Sorting People on the Basis of Their Genitalia, Legal Definitions of Madness, Painting the Kitchen, Coconut Milk Panna Cotta and Almond Fruit Tart

Posted on July 20, 2017 by

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I drove to Florence to meet an old friend and his daughter. They had come in this kind of hellish way to spend two days sightseeing in the blistering heat with a billion other tourists. Even Florence is vile like that. Crowds and heat and the strong smell of faeces that pervades the city in summer (Italians are not big pooper scoopers). (Having said that, I bought cheddar at the Mercato Centrale cheese place – can’t complain). ANYway, his daughter is going to a girls’ school in September and we were talking about how she felt about this. I went to a girls’ school (City of London) for four years but I’m not sure it was typical – it was particularly odd and I don’t think any of us there were happy. I would say I’m probably projecting but I still know a lot of them and I don’t think I am. But this may not have been a gender-based problem. Probably wasn’t. In any case, I was thinking how amazingly odd it is to sort people on the basis of what kind of genitalia they have. Penis? Off you go that way and get muddy. Vagina? This way and make sure you look pretty – everyone will comment on your looks, good or bad, every day for the rest of your life. It’s because of your vagina. Really? Oh. Also, you will probably have to do a lot of menial shit and clean things and nobody will think it’s weird because of your vagina. My daughter once had a Russian mouse and it had a billion babies. We wanted to keep one or two and give the others to the pet shop. The vet sorted them, peering at their genitalia, desperately trying to sort the girls from the boys so they wouldn’t reproduce on us again. “Pipi?” “Pipi!” “No pipi!”  The boys’ school/girls’ school separation reminds me of this. It’s such an arbitary distinction. Not much different from separating people by hair or eye colour and sending them to different schools to do different jobs, wear different clothes and be paid differently (blondes less? I bet). I mean, look, I’m not mad (or, at least, not like that) – I do get that female mammals have the babies and someone has to look after them. It perhaps makes sense for the female that carries them to look after them. But why that should mean anything else, why it should dictate where she sits in synagogue or mosque and what jobs she is or isn’t allowed to do, why her views might be taken less seriously and why she’s less likely to hold forth at a dinner table (Why the fuck do men do this? Italian men do it even more) – I have no idea. Makes no sense. Then again, what does?

Not this. Same friend. He’s a barrister. He was talking about a murder case where he was planning to claim diminished responsibility on grounds of insanity. I was thinking how odd that you have to be basically psychotic and delusional during the attack to be considered insane. Surely it’s far madder to plan for a year while maintaining an ostensibly ordinary life. But the jury wouldn’t go for that. You have to be in a psychotic state. I thought I’d write about it for Prospect and starting talking to psychoanalysts and barristers all of whom think the system is ridiculous. It’s a big issue and someone wrote a long piece called “Are All Murderers Insane?” (the answer being yes). Anyway, strange how some madness is forgivable and other madness is not.

So, I have to write a book which means I painted the whole kitchen the other day (meaning only to go over some of the yellower, greasier bits, but, obviously, once I started I couldn’t stop because then the whole rest looked yellow and greasy) and threw away four wheelbarrows of crap. Then I bought huge jungly plants for a sort of crap bit of the house that usually just has broken hoovers in it (why? why?). My son is stuck in London because his passport vanished. You would think that once he’d missed his flight and the money was wasted he’d have found it again. “Oh, NOW I remember where I put it!” But, no. So me and Mo are waiting for him. Well, I am. She goes to work at Canyon Park every day – a zip wiring and paddle board place down the mountain where they get paid an amazing fortune.

Here are some recipes.

Almond and Fruit Tart. This is a Michel Roux Jr raspberry tart recipe, bastardised for convenience.  It is the best thing you will ever make. You will now make it all the time. Easy too.

600g sweet pastry – 180g butter, 375g flour, 90g sugar, 2 egg yolks, 1tbsp double cream. I add vanilla essence.

Almond paste – 100g, butter, 100g icing sugar, 100g ground almonds, 2 eggs.

Then fruit, ideally raspberries but really doesn’t matter. At all.

Roll out your pastry and put it in the tart tray. Here’s the thing – I never roll pastry. I line the tray with baking parchment so as not to have the buttering faff. I put the lump of pastry in the middle and then push it out with my fingers until it’s lining the tray. Then I freeze it for ten minutes, I can’t remember why and there’s probably no need. It is less pretty but, then again, it’s for eating, right?

Almond cream – beat all the ingredients together and tip the result into the pastry case.

Cook in the oven until risen and golden (about 25 minutes) on a low-ish heat.

I don’t usually bother with this bit, but….Boil some of your fruit with sugar to make a syrup. Brush the cooked and cooled tart with it and then put your fruit on top. Often, I just put the fruit straight on. Not mad about sticky syrups. Dust with icing sugar.

Coconut Milk Panna Cotta

I resent calling this panna cotta. I mean, Italian panna cotta is boring. This is delicious. Plus all cultures have some cooked cream/custard recipe, right? Anyway. Bleaurgh. It’s really nice. Makes six in standard ramekins. Do this…

2 x 400ml cans coconut milk, 400ml full-fat milk, 100g caster sugar, 2 x 12g sachets powdered gelatine, or five leaves of leaf.

Boil the milks and sugar either with a split vanilla pod or some vanilla essence. Leave it to cool a tiny bit then add the gelatine. Pour it into ramekins (or whatever, one big dish, doesn’t matter) and put it in the fridge to set. This all takes two seconds. Honestly.

It would be nice with mango on top, either just like that, or you could boil it in sugar for mango syrup for a bit. I did it with peaches because I’d used the mango for a tuna thing. I put a chilli and some salt in my syrup too (Mo nearly choked to death on a big bit of chilli though). So, when the puddings are set, slop a bit of your fruit stuff on top and a sprig of mint might be nice (I forgot).

I also boiled sugar until brown (do not add water) and tipped sesame seeds into it. Poured it out onto baking parchment to set into brittle. Put the sesame shards in the puddings. Cool huh?

This was pudding to a supper I forgot to take photos of. The starter was seared tuna and mango salad. Sear tuna in pan with sesame oil, add soya sauce and sesame seeds when it’s really hot. Cut up the tuna and toss with the mango, a chopped red chilli, some parsley and coriander. Dress with lime juice, soya sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, sugar and salt (easy on the oil and the fish sauce). Da dah! I made this up – it was REALLY good.

Okay. Enough for now. xx

Therapy via Skype or email: annablundy@gmail.com

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Instant Curry, Shepherd’s Pie, Apricot muffins and No Rambling – just the food

Posted on July 6, 2017 by

 

I spend most of my time up this Italian mountain making curry. Anything that tastes of SOMEthing. This is my quick curry recipe. Takes ten minutes, always delicious. So, if there are going to be three big onions in it then it would serve about four people. But, obviously, it’s all adaptable and you’ll make it how you like it.

Very Easy Curry

Onions, garlic, chilli, ginger, whatever spices you like (have got), chicken, can of tomatoes, cocunut milk….

Put three large-ish, chopped onions and six peeled cloves of garlic in the blender with a peeled thumb of ginger, one small red chilli and a couple of glugs of cold water. Blend to a paste. (Honestly – I don’t usually bother to blend this but just chuck the chopped ingredients into the pan with the chicken and I don’t brown and then remove the chicken usually either).

Fry your skinless pieces of chicken (thighs are the tastiest, I think, but it doesn’t matter) in some oil until browned then take them out of the oil and put them aside.

Put your onion and garlic paste into the hot oil with whatever spices you like. I’d go for – a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of turmeric, cinnamon, cumin and coriander, ten peppercorns, a couple of crushed cardamom pods and then, honestly, anything – poppy seeds, mustard seeds, garam masala, curry leaf powder, whatever you’ve got.  Sweeter? Dump a few handfuls of toasted, dessicated coconut in there and add some cinnamon. Makes it a bit milder.

Fry until the spices look a bit browned, lob the chicken back in and add a can of tomatoes OR a carton of coconut milk. OR BOTH! Then simmer for….five minutes if you’re hungry, half an hour if you can bear it.

You could use prawns or lamb instead….or potatoes and cauliflower, aubergines.

Then plain rice and a tomato, cucumber and onion salad with fresh coriander. Also salt and peppered yoghurt. Want to chop some cucumbers into it? Why not! Oh, wait. I usually make chapatis. Brown flour, water and salt. Roll it out, fry it dry in a hot frying pan, then take it out and put it on top of the gas flame to puff up. Want to be fatter? Brush with melted butter, fold and roll again, do this a few more times then fry in butter (don’t puff up over the gas ring, the butter will catch fire). This really is delicious but, you know, not that low cal.

12 Muffins – This recipe is in a book I bought for the kids and it has photos of all the ingredients and photo instructions. This page is the most splodged and sticky. This is what we make the most.  My daughter’s got a little muffin machine and sometimes in the morning I wake up to the smell of muffins. Sometimes. Not that often. Pretty rarely.

115g butter, 285 plain flour plus a tablespoon of baking powder (why? easier to use self-raising), 85g caster sugar, 220 ml milk, I add vanilla essence, whatever fruit or chocolate you like. Blend everything except the fruit or chopped chocolate. Then stir in the latter. Bake in muffin cases until they’re raised and golden.

Shepherd’s pie. I KNOW you know how to make shepherds pie. But just in case. Make a bolgnese sauce (wait, is this cottage pie? whatever. beef or lamb, same process), frying garlic, onions and minced meat until brown, adding a can of tomatoes, salt, pepper, a spoonful of Bovril or Marmite (or a stock cube or both), some soy sauce. Put mashed potatoes on top of this, mashed with butter. Controversially, I don’t both to peel the boiled potatoes for mashing. I mean, life is short, etc. It’s just as nice, I promise. Put a lot of grated cheese on top and grill or bake the whole thing until the cheese looks like the photo.

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Birthdays, Pea Soup, Thai Crabcakes, Chocolate Fudge Cake and the Unthought Known

Posted on June 30, 2017 by

I’ve had two patients this week who’ve been bowled over by realising something they already knew. It’s funny in therapy and analysis that you rarely have huge epiphanies that involve things you’ve never thought about before. All those recovered memory cases in America where people suddenly remembered their dad murdered loads of people or that they were horribly abused are, actually, incredibly rare. You already know the stuff, you just haven’t quite articulated it. Christopher Bollas called it “the unthought known”. I have one patient who is miserably frustrated all the time with his mum whose demands are endless and never satisfied. “I wish she’d just tell me what she wants me to do!” he said. Did she want him to go to the supermarket or do the washing up? Both seemed to make her angry and he’s spent his whole life desperately trying to find out what the rules are so that he can finally obey them and get the praise he’s always longed for. I said something like: “You want to her to tell you things she doesn’t know herself.” He thought about this. “She doesn’t know what she wants. She doesn’t know the rules because there aren’t any. She’s just angry,” he said, totally amazed. Five minutes later he said to me; “What was the thing that was so huge it made my head hurt?” The censors are good. They’ve been working hard a long time. Even once he’d known it they charged in to try to block it out again.

When people remember abuse in therapy, it’s not that they’d forgotten or really didn’t know, of course they did. All the signs were there. They were just really careful not to slide the pieces of the jigsaw into place, because allowing the truth would be too awful. With this patient, the fact that his mother’s agenda was to criticise and demean him, not to get the jobs done efficiently, was a horrible, but, hopefully, liberating truth.

My children (ha) turned 17 and 19 this week. Birthday week. Cakes, presents, beach, water park, guitars in the garden, beers, margaritas in paradise at Sunset Cafe in Pisa. Big week in this household, comemmorating the two weeks (a week each, two years apart) that I spent in the St John and St Elizabeth hospital all those years ago, off my face on morphine, eating off the Lebanese menu and watching wimbledon. Bliss.

Birthday Cakes

Hope got the amazing marble cake from the German baking book. It’s in a previous blog. Lev got a chocolate fudge cake. Mary Berry’s fantastic chocolate fudge cake recipe (Google), BUT, instead of cocoa powder, 100g of melted dark chocolate in the cake mix and no hot water. Slightly undercook it for brownie-ish goo in the middle. Also, a teaspoon of Malden salt in the icing. Properly amazing.

So, the food in Italy is mainly quite crap (I know, I know). Every bar and every restaurant serves the same thing. No need to look at the menu. Very hard to get free range or organic meat, a lot of sad veg and salads, overboiled green beans, tinned sweet corn, huge preponderance of carbs and pork. A lot of the stuff I make starts in cans or frozen. I make a lot of curry. Anything that tastes of SOMEthing.

Pea Soup

Peas, stock cube, onion, garlic, bread, cheese, bacon

Fry a chopped onion in some olive oil. Add a bag of frozen peas and some boiling water from the kettle. And a stock cube. When the peas are cooked drain them but keep the water. Blend the peas to liquid in the blender with a ladleful of the water and then put the mushed peas back in the water and reheat a bit. Salt. Pepper. (For thicker soup, obviously, chuck some of the water away).

Toast some slices of bread and rub with a clove of garlic. Bit of olive oil on the toast. Grated cheese on top. Put the cheese on toast in your bowl of soup with a couple of rashers of crispy bacon on top.

Crab Cakes with a sort of Thai sauce thing

I made this last night after staring at a can of sweetcorn in the cupboard and wondering what to do with it. I feel like crab cakes with sweetcorn are thing but I might have made it up.

Sweetcorn, tinned crab, egg,  flour, coriander, spring onion.

Sauce – soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice, chopped chilli, sugar, sesame oil.

Salad – chopped up crunchy stuff (carrots, cucumber, lettuce, peppers), toasted sesame seeds, toasted nuts (I did pecans but cashews might have been better). Dressing – a version of the dipping sauce, maybe without the chilli.

For the crab cakes, strain the sweetcorn and crab meat (canned in this case) and mix in a bowl with an egg, chopped coriander, salt, pepper and a bit of flour. Coat each one in flour and then shallow fry. Or deep fry.

So good.

Thin Beef

On top of the crunchy salad above, chuck some strips of beef marinaded in the same sauce (maybe add ginger and garlic). Also mix noodles in. Nice with crispy fried and very, very salted onions.

Therapy via Skype or even email: annablundy@gmail.com

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Home at La Casa Rosa, Black Spaghetti with Clams, Dreaming of Putin, Dystopian shit and Politics (only briefly, I promise)

Posted on June 19, 2017 by

Home at La Casa Rosa, Black Spaghetti with Clams, Dreaming of Putin, UK Politics (only briefly, I promise)

So, I’m home at La Bella Casa Rosa. Both kids in the house and the other night some of their friends came round and played music in the garden all night. Like, actually, all night. At 6.30am I closed my shutters and put my ear plugs in. My son on double bass, daughter on cello, two people on guitar – improvising around Coldplay and stuff. Actually not enough Coldplay. Must mention this to them. Aha made an appearance at about 3am. How do Italian teenagers know Aha songs? Good old Morten (sp?).

So, I am clearly having a world leaders problem. There was the Trump dream and now last night (my excuse is the extreme heat) I dreamt I was having a thing with Putin. He was madly in love with me and wanting me to fly out to his summer house and move to Moscow. He sent me some beautiful clothes in a box with tissue paper and there was a bit on a train in Russia. I woke up with that feeling (long since unfamiliar) that someone really loves me and is thinking of me, longing for me, and tried to go back to sleep. Even if it was a very, very sleazy old man with serious mental health issues. Hmm. Psychoanalyse that. Don’t. I already have. Ugh. God help me.

Okay, if anyone ever describes anything as dystopian again I will kill them. Surely it would put ANYone off watching or reading ANYthing. “A dystopian world in which blah…”, “A blinding vision of a dystopian future in which blah” oh, fuck off. Shut up. I mean, firstly, just fuck off, but secondly we LIVE in this weird dystopian (oh, stop) world, so reading about one or watching one is just silly. It couldn’t be as surreal as real life under Trump and May (thank God the French are suddenly sane, and those nice Canadians of course, but then they’re known for their sanity). It’s a bit like political satire and comedy. Everything has to be rethought in terms of comedy because they’re all satirising themselves. How can you take the piss out of someone who tweets “covfefe” or someone who calls an election and won’t meet anyone or debate anything? Have you seen the photo of David Davis with two women wearing “It’s DD for me” T-shirts over large breasts? How can you satirise that? You can’t.  They’re doing it themselves. They ARE the comedy. This IS the dystopian (fuck. shit. sorry) world. We’re in it so don’t make any fucking drama about it. It’s like those Day After Tomorrow films or White House Down. If it’s happening you don’t want to watch some awful Hollywood film about it, featuring shouting and people whose teeth are too white. Well, I don’t know why I’ve lapsed into the second person. I mean, I don’t. You will, of course, watch whatever you like. Please do. Free country….(ish).

So, peas and cheese. The kids’ comfort food. Two minute supper.

Tuna/Bacon/Pancetta

Peas/Butter beans/Both

Spinach

Parsley

Spring onions or other onions

Garlic….

Cheddar cheese

I think that’s it.

So, fry the tuna or pancetta cubes with the butter beans and garlic in olive oil. Boil the peas in water then drain them and chuck them in when the tuna/bacon is nice and crispy. [ Basically, if spring onions then put them in at the end and put the chopped garlic in at the end too. This is a summer or fresher verion, I suppose. If big onions then fry it with the garlic at the beginning with the tuna/bacon and butter beans. ] Add the spinach and keep it over the heat until it’s all wilted. Put parsley on top. Grate cheese on top. Eat.

Black Spaghetti with Seafood

Clams/Mussels/Prawns

Fresh chilli

Spaghetti

Parsley

Garlic

Can of tomatoes or fresh tomatoes or neither

Put your black spaghetti on to boil with lots of salt in the water. Put clams and mussels in a pot with a bit of olive oil, put a lid on and cook until they’re all open. Chuck away any that are still closed. You could tip a can of tomatoes in here too and some chopped onions if you like. No need though. Good without. You could also put fresh tomotoes in at the end. Could be nice.

If prawns, fry them.

Drain the spaghetti and mix it in with the seafood. Chopped chilli and garlic – in it goes. Parsley in now. That’s it. This takes as long as pasta takes to boil and it’s beautiful and delicious. So easy. Quick!

Therapy via Skype or even email: anna@blundy.com  

 

 

 

 

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Slow-cooked beef, terror attacks, parsley salad, double bass strings and Dreams of Donald

Posted on June 9, 2017 by

Slow-cooked beef, terror attacks, parsley salad, double bass strings and Dreams of Donald

Terror attacks, just really briefly. Sorry everyone. I caused them. Apparently. I have been clearly told that –

A) I am stupid and it is my failure to properly calculate statistical probability that makes me worried.

(I would say this isn’t true – I don’t change my kids’ actual behaviour or my own, and I worry insanely whether there is an actual risk or not. Love is the risk taken. It always means fear of loss. We make it concrete, project it outwards, in order to manage it). (ALSO, you phone someone to make sure they’re home and back safely not because you actually think they might be dead, for fuck’s sake, but because it is reassuring that everyone is safe and sound however low the risk).

B) The very fact of worrying about my kids when they go out causes the terror attacks. Because then “they” win and that’s what “they” want. Yuh.

So. I caused the attacks. I profusely apologise.

I hate  everything I read about this. I hate the “We can’t let them win.” It isn’t a win or lose situation. Nobody wins whatever happens. The only way to deal with terrorists, historically, the only thing that has ever worked, is to negotiate with them. Eventually. Somehow. Very, VERY difficult in this situation, but we won’t beat them any more than they’ll beat us. It’s not that kind of thing.

The idea that “they” want anything is completely absurd. They want to kill some people and they do. They don’t want to divide us. In what way? These are not sophisticated thinkers (at least not the poor boys who blow themselves up and get themselves shot in the name of fuck only knows what). They want us to hate them, perhaps? If so, this is working very well indeed.

Also, it seems really obvious (and this has been said more eloquently than I can say it) that these suicidal boys who feel totally useless and unwanted would join pretty much any gang – Isis, street gangs, whatever. Violence is attractive to bored young men (and probably young men who aren’t bored) and if they are wanted and adored for it, even better. The Nazis were similarly attractive to people who wanted to belong and have a sense of purpose. And street gangs offer the same. Obviously, I don’t know what the answer is (National Service…., but no..) but trying to put them all in prison isn’t the answer. Oooh, fun fact. America has a bigger prison population (this is per 100,000 of the population) than was ever in the gulags even at the height of Stalin’s terror.

Covfefe. God, that was fun.  Wait! I had a dream about Donald Trump. I was at this outdoor restaurant with him and there was a jazz band playing at the front. Though there were candles and twinkly lights in the trees, deferential waiters in white, champagne and oysters type of place, we sat in the dark so he wouldn’t be recognised. I felt as I do feel about him – sort of sorry for him, compassionate towards him, fascinated by what the hell is really wrong. I was listening, wondering, sad. Suddenly, dancing started and our table was lit as the dancers, can-can-ish or tango-ish, came near. He quickly slapped a weird brown wig on his head, just slapped it on as if he already had it in his hand, so he wouldn’t be recognised. We moved out to the dark back of the garden and then there was a really awful rapey, bloody bit that I won’t gross you out with. I can psychoanalyse it and it isn’t about Trump, but so weird to have him off the television/Twitter and into my mind in this totally surreal way.

Double bass strings are very, very expensive. That’s all. My son needed some (according to his new teacher). Man alive. Who knew? £200.

My labradors are nice. Here they are on a blue beanbag.

So, short ribs are delicious. This is ANOTHER Honey and Co. recipe that I kind of cheated with, but please make this immediately. In a pan that can go in the oven, or in the roasting tray (I did), fry the short beef ribs to brown them in olive oil (or whatever) along with salt, pepper, some new potatoes or cut up big potatoes and some (very) roughly chopped onions. This takes less than a minute. Okay, three minutes max. Then add some dates. Any kind. Chuck them in. A tablespoon of tomato puree, some powdered cinnamon or a cinnamon stick, 200ml of water and put it in the oven with a lid on or wrapped in foil – FOR FOUR HOURS OR MORE.

Eat it with this parsley salad I copied from a Lebanese restaurant in Marylebone. Chopped parsley and mint, spring onions, pomegranate seeds, salt, pepper, pomegranate molasses and lemon juice. Heaven.

Therapy via Skype or email: annablundy@gmail.com

 

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Feminism and Psychoanalysis (dickhead misogynists), Cherry and Pistachio cake (again), Romeo and Juliet, The Importance of Being Earnest, Chicken Pastilla (again) and Prawns with Oranges and Tomatoes

Posted on May 28, 2017 by

Feminism and Psychoanalysis, Cherry and Pistachio cake (again), Romeo and Juliet, The Importance of Being Earnest, Chicken Pastilla (again) and Prawns with Oranges and Tomatoes

Need to go out to a barbecue in the rain now, so abridged version of stuff.

Went to a seminar at the Institute of Psychoanalysis to hear a talk on feminism. Freud is often slagged off for his hopelessness where female sexuality and women in general are concerned. I feel he gets us right, including penis envy and being more narcissistic than men. I am in a tiny minority of women here, but I do think he’s right in the sense of perceiving ourselves in sexual situations more than perceiving our lover. Nurture, sure, but hard not to self-objectify where sex is concerned. Anyway, a feeling that psychoanalysis is a feminist movement on the whole. All good. Afterwards I was forwarded an email from a man who had been present. He’d sent it to the male panel member (spouse of the speaker and there to introduce her and field questions) and he slagged off the comments I had made in discussion. Briefly, a discussion on why there are more female leaders on the right than the left. Why? Dunno. I feel capitalism is more of a meritocracy – bring the cash and we don’t care what you look like. I worked at the Guardian, posh white men, and at the Sunday Times, varied ethnicities, class backgrounds and genders. Odd, huh? The left is an ideology you have to fit in with, the right doesn’t care what you think if you provide the page views. Someone else felt it’s to do with the right having more to gain with a female leader. The speaker that we turn to authoritarian mother in a crisis, the real leader of the traditional family in a child’s early life. This guy, the emailer, didn’t speak at the event but wrote to another guy to slag me off, saying I am so posh and from “male money” that I felt class solidarity at the ST. Actually, the opposite was true. The posh ones were at the Guardian. Though, yes, the ST people were nicer, less judgmental. Anyway, he decided for me what I felt and thought and then explained (mansplained) it to me. Except not to me. To another man. He also accused me of being ignorant about left-wing politics. I was not posh until I decided to be (not saying it’s not a pretty convincing act at this point) and there was (sadly) no money, male or female. Anyway, the news is, girls: misogyny lives on. Not news at all, of course.

Romeo and Juliet at the Globe!! Fucking incredible. How do you make a play we know so well fresh, make the lines mean something? And after the Baz Luhrmann film too? Well, like that. Wept when Juliet died, mainly because Lady Capulet did such devastating grief. Also, my own girl had just flown back to Rome. You know there’s a line saying “I’d had you at your age” so Lady Capulet is under 30! Never played by a twenty something.  And wept, actually, at the first kiss at the party. So long since I kissed anyone like that. Perhaps never again. Sad and wonderful. Also loved the violence of Romeo killing Tybalt – always overlooked that murder, like it’s an accident or understandable. But he really kills someone and that was explicit in this production. Interesting.

Similar – my son’s BTEC group put on the Importance of Being Earnest as their last ever play together and I was slightly dreading it. I find Oscar Wilde a bit exhausing. An hour and a half of glib. Ugh. BUT. BUT. Teenagers doing a very, very mad, high-intensity version WITH SONGS was just incredible, my son as Dr Chausable, hilariously insane. Even “a handbag” sounded fresh (well done, Lola) and we roared and stamped. These kids have never met anyone who talks like this, is like this, probably had never heard of Oscar Wilde before they did the play. Perfect and amazing. So, things can be new again. I suppose.

Here’s some food.

So, this cherry and pistachio cake is in an earlier blog if you want the recipe. It’s the plum and pistachio cake from the Honey and Co. cookbook, but I put tinned cherries on instead of plums and used extra ground almonds instead of coconut here too. It’s just so pretty. Then the chicken pastilla is from the same cookbook. You basically fry chicken with dates, onions, cinnamon and ras al hanout, then add water and simmer until the chicken falls apart. So, I did this but then wanted to eat it instead of doing the filo pastry bit. It’s so good. No need to wrap it up at all. For a salad, boil bulgar wheat, add spring onions, mint, salt, lemon juice, pomegranate seeds. Perfect.

Also Honey and Co. (I’ll change soon, it’s just all quite exciting still) are these prawns. Takes five minutes. Fry sliced oranges, tomatoes and prawns with some cardamom, salt, pepper, chilli, garlic. Add a bit of water. I added spinach and parsley. Eat. Maybe with the bulgar wheat salad. So good.

Real Therapy for Lasting Change: anna@blundy.com

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Sue Perkins/Marilyn Monroe, Almond Cake with Cherries, Chicken in Pomegranate Molasses, Three Sisters, the Freedom not to Look Pretty (ffs)

Posted on May 15, 2017 by

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Sue Perkins/Marilyn Monroe, Almond Cake with Cherries, Chicken in Pomegranate Molasses, Three Sisters, the Freedom not to Look Pretty (ffs)

So I was getting ready to go to a work lunch last week and I looked in the mirror. I mean, fucking hell. Even three or four years ago I was still basically good looking. Now I look okay “for my age”. And that’s if I make some kind of effort. But, so what? Right? Were the blokes going to this lunch arseing around in front of the mirror wondering if they looked okay? Were they smearing crap all over their faces? They were not. And for whom exactly do I want to look like some sort of simpering idiot? Why do I care if these people think I’m good looking or not? I don’t, is the answer. I decided to dye my hair grey and have a short back and sides. Put a shirt and trousers on and go to fucking lunches like a normal person. Eat food. Chat. I mean, it’s not like I’m trying to get laid here. At said lunch I’m talking to a hugely successful City type person who says she’s on sabbatical and might do more grooming. This sounded a bit paedophilic, but wasn’t. “I don’t know how to pluck my eyebrows,” she said. She looked great. I mean, would a selection of random men have wanted to have sex with her? Who knows. And who in the name of crap cares? But she looked happy, friendly, not shit. I told her about my short back and sides plan and we laughed about being old and the idea that women are supposed to look…what? Pretty? Ugh.

I went to the hairdresser and a nice Jordanian man did me a wash and blow dry. More Marilyn than Sue Perkins. So, I didn’t do it. I remain blonde and coiffed. I remain cowed. The tyranny wins again.

I went to see Three Sisters in Russian the other day with another all Russian crowd (even the signs in the theatre were in Russian, so disconcerting that I ordered my bottle of water in Russian and got a baffled look). Anyway, the Russian women seem to have it. They are seriously done up, but somehow they look tough and cool, rather than pathetic and simpery. How is this done? I don’t know. I also had Lebanese food with an ex-boyfriend who had a grey beard and a tailored suit on. “Do I look old?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. “We are old.” We talked about Dostoevsky. I mean, that would cheer anyone up, right?

Okay, it won’t. But this will! Chicken in pomegranate molasses!

Marinade chicken thighs (no skin) in pomegranate molasses, garlic, salt, pepper and chilli. Fry in oil slowly on a low heat until all black and sticky. Boil some bulgar wheat, drain, and add lemon juice, a spoon of pomegranate molasses, pomegranate seeds, mint, parsley, spring onions, salt…what else? Oh, spinach, watercress, anything. This is a heavenly supper. Quick!

Almond cake. With marzipan. I’m still with the Honey and Co. book by the way but I mess with the recipes so I’m telling you what I did, not what they tell you to do. They have these as individual cakes with roasted plums. I made one cake and boiled cherries in vanilla.

100 butter, 110 sugar (light, dark, whatever), 3 eggs, 50g flour, 80g ground almonds, 25g or more of chopped almonds with skin on, 50g of marzipan.

Mix all the ingredients apart from the last two. Chop the marzipan and stir in with the chopped nuts. Cook the cake/s until golden. Top with cherries or any fruit boiled or roasted with sugar and vanilla. This is properly just paradise.

Therapy via Skype or even email: annablundy@gmail.com

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