A balanced equation

Thursday was a special day for us.

Our anniversary.

We had been married for 22 years.

I was 22 years old the day we were married and now that has magically turned into 22 years.

22=22

 

A balanced equation.

 

That's what our marriage is.

 

Whenever I have been ill or hurt (recently with my back or four years ago when I had the horrible hysterectomy) he is there to take up the slack. He does the jobs I cannot do--the lifting, the bending, the shopping and the carrying heavy loads. After my surgery, he lovingly washed my hair as it was too painful to raise my hands above my head.

 

He cares for me and I care for him.

 

When I am sad or anxious, he wraps his arms around me and infuses me with warmth and love and strength. When my moods dip, one touch of his hand raises me up and we are balanced again.

 

He cares for me and I care him.

 

When I am tempted to be impatient, unkind, thoughtless or rude he looks me in the eye and reminds me to be a better person.

 

He cares for me and I care for him.

 

He listens to my dreams and takes me seriously. He believes in me like no one else. He has helped make my fondest wish come true--to have a life full of adventure--to live in the United Kingdom. To live our lives the way we want no matter *what* others think.

 

He cares for me and I care for him.

 

His love makes me beautiful.

 

I hope that I give the same to him. I try to give him the gifts he gives me through the depth of my love.

 

We are the most fantastic team.

 

Thank you Spiderman.

 

You really are amazing.



Back with a Vengeance

Hello my faithful peeps, I’m sorry I’ve been away for an entire month. I wish I could say that I had been swanning about somewhere, enjoying the high life--but alas  I can not. I’ve been “out of action.”

 

My name is Spidergrrl and I have Coccydynia. For those of you who don’t know this means I have a broken tailbone.

 

Basically, I am a pain in the arse.

This is not a new occurrence. I originally bruised it (possibly fractured it) falling off a mini trampoline onto our wood floor when I was about eight years old. Round about 1998, I was running down our hallway and fell (on the newly polished wood floor) during a commercial break of Law and Order because I was trying to hurry up and get a drink before the show started again.

 

Reader, I broke it.

 

Personally, I blame the wooden floors.

 

But since then I have had trouble with a capital T (that rhymes with C and stands for Coccydynia) . Sitting was the worst--there was always a nagging ache that became a screaming pain the longer I sat. I developed ways of compensating that put pressure on my hips and knees when I stood up, walked and tried to sleep.

 

I never, ever could get comfortable. 

 

Moving to England and being car free helped to a certain extent--all that walking meant that I didn’t hurt when I stood up, walked or slept.

 

But sitting was another matter.

 

Four weeks ago on Sunday I had a bit of a tumble--I didn’t fall but I did a funny little twisty thing to catch myself and my back started to complain.

 

Loudly.

 

What started off as just a “bad back” took a turn for the worse on Thursday when I (against my better judgement) lifted a box of art smocks at school. This resulted in a spasm that brought tears to my eyes and forced a colleague to gift me a lift home at break time.

 

It only got worse from there.

By Monday I was in agony. Nothing I did helped to stop the pain. It was like someone jamming a red hot poker into my tailbone as the searing hot pain radiated outwards from my coccyx. It felt like someone pulling my pelvis apart. 

I was immediately signed off of work for a week as I could barely move without tears. I was given a prescription for Co-codamol --how I love you codeine! This along with a combination of ice and heat applied to my back as well as rest did seem to help.

 

The unfortunate side effect of codeine for me is I become loopy as all get out. I am told that I always sounded drunk or high and would say some really weird stuff in the middle of a conversation, which I (thankfully) have no memory of.

 

A week passed and the pain was different. Instead of just being  a pain in the coccyx I was experiencing something far worse that I had ever experienced before.

 

I honestly  thought there was *nothing* worse than coccydynia. But there is.

 

It’s called Sciatica.

Sciatica, in case you don’t know, is the inflammation of the sciatic nerve which means that horrible, fiery shooting pains now whooshed down my right leg every time I moved. I suffered pins and needles constantly and was having to drag my leg behind me as it was always asleep.

 

Needless to say I was signed off for another week of school and told to increase my dose of codeine. The extra codeine made me several of the Seven Dwarves--Dopey and Sleepy and occasionally Grumpy (when I needed more pain relief and still had an hour to go before my next dose.) I was advised to take ibuprofen in the intervals between Co-codamol  so I would never be without some form of pain relief.

 

After two weeks of school missed it was half term--a week’s holiday from school--and so I had another week to rest and recuperate before having to try to go back to work. 

 

I was feeling better now, there were periods of the day where I was relatively pain free-- when standing and sleeping. Sitting caused the dull ache in my lower back to sharpen up and start to travel down my leg but the moment I stood up it retreated.

 

We bought a lumbar roll which is a special cushion that helps maintain good posture when sitting as slumping in any way puts pressure on the coccyx and the whole thing starts all over. I can’t believe how much it helps. Sitting is still uncomfortable--but only that. Not painful, just uncomfortable. But I still can only sit for about 20 minutes at a time.

My GP helped me to lower my dose of codeine, but still take it along with ibuprofen, and increase my activity since walking felt really good. When I am walking I have no pain at all so for the last few days  I have taken a brisk 30 minute walk in a lovely nature trail near here.

 

It has raised my spirits and helped tremendously with the pain in sitting. Previously I had only done a strolling type of walk (or an Igor type of walk when my leg was dragging behind me) but a brisk walk has done me wonders.

 

There were a few other things I have done to help my back, but that’s for another day. It has taken me two hours to type this as I have to keep stopping to take breaks.

 

I start back to work this week. I have a letter from my GP that says I am to have amended duties--no lifting or bending and I am to be allowed regular stretch breaks--for the next two weeks.

 

We‘ll see how it goes.

 

 I’m back, baby. 

Upwardly Mobile

Our friends Iain and Rachel are having a baby. I am not normally a pee-pee baby sort of person. As the comedian Bec Hill said, “Why do people want you to hold their babies? There is nothing else that you could give someone to hold that came out of your vagina that is socially acceptable.” 

 

Only one other time have I been this excited about a baby and that was when my friend Cereal was pregnant with Zoria. I showed up at the hospital dressed as a Pilgrim (I came straight from school) and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

I am that sort of excited again because I love Iain and Rachel. They were kind enough to let me make their wedding invitations and do a reading at their wedding and so I was keen to do something special for the Bebé . I know in several years time I’ll be “Auntie Spidergrrl” and the child will come round and see the spiders and we’ll have a craft day or do some cooking together, but in the mean time I wanted to make something nice.

 

So I made a mobile to hang over the crib. Which would be pronounced Mow-Bull in the US, but is apparently pronounced Mow-Bile in the UK. Whatever. I can completely see the appeal of one of these. They are mesmerising to watch. This from the woman who could spent hours entranced watching a cement mixer at work. But I digress. 

 

The nursery  is yellow as we don’t know if the  Bebé is a girl person or a boy person yet. The theme is Winnie the Pooh and so we decided on a rain cloud mobile. You know…I’m just a little black rain cloud and Tut tut! It looks like rain and all that.

 

Iain says the child needs to look at rain clouds as that is the predominant weather here in the UK.

So here it is. Some lovely Krishna coloured rain clouds (they are a beautiful grey with a hint of purple) and some sparkly drip drops as well as a friendly rainbow in the middle just to brighten things up.

We don’t want the poor kid to get Seasonal Affective Disorder too soon.

 

In six weeks (give or take) we will welcome you to the world. Every time your tiny eyes look up you will see something made with lots of love and care and you will feel safe and happy knowing you are loved so very, very deeply.

 

Welcome to the world. 

In Honour of My Dad

Obey. Submit. Consume. Watch TV.

Do not question authority. Money is your God.

No independent thought. No imagination.

They live. We sleep.

 

It came. Last night when we got back from the comedy club it was here waiting for us. Spiderman, knowing I was feeling a bit down about my dad, surprised me with a DVD of John Carpenter’s They Live. It is the *perfect* film to watch and think of my dad as we watched it several times together. He debated about getting C.H.U.D. (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) which tried to be serious or its sequel  C.H.U.D. II (Bud the CHUD) which did not try in any way, shape or form to be serious, but he finally settled on They Live.

 

Perfect choice.

 

Do you know this film? The blurb on the back of the DVD reads:

 

Professional WWF wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper plays John Nada, a homeless, unemployed, construction worker who discovers a pair of sunglasses that when worn reveal a world run by upwardly mobile, capitalist yuppie aliens intent on keeping the human race sedate and brainwashed with subliminal messages fed through advertising and the media. Luckily for us, all John Nada wants to do now is chew gum and kick ass, and he’s all out of  gum. 

 

They Live is one of John Carpenter’s most accomplished films. An action packed, satirical, sci-fi adventure and socio-cultural critique on the decline of spiritual values and the rise of consumerism within modern society. It also included one of the longest fist fights in cinema history.

 

You see what I mean?

 

Perfect.

 

We’ll watch it every year from now on in honour of my Dad.

 

Thanks Spiderman.

actually a picture of George W Bush--I always suspected he was an alien

 

Edited to add: the plot for They Live is actually based on a (very) short story called Eight O’clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson and you can read it here:  http://www.whale.to/b/eight_o.html

Daddy's Girl

I was always a daddy's girl.

That man shone like the sun for me.

The patience he showed as we tried to play backyard baseball when I clearly have no natural athletic ability at all.

The one time I managed to accidently hit the baseball with the bat and it went over our neighbour's fence a few feet away was cause for celebration. He took me to Baskin Robbins for ice cream and told me that I could say "I hit it over the fence" and that I never had to actually say which fence.

The infinite patience he showed trying to teach me (and later Spiderman) how to drive. It is a wonder we actually got out of there alive. We almost didn't. The first time I ever went driving after I got my learner's permit, I crashed our family car into a fire hydrant.

He kept me company all through the lonely Friday nights of my teenage years when I had no date or place to go. We had pizza and watched crap horror film or old westerns and laughed.

The way he was willing to do any project with me. If I had an idea we would toddle over to Lowes in his pick-up truck and buy lumber and then we would build it in the back garden.

He loved all my school children vicariously and bought them things like little plastic spider rings or their own individual miniature pumpkin at Halloween.

He used to say to me every day --and make me recite it back to him--these three important things:

1. Know that I love you

2. Check your facts

3. Stand up for what you believe in

So I guess I am still a daddy's girl.

I know, without a doubt that i am loved and I still feel that love despite our parting.

I am so careful to think before I speak and be armed with truth and not assumptions.

I am out there fighting the good fight, speaking up for the animals and people who have no voice. I'm getting ready for an anti-nuclear protest in the summer. I am foolish enough to believe that I can make a difference in the world.

Just like my dear old dad.

GLT--it has been 14 years since you died, but you are always in my heart.

I am still your girl.

Pea and Mint Risotto with Mushroom Bacon

 

There is an episode of the Young Ones where Neil the hippy serves dinner and tries to pass it off as risotto, but it is actually snow. This is definitely not snow--but a really delicious and cheap risotto from the cookbook A Girl called Jack. 

 

She uses regular rice instead of more expensive Arborio rice but I still have some Arborio rice in my cupboard so I used that.

 

It was a really delicious risotto made with white wine, frozen peas. and some fresh mint and parsley from my windowsill.  The juice of half a lemon at the end really brightened the flavours but the real star was the mushroom bacon.

 

I know…vegans will make bacon out of anything. Some people would argue why make a fake version of something that you don’t want to eat, but my answer is that I want that

 

Smoky                         

                                          Salty                           

                                                                          Umami  

 

Flavour that bacon used to provide.  I don’t want to eat the dead body parts of a pig. I just want flavour. 

 

Jack says, “To make this dish of ricy goodness even more delicious, stir in some scraps of bacon along with the sliced onion.”

 

Normally I would buy a packet of smoked tofu for this. The brand we like costs about £3.00 and I can stretch it over two meals making each meal cost £1.50 as far as the smoked tofu part goes. That doesn’t count the cost of all the other ingredients.

 

I had some mushrooms in the fridge and so I decided to try a recipe for mushroom bacon because it would be cheap. I had the mushrooms and all the other ingredients. Would it taste good? Would it be sufficient to replace smoked tofu which was replacing bacon?

 

I thinly sliced half a pounds worth of  button mushrooms (this was about 6 mushrooms for me)  and drizzled them with 1 TB tamari soy sauce, 1 tsp liquid smoke and 1 tsp toasted sesame oil.

 

Then I baked them in a hot oven--425F/220C for 12 - 15 minutes.

 

They shrank up really small and dried out which intensified their flavour. The taste was rich and savoury and  *amazing*  and they really added an intense pop of flavour into the risotto. The smell also lingered in the kitchen in a lovely way as well.

 

I cannot believe how good this was. I always have tamari, toasted sesame oil and liquid smoke in my kitchen and it needed very little of the ingredients to make this work. It also only needed about 50p’s worth of mushrooms to achieve this which is a HUGE savings.

 

I am not anti-soy but I know that tofu is still a processed product which is why we only eat it about once a week--if that. I prefer to use whole foods in our diet and mushrooms fit the bill.

 

Plus it’s cheap. We may still splurge on smoked tofu every now and then, but now I know that for 50p worth of mushrooms I can make smoky “bacon” why would I?

 

edited to add:

I wanted to check to be sure the magic would work in a soup so we have eaten Caldo Verde (Portuguese potato and kale soup) for the last two nights. Again, the smoky mushroom bacon worked its magic and the second day over cornbread (ain’t nothin’ wrong with that) it was absolutely *gorgeous*. The marinated mushrooms added richness to the vegetable broth in an Mmm, mmm, mmm way.

 

I’m sold.

 

Keeping the vampires at bay

from bbcgoodfood.com

We love garlic. I love the taste of fresh garlic. I have been known to consume an entire bulb of roasted garlic by squeezing the cloves directly into my mouth. FACT.

 

But I do hate chopping garlic. I like it finely minced and it is a faff to do. I used to have a mini chopper that would do it for you, but it has ceased to work and so I could never chop it as fine or as quickly as I would like. I ended up leaving it out of recipes as the onions, carrot and pepper would be sautéing in the pan and I would be trying to peel a clove and dice it small and then would give up and start to swear as the kettle had just boiled or the oven timer had gone off and the next stage of the meal was ready to happen and I hadn’t finished the fecking garlic yet.

 

Has that ever happened to you? I tried buying a jar of pre-chopped garlic in white vinegar  but it always had a vinegar-y taste. Then I came across an idea form my old friend A Girl called Jack. Her cookbook suggested doing several bulbs all at once and chopping them in the food processor with a splash of oil and then freezing ice cube trays.

 

I bought 4 medium sized bulbs of  garlic for £1 and set about peeling them. I tried the technique of shaking them like a cocktail to get the papery skins off. This didn’t remove the skins altogether but it did make them much easier to remove. Especially since I had about 40 cloves to deal with.

 

I put half the cloves (2 bulbs worth) in the food processor with a splash of yellow rapeseed oil (canola oil for my American peeps) and then blended it up.

 

Then I blended it up and added the rest of the cloves (the other two bulbs) in and blended them up to soak up the rest of the oil.

 

I was left with a finely minced garlic in oil that I could freeze. I just love the bright yellow colour from the oil.

 

I managed to fill in 25 ice cube compartments and then froze them for later.

 

The resulting cubes popped out with ease the next day and were stored away in an airtight container in the freezer--just like my cubes of smoky chipotle peppers in adobe sauce.

 

The result: Perfect. Cooking is a breeze. I just pull out a cube or two and sauté in the pan. The garlic tastes good--there is no prep time which suits me. The oil melts into the pan and adds flavour to the food.

 

It took me about 45 minutes but should last for about a months worth of meals so I think it was entirely worth it. 

 

So thanks Jack for another tip!