Baking bad

It was the second week of April and it was party time!
People were cheering all over Scotland, there were parties in George Square and jubilant headlines adorned the newspapers. Surprisingly enough it was nothing to do with Ka and my own birthdays coming around again. Seemingly it was all to do with some old bint that used to be Prime Minister kicking the bucket.
On Monday morning Graeme strode into the studio room with a humpf, mumbling about having to put another twelve pages on to tomorrow’s Record. A supplement had to be added at the last minute. Margaret Thatcher had died, but this was nothing to do with the reason I was in a happier mood than usual on a Monday morning.
The next day was Ka’s birthday and I had taken the day off, and Friday was my own and I had been able to get that day off too, giving me a long weekend to look forward to, so it was going to be a short week for me.
The second week of April is always birthday week in the Reid household as Ka celebrates her birth date on the 9th and I usually follow on the 12th, although when you get to this kind of age you really should make less of a big deal about it, and maybe even attempt to forget about it. After the headache I had all the weekend following the red wine consumed on the Friday night I sort of wish I had.
Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann came round to join us for dinner on my birthday during which we enjoyed Ka’s famous spaghetti and meatballs with more than a few glasses of red wine. Well, Mum and I did. Dad watched patiently, being the driver for the night, whilst Lynsey Ann joined Ka in drinking the bubbly rose wine she had found somewhere in the back of the drink’s cupboard.
Not that we have a drinks cupboard. We have one of those annoying gaps between kitchen units in which nothing will fit with the exception of perhaps either oven trays, bread boards or bottles. It’s only recently that we’ve registered the existence of it again, hidden away in the dark recesses of one corner of the kitchen. Sophie has kept us more than occupied for the past five and a half months to even consider any form of glass bottle beverage and even before she did, I rarely partook in the alcoholic beverages whilst Ka remained sober. At the moment I think there is a bottle of vodka, probably bought around 2011, with approximately four measures left in it, a bottle of Morgan’s Spiced Rum, possibly bought around the beginning of 2012, with around three measures left, half a bottle of Midori, bought through Kenny’s place of work over two years ago, a bottle of champagne, a gift upon the birth of Sophie, and three quarters of a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Port, bought well over three years ago as an ingredient to a tart. Altogether not your most opulent of alcoholic stock.
So as we drank the red wine bought that afternoon, Ka worked hard in the kitchen keeping us Reids well fed, finishing the meal with the Sainsbury’s Chocolate caterpillar Cake complete with candles and the usual chorus of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song.
Yes, I am 35 now, but no matter how old you are it apparently still gets sung. Not sure why but tradition demands it.
35. Officially in the mid thirties now. Well, now in my thirty sixth year. Creeping closer and closer to the 40 mark. Very scary stuff. But not scary enough. By 35 you should know what’s coming shouldn’t you. You should be prepared. You should have accepted your fate. The twenties are long gone. Youth is now a quickly diminishing memory. Pains will now last longer. Bellies will now properly begin to form. Hair will fall.
Well, in my case, even more hair.
Middle age is here, whether you like it or not. But still the song persists and cake must be eaten, even if you are developing a belly.
If I succeed in one thing as I get older it is to maintain a sensible waist line… although after birthday week I’m going to have to work slightly harder.
That morning Ka had held the candlelit caterpillar up in her right hand and held a rather startled, wide eyed Sophie in her left arm, our daughter looking around wild eyed as if the whole room was alight.
The caterpillar was only a small part of the dietary wrong doings of birthday week.
I had performed a similar ceremony on the Tuesday morning for Ka although, I have to point out, her cake was a little more original.
A handmade chocolate sponge covered in chocolate cream sauce, a recipe hastily downloaded on the Monday night at work, just before I rushed from the office leaving Graeme and the rest of the back shift to the joys of Margaret Thatcher’s 12 page supplement.
Ka’s birthday cake was a task I had took upon myself to try and gift my wife with something extra special. When considering birthday cakes Ka always reminds me that she’s not a ‘big sponge person’. No matter how many times she reminds me of this fact the idea of a big sponge Ka seems to pop into my head rather easily whenever she does say it.
Anyway, determined to make a sponge that Ka would appreciate, a proper big chocolate cake, I set to work in the kitchen, armed with what seemed like an army of ingredients picked up in Sainsbury’s on the way home.
In fact, it wasn’t the only thing I was accused of picking up.
Whilst in the bakery aisle in the local mega store, (which has grown a couple of miles and aisles wider in recent months), my Dad accused me of chatting up fellow bakery shoppers on two separate occasions. He had been getting a lift home, as he had been working in a solicitors’ office in Glasgow that week, and came back from a wander to find me talking to a blonde women, asking her what baking powder was. He then left to make a phonecall to Lynsey Ann and came back to find me chatting away to another blonde female baker who was kindly helping me find bicarbonate of soda. Of course, as soon as Dad accused me of not making a cake at all and just using the excuse to chat up women, this second girl suddenly looked very uncomfortable and quickly finished talking to me, pushing her trolley deliberately away, further up the aisle.
“Thanks very much Dad, I was just getting somewhere there!” I thought, impatiently. “I was just about to find out where the bicarbonate of soda was!”
After around an hour and a half in the kitchen following dinner, just before Broadchurch’s repeat at 10, the cake was in the oven.
That’s another worrying sign of middle age. Some movements and activities now circle around television times.
It’s easy to see why so many people turn into couch potatoes as soon as they have kids. After a day of either work, or chasing around after children, or both, all you tend to do is collapse somewhere, and that somewhere tends to be in front of the telly. Something else I’m going to have to keep an eye on… although I did get season 4 of Breaking Bad for my birthday so that kind of scuppers that idea already.
Surprisingly enough the cake came out the oven looking rather solid and at approximately eleven o’clock I iced it all up with 500g of melted chocolate and 250g of Double Cream (it’s okay though, I made sure the Double cream was of the ‘Light’ variety, so we’ve probably saved a few pounds there).
On Tuesday morning I greeted Ka and Sophie as they entered the living room with the fully formed chocolate cake, adorned with a 36 made up of Fruit Pastilles, a favourite chew of Ka’s, a large bouquet of flowers and a couple of pressies and punctual cards. After opening her cards, the wife was then treated to a plateful of scrambled eggs and toast and a mug of coffee before we headed over to Uddingston to see Dougie, Grace, Morgan and Joshua who were busy preparing a large birthday lunch. The chocolate cake was a hit with everyone and I bet even Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood themselves wouldn’t have had much bad to say about it.
Upon coming home Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann popped round and more cake was served up to which Lynsey and Mum gave quiet approval… a little too quiet. I suspect they may feel threatened by my baking abilities (as long as they don’t get the Mexicans involved I reckon I’ll be okay). They need not worry anyway, I won’t be baking another chocolate cake for a while. Cakes have a tendency to develop bellies especially with the amount of sugar and butter that goes into one (I couldn’t believe the amount of sugar I piled into that mixute?).
Saying that, I do have an abundance of flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in the cupboard now. One thing’s for sure and that is I won’t be making any visits to the Sainsbury’s baking aisle for a long time yet.
I would recommend it to all single guys though… it’s got to be cheaper than match.com anyway.

The waiting game

At the moment I’m waiting to find out when the interviews will be for the one available studio position in, the now flitting, S&UN prepress.
Barry and myself took a trip into Glasgow on last Wednesday after being invited over to Central Quay to visit the Daily Record building, S&UN Prepress’ new home. It’s more than a little odd going over and being giving the guided tour before you even know if you have a job.
We overestimated the journey time and we found ourselves waiting outside the building in the warm sunshine to go into the large office block on the Central Quay, looking out over the sparkling waters of the Clyde. It was around lunchtime so there were a few people milling about. Some smokers hanging around the corner of the building and some runners enthusiastically jumping out from the office block’s revolving door, people leaving the office on their lunch break to go out for a quick jog up and down the riverside. Barry and myself watched wondering how they managed to fit it all in, in a half hour.
When the time finally reached the fifteen minutes early marker, a reasonable amount of time to be mega early we thought, we went through the revolving door and gained our visitors’ passes from the front desk before heading into the canteen to wait for Kirsty, our host and tour guide. As we sat waiting I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen in the coming weeks. Would I be lucky enough to continue with my employment at the newly formed Media Scotland, would I be leaving with a redundancy payment, were there other jobs out there and was the lasagne really worth £3.50? I can make great lasagne but I wouldn’t charge someone £3.50 for a bit.
A canteen in a place of work that actually sells hot food?
I’ve never worked in such a place. The last time I was served a hot meal on a weekday lunchtime by a canteen was probably in Primary school. The meal was always spooned out from the large steel containers by the line of dinner ladies on to those all in one plastic trays, sectioned off in bevelled shapes for each course.
Getting school dinners was always a rare thing for me. School dinners were only a very occasional Friday treat, if treat is the word for it. The chocolate Rice Crispie cake was about as good as it got. Chaz always reserved his piece of Chocolate Crispie cake early morning, chatting up the dinner ladies, probably giving them some sort of sales pitch, even at that age.
Whereas, I was a packed lunch man. A couple of pieces, a packet of crisps and a fun size mars bar if it was Friday. You had to make sure you ate all your pieces though. Mr Stevens, the Janitor, stood over the large bin, eyeing you, and everything you chucked away, up suspiciously, whilst maintaining a constant vigil over the goings on over the whole lunch hall. If you even attempted to chuck half a sandwich away he would launch into a barrage of abuse, his voice echoing throughout the giant room, shaming you before the whole lunch hall and sending you back to your table with your tail between your legs and your unwanted piece that your Mum had apparently spent so much time over making that morning. Nobody was sure how Mr Stevens knew it was your Mum that had made your pieces that morning, not to mention how long it took her. He was always a highly suspicious character himself, if you ask me.
Anyway, in the Glasgow canteen, after a talking with one of the sales girls, who had moved over from the Hamilton building a few weeks before, Kirsty soon turned up and after a short chat gave us the tour of the building, going from the top, second level, where Prepress would now be based, all the way down through the busy floors, to the all important basement car park. There’s even a gym for when you’re wanting to run off some executive stress or pump some iron, handy for when you’ve had too much lasagne in the canteen.
An interesting visit but all slightly uncomfortable considering I have no idea yet on whether I’ll actually be working there or not.

The longest wooden spoon

Christmas pudding in the middle of February. A quick 3 minutes in the microwave and a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top makes a great Sunday night pudding. It's not exactly 'Masterchef' though. More like 'Swedish Chef' looking at the state of the kitchen afterwards.
The Chrimbo pudding has been sitting in our bread bin since Christmas Day now so I thought it was probably about time I broke into it. Not that I wasn’t satisfied with Ka’s wonderful risotto. A dish of rice mixed with butter, stock, peppers, chopped courgettes, onions and fleshed out with some chopped chicken. Delicious.
Better than Margi Clarke’s anyway.
On Saturday morning I switched on the tv whilst slurping down my tea, to see a clip of an old Masterchef, from a few months back, on Saturday Kitchen. The Liverpudlian ‘actress’, Margi Clarke, trying to make risotto. As she cooked she complained she wasn’t used to being judged. Her kids didn’t judge, they just ate, apparently.
It looked horrendous. Her poor kids.
Even the two loud mouthed hosts, John Torode and Gregg Wallace, agreed with me when they tried it for themselves.

Saturday Kitchen, the live morning tv cooking show, hosted by chef, James Martin, plays ten minute clips of old cookery programmes which could age from twenty years to twenty days of age. One minute you’re getting a clip from last month’s Masterchef, the next minute you’re seeing Keith Floyd downing another glass of wine whilst rocking about in a steam filled, claustrophobic little kitchen, on an old fishing boat in the middle of the eighties.
All this while James Martin kicks back and puts his feet up, sipping his wine at eleven in the morning, back in the television studio that is Saturday Kitchen with his celebrity guest who just happens to be appearing in the West End at the moment. When the old clips end and the cameras do get turned back on again, James Martin even gets other people to do all the cooking. In one section of the show two other guest chefs knock up a disgusting looking pile of raw egg and call them omelettes, following which Martin puts them up on the leaderboard, like some kitchen orientated version of the Test track challenge in Top Gear. Instead of an entertaining montage of a car racing around the barrel cordoned lap, struggling to stay on all four tyres as it slides round the corners, you have a steaming pile of yellow gloop destroying whatever reputation the guest chefs may have had before.
“I could make a better omelette than that guy!”
I’m always telling Ka as I drink my Saturday morning tea.
It can’t take much to get a Michelin star these days if that passes for an omelette. You wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole, or, in this case, the longest wooden spoon in your cutlery drawer.
Michelin, funnily enough, being a make of tyre as well. A tyre that would easily make a similar horrible pile of gloop by running over something on a road somewhere.
I wonder if James Martin would have a taste of that with his wee fork, before scribbling down a time with his big felt pen on his wee cardboard frying pans?
After a day’s jaunt in town, Saturday night was even better. We sat on the couch and watched tv all night.
Okay, not just the usual tv, it was The Sopranos, possibly the greatest drama series to have ever came out of America. But we were still couch potatoes.
I demolished a whole bag of Mackies Crisps whilst watching, Tony’s liking for heading straight for the fridge and the constant talking over the large and varied amounts of pasta dishes on the many dinner tables making me, ever so slightly, peckish as I watched.

There must be a plate of food in at least half of the scenes in each episode of the mobster drama.
Today, whilst cruising around the web, I discovered that there’s even a cookbook for sale, supposedly written by Artie himself, the restaurant owner, and childhood friend of Tony’s. Not only that, but there’s a book entitled “Entertaining with the Sopranos” supposedly written by Carmela Soprano, the wife. This title is full of recipes and tips on how to be the perfect host and the perfect dinner party. Paulie Walnuts even makes a contribution on how to host the perfect ‘surprise party’.
I’d imagine Paulie Walnuts would be great at knocking up a couple of Omelettes and Carmela would be a dab hand at the risotto. When it comes to the wine though I think Keith Floyd may just have had the upper hand.

Lasagne and inadvertant flirting

This afternoon I made the perfect Bechamel sauce for one of Ka’s lasagnes. It turns out I’m a bit of a dab hand when it comes to the old Bechemel sauce, mixing the flour with the butter and then the peppered milk and bay leaf. The two of us worked perfectly together in the kitchen preparing food for a certain somebody’s birthday gathering tonight. I think we surprised even ourselves as Ka usually ends up firing me out of the kitchen when we start working together over the hobs.
It was Ka’s Mum, Grace’s 60th birthday on Wednesday and, as is traditional in the in–law McGarva household, we went to their local restaurant/pub, Angels in Uddingston for dinner. This time a few of Grace’s friends were invited along to surprise her upon entering for the usual birthday meal. Ka, Colin, Jillian and myself went on down to the restaurant early to ensure the select number of friends invited were seated at the table waiting as Grace and Dougie eventually arrived twenty minutes later. Grace had probably suspected something was afoot when we had left the house early, using the excuse of getting money out the bank, but she certainly did not let on and we all enjoyed another meal in the Uddingston restaurant.
The food was okay and the service was okay. My chicken and rice soup was way too salty and I ordered steak and got a pork chop, which didn’t go particularly well with the pepper sauce I’d ordered to share with Colin who also ordered the same steak. Colin, who had been sitting opposite me at the large corner table at which we all celebrated, and myself also ordered the meal under the mistaken impression, due to my own fault, that bubble and squeak was sausage and mash, which is usually referred to as toad in the hole. So, in effect, I thought I was ordering steak and sausage not pork and cabbage. Along with the pepper sauce we ordered we made a bit of a pigs ear of it (whatever you call a pigs ear).
Upon finishing the delicious combination one of the friendly blonde waitresses came up behind me asking if we were all content and finished with our meals. As we had all been sitting with empty plates for the past fifteen minutes we all nodded politely, myself confirming the emptiness of my plate with a firm nod and vocal ‘yes’. Just as the waitress leant over my shoulder to retrieve my plate I, moving to the side to let her over, gave another, loud, affirmative comment of ‘beautiful’. For a few seconds I carried on smiling normally, not realising at first why the waitress looked slightly taken aback at me with a smile as she meekly took my plate away. I looked up to see Colin, struggling to contain a ball of laughter behind a hand clamped over his mouth. It was then I realised that instead of complimenting the food which had just been consumed, complete with pepper sauce, to others it had possibly, just possibly, seemed that I had been complimenting the waitress, her attributes or her lovely smile, just as she leaned over my shoulder to collect the dirty dishes. Of course, for the remainder of our sitting, this particular blonde waitress was named ‘beautiful’ and Ka and Jillian, following this course of action, christened the male waiter who had been serving us, ‘handsome’, even though they were not quite as blatant as myself when it came to the flirting (which I’d just like to point out, was completely inadvertent on my part).
The night finished with a few quick games of the McGarva tradition of ridiculously unfair and fixed pass the parcel after coffees and tea in Grace and Dougie’s house. The McGarva’s own brand of ridiculously unfair and fixed pass the parcel seemed to confuse a few of Grace’s gathered friends before they even got to unwrap any of the equally confusing parcels which included the usual diverse fair such as a feather duster, an ‘Armstrong and Miller’ book, ‘Camp rock’ pencil cases and a book on Yoga, the back cover blurb describing the physical and mental discipline exactly as how Yoda would describe the Force (a far more worthwhile discipline in my opinion).
With a trip to Paris on the cards, a fantastic photo book, created by Ka and yours truly, and many other great gifts from friends, Grace done pretty well turning sixty. She’s even sorted out her bus pass already so there’s no stopping her. Happy Birthday Grace, and enjoy the lasagne!

Bolognese and badgers

On Friday night there was a desperate search for organic beef. We travelled to three different supermarkets, throughout the wilds of Hamilton, seeking organic produce with which to feed Angela, Steven and Morgan who were due to visit on the Sunday. We went to Asda, Morrisons and then finally, Sainsburys where we managed to find some organic beef mince. Asda were useless with only a few organic beef joints which would have struggled to feed three people, and Morrisons had one lone organic chicken on the shelf. At least Sainsburys had one or two shelves devoted to the cause but with such little food available either we had just went in to the supermarkets at the wrong time of day or the organic food market is just not catching on, no matter how much Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall rabbit on. I did manage to make a cracking spaghetti bolognese with the organic meat for the visitation though which, I was told, was my best ever, so maybe there is something to all this organic carry-on after all. Personally I'm not sure it tasted any different to my usual 'conventional' bolognese, it just cost more to make this time round. Ka made the most expensive soup ever. £1.50 for four carrots?! I'd rather buy the non organic, pesticide riddled, insect protected full bag of ten carrots for 70p thank you very much and risk the possibility of Whittingstall knocking angrily on my front door. But then, that's the problem with the general population at the moment - too concerned about the holes in our wallets than the environment and what effects conventional food production is having on it?
Before the Spaghetti cooking we travelled down to Hawick on Saturday to visit Morven, Sean and Leo and see Morven's brother and his band play at the town's annual 'Party on the Pitch'. 'The Honey Budgers', sorry, 'The Honey Badgers' were excellent, though suffered the type error on the day's playlist and the support of a dreadful Elvis tribute act. Luckily we had our picnic lunch to divert our attention while he warbled. We sat on the green eating rolls, sausage rolls, Morven's vola vons and Sean's Mars Bar cake. After the Badgers, the dance outfit QFX took to the stage and the surrounding Hawick locals seemed to get a little overly excited about the beats blasting out over the Cricket grounds. Personally I thought 'The Badgers' were far more deserving for such a reception but there's just no accounting for taste. Shortly after, Ka and myself took our leave ending the day, after the long drive home, falling asleep on the couch with a bottle of champagne. Not sure what we were celebrating exactly but the bottle had been in the fridge for weeks and so Ka and myself decided that it deserved to be drunk!

Good reasons to stay off the pancakes

The sun is out today over bonnie Scotland and I'm actually looking forward to a bit of exercise tonight after last nights excesses.
After dinner last night I ventured into the depths of the kitchen's largest cupboard to find the non stick frying pan. For the first time ever, I was determined to make pancakes. After buying possibly the largest bag of flour on the Somerfield shelf, on our way home, I was horrified to discover we only had three eggs in the fridge. My recipe clearly stated I needed four. Disasterous news. However, opting to carry on regardless, I made up the batter and started producing some damn good looking pancakes of the large thinner variety, rather than the small, fat, chunky ones. The recipe did not seem to suffer too much with the lack of an egg. I even tossed them! That was a bit tricky to get the hang of. My first pancake broke apart on landing back on the pan, a few extraneous parts flying off to various points around me in the kitchen. Making sure I had cleaned up the rogue pancake parts before Ka came back into the kitchen I then showed off my handiwork serving them hot, with jam and ice cream. Fantastic. Afterwards Ka dived straight into the kitchen and reached for her flash. She claims I'm a messy chef which I find pretty slanderous. The way she cleaned the kitchen after I had been cooking you'd think the place had been attacked by the Swedish Chef.
Today is the beginning of Lent and a time of fasting. Probably a good thing as my Uncle Tom has been trying to talk Ka and myself into signing up for the Troon 10k. A distance I have not run in a long time... a good reason to stop eating all the fatty foods if ever there was one!