Chatiryworld

Food confessions meme

I've been tagged by Laura!

The Foodie Confessions Meme

IN THE KITCHEN

1. My trademark recipe: Pizza with halloumi cheese.  Probably shouldn't be called pizza at all, but I make a proper bread base and tomato sauce (as taught by my mum) and then add halloumi instead of mozarella.

2. Kitchen gadget or accessory I couldn't live without: The Magimix.

3. Biggest kitchen handicap: I'm crap at pancakes.

4. Dish/technique that I want to learn: Savoury preserves.  Especially tomato sauce like SouleMama does.

5. My top cooking tip: Don't keep tomatoes or strawberries in the fridge, they taste much better for it.

INSPIRATION

6. Favourite cuisine/food style: That's a really tough one, I love pizza and pasta so probably Italian, but not so fond of all the olive oil sloshed everywhere.

7. Favourite cook book: Another toughie, Leon by Allegra McEvedy has yet to fail.  Denis Cotter's books are pretty good too, not always quick though!

8. Favourite chef: Denis Cotter, Nigel Slater and Rachel Allen.  Sorry, can't reduce it.

9. Favourite food programme: River Cottage, there aren't many good cooking programmes on TV anymore.  I liked Rachel Allen's Bake as well.

10. Favourite food magazine: Although I think there are probably better food magazines, I haven't read them, so BBC's Good Food Magazine

11. Favourite local restaurant: Iglu

INTERNET FOR FOODIES

12. Favourite foodie website: The Kitchn

13. Favourite recipe search: BBC Food

14. Online recipe binder:Don't use them, but Mac Gourmet has revolutionised our cooking.

15. Favourite food blog: Orangette and Chocolate & Zucchini.

FAVOURITE RECIPES

16. Main course: I don't think I have a favourite but the vegetarian tagine recipe from Leon works brilliantly.

17. Quickie: Pasta with homemade tomato sauce

18. Soup/salad: Leon Superfood Salad

19. Baked treat or dessert: Chocolate and raspberry cake from the Chocolate and Zucchini book.

20. Self-invented (or adapted): Pizza with halloumi

Please feel free to do this meme too, but I'd especially like to see Jon's answers.  Or maybe i could just ask him, what with me being married to him and everything.  If anyone does put this on their blog please comment below because I'm nosy and would like to read it.  Or just answer in the comments if you haven't got a blog.

HOME: Blogging for Refugee Week

I will be blogging more about the wedding, honest, but like many other bloggers in Scotland I was asked to blog about home for Refugee Week.   I'm a person who places a great deal of importance on the idea of home, making your house a home, homemaking and thinking about different places that I have called home.

I'm also a person who's never quite sure where exactly home is.  On Facebook you are asked to put in your hometown, for most people that would be where they were born and grew up.  But how many of us were born and lived in the same place for the first 18 years or so of our lives?  I put Stromness (where I lived until I was 9) and Ilkley (where I lived between 9 and 18ish).  I've lived in Edinburgh for the past four years and also in several others places.

I've decided that you can have lots of homes, and that's fine.  My mum and Hugh's house in Ilkley definitely feels like home, my dad has only been in his house in Lower Largo for a couple of years but it feels like home, much more so than his last one that he lived in for years.  Jon's mum's house feels like home too.  Stromness is home, especially MM and DD's house.

And of course our home is home too.  We don't own it, and it's got too much of another person's furniture and stuff in it but we do our best.  It's cosy and comfortable, whether it's a winter night spent watching a film by candlight or a Saturday morning spent reading the paper as the sun streams through the window.  These days our home smells of lots of good food, although our small, interior and windowless kitchen is one reason why we are considering moving in the next year or so.  Over the past year we've stepped up with experimenting with recipes and food, and it makes home seem more homely, if that makes sense.  Our home.

Refugee Week 2009 takes place 15 – 22 June! This year Refugee Week Scotland is based around the theme of home. It might be a place, a possession, or a feeling.  What does home mean to you?

I...

Here's a meme that Croila tagged me for:

I am: trying to change things for the better at the moment.

I think: a lot, possibly too much sometimes.

I know: that you need to look after yourself.

I have: a lovely family.

I wish: that I didn't need to take Prozac, but see 'I know'.

I hate: right-wing religious fundamentalism.

I miss: my Granny Pip

I fear: right-wing wing religious fundamentalists in this country having too much influence after the donations they make to government.

I hear: Radio 3's Late Junction on the BBC iPlayer.

I smell: freshly-baked raspberry and walnut muffins.

I crave: a garden.

I search: pretty well, I am a librarian by training after all.

I wonder: about lots of different things.

I regret: leaving my Granny Pip's old umbrella in a shop in Leeds somewhere.  It was an ugly thing, but it was the most robust umbrella I ever had.

I love: Jon of course!

I ache: when I bump into things, which is quite often because I am clumsy.

I am not: particularly sociable.

I believe: in scientific explanations of why things happen in the world.

I dance: not as well as I did when I went to ballet lessons.

I sing: rarely, usually only with small children. 

I cry: way too easily, I'm going to be a mess on our wedding day!

I fight: for things I believe in.

I win: sometimes on the Wii.

I lose: a bit more often.

I never: knit a tension square, yes I am that careless knitter.  You can cease to have any sympathy with me when I blog about knitted items not turning out quite right.

I always: have a knitting project on the go.

I confuse: people.

I listen: not always as well as I should considering I've been on courses for it.

I can usually be found: on the sofa.

I am scared: that the Republicans are going to get in again.

I need: a new job (see 'I am').

I am happy about: going to Brussels for my birthday, more on that in another post!

I imagine: what our wedding day will be like.

Ok, now I need to tag.  I'm never quite sure that I have any readers left but how about Ben, Emma, Crafty Green Poet and Gemma.

Point of Privelige meme

You know I love a good meme, here's one I found at Calista's, more aimed at people in the US though.

Premise: bold each of the statements that applies.

Original source: The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor - my grandpa was/is a professor
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers - no idea
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children’s books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 - music and ballet
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively - I suppose so, don't really think about it.
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18 - this is almost impossible in the UK
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs - not how it works here, government tends to pay for most of it through loans and bursaries but my parents did give me a little extra.
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels - Once with my dad and his wife at the time but it was a horrid place.  We used to stay with family.
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 - Some, some hand-me-down, some homemade
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18  - why would I want that,  people might want to talk to me!
You and your family lived in a single family house - I'm taking this to mean just your family in your house?
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home - Mortgage not paid off though
You had your own room as a child - Up until I was 6 and then again from when I was 9
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School - I wished!  Actually I moved the b&w set into my room when I was about 17.
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 - I lived on an island for more than half of that time!
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family - why would I know that?  Maybe if I was my parents carer I suppose.

Blog Action Day: Normalise

I feel like I've been slacking on green blogging recently, I certainly haven't done anything at Green Girls Global for ages, which is not good at all.  Today is Blog Action Day when bloggers all over the world post about the environment.

My thoughts/message are very simple.  Normalise being green.  It's not a novelty concept for hippies, it's what everyone should be doing.  We're much better at it now, you can get energy saving lightbulbs at Tesco and Ecover at the crap Somerfield down the road.  John Lewis sells Method, Organic Surge, Korres and Dr Hauschka.  Waitrose sell paraffin-free wax candles.  Glasgow hosted a highly successful Organic Food Fair this weekend.  Marks & Spencer do fairtrade clothes.  More people are concerned about food miles, organic produce is more popular.  It's not always about easy decisions, do you get the organic apples flown in, or the locally produced ones that aren't organic, or the fairtrade?  Big supermarket or local shop?  But at least we have the opportunity to make those choices.  I can pick up organic mushrooms on my way home instead of treck across town to find a wholefood shop.  I don't have to search high and low on the net for soya or plant wax candles.

We've still got a long way to go with green and ethical consumerism, but it is becoming more 'normal' and not just something that reeks of patchouli oil in a tiny shop that's hard to find.

Read or not?

Swiped from lovely recent house guest Burge.  These are the top 106 (?) books most marked as unread by users of LibraryThing.  Bold for read, italics for started and couldn't finish, strike through those you couldn't stand, asterisk for ones read more than once and underline for those to read.  Got that?

Read on...

That blog meme

Ah, today has involved the garden centre, a knitting shop and reasonably good weather.  We've got a roasted root vegetable and cheese risotto in the oven, and Jon's mum is here.  Life is good.

I've seen this meme doing the rounds a lot recently so I thought I'd give it a go:

Do you promote your blog?
Um, I link to it in any other online profiles and it's been submitted to a few directories here and there, apart from that, no.  I was the Typepad Featured Blog a few months ago, which was very good promotion, but it wasn't instigated by me.

How often do you check hits?
Rarely.  I used to check them everytime I logged on but I can't be bothered these days.  It is worth it for seeing bizarre Google searches, and I suppose I should check to see where I've been linked from.

Do you stick to one topic?
No!  All sorts here, from knitting to cats to shopping to food to Scottish islands to humanist rants.

Who knows that you have a blog?
Most people including family and work colleagues.  Although I don't want my blog to be connected to my working life, I also don't want to lie about how I met Jon, so my colleagues know and several read.  My mum, Hugh and sisters read it a lot, don't know about my dad's side of the family.  I operate on the idea that anyone can find me.

How many blogs do you read?
Too many, see that sidebar?  And that's not all of them.  I do it all via Bloglines and I really should cut down because several I just skim through.

Are you a fast reader?
Fortunately, yes.

Do you customise your blog or do anything technical?
Just the header and some of the links with images on the sidebars.  I'm really quite lazy when it comes to doing anything fancy with the blog.  I might do some new headers sometime.

Do you blog anonymously?
No, my name is Katherine and that really is my first name.  You could probably suss out my surname if you could be bothered.  Sometimes I think I should have been anonymous and called myself Lady Chatiry.

To what extent do you censor yourself?
When I first started blogging I used to write about work more, but I realised that was a bit of stupid idea (there is a theory that you have to commit murder to be sacked from Leeds City Council though) and when I started my current job I decided to barely mention it at all - no moaning, complaining, revealing details etc.  Sometimes I'd like to write about politics more, especially when the election was on, but as the charity I work for receives lots of funding from the government and I do work for it, I again thought that that would be a bit of a stupid idea.  The only other thing that gets censored in a significant way is things about my family, there was a rather big change in it back in February which angered and upset me, but I didn't think it was right to blog too much about it, partly because some people come here searching for my dad (well, both of them, but in the case it's the one that's not Hugh).  And I suppose there's lots of other little things you don't need/want to know about!

The best thing about blogging?
Meeting new people, either virtually or in real life.  If it wasn't for blogging I wouldn't have met Jon!  I've met some good friends through blogging, and it's great.

Consider yourselves tagged, and all that.

40 secrets

Except they're not really.  Swiped from Zeno.  Feel free to swipe from me.

Seven random things

Jaihn tagged me to do the seven random things meme, so here I go:

1. I've been a vegetarian for 20 years but a couple of times a year I fancy bacon or anchovies.
2. I used to think that Terminates was somewhere near Newcastle.  I saw it on the monitors at Leeds station, generally for the trains from London.  It wasn't until I was 16 and actually asked my mum where it was that I realised that it meant the train was terminating.  She thought I was joking.
3. I've had a few poems published but I don't take this very seriously as they are in books by Forward Press, a quasi-vanity publishing outfit (in my opinion).  Basically they publish most poems submitted knowing that the poets will buy at least one copy each.  The quality of the books (design, layout etc) isn't great.
4. I have small hands and narrow fingers which I get from my dad.  I've managed to get away with buying children's gloves before.
5. Last week I went on a boat for the first time since 2000.  I hate being on water and get seasick, which is very annoying when you like visiting islands.  There seems to be a pattern developing, in 2000 the ferry was to Rousay, last week it was to Raasay.  Where else can I go that begins with 'r' and ends with 'say' and involves being on a boat for 20 minutes or less?
6. I'd like it if Waitrose took over all branches of Somerfield.  Unlikely, but I'd still like it. 
7. I had a sore throat on my 7th birthday.

Considers yourselves tagged.

Meme

Via Daisy.

1. Elaborate on your default icon.

Do you mean the stone at the top?  Can't remember where I found it, somewhere in the Highlands and Islands.  I basically scanned it then added the text in Photoshop.  I'd like to change it but haven't got round to it..

2. What’s your current relationship status?
Been with Jon for 18 months, living together for 13 of those.  We met through our blogs.  Thanks Typepad!

3. Ever have a near-death experience?
No. 

4. Name an obvious quality you have.
I'm pretty friendly.

5. What’s the name of the song that’s stuck in your head right now?
The theme tune to the rubbish house p0rn programme on UKTV Bright Ideas that's on the tv at the moment.

6. Name a celebrity you would marry.
I'd rather not because celebrity marriages don't seem to last very long.  I'd consider Clive Owen though.

7. Who will cut and paste this first?
Whoever is stuck for something to blog.

8. Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity?
Yes. Ha!  A German tourist who was having a drink in the hotel I was working in said I looked like Gillian Anderson.

9. Do you wear a watch? What kind?
No, well, not at the moment.  I usually become allergic to them within a few months so I kind of see them as a waste of money, and when I do buy them they are cheap ones from New Look.

10. Do you have anything pierced?
My ears, only one hole on each.

11. Do you have any tattoos?
No, don't see the attraction.

12. Do you like pain?
No.  Has anyone said yes?

13. Do you like to shop?
Yes, but I prefer small independent shops and book shops.

14. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?
Bus home from the other end of Princes Street.  I didn't intend to go along that far when I set off but the pathway to Stockbridge was closed and I ended up window-shopping in the New Town and then getting a bit of food.  By the time I had to try to negotiate M&S (mid-refurbishment) and then ended up in Sainsburys I'd had enough and couldn't face walking home.

15. What was the last thing you paid for with your credit card?
Postage for a calendar from VistaPrint.

16. Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone?
Jon, to tell him that the river path was closed.

17. What is on your desktop background?
Something I got from a crafty website somewhere.

18. What is the background on your cell phone?
A photo I took on my phone of one of the bookshelves at my mum and Hugh's house.

19. What was the last movie you watched?
I Capture the Castle.

20. What was the last book you read?
A rubbish guide to hidden places in Scotland, from the library.  It was basically an advert for b&bs around the country with very little useful information.

Consider yourselves tagged.

By the way, what is it with the weather?  Well, yeah, climate change and global warming.  Heather the Weather (OBE) assured us it would be non-stop rain and wind today.  Well, it is now but this morning there was sunshine and it was really mild for January.  I'm wearing a coat I thought I'd have to give up at the beginning of November.  I've hardly worn my winter coat.  Worrying, isn't it?