Christmas Baking

I love baking at Christmas. My traditional concocting, early on in the holidays, consists of lemon curd, bar mix (for the all-important, super-Christmassy Amaretto Sours - and I didn't bruise my hand this year, thanks to my new hand-held lemon squeezer) and Tunis Cake. Marzipan fruits too, this year, courtesy of Holland and Barrett.

This year I added some Christmassy mince pie Chelsea buns, as per my recipe of a few weeks ago; these are lighter on the ginger and have prunes added. I also made them smaller and baked them for a bit less time. They are perfect, if I do say so myself.

Having lots of time on my hands always makes it possible to make my own croissants; yesterday involved a lot of rolling and flouring and turning. Totally worth it: these are a marvellous treat, and I have a freezerful to last me over the whole holiday.

And this is about to go in the oven for Christmas Eve dinner: apple, mincemeat and nut strudel. It doesn't look so good now, waiting to bake, but it is very delicious.

January is going to be a month of deprivation, I can tell. But I *am* going skiing next week, so I need all the carbs I can get. Honest.

Holiday FO: Silk Turban

I accidentally knitted myself a turban.

I am quite pleased with it, really. Of course, it's meant to be worn this way round -

But I do like it with the gathers at the front. Mr Z suggested I get a big jewel to pin on the front to make it really turban like.

Pattern: Ana, by Perl Grey (lots of patterns here...you have to scroll sideways to find it.)
Yarn: 100% silk from Wingham's Wool Works. This may not be the best choice for a hat...it already feels a little loose. But it is gorgeous and very soft and the colours are just lovely.
Needle: 4mm
Mods: None. I probably should have knitted the biggest size but I wasn't sure how much yarn was in the skein and I didn't want to run out, so I knitted the medium. It's definitely big enough but it lacks that looks-too-big quality that the designer's models have.

It has taken me a year to finish, even though it's essentially just a st-st rectangle with some clever finishing (REALLY clever pattern); to begin with it was slow going, in the way that some yarns are just slow to knit. Then it was lost, along with the socks. Then I was busy, and who needs a hat in the summer, anyway? Or a turban, for that matter.

One picture from the back, for good measure.

Look at the COLOUR! Lovely.

Weekend FO

Incongruous to finish these on the shortest day of the year - summery watermelon socks.

They are finally finished! I bought this kit in January 2012 and was horrified when it got to last Christmas and I realised how long I'd had it and how much I wanted to knit it. I cast on in January. I was interrupted for the Ravelympics, so I vowed to finish them on the ski trip. I left them on the coach and it took 10 weeks for the project to make it back to me (I thought they were lost forever!). Then I was knitting summer tops; then I was knitting hats. Finally on Saturday I pulled them out again and got the last four inches done in a day and a bit. Very quick, once I put my mind to it! No way should socks take a year.

The kit was from the Knitters Brewing Company - I am linking to their sock kit page because there are several fantastic kits on it.

Italy: Roma Day 1

On our first full day in Rome, after a bit of a lie in, we ventured into town to see the sights. This was mainly going to involve an open top bus tour and a variety of other touristy places; in the end it was so hot and we were so like snails because of this that we managed the bus, Il Vittoriano, the Coliseum and a trip to the Trevi Fountain that ended badly because it was drained and scaffolded for works. Boo. This was fueled by frequent stops for coffee and coca cola, and shaded by a little parasol that I bought from the roof of the bus, which was thrown up to me by the vendor. In one cafe the waiter asked me to write the English translations of his granita flavours down for him, and then came back with a marker and a piece of paper and asked me to write the sign for his window because my handwriting was so neat. Love it!

Here are some pictures. Naturally, I took a lot. The first few are from the bus tour.

The Basilica.

 Temple of the Vestal Virgins. I remember this one from Latin class.

Castel Sant'Angelo, a big building next to the Vatican which looked intriguing. It's on the list for my next visit.

Il Vittoriano. This is nicknamed the Wedding Cake and is a monument to the country's first king, Victor Emmanuel II. They had some pretty vicious guards ensuring nobody made the mistake of sitting on the steps. There was also a lift here, to the roof of the building - if you're going to do one thing here, I would recommend this. I could have spent hours up there taking pictures of the skyline.

You can see our hotel in this one, directly behind the Pantheon, on the hill just in front of the mast.

Boy, was it hot! I did everything I could to keep my hair back out of my face, but most of the day, all I could think of was getting back to the hotel and throwing myself into the freezing cold plunge pool in the spa. First though, we braved the queues for the Coliseum - at least they were in the shade.

I love places like this. The weight of the history is really strong and I could have stood there for hours imagining the roars of the crowd and the desperation of the reluctant gladiators, and the euphoria of the ones who made a successful career out of it.

Much has been made recently in Rome of the rabid seagulls who have become extremely cheeky. Indeed, recently apparently one killed one of the doves the Pope released to symbolise peace in the world, in front of a horrified crowd. You couldn't make that up. They are certainly posers.

I think this is my favourite picture. Rampaging on a chariot into the blue.

We went home via a rather unpleasant tourist eatery staffed by rather over-familiar waiter. I am definitely a food snob and the night at la Pergola had done nothing to mitigate against this. However, it was followed up with ice cream, and I did go back and gratefully sweat out the day's grime in the steam room and then fling myself into the freezing plunge pool, while Tutt sipped her wildly over-priced orange juice and wrote post cards. A winning day.

Italy: Dinner at La Pergola, Roma

Like I said, when we were planning Italy we made the conscious decision to splash out on the Waldorf Astoria in Rome, to the point where we scrimped a little in other places. After a bit of back and forth on the subject, we decided to go to La Pergola for dinner on my birthday. This is the three-Michelin-starred restaurant on the roof of Il Cavalieri, with panoramic views of the city.

I can't even begin to put this into competent prose so I'm just going to blurt out everything I can remember in bullet points.

• Every time we got up for any reason, a waiter would silently appear and refold the napkins. We both had our napkins replaced during the meal at some point.
• They brought me a special little table for my bag.
• The bread came on a trolley, with a man in white gloves, who asked what bread we'd like and then moved it to a golden plate with tongs, walked round the table and removed it to our side dish, again with tongs. The bread cart came back whenever our bread plates were empty.
• The bread was serve with monogrammed butter, but also with very good olive oil and a selection of salts, from the salt menu. We tried a local Italian salt, a pink salt from the Himalayas, and a spiced salt from Morocco.

• The aperitif was a choice of three sparkling wines, wheeled to the table in a huge copper bowlful of ice. This turned out to be complimentary - score!
• There were two wine lists - Italian, and rest of world - though they'd be better named wine books (see picture). The Sommelier managed to almost hide his disappointment when we ordered a bottle of white (Greco, which I'd read about in the hotel magazine) and said that perhaps we might try a glass of red later. Having recently got back into red wine after a long time avoiding it, I'm now quite sorry that I didn't take him up on this.

• We also had to choose a water, from a very extensive water menu.
• We did play with the wine waiter a bit by drinking up after he'd just walked past us. His sole job, it seemed, was to keep the glasses topped up. I started to get concerned that he might get into trouble if we kept playing this trick on him.
• I can't even talk about the food. It was just amazing. We had the tasting menu, but Tutt doesn't like fish and 6 of the 9 courses were fish; when she said this, they managed to rustle up a whole tasting menu of non-fish dishes.
• One of her dishes was a ravioli that had pork in it and some kind of consomme, so it was liquid when you bit into it.
• One of my dishes included cod snow.

• Another one of my dishes was called "The Sea". It was served in a dish which had a small alcove in it, on which was a green cube. At a given signal, a waiter whisked in and poured some kind of thin soup over the cube, which instantly dissolved to produce the very smell of the sea. Amazing. Like theatre.
• There was a cheese trolley. I ate pecorino with strawberry jam. This is an astonishingly good combination. 
• When it came to dessert, we counted 22 separate desserts. I'm not joking. There was the pre-dessert dessert, which was ice cream; then a selection of hot desserts, and a selection of cold desserts, and this awesome silver box which had two tiny cakes in every drawer.

• The waiter told us these silver boxes are handmade for them in Venice to a prototype they drew up, out of something like 4lbs of silver. It's called the Box of Delights. It was delightful.
• Just when we thought the desserts were over, they came out with one last thing - a big piece of cake with a candle in it, for my birthday. The waiter asked if he could take a picture on his camera, which seemed a bit odd but we allowed it. I blew out the candle, the cake was cut in half and served to us, and then the waiter was back - the printed out photograph in a commemorative card. Just, wow. 

• The toilets had an odd thing for napkins, where you had to pull one up and it was joined to this frame on a ring, so that after you'd dried your hands it went straight into the basket. Unusual but memorable. 
• One my way to the toilet I saw a young gentleman in sweats, clutching a plastic bag, trying to talk the very polite hostess to let him in just for dessert. She was not having any of it. 
• Apart from her, all the other staff were male.
• We got there first and were almost the last to leave: this epic meal took us about five hours to eat and we staggered back to the room, uncomfortably full.
• We got to meet Heinz Black, the famous chef, who came out to meet the few remaining diners at the end of service. The American couple on the table next to us were absolutely raving about how eating there was fulfilling a lifelong dream, which made me realise - it's probably a bit more famous than we knew when we booked it. When he came to us I asked him what his favourite place in Rome was, and he said the Pantheon, although Rome in the spring is beautiful when the rose garden is in bloom. As a result of this, I went to the Pantheon on the last day.

I think that's just about everything. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday meal! It did involve quite a lot of advance planning and saving, but it was totally worth it.

Italy: Il Cavalieri, Roma

Back to blogging about the holiday. It's the only way to make it to 127 in the next week and a bit!

On my birthday, we hopped in our hire car and hot-footed it up to Brindisi airport for our flight to Rome. It was only half full so we both got window seats, which allowed us both the exciting view of Italy racing away beneath us on the short flight. A train into Rome, a walk in the blistering heat with our cases and a taxi ride later, we found ourselves in the very lap of luxury.

The taxi driver told us we were staying at the best hotel in the city and he wasn't kidding. It's a way out - about 10 minutes' drive from the Vatican, although they run an hourly shuttle to and from Bernini Square - but it is totally worth it. We agreed we would splash out on a stay here and we were not disappointed. Particularly not Tutt: I don't know if I've ever seen her look so happy.

Little things in the room gave away the quality - two stands for suitcases instead of just one; the biggest, comfiest beds with huge marshmallow duvets; a wardrobe with a light inside; a three pin plug socket; a pillow menu; complimentary bottled water; a turn down service with a sweet on the pillow every night; a concierge who sent a maintenance man up immediately when, on the third night, I couldn't work out how to turn out the light illuminating one of the paintings and didn't want to us the kill switch and have to walk back to my bed in the dark; a bathroom with a marble floor and counters; a big mirrored door that pulled shut between the bedroom and the front door to cut down the noise from the corridor; and, my favourite, shutters that could be switched off and on from the bed.

Every morning we ate breakfast by the pool, from quite possibly the biggest breakfast buffet I've ever seen; on day three we shared this space with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, who were planning that ill-fated trip to Argentina that was on the news this autumn. We perused the art collection, only a tiny amount of which is on display in the lobbies....I quite liked this one of a woman scaring a cat with a bird, in the ladies' toilet.

The ladies' toilet was like the hall of mirrors.

And the spa! Oh, the spa. I couldn't cope. It was just epic. There were separate saunas in each changing room, and a huge steam room with a freezing cold plunge pool, separated from a large jacuzzi by a screen of smoked glass. We went there on my birthday afternoon and eventually ended up, wrapped in our enormous fluffy robes, reclining on couches in a darkened relaxation room, with lemon water and a skiing program on the TV. Absolute heaven. On the next day, when we were sweltering on the open top bus and gingerly strolling around the Coliseum, trying to stay in the shade, all I could think about was getting back to the spa so I could enjoy the freezing cold plunge pool and do some yoga stretches in the steam room where it was too steamy for anybody to notice.

They have an indoor and outdoor pool, too; the indoor one was closed for maintenance but Tutt took a dip in the outdoor one. The website suggests that this costs but it only really costs if you want to use a sun lounger. The spa was half price on the first day and free when I went the following day, presumably because we went in the afternoon and then I went an hour before closing. Excellent value. On the last day I had a La Prairie facial which was very relaxing. They have a fully equipped gym which we looked at but did not use; I did go for a bit of a jog round the grounds and use some of the equipment on their fit trail, though.

I think the thing that impressed me most about it was how many things were included - services that we thought we might be charged for, like the porter bringing our luggage to and from our room. When the bill came at the end, it was not as eye-watering as I had feared, thanks to things like the spa being discounted. Tutt was quite horrified at being presented with a bill for 24 euros for 2 orange juices in the lobby; tea was much better value at 7, served in a silver teapot on a silver tray. So, I guess it wasn't what you would call cheap. But it was nice having the bottled water replaced daily, there was free wifi in the public spaces, and the breakfast being included made a huge difference to the overall cost.

We've now decided that we must try all the Waldorf Astorias in the world, for comparison. I can't see how any of them could measure up to this, mind you.

The FOs

Difficult to know whether I mean the hats or the kids, really.

They are such a marvellous bunch! It's a hard slog getting a new tutor group in year 7 when they're so needy and lack resilience, or the ability to maintain a civil tongue in their heads towards one another. Then the hormones start raging and there are epic fall outs and people leave and new people join, and I just think longingly about being a sixth form tutor with students who are mature and know what they're doing and don't tell me to f off when I ask them to tone down their ridiculous eyebrows or come to school on time.

But then they get into year 11 and all that doggedly maintaining consistent boundaries comes home to roost. So far this year (touch wood) we have had relatively plain sailing, with only the odd incidence of verbal abuse, and I am actually enjoying seeing them every day. I have spent quite a lot of time with my lot over the past week and I honestly could not feel prouder.

They're not quite FOs yet of course....still another six months to go. I'm really going to miss them when they go. I gave these hats out on the last day of term and they were so excited. We spent the whole 40 minute tutor time taking selfies together, and they all said thank you at least twice. It was totally worth all the effort I put in just to see their faces when I pulled out the bag and started distributing. And the really nice thing was that they congratulated me on my achievement of getting them all done! Now, my old tutor group were pleased, but they were not this effusive.

Interestingly, when I gave them out to my old tutor group, many of them refused photos. That must have been 2008. Clearly the era of the selfie has only begun since then.