‘Is all this baking compensating for something?’

Aside from Alex Miller novels, I have also been on a major baking trip lately. Perhaps it’s this cooler weather (finally!) or because the afternoons are getting a bit darker earlier or maybe I’m just hungry, but I have been whipping up this and that, making food for friends and cooking up some new and exciting dishes. Like quiche. Yes. Give it a chance. I’ve baked mini muffins, dark chocolate fudge (we nearly DIED eating it!), chocolate and hazelnuts biscuits (crumbs all over keyboard), curries with chickpeas and even the odd lamb shank.Pause for applause. Thankyou, thankyou!

I’ve always loved to cook and although I often have more misses than hits, I’m not too bad. I love to cook with lil M too and now when I say “let’s do some cooking!” she happily nods big nods and cries out “COOKING!!”. As I also don’t mind a mess (read excuse for not cleaning), I’ll let her puff flour around the kitchen and splatter mixture on the walls as she attempts to “mix,mix,mix”. It’s good fun. I made some sweet pastries on the weekend with frozen puff pastry, brown sugar and butter. They looked pretty good after some failed folding and some awful looking…um…I don’t know, limp things were plonked onto the tray but out of the oven they were puffy and sweet with a hint of saltiness from the butter. Yum! We ate them with cups of tea and made us feel better about having had not a thing to eat for breakfast. When I say we here, I mean my husband and I ate them all and because M is a bit too little yet for sweets (I fear unleashing somekind of sweetfreak demon baby) she didn’t get any, but she did love the polenta muffins that I made with her the next day. She loves peas at the moment…she thinks they are THE BEST. Just imagine when she discovers fudge. Wow. She’ll be truly blown away.

Yesterday, when my husband got home and found a pile of mini muffins, a tray of mini quiches, roasting cauliflower, pasta and biscuits filling up the kitchen he was, well, amazed. Not that all this food was all that impressive, but that I appeared to be in a baking trance. He asked with a bit of a laugh and mouth full of quiche if all this baking was compensating for something. I laughed too, but in the knowledge that he was probably onto something. I am feeling very, ‘nesty’. I am saying ‘awww’ a lot and crying at nappy ads and watching Oprah and forgetting to go back to work. No, I’m not in ‘the family way’ but, well, I reckon I’d be pretty happy if I was. I think it’s just that I’m really enjoying being at home, being a mum. I love it. I love that a large percentage of my week is spent at the playground and that I get to bake and stuff. I’m lucky I guess. But as there hasn’t been much discussion in our house about a return to work for me, perhaps making a bigger family has been on my mind. Just a bit. I really don’t want you to focus on the ‘making’ bit…you probably didn’t until I said that…sorry. I’ll stop now.

With this nesty feeling humming, I have been making the most of a fabulous cookbook that I borrowed from the library which has a very nesty, at home, warm and nourishing quality about it. ‘Manna From Heaven: Cooking for the People you Love’ By Rachel Grisewood is such an inviting book with pages and pages of brilliant recipes to try out on those you love. I love the sketchy illustrations that fill the pages too and its a lovely read. I had come across this book at Readings’ a while ago and its bright pink and orange, flour flecked cover reached out to me. As I flicked through its pages, the recipes made me salivate a little too much in a public place. So when I spotted at the library I grabbed it.

A beautiful, comforting cookbook.

It’s the kind of book that is nice to sit down with at the kitchen table and read each recipe, with a glass of wine or coffee and a pen and paper in the other to write down your shopping list. My first list from the book was quite short: chocolate (dark and milk), condensed milk, hazelnuts and brown sugar. Pause to suck up drool. The thing is, now I NEED THIS BOOK. It has improved my life and helped to manage my ‘nesty’ feelings without having to go on a cleaning bender (hahahahahahahahaha). I love her philosophy to food as well. It should be good and enjoyed. Much like most things I suppose. Time to bake some more now. Then eat.

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