Rocking Chair Party Animal in A Ghost House

Yesterday morning I got up at 3 a.m. Total madness. Even with my plane leaving at six it was still way, way too early, and way, way too dark and cold to be up and about. And it was still way, way too cold almost four hours later sitting in the front of the airplane, the door for some mysterious reason open to let the freezing wind in and absolutely no heating on whatsoever. Me, I was by that time practically asleep anyway, but the old dears sitting next to me were practically turning blue. When somebody finally asked the stewardess, who, by the way, was also turning a fetching shade of purple, what the hell was going on she explained that the plane was being de-iced and therefore the engines could not be started to heat the cabin. Nice. I mean yeah, I wouldn't want to fly on a plane with frozen wings but I also don't think deepfreezing the passengers does much good for the airline publicity.

Gone are the golden days

of air travel...

Later yesterday afternoon, having listened to several hours of both pretentious, just-doing-this-because-it-sounds-brilliant sort of academic garbage and some absolutely brilliant pieces of research, I felt the need for some fresh air and during a coffee break decided to take a walk around the area surrounding the compound. And what did I find? My oh my. A little shop called the Vaudeville Boutique.

And this, of course, is the

legendary wiggle skirt.

Had one.

Lost it.

Want a new one.

They have it...

And speaking of occasions, last night I was supposed to be partying my head off with various academics and other strange creatures, but instead found myself sitting in a rocking chair in an empty one hundred years old wooden house by a lake before the evening had even turned into double digits. There were going to be other people arriving later, once they're done getting all wild and woolly eyed , but right then and there it was just me and the ghostlies in the candlelight. Yeah, I travel with a candle in a glass jar. Of course I do. Who doesn't? Adds instant atmosphere to the skankiest of hotel rooms. Just light the candle, turn off the lights and voila, the dirty, cigarrette smoke stained ceiling just disappeared. And somehow the left-over-from-the-80's furniture suddenly became mysteriously shadowy and alluring...

Not that this place would need any help from candles. Its perfectly old, shadowy and rickety all on its own. My Mother said as I was showing her pictures of this place that there are bound to be ghosts. Fine by me. Room for everyone. But seriously, this place is lovely...

The desk in my room with a 

nice cup of piping hot 

coffee.

Last night I heard plenty of heavy

footsteps on the stairs...

...unfortunately it was just my 

wild and woolly eyed comrades trying

to climb the stairs to their bedroom upstairs.

Bummer.

This evening as I was coming back from a day of academia again, I decided to try the bus system and as the bus does not come all the way to the villa I had to walk quite a while to reach it...

...and now this warmblooded woman is taking herself to a well-earned, steaming hot bubble bath. Tomorrow shall be a day of vintage finds!

Winter Song

This morning the sun was shining as I was taking my Daughter to the kindergarten. And what's the fuss, I hear you ask. Well, I can not remember when was the last time that I actually saw the sun. Weird, huh. And even today the sun was there only for the briefest of periods before disappearing back under the horizon. But it was there. And with the nipping weather, the light on top of the small mounts surrounding our little town was straight from a Christmas storybook. 

From my bedroom window. 

The sun was already gone.

In just a moment, it will be dark.

Today has been a seriously tiring day. And yet, I feel much more light and in a weird way even sort of calmer now than I did last week. Is it getting used to this? Settling yourself to if not grinning then at least bearing it? Making peace with your battle? I don't know. But I do know better than to 'count my chickens before they're hatched' so I'll just enjoy the calm of today since tomorrow morning I might wake up in the middle of a thunderstorm.

As long as there's breath in me.

Right now I am sitting by my Daughter's bed, she's a fitful sleeper and wanted her Mommy. The only light here are the candles and this cold glow of my computer. The only real sound the sound she makes tossing and turning in her dreams. This morning she said she had been dreaming of fairies that had spread stars on the ground, and brought her butterflies. And all this in the middle of the usual hassle of getting ready to go in the morning. I think it might have been somewhere between the winter boots and the fleece suit. Fairies. I had to smile.

By Warwick Goble

Who's got plenty of other cute faery paintings...

Yeah, fairies are not strangers in this household. I used to actually do serious ( well, that's debatable, naturally ) academic study about fairies. Yeah. Right. Well, poetry about fairies to be more specific. And to be even more specific, poetry written about fairies in the late 18th century Scotland. Wehey. At least  it warranted me some rather nice 'study' trips to the Highlands where I pretty much just roamed around just soaking in the nature and, what else, reading. Didn't see any fairies, though...but I am glad if my Daughter still does. I once said to a certain somebody that the best way to kill an innocent belief into any even slightly esoteric thingybobby is to start doing academic study on it. Trust me, its the best way for that. But look at this, doesn't it send your imagination flying...

That's Eilean Donan, near Isle of Skye which I

still think is one of the most beautiful

places on earth.

I am not a mad fan of crowds. So while I technically would like to see the throngs of Calcutta or the samba carnival in Rio, they would both quite likely drive me straight up the wall. I can deal with crowds, of course, have had to, but I prefer if not solitude then certainly having more space to breathe. Cities, fine, as long as I know I will eventually have the chance to flee them. Unfortunately I find cities also a sort of unpleasant necessity when it comes to work and study, but I breathe easier far away from the 'madding crowd'. And then off to another end of Europe, Nordkapp or North Cape. The location of the northernmost city in the world.

Plenty of breathing space there as well. 

Pure love.

My Sister is, at this very moment, in Berlin, visiting a friend of hers. Talk about big cities. And despite my undying fascination with all these, yes, I guess desolate would be one way of putting it, places, I think my next trip will most likely also be to Berlin. It's been years since I've been there, and for some reason I keep finding myself checking the flight prices. Or else Italy. Florence. Better start packing my suitcases....

Which I should be doing anyway since I am flying 'down south' on Friday anyway. A weekend seminar on the way. Should be nice, and I will be staying in this hundred years old wooden villa by a lake, so actually, no matter what the seminar turns out to be like, that enough should make the trip worthwhile for such a fan of old, decrepit wooden houses as myself. 

Today I have not felt like talking to anyone. Seeing anyone. Just getting by. And while I was just randomly listening to music while doing this 'getting by' I stumbled upon this song by previously completely unknown to me singers Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson. And now I feel like it would make a perfect ending for this wintery post with no baking or any other lighthearted frippery in it. So here it is, Winter Song, just click on it below.

Winter Song

by 

Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson

Chocolate Cloudberry Cake

It's Father's Day here today. We were spending it at my parents, and I offered to make a cake, the first real cake I've done in months. I was a bit apprehensive that my sugar pastes might have dried up, and had to do some digging around in my kitchen cupboards to find my tools, but in the end the pastes hadn't dried too much and only some of the tools had mysteriously disappeared during the move ( I think moving boxes must eat stuff, there's simply no other way to explain this...) so we had a luscious chocolatey cake with our lunch. Again, I started with a basic sponge cake base cut in three layers. Moistened the layers with diluted orange juice. Then I spread some whipped cream on two of the layer pieces, and added  Arctic Cloudberries on top of the cream. 

These berries have a very distinct flavor and I doubt they are available as such outside the Nordic countries, but it seems that jam made out of these berries is available elsewhere as well, check here for example. Should you be using the berries as such however, depending on your required level of sweetness, add sugar on top of the berries as needed. 

I wanted to cover the cake with chocolate ganache but what do you know, forgot to buy the double cream needed. Head like a sieve I have these days. So, instead of the ganache I decided to do a sort of improvised chocolate buttercream. First I whipped around 200 grams of room temperature butter with my kitchen mixer until soft and smooth. Then I added about the same amount of mascarpone cheese and did some more mixing with the machine. By the way, the machine had sort of broken somewhere between summer and now, but no worries, I stuck a screwdriver in a strategic place and lo and behold, a working kitchen mixer! Next, 500grams of confectioners sugar, and a teaspoon of bourbon vanilla. Mix. Add about 50 grams of dark cocoa powder and again mix until of smooth consistency and color. I also added some melted and cooled dark chocolate, around 100 grams, just to make the topping even more delicious and chocolatey. 

Spread the topping generously on top, intentionally sort of higgedly piggedly, and placed the sugar flowers and leaves in place. Enjoy.

So, today was the day of Fathers. I have always been a sort of Daddy's Girl, and probably always will be. Having a child myself has given me a whole new relationship with my Mother, but it is my Father that I have always felt was more like me and somehow just got what I was about. Both during my seriously troubled teenage years and now that things have at least in that respect toned down considerably. But it was also my Father with whom I had the biggest fights and whom I have many times though of as being completely impossible, infuriating and bull-headed as hell. And still, these days I know that as long as there's breath left in him he will always be there for both me and my Daughter.

I also think I have the weirdest, most wonderful Brother on the planet. Sure, he is known to have an acidic tongue, and he's not squemish in the least about unleashing this verbal hellfire on pretty much anyone who happens to rub him the wrong way. Not an easy person, not by a longshot. And while he might at times get carried away from us by his own ghosts, when he is there, you'd be hard pressed to find a more loyal, helpful and honest person. Oh, and he's also into gym and nutrition, big time. Obsession would be too mild a word here... 

So, since I am aware that my diet these days is probably lacking in every single nutrient there is, and knowing that as soon as I would mention this to my Brother he would be more than willing to make me a whole new eating regime, that's exactly what I did. And now my head is swimming with a completely alien terminology and my Brother fully believes that while I may not be exactly cured by all this I should at least start feeling way better as soon as I get this new regime up and running. Mind you, a diet as in weight loss this is not, just making sure that I get enough everything that I need. Though I must admit that a long, long time ago, when I was actually wanting to lose weight and decided, for the second and the last time in my life to give a diet a go, the diet my Brother fashioned for me made me lose almost 20 kgs ( or 44 lbs ). And the weight did not come back until the pregnancy, so I am certainly willing to give his regime, albeit a wholly different one this time, a go.

Which brings me back to baking. As my Brother has been helping me A LOT lately with all sorts of things, both material and mental, I have actually come up with a pastry that I am going to make for him as a way of thanks. It will have a sweet pie base, vanilla custard on the bottom, cheesecake filling and it will be covered with the same chocolate buttercream topping I improvised for today. Damn, I just hope he won't be reading this...

But now, sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite. I am going to steel myself and tackle the frightening array of unopened moving boxes in the attic with high hopes of finding one marked ''Christmas''. Enough with the darkness, bring on the holly. 

Jam Tarts and Jummy Dresses

Goodness gracious I was in a dark mood yesterday! But that's how it goes, and the days that just keep getting darker and darker ( yeah, we're heading for the period of the year when the sun never rises above the horizon here ) or the fact that less than pleasant things just seem to be popping out of the woodwork at a really rather alarming rate) , but despite all that, today ended up being a, well, a rather pleasant day in it's perfectly normal and dull everydayness.  

One would be forgiven thinking that if you'd be feeling kind of, well, shitty physically, the last thing you'd want to be doing is baking. Ok, so maybe not the last thing but that it wouldn't rate too high on a list of things-to-do-right-now. Perhaps so. But seeing as my Sister and my Mother we're both coming for a cuppa, I just wanted to make something easy. And sweet. And did I already say easy? So, Jam Tarts.  English Jam Tarts. To go with the cuppa, you see...

So first the dough. As my Mother said after tasting these, it is indeed the most basic sweet pie dough imaginable. This one by Joy of Baking would work out fine. If you check that site you can see that mine look quite different, and one of the reasons for that is that I used sort of miniature pie ramekins and not a muffin pan. One of the other reasons is certainly the fact that as always, I was again highly unorthodox in my baking. Mixed together all the jams I could find from the fridge. Sort of threw in a seemingly nice amount of butter. You know the deal. And they came out mouthwateringly sweet and jammy. And since I really don't do light, I just had to see how they would taste with a bit of whippy on top...

You can tell how it tasted, can't you...

Lovely. And it's also lovely to have my baking groove back, since tonight I am supposed to make a Father's Day cake for tomorrow. It is already filled and waiting to be decorated in the fridge. I am thinking chocolate ganache. I am thinking sugar features. But we'll see, I'll post pictures when it's done.

And on to another topic. It's the Christmas Party Season coming on. And as I've mentioned before,  I have somewhat shrunk and was therefore thinking about getting myself a nice new dress, one of those dresses that you can just slink into and feel fantastic and comfortable at the same time. One that does not require a girdle or some such contraption. I value my ability to breath too much...

I mean, I do own a few of that sort of undergarments ( well, obviously not quite like the one above ) but damn if they're anything but sheer torture. Ok, so the ones I am talking about might look nice but who on earth wants to have steel sticking to your bits for hours when you're supposed to be enjoying yourself? Not me that's for sure. And the Spanx sort of thingys? Aahhhh, well now, I have tried one of those contraptions on once, and was getting mightily sweaty and pissed off before I had even managed to get that thing above my hips. No no no no no. And yet I do like a sort of vintagey figure on my dresses. I mean just look at this...

Yeah, love her.

And while I technically also love the sort of 1950's figure with the nipped in waist and acres of hem...

...I am also aware that dresses of this shape always need some fixing up to fit me. Sooo, anyhow, I was thinking of something along these lines...

This one is by Heyday.

Yeah, I know. It would seem that this too would require some hard working underwear, but really, no. For some reason the 1940's just works for me. I actually did make one almost exactly like this last summer during my blogging hiatus, and I still love it. Only it now needs to be taken in and is of a too summery material. Not sure of the poufy sleeves though, as I have some shoulders all of my own, so might tone that down a bit. And just so that you know, I did think of just buying a dress and being done with it. Not going to happen. Everything that seems to be available is either geared towards making the wearer the centerpiece, as in the Christmas Tree, just plain ugly or hideously expensive. Or all three at the same time. So, off to the fabric store on Monday it is....or not, since I just remembered I have some rather unpleasant business on Monday, but Tuesday then...

Which brings me to shoes. Well, for once a perfectly lighthearted post amidst all this gloomy existential musing. Nice! Now, I am strange with shoes. No, not that kind of strange. Strange as in for example I own a pair of black, high heeled, knee length leather boots bought fifteen years ago that I still wear. The zippers have been replaced a couple of times, they've been rehealed and sewn back together, and I fully expect to keep them for the next fifteen years. This kind of strange. I very rarely find the kind of shoes I both like and can wear so I tend to stick with the ones I have. Sorry, market economy... Oh, and the 'can wear' being due to the fact that my feet are rather nicely deformed thanks to all those hours of en pointe.

I still think dancing en pointe is one of the most beautiful 
things there is to watch but 
kind to your poor feet it is not.

Now where was I? Kind of got distracted by thinking about dancing...yeah, shoes. Heels, probably. Never mind the fact that in serious heels I tower over practically all of the females and most males as well, I have never let it stop me. I like wearing my heels. Only sometimes, they're simply just not practical. Enter ballerina flats. Which I love dearly as well but I think that this dress is screaming for heels. Sooooo. Shoes sorted. I am actually kind of finding this amusing, since I am certainly normally so not a very fashiony sort of person. Far from it. I just wear what I feel like wearing. If it is grandad shirts with the plainest jeans on planet, then that's what it is. On the other hand if it is stockings instead of pantyhose, then so be it. And by the way, I think pantyhose is a devil's creation, second possibly only to Spanx and corsets...

But now it's getting to be time to wrap this up. Still going to do some stocking searching, cuban heel or should I go for the french? Tough, tough decisions ahead...

I have actually found writing this post both exhilarating and weirdly liberating. Sometimes, when life gets to be just too dark and full of things that shouldn't really be happening at all, it's good to be all frivolous and superficial for a while. It doesn't mean that you're running away and hiding from your difficulties, it's just a bit of healthy escapism. 

Works for me.

No Baking, Just Obsessions

So, what's this blogging lark all about? In the spirit of recent times, I actually went ahead and googled it. Yeah, I am getting weirder by the minute. But this is what I found. "An online journal, published frequently,(often daily)". Aaalriight. But daily? DAILY?? " A shared online journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences and hobbies. " Ok. So it's a diary. Of sorts. Get that. So, as far as I can see, it's your place to write pretty much what you please, whatever happens to be flying around in your brain at any given moment. But hobbies? Do I have hobbies?? And you know what's going to happen now, don't you. " A hobby is a small thing, less than an obsession, but requiring more care and effort than a casual interest." Lord I love that part about it being less than an obsession... But back to the topic, do I have hobbies then? I'm not sure, as I tend to get either rather, yeah, well, obsessed about things, or just mildly interested in which case I really can't be bothered most of the time. Sure, I'll give it a try but usually tend to get bored before you can say 'See, isn't this fun?" 

So, obsessions, then. Hmmm. Books. Now there's an obsession alright. Food? Naaah, I guess that would belong to the hobby category. Oh wow! See! I do have a hobby! Good girl. Well now, I used to be seriously obsessed about dancing, running and all sorts of keep-fit activities. And should the day come when my body decides to act its age instead of pretending to belong to an eightysomething grandma, I will, no question about it, be all for it again. Yeah, that IS an obsession. I can feel my pulse quicken at the mere thought of running in the woods...What did I say, I am getting weirder by the minute, but come on now, it's not as if I were revealing my secret taxidermy habit here. And no, I am not obsessed by taxidermy. Eeewww. 
But of course, how could I forget? Cars. You heard me. Cars. Not just any cars, though. Old cars. The Beetle. Triumph Spitfire. Ford Mustang. The Karmann Ghia. Love love LOVE. 

Ok, so that's a Saab, but you get the picture...

Or at least now you do.

And what do I do? I drive a decade-old, dilapitated Opel. Muahaahaahaa. Done laughing? Good. Now get a grip on yourself. My first car ever was a 1970 Volkswagen Beetle that broke down as it was being driven from its previous owner to my place. Should I have taken that as discouragement? Hell, no, that was a love affair born right there and then. Many things could be said about that car, but boring was never one of them. Must have been a sight to be seen, me and my two girlfriends standing behind that car stranded by the side of the road, smoke coming out of the poor old motor and my friend desperately trying to cool it by waving a Vogue magazine at it. And more than once I myself was left fiddling with the same motor when The Car just decided that it had gone far enough. You see, that was not a car  in the habit of asking my opinion about how far was far enough. I met some funny characters because of that car, and had to stifle many a laughter when men would stop by as I was fixing that car en-route and invariably think that they knew more about car engines than poor little old me. Hey dude, I fixed up that car myself! I changed the engine! I crawled for hours under that thing! I painted it! I fixed the electrics! Yeah ok, so one of the lamps only works if you stick a piece of aluminium bubble gum wrapper in a certain place in a certain position inside it but who cares, it works! See, that car was a labor of love.

That's not mine, but almost exactly like it. Except mine had eyelids. Yes, eyelids.

Cute.

The only real problem with that car was, however, that I guess the car for der volk was not meant to be driven at temperatures reaching to -35C ( or -31F). There is a well founded joke saying that one does not need seatbelts in a Beetle when it gets below zero since your butt freezes to the seat anyway. Which is good because you are bound to get into an accident as the windows keep freezing over no matter how much you try to scrape them, thus obscuring any other vehicles, lamp posts or indeed, lifeforms, from your sight. And this is why I drive that blasted Opel. Many things may be said about that car as well, and boring is certainly one of those things. Hasn't left me stranded once. And when you're carting around a three-year-old, waving a Vogue at a smoking engine sort of ceases to be amusing. 

But I have high hopes. I keep scanning the ' for sale' sections in newspapers. I read classic car magazines. I keep an eye on the price developments. And I have no doubt one day I will be the proud owner of one of these tricky creatures again. A brand new Audi or BMW still with its factory smell? You have got to be kidding me. Give me the rotting frame of a Ghia any day and I will give you back your Audi...

Never Give Up - Make A Quiche If You Must

I am a woman with a mission. A mission to drive these sad, sad sentiments away. T.S.Eliot said that April is the cruelest month, and September is often said to be the saddest one but for me, neither can even begin to compete with November. Yeah, I know, now it's not just a question of a certain time of the year being simply unpleasant in it's essence, but it's certainly not helping my present situation. So, mission it is. This morning, I finally returned the keys of the old home, and was actually feeling quite relieved and even sort of, well, sort of nice  so I decided to hop into a cafe for a bite. And while I was sitting in there, lost in my thoughts, munching my way through the goat cheese quiche I realised that I am, after all, a food snob. Granted, I already knew that I am a literature snob, but that at least was sort of a given considering my chosen vocation, but what, food too?? I hang my head in shame, I do. 

Image by katep 

But hang on, I eat pizza. Just the other day I took my Daughter to a pizza place for a genuinely garden variety foodie experience. I have been known to eat at a burger place. Ok, maybe  not eat the actual burgers but the veggie sort at least. And I do microwave. As soon as I can dig it out, that is. And when I forget to eat, which, unfortunately, tends to happen a lot, I eat pretty much whatever there is in the fridge. Olives straight out of the jar? Done. Tomato in one hand and a piece of bread in another, who has time to dig out the knife when you have teeth? Been there. But the point, I believe, is that I genuinely love good food. And while I can, and unfortunately do, eat bland, overprocessed muck, somewhere in me there's a nasty little food snob just waiting to raise it's eyebrows in horror at the goat cheese quiche that should really call itself an egg pie.

So, what I am going to do tonight is a quiche. A proper goat cheese quiche. See, there she is, that nasty little creature... Anyway, I still hold fond memories of the best quiche I ever had the pleasure to taste, in a small cafe in Geneva, Switzerland. Crumbly yet moist crust. Brilliant blend of cheeses. Light enough on the eggs, just so consistency, perfectly golden on top. Words fail me. Sigh. I went searching the net for a picture that would carry even the slightest resemblance to this cheesy perfection, and came up with this one.

Quite nice, indeed. And even the recipe here at Jo's Kitchen seems quite right. Obviously, it is possible to leave out the onions and add a greater variety of cheeses but generally, yes, yummy. 

What I am going to do, however, is make the basic crust like Jo's and then add some chopped vegetables that I have just quickly cooked in some olive on on a frying pan, on top. Broccoli, tomato, sweet bell pepper and zucchini work nicely. Next, I am going to whisk together  one egg, a carton of double cream ( yes, double cream, I don't do light ), a splash of milk and some grated gruyere cheese. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper, some fresh basil leaves and pour on top of the veggies. And then the goat-cheese, or chevre. A quiche is not a goat-cheese quiche if it has three, maybe four, miserable slices of said cheese on top of it. Do you hear me, cafe-that-shall-remain-nameless? So be generous, and if you wish, do add some other grated cheese on top as well, I'm thinking your plain old emmentaler would work just fine. So this is what I am going to do. And when I am done, I shall post pics right here.

Veggies on the way.

                                                                   

Could've used a little less time in the oven, but getting there. At least there's plenty of 

CHEESE!

Fantastic, if I may say so myself. And the entire quiche got eaten at one go. No leftovers. And no, I didn't eat all of it myself.                                                        

And since I am being all foodie snob, and am on the topic of cheeses, I can not pass on mentioning this.

Queijo Amanteigado da Serra da Estrela

I have been known to bring this in my suitcase, not wrapped well enough, so that all my clothes ended up smelling, well, interesting would be one way to put it. I was wiser the second time... But what I am talking about here is a cheese produced in the Serra da Estrela  region of Portugal, from sheep's milk curdled by infusing cardoon flowers in it. The cheese can be either amanteigado, or literally 'like butter', or curado, again literally 'ripened'. Either way, delicious. Check out the blog of Sónia Meirinho from which the photo is taken. And here comes foodie memory two of the day. I remember ducking into a little alleyway hole-in-the-wall cafe in Porto for some cheese of this sort, some crumbly, fresh bread and a glass ( ok, maybe two... ) of fresh, cold vinho verde. Oh my, just now I must say that I was far, far away from a gloomy November afternoon at the Arctic Circle...

I don't know for how long I'll manage to keep my mind off things that just make me sad, but damn if I'll try. Even if it means baking and cooking from here to eternity with some serious reading and writing thrown in for a good measure. Who knows what I'll end up trying in my probably very misguided 'just-how-hard-can-it-be' bravery. After all, there's a wall bearing the unfortunate marks of my just-how-hard-can-drilling-a-few-holes-be. But on the other hand, I have managed to bring an entire Beetle (the car, not the bug) back to life from the brink of death by rust simply because I refused to believe I couldn't do it. So, lace bobbing? Porcelain painting?? Nordic walking??? Hardly. Traveling around the world? I wish. So we'll have to wait and see, but generally, displacement activity...my middle name. Just to mold? Not me.