The sky... this is one thing I will miss about living here. Not that this particular photo is award-winning, but the sky here tends to be quite outspoken. During the summer, the sunsets last for hours. The winters have very abrupt, very magnificent sunsets and sunrises. In the winter I find joy in watching the sunrise from the bus stop on my way to work. In the summer, the closest we see to a sunrise is the dusk after the official sunset. Clouds. The clouds stretch, reach out, exist, and when they aren't dominating the sky, they showcase lovely light and colour. I will miss Scotland's sky.

Tonight I went to a friend's birthday night out, came home pretty early, and sat on the hospital's ledge at the corner of our street, watching the sky change colours. Joel is at a gig, so I had the luxury of independence and loneliness. Who can feel lonely when watching such beauty? (no offiense to Joel's company!) While I was sitting quietly, an old Scottish woman walked by and started talking to me (as they so often do). She told me she was going to pick some grass for her cat, that it helped her stomach, and went on to tell me about how she so would love to let her cat outside, but the Cat Protection said there was too much traffic. So she settles for bringing her cat grass. The woman told me she often gets grass from Bearsden (just outside of Glasgow), that's how spoiled she is! I love these people who share their life stories for no apparent reason. I will miss that too.
This is Joel, with the rhubarb cake I made on his lap. I don't want to gloat over the fact that he's slowly beginning to like rhubarb, I really just want to show how sacrificial his love is, to be prepared to like rhubarb, for my sake. This is truly a wonderful man, folks. Seriously, have any of your partners been prepared to give up a lifelong adamant detestation of such an assertive food?

Okay, now let's address the matter at hand: The Biggest Kitchen Table discussion. Today is on Living Deliberately, and Money.

Living Deliberately: This is about living with intention, having your life goals in mind in your everyday actions. It is a departure from living for the moment. For me, I first began thinking about this and practicing it in high school. My close friend who acted as a spiritual and personal mentor to me, Lori, taught me about what it means to live intentionally, and caused me to really meditate on this. I believe we do fairly well at this. It is about a balance - not living fully in the future, but living the present while thinking about and preparing for the future. My goals are varied, alive, and I like to think simple. I want to grow my own vegetables - I've started that this year, with windowpots full of spinach and tomato plants. Just a small step, but a step nonetheless. It helps me learn some things slowly, and hopefully in the future I'll have access to some real dirt to grow things in.

Money: Joel and I do well managing our money, out of necessity, and a conviction that 'your money is where your heart is'. We have been given hard lessons to learn in our married life, centred about being dependent and accepting help from others. I hope this prepares us for a future in which we are able to help others in the same way.

We're very careful with our money, and apart from bills like rent and electricity, and my student loan payments, the only thing we really spend money on is food. Food is an area we would like to spend less money on, by making more things ourselves, and growing things ourselves. The spinach has been a success. The main hindrance to making more things homemade is the time factor. As we both essentially work full time, it is difficult to live up to our aspirations We often experiment with this; we were making our own bread for a time earlier in the spring; Joel has made yogurt on occassion; we were in the habit of a weekly from-scratch pizza night.. but when things get busy, these things fall away and we end up buying bread. In that case, we buy nice bread - we tend to buy Polish bread that doesn't have any preservatives - but of course buying things is more expensive, and often not as good quality, as homemade. Both of us look forward to a time when Joel is working, and hopefully I'll have a bit mroe time in the home to do things like this. Food is very important to me (you may have notices). So I look forward to tomorrow when Rhonda looks at the food issue.
Our money goals are essentially: -to eliminate debt (all of the student loan nature) -to have a savings account

I hope this isn't too much information, I know we don't usually share so much on the blog. Anyone have any thoughts about any of this?

This evening I got the chance to do some things in the kitchen. I made a lasagne which is now in the fridge ready to be baked for tomorrow's dinner. I made rhubarb crumble (Nigella's recipe from Feast) with some early rhubarb from Yorkshire I got for cheap. The crumble is is cooling on the stove now. I also had time to put away the clean dishes and wash all of the newly dirty ones I created tonight.

Being able to do household tasks, particularly food-related ones, really gives me contentment. I feel confident that I am coping with life well when the flat is reasonably tidy and the food situation is not completely erratic. I do find it very difficult to keep up with domestic tasks when I work full time. Weekday evenings are notoriously bad for being able to cook a dinner as well as tidy and still feel like Joel and I get some time to talk to each other. So often, things are not as tidy or organised as I would like. However, those things are less important than building up our marriage and ensuring we are on the same page and don't feel neglected by each other. Often, we leave the housework (but probably not as often as Joel would like :-).

I was able to do so much this evening because -we had leftovers for dinner -Joel went over to Michael's this evening to get advice on fixing his bass -my evening event was cancelled.
So you can see this is not generally possible to get to accomplish so much on a weekday evening.

I consider this evening an energising break. Does that sound strange, when I spent it doing tidying, cleaning, and cooking? That is what I enjoy doing. Mostly the cooking part, although I do really enjoy washing dishes when I am not rushed and overwhelmed by lots to do.

I came across this article that I had read a couple of months ago, and thought it was worth sharing with you. It is about the value of homemaking/householding. Another excellent read is this article from Rhonda at Down to Earth (which incidentally would be my most recommended blog).

In the last couple years Joel and I have become more and more wanting to be responsibly domestically. This includes eating food we make ourselves, so we can avoid additives and get more natural flavour and nutrition; cleaning with natural ingredients like baking soda and lemon juice to we don't use unnecessary chemicals in the home; and making it recreational to cook. Incidentally, all of these things not only ensure we are healthier, but they also save money. There are loads of areas we have to improve in, mostly because we don't have time to do all the things we would like, like baking all our own bread (although that was working well for a monthish in the late winter).

The challenge we have at the moment is that both of us are 'working' in some form or another, and thus we do not have a homemaker. We hope that in the future I will be able to stay at home, and this will be a priority for us. I look forward to being able to focus more on making wise household decisions and building my skills in areas that are often forgotten these days.

I know many of you who read (women and men) are very skilled at various aspects of homemaking. Do you find contentment in it? Fulfillment? Joy?
Of course if you have any tips of easy ways to make our lives simpler and more homemade, do share!

Okay I suppose I better get started on the rhubarb crumble, seeing as Joel doesn't like rhubarb!

Update: Mm that rhubarb crumble is delicious, with custard (storebought, not homemade!) over it. I think Joel may even like this one (though he will never admit it!).

PS Grandma B, I would have used your rhubarb crisp recipe but somehow have lost it. :-)

Thoughts on Winter in Glasgow

Here we are, continuing to plod along through the winter.
It's currently snowing. Lovely, yes. But it's still not really snow. It's more that teasing kind of snow, that whispers in your ear, "you can look at me, but I won't stay. I'll disappear almost as soon as I hit the ground. And you'll be left merely with a wet face/coat/sock/trouser leg."

I think I still prefer it to come down and visit Glasgow.

Life, work, studies continue, in the unmagnificent way it tends to happen during winter. We have been having lovely saturdays. It tends to be a day to get caught up in the kitchen, in ways. I bake a loaf of bread for us to eat through the week. I bake other things. Last week it was flapjack. So magnificent, I must share that with you at some point. Energy bars. More mayonnaise. Ketchup. Muffins. Etc.

I'm looking forward to soup this week.

Enough with the food, I suppose.

Did I tell you, in January I decided the start of a new year was a wonderful opportunity to start a new skill. I've started knitting. I tried my hand at it a few years ago, but this time I am really going to learn it. I've got the basics down, and must show you the hat I knitted Joel. It's 50% wool, 50% alpaca, and it's soft and brown and warm. Before that project, I accidentally knitted a hat for a deformed baby head, so if anyone knows a baby that has a weird lump on the sideish-top of his head, let me know.

When we came to Glasgow, I thought, "Wow, I'll spend the winters learning how to play my banjo, and developing my Spanish!" Neither of those things have come through, but I have learned to cook some, and now am knitting. I also got into aromatherapy a bit, which enhances our life and cleaning in ways. Knitting is my current absorption, but please don't expect anything grand for quite some time. I knit in my spare time. So not as much as I would like. I knitted last night while watching a french film, which is quite admirable considering I can't understand french and had to read subtitles while knitting a new (and weird) pattern. It went pretty well. I have the start of a knitting project, and new knowledge of french knife-throwing circus acts who have suicidal tendencies.

In other news, I cannot seem to get my mind off of this:


I made it last summer. It's a rhubarb crisp with honey and vanilla, and it is divine. Joel doesn't like rhubarb, so I get to eat the entire thing myself. Waiting for rhubarb to come into season...

How is your winter going?

Rye Bread

Wasn't the Cold Ham Water post a lovely distraction from the usual focus of edible food? Courtesy of Joel the Cook. Now, back to the status quo... with Rye Bread. We bought some rye flour at our favourite shop in Partick, which sells everything in plastic bags for low prices. The guy who runs the place buys it all in bulk and passes on the savings to his customers. He sells everything from bulk spices, flours, oats (even pinhead oats, mind you), and pet food too! We used to buy all of Basil's food there. He even has aquariams full of snakes and other reptiles and fish in the back. What an awesome shop. I think it's called something like Partick pet food and grain supply store.
We used this recipe for rye bread. We substituted treacle for molasses, as you do. I think we can call this a success. We definitely used the caraway seeds, and let me tell you that is VITAL to rye bread. We'll be enjoying this...

Bramble & Chocolate Bread

Mmmm Mmm Mmmm. Come on, say it with me. Mmmm Mmm Mmm. Oh yea, there we go. Oh yea it looks so amazing, looks so delicious, looks stellar! Let me tell you, it is. It is. I made this from a recipe from A Cook's Tour of Scotland, by Sue Lawrence. This book is a glittering gem with tons of classy recipes using local produce. It tells a bit about the different areas of Scotland and some culinary traditions in each area. There are some recipes I may not use quite as much (Fresh Dulse Soup - Dulse is seaweed. This recipe is prefaced by "When picking wild seaweed, ensure it is from clean water and that there is not a sewage plant lurking just around the bay!"). But there are tons of recipes I am eager to experiment with (Gooseberry Crisp). Oh speaking of gooseberries, I was at the little produce stand the other day and the worker was saying the gooseberries are really cheap today. I asked, "What do you do with them?" and he so cleverly replied, "eat them."

Anyway, back to the Bramble & Chocolate Bread! Brambles are blackberries. I'm not sure if it's a Scottish thing to call them brambles or what. Please tell me if you know! I am still a novice at yeast-related matters, but this was absolutely delicious. My bread has never gone horribly wrong (touch wood) (Did you know here they say "touch wood" whereas back home everyone says "knock on wood"?). If my bread ever did turn out horribly wrong, I would probably give up altogether so I think I have God's blessings in my bread-making attempts.

I used some leftover mini milk chocolate chips we had, together with Green & Blacks 70% Dark Chocolate (i.e. what heaven is made of). Green & Blacks is the only choice for an aloof chocolate snob. It will even turn the snobs into beautiful human beings with consideration for the earth and an understanding of all things lovely. It's that amazing. I think mixing some dark and milk chocolate is definitely the way to go with this recipe. If you eat the bread cool, you can taste each kind encouraging each other, and coating the blackberries to reach glittering paradise in your mouth.

I still have half of the loaf left (yes, I shared). Do you think it will last till Saturday when Joel gets home?

If you want the recipe I could post it. Or email it.

Summer Spinach Superbity & Joel's Protein Salvation

On the day of summer Glasgow had last week, a simple salad felt like the perfect way to eat without spending time with the oven on. Then we could spend more time outside! I made cous cous with sundried tomatoes, fresh mushrooms, and lots of cumin and sea salt. After throwing this into a fresh spinach salad with olive oil and lemon juice, presto! Five minutes and we were eating our Summer Spinach Superbity. Mmm.

Afterwards Joel timidly said ... he was still hungry. It had slipped my mind that he is a huge man with very real protein needs. So my enterprising self threw together Joel's Protein Salvation. I sliced some fresh sourdoughy bread, topped it with cooked minced lamb and mushrooms with rosemary, then some cheese and left under the grill for a few minutes so it was all cheesey-melty and crisp-bready. That satiated him. The sunshine gives me energy, thus the quick thinking and relatively successful results.

Our trip to Poland, attempt no. 1

Today we are proud to feature a guest author, Joel Shaver, posting about a somewhat new topic for this blog: travel. Seriously, guys, Heather's making me look bad, with all this 'posting about events within a week of their occurrence' stuff. Forget that - I'm all about the nostalgia. You may or may not have heard that Heather and I had been planning a trip to Krakow, Poland this past March. We were particularly excited to visit such attractions as Wawel Castle, a really nice dragon, and the Wieliczka Salt Mine (hundreds of miles of tunnels, salt chandeliers, and a salt sculpture of the Last Supper!). Not to mention all the sausage and bread we could ever want (as if Prague weren't enough). Of course, none of this happened, because we missed our flight. Instead, we hastily booked a train ticket for Newcastle, England, home of A Statue of Earl Grey (yes, the tea guy), Geordies, and a not-too-shabby Castle Keep, a distinctively castle-y square-shaped one. The town is situated on the Tyne river, and is well-known for its impressive collection of bridges. The most recent of these, the Millennium Bridge, is actually capable of moving (theoretically for ships, but really for shock value), which it does several times a week, to the accompaniment of distressing electronic music and sampled heartbeats. Other highlights included the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, located inside an art-deco 1950s flour mill, a Roman fort (part of Hadrian's wall), which we couldn't see because the visitor centre was closed, and the ocean (Heather's favorite). As usual, we got some pretty good pictures, which you can see here. We enjoyed Newcastle in spite of its unfortunate situation outside Poland, and would recommend it to potential visitors. We found a pretty good Polish deli, too. Now back to Heather...

Finnish Cardamom Coffee Bread

I tried my hand at bread yesterday. I mean real bread, made from yeast. That is a culinary area I have not in the least developed, and I had a wary interest in attempting it. I was afraid that if my first attempt resulted in a loaf resembling something very un-breadlike, I would abort the adventure completely. Thankfully, a lovely golden loaf brought happiness to all who came in contact with it!

There are many lovely looking recipes on the Whole Foods website. I chose this Finnish Cardamom Coffee Bread, and Joel and I made a haphazard venture into the art of braiding dough. The picture is of Joel's loaf, which turned out much more visually peaceful. Mine was a bit more long and lean, and looked like some kind of twisted baguette.

It tastes light and sweet, with a subtle cardamom flavour. There is sugar sprinkled on top which makes it an oh so pleasant experience to savour a slice (pure unrefined sugar, the only kind we use). I thought I was being clever and froze one of the loaves, however it is only one day later and the first loaf is half gone already! Mmm.

On another note...
This morning was a day just like yesterday - bright sunshine with promises of warmth. The forecast said rain, but hey, did we believe them? There was no way it could rain when it looked so gorgeous. Off we went to church, me in a summery skirt, neither of us with jackets. Well, turned out it's Scotland, and it did rain. We walked home afterwards in the rain, me with a newspaper over my head. A nice rain though, it was still warm out. When I got home I thought porage sounded so good! I made porage with fresh blueberries, a touch of extra thick single cream, and topped with a sprinkling of brown sugar. Mm it was perfect and made me want chai. I would strongly suggest porage with fresh blueberries.