.

Of all the sweet things I like to eat, this is probably the thing I like to eat the most. For obvious reasons, I only make it very rarely.

My mother’s fudge

Two tins condensed milk

Three to four tablespoons of syrup

Four cups of sugar

Half a pound of butter

Two teaspoons vanilla essence

One tablespoon vinegar

Stir first four ingredient in a pot on high heat till it comes to a boil. Little brown bits will emerge but don’t panic. Turn on low and bubble softly for about twenty minutes. Now the secret to success: You are only done boiling this when the fudgy mass comes away from the side of the pot. You will know it for sure when it happens. Be patient. It will now be a gorgeous brown colour.

Now pour in the vanilla and vinegar and beat the mixture firmly with a wooden spoon to show it who is boss.

Pour into a buttered tray and scrape out sides of the pot. (You need three hands for this)

Cut before it’s entirely cool. Give it away as quickly as you can.

Another confession:

One of the things I liked to do with my body besides running, dancing, eating, hiking and playing badminton, was breast-feeding my children.

I loved the closeness with my baby and the fact that I had to sit down and relax for 20 minutes.

And I like that from the beginning, my children have enjoyed good food made by me.

I also read that breast-feeding helps against childhood obesity.

I hope my daughters grow up to love their bodies too.

(This is the article I read but I have to admit I skipped down to the conclusion:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/113/2/e81 )

Great food rules (if you've got the time)

2010-03-05T08:35:00.001-08:00

Is healthy living a luxury in a time-poor world?

“If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.” Says Michael Pollan in his book “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,”

As prevention against obesity, his other rule is “cook”.

Great, but let’s say you’re a full-time working mother coming home from your job at seven and with a family of five to feed. Chances are, you’re no stranger to take-out food.

So who shall we demonise for the obesity epidemic?

Shall we blame McDonalds?

or our children that love takeouts?

or the time-poor mothers?

or the system where unsupported women have to work so hard to earn so little?

As an old boyfriend once explained to me, it’s all about who owns the means of production

Comfort yourself with this yummy soup.

Butternut soup

Three tablespoons sunflower oil

Two onions chopped

One butternut peeled and diced

One apple peeled and chopped

Three tablespoons flour

Two heaped teaspoons garam masala

Two telma vegetable cubes

Three cups boiling water

One cup milk

Zest and juice of one orange

Salt and one teaspoon sugar

Fry onions in the oil. Add the butternut and apple. Fry for another five minutes.

Add the flour, the crushed cubes and garam masala and stir. Add the liquids, zest, salt and sugar.

Cook for 25 minutes. Blitz with wand.

Take a look at some more great rules here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/health/02brod.html

A fresh look at exercise

2010-03-03T08:37:00.001-08:00

Oh I just remembered another word I don’t like.

That word is Exercise. Exercise is such a killjoy word.

It smells of P.E at school and duty.

There is no pleasure in Exercise.

With all the wonderful things to do with our bodies - dancing, running, rolling down a hill, hiking, walking, cycling, playing badminton and body surfing, to mention just a few of my personal favourites, Exercise doesn’t come into it.

I take great pleasure in chatting, listening to music and being in nature.

If I combine any one of those with a run, it’s not exercise, it’s ecstasy.

This is what I'm making for supper tonight.

I'll probably also put rice and spinach (with garlic and cumin) on the table.

Chicken kebabs

Five chicken breasts, cubed

Four tablespoons oil

Two tablespoons wine vinegar

Four tablespoons honey

Two crushed garlic cloves

Salt, one teaspoon mustard powder

One Telma chicken stock cube

One teaspoon oregano

Thread the chicken cubes onto skewers.

Mix the marinade ingredients and pour over the kebabs. Marinade until needed.

Cook in hot oven for twenty minutes.

A story about a girl and a fish

2010-03-02T04:00:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a lovely fish called Kingklip that tasted yum yum delicious. Sadly it was over-fished and is now endangered.

Also there was once a blogger who used to live in Cape Town and now she doesn’t. So I have to make this recipe with haddock or cod but I still call this recipe golden-topped Kingklip in honour of the fish I used to love to eat.

Golden-topped Kingklip

One and a half pounds of any firm white fish fillet.

(Ask fish-monger to take out bones, cut off head, de-scale but leave skin on)

Half a cup of Salad Cream (or mayonnaise)

One tablespoon chopped capers

One tablespoon chopped chives or parsley

Half a cup grated cheddar cheese

Salt and cayenne pepper

One egg white

Butter an oven-proof dish. Put the fish in the dish with a little more butter and salt on top.

Put it in the middle of an oven with medium heat and grill for 8 -12 minutes.

Mix the Salad Cream, capers, cayenne, chives, parsley and cheese.

Beat egg white till stiff and fold into cheesy mix.

Spread on the fish that you’ve allowed to cool down

and grill for another five minutes or until topping is golden and puffed.

Serve with rice.

Another word I don’t like to use

Healthy is a bad word in my book.

I don’t believe in counting five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. I don’t believe in super-foods.

I really don’t believe in fat-free.

I believe in delicious.

I believe in delicious spinach, delicious egg-plant, delicious lentils and delicious food enjoyed at a table with others.

I believe in the pleasure of good food with all its glorious colours, textures and tastes.

And I believe we are the fortunate ones.

A big soup and a tiny rant

2010-03-01T07:08:00.000-08:00

Meat soup

Three carrots fine sliced
0ne leek fine sliced
Two sticks celery fine sliced
One turnip fine sliced
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
8 beef shins (with or without bone)
Two litres water
Two Telma stock cubes (ground up)
One tin (410 g) Canelli beans, drained
Two tablespoons barley
One tin chopped tomato
One butternut peeled and chopped
Salt and one teaspoon sugar

Fry vegetables till softened. Add meat and fry for a few more minutes both sides.
Add water, stock cubes, barley and beans. Cook for 40 minutes. Add tomatoes and butternut and
sugar. Cook for at least two hours or until the meat is very soft. Take out the meat, cube it and return to the pot with salt.

Permit me a tiny rant

There are three words I will try not to use in this blog. Two of these words are fat and thin.

On the other hand, I recognize many people are fat-in-the-head. They see themselves as fat. They weigh themselves every day and judge themselves by the numbers they read. They eat in the car. They eat at the movies. They eat standing up. They eat when they’re bored or feeling stressed or resentful. They miss meals. They diet. They drink diet-coke every day. They deny themselves cookies and cakes and chocolate. They describe themselves as fat.

I don’t think that’s useful. What they really are is fat-in-the head. If your clothes are too tight, wear bigger clothes. Stop weighing yourself. Stop depriving yourself. Stop judging yourself. Stop eating in the car. It’s enough already.

How to fry fish properly and why

2010-02-26T06:29:00.000-08:00

The case for home-fried fish
Fried fish is like soup. It has to be home-made to be yummy. No matter how premium the brand, it never tastes delicious. Because I am essentially lazy, I have tried many brands but they all taste eh even sluiced down with ketchup. I don’t like to eat anything that isn’t yum yum delicious. Is that terrible to admit?
Admittedly, it makes your house smell of fish. So open the windows for twenty minutes and get over yourself. And you have to actually make a trip to the fish shop to buy the fresh fish and talk to strange men about what you want but it is so worth it, I promise. Also I think if we eat less fish, but we do it proud when we do eat it, it’s better for the environment.
How to fry fish properly
My mom showed me how to do this. She also showed me how to get what you want in a fish shop, (which is basically don’t be shy, ask for what you want and tip them afterwards).
Frying fish properly starts with a trip to the fish-mongers. In London, I ask for haddock or cod fillets, whatever looks fresher. There’s lots of pointing at this stage.
I ask the lovely Roy (or any of the scoundrels at Stoller’s) to cut up the fish into portions, to take the skin off and to debone it. I also ask them to cut off the flap (but keep it, obviously). The flap is the thin bit on the side of the fillet. So that when I fry it, each piece is all the same thickness.
So far, so normal. Now the secrets. After you’ve washed each piece, dry it thoroughly with paper towel . Heat up about two sideways finger widths of sunflower oil in a frying pan. The oil has to get very hot. Make a bowl of beaten egg and a bowl of flour. Dip the fish into the flour first and then into the egg and then into the frying pan.
Cook each side depending on thickness of the fish piece. I cook each side until it is golden brown which is about ten minutes a side. So basically, very hot oil, enough oil and dry fish before it goes in the flour. (Also flour before egg). Sprinkle with salt. Put on kitchen towel after frying. Serve with cut up lemon.

Eating more vegetables and less meat

2010-02-25T07:47:00.000-08:00

Slow cooked Broccoli

Three heads of broccoli – in pieces.
Two red chillies or chilli flakes (I take out the seeds from the fresh chillies and I scrub my hands afterwards)
Six generous tablespoons olive oil
Eight sun-dried tomatoes cut up
Some olives halved and pitted
Three cloves of garlic sliced
Salt
250 ml red wine (or wine mixed with water)

Put it all in a big pot (oil first) and cook on gentle heat for 50 minutes with the lid on.
Serve with rice. This is what we’re having for supper tonight with the left over soup from yesterday.

A tip that Jana from Slovakia told me: the big thick white stem of the broccoli is the yummiest part. Peel it and cut into slices and leave around the kitchen in a bowl like carrot sticks. Yum yum yum delicious.

leek and potato soup

2010-02-24T05:54:00.001-08:00

Six leeks
Two onions
2.5 litres boiling water
500gm potatoes
Salt
125 gm butter
600 ml crème fraiche

Slice leeks, onions and potatoes very thinly. Melt butter in pot. Add sliced leeks and onions.
Cook till soft not brown. Add water and sliced potatoes. Cook for thirty minutes. Blitz. Add crème
fraiche and salt and blitz again.

Yes, it is a lot of crème fraiche. Yes, you deserve to eat good food that tastes good. Allow me a small rant. Diet bread. Diet soda. Diet yogurt. Diet food. Only fat-in-the-head people eat this kind of food (you know who you are). Just eat normal. A slice of real delicious bread with real delicious butter, for example, but only one slice, not the whole loaf.

This is the real reason I made bread today.

2010-02-23T12:52:00.000-08:00

It’s not because I’m worthy but because I’m lazy. It’s raining outside and I’ve just straightened my hair and I don’t want to get my hair wet going to the shops and I’ve got teenagers to feed and we’ve run out of bread. Then I remembered my brother’s ex-girlfriend (who came from Denmark) had given me this recipe:
Ida’s bread
20 grams melted butter
Half a litre of liquid at body temperature made up of water/milk/yogurt
25 grams fresh yeast
Half a tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon honey
200 grams sunflower seeds
100 grams crushed walnuts
700 grams flour 1:5 brown to white.

Mix the butter, liquid and yeast. Stir in the salt and honey. Leave for five minutes.
Mix together with all the dry ingredients.
Leave to rise one hour at least though two hours would be even better. Knead it on a floured surface. Shape into two loaves and put on a greased tray. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes at 200 degrees.
(That was the recipe as I wrote it down. In real life, I used dry yeast, not fresh. I only had white flour not brown and I had poppy seeds, linseeds and pumpkin seeds so I used two tablespoons of each of those instead of the walnuts that I didn’t have. Luckily I had sunflower seeds. I had to add lots more flour. I didn’t have yogurt either so I used crème fraiche)
I also baked potatoes, fried onions, grated cheese and made hummus for supper. (Turns out we didn’t have baked beans either)
Hummus
Tin of chickpeas, two cloves of garlic, third a jar of tahini, olive oil, salt and paprika. Blitz.