What I made in summer

I spent my summer at home with my mum and part of the family so I could indulge in what I usually haven’t time to do during my busy school year, like cooking extensively and creating new stuff: poems, clothes and drawings.

My mum and I experimented with new recipes and renewed old ones. Traditional dishes like caponata, lentil risotto, courgettes omelette, or desserts like Sicilian cannoli, meringues and sorbetto were reinvented and improved to the whole family’s delight. We also tried new recipes, like pasta with gorgonzola, water melon cheese cake, dark chocolate semifreddo, almond biscuits and courgette rolls. We didn’t always agree on everything (she tends to stick to the way she has always done things, which is sometimes the right way) but always ended with delicious results.

Some of the recipes are originally from youtube or magazines but I change them considerably as I find that experts are not always right, at least in cooking, especially regarding doses and the choice of some ingredients. I’ll post the recipes shortly on this blog in two issues: savoury and pudding. I hope you enjoy them.

The other thing I did with my mum was making clothes. I had some fabrics I bought at the market in Doha, Qatar, and really wished to make some garments out of them. I had some paper patterns for blouses and dresses but the pieces of fabric I had did not seem enough for what I had in mind initially. We finally made up our minds for a long skirt using a brightly coloured brocade piece, a long blouse (or short dress) for a green kind of light cotton fabric and a dress with a flower patterned cotton piece. It was my mum who mainly worked on them, which kept her busy. My daughter helped as well from time to time as she is studying Fashion Design at University. In the end three beautiful outfits came out and I proudly modelled them.

During my summer holidays I also went back to writing poetry. I never actually stopped but I’d slowed it down in the past two years. This time I took my time in writing, re-writing and editing new and old poems. I submitted some of them to competitions but I haven’t had any good news so far. I also contacted the Poetry School and enrolled in a course, which gives me hope for improvement in my writing and achieving better results in the future.

Last but not least, I am working on a PhD proposal about a project on Comparative Literature centred on the works of Margaret Atwood. The project should include fiction, music, visual arts, and study some masterpieces of western literature. I hope it will be accepted, fingers crossed.

It was a thriving summer on the whole.