So this is the new year.

When does it start being too late to say happy new year?

I don' think I actually said it to anyone this time, apart perhaps from my parents, so when I got back to work (January 4th), and popped into the warehouse room to say hi to my colleagues, I felt a little puzzled to be welcomed with a joyous "happy new year!".

This new year is starting to sound too much like the old one. I'm glad I never make any resolutions, because I'd probably have failed at one or two of them already during these mere two weeks.
If I had been the resolution kind of person, I might have resolved to get rid of my fear of flying, for a start. Can you imagine how many places in the workld I would like to visit, and how many of them are too far for my 2-hour flight limited autonomy? No, you can't, because the number is too high even for myself to recall.
Well, my first flight of 2012 was an absolute nightmare. Later on, I have been told that England was undergoing a sort of tropical storm, and I have no doubts about it, if I go by the hellish turbolences that I experienced on the plane.
That reminded me of what I hate the most about flying alone: when something happens, if something happens, there's no one to hold your hand, or hug you close, or tell you that everything is going to be alright. Which is exactly what I needed that day, as I seriously thought that I would die - if not because of the storm, because of my own anxious cries, that I tried to repress all along (come on, there's people here), only managing to turn them into deep breaths and desperate, still-too-loud sighs.
I must have looked so frightened that the guy sitting beside me felt compelled to ask me if I was alright - and I, who usually reply everything's fine, thank you, even when I obviously look distressed, said something like no, and then something like I've done this so many times, and I still can't believe that these things can safely land.
You wanted to go to London, honey? Tough luck, you're doomed to fly.
In my next life, I'll choose anywhere else I can reach by train. Paris is 14 hours away from home, could be worse, huh?

No, I've got no resolutions for this year - certainly not becoming a better person (you're free to decide whether I'm implying that I'm already perfect, or that I don't give a fuck), or losing weight (who, me?), and not even, alas, learning Spanish, which I had taken up last year, and then abandoned because I had no time: now I have even less.

The only thing I'll seriously try to stick to is writing. I'd love, for once, not to fail.
I resumed carrying around my notebook, for a start. That seems to work, judging from the fragments I jot down while in the tube, glad that my efforts to keep hold of my passing thoughts throughout the day are rewarded by at least a few lines every day. However, everything still looks so messed up, so work in progress, so precarious: nothing that justifies my pride, for the moment, nothing that I have never done before. Those fragments need a thread, and it'd better be a strong one. My resolution, then, would be to find it. And yes, I'm always up for an improbable challenge, if you ask.

Speaking of way less improbable challenges, instead (speaking, that is to say, of absolutely feasible, totally possible, utterly worthwhile challenges), let me show you what I baked last week.

Make-believe Victoria Sponge

(looks like the real thing, doesn't it?)

 

This comes from my Indisputable Baking Bible, that is to say a huge (and, alas, too heavy for a Ryanair checked in baggage) cookbook that had been on sale at my town's biggest library for a couple of months a few years ago. I had been ostensibly perusing it quite a few times, hoping that someone would notice my interest -  and then, the following December, I found it nicely wrapped under the christmas tree, together with an enormous box full of kitchen utensils (my mom, who had been plotting the present for weeks, joked "see, now you've got the theory and the practice!". Now isn't she lovely, when she makes an effort?).

My cookbook collection has been getting bigger and bigger over the years, but this one is still my favourite. I'm still trying to figure out how to bring it over from Italy; in the meantime, while at home for holidays, I made do with some photocopies; this was the first one on the "to bake" list.

It does look like a Victoria Sponge, but it is not - mainly because there is no butter, and because I haven't used raspberry jam, which I didn't have at home. And it does look like an Angel Food cake, as well, but there are far less eggs than in the original recipe, and the yolks need to be used as well. So, what shall we call it? Angel Sponge? Victoria Food? Whatever, who cares about the name. Isn't the taste what really matters?

Ingredients:

- 60g plain flour;
- 60g self-raising flour;
- 4 eggs;
- 160g sugar,
- 4 tablespoons jam (that is, whatever jam you feel like using - if you're unsure, go for blackcurrant, I can guarantee that's a rather good choice);
- 125ml whipped cream.

Recipe: 

- Sift all the flour for three times (I did it twice - that becomes quite complex, when you have to use a grater instead of the sift that you wish you had bought beforehand).
- Beat the egg whites until stiff; add the sugar, gradually, until it melts with the whites, forming a thick and soft cream. Add the egg yolks, and continue beating for around 20 seconds.
- Add the flour to create the batter. Split it evenly into two greased cake tins - or, for the poor and resourceful, pour it all into one tin; later, instead of laying one cake above the other, you will simply have to cut the one you made in two halves, lengthways.
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°, and bake for 20 minutes, until soft and golden brown. Leave aside for 5 minutes, then remove the cake(s) from the tin and cool down.
- Prepare the filling: spread the jam on one cake (or one cake half), then spread the whipped cream on top. Cover with the second cake (or half), and sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.

Still looking for god? Read here.

My first weekend after five whole days of work feels totally different from any other weekend I can get myself to remember. It is probably the first time that I can spend a whole Saturday morning sitting here, on my bed, writing on my laptop because I have no other significant plans...and not complain at all, not even one single time.

All in all, it's a much more relaxed feeling - which sounds strange, I agree, if we consider that waking up every morning at 7 is seriously putting my brain to the test, and leaving me dead tired and craving for sleep at just ten in the evening. But compare this to the disquiet, the despair of having little or nothing to do and feeling that you will have little or nothing to do for the rest of your life: whoever says that routine is hell, has probably never been unemployed, because once you finally build one it's impossible not to recognise that to a certain extent there's comfort in it.

My workplace is one hour away from where I live (unless the 7.33 train is late, unless I miss it, unless the tube gets stuck like it did yesterday evening), but even this is no big deal to me: I get to listen to some music, to read the papers, to read much more of the books I used to hopelessly carry around just to find that I didn't have time for them in the end. I plunge into human nature, search for the inspiration I feel I have lost as for my writing. And I relish the moment when I will be back home, looking forward to a satisfying dinner to make up for another tasteless Marks and Spencer sandwich.
Well, it would probably not be so tasteless, if I gathered the courage to go for full-fat tuna mayo or chicken and bacon and follow my colleagues to the checkout without feeling guilty. Forget having reduced fat food at lunch is definitely one of the lessons I learnt from my first week as a team secretary, but I'm afraid that it will take a lot of time before I actually put it into practice.
(The second lesson, if you ask, sounds like no matter how early you get up and dressed, you won't be really awake until you have your morning coffee. And as 7 a.m. is definitely too early to have breakfast at home, I don't manage to have my morning coffee until nine. )

You are free to warn me that I will start to loathe routine approximately at some point towards the middle of my second week, but I will say no more about the matter - not for now.
I guess all the above sounded plain boring, huh? I know, I know, you are waiting for the food; so be it.

There's a long story behind this cake.
I first heard about it from my mother, who had been going on for at least a couple of years about how good at baking this janitor at her school was, and about how amazingly delicious the cake she brought the teachers from time to time had proven to be, and about how much she regretted not being able to offer me a taster.
Give me the recipe, then, I used to reply. At least four times, if I remember well.
The first time she forgot to ask for it.
The second time she couldn't, because the janitor was seriously ill and off work for at least a couple of months.
The third time - well, the third time my mother did something really cute: she cut out a tiny slice of The Cake, sneaked it into a tissue and then into her bag, and brought it home. I remember I found it good. Yeah, well, the slice was too thin to actually call it by its name, which is no less than Divine Wonder. And no, I didn't get the recipe, not even then.
I got if the fourth time, together with another one (an apricot pie that I still haven't tried). So, to celebrate my depart to London, I baked it the week before leaving home, and felt as if I had just found the secret to recreate the most delicious dessert anyone had ever baked.

Since then, I guess I started associating it with celebration - as I didn't bake it again until last week, when I finally could fulfil my promise of making an amazing cake as soon as I got a job. I even took it to the office on Monday and Tuesday, for breakfast; you probably can imagine the pain I felt when I returned to my usual Weight-Watchers-yogurt-and-bran-flakes on Wednesday, but I surely don't wish you any of it.
What I wish you, instead, is to try this cake and go through the same epiphany that I experience any time I eat it. I'll certainly bake it again, one day or another: maybe when (and if) I get a pay rise?

Ricotta and amaretti cake

Base: 

- Mix 100g butter with 100g sugar; add 1 egg, 250g flour, baking powder and 1 tablespoon almond flavouring.
- Knead until firm and even, and spread inside a greased cake tin. 
Careful, though: you should not use all the batter, as you will need a little bit of it later, for the decoration. It's not easy to decide how much exactly to set aside: I tend to use about 3/4 of it for the tin, and my rule is that it has to be spread evenly on the bottom, but the borders should remain clear.

Cream:

- Mix 400g ricotta cheese with 2 tablespoons sugar; add 2 eggs and 150g amaretti biscuits, which you will have previously broken into crumbs.
- Pour the cream in the cake tin, over the base. 
- Decorate with another 50g amaretti crumbs, mixed with the batter you had previously set aside, broken into small pieces as well.
- Pre-heat the oven to 175°, and bake for about 30 minutes.
- MEET GOD. After it has cooled down, of course.

Hello early mornings, goodbye unemployment.

So, apparently the Great News of the Week is that I have a job.

Overall, it took me almost four months, hundreds of refusals, millions of no-replies, liters of tears and tons of mindless self-indulgence, but I finally got here; I still don't know how, and considering my self-esteem issues I probably never will, but hey: does it really matter?
I have a job. I have a job.

I survived a telephone interview during which I had actually sounded like an awkward mess (try answering to questions like what kind of person do you think we are looking for? while walking around Victoria Street in search of a quiet spot that you won't find. Try that, and then we'll talk), I survived a 3-hour trial that brought back to light my ancient troubles with mathematics and Microsoft Excel and answered to a series of tricky questions that the Spanish Inquisition could not have asked better.
(curious about why the hell an aspirant writer should look for a secretarial job? Because not all writers are good and potentially successful writers, for a start. And then because you don't get into publishing with just two degrees and an English as a Foreign Language certificate - but that doesn't mean that you cannot still be the kind of obsessive organisational nazi that makes a good secretary, does it?)
And then, after all of this and just when I was losing my hopes of ever getting back home to the huge pizza that was waiting for me in the fridge, I was offered the job. And I accepted, because I am precisely the kind of obsessive organisational nazi that makes a good secretary, and because I can always be a writer or a freelance translator during the evening, or the weekend, or even the lunch break.

I will now resist the temptation of singing The dog days are ove-errr, the do-oo-og days a-aaare done while manically jumping on my bed - mind you, just because the mattress will probably breathe its last if I do.
Oh, and because from next Monday I will have to wake up at 7 every morning, and have breakfast on the tube - of course, if I am lucky enough to get a seat.
I also imagine I will have poorer and quicker lunches, but that's not a big deal, considering that I absolutely need to lose some weight before I have to upgrade my whole wardrobe to a bigger size. In the meantime, celebration is mandatory - so, while waiting for a chance to bake the amaretti cake I had sworn I would make as soon as I got a job, I will treat you with another sweet delight, hoping that you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed it last weekend.

Supposedly Healthy Marble Cheesecake

(freely inspired from here - of course, you can use full-fat ingredients if you prefer)

Ingredients:

- 90g reduced fat Digestive biscuits;
about 30g butter, melted (the recipe said 1 tablespoon, which means around 15g, but while making the crust I found that this wasn't enough - so I simply added some more);
- 680g low-fat cream cheese;
- 200g sugar
- 25g flour
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 4 large egg whites;
- 30g milk chocolate.

Recipe:

- Break the biscuits into small crumbs, and mix them with the melted butter in a bowl. Pour the batter in a greased cake tin, spreading it evenly until the bottom is entirely covered. Pre-heat the oven to 160° and bake for 8-10 minutes, then set aside until cool.
- Place the cream cheese in a large bowl, and beat it with a mixer until smooth (that is, if you are lucky enough to have a mixer. I still haven't got one, so I made do with beating by hand, and gave up on the challenge when my arm started aching. And although the cheese wasn't particularly smooth in the end, the cake was still delicious); add the sugar and flour, and keep on beating.
- Mix the vanilla extract and egg whites in a separate bowl, then add them to the cheese mixture.
- Pour the cream into the pan, above the biscuit base.
- Melt the chocolate; now this was the really difficult part. The recipe says you should just set the microwave to high speed and cook for no more than 1 1/2 minutes, but with my microwave this certainly didn't work: after two minutes, the chocolate was still unmelted, and not a bit softer than before. So I cooked it for one more minute, and after 60 tiny seconds it was...burnt!
Still can't explain that - and I surely won't explain you what kind of an awful smell had filled the kitchen by then. Luckily, there were a few squares of chocolate left in the cupboard, so I melted them in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. And, at last, I poured the heavenly melt over the cream, swirling with a fork to create some sort of decorative pattern.
- Last step, now: bake the cake at 160° for 35 minutes, or until almost set (the cheesecake should leave the side a little). Cool on a wire rack, then cover and chill at least 4 hours in the fridge.

Serve, and enjoy - and never forget the moral of the whole story: always keep some spare chocolate in your cupboard, sooner or later it will come in useful!

(on air: Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over) 

Here we go again.

My proverbial constancy is shaking.
I apologise to all those who used to read my posts (not that I think you are that many): it has been really a long time since I last felt something that resembled inspiration.

In the meantime, I have done plenty of things. I have completed (it was supposed to grant me some relevant working experience, but here I am, on the edge of a downright Unemployed Graduate's Crisis whose end I cannot actually foresee); I have spent three weeks of holiday between my overseas home and the seaside resort I used to consider as Heaven on Earth, looking for a bit of summer and finding nothing but my old friend, perpetual rain.
I have cried myself to insomnia, dreading the day I would have to step back on a plane and come back to London, because I knew what was expecting me here...and there it was, exactly as I had figured it: one month of excruciating labour, juggling between a master thesis I didn't want to write and a few weeks of house-hunting; a week of preparations for the move (which actually was one of the best things that could happen to me at that time - but hell knows how the positive changes are the ones whose effect lasts the least), and then forced passiveness. I have spent three weeks looking for jobs, without anything else to do from morning to dinner time, and it already feels like ages. Which is not reassuring at all, if I think that three weeks might actually turn into three months, three years, and then a whole life.

But I'll say no more about that: I already vented tons and tons of unrequested sadness on my friends, who certainly have better thoughts to think than me and my beginning-of-depression, and my parents, who deserve better than a whining, despondent, good-for-nothing daughter.
Things will get better; I am sure they will. I have always thought that what makes us suffer more is not our reason for suffering itself, but the fact that we don't know, and we cannot get to know, when bad times will end. And that's it, once again: not knowing when I will actually receive the invitation to the interview that will change my life for good is what really wears me out. If someone came up to me and told me "you'll get a job on that particular day" (yep, I've seen Donnie Darko, why do you ask?), I'd surely strive to enjoy the time in between as it deserves, because at least I would have the certainty that change is on its way.

Speaking about change, let's get straight to the point of this post.
I've been thinking that I maybe should give a little twist to this blog - make it a little more focused, turn it into something well-defined, rather than a simple collection of random, uneven rants by an unpleasant human being who has nothing better to do but complain (at least, not for the moment). The most interesting idea that has come up until now is to turn it into a food blog, each post having its own recipe; as I love cooking, and it is actually getting me through these days.Who knows, perhaps it could be an incentive for my proverbial constancy to come back.

But I'll be a good democrat, for once, and ask for your opinion as well.
Would you enjoy my recipes, or do you prefer the rants? I can do both, of course, multitasking is one of the main skills on my CV. So yeah, let me know. I am aware that I haven't got that many readers, but those who actually stop here and grant me a few minutes of their time are more than welcome to speak out their minds. In the meantime, here's a recipe for you; I highly recommend you try it, because it's far more than amazing, believe me.

Chocolate Truffle Torte
(as found in a huge chocolate cookbook I bought in Dublin for 3, three, euros. Call it a miracle.)

(and yeah, on the cookbook it looked much better. But if you're reading this blog, then looks shouldn't matter to you. Ha!)

Crust: 

Put 50g caster sugar and 2 eggs in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Whisk together until pale and resembling the texture of mousse. Sift in 40g flour and 25g cocoa powder, and mix gently. Pour into a greased cake tin and bake in the oven (220°) for 7-10 minutes, until risen and firm.
Transfer the crust to a wire rack to cool, and then put it back into the tin, which you will have washed and dried in the meantime. Finally, mix together 4 tablespoons strong black coffee and 2 tablespoons brandy, and brush the resulting liquid over the cake crust in the tin.

Cream:

Put 425g plain chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, and let it melt. Gently add the melted chocolate to 600ml whipped cream; pour the mixture over the crust, and let the cake chill in the fridge until the cream is firm.

Serve with cocoa and icing sugar sifted over the top, if you like. Et voilà!
You'll love it. I promise.

(on air: Bright Eyes - No lies, just love.)

Brain drain.

My initial proposition was, write at least once a week. Then my lazy brain decided that at least sounded quite bad, and cut it off. Well, write once a week looked way more affordable, didn't it? And here I am, I missed my minimum standard again.

I'll warn you right from the start: I'm about to post a recipe. Which means, sorry readers, that before it you'll have to put up with a little gloom. I'll be quick, promised: I just got to get this off my chest before going to bed - to write my end-of-term scriptwriting project, of course, who ever mentioned sleep? - and I'll be fine.

I'm just, once again, disappointed by how my brain works. You know, when a child spends hours on a drawing, and then hands it to you as if it was the most beautiful and meaningful thing in the world - and you cannot even fake a smile, as all you see is a disorderly maze of nonsensical lines? Well, tonight I feel as if I was the child. And no, taking a breath and repeating myself you're fuckin' 23 and a master student, you should have quit feeling like this when you left middle school isn't of any help.
My adulthood (please forgive me for using such a word) equivalent of the drawing is the presentation I gave tonight for my business class: such a ridiculous thing that no one will ever convince me to speak in public again - not even if any unforeseen event leads me to fame, in that case I'll just pay a stunt and that's it.
No point in talking about it, anyway, I just want to put down in words this recurring thought I have about how my brain works. About how annoying it is, actually, to be so perfectionist not to tolerate that anything that comes from me is less than flawless, and to be so presumptuous not to accept that what presents itself to my mind like a brilliant idea might prove to be irrealistic, or worse, weak, or worse, silly.
It's not that I lack ideas: I just have too many, and they're all too good to be true. You, the normal people who are used to seeing the big picture rather than getitng attached to unimportant details and inconsistent hopes, you can spot unlikelihood since the beginning; I can't. Maybe it's true, like my father says, that I'm an idealist. Or maybe I'm an utopist, not sure whether that's actually different.

Screw it, just give me sun, a fresh drink and a slice of cake and I'll be the happiest person ever.
Oh, shit, it's as cold as in February. And I should take a healthy break from sugar; do you mind enjoying some for me?

This is the first cake I made that was both pretty and tasty at the same time, so it means quite much to me.
So much that I put it on my Powerpoint's first page, as the logo of my crappy made-up cooking school, perhaps hoping for a good omen. Well, what is it that they say? Better luck next time? Sure. Now eat.

Strawberry orange-flavoured semifreddo:

Crust:
Melt 1 egg yolk and 30g brown sugar in a double saucepan, whipping until they become very soft.
Remove from hob and continue the whipping, until the melt has cooled down. Add 30g flour, 1 tablespoon olive oil and some lemon juice.
Roll the batter in a mould; pre-heat the oven to 190°, then bake for 15-20 minutes, remove from mould and set aside to cool down.
Finally, put the crust back in the mould, which in the meantime you will have lined with cling film. If you want you can put some strawberries on the bottom as a sort of filling for the cake.

Cream:
Leave 8g gelatine leaves soaking in cold water for 10 minutes.While you wait, mix 250g ricotta cheese with 125g low-fat natural yogurt, 50g honey and 1 tablespoon orange zest, until you have a soft batter.
Warm up the juice of one orange in a saucepan, then melt the squeezed gelatin into it and add to the batter. Finally, add 2 beaten egg whites as well.
Pour the batter on the crust and put the cake into the fridge, where you will leave it for at least 6 hours. When ready, take out of the mould and decorate with strawberries.

(On air: Imogen Heap - Hide and seek.)