Nigella with a twist

Early friday morning, I went into town to get myself a new hose for my vacuum cleaner. After a tiny altercation with a shop assistant, apparently you're not allowed to check if it's the right size by dismembering one of the models on display, I got home in the afternoon and literally enjoyed many hours of much needed spring cleaning. I eventually collected enough fur to create three more cats, seriously, it was that bad.

High on my domestic vibe, I also decided to do some baking. I couldn't even remember how long it had been so I started of easy. I got my dustcovered rolling pin out and made one of my pumkin's favorites: scones. For those of you who aren't familiar with scones, they are simple, sweet and soft bread-like little rolls which are perfect for breakfast or afternoon tea (especially filled with jam or chocolate paste).

At Christmas I got Nigella's How to be a domestic goddess which has a great scone recipe but sadly I am incapable of following it or any recipe as a matter of fact. I always seem to improvise. For me recipes give me ideas or basic guidelines but seeing as I am an aspiring goddess in my own right, I always have to give it my own personal touch. This is why I now present you with the recipe for Nigella's scones with a dash of Ginny Jones:



250gr of whole wheat flour

100 gr sugar

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

100ml of milk

50gr butter (she uses trex as fat but seeing as I've got no idea what that is...)

3 tablespoons of sour cream (she uses cream of tartar ???)

50gr raisins

That's about it. Nigella's doesn't put in raisins or sugar or whole wheat flour making them pale, soft and kinda tasteless bread rolls in my opinion. When I had scones as a kid they were always a little sweeter and moist (hence the raisins). You can naturally have savory scones as well by adding cheese to the mix but I prefer the sweeter ones.

Anyway, add the flour, sugar and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Knead in lumps of butter and the sour cream untill the mixture goes damp (likes sand). Add the milk and start kneading until you've got a firm dough. Last but not least, add in the raisins. Now put the dough on a floured surface and roll it out until it's about 3cm thick and start cutting. I have cookie cutters in all shapes and sizes but oddly enough no circles so I use a glass or my flower cutter. I know, very professional. Beat an egg and put some of the mixture on top of the scones before baking them in a preheated oven for 12 minutes on 250°. If you're lucky, they should have risen and be golden brown.

30 before 30

Today I started thinking about projects. What could I do that would be meaningful, to me at least? But after countless hours of just staring into space and occasionally at a customer, I finally realized that I didn't need a project per sé, just some goals and that is why I proudly present my list with 30 things I want to do before I turn 30. That leaves me 2,5 years to:

1. Find a job that doesn't make me physically ill.

2. Write a book, seriously.

3. Get my driving licence, after thirty it's just pathetic.

4. Act more, what can I say, I love it.

5. Take cooking lessons , focussing on desserts and master the art of icing a cake. For some strange reason I'd love to bake a wedding cake with lost of layers and flowers,...

6. Travel through The United States or go back to New York at least.

7. Catch up on my reading, meaning read every book I own and stick to it.

8. Stop obsessing and just let it go!

9. Master the art of yoga.

10. Meet Winnie the Pooh.

11. Blog more and actually comment once and a while.

12. Get a tan, or a shade other than red.

13. Sleep outdoors, just for the hell of it.

14. Relax on a beach somewhere.

That's all I can think of for now. I could have easily called it 14 before 30 but that doesn't have the same ring to it. I'll keep you posted ;) on the progress and future goals which aren't that crazy, right?

Life Lessons

During my lunch break, which is the only time of day I have left to read, I finished Julie & Julia. I really liked the book but not particularly because of it's content but because I could relate to the main character, Julie Powell, a simple secretary looking for meaning and finding in French cuisine. Although her culinary escapades are funny and sometimes very familiar, what really got to me is that she just created a project and no matter how crazy it sounded, went for it. It's that easy. Yet somehow I never seem to get round to it.

My latest excuse besides the job and fatigue is housework. Our apartment is slowly but surely starting to resemble a war zone where dust bunnies and dirty dishes are enslaving us. Ever since our vacuum cleaner died on me a few weeks ago, like all electrical appliances seem to do, the dirt has been piling up and there's only so much a broom or our cat can handle. This is why I'm dedicating my day off to some belated spring cleaning, joy! And if I'm lucky I'll be able to squeeze some fun in there as well.

Yoga, deceptively difficult

A while back I had some very inconvenient fainting issues. I started getting dizzy, nauseous, had a headache and finally ended up on the floor. It turns out I was hyperventilating due to stressful circumstances aka hating my job. Trust me people, when your job starts becoming a health hazzard, it's time for a change. Anyway, my doctor told me to relax which is something I've never been able to do, even the word relax makes me nervous. Once again he told me to try yoga or some other form of relaxation therapy where I could focus on my breathing. So despite my misgivings about yoga I decided to give it a try and go on a quest for my inner peace and tranquility, like there is such a thing. I went online and bought a yoga dvd seeing as I'm not the go-out-join-group-and-do-stuff-together kinda girl. Now I can curse and sweat in the privacy of my own home and boy, did I curse.

It starts out easy with a lot of breathing excercises which were just what the doctor ordered but breathing at a pace of six breaths a minute is not only hard (to breath that slow anyway) but also got me feeling aggitated, get on with it already! Not a good start. Then came the sun salutations, the warrior poses, the upwards and downwards facing dog,... which all seem very simple in theory. It turns out I can't even stand still without falling over. Those who know me will probably not be surprised seeing as I have some mild balance issues. Besides continuously falling over (3 bruises people!), I simply could not bend the way I was supposed to so either those intructors have no bones or I have the flexibility of an eighty-year-old woman. The best example is downwards facing dog (left) which seems easy but I could not get my palms and the soles of my feet on the ground while streching my legs. It's just impossible! And that's one of the easy ones! After fifty minutes and only 4 poses that I could actually do without falling, breaking something or tearing a muscle, I called it quits.

Right now, inner chaos seems healthier.

Frenzy

The past two weeks have been so chaotic with work, writing, reviewing and life in general that I ended up neglecting my poor little baby aka The City. With no definite projects in sight, I finally have time to devote some much needed TLC to my blog.

So what happenend since last time? Well, I managed to order a copy of Pride and Predjudice and Zombies so yay! I wrote a piece about the City Visions festival in Mechelen. It was kinda rush rush so I hope I didn't give my editor too much of a headache to rewrite the whole thing. I also had to review a cookbook: Fresh + Fast by Michele Cranston which oddly enough wasn't easy. It's a very pretty book published by Marie Claire and contains, like the magazine, a lot of glossy pictures but little or no substance. Highly recommended to satisfy the inner rabbit in us all seeing as lettuce is Cranston's favorite ingredient.

I finally read Eclipse and I have to say that the Twilight series just keeps on getting better! Although I can't wait to read Breaking Dawn, the finale, I'm going to do just that because it pains me to know that the end is closing in, sniff. Now, because the Dutch version of Eclipse was released last week we had to wear Eclips T-shirts at work last week, strangely enough I was the only one who didn't mind. Am I a nerd or what?
Besides Eclipse I also read People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks for our book club. I normally would never have read it because it's contains a few stories within a story and although it was actually quite good, I don't really care for short stories but that's just me. But I did admire how Brooks managed to create such intricate little tales as background information for all the oddities the main character found in a priceless ancient Haggadah.

Now the past two weeks, I have to admit, I've also been in a book buying frenzy. Damn you discount card, Book Depository and Playtrade! I acquired a ridiculous amount of books and spent a little over €50 which I have to say kinda makes me proud.

It all started with Goodbye Chunky Rice, the first graphic novel by Craig Thompson which I've wanted to read ever since I read his spectacular Blankets earlier this year. It stars an adorable and sad little turtle, nuff said. Next up are De Eenzaamheid van de Priemgetallen by Paolo Giordano and An Offer you can't Refuse by Jill Mansell. I don't know which is more shocking, me reading a book in Dutch or me reading chicklit? Both are bestsellers at the store if you were wondering if I had completely lost it.

I also got the entire literary inspired Geronimo Stilton collection because a) he is HOT if you're 9-12 years old and like mouse detectives and b) I loved the way they recreated classics such as Treasure Island and The Three Musketeers for kids, with mice! Trust me, if you don't know what I'm talking about and live in Belgium, have a looksee in the children's bookdepartment and enter the phenomenal realms of the mouse that is Stilton, Geronimo Stilton. I'll probably read them, some day...

Another book that I just started in is Julie and Julia by Julie Powell which I'm kinda excited about after having read rave reviews on numerous blogs plus it was only €4,50 for the hardback version! Anyway, it's about Julie Powell herself who after years of working as a temp decides to give her life a little more meaning by creating a project: making all the recipes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year aka 365 days, 524 recipes and 1 tiny apartment kitchen. She shared her cooking mishaps as well as their effects on her surounding with the world through a very succesful blog that eventually turned into Julie and Julia. Starting with a dead end job that evolves into a messy kitchen and finally turns into a book deal, a true inspiration on how to turn your life around and probably the real reason why I wanted to read this book.

I also bought Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto and The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson (which has black pages) because they came highly recommended by friends and were rediculously cheap so I'll keep you posted. I added some more Murakami to the collection seeing as I had a gift voucher that was pleading to be returned to it's rightful owner, the store: South of the Border, West of the Sun and What I talk about when I talk about Running. The latter is his memoir which doesn't only deal with his extensive marathon training but should also shed some more light on why he gave up everything (careerwise) and simply started writing, bless him. And finally there's Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton, a mystery / drama set in the classic era of the film industry which I simply adore plus it had a pretty cover. I guess that's about it. That wasn't too bad, right?

Tv and movie-wise not a lot happened seeing as the dvd-player died on me just when I got my special edition copy of Twilight! Luckily my Vaio was more that able to fill the void.

We're all out of dead people, sorry

So I finally found an online store where I could buy a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, release date April 1st. At 8am I went online to get me some zombies and they were all sold out! At 8am! This book's popularity is reaching spectacular new hights, especially now that the movie rights have also been sold...

Hitting the books again

I haven't been to work the past few days because I'm been fighting off the cold from hell, seriously I wasn't aware that one person could produce so much mucus! After ruining several people's newspapers,... due to bad reflexes (I don't look away on time when I sneeze) it seemed better for all, but me especially, to stay clear of customers for a while and it has been bliss. I really missed being at home like this and picking up my old habits. It's funny that after months of being home I couldn't wait to get away but now, I wish I never had to leave. I'll probably be whistling a different tune if days would once again turn into months but I'm not complaining just yet. Besides the fun will be over tomorrow .

I'll probably have a lot of work to do seeing as this week we kick off the main event of my soon to be over career at Standaard Boekhandel; Literaire Lente (literary spring). Window displays have to be created, booths have to be built, titles have to be selected so that an angry mob (being the customers who aren't always "pleasent") can ravages them. I just hope my section will have survived without me the past few days and hasn't been turned into a pile of rubble like it was a couple of months ago. I know, I hate my job but I've grown quite fond of those damn books.

Anyway, during my tiny time-out I decided to commit some more time to my writing and for once start taking myself seriously. I've even started "studying" again just to show you how determined I am to make this work. It'll probably take a while before everything starts falling into places but for the first time in months a glimmer of hope is starting to shine through.