Tag: food

Mum’s Cooking

The cool change has made us all tired and hungry. This morning at work people were ravenous and heading off to all directions to chow down. I ate lunch about an hour early myself. I’m sure the chocolate fundraiser sales in the staff room went through the roof.

My wonderful mum is cooking at my place lately because they are having their kitchen renovated. Tonight she made a roast and I arrived home from work to the divine smell of roasting meat and veges. It was heavenly.

There is just nothing like your mum’s cooking. My son refuses to eat potatoes, yet will eat my mum’s, even mashed! On occasion I have managed to get a roasted potato into him, but never a mashed one. I am his mum, so I wonder if he will ever come to relish my cooking as much. To be honest, as a kid I didn’t appreciate the goodness of it.

The tradespeople were coming this morning to install it, so long as it wasn’t raining. When I woke up today and saw the rain, I must admit I thought, the delay to their new kitchen would mean more of mum’s cooking for me. Selfish aren’t I? It wasn’t wet enough though, so they went ahead. I’d say by the weekend this lovely time of having dinner cooked for me each night will be over!

Anyone else need to use a kitchen whilst they renovate theirs? I don’t eat much.

The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris

Chocolat
The sequel to ‘Chocolat’, a long time favourite of mine, ‘The Lollipop Shoes’, is every bit as delicious as the original. I felt I could smell the chocolate and taste the sumptuousness of the feast described. It is just a pleasure to read.

Fairy Tales
Woven into this story are fairy tales told to Vianne by her mother and the theme as I have previously mentioned of the ‘Red Shoes’ and the allure of glamour and brightness when life is glum. There are other fairy tales throughout this novel in various forms. I love the imagery and the retelling.
Celebrating Life and Love
This is a story about the value of love and the awakening of living to the fullness. It has all the magic of the first novel, culminating in the mouth watering feast that decides the fates of the central characters. The administering of sweetness to the random and forlorn characters that frequent the shop, highlights how lonely and loveless strangers can create a warm circle of friends.
Shadows
The villain in this novel is not the church but a dark magician who appears so like Vianne, yet intends evil. The bad witch who sees this loveless reality

“….by then we’ll all be sand, except for the One who has always been; the one that builds pyramids;raises temples; makes martyrs; composes sublime music; denies logic; praises the meek; receives souls into Paradise; dictates what to wear; smites the infidel; paints the Sistine Chapel; urges young men to die for the cause; blows up bandsmen by remote control;
promises much; delivers little; fears no one and never dies,
because fear of Death is so much greater than honour, or goodness, or faith, or love….”(p448)

frightens me more than the previous villain in Chocolat. The manipulative woman who entices and lures the teen to turn her power to satisfy lust and manipulate others is scary.

I wish I still had it to read and I’m going to check ebay for another Joanne Harris book as she is a writer that never fails to lure me into her story in an enticing way.

Sunday dinner & ‘The Secret’

Last night we had our family Sunday dinner thing, that I have insisted upon since the midyear holidays. I was away at Loch Sport and I did a tonne of reading in the Personal Growth category. I took a few podcasts and generally had a big revision of my life, as I am inclined to do fairly regularly, anyway, the big thing, that I felt I was unhappy about was the lack of time I spend with my kids. I know it is natural for them to be out and about being teenagers, but I missed them. I already have to share them with their dad and now with their friends and part-time jobs added to that, it seemed I was just squeezing in the occasional nag about the mess in their rooms.
So whilst I was away I decided that I would back off with the nagging and let go of expected them to be home all the time, but in exchange for that they would both have to promise to be home for dinner on Sunday nights. We would eat together, at the dinner table, a good meal and catch up. I love Sunday nights now. Previously they had simply been a last clutch of the weekend, but now I plan a great meal, we set the table and enjoy each others company.
After dinner we sometimes watch a movie and once we played the DVD game my brother gave us for Christmas last year. It was great fun. Anyway, I’m sure you can see where this is heading.. Last night I forced them to watch ‘The Secret’. They all complained and doubted and thought they would end up having to buy something. Afterwards, they all said they enjoyed it and that it was good. Regardless of their experience of it, I enjoyed it a lot more watching it for the second time. I noticed a few more things and I think I will watch it regularly to remind myself. Thoughts are Things.