Once....is all it takes

I saw the film ONCE this evening and completely fell in love with it and the music.

One of my favourite songs from the film is "Falling Slowly"  It reminds me that that i am so lucky to have experienced great love in my life and the fact that i am with my greatest love, my darling husband is just the best thing ever. I think huge inspiration can be found within love and within a great relationship. This april my husband and i celebrated 10 years of being together and it will be 3 years this year of being married. It is a great love affair and i never want it to end. I remember the first moment when i fell in love with him, or when i realised that i had, as there were many moments where i seemed to wake to the light and warmth and love in him. He was the first man who i could be completely myself with and with whom i felt home. He was the first man who i felt truly saw me. Friends have asked when was the moment that we realised we were together, that we were a couple. Well we never talked about it, it just was, it just happened because it felt right and although there have been difficult times we have always come through it because of this deep love, connection and crucially a sense of humour. He is the best person to have a giggle with and to make me laugh at myself.......thank god! Thank you Andreas i love you with all my heart.

Nothing is impossible when you believe in magic

To take risks and to do things that are life affirming, that make us feel more alive, more here, more in our bodies is crucially important. Without taking some kind of risk in life we would not progress, grow or improve. We don't of course need to risk our lives in order to experience these things but in some way they will be things that will stretch us, challenge us and concentrate us, bringing us back to ourselves and importantly allowing the movement that life needs in order to continue.

Coming across the trailer for the film  "Man on Wire" where Phillipe Petit walks between the Twin Towers on a wire,  i realise that sometimes we have to push ourselves to truly feel alive. To take this kind of risk obviously brings one face to face with death but also ultimately with life. It is inspiring, exhilirating and makes one believe that anything is possible if one believes and wants something enough. There are really no barriers, just illusions.

Man on Wire trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5aGddaC-gQ

Sundance Festival interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vztE8eeYFE&feature=related

Oh Joy, Joy, Joy

I am sorry for my long absence lovely ones, but i have been away visting friends and family in the UK for a few weeks, which was heavenly. But i also haven't been blogging because i've had rather overwhelming morning sickness (yeah!) and have needed to pile into bed early. Yip yip yipeee i  am so overexcited to be pregnant again and even though it's very early days, as i am only 6 weeks in, and i don't want to tempt fate i am too excited to want to hide the fact and would rather people knew, especially in these early days when i am feeling rather grim with sickness and exhaustion.

We are incredibly lucky, ooh ooh oooh, and i am thrilled at the thought of another child. We are already trawling the name books! I can't imagine though right now what it will be like with two as my love for Theodore is just overwhelming and it is heavenly just to be able to concentrate on him. But i am sure it will be amazing and i think it will be wonderful for Theo to have a brother or sister. I am so lucky to have a brother and sister who i adore so i definately want Theodore to have that too.

I wanted to thank you too for the lovely comments that were added while i was away and to say hello to my latest follower, it is so lovely to think that one more person is reading. I hope now to get back on track with blogging more frequently.
Love and joy to you all.

Freshly baked bread

There is something about baking your own bread and smelling its delicious aroma wafting from the kitchen that is just so life affirming. I feel so happy that after several attempts at making bread recently and failing due to not being able to read Norwegian as well as i thought (and leaving out the crucial ingredient, thinking that it was in the flour mix already) i finally have 2 loaves in the oven and they are already smelling heavenly AND rising! The key seemed to be when i brought out my grandmothers wonderful bread bowl which has been languishing at the back of the cupboard for some time, it was the missing piece (along with the yeast) because then it all just klicked into place. Kneeding the bread in that bowl brought back wonderful memories of her and her delicious bread, as she always made her own. Infact she made everything herself and was very very good at it.

She was endlessly creative making us clothes ( even well into our teens and they were beautiful), dolls, the interior for the dolls house that my grandfather made us and among other things always delicious food. She was also very bright and interesting and had an incredible memory, being able to recall historical dates and events from almost any era and she often retold wonderful Greek Myths and legends from memory. She was someone that was loved by everyone that met her, she had such a gentle angelic energy and was unfailingly generous with her time and her love. She sadly died in 1992 of Leukemia and she has been hugely missed ever since. I still feel the need to pick up the phone or to pop down to her cottage in Hampshire to chat to her while she worked out in the garden or while she baked. She was the perfect grandmother in every way.

We shall see if my bread turns out as well as hers once did, it has been a long time since i baked 'normal' bread with yeast. It's for my husband and son whose stomachs are fine with this kind of bread ( it is spelt bread as it is a little gentler than wheat and they both do better on it. I try to keep the grains i use on a regular rotation and i don't use too many with gluten), but i shall simply enjoy the heavenly smell and perhaps bake some things from Naomi Devlins recent post from her blog "Milk For The Morning Cake". She bakes such delicious gluten, dairy free and SCD friendly cakes, breads, muffins and much much more. It is a treat just to visit her blog as she writes so beautifully and creates such inspiring recipes.

I also made a quick Banana Bread from Lucy Burney's "Optimum Nutrition for Babies and Young Children" ready for my sons lunch box tomorrow. It is one that i can have and have therefore already been munching on, too eager to wait for it to cool. Raw treats are still the ultimate treating food for making me feel good afterwards but this is comfort food at its best.

Banana Bread 

Ingredients 

100g (4 oz) Self rasing wholemeal flour or gluten free flour 

1.5 teaspoons of mixed spice

50g (2 oz) butter or coconut oil

75g (3 oz) sun-dried raisins

225g (8 oz) banana i.e 2 large bananas

1 organic egg, beaten.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C /350degrees F/ Gas Mark 4

Mix the flour and spice in a bowl. Rub in the butter/coconut oil and stir in the raisins.

In a separate bowl, mash the banana and egg. Stir into the flour mixture and put into a well greased rectangular loaf tin.

Turn the oven down to 160 degrees C /325 degrees F/ Gas Mark 3 on the middle shelf for 1 hour or until cooked.

Grandmothers are unique and can be uniquely amazing, mine certainly was and like the bread she baked she will live on in my memory forever.

The ritual of sharing tea

The thought of drinking tea makes me smile and brings back many happy memories of tea parties and drinking mugs of steaming tea with friends and family in almost every situation.
Tea drunk from beautiful china in places like West Hampsteads Bake a Boo tea shop in London, a tea place that has a vintage feel and a delicious range of speciality cakes and treats that are free from gluten and dairy ( they also do egg and sugar free treats). My sister and i would often cycle there to meet and share tea and gossip when i lived in London.

Bake a Boo, 86 Mill lane, West Hampstead, London

Memories of tea shared in friends homes when the moment arose- i think i have shared many cups of tea on my friend Nicole's comfy sofa with her and her husband Justin (our favourite for a while was Sleepytime tea by Celestial Seasonings), birthday parties and celebrations, tea shared out in the forest in the snow or on a beach on a cold day/evening when your hands and your body need warming, and one of the best cups of tea that i have ever had, not because of the taste but because it was so needed, was just after the birth of my son Theodore. It was the strongest black tea i have ever consumed, which normally isn't my thing, but somehow after a 13 hour labour it was all i felt like and it really did help to restore some energy. Infact for both myself and my husband it was just perfect timing, although i think he would have liked a good shot of whisky in his!

Now i turn to tea for my son. Firstly so that we can have lovely tea parties together with herbal tea brewed and left until luke warm when it is ready for him to gulp down with glee out of proper china cups.

But secondly as a recent addition to help him sleep, we have been brewing up a chamomile tea for him to drink while we have stories tucked up into bed together. Apart from that being a heavenly experience in itself it has been helping him to sleep better recently which makes for a very happy mama, papa and son.

I love the ritual and i love the sharing that goes with drinking tea together.

Luckily my family and many of my friends love it just as much as i do.

Spicey Millet cakes

OK it's not cake cake but it is a delicious savoury recipe by Susan Jane Murray that will have you coming back for more..and more and more. They are so easy to make, delicious to eat and really useful when you are out and about for lunchboxes for yourself or your children. I made them on sunday night and wasn't able to put any in the freezer simply because they vanished from under my nose, and not just into my own tummy.....honestly see for yourselves!

Susan Jane Murrays Millet Curry Cakes

dangerously delicious

1 &1/4 cups whole millet flakes

3-4 cups boiling water

1 tablespoon red curry paste

1 banana, diced ( it sounds odd but it simply adds sweetness, you can't taste any hint of banana flavour. I also added a handful of chopped apricots)

1 large carrot, grated

3 tablespoons mild curry powder

squeeze of lemon juice

2 crushed garlic cloves

4 scallions ( spring onions) chopped

1 cup of desiccated coconut

extra-virgin coconut oil to fry

(Addition: handful chopped coriander)

Susan Jane Murray says: "This recipe makes 8 chunky kind of burgers; 6 for the freezer, and 2 for tomorrow’s lunch. That’s 4 lunches in total (bonus!) provided you don’t wolf them all down while hot.
Cooking with millet may be entirely new to you and your apron. If so, lucky you found this ravishing recipe because I have uncovered some spectacularly appalling recipes during my research, which I vow to protect you from! All recipes in my book cater for digestion problems, but particularly those including millet. Remember, look after your gut and you will stave the aging process, boost your immunity, and jump start your libido. "

1. Dry-fry the millet on a low heat in a heavy based saucepan until a nutty aroma fills hits your schnez (approx 2 mins). This is called ‘toasting’ the grain to bring out the flavour.

2. In a cup, pour boiling water over the curry paste and stir. Add to the dry millet, with remaining cups of boiling water (the best bit - bubbles like a cauldron!) Cover with a tight lid for 20-25 mins on a low simmering heat. Watch it until it soaks up the liquid, and taste to see if it is cooked sufficiently.

3. Meanwhile, prepare the remaining ingredients. When millet has absorbed all the liquid, remove from heat and add curry powder. Replace lid immediately and let stand off heat for 15 minutes. We’re aiming for a dry and fluffy mash.

4. Remove lid, stir in the rest, and adjust seasoning to liking. It may need more coconut to bulk up and soak up moisture (although cooking in a heavy based saucepan eradicates this)

5. With slightly damp palms, shape into large burgers the size of your palms while warm. Do not allow mixture to cool and solidify before moulding. It’s quite beligierent and will cruely crumble on you, refusing to stick.

6. In a large frying pan, heat virgin coconut oil on high and fry one minute each side until golden brown. Note excessive flipping causes crumbling. Allow cool.

7. If freezing, do so before frying and fry upon defrosting. Allow to cool before packing into lunch box. Will keep in fridge for 3 days.

Serve with a huge green salad and SJM's Avocado Whip: avacado, lemon juice/cider vinegar, water, seasoning and then blend together, hmmm, it is official: Susan Jane Murray truly is a culinary genius.

Inspiration Cafe

My friends and i had such a fabulous time on sunday at the aptly named I n s p i r a s j o n s  k a f é . It is a once a month or sometimes twice a month Raw Food cafe run by raw food chef Anne Madhumavi Olsen in her home at Stubberud gård, Sørkedalen, Oslo. It was truly inspiring and i think if you had filmed us eating the Abundance tallerken/plate it would have made a fabulous advert for what she does. We were in raptures over every mouthful and were very voluble about how amazing we thought it all was. Each item was truly delicious and we ate our way through so many wonderful tastes and different types of raw food, it was just a treat to sample it all. We had raw pizza, raw pasta made from courgette with the most delectable sauce and  salads with delicious dressings and tapenardes. It was a wonderful tapas experience. We even found room afterwards to share some raw cakes, mmm what heaven and all eaten out in the sunshine looking out onto a beautiful view.

Her home is a beautiful old farmhouse called Stubberud gård out in the countryside to the west of Oslo ( we walked most of the way from the Røa T-bane past a large lake and the Bogstad gård, so worked up a good apetite) and the perfect setting for it all. It is has big, light rooms (good for the talk they had that afternoon and when the weather isn't so good and to live in too!) and a big balcony/patio out at the back where we sat to soak up the sun and sample the delicious food. It was a beautiful experience and very special to be welcomed into her home with such warmth and love. I loved having the opportunity to talk to people and sample various raw food items for sale and even have shots of wheatgrass ( not to be repeated on its own for me, although it was sweeter than i thought. I have previously only ever had it in powder form mixed with something else). She also had some some raw food kitchen equipment for sale and there were raw food books and magazines to browse through.

To sit out in the sun and munch our way through a heavenly feast of raw food that set our tastes buds on fire was just the perfect way to spend a sunday. We are already looking forward to the next one!
But next time i will definately bring my camera, so i apologise for the pictures here as i feel they don't come close to capturing the magic.

TRULY AN INSPIRATION


(P.S Update: Anne Madhumavi Olsen has now set up with Lars Grini the Helt Rå Food Cafes in Oslo and Sandvika. )