That's amore

When the moon hits your eye...

PIZZA, baby!


Because I had the good luck at 17 to meet the best person I'll ever know (although granted, he was well-disguised as a scrawny self-important teen with a prog rock fascination I will never understand) AND the good sense to stay with the ornery cuss for 33 years, I am in the fortunate position of living with someone who loves and knows the very soul of me. As a result, his gift selection is brilliant.

I was dreading Christmas this year - the first year without Mum and to a large degree without Dad too because he needed to ignore it all for his own wellbeing. Mark found things to rekindle my excitement and engagement in the world. The man's a magician.

First amazing gift was from my parents-in-law at M's suggestion. They got me a wildlife camera so we can see who and what visits our garden at night. I'm absolutely delighted. I know we've had some hedgehogs over that past 2 years and that foxes visit to hope for a wandering hen (never mind the rodent corpses our cats thoughtfully provide) but actually seeing what comes when, and how it behaves is very exciting.

I've spent my Christmas money from my brother on a large charger and lots of rechargeable batteries so I can run the camera down the bottom of the garden. My plan is to move it every few days until we discover where we are most likely to see our nocturnal visitors.

The next brilliant gift was my own personal Springwatch experience.

I love Springwatch. I love Chris and Michaela and poor deposed Martin and I'm bearing with Gillian hoping she finds her feet as a presenter eventually but above all I love Iolo Williams. He's the lanky Welshman who bubbles over with enthusiasm and delight at all wild encounters in this tiny but remarkable country. Iolo's the reason we went to the Farne Islands and why I wanted to see a murmuration - I didn't know such things existed and he inspired me with a desire to seek them out.

He's doing a talk at a centre near my Dad for a local wildlife charity. Mark's got tickets for Dad and me and a copy of Iolo's book about UK wildlife so I can get it signed. I'm beyond delighted.

So far, so middle aged twitcher. Which is an identity I am proud to acknowledge, by the way.

But the third gift...

That's the "yeah, great, thanks for the two scented tree resins, Caspar and Melchior, but where's Balthazar with the gold?" gift.  Not just ace but brilliant.

A pizza oven.

assembled inside, but for OUTSIDE use only

I know it's a fairly shameful claim, but we eat more pizza than any family I know. Luke would eat pizza for every meal of his life if he could. I love Roman, Neopolitan, Chicago style -  all of it. I remember my horror moving to the UK in 1985 and seeing the ghastly cardboard discs passing as "pizza" here, and my cousins' bemusement at my disgust. (Britain, I love you but your food prior to the 90s was a damned disgrace). I've experimented with lots of different dough recipes, various cooking techniques, bought pizza tins, stones and peels. Ever since my Very Excellent Mate Nic talked about how she and Ady built a cob pizza oven on their croft on Rum I've been trying to persuade Mark we need one.

The Ooni 3 is a work of genius. Like my beloved Eglu did for hen-keeping, it makes wood-fired pizzas a doddle in your back garden. It's portable, it takes 15 minutes to heat up rather than the 4-6 hours of a cob oven and the pizzas cook in under 2 minutes. They are beyond anything -
I can't recommedt them enough. I made around 8 of them today, I think, maybe more.

The dough recipe I used was a very simple one - 500g strong flour, 300g water, 7g quick acting yeast and a heaped teaspoon of salt. I put it in the kitchen mixer for 10-15 minutes then moved it to an oiled, covered bowl in a warm spot in the kitchen. The first batch was done while the kitchen door was open and it was really cold so I popped it in the Instant Pot on the "yogurt making" setting for 90 minutes. The second sat in a sunny window.

Each dough batch made 5 balls weighing 160g. After a second prove I kneaded and stretched each into a 24-30cm circle (this is a lie, they were weird splodges). I put flour on the peel (official name for that metal flat thing that gets pizzas out of ovens) and plopped carefully placed the dough on it. 2 spoons of pizza sauce, a scattering of olives/pepperoni/nothing, a generous sprinkling of mozzarella and a quick shimmy to get it from peel to oven.

The thing cooks unbelieveably quickly. I charred the first one because I couldn't believe 30 seconds was enough before turning. (it was)

in which we learn 60 seconds a side is too long

Using the peel, I pulled the pizza out every 30 seconds or so and rotated it 180 degrees. Within 90 seconds to 2 minutes (depending on the temperature of the baking stone at the heart of the oven) each pizza was perfectly cooked.

one of many misshapen but delicious pizzas

I had a brilliant time. I was supposed to be making dinner for everyone but I got overexcited and made pizza for a late lunch first. This was serendipitous, as trying to use an unfamiliar cooking technique with FIRE and at up to 500 degrees Celsius in the dark would have been a nightmare. I did have a second batch in the dark but it was much harder to see whether things were cooked/burnt/undercooked so in future I'll stick to cooking with actual visibility.

It was wonderful to find things that are fun and exciting, especially when I'd anticipated this season with a fair amount of dread.

If you need me, I'll be pitting olives and sourcing 00 flour online for the foreseeable future.

Happy New Year, and may the coming decade be kinder than the last.

It's been a weird year

This is likely to be a clunky post. It's the "Previously in Jay's 2019", the one that recaps where I've been so I can move on.

The year started dreadfully because our ace Luke was in a bad way. Accessing mental health support when each arm of the service says "Yes, he's clearly badly in need of help, but not our specialised flavour of it" is exhausting and upsetting. However, things did improve eventually.

Obviously Mum's illness and death meant May and June barely registered.

A mystery illness in July had me admitted to hospital and meant I missed both RHS Tatton show and cancelled our 25th anniversary celebrations. In September it ceased to be a mystery and became an emergency surgery, onvernight stay in ICU, week-long stay in hospital on many drips and a long, slow recovery at home which pretty much ate up my life through to early November. It also scared the bejeezus out of Mark. However, I managed not to die so that's a good thing.

Luke and I had an overnight visit to London where we ate pizza 4 times in 4 different places to decide on London's Best Pizza (we have done previous research on this important topic in the past). My part in this wasn't very scientific because I had a different pizza at each place, so my contribution was mainly financial. Luke was a purist, naturally, and had a Margarita at each one.

Pizza Union was cheap and cheerful but its crust was far too crunchy and toppings a bit slapdash. Pizza Express was its usual self - overpriced for what it is but enjoyable enough. Pizza Pilgrims had a great sourdough base but the sauce and toppings were very soggy. Soho Joe was the runaway winner - great sourdough base, good sauce, plenty of cheese. Very friendly service too.

We also managed to fit in Book of Mormon and some serious book shopping time as well. That was the highlight of my autumn.

Mark turned 50 and bought a crazy car - swapped the much-loathed Ford for an enormous aged Lexus that's got both a hybrid engine and a cassette deck. It's very comfortable but also very funny. Cassettes. Seriously.

Understandably, Dad is very much not in the mood for Christmas. I did all his shopping/wrapping stuff to give him the chance to opt out, and then tackled my own. I feel like I've been wrapping things for days, but it's all done now - if not to my usual standards nor enthusiasm.

The kids have been great - they understand that I'm not feeling very celebratory and have stepped in to some of my previous roles. Mark and B chose the Christmas tree - only needed a mere 3 foot cutting off it to fit it in the house, and took a bit of the doorframe with it - and the 4 of them decorated it without me. They were very thoughtful and didn't use any of the handmade decorations I made with Mum when  was young. Finding a message from her on a gift bag I was reusing had me in tears all day, so the fewer trigger points to trip me up the better, quite frankly. Grief is hard.

Because the universe hadn't finished being cruel, Dad's closest friend died last week. He was a lovely man and a great support to Dad. His poor family will have a damned rough Christmas.

I've been trying to keep my Reasons To Be Cheerful 1,2,3 project on Twitter going through this year, even when it felt very hard to find them.  Above all my reason for cheerfulness has been the compassion, love and support I have been lucky enough to receive from my family, friends and neighbours. I'm a very fortunate woman, I know truly lovely people. My garden and its produce has remained a source of happiness and balance. Recognising and appreciating small pleasures whrn they occur has also been important.

As I escape this ghastly year, I wish everyone a peaceful New Year. I wish that hope, compassion and good hearts are enough to make 2020 better for all of us.
Have a good Christmas, however you're spending it.