Christmas time, busy time

Before Christmas, time was tight and hectic. The student I support at UCA in Farnham had some work to hand in and I had my own deadlines for my PhD. Besides, I also completed an article for the magazine Exchanges, University of Warwick, on The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood, which will be published in January 2020. I feel it is a big achievement, and I hope the results of my research will spread more and more as I think Atwood’s work and message are outstanding and innovative. The more I read of her and on her, the more I become passionate of my research and of Canadian culture in general. My Canadian experience last summer was riveting. I am planning to go back next summer to visit Toronto and British Columbia and see my Canadian friends as well.

Christmas shopping was great fun. I started in middle November picking up things here and there and ordering some things online. I bought loads of biscuit boxes in elegant packages from Museum collection and the V&A as well as last minute mince pies from Sainsbury’s and Tesco for friends and family. I found some lucky picks at charity shops, mainly china stuff, Christmas decorations, hats, gloves and a black velvet skirt for me I matched with a golden turtleneck and a red jumper. My mum wanted turtleneck jumpers from Primark and I also found a teapot with strawberry patterns I thought she would love. For my mother in law I bought some nutcracker Christmas decorations and for my husband and the boys Christmas socks and t-shirts with a phrase by Arthur Conan Doyle: ‘Once you eliminate the

impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’, which I thought would agree with their point of view. For my daughter and daughter in law I matched bags plus gloves and for Valentina, my autistic daughter, we prepared special treats. We spent a day with her before leaving for Italy and brought her chocolate, sweets, decorations to paint and hang, teddy bear and party clothes. She loved everything, painted the new decorations, drew one of her favourite cartoon characters, sergeant Roderick, with Father Christmas hat and when we went to the restaurant she dressed up in her black and gold party outfit. She ate all her food at the restaurant and enjoyed pulling the crackers and collecting all the little presents from everybody.

Before leaving for Italy, we had a day in London to see the Christmas lights in the centre and visit the exhibition Troy: Myth and Reality at the British Museum, which is on until 8^th March. The first part of the exhibition retraces the war of Troy as it is told in Iliad and Odyssey by Homer.  I remember most of the episodes as in Italy we study the war of Troy since elementary school. The captions were engaging and the artefacts on display astoundingly beautiful.

As the exhibition well explains, the war of Troy is the archetype of all wars in which heroism alternates with ruthless violence. This is well expressed at the beginning in the contemporary artworks ‘Vengeance of Achilles’ (1962) by Cy Twombly, a triangle smeared in red at the top, and in the installation ‘Trojan War’ (1993-4) by Antony Caro, which was inspired by Bosnia conflict. Though a city corresponding to Troy was eventually found by Heinrich Schliemann at the end of 19^th century in today’s Anatolia at the entrance of the Black Sea, the Trojan war’s stories come from a series of myths. They were very popular, told and retold by storytellers, painted on walls in houses and public edifices, similarly to the frescoes of the stories from the Bible in Christian churches, and even reshaped by Christianity until today. Trojan and Greek heroes were supposed to be the ancestors of Roman emperors and of the Royal Houses of Europe. Certainly, Troy was a powerful and rich city, a city of traders which was destroyed and rebuilt nine times in 3,600 years. The mythical heroes such as Achilles and Hector in Iliad, Odysseus in Odyssey and Aeneas in Aeneid by Virgil, have been taken as examples throughout centuries. Their deeds and legacy still resound in today’s storytelling. Achilles’ rage and vengeance, Hector’s heroic death and faithfulness to his destiny as well as Odysseus ambiguous cleverness, symbolise human life in its diverse experiences. Aeneas shows a different aspect linked to the Roman concept of legacy to ancestors and family.

On the other hand, the figures of women are controversial and disruptive. Helen is described as ‘destroyer of ships, destroyer of men, destroyer of cities’ by Aeschylus. She is the cause of the war as Aphrodite, the goddess of love, promised her to Paris to win the golden apple in the contest for the most beautiful goddess against Hera and Athena. This is a constructed intriguing story as, according to archaeological discoveries, Troy was destroyed because of its competitive trades that threatened Greek power in the Mediterranean and not because of the abduction of a Greek queen. Sticking to the myth, the female characters play either the part of the devote wife, such as Hector’s wife Andromache or Odysseus’ wife Penelope, the seer Cassandra, whose prophesies were not believed, or sheer seductresses such as Helen and Briseis, who caused conflicts. Nevertheless, they seem estranged from the events they are involved in, the object of seduction rather than the subject. As Christa Wolf remarks, ‘we have no chance against a time that needs heroes’ (Cassandra, 1983). But today we can give a chance to these women who underwent a literary lynch of sorts throughout centuries. They were wrongly considered the cause of violence, mistakes and sacrifices enacted by men.

This re-evaluation of women is present in some of the modern and contemporary artworks on display in the last section of the exhibition with works that range from Blake to Paolozzi, Burne-Jones, Poussin, Fuseli, Canova, Lucas Cranach the Elder and William Morris. Eleanor Antin, for example, in ‘Judgement of Paris’ (after Rubens), 2007, attempts a different interpretation of Helen of Troy, she says that ‘Helen is always vilified as a seductress and both admired for her beauty and feared for her power—yet however she’s interpreted, her place in our historical fantasy has always been legitimized, written, or painted by men. I wanted to humanize this woman, to find her beneath the covering of stories that obscures her to us.’ The picture is a photograph depicting the judgement of Paris with the three goddesses in the centre and Helen on the left side. She wears a Hawaiian outfit of sorts and is in a clearly marginalised position. She was used, manipulated both by the goddesses and by the ‘media’, that is the myths and storytelling. The final piece of the exhibition is the reconstruction of Achilles’ shield, in which earth, skies and a city (maybe Troy) are illustrated. They symbolise human life where both war and peace are present. The conclusion seems to confirm the impossibility of avoiding conflict that, however, might be solved in peaceful ways.

In December, I also attended two music events in London. Scheherazade: a retelling for our times by Rimsky-Korsakov at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, and Othello by Giuseppe Verdi at the Royal Opera House. They were both enthralling experiences. The four sections of the concert were alternated by readings by Ruth Padel, Daljit Nagra, Hanan al-Shaykh and DBC Pierre. It was mesmerising, both the music, beautifully conducted by Geoffrey Paterson, and the readings. They highlighted the power of storytelling as well as the subtle violence underneath Scheherazade’s story at the edge of the abyss. It is like a journey that allows to discover things but also goes beyond them in a dizziness between life and death. Her stories spread news, fragments of life, examples from which we can learn who we are and how to cope with the world around us.

Othello was beautifully played and acted. I was amazed by the elegance of the Royal Opera House, the restaurants, the shop and the beautiful costumes on display. I know the libretto by heart, so I could follow every word and aria.  The opera follows almost literally Shakespeare’s play making it more condensed. The music contributes to the ambiguity of the themes of the story and of the characters. They shift from faithfulness and innocence to betrayal and ruthlessness, trapped in their roles that are reflected in Iago’s constructions and manipulations. Othello and Desdemona are doomed and precipitate towards their destiny similarly to Greek heroes but, this time, from a modern perspective. They are isolated and unrewarded. The final winner is Venice, its power that rules overall and takes advantage of human weaknesses. Othello is an outcast and a failed hero, Desdemona seems complicit of her state, Cassio is manipulated by everybody including his lover Bianca, and Iago, despite his cunning machinations, is eventually caught and punished. The music seems to soothe the tragic ending in an encompassing vision of our fallen human condition. At the end of the show I had to rush to catch the last train to Woking.
After all these stimulating happenings, I finally headed to Rome to see my mum, friends and family.

Canadian recipes with an Italian twist

Inspired by Canadian products, I experimented different recipes both at home and with my mum mixing Canadian ideas and Italian cuisine. We produced cakes and biscuits that my mum shared with friends and neighbours. I also tried some Indigenous recipes twisting them in the Italian way, mainly adding tomatoes. Here are the results of our messing about in the kitchen.

Ciambellone with canola oil

You need: 250 g of flour, 120 g of golden granulated cane sugar, 100 g of ground almonds, three eggs, four tbsp. of canola oil, six tbsp. of soya milk, 50 g of white chocolate chips and 50 g of dark chocolate chips, one and a half tsp of baking powder and a tsp of bicarbonate of soda.

Beat the eggs with the sugar, add the oil and flour, the chocolate chips as well as the rest of the ingredients. The mixture should have a smooth consistency. Grease a doughnut cake tin with the canola oil. Pour the mixture in the tin and bake at 180℃ for forty-five minutes or until it is ready. You can decorate the cake with melted white and dark chocolate pouring it on the top of the cake and adding some gold and silver sprinkles to give it a Christmas feeling.

Peanut butter biscuits

You need: 300 g of self-raising flour, 120 g of golden granulated cane sugar or Demerara sugar, 50 g of melted butter, two tbsp. of soya or oat milk, three tbsp. of peanut butter, two eggs, some vanilla drops essence, 50 g of chocolate chips (optional).

Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough till smooth. Let it rest for half an hour then roll it out and cut the patterns. I used a maple leaf biscuit cutter for the chocolate chips version and a simpler shape for the plain peanut butter ones. Traditional peanut butter biscuits have round shapes that I marked with a fork criss-crossing the patterns. Bake the biscuits at 180℃  for fifteen minutes or until ready.

In Italy I also experimented different versions of these biscuits as I could not find original peanut butter in common supermarkets. Therefore, I used some spreadable products such as pistachio, chestnut or hazelnut spreadables, the result was delicious.

Indigenous recipes

In the struggle to maintain their culture and tradition, Indigenous peoples have always cared for the environment, that is, the life of plants and animals. For the Natives, they are closely connected to the humans. Their legends and the story of the origin of the world reveal a vision that includes both the good and the more problematic parts of people; they think that life embraces cooperation and competition, kindness and aggression at the same time. Their contact with the environment is profound and reveals a great knowledge of the land, plants and animals as well as of the weather conditions and its influence on the world. In the origin, Indigenous peoples were hunters and gatherers and used all the parts of the animals they killed. They harvested wild edible plants like wild rice, fiddleheads and berries. Here are some recipes inspired by their food heritage.

Wild rice

This is a kind of rice Indigenous peoples used to harvest in fresh water, in Turtle Island and lakes. You can use black rice or black and white rice.

For 2-3 people you need: 200 g of rice, two big tomatoes, one pepper, 100 g of mushrooms, broccoli, half of a white onion, thyme, parsley, salt and black pepper.

Cut the pepper, broccoli, tomatoes and mushrooms in pieces. First cook the pepper and the broccoli in a pan with some oil, add the tomatoes and mushrooms and let the vegetables simmer for half an hour. Add hot water if necessary. Add salt, black pepper, thyme and parsley. Cook the rice in salty water, drain it when ready and season the rice with the vegetables.

Three sisters’ soup

This is a soup made with what the Indigenous peoples considered the three sisters: corn, beans and squash. According to the legend they were born from the buried head of the Sky Woman’s daughter who died in childbirth.

You need: two cobs of corns, 100 g of green beans, 200 g of butternut squash, a can of red kidney beans, three big tomatoes, olive oil, a clove of garlic, salt and pepper, macaroni (optional).

Cook the ingredients separately in water. For the kidney beans, add a peeled carrot and half an onion in the water plus salt. In a separate pan pour some olive oil, add a peeled clove of garlic and cook three big tomatoes cut in pieces without seeds, add some salt as well. let the tomatoes simmer for half an hour. Drain the corn, the green beans cut in pieces, the squash in little cubes and add them to the tomato sauce. Add the kidney beans with the water as well (without the carrot and onion). Let the soup simmer for half an hour, then add macaroni if you wish.

Porridge pie with berries

Indigenous peoples used to pick different kinds of berries, especially blueberries. They were a food source and they also believed the berries had medicinal properties.

You need: 150 g of strawberries, 150 g blueberries, the juice of half a lemon. For the dough you need: 250 g of self-raising flour, 50 g of melted butter, two eggs, 100 g of sugar. For the porridge mixture you need: 200 g of oat porridge, 100 g of milk plus 100g of water, some maple syrup, one egg.

Prepare the dough mixing all the ingredients and chill it for half an hour. Wash and drain the berries then add the lemon juice and a tbsp. of sugar. Microwave the porridge with milk and water for two minutes. Add the maple syrup and the egg. Roll out the dough and place it on a greased pie tin. Add the berries to the porridge mixture and pour it in the lined tin. Bake for half an hour at 180℃ .

Icelandic biscuits

I was at a poetry event at Stephansson House in central Alberta. Pretty blond ladies offered us delicious Icelandic biscuits and lemonade. They also gave us the recipes which I tried at home with some success. Here they are:

Icelandic shortbread

You need: 200g of self-raising flour, 70 g of sugar, one egg, some cardamom seeds or half tsp of ground cardamom, 100 g of melted butter, grated zest and the juice of a lemon.

Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough. Chill it for half an hour then roll it out and cut the biscuits using a biscuit cutter. Bake the biscuits on a greased tray for 15-20 minutes or until they are ready at 180℃.

Ginger bread

You need: 300 g of self-raising flour, 100 g of caster sugar, one egg, two tbsp. of maple syrup, 80 g of melted butter, half a tsp of cinnamon, ground cloves and ginger. Some cinnamon plus sugar to sprinkle to top.

Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough. Chill it for half an hour then roll it out and cut the biscuits using a biscuit cutter. Sprinkle the biscuits with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar then bake them on a greased tray for 15-20 minutes or until they are ready at 180℃.

Vanilla biscuits

You need: 300 g of self-raising flour, 100 g of melted butter, 100 g of icing sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla essence, one egg, two tbsp. of maple syrup.

Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough. Chill it for half an hour then roll it out and cut the biscuits using a biscuit cutter. Bake the biscuits on a greased tray for 15-20 minutes or until they are ready at 180℃.

Have a go at Christmas, the biscuits are excellent treats to taste with mulled wine and hot chocolate on chilly winter nights.

Have a lovely Christmas time!😍