Things that shall not be named....

for FEAR of them becoming real. You know, how sometimes, you write stuff and then it happens. I have this irrational belief that as long as I don't say it out loud it is not there, that I can hide it, make it disappear, just like Snow White's dwarfs when they were cleaning.

(Source)

That I can pretend It's not there. I was going to write about it, but I don't dare to. Anyhow, yesterday, clicking through links over at APW, I found this text, thanks to Sarah, Albie's mom  and I thought I would share it. I could relate in more than one way, and somehow it gave me hope.

Welcome to Holland
by Emily Perl Kingsley.

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. Michelangelo’s David. Venice. The Cinque Terre. Roma. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

 After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”
“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

 But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place to where you thought you were headed. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around. And you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. (and Vermeers)

But still everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy. They are all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

We're struggling, but there are lovely, lovely girls out there that make me think that this situation will change. It is a weird thing, spending 8 years of your life studying Physiology, Biology, Reproduction only to learn you can not control anything. That it is not about knowledge. That there is no switch that you can simply turn on when you so feel like.  I am thinking it is more about magic. And on bad days where I cry, where I want to break things, it feels cruel, it feels like punishment, it feels like I am a failure. And I find it hard to get my faith and my hope back. I know for a fact that every baby is a miracle, that there are no accidents, I know. I know all the things that can happen to a zygote even before it can nest, I know that it is less than 30 % of conceptions that make it to term. Lots of times you conceive and you don't even know it cause the tiny thing disappears before you get your next period. I watch MTV's sixteen and pregnant in awe cause I really don't know how that happened to all those girls. How you can get pregnant from 1 night of drunken sex. Those stories feel like a bad joke to me now, and a mean one at that. Of course you could say I am old (biologically) after all 16 is not the same as 31, and I know that the "ideal" age if your body was to decide is somewhere around 22.  But that can't be it, because I have friends my age and these days Facebook is a baby festival. After all, if a cow under metabolic stress  can get pregnant with half a dose of frozen semen... I should be able to?

Oh Chocolate (and a giveaway)

Can you see the poppies ? It's my favorite tray !

 The winter autumn has finally settled in. As I write, it's almost 6:51 AM and the sky is still pitch dark. It is getting colder, windier, and wetter. The warm days we had were really a blessing, they were probably the last light filled days until next ¿May? Funny how I used to associate summer with warm weather, and now I know it is more about the light, less about the temperature. Days getting shorter is not something I experienced in Mexico. Or maybe I was just not paying attention. Anyway, with this weather, what one wants the most is to stay inside, watch a movie and maybe have some hot chocolate. Oh chocolate. Mexican legacy to the world. The word itself comes from the nahuatl, xocolatl. It was so valuable for my ancestors that at some point it was used as a coin. As a drink, it was sacred, only to be drunk by priests during special ceremonies.

Image via

Traditionally it is dissolved in hot water, much like coffee, and then you can add milk.  Hence the name of the book: "Como agua para chocolate" (Like water for chocolate). But nowadays, even in Mexico it is prepared in milk. The traditional way is to make it out of  chocolate "bars" that already come with the spices (cinammon, vanilla) that give it it's traditional taste.

Source

 To prepare it you simply warm milk, add pieces of the prepared chocolate, and while it is in the fire, you shouldn't stop beating with the molinillo, a special mexican whisker.

 And here is where the giveaway comes in. One lucky winner will get an authentic mexican molinillo (since we have 2) delivered right to their door. To participate, just leave a comment, telling me, if you could travel anywhere in the world this moment, where would you go,  and I will draw a random winner on the 30 of October.

Oh and I forgot to tell you, if you go to Mexico, don't forget to visit a chocolate factory in Oaxaca, and if  you are in this side of the ocean, there is a chocolate museum in Barcelona.

Sunday happies

Just a few things making me happy this morning.
-Asking for a sign, and then finding a rainbow.

 Please don't think I am crazy, but I  instantly remembered the story of Noah, after the deluge (Genesis 9, 12-17)
¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³ I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶ Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” ¹⁷ So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.” 
 Also, please note that the rainbow disappeared as soon as I got the photographic evidence. Weird huh?
-Waiting for things to come out of the oven.

 -My new black shoes are finally not hurting me. And all thanks to Zan and to the miracle of water expanding as it reaches 4º C and turns into ice. I got to wear them yesterday, with almost no pain, yes yes.

 -Having friends over, 10-years after-high-school reunions (the boy's), and getting back in contact with long lost friendships from back in those days, all in the same weekend.

 By the way, I listened to Lisa's advice on the subject (kind of) and wore the required pearls, mid-heel pumps and black mascara. Not that I am a WASP  or anything, but if I have to fit in one of her style archetypes I guess I would be the Artsy Cousin?

 -Lazy mornings, breakfast on the couch and my new green vases, they are both the same as this one, but one is bigger and one smaller.

What I'm reading.

 Yes, yes, I know, this is the book that is currently been read for the APW book club. Are you reading it yet? Are you coming to discuss it? Thing is, I started reading this book even before Meg suggested it. Other girls have talked about the book and I was very curious about it, if also a bit scared. First of all, and where I first heard about this book, there was the inspiring Cate Subrosa. But then came an avalanche. Kirsty was talking about reading it for the Blook(Bloggers + books) Club , and that's how I got to Conversation Pieces (and wished I was in the UK to participate). And well,all these girls I admire talking about this book confirmed it really must be worth a read.
Of course I thank feminism. If only because it gave us girls the chance to study, to vote, to have an opinion, to stop being considered as "the skin of the devil" (yes, the Middle Ages were one dark period). But from that to being an active feminist... I have to say you can blame me for taking things for granted, for being spoiled by all the fight that was done before me. Sure, I read the 2 tomes of "The Second Sex" (Le deuxième sexe) by Simone de Beauvoir, in french, when I was 22. And I loved it. But I also made the mistake of associating feminism with silly prejudices. When it comes to prejudices, we should be wary, I think even more when it comes to our own. Better to break them. And so I was afraid of saying out loud that I was a feminist, because of associations to bitter, angry women, burning bras, hating men, and pretending that we are better than them. Treating those with the Y chromosome as THE enemy. And as the cause of all of us girls' troubles. See, I don't believe any of that. So, I gave Caitlin Moran a chance, after all she was supposed to be funny,  and boy was I surprised. Reading her put me right in my place, it made me realize that of course, those assumptions of mine were stupid, and that there is,obviously, still a fight to be fought and it is up to us to fight it. Take this for instance:

"... It doesn't need to be a `man vs woman´ thing. It's just a tiff between The Guys. Seeing the whole world as 'The Guys' is important. The idea that we're all, at the end of the day, just a bunch of well meaning schlumps, trying to get along, is the basic alpha and omega of my world view. I'm neither 'pro-women' nor 'anti-men'. I'm just 'Thumbs up for the six billion'. Because I don't think that 'men'/maleness/male sexuality is the problem here. I don't think sexism is a 'man vs woman' thing." 

And then this:

"Ladies!, Being a woman is ... very, very, very expensive. Tampons, hairdressers, childcare, beauty aids, women's shoes being three times more costly than men's - the combination of the things we need (Lil-lets) combined with the things we feel naked without (proper haircut) is already ruinous. And that's before we factor in both women earning 30 per cent less than men and being the ones who usually have to watch their career go all -titanic when the question of  'Who will look after the kids?' raises its head. "

So yes, read it. And it's true, it's hilarious, and you will not be able to put the book down. I only wish I was british (oh I am) I had grown up in the UK, because as funny as she is, half the jokes I don't get because of the cultural context. Anyway, whether you read APW or not, if you would like to get together for this book club, let me know.

How I ended up doing surgery on a cake.

As some of you might know, last Friday was my mom-in-law's birthday. I had been waiting for the day to finally bake a cake and experiment a bit. And so I used this recipe that I found thanks to the amazing Ashley (if you like good food and travel, you will love her place). The plan was to decorate it using this tutorial by Marcela, showing us her talents. First of all, instead of making Strawberry shortcake cake, I modified the recipe until it became Raspberry-Strawberry-Cinammon Shortcake. Oh yes. Raspberry is my favorite fruit, so I added them to the mix of macerated fruit.

 And I also went on to add cinammon both in the dough for the sponge cake and in the icing. The cake itself turned out quite well.

 But when it came to decorating, disaster occurred. You see, I don't think before I do. I just do stuff. Because I think I have it all figured out in this crazy mind of mine. So, I knew perfectly well that when rolling the fondant I had to somehow manage to make an even circle. That's where trouble started, because I was only able to make some kind of square deformed oval.

 Still, I made my measurements and was convinced I had enough surface to cover my 8 inch cake + sides. I had it all ready and cheese-buttercreamed,

Ok, here the sides were still not ready

....when as I carefully put the fondant over it, I noticed that one side was missing quite a bit of fondant covering. I messed up. At this point the fondant was covered in buttercream on one side so I could not roll it again. You are also not supposed to pull or stretch anymore at this stage. I was not even sure I was allowed to take it off and try to place it again over the cake, this time evenly, and I didn't want to mess up any further. So I had to find a solution. I put a fondant patch on the missing spot. Faux-pas.  I know. Marcela, don't yell at me. And then my supposed-to-be lovely cake had a huge ugly scar on the side. At which moment I called the boy, almost in tears. I told him; "you know, I think the cake will taste delicious, but I effed up... it's not pretty, it has a patch". And then... I thought. Well, if I can close a cow after an abomasum torsion, then surely, I can fix this cake.

 And so, I started making fondant flowers, that were required in the tutorial, and Eureka... instead of following the lovely Marcela's instructions I started placing them in the same way I would place surgical staples or stitches.

(Source)

And then I continued with the pattern. And added the flower centers, and some greenery to resemble wild weeds. In the end, I liked it.

 And look, the flowers kind of  resemble Summer lilacs, or if you are into fancy names, Queen's gilliflowers:

(Source)

But what's most important mom-in-law loved it, and everyone said it was delicious.

 If you want to see the whole process, in photos,

Dear readers,

I wanted to take the time to thank you all for being here all along. The thing is, lately, I feel like I am more and more tired and my dutch class requires lots of study time at home. At least I hope my level will improve, since I have been feeling a bit stuck lately. Also, I would like to be able to dedicate more time to writing this little wonderful thing that has let me get in contact with all of you. All this is to say, that I will still be here, but not everyday anymore. It will be more like a 3 times per week thing. I hope you will still come by. If you aren't already doing so, you could follow me (if you would so like of course), or subscribe by email (the button is on the bottom right side). Otherwise just feel free to visit whenever :), you are always welcome in my little internet home for a cup of tea, or a piece of cake or something nice.
On other news... do you see the sleeping couch above? Well that's one of the perks of having a salary, we can finally afford to put some money aside and make our little home less empty. We wanted to get it for such a long time. It is important because we really want to be able to have friends and family over, we want to make "hospitality" one of the pillars of our marriage, much like the lovely Sharon described in this thoughtful post. To cite her wedding service:

"Give them such fulfillment of their mutual affection that they may reach out in love and concern for others."

Oh and we finally found a place for that patchwork blanket. My mom made it for us, out of pieces of leftover cloth from all the dresses she used to make me and my sister when we were little. Oh and here's a bonus.

I don't know why but lately we buy bananas (not even so many, 4 per week, maximum), and we are not eating them. Then they turn black. And then I have to do something about them, because I am strongly against throwing food away. So if this ever happens to you, you can try this crunchy muffins that I already talked about here, or you can make this banana bread. Simple easy and perfect.  I made it last week and it was over in a day and a half, so I'm guessing it was not so bad.