Jumbles

Hello, my dear Lucy!
I can't believe that a month has gone by; how naughty of me not to write before now. The terrible thing is that I really don't have an excuse - I can't claim to have been washed away by flash-floods; to have been partying on the Isle of Wight in all that mud, or anything remotely interesting. Life has been rolling along here in its usual way - work, washing, ferrying the Chino children hither and yon to parties and activities, walking the dog between downpours... the usual. I did manage to time it just right this morning, and walked about four miles along the beach from Marske to Saltburn. The weather was glorious (although it's always a little 'fresh' on the Northeast coast) and it only began to spot with rain as I climbed up the sand dunes back to the car. Muffin, our Cocker Spaniel, had a lovely time and is sleeping off her exertions as I write. Every time I go to the coast, I marvel that we used to spend a good 2 hours in the car to Barmouth as children; now it's a 20 minute journey and the children take it for granted! You really must come up and visit over the summer if you can...
This week has been Olympic Week at the children's school - most of which has been rained-off, unfortunately; one saving grace was that, on Tuesday, I was standing behind a fence and could not be dragged into the Mothers' race - skipping this year - I still feel the ignominy of that previous year's event!

I have baked a couple of new things this time - both delicious! Jumbles and Pistachio and Carrot cake, pictured above, from the Great British Bake Off book. The only problem with the Carrot Cake is that I discovered that I'm the only one in the household who likes the stuff; unfortunate as it makes 20 slices! I managed to give most away, having reserved a not-indecent 8 pieces for myself - well I had 4 days in which to eat it! I am going to have to be careful, however, as I recently had a healthy heart check at work and discovered that I have high LDL cholesterol. Is it true that 95% of high cholesterol is due to heredity? I'm hoping so, but am rationing the cakes just in case.

Enough about me, dear; what about your new job? Please don't think that it was ignorance that caused me not to ask, rather I was giving you chance to settle in to it; after all your time not working, I thought it might be a bit of a struggle for you and didn't want to tire you by asking for too much information too soon. Have you read any howling errors? Unintended double-entendres? Do let me know!

Mr Chino and I are off to see 'Mrs Brown's Boys' at the theatre this weekend - I shall have lots of smutty jokes to tell you next time I write!

Write sooner than I did; Cathy x

PS: can you Hula Hoop? I am desperate to learn after watching Grace Jones at the Jubilee concert...

It's a Miracle

Dear Cathy

It's a Miracle you managed to get any baking done you sounded so over-excited in your last post. I have been a huge Barry Fan ever since mother introduced me to 'Manilow Magic' some years ago, and even now I still adore him. I do wish I'd been with you! Did you manage to get backstage?

Last weekend was little Latte's birthday and I've never had such a ghastly group of children in the house. I was sure there was going to be an accident but everyone went home unscathed at two o'clock. 'Looks like we made it' I exclaimed to Mr Latte, only for little Latte number two, to injure her ankle on the trampoline a nano-second later. Mr Latte took the damaged child off to A&E and I asked him to keep me posted via text. He was gone for ages and all the time I was waiting for an update. Finally, she came home - on crutches! Little Latte was holding up very well. She told me all about the lovely nurse called Mandy who plastered her up. 'I wish you'd been there though mummy' she continued, 'I can't smile without you'. It will be a while before she's ready to take a chance again on the trampoline - if I don't burnt it to cinders first that is. We put the children to bed and unfortunately, somewhere in the night Little Latte became quite melancholic. By daybreak however, she had recovered and was looking forward to showing the plaster to her friends at school. Apparently she has to keep flexing her muscles and wiggling her toes. When I asked her what she was doing she said she was trying to get the feeling again. She can't run around in this lovely sunshine so she's spending a lot of time with her leg raised listening to beautiful music - like Barry Manilow!

Anyway, party picture attached - chocolate cake - obviously!



This one's for you, love Lucy.

PS I am slightly miffed that you haven't asked me about my new job - do you even read my letters or are you too busy at the Copacabana to bother?

Baztastic!

Dearest Lucy, I must tell you about my FABULOUS night out last night: Mr Chino, and I travelled to Manchester with a couple of friends to see the rather marvellous Barry Manilow! What a night! Mr Chino was entirely sceptical about the whole thing, not manly enough for him, I fear, and bemoaned his lot the entire journey south. He was able to sympathise with the wife of the couple we went with, as she had bought the tickets as a surprise gift for her husband; both he and I were giddy with excitement and burst into impromptu renditions of "Bermuda Triangle" at the slightest provocation!
We arrived at the Arena after having had our tea at the 'Blue Diamond' chinese restaurant in Rochdale (should you ever be in those parts, let me recommend the Satay Chicken, Mongolian Style - delicious!) and quickly found our seats high up in block 204. We had a good view of the stage, I'm pleased to say, and any action was shown on two large screens on either side; the warm up act was a comedian (I use that term loosely) but he wasn't on for too long, thankfully. Anyway, with glow sticks firmly in hand the excitement grew and I was all of a dither when the legend, that is Barry, came on to the stage. No sooner had the opening bars of "It's a miracle" been played, than Mr Chino was waving his glow stick in the air and singing along; he was even on his feet and dancing when, later in the set, 'Copacabana' was played! I must confess that Mr Manilow is not a natural dancer and that anything above his lips failed to move all night, but he knows how to belt out a tune, doesn't take himself too seriously and puts on one heck of a show. I can thoroughly recommend him for a good night out.
Basking in the after-concert glow we wended our way northwards and home, the haunting strains of "One voice" ringing in our ears. It was a night of musical magic and, for one night only Mr Chino had become a Fanilow! Alas, he soon returned to his normal gruff and crusty self, almost as if he and Barry had never shared the love, and I fear that tomorrow morning he will deny all knowledge of our shared experience. Never mind, I will always have the vision of his smiling face by the light of a thousand glow sticks as we sang "Mandy" together...
On the baking front, I've had chocolate muffins coming out of my ears having baked for my Year 11 leavers and number 1 Chino child's post Year 6 SATs celebration: 56 muffins in two days! I did try making a Chocolate Fudge topping to decorate them with, which was very well received, although, as usual, it all looked a bit rustic.
I'm hoping that your life is ticking along nicely. Do let me know all your latest news. Have you seen Margo lately?

Much love,

Cathy x

England 1 - Germany 0

Dear Lucy,
Fancy that! We have made a Herman the German friendship cake, too! It was a bit of a faff, stirring etc over the 10 days, I agree. But what I found most difficult, was trying to find three other people to take the cake off my hands after 10 days; the north East of England seemed to have suffered an invasion of German cakes!
Tell your little Lattes that a much nicer, and quicker, alternative is the Apple Scone Round in our baking bible. Yum.
Will write again, soon.
Much love,
Cathy x

Herman the German

Dear Cathy

How lovely to hear that you and Sally met up over Easter. Margo and I also found time to see each other and we went on a trip to the Theatre Grand, Wolverhampton, to see the spooky Derren Brown. I must confess I have quite a crush on Derren, which is odd, because I understand he's gay. I was desperate to be picked out from the crowd and ushered onto the stage and waved my arms in the air shouting 'pick me, pick me' at every opportunity. Part way through the show Derren asked a volunteer to pick someone from the audience to help on stage. 'Pick anyone you like' he said, 'but don't pick anyone who is waving their hands in the air shouting "pick me, pick me" because they're always a ****ing nightmare'. Typical!

Now I must tell you about Herman the German. A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I would like to bake a Friendship Cake. I had no idea what a friendship cake was so I said 'yes please'! The next day I was handed a small tub with some slimey gloop in the bottom and a set of instructions. The first thing to do was to decant the gloop into a large mixing bowl and cover with a clean tea towel. When I opened the tub to scrape out the contents with my spatula I nearly fainted as the gloop looked and smelt rather unpleasant. (Did you ever see that film called 'The Blob'?)

Nevertheless, I persevered, stirring the mixture every day and adding ingredients as required. Each day, the mixture bubbled and fizzed, and grew in volume. It was quite a relief to stir it as this knocked all the air out and seemed to calm it down a bit. Ten days later the mixture was four times the size and ready to bake. It still looked and smelt unpleasant despite the vast amount of sugar that had gone into it. I baked the enormous cake and do you know, it was surprisingly mediocre.

It's a bit like a cakey apple strudel but not really worth ten days of effort in my humble opinion. In fact, right at the start of the process, when I told the little Lattes we were going to make a special cake that would take ten days, they asked 'Why don't we make an ordinary cake and then we can eat it today?". They've got a point, but if you'd like to know more take a look at:

http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/

Love Lucy x

PS Did I tell you I've got myself a little job fannying around with press releases for a few hours a week?

Panda-monium!

My dear Lucy, how are you? So sorry it's been a while since I wrote but this time of year is positively bonkers! Work is hectic, but it was ever thus, and the house is a mess as a consequence: if I'm working, the ironing suffers, as does the cleaning and baking is a distant goal. Then there's the boys' extra-curricular activities to factor in and the dog MUST be exercised. Book club is a monthly event, but one has to read the book. I could do with a holiday, but of course we've just had one:  the Chino Clan drove to EuroDisney this Easter and had a very jolly time. We went on the EuroStar and, although it was quite a bizarre experience, we were all very impressed!
I know you'll be wondering why I have made reference to Pandas, well, let me tell you...
The Wednesday before Easter was Number 1 son's birthday and our dear friend Sally Suchong hadn't sent a card. 'Odd,' I thought, as she is usually so meticulous about these things. Anyway, about half way through the morning, I received a phone call to say that she and her family were on their way back from Edinburgh (having spent a few days there and visited the zoo) and could they 'drop in'! I haven't seen her in over a year, and she hasn't been to visit since you and she came to our house in Rochdale before any of us dreamed of our current lives. I didn't have time to bake and tried to make a dent in the chaos of our kitchen (don't tell Margo, please, it'd only give her more ammunition against me), but it was lovely to see her and she was very polite about the state of the house... Furthermore, I'm delighted to inform you that the pandas had seemed very interested in each other, so there may well be the patter of tiny paws in the not too distant future. I do love a good love story.
I did manage a quick bake today: I made some Victoria Sponge mixture and added some desiccated coconut. Now we'll have coconut buns in our packed lunches this week! No time to take a photograph, yet, hopefully I can add one later.

Going to tackle the boys' uniforms ready for school tomorrow; toddle-pip!

Cathy x

Chocolate Shortbread

Dear Cathy

I'm so sorry I didn't write last weekend but I spent most of Saturday and Sunday talking to the Producer of Radio 4s 'Woman's Hour'. As you know I'm a regular listener, and I had contacted the programme to complain about the way stay-at-home mothers are talked about as 'sat at home mashing bananas'. How very dare they! Needless to say, my comments were picked up straight away and 'Kirsty' telephoned me personally to invite me on to the programme. She made a point of saying how eloquent I was and thought I'd come across very well on Radio 4. I was to broadcast on Monday morning with none other than Jane Garvey! I spent all weekend preparing, strangely though, in the end the call never came. I can only assume that they lost my number...

I used the time to bake some chocolate shortbread, and I must say I think there might be an error with the recipe, or at least with the way it's been written up. I was in a rush so I took the easy option, putting all the ingredients into my Magimix and blasting them. The recipe said the mixture should look like coarse sand after this, which it did. The next instruction was to transfer 'the dough' into the prepared tin. Well, I didn't have dough,  I had coarse sand. 'Perhaps I've missed a stage' I thought. 'It must need something wet to bind the sand into a dough. An egg perhaps or some milk?' I read the recipe again but nothing, so I just tipped the mixture into the tin as it was, and put the mention of dough down to an editorial oversight. I think I was right because the shortbread was lovely. I would recommend cutting it into smaller pieces however, as it was rather rich.

Well, the children are off school for the next two weeks and the Latte's will be spending Easter weekend in the Royal Borough of Windsor. We'll be visiting the castle, walking around the Great Park and having some fun at Legoland!

Ta ta, Lucy. x