Cooking in 2012 – April: Cordon Bleu Burgers.

See, I caught up! I spent today’s day off relaxing at home, preparing for a possible telephone interview that never happened (onto the next!), watching movies and doing lots of cleaning. Suffice to say, my attention span is too short to be content with being a housewife – I still found myself getting bored. It was nice to have a rest though, and feeling boosted by my omelette cooking experience (quick! largely stress-free! yummy!), I was ready to cook Toby a meal after his day at work. So I scoured the internet (i.e. googled “30 minute meals”) to find something suitable – and thanks to Rachael Ray, I did! Chicken cordon bleu burgers.

The recipe and the ingredients are all there, so you know what I did. I did have to make a couple of adjustments, however:

• We weren’t able to find chicken mince in the supermarket, so I used pork instead. I am not sure what makes the burgers “cordon bleu”, but I have retained that in the title – otherwise they’re just burgers, right?
• I used 1 pound of pork, rather than 2 – because there was two of us rather than 4. We still made 4 burgers out of 1 pound of meat, and I thus presume that the measurements suggested in the recipe are intended for giants. Rachael Ray is clearly a feeder.
• I used British bacon, because we are in the UK and not Canada.
• I used a paprika and red pepper mix, which gave the burgers a really nice kick, so I didn’t feel the need for all of the other seasoning that the recipe suggests.
• I chopped half an onion instead of a shallot, and I used cheddar that I already had in the fridge, rather than buying Swiss cheese.
• Instead of mixing mustard with regular mayonnaise, I bought a squeezy bottle of garlic mayo which complimented the burgers perfectly!
• I didn’t bother with tarragon, and I try and avoid tomatoes where possible so I didn’t use that either.

But other than that, more or less the same! And very easy. This is how they turned out:

Nom nom nom. (Yes, I have finally joined the Instagram craze – just in time for that pesky Facebook takeover!)  I am scared to get ahead of myself, but I must confess that I didn’t curse or lose my patience or do anything blindingly stupid during the cooking of this meal – perhaps I am starting to improve at cooking? I rather enjoyed the experience this time. Toby taught me how to chop an onion sensibly, and how to fry burger patties without splashing oil everywhere, so I have learned those skills too. Apparently he is similarly buoyed by my recent successes, because he has asked me if I want to try baking something on Sunday. I have tentatively said yes… what is happening to me? Could I finally be embracing the art of cuisine?!?!?!?! Surely not! Watch this space…

we’re going to Sevilla!

So after many tweets promising this blog, I am finally writing to say that tomorrow morning (at ridiculous o’clock) Toby and I are flying out to Seville for a week’s holiday! I am excited – it is our first holiday away as a couple but I am sure that it will all go well, and any obstacles that we come up against, we will overcome as a team (and hopefully both be cranky at the same time and therefore understand each other’s moods!).  I am looking forward to it!

Hopefully we’ll see lots of orange trees…

… some flamenco (and possibly visit the Flamenco Art Museum, as recommended by Karina!)…

… various arts museums to enrich our cultural understanding (below: the Traditional Arts and Customs Museum)…

…and lots of cafés to enjoy some tapas and coffee!

I am hoping that we will come back culturally enriched and spiritually refreshed, and I’ll be rejuvenated and be able to take on my current job / new job (I had an interview at Southbank International School on Friday, and I am hoping it went positively – I think so!) with renewed gusto. I am also hoping that we take some excellent photos (including possibly some photos I could include on my next album!) which I will share with you all on here 🙂 So much love from me, and I will see you all on the other side when I’m back in London! Have a wonderful week xx

dream – infidelity and paulina rubio.

I was saying to one of my friends that it’s been a while since I blogged one of my dreams! I guess that sometimes if you speak something, it has a funny way of coming into existence.  I also must give some credit to the kebab I bought with Mike on the way back from our last course night out watching the England match (which was dull, although cheering along with the mindless supporters was amusing; I don’t think they realised Penny and I were taking the piss out of them) – the stomach ache I bear as a result, coupled with the disrupted night’s sleep I had, worked together to produce this crazy dream as well as my decision that, like crisps and popcorn, I will never eat another kebab again.  Anyway, here goes:

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I found myself at university, staying in a dorm building which had several of my friends living on the same corridor as me. The hall was brightly lit, with a peach coloured carpet, and Toby lived a couple of doors down from me.  A few doors in the opposite direction, towards the end of our corridor, lived this random guy whom I don’t know in real life, and whom I didn’t know much about in the dream, except he was gay and had quite a youthful face and a happy-go-lucky, slightly crazy manner.  I remember on this particular day, Toby was getting ready to present a presentation he had worked on with his friend on a song they had written for a team they’d been given in a World Cup sweepstake.  He hadn’t let me hear the song, and he was quite nervous about it but pretending as if everything were fine.  To give him some space, I decided to get a bus and go to a string of shops which looked similar to the top of Gloucester Road, except with less shops and shops which looked even more run down than what’s there in reality.  The trip seemed fruitless, and I remember returning back to my corridor pretty promptly.

On my return, I bumped into the guy who lived near the end of the corridor.  He was burbling about something, and invited me to go back to his room. I was reluctant to go as I wanted to wish Toby luck before he started his presentation / performance, but at the same time I wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea to disturb him, so I decided to follow the guy to his room.  We chatted for a while, and then ended up having (anatomically incorrect – orifices do NOT look / contort like that!) sex.  Immediately afterwards I felt guilty, and made small talk while hurriedly getting out of there.  I ran down the corridor to find Toby, who was due to start his presentation.  I located the classroom (oddly enough further down the same corridor as where all our bedrooms were) and burst in through the open door, where Toby and his classmates were gathered in front of a lecturer standing at a lectern in front of a giant screen filled with the flags of the World Cup in some kaleidoscopic Powerpoint presentation.  Toby was stood on a chair, ostensibly about to sing his song, but everyone turned to look at me and Toby’s mouth gaped as I ran towards him, hugged his legs and nuzzled my face into his crotch.  He asked me what was wrong, but I decided to keep my infidelity to myself and said that nothing was wrong and I just wanted to wish him luck and let him know I was there for him.  At that moment, he smiled (which made me feel a combination of guilt and immense love), and the whole class sighed as if they wanted to get on with the presentation of the songs.

At this point, my stomach ache woke me up again as it had done periodically throughout the night.  I remember getting up to open the window; it was light outside and I hoped that some fresh air would do me good (as it happened, it made no difference) before getting back into bed and falling back to sleep.

I found myself going into a giant record store which reminded me of a huge Virgin Megastore from back in the day.  When I walked in, the front of store display advertised hordes of Paulina Rubio CDs, books, DVDs and other memorabilia at knock-down prices.  I was about to start browsing – there were items that certainly caught my eye even at first glance, when I bumped into my tutor from university, Mary.  She was sat reading a book on a cube seat, and she smiled at me and started asking how I was.  We had a conversation about the book she was reading, and about what some of my favourite books were.  I then saw two women approaching her wearing skirt suits, and Mary explained that she was interviewing for the course intake for next year, so she would have to say goodbye for now.  I smiled and left the seating area as one woman sat down and began to talk to Mary, who had closed her book; the other sat on an adjacent cube and began to read a book of her own.  I was about to start browsing the Paulina Rubio merchandise, which including products which both do and don’t exist in real life, when I bumped into Simon from the careers guidance course.  He asked me if I had seen Mary; I responded by indicating the cubed seating area, but then explaining that she was doing interviews so he might have to wait for a while before he was able to speak to her.  With nothing much else to say to him, I left Simon and began to browse the shelves.

However, during my conversations with Mary and Simon, a lot of the CDs had been snapped up, and I could barely find half of the products which had been on offer when I’d first entered the shop.  I spent quite a long time rummaging and amassing quite a collection of items, when I bumped into my mother, Deena and Davina.  They said that they had come shopping looking for a birthday present for me, and immediately handed me a big box of some kind of board game, and a smaller box on top.  They said that they were going to look for some other gifts for me.  My mother immediately disappeared, and Davina and Deena went off in different directions.  I followed Deena and asked her if there was anything I could buy for Davina, but I don’t think she had any suggestions.  Eventually, I found myself left alone by them and I had to go to the till and pay for my Paulina Rubio stuff, and also for my own birthday presents!

Afterwards, I returned home with all my purchases only to find that my mother had already arrived at home.  She looked at the amount of carrier bags I had, and then she engaged me in some meaningless, forgettable conversation.  I don’t remember what was said, but I remember taking a yellow sleeping bag with me and leaving the house. I wandered the streets and before long, found a wide grey pavement outside a run-down block of flats.  For some reason, in my head I had decided that this was an orphanage, and the area of town did not look very Bristolian nor very friendly; it was all quite dilapidated, and I felt quite tired so I decided to lay down on the pavement and curled up in my sleeping bag.  However, the sleeping bag was double-sized, so I still only took up half of the bag; the other half covered the rest of the pavement.  After a few moments, Mike came strolling by as if by chance, looked down and noticed me laying on the floor (I wasn’t asleep).  He spoke to me briefly, and we chatted before he told me to budge up, got down on the pavement and slid into the sleeping bag next to me.  This time, nothing sexual happened but we just chatted for a while and I remember feeling happy and lucky that I had a friend to spend time with.

—

That is about it!  As always, any thoughts or light that you can shed on this is more than welcome. A few connections that I can make: I watched the World Cup match last night, so perhaps the football was in my head; I’d seen Deena earlier in the week and I remember we were walking around HMV and she was considering looking for a present for her friend’s girlfriend.  During the night out last night, I was speaking to Mike about how much his friendship meant to me and how lucky I was to have him in my life.  I also spent a lot of the evening texting Toby, who is currently sunning it up in Florida (lucky man); I miss him.  Finally, Simon was the only person who hadn’t managed to get into the bar last night where we were watching the football; although Mary wasn’t invited to watch the football with us, it is interesting that Simon is the one who was asking me about her whereabouts, as if he were looking for someone from our course just as he was last night.  But the rest of it is beyond me!!!

appraisal.

1 year ago:

• I was about one week away from finishing my job as Assistant Manager at the Perfume Shop.  I was eager to leave and start my Careers Guidance postgrad at UWE, and my new job at the BRI who were taking their sweet time to contact me – for most of June and July 2009 I claimed JSA while I was waiting for them to give me a start date, which felt pretty bleak!  Luckily, they did at the end of July, and I’ve enjoyed working there ever since, especially as my boss has been so flexible and understanding regarding my university course this year.  I can’t wait to go into work next week and tell them that I was successful in my job interview for Personal Tutor at Cirencester College – they’ll be so pleased for me. 🙂  Also, I think that a couple of them might have placed a bet on me getting the job?… Madness!
• I was about one month away from starting this blog!  I can’t believe I’ve been writing on here and connecting with you all now for 11 months, it’s mad!  I feel that my writing has improved as a result, as well as the fact that I’ve been able to share with you all my music, my heart, my trials and tribulations regarding relationships, friendships, and everything in between!  Some of the comments that I have received and some of the friends that I have made as a result of writing this blog make it all worthwhile and I am very touched that sometimes, at one moment in time two lives can connect, because we can be going through the same thing.
• I was emotionally drained after two dating attempts that were non-starters.  It would take me a few more attempts before I finally got it right, but I remember believing, even up until recently, that perhaps love just wasn’t for me, and I might be a popular person and have lots of friends and cherish them, but never quite find someone with whom I connected on a romantic level.  I was still dating because I didn’t want to give up, but I was secretly convinced that it was no use.  Love comes around when we least expect it.
• I had started my twitter account (follow me!) a month ago,  and I have since made fantastic friends such as Nick, Nigel & Ness (all the N’s!).  The Twitterati was born!!! 😉

6 months ago:

• I was working through my feelings regarding Mike (remember that saga?), and things were just in the process of getting really tangled and confused.  It was an emotionally bleak time, because I’d truly never felt like that, because this was someone I cared about so much and was so important to me.  I’m glad to say that now we’ve come out the other side, and he is one of my best, closest friends. Listening to Cheryl Cole (whose album I had just downloaded at the time), we really had to “fight for this love” (oh god that sounds cheesy but never mind), but it was all worth it because without him I wouldn’t have my beautiful tattoos (I still had virgin skin at this point!), the strength to have started my own relationship with Toby, nor the placement or transport which enabled me to get the job at Cirencester.  Mike (through the Careers Guidance course) has really helped me transform my life.
• I was coming to breaking point with my relationship with my parents.  Christmas was a particularly low period, and I remember sitting in the park in the dark on Christmas Day quietly hating them, just wishing I could escape.  I felt like I was a nuisance to their lives, that they didn’t really want me around but since I had nowhere else to go, they expected me to just sit with them without complaint.  My friends were helpful distractions during the day, but coming home in the evenings and sitting around the dinner table was always a daunting prospect.  I was only just realising that, at 24 years old, that my problems with my parents were reflections on them: time and again I’ve made close friends easily, and generally my friends and I see eye to eye and we don’t argue.  So the fact that I had these problems with my parents, that their relationship is so volatile, is a reflection of them and not me.  I was finally starting to learn that I am not an ugly person on the inside and that there is nothing wrong with me, but that’s still a work in progress.

Today:

• After two months of sending off applications for jobs as I approach the end of my Careers Guidance Qualification, I had an interview for a Personal Tutor position at Cirencester College.  Out of 110 applicants, they interviewed about 20 people, and of those 20, 4 of them were employed.  I am one of those 4, Mike is another.  It’s ridiculous, it’s amazing, I am unbelievably happy because it is the job I wanted, the people who work there are a pleasure to be around, and the students are some of the best in the country (the College has an excellent reputation).  Just as I was getting despondent regarding my lack of interviews, 2 came at once (I have to cancel my Careers Wales one) and I got the job I wanted.  I am going to be helping to shape young people’s futures, which is quite daunting, but I feel ready for this.  Bring it on!  Plus, I’m going to be working with one of my best friends… I wonder if Cirencester knows what it has let itself in for?
• I am nearly 5 months into my relationship with Toby.  He is the hands down the best boyfriend I’ve ever had, he seems to pretty much adore me, and already in this short time I have learned a lot about relationships, about love, and about myself.  Although he’s going to be in London from July while I’ll be in Cirencester, we’re both determined to make it work – it’s not like we’re across the world from each other, it’s one and a half hour’s drive.  At this point, despite my own feeling that I don’t deserve love, that I am scared to let someone in and see all of me, we’re doing it and living the dream, and at 24 years old I’m pretty lucky to have everything suddenly start working out.  Toby is a dream, I am so lucky and we are gonna make it 🙂  Also, he is my home away from home, and between staying at his and socialising / partying with my other friends, I have that extra distance I need from my parents until I move out.
• I have been having driving lessons for 2 and a half months now, and it’s been harder than I expected, if truth be told.  My instructor Russell is fantastic, and I’m hoping to increase my lessons in July once I finish at uni, with a view to taking my test during the summer.  For Cirencester, a car will come in incredibly useful (though to start with I reckon I could get by without it) and for my general independence, a car is necessary.  If I can pass my driving test (and I notice that my attitude to driving has changed and I feel a bit more confident, more capable of it – so I can pass my test), I will buy a nice little car and I will have achieved my three aims for this year : boyfriend, car, job.  More importantly, I failed my driving test when I was 18, and for all the time in the interim, I’ve had a secret nagging feeling of failure that I can’t drive.  It’s time to conquer those fears once and for all, redress the balance and vanquish that feeling of failure and inadequacy.
• I have my 3 lovely tattoos, and my raven is on the Iron & Ink website for you all to see!  Check it out here!  I’m famous! 😉

2010 is destined to be my year of transformation, I am determined to turn my life around and this is the final piece in the puzzle.  I will move out once everything else is in place, but at least moving out doesn’t require passing any sort of exam or any protracted interview / dating process!  Looking back over how far I’ve come, it’s pretty overwhelming and I feel almost powerful that I’ve finally taken control, with the help of so many friends, and it’s time to keep moving forward.  No regrets, no apologies. 🙂

Toni Braxton – Pulse. (album review)

The first album from Toni Braxton in 5 years comes following an abbreviated residency at Las Vegas, yet more record label disputes, health scares, a neat run on Dancing With The Stars and a separation from long-term partner Keri Lewis.  So one would assume that she has a lot of life material to draw on, material that might be evident in the singer’s new album.  Well, yes and no: Toni Braxton has stuck to her strengths, which are soulful R&B ballads expertly sung.  The lyrical content of these tracks betrays barely a whisker of what the singer has been through in the past 5 years, and to look at the singer she stands stately, sophisticated and stunningly beautiful for a woman of 40 years old.  Indeed, she still has that same sexy body she had 15 years ago, although now it is dressed with a more chic, age-appropriate veneer that effortlessly walks that tightrope between sexy and classy.  Nevertheless, Braxton’s creamy, rich alto has a slight bit more depth to it now; to paraphrase from her interview in Metro this week, she has the ability to channel her experiences (be they joyful or sad) into the texture of her voice, and this is what makes Braxton one of the most enduring and valuable singers to emerge in the last 20 years: you feel her when she sings.  On Pulse this is evident throughout, particularly when her voice is reduced to a low, husky whisper such as at the beginning of “Woman”, a cover of Delta Goodrem’s track from 2007’s Delta that improves on the original because Toni Braxton’s voice brings more depth to the lyrics (although Delta Goodrem’s own version was solid in itself, perhaps making this achievement all the more impressive), and the production ranges from subtle to soaring while never overtaking Braxton’s performance.

After more leaks than Ciara’s Fantasy Ride, it would be unacceptable for Pulse to be anything less than solid, considering the 25+ tracks we’ve heard from Toni Braxton’s recording sessions for the project.  For the most part, Braxton has chosen the strongest songs for the project, although bonus tracks “Rewind” and “Stay” add little value to the album and could have been replaced with successful “Ice Box” soundalike “Clockwork” and particularly “It’s You”.  These are just little personal gripes however, and don’t affect the fact that Braxton sings each of the 11 tracks on her album with impeccable aplomb; her voice cannot be faltered, whether she’s emitting attitude on the sassy “Make My Heart” (which again improves upon Blaque’s / Mis-Teeq’s “Can’t Get It Back”, being based on the same sample) or evoking vulnerability on standout closing track “Why Won’t You Love Me”.  It is surprising that this is the only track on Pulse that gives Toni a significant songwriting credit (“Yesterday” does credit her, but only along with 4 other contributors) considering her credits on The Heat and More Than A Woman; those two albums, while not perfect, were both cohesive and consistent – they felt like albums, not just a collection of songs.

And this is where my only main gripe with Pulse comes in.  Indeed, the album contains some beautiful songs – my personal favourites are first single “Yesterday” (although it sounds like Beyoncé’s “Halo”, it is strong and sincere enough to stand on its own two feet – unlike the version with Trey Songz, which suffers from a change in production that is at once overdone and bland), the aforementioned “Make My Heart” and “Why Won’t You Love Me”, “Wardrobe” with its clever man-as-outfit metaphor that somehow avoids sounding cheesy or forced.  “Lookin’ At Me” is a welcome uptempo that bumps convincingly and brings the sass out of Toni, and perhaps in the closing stretch of the album which is ballad-heavy, another uptempo of this nature might have livened things up.  Finally, “Hands Tied” is an utterly beautiful song in lyrics, production and vocals, and has an outstanding video to match – Toni Braxton dances in front of a troupe of attractive men, stands in an eye-catching black dress in front of an ornately carved table that I would quite like in my house, and locks eyes with the camera, singing and dancing and yet conveying the determination for love inherent in the song’s lyrics.

As I said before, there are no weak tracks, and perhaps my opinion is swayed by the sheer amount of material I’ve heard from the project – unlike classic albums Secrets, The Heat and More Than A Woman, the album feels merely like a collection of lovely songs than like an album.  Previous album Libra suffered from this same problem, although Pulse has more of an identity, hewing close to soulful ballads and eschewing popular production tricks; unlike a couple of Libra‘s tracks, this album won’t sound dated, to its credit. But something intangible makes some albums more than the sum of their parts, and Pulse just doesn’t have that je ne sais quoi.  In comparison with Monica’s recent Still Standing (check my review here!), both albums are a welcome embodiment of “real” R&B, both are classy efforts that dispense with unnecessary featured artists and emphasise the singers’ strengths.  Neither album possesses any repellent tracks, and all the material is beautifully sung.  But if I had to choose between them, Monica’s would win out because something about it feels more sincere, more cohesive; something connects with the listener more.  I feel bad that I can’t quite put my finger on what that “something” is, but it means that while Pulse is certainly solid and worth purchasing, as a whole it isn’t  exceptional.  Nevertheless, some of its songs are exceptional, and it is wonderful to hear a singer relying on her vocal ability and strong songwriting rather than gimmicks or collaborations with flavour-of-the-month artists.