Concerto

Meet Concerto - my finished sketch from Sunday. I know it is a most ridiculous name for the poor girl, but it's the first word that popped in my head (well, I was listening to a spot of Rachmaninov at the time). I've been playing with my Inktense pencils and they are like.... really.... intense... man....

They remind me a little of magic colouring books I had when I was wee lass. An image was printed on the paper and you painted just with water and revealed colour! It was almost as much fun as painting by numbers - why did they never give you enough paint?

I thought at first that Concerto may be Mexican (owing to the influence of the vast quantities of this cuisine I've been scoffing lately), but those green eyes could only be Irish. What do you think?

If the phrase 'Mexican food' has you immediately craving quesadillos, then you must check out this cookbook by Thomasina Miers. I have my head buried in it (and my mouth enjoying the fruits thereof) most days...

Cupcakes and things

A busy week but I'm still smiling which is surely a good thing and therefore worthy of a Happy Friday post. And why not I say, why not?

Happy taste buds (not so happy waistline)

I've just eaten my fourth of these cupcakes. Not in one go, I hasten to add although I did eat three yesterday. What can I say? There were there... They were tasty... They called to me... Hosted an employee event at work and these were part of the refreshments. My excuses for consuming three in the space of a few short hours was a) naturally it was essential that I tested then to make sure they were suitable for general consumption; and b) there was a great deal of manual labour involved with lugging chairs, tables, bottles, glasses and general bits and pieces, so clearly I worke them off!

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Happy mail

Earlier in the week I answered the door to the postie to find a neat little package all for me! I was so lucky to win a giveaway on Claire Barone's Curious Emporium blog. This cute little bunny girl and a fancy brooch. You must check out her artwork which is adorable. Hers is one of those blogs I recently stumbled upon (but haven't a clue how I found her!), but now make regular visits. She has an Etsy shop too.

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Happy art

Although the back end of this week has been a little dry in terms of artistic output, last weekend certainly made up for it and the warm feelings of so much productivity persist! Here's another fairy! She was the sketchbook try out for what eventually became my Butterfly girl.

Now, I've written before about how so often I'll find mermaids appearing on the page when they were never intended, well from next week they can splash their way into my art as often as they desire for I shall be partaking of Suzi Blu's Sirens course. Week one will see us working on colour matching. My pencils are itching to get started. My bank balance is crying (for some new paint seemed entirely necessary). Watch this space for scales, tails and mermaid wails!

Happy splatting tea dance

Let me tell you what's been making me happy this week - for is it not Happy Friday? I've been reliving my creative splurging activities from my Wreck this Journal summer. My new art e-course has had us doodling, staining and splatting with merry abandon. My art output had slowed down for the last few weeks - a mixture of not enough time and an attitude that every piece had to be a proper work of art, something that took hours... So back to frivilous fun is a welcome change.

Picture above comes from my journal. It started as wonderful splats from a soggy teabag dropped at height, then I flicked dark and rich coffee at it. In a nostalgic return to childhood I carved up some potatoes to make the TEA stamps. I wanted to add some collage and flicked through magazines for inspiration. This lady waved at me and yelled "pick me, pick me", so on she went. I loved the summery pattern on her dress so took that as inspiration for the rest of the piece and doodled these big flowers. A bit of fun with some inktense pencils and water and it was complete!

I'd forgotten that it's just as much fun and food for the soul to play with art too. And play I have. Unfortunately I also forgot that my VAT return is due (panic to get all the paperwork for that sorted out the weekend ahead of visit to the accountant!).

On another happy note (forgetting about the looming presence of the tax man for a while), this weekend I am planning a trip to Mexico. I bought my ticket yesterday and stocked up on all the goodies I will need this morning. I'll be there this evening when I tuck into Queso Fundido with the family, then tomorrow we'll be enjoying Chicken & Chorizo in an Almond Mole - washed down with a zingy Margarita...

OK, so the 'ticket' was actually only a cookbook but hey, with the right music, the promised sunshine and the proper mood we really could be dancing in that colourful country!

Delicious

I find it interesting that whenever I am prompted to write about television programmes, they usually tend to be related to food. I've just watched the third installment from the delicious Miss Dahl as she treated us to her take on nostalgic food - rose-tinted memories of childhoods spent in the kitchen with Granny (presumably while Grandad was knocking up another literary classic in the study?). I think my TV developed smell-o-vision tonight for I'm sure the whiff of caramelised apples and pears tickled my nostrils around the same time that the bubbling sugars titilated my ears and eyes. I can't stop thinking of Victoria sponge with a cup of tea served in a bone china tea cup with a delicate floral pattern. I could also quite happily munch through those jacket potatoes oozing with cheese and fluffy with egg - all washed down with home made tomato soup...

This programme is so ... English! It's lovely, a real delight to the senses, a kind of summer fruit pudding with clotted cream of a show. Tonight as she sat on a steam train for no reason it seemed other than to have the excuse to recite one of my favourite poems, I lay back on the sofa and relaxed into the rolling English landscape and felt very much at home.

I have to confess though that I am ever so slightly envious of Miss Dahl. She is incredibly beautiful in a natural and wholesome way - proving that supermodels do not necessarily have to resemble broom handles. She cooks and manages to turn the most mundane meal into a sensual experience, helped by the softest of voices. When it came to childhood stories at bedtime, she had a Grandfather who was the King of Storytellers. If that wasn't enough, she is also a published author and has her own TV series on the BBC. You can't help liking her though. I could just see us sitting at her kitchen table munching on cake and having a good old girlie chat...

Have a watch. Perhaps we could all go round one afternoon. I'm sure she'd love it! Oh and for the record, my Mum is also a great storyteller - thanks for all those wonderful tales that sent me to the land of Nod with a sack of wonderful stories to turn into cosy dreams!

What's the big deal about cupcakes?

I live in a rather dull provincial town. Here, if you fancy a cake that doesn't come ready boxed and poly-thened, you head to the bakers. We don't do patisseries here - far too posh and most people couldn't pronounce it anyway. Donuts, iced buns, custard tarts... that's what you get and be thankful for it.

(image credit: The Little Cupcake Company)

Fortunately, I get to travel - all around the world. OK, so it's mainly virtual travel, but don't knock it. Frankly you wouldn't believe the places I've been via my computer in the kitchen. Too bad I can't collect airmiles, but at least my CO2 emissions are low.

On my travels I have discovered a new revolution in the aforementioned delicacies. The cupcake seems to have enjoyed something of a transformation in recent years. Last time I had one it was a small sponge with some icing that was deceptively thicker around the edge then in the middle. Usually, there was a choice of four 'flavours' - orange, yellow, pink or chocolate. There was a ritual to be observed when eating. The icing was always carefully removed first and placed to one side on your plate. The dry sponge would be washed down with a cup of tea or orange squash before the sweet food colourings and additives were allowed to tingle on your palette.

Now, the cupcake has suddenly become an art form. Less topping is no longer more. In fact, I believe that unless your topping measures a ratio of at least 3:1 it can't be considered a bona fide cupcake. Colours and flavours sparkle and delight. Artists can't paint enough of the things, they grace greetings cards and gift wrap. Open a copy of Vogue and the sugar and buttercream sits strangely alongside the skeletal models - one model even claimed to eat them (though I find that hard to believe). When I was in London (for real, not virtual) I even spotted a whole shop selling nothing but them. It was very pretty!

Where did this new obsession come from? I thought we were supposed to be all calorie-conscious these days and eating our five fruit and veg? Is it a fad or are the Marie-Antoinettes of cakes set to stay?

I feel I must investigate further. Perhaps a trip here, here, or here to sample the best of British. Or, maybe I need to go further afield... I'm thinking New York, LA, Sydney, Rome, Paris... I wouldn't want to cultivate a biased opinion after all.

At the very least, I feel I must make a purchase just so I can paint one. What do you think? The perfect excuse? The question is though, would it be with me long enough to paint?

Hippy Happy Hoppy

My boyfriend calls me a hippy and I'm drawing a few. I'm feeling rather happy. I've been doing a lot of hopping.

Well, that's my week, how was yours?

I'm rather tired and should go to bed, but I wanted to write a post ready for Jamie Ridler's happy sharing group tomorrow where we spread jolly happenings thicker than the sweetest marmalade. I thought I may as well use it as an excuse to ramble anyway!

Happy

Firstly, I would like to turn to my stomach. It is very happy with me this week. You see I rediscovered a particularly tasty delicacy that it hasn't had chance to digest for possibly around 30 years or more. Said treat is, by its very nature, hideously bad for you, but I figure that eating organic seeded crackers (dry) for lunch has more than made up for this little transgression and counts as being part of a 'balanced' diet.

By now, the more observant among you will have noticed the large slab of Battenburg cake floating on the page and guessed the reason for my acute salivation. You may also be thinking it's not terribly sophisticated or even tasty. There you would be wrong. Washed down with a nice cup of tea in a china cup, its delightful sweetness and rich marzipan is just what a girl needs on for a drear January. My son chose it while we were shopping in Tesco - no doubt attracted by the resemblance to ice cream. Poor lad only had one slice before Mummy hid it away. Just think of it as trendy 1970s retro chic and enjoy...

Hippy Happy

Well the icing on the cake for me this week could have been a spending spree in my wardrobe's hippy spiritual home - Monsoon - but I drew hippy instead. I've been devouring my Suzi Blu course and will be posting some Goddess portraits shortly. I need to be a very good student becase... I HAVE A PAINTING COMMISSION! Yes, someone has actually asked me to paint a gift for their hippy friend. Well, I'm thrilled. AND she bought, not one but TWO paintings from me! Thanks Tina!!

Hoppy

I've hopped about more than the Easter Bunny and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo put together this week. You see, I hurt my left foot but was determined to carry on with my exercise regime so did it all on one leg... Err, and also I've been doing a spot of blog hopping bouncing my way around the, at last count, 783 entries to the One World One Heart challenge. Well, not actually all 783... but quite a few.

Have you visited? How do you browse? Are you an orderly person, working their way through chronologically? Or, like me are you a bit more random - diving into those with the most intriguing names or keeping an eye out for old friends? I'm drawn too, like a magpie, by promises of bright sparkling things. It has been such inspirational fun - so many wonderful blogs to run around. Hello new friends! Glad you came back for another read. Hope you stay!

So, between that and Suzi Blu I've been keeping my evenings busy.

Daylight hours have been for working! Yes, another week of paid work and more next week!

PS: Don't you just love the way the sun is glinting off the sugary marzipan on that cake?

Cherries and almonds

I have been lying in bed lusting over a warm croissant filled with gooey almond paste and a warm cherry compote. What more delightful combination can there be. The top of my perfect breakfast would be crusted with toasted nuts and a light dusting of icing sugar. The whole sticky, calorific mess gets washed down with a milky coffee.

Ah the day is set up so nicely.

Unfortunately I have no croissant of any nature, so I write about instead and dream...

Saving their bacon

I love this picture, it epitomises creative thinking. I stumbled across it completely by accident while I was googling and it caught my eye in one of those magical “what on earth….?” moments. In fact, tomorrow morning I am presenting creative thinking to a bunch of engineers and my closing slide leaves them with this exact picture to get them thinking a bit (probably that I'm a bit odd!).

Imagine the marketing team at the bandage company sitting around trying to figure out how they could apply a new take on sticking plasters:

"Just how can we make them more interesting and appealing?"
"Can we persuade consumers to wear one to make a statement or just have a laugh regardless of whether or not they are bleeding profusely down their arm?"
"What else is this shape and size?"
"What might look really out of place and stand out?"

Yay, a bacon rasher! Of course, why didn't I think of that! And, as if the picture on the box were not enough to entice you to place it into your shopping basket, then the free toy will definitely get you!

Priceless. Where can I buy them?

PS: Do you think the design team went out and got plastered after this?? hehe (English colloquialism)

How to get dinner cooked for you

So, here is the promised attempt at food journalism, although the way I ramble sometimes who knows what you will end up with by the end of the post.

If you read my blog regularly, you'll be aware I have been known to wax lyrical about Masterchef and Heston's crazy feasts. Inspiration struck to recreate at home some of the flavour (pun intended!) of these cookery shows as part of an evening's entertainment for friends. I pondered boiling a pig in the bath, disguising potatoes as rocks and deep frying garden pests but rooted instead for the toughest cookery challenge of them all - the Masterchef invention test! Well, dear readers, what a cunning wheeze this was. Why go to all the trouble of cooking a meal for your friends when you can get them to do it for you in the comfort of your own home. Simply fill a basket with tasty ingredients at your local supermarket (or deli if you are posh and live in a town that actually has one), allow your friends open access to your store cupboards and kitchen utensils and let battle to commence. Ideally, with hindsight, I could have installed a few extra hob rings as there was a spot of wrestling stove-side but on the whole the evening was a great success. Top tip for the basket buyers out there - remember to buy things that actually might go well together (e.g. avoiding combinations like steak and custard); don't pick anything that takes too long to cook, make sure you actually have some useful content in your store cupboards (out of date packet soup and four grains of rice at the bottom of the packet is not going to be much use nor inspiration) and provide some suitable ambience. Alcohol naturally springs to mind here but you might also like to consider some musical accompaniment or other 'entertainment' depending on your tastes! When the fight for time at the cooker has been won, you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your and, more importantly, your friends' labours. The evening was actually tremendous fun, rather tasty and, despite Rachel's protestations that she couldn't actually cook,* we enjoyed a feast fit for a Blumenthal and very sociable it was too.

If it wasn't so late at night (why do I always end up writing these so close to midnight?) I would add a menu of the evening's Tapas delights, but I need my beauty sleep. Watch this space for an update soon!

* Note to self: next time ask for Home Economics 'O' levels as prerequisite

A feast for the imagination

OK, so we've already established that I watch little else on TV except cookery programmes. Who saw Heston's Victorian Feast? It's not often that we come across a genius at work. Heston is the Einstein of the kitchen (minus the crazy hair). For those that missed the programme, suffice it to say it was not one where you sat with notepad jotting down ingredients and instructions ready to follow later. Indeed, the bespectacled one did implore his audience "not to try this at home" as he happily boiled a cow's head, reduced the stock, froze it, centrifuged it, froze it, did some more magical reduction then poured it into a mad hatter's pocket watch mould and covered the resultant jelly with gold leaf. His guests then dipped this into a cup of tea whereupon it dissolved into the stock for his mock turtle soup! It reminded me a little of the April Fool's joke I posted on the intranet at work last year for edible beer bottles. I suggested that the specially created plastic could be melted down for soup stock. My clever ploy of offering some free samples to give away in a competition prompted a shocking number of serious entries! But even my fertile imagination could not have come up with Heston's blooming marvellous dessert. According to Heston's research (who knows what books he read?), the Victorians had a passion for jelly and erotica. It seemed sensible therefore to combine the two and this seemed a perfect excuse for the Chef and his enthusiastic band of helpers to spend a memorable hour or two in a pink sex shop picking the perfect vibrator to make his jelly wobble. Truly television at its best, and I didn't even get to mention the insects injected with tomato sauce served with 'soil and gravel'...

The reason for this post is not just to enthuse about Heston, practice writing about food and critique a television programme. It is to celebrate creativity. Heston is a man who thrives on it, cut him in half (not recommended) and he'll have it written through him. It doesn't matter whether he creates menus, posters, advertisements, films or employee engagement activities. It's about having the nerve to fire up that creativity with inspiration from the most unlikely sources; never being afraid to try something different and, possibly most important, keeping at it until you get the results you're after - it may not be exactly what you set out to do at the start, but it's giving people what they didn't know they wanted - and boy did they want it!

How do you become a food journalist?

I've been exploring what to write about, preparing both my big fantasy novel, my short story and children's book - these are definites, my real challenge and a promise I've made to myself. I've comtemplated corporate issues but suddenly I've been hit by a new inspiration. Food journalism. Me, writing and food - what a delightful menage a trois! Where has this 'flavour' derived from? Watching Masterchef naturally. "Cooking's never been tougher than this!"
I've always loved cooking and never been afraid to either experiment or to tackle technically complex dishes, but this TV series is really teaching me something about the secrets to flavour combining, seasoning, presentation and above all passion. The semi-finalists are bubbling over with the latter. For me, passion is tied into the desire to create - whisking up that memorable dish that lives on in the palate for hours afterwards, but it's also that satisfaction of giving the people you cook for a real treat, making a meal into an occasion, hearing my four year old son describe my kedgeree as "deee-lic-ious" and watch my boyfriend patting his tummy contentedly and begging for more! Funnily enough I watch very little television normally, but this week have overdosed slightly on cookery programmes and my next lesson was concerned with delivery of food. I'm not talking making it look pretty on the plate, but on making the atmosphere of eating the food as enjoyable as the delicacies served. Watching Christopher Biggins on Celebrity come dine with me on Sunday night was a real treat! Now here was a man who knew how to throw a dinner party, we were even given an acting demonstration when he passed off Tesco's trout pate as his own, but frankly it didn't matter. It was about his attention to detail in being the perfect host and making his guests feel, not at home, but out having the time of their lives.

Is this my first piece of food journalism? Is it any good?