Well, it was really just some friends over for dinner but I actually cooked something nice. In fact, something I’d never done before. And it was nice! Now I’ve got a rubbish selection of photos again, really should learn to use my camera and also, TAKE MORE PICTURES. It’s just, I don’t like using flash which leads unfocused photos. Hmmm.
Anyway, for starters we had a selection of things, antipasti, if you like. There were olives from The Fresh Olive Company(they have a stall at Borough Market, well worth a visit if you’re around there), little coctail stick things I made with baby plum tomatoes, fresh basil and buffalo mozzarella (from Morrisons ‘The Best’ range, and it was really quite decent, I thought), and tomato and olive focaccia I made using the recipe blogged here before, just adding halved baby plum tomatoes on top to compliment the olives. The focaccia needed more salt, I think. Something about it wasn’t quite right, but oh well.
For the main we had a Butternut Squash and Chorizo Risotto using a recipe I found on the Morrisons website. I’m not even quite sure how I ended up looking at recipes on the Morrisons website, but I did and I’m glad I did. I’d never used butternut squash in anything before and that was quite exciting. The one I got wasn’t quite ripe, I think, but since it was roasted anyway it didn’t really matter. I’m not big on following recipes literally and in this case I used chicken stock as opposed to the vegetable stock in the recipe, I also used it almost a litre but I may have used a bit more rice too (I don’t have scales). I also added some salt and black pepper to the butternut squash before roasting. The thing I’ll do differently next time is the garlic. In the recipe here it tells you to roast garlic with the squash, but I’d recommend throwing it in the pan with the onions and chorizo. Oh that’s another thing, do fry the onions for a bit before adding the chorizo. And use oil a bit more liberally too. Anyway it was lovely. The taste of garlic on the squash was a tad too strong for my liking though. That’s why I wouldn’t roast it again. The good thing about the chorizo is that you really don’t need any extra flavourings in the risotto. The stock, chorizo and a bit of salt and pepper on the squash are just right. Make sure you get a strong parmesan though, I wouldn’t use a bog standard supermarket parmesan since the other flavours are quite strong and I like to taste the cheese in my risotto too. In other news, I’m still on the look out for a job so you know, if you know of any good opportunities, let me know. Anything office based. In London. Ta.
Over the last year I’ve had this urge to DO stuff. Like arts and crafts, or sewing or something sort of creative. Trouble is I’ve got very low self-esteem and don’t really see myself as a creative person, but perhaps that’s just lack of trying.
There used to be a time when I’d write a lot. You know, in my teens, but perhaps that was just what every teenager does to try to deal with all the angst and horribilities (yes, I know that’s not a word) of life. And writing definitely helped me get over that heartbreaking event of getting dumped out of the blue and out in the open. Over time I just sort of stopped writing, perhaps it was partly due to more school work and writing essays and things that killed any aspirations to write in my spare time. There is a certain lack of imagination as well though, I’d always draw inspiration from my own life or dreams and there are only so many stories about teenage drama one can write. I’ve never been one to keep a diary either. There have been livejournals and different blogs and many actual diaries, but for some reason I’ve never been one to deal with my daily emotions in a way that would’ve kept me writing in diaries.
Around the same time as I wrote a lot, I also very much enjoyed sewing and knitting things. Sewing especially would mostly happen at school where there was proper equipment and good advice on offer. I never got along with my mum’s old Singer (that’s a sewing machine for those of you in the dark) and buying fabric always seemed so expensive that I’d rather spend my money on other things. I’ve knitted quite a few pairs of socks and gloves in my time though. I find knitting to be a nice thing you can do whilst doing other things, mainly watching TV or movies. That’s something I ventured in last year. I decided to knit a scarf for the boy. It turned out alright, but I completely miscalculated how much work it actually was, probably because of the lack of practice. It had easily been five years since I had last held the knitting needles. After finishing it (it didn’t turn out to be as long as I wanted it to but I ran out of time) I was so tired of knitting that I didn’t want to take up another project. And I still haven’t. Regardless, here’s a photo of the finished scarf modeled by the boy himself.
Also, look at that featured on the Sartorialist blog a few months after I’d done the scarf. Uncanny, isn’t it? Since this post is going all over the place anyway, here’s a little quote from the boy too, in relation to the above linked Sartorialist post. Just because I find it funny.
‘i have no idea how these people are sartorialist worthy
this is just like
me
but with a silly knot for the scarf’
During my IB times I sort of re-invented myself and was pretty active in school plays and happenings. I suppose after going through middle school in the shadow of my wildly more popular and beautiful BFF I felt the need to be out there, loud, noticed and liked. I pretty much managed to do that too. Kitchen psychology aside, I managed to channel my need to create into different school projects, some that I enjoyed far more than others. There was also a short lived covers band, that was in all honestly totally rubbish. Still, things were done and creative needs were pretty much satisfied.
Enter university, where everything ends. The start of university was a weird time. I moved away from everyone I knew to another country and had to learn to rely on myself and myself alone in life. Suddenly there was no time for anything other than studying, drinking or msn. Although, the first year or two at university I did write a heck of a lot, but most of it would be on msn and the rest would be split between livejournal and essays. Hardly anything was made up. I watched a lot more films than I’d ever watched before, though. Suddenly I knew people with amazing DVD libraries and interest in film. I’d always been interested in film but with the excuse of lack of money (such as with most things in life) never got into cinema in the way I would’ve liked to. So I caught up on loads of films, went to the cinema nearly weekly and I suppose watching other people’s art sort of made up for not creating anything myself.
I still thought about doing things myself and one Christmas brought back my knitting needles from Finland but it never led to actual knitting. I also bought a badge making machine with a friend but that never led to anything on my part. I did make a couple of cards and presents to people, but nothing much. However, I suppose I sort of channeled that creative energy to cooking. One of the good things that come from living on your own, or even with other people is that you get to choose what you eat. And unless you’re cooking with someone, you don’t need to restrict yourself with other people’s tastes. I was pretty content whilst at uni anyway, perhaps because free time was sort of limited and when there was any spare time, something would always be on.
As a little taster of what I did do whilst at university, here’s a birthday video me and the boy made for our friend John. (I do take about third of the credit for this, even though the boy did all the filming and editing etc.) It’s a million times better with sound, but you know how youtube is with copyrights. It also shows yours truly making a photo album for another friend who actually happens to share a birthday with John. Look at me doing things!
The whole point of this post originally was that I wanted to share with you that I feel the need to create things. I suppose it’s a combination of being unemployed at the moment and also being in England. I’m most comfortable with myself when in England and I suppose that sort of frees up emotional space for wanting to do things. Or something. And now I’ll go off on a tangent.
Once I got over the first shock of moving to another country I’ve pretty much always felt happiest and most happy with myself in England. There was a conversation with some friends once about re-inventing oneself and how that often happens when you go to university and how it’s important that it happens and so on. During that conversation I maintained that because I changed schools between middle school and the IB I didn’t have to re-invent myself anymore when I came to university. But I did, or at least I grew to be me. And still, there’s a difference between me in Finnish and me in English. I tie it to the language I speak, not necessarily to the physical surroundings.
This post feels like one big side-track. ANYWAY, after I made the Lego ring featured in a post some time ago I got very excited and realised I could actually do things. I have also recently started reading Philippa Rice’s magnificient webcomic My Cardboard Lifeand it’s made me wonder why couldn’t I do something like that. And there is no reason. I won’t do my own comic, but it has made me realise that there are a lot of possibilities in the world of arts and crafts and I really should start doing things. Step one will be getting over that money excuse. Step two will be creating things. I’ll keep updating the blog with things if I do end up making something. Perhaps I’ll need to change the header of the blog to ‘Whining and Dining and Making’. Maybe not just yet though.
First things first. I am now in London, don’t know for how long, but the main thing is that I am now in London. I’m relying on nice people to let me stay at their houses and am looking for work like crazy. I don’t think I’m lying if I say that in the last couple of days I’ve made more applications than in the last six months altogether (which is still not that much...). There have been all sorts of personal issues going on and I haven’t been doing the things I should have been doing, but obviously this situation at least works for my job hunting will. It's all a bit puzzling. Harhar.
In other news, I do have a job for myself in Finland starting in January, but if I’m able to find something better here I will stay.
Right, the reason I’m writing this is that earlier this autumn, or I suppose it was more like late summer, my mum bought a jigsaw puzzle. Actually, it was bought as a present to my uncle, who has his birthday in November. Mum figured it’d be best to buy it early since she found it and loved it and just in case they’d sell out before the actual birthday it’d be good to get it early. And of course, to be honest, we really wanted to have a go at it too.
So a couple of days after the puzzle had arrived in our house, we decided it wouldn’t be at all wrong to do it before giving it to my uncle. Really, we’d be doing him a favour checking that all the pieces are there etc. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and it’s black and white. Yeah, black and white. It sounded like a really good idea until we started doing it. This is what it looked like after two weeks and about 20 hours of puzzle making time after.
These are most of the pieces left at this stage. They’re all just black. Or white.
Doesn’t that look like fun. Anyway, it doesn’t look as grim anymore. The sky is all done, finally. Now it’s just a matter of fitting all the black pieces in. And I’m not there doing it anymore. As I am in London. The puzzle is in Finland. However, my dad retired last week so he can step up now and help mum with it. It’s a pretty damn cool puzzle regardless.
