Spring time: hot cross buns and PhD proposal

I had a very exciting early spring time working hard as an IB examiner, preparing my literature lessons and assessments for my students and above all digging deep for my PhD proposal. I had also time to try new recipes: I experimented new cakes and, being Easter near, hot cross buns.

The brighter, warmer days and the energy boost that comes naturally with spring time gave me the right trigger to work on my PhD proposal and submit it. The idea came to me after reading The Blind Assassin, a true masterpiece. So many connections came to my mind together with a total sincere admiration for what I consider a real work of art, that I started to study about a year ago, research and collect critical works on Margaret Atwood and link it to other books I read in the past. At first my ideas were generic and confused but then they took shape and focused on the role of female characters, how their identities developed and were influenced by previous female characters in western literature (but not only in literature, in visual art and music as well). An intertextual kind of research sprang from it! I repeatedly visited the British Library in search of texts to support my work. It is such a beautiful place to spend time in, there are exhibitions, bookshops and comfortable reading rooms that looked like pleasant lounges. I felt so deeply motivated and younger, going back to my university years when I used to spend hours and hours in the Biblioteca Nazionale (National Library) in Rome or in the Vatican Library.

Studying in a library adds concentration and cosiness to the research as well as a sort of solemn aura: it is the temple of knowledge and you are in it to accomplish a task of some importance. And there is the pleasure of reading and researching that goes with it, of course. An exciting process of studying, understanding more, solving problems hoping to reach your goal at the end. All my passion and commitment to Margaret Atwood finally has a goal and I can dedicate my next years to the study of her work. What a great electrifying adventure!

In a typical woman multi-task mood (and in accordance with an postmodern Atwoodian mixture of genres and registers), I also had time to experiment a hot cross buns recipe from a magazine, but I adapted it as usual. Here it is:

You need: 300 ml of milk, 60 g of butter, 250 g of strong white flour, 250 g of strong brown flour, 100 g of golden caster sugar, 7 g sachet of fast action bread yeast, 1 egg (lightly beaten), 100 g of sultanas, grated zest of one lemon, 1 apple (peeled and grated), 1 tsp of cinnamon; for the crosses you need: 150 g of plain flour and 100 ml of water; to glaze you need: 3 tbsp of warm apricot jam or marmalade.

Warm the milk and butter and let the butter melt. Mix the flours in a large bowl, add half a tsp of salt, sugar, yeast, then pour the warm milk and butter in. Mix it with a fork, then knead the dough by hand till smooth. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let it rest in a warm place for at least two hours till it doubles in size. Remove the damp cloth and knead the dough adding sultanas, lemon zest, apple and cinnamon. Add some flour if it is too sticky. Divide the dough into round pieces and set them on an oiled oven tray. Prepare the dough for the crosses mixing the plain flour with water, roll it out and cut strips to arrange on top of the buns, securing them with water. Cover the tray with cling film and let the buns rest in a warm place for an hour. Bake the buns for 15-20 minutes at 200° C till golden. Finally brush the jam (or marmalade) on top when the buns are still hot. And enjoy!

Some recipes my mother taught me

My mum’s dishes are very simple but extremely tasty. She sticks to two basic rules in her cooking mode/approach: give it time and don’t make it too elaborate. Here are a few recipes she taught me in my recent visit to Italy.

Pasta e ceci (pasta with chickpeas)

Soak 400 g of chickpeas for 36 hours or use a canned product.  Boil them in salty water for about one hour. Warm some extra virgin olive oil in a saucepan with a clove of garlic. When the garlic become lightly brown remove it and add the chickpeas and the water. Let it boil and add some rosemary, three tbsp of passata and 200 g of pasta (macaroni). Let the pasta cook and serve it warm.

Coda alla vaccinara (oxtail stew)

This is an old recipe typical of Rome. You need about a kilo of chopped oxtail (or better veal tail) and plenty of celery. First boil 3-4 celery stalks in 2 litres stock for half an hour. In a pan fry some pancetta cubes in extra virgin olive oil and add some chopped celery, a carrot, an onion, one clove of garlic and parsley, add the oxtail, salt and let it cook. After half an hour add a glass of white wine, when it evaporates add 4 tbsp of passata. Finally add the water where you had cooked the celery stalks till it covers the oxtail. After half an hour add the celery stalks chopped. Let it simmer and the water evaporate. Serve warm with mashed potatoes.

Carciofi alla romana (artichokes in the Roman way)

The most difficult thing here is to find the artichokes, good tender ones. There’s plenty in Italy in December and my mother can pick the right ones just pressing her fingers on the outer leaves. Once you have them (let’s say from 5 to 10 pieces) you need to get rid of some of the outer leaves and cut the upper part to get rid of the thorns. Ideally only the stem and the most tender leaves around the choke should be left. Once it’s clean, pass half a lemon around it or soak it in water and lemon. Place a piece of garlic (a quarter of a clove) and some leaves of parsley inside, add salt and pepper. Cook in a pan head down with plenty of oil and some water. Cover the pan with a lid and put a paper (kind of bread bag paper) under the lid so the water doesn’t evaporate otherwise the artichokes will burn. It needs about half an hour to cook.

Minestrone soup

You can make this dish with the vegetable you like, my mum uses carrots, courgettes, broccoli, celery, cauliflower, potatoes, spinach and onions. She chops them and boils them in water for about two hours. She adds stock to the water, salt and some passata as well. She usually has it without pasta but you can add some macaroni if you like or you can also puree it if you prefer. She only adds some extra virgin olive oil and parmigiano once she serves it.

Spaghetti ai frutti di mare (spaghetti with seafood)

We had this dish on Christmas Eve when we usually have fish. Cook the sea food (mussels, king prawns and squid) on a frying pan with some extra virgin olive oil and a clove of garlic. Add salt, pepper, chilli, parsley and 3-4 tbsp of passata. Add some black olives as well if you like. Let it simmer for half an hour. Cook 250g of spaghetti in salty water, drain it and mix it with the seafood in the frying pan. Toss it and let it warm for five minutes. Serve it warm.

Torta di mele (cake with apples)

This is a special cake with apples cooked in white wine my mum and I made during Christmas holidays. You need to peel, core and slice the apples (about 800 g), then cook them in 150 g of white wine and 100 g of water with 80 g of sugar. When they are soft set them on a plate and pour the juice of one lemon on them. Let the wine and water boil till it thickens to make a sort of syrup. Prepare the cake by mixing 280 g of flour, 1 tsp of baking powder and half a tsp of bicarbonate of soda, 70 g of melted butter, 4 yolk of eggs, the juice and grated zest of a lemon, 120 g of sugar and the whites of the eggs whipped till stiff. Pour half of the mixture in a greased tin cake, spread half of the sliced apples on it, then pour the rest of the mixture on top and finish with the remaining apples. Bake the cake for about half an hour at 180 °C. When it is still warm pour the syrup on it and let it cool before serving.

What I did on February half term 2017

Finally we reached half term. It was a great relief as the beginning of the term was very stressful due to different reasons, the most testing one was the fact that the international school where both my husband and I are teaching is unfortunately closing at the end of the school year. The consequence is that we are looking for a new job.

Just before the holidays we had the International Languages Day at school to celebrate the different languages and cultures present at our school, that is more than twenty. Students and teachers were encouraged to wear their traditional costumes and parents prepared delicious typical food from all the countries. There was an assembly at the end of the day where all the groups could perform a song, a poem or a dance linked to their culture. It was amazing to see how the students were proud to represent their country in different interesting ways. My Italian colleague and I dressed up in traditional costumes as well (she was wearing a costume from the area of Naples, I was wearing one from Sardinia, which I had made together with my mum last summer looking at some pictures of Sardinian costumes a friend of mine had sent me. It took a long time to complete it but it was worth it). We danced a tarantella with a twist (part traditional, part hip hop) with our Italian students. Pardon my boasting but it was a great success!

During half term week we planned to see all of our children. My daughter came from Edinburgh to see some friends in London so we could spend part of the weekend together. We visited a stunning orchids exhibition at the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens, I had never seen such an astounding display before. The variety of the orchids species and the way they were arranged was absolutely superb. Some were on huge baskets hanging on water, others arranged in columns, or forming a peacock or on display on a cart. Special ones were hanging from the ceiling like floating multi-coloured angels, their brightness standing out from the glass ceiling of the hot-house, the stringy roots coming down like frozen green worms. The soft music in the air helped imagine the dancing orchids similar to unattainable damsels or precious jewels out of hand. There were all colours, from purple to striking pink, all shades of yellow, maculated ones, pure white, blue, burgundy. There were slipper orchids, spiky ones, tiny and big, solitary and in clusters. All of them incredibly attractive. It is such a unique flower, fleshy, sensual, with an unmistakably harmonious shape, a natural beauty. In the same conservatory just before entering the orchids exhibition, there was a display of cactuses and other prickly plants, an extraordinary contrast with the orchids.

During the week we went to Oxford for the Poetry Society annual lecture featuring the German poet Jan Wagner, and saw our son as well. He is definitely absorbed in his Physics studies but could find the time for a pizza with us and have a tête-à-tête on truths in Physics and in Literature.

Jan Wagner’s lecture (The shedding of skins and schemes. A voice of one’s own and the voices of others) was very interesting. It was about the different ways in which poets are influenced by other poets; they imitate the work of their models at first and then develop their own voice. Jan Wagner’s models were the great masters (Shakespeare, Heine, Goethe, Brecht) that influenced him in the first place inspiring love for poetry, his prosody and vividness of imagery. Nevertheless, the continuous readings allowed him to reconsider their legacy and let his originality emerge. This confluence of many voices from different poets and different poems results in the inevitable intertextuality that is present in all texts, an important topic for me at the moment as I am studying intertextuality in Margaret Atwood’s work. I bought two books: Jan Wagner’s Self-portrait with a swarm of bees, translated by Iain Galbraith, and Love Poems by Bertolt Brecht, translated by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn.

We also headed north to spend a few days with my autistic daughter Valentina near Doncaster. She was not well, a flu probably and a lot of coughing, but had enough spirit to take us around the school, showing us a new engaging sensory wall and see the new house where she is going to move into in two-three weeks. It’s a bungalow they enlarged for her, brand new and especially thought for her. I must say she looks eager to move there.

Finally we spent a day with my other son and his fiancée in Leeds. We visited their new apartment and had an update on the wedding preparations.

Coming back home we didn’t feel so well, probably Valentina gave us influenza.

Winter cakes, 2017

I tried these cakes with my mum and my daughter last Christmas. They are tremendously energising, perfect for winter time when I always feel the physical need to eat chocolate and other rich things.

Black and white donut cake

This is composed of two cakes with rich textures blended together, to make a typical winter treat. I didn’t have a ring-shaped tin so I used a 23 cm cake tin with a glass in the middle to make the hole.

For the white cake you need:

200 g of flour, 150 g of caster sugar, 100 g of ground almonds, 50 g of butter, 2 eggs, half a glass of milk, 1 tsp of baking powder, half a tsp of bicarbonate of soda.

For the black cake you need:

200 g of flour, 150 g of dark muscovado sugar, 100 g of ground walnuts, 50 g of butter, 2 eggs, half a glass of milk, 1 tsp of baking powder, half a tsp of bicarbonate of soda, 2 tbsp of liquor.

Prepare the two cake separately. Soften the butter using a wooden spoon, add the sugar and the yolk of the eggs. Then almonds (or walnuts, and the liquor) and half of the flour. Mix the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda with the milk and add it to the mixture with the rest of the flour. Finally whip the egg whites until stiff and combine them to the mixture. Grease the cake tin and the glass, pour the mixtures in, alternating white and dark to give a marble effect. Bake for 50 minutes, at 180 °C. When cool, dust with icing sugar.

Dark chocolate and hazelnut cake

This is an ideal treat for icy weather.

You need: 200 g of flour, 150 g of light brown sugar, 70 g of butter, four eggs, 150 g of melted dark chocolate, 100 g of ground hazelnuts, half a glass of milk, one tsp of baking powder and half a tsp of bicarbonate of soda; to decorate: 50 g of white chocolate, 50 g of dark chocolate and 100 g of chopped hazelnuts.

Beat the butter soft and add the yolks of the eggs and sugar. Melt the dark chocolate and stir it in, then add the ground hazelnuts and half of the flour. Combine the baking powder and the bicarbonate of soda with the milk and pour in the mixture. Finally whip the egg whites until stiff and combine them to the mixture together with the rest of the flour, mix well till smooth. Pour into a round greased tin and bake for half an hour to forty five minutes at 180°C (check bake by poking it with a skewer until it comes out clean). Melt the white and dark chocolate in separate pans and mix the chopped hazelnut half in one and half in the other. When the cake is cool spread the white and dark chocolate in patches or patterns on the top. Chill before serving to let the top set.

Apple Strudel

This is a classical recipe of a traditional Austrian pudding very popular in Italy as well, especially in northern Italy near the Austrian border. The dough is simple while the exquisite flavour is concentrated in the filling made of apples and dried fruit.

For the dough you need:

350 g of flour, 2 tbsp of olive oil, 2 eggs, 150 ml of lukewarm water, a pinch of salt.

For the filling you need:

800 g of Golden Delicious apples, 2 tsp of ground cinnamon, the grated zest and the juice of a lemon, 100 g of breadcrumbs, 50 g of pine nuts, 2 tbsp of liquor, 50 g of raisins, 100 g of sugar.

For the finish: 100 g of melted butter and icing sugar to dust.

Mix all the ingredients for the dough in a bowl, knead it for five minutes and let it rest for half an hour in a bowl covered with a tea towel.

Prepare the filling by first peeling and coring the apples, cutting them in pieces and then adding the zest and juice of the lemon. Add the rest of the ingredients, mix well and let it rest for a while.

Roll out the dough in the shape of a rectangle, spread half of the butter on the dough and pour the apple mixture in the middle of it. Roll up the sides of the pastry to wrap the filling and seal it. Brush the rest of the melted butter on top and bake  for 45 minutes at 180 °C.

When cool, dust with icing sugar.

White chocolate and almonds donut cake

This is a lighter cake compared to the others as I used sunflower oil instead of butter.

You need: 250 g of flour, 4 eggs, 170 g of sugar, 4 tbsp of sunflower oil, 100 g of ground almonds, 100 g of ground white chocolate, half a glass of milk, 1 tsp of baking powder, half a tsp of bicarbonate of soda, some vanilla drops; to decorate: 100 g of white chocolate plus one tbsp of milk and some flaked almonds.

Beat the yolk of the eggs with the sugar in a large bowl till mixture becomes pale. Add the ground almonds, the sunflower oil, the ground white chocolate and some vanilla drops. Combine the baking powder and the bicarbonate of soda with the milk and pour this in the mixture. Finally add the flour and the whipped egg whites (whipped till stiff). Bake for half an hour to forty five minutes at 180°C until a skewer comes out clean. When cool, melt a 100 g of white chocolate in a pan with a tbsp of milk and pour it on top of the cake, then sprinkle some flaked almonds.

Christmas in Rome, 2016

I was in Rome for two weeks during my Christmas holidays. The weather was cold but sunny most of the time. We spent the Christmas and new year’s days at home or family gatherings, eating big meals and playing cards. The food was gorgeous, the usual homemade gnocchi, lasagne, ravioli, fettuccine, and delicious torrone and panettone made in a local bakery where we bought a lot of products to bring back home. They had a nativity made of bread and biscuits filled with Nutella in the shape of a Christmas tree, then mostaccioli, ciambelle al vino (donuts with wine) and other mouth watering food.

We also played a new game one of my sons introduced to us. It is called Coup Rebellion G54 and it is basically about killing each other through lying. Each player has two lives and can collect tokens from the Treasury to spend to target and eliminate the other players. To make it more exciting, each player has two cards (which symbolize their lives) that allow them to impersonate the characters described in the cards as well as carrying out special skills. For example, if you have a banker card you can take three tokens from the Treasury instead of one each turn, and as the other players can’t see your cards, you can pretend to have a banker card. If nobody challenges you, you get away with it but if you haven’t the banker card and one of the other players doesn’t believe it and challenges your action, you have to show the card. If you haven’t got the card you claimed you lose a life and that card, but if you have it, the other player loses a life and you exchange your card with another one from the deck.

I played a game with my three children on Boxing Day and the first thing they told me was: ‘you have to lie, mum, if you want to win’. I found the characters of the cards intriguing, ironic and astonishingly lifelike in some cases. Here are some examples:

Guerrilla: can kill with only 4 tokens (instead of 7);

Priest: can collect 1 token from each player at each turn, except from the players who claim to have a priest card;

Judge: gives three tokens to target and the target player loses a life;

Intellectual: when a player loses a life they can claim the Intellectual card, they put the card aside face down and take 5 tokens, but loses the life all the same;

Communist: can take three tokens from the player with the most coins and give them to the player with the fewest coins;

General: pays 5 tokens to the Treasury and all the other players become targets and lose a life.

I think the list could be improved by adding, for example, the teacher, the headmaster, the conjuror, the estate agent etc. The player who survives this massacre wins, of course. I must say it was excruciating to choose which of my children to kill first, then I got involved in the game and it became easy. Finally, I managed to win twice without lying or pretending to be a character I didn’t have, which was something.

I received mainly books for Christmas, poetry collections and Margaret Atwood’s work, which I greatly appreciated, along with some beautiful earrings from my husband and handmade natural soap from friends.

Another must-do I never miss when I am in Italy is shopping, and, as usual, I bought a good supply of clothes, shoes and earrings. My daughter instead concentrated on bags and satchels but couldn’t find what she liked, I suggested her to visit M&M leather workshop in London once back in England. I also looked for some bomboniere for my son’s wedding. This is an all Italian tradition, a little present to give to the guests for important celebrations, like Christenings, First Holy Communions,

Confirmations, weddings, sometimes even graduations and engagements. They usually have some sugared almonds (confetti in Italian) in a little paper box or wrapped in tulle fabric and tied with a ribbon. Little fake flowers are also added, sometimes along with a small object, e.g. a key ring, a brooch or a tiny silver thing. The confetti can have different colours according to the event: white for a wedding (silver for 25 years of marriage and gold for 50 years), pink or blue for a Christening, red for graduations and green for engagements. I bought a few samples of bomboniere to bring to my son and his fiancée so they can choose the one they like.

My mum was particularly busy finding objects to renew her house. This is her main focus at the moment: making her home comfortable, redecorating or renewing part of it to fit her needs and making her feel at ease. The house is too big for her now and full of good and bad memories, she needs to do a sort of spring cleaning, let some fresh air in metaphorically speaking, and mainly reshape the two rooms she lives in most. I tried to help her move some furniture, assisting her in choosing new upholstery, arranging photos in frames and buying new things she could put in places she had emptied (throwing away what she didn’t like). We made a good start but there’s still lots to do.

About Valentina, my autistic daughter

Before Christmas I also visited my autistic daughter Valentina who lives in a residential school near Doncaster. When we moved south a year and a half ago, social services realized she was too unsettled at home and we couldn’t cope with her any more. She was unhappy, aggressive and self-harming at times and my husband and I didn’t know how to help her. At first she was in a full time respite care facility a fifteen minute drive from our house, Ruth House in Mayford Green. This was a temporary placement till they found a proper residential school.

She had an apartment and two members of staff with her full time. We used to go and see her twice a week and realized she was happier and more settled in a place where she had stable routines and could arrange the space around her in the way she liked. The staff were exceptional, they were flexible enough to meet her needs and firm enough to give her rules and routines she was comfortable with and needed in order to stay safe . They also had great fun with her at times when she arranged her clothes in a fashionable and unique way, or mixed olive oil and ketchup with everything (even grapes and ice cream), or when she spread her favourite food (e.g. salami) on faces and shoes as an alternative to cream therapy, and even when she flipped her faeces around, giggling defiantly. They missed her when she left.

It wasn’t easy to find a residential school for my daughter because of her challenging, aggressive behaviour and her habit of stripping her clothes. None of the schools in Surrey or nearby accepted  her, but after a few months the Hesley Group, based near Doncaster, said yes. Members of staff visited her several times, observing her for days, then last April the transition was arranged. It took about two weeks to move her from one place to the other with members of staff from Ruth House assisting her in Doncaster. Finally she had a permanent place to stay and we could go and see her in her new home.

We have kept visiting her every 3-4 weeks, more often during holidays.  We have also the chance to spend the night there as they have accommodation for visiting families at school and, if we stay for the weekend, they offer a great full English breakfast in the school canteen. We found her more and more settled every time we went. At first she seemed unwilling to attend school, as she had been out of school for months when she was at Ruth house, but then she was happy about it and her communication (mainly BSL, PECS and Makaton) has definitely improved. At school they have sensory rooms, a gym, a canteen, a computer room adapted to her needs. We visited the school with her, she looked proud and happy to show us what she did and where she lived. She also showed us the houses where her friends live and where she had previously had a party.

They adapted the house to her needs as well, nailing the table and her bed to the floor, buying special plastic chairs filled with sand so she can’t throw them to the staff and getting rid of the furniture or colours she doesn’t like. They are also completing a bungalow for her as they realized she was uncomfortable in a two storey building. Her eating habits improved, she accepts a wider range of food and has proper meals instead of grazing the whole day as she used to.

The school is in a village so she can go out in the community, to the hairdresser, to the restaurant or cafe and go shopping, of course, one of her favourite activities. We went shopping with her once, she absolutely wanted a pair of tiny snow boots so she tried them several times but realized they didn’t possibly fit, finally she opted for a number of DVDs she carefully selected.

At Halloween she had a treasure hunt at school and managed to collect all the pieces of a skeleton scattered around the place and assemble it. For Christmas there was the assembly, the party and Santa’s grotto. She enjoyed most of them and looked happy and settled in the school community. We also went to the restaurant with her before Christmas with some members of the staff. She went to the toilette to change her clothes several times but on the whole was settled. The members of staff who take care of her have long shifts (from 7 in the morning till 9 in the evening, then there is the night shift) so she doesn’t change too many people in a day, which used to unsettle her. They are very dedicated to her and know her very well now. In fact, they are like family to her.

We would like to see her more often but living so far and working full time makes it very hard. We think she is happy where she is and, being almost 17, she needs her own space like our other children. We miss her sometimes despite her challenging and unpredictable behaviour, she is an essential part of our family and we wouldn’t be who we are without her.

Before Christmas

My last few weeks before Christmas were hectic, showcases and parties at school combined with the last hasted Christmas shopping and cleaning before flying to Italy (a must-do chore in order not to do it when I fly back and start work again). I also managed to squeeze in a day in London visiting exhibitions with my daughter and went to the cinema to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, amazing. I was overjoyed to be in the marvellous Harry Potter world again (I had missed it so much) and look forward to see more.

Decorating my house for Christmas took some time as well, as I keep buying Christmas stuff every year, feeling the festive mood and being naturally attracted by all the cute hearts, stars and Santa in different formats. The result is that my Christmas tree is usually overloaded (it collapsed a few times), I had candles and lanterns everywhere and keep adding new items to my typical Italian Presepe (an expanded nativity), this year an English cottage and a blue donned angel from a charity fair. When my son came back from uni he said: ‘the usual clutter’, looking around the house. He referred mainly to the kitchen table, almost full of piled books, mags and notebooks (I normally put them on one side to lay the table when it is only my husband and I at home, which is most of the year).

Before Christmas I was invited to one of my colleagues’ house, a charming lady originally from northern Europe who welcomed her guests with warm mulled wine. I couldn’t help noticing how tidy her house was: no piled books around (maybe they hid them for the occasion), few pictures on walls and shelves, a sensible Christmas tree matching the surroundings and sparse lights on the windows. In my house there is hardly a space left on walls and shelves, crammed up with photos and souvenirs. We buy stuff everywhere we go, and keep everything. We collect dolls, shells, stones, tumbles, glass things, and still buy books. The result is maybe confusing, too much, or ‘clutter’, but for me it is lively as well. Perhaps one day we will give up the house to our books and collections and live somewhere else.

I flew to Italy a week before Christmas but, to be honest, I didn’t long to be there this time. I wished to spend time with my mum, of course, but I was aware that there were still too many things to settle after my father’s death. I knew it would be hard. Though I had some good times as well: good food, nice shopping and plenty of family time. Everything about these on my next posts.