Pixie is turning six soon, and I haven’t written about parenting for nearly half his life now. But now I am, and here is my confession: I am a five-plus parent. Five-year-old Pixie is the sweetest, smartest kid in town, sporting the cutest nose. So delightful is he that I can even keep a sense of humour about the whining,… Read more →
I’ve done quite a bit of stress baking over the last few months, and somewhere along the way I designed this neat system for a whole series of weekend-to-weekday chocolate treats. I got work down to a minimum by cheating on everything cheat-able. I figured out how to spread out the steps, so that any given day’s task is doable… Read more →
It’s been a while since I’ve written a post. The reason, mostly, is that this blog is a series of reflections, and when too much life is happening, there’s no time to reflect. That has been the case for some time now: I think I’ll need five years of therapy to digest the past year! But yesterday inspiration has come… Read more →
These little layered bars are soft, sweet, creamy crowd pleasers. You have to make them a day ahead to give them time to soften, which makes them perfect for Sunday afternoon tea (or, if you are North American, whatever you call that meal at 3pm that consists entirely of cake). It might sound like an odd creation, filling dense, thin… Read more →
I apologise for referring to the junior person as “she” throughout this post, and assuming that the senior one is a “he”. I know this is only one of many possible situations, and much of what I say applies to any of the others too. This is going to be a complicated post, so I summarised my recommendations in a… Read more →
TL/DR: Take your favourite chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Add some coffee to everything and Bailey’s to the frosting. It works nicely! Last weekend I half-improvised a birthday cake for a friend, and I was really happy with how the flavours turned out. My go-to chocolate cake is a less sweet version of Julia Child’s chocolate sponge, along with my… Read more →
Before Pixie was born, I thought about parenting priorities. Nobody will ever ask an adult at what age they learned to read. You can learn to code or memorise the capital cities of the world any time, whenever you’re interested. But there are two important things that are near–impossible to make up for after childhood: the knowledge that one is worthy… Read more →
Happy Mother’s Day three weeks ago, everyone! After a long hiatus, I meant to write something for the holiday that won’t traumatise you. Late as always, here’s a light-hearted post about the person who pushed me bum-first into this world. My Mom. Devoted. Introverted. Pragmatic. Perfectionist. Once, a long time ago, I was unfaithful to a partner, and when in the ensuing… Read more →
At age twelve I designed my dream house for a school project. There was a large pool in the backyard, the house had three levels, the top level was home to a family playroom with a window overlooking the yard, and from this window a waterslide snaked down to the pool. The house hugged the slide proudly in a crescent… Read more →
For my birthday last year Pink got me a writing class in creative non-fiction. I never ask for a specific present, but this time I had given him a subtle hint: a link to the enrolment page. The true present, of course, was that on six Thursday nights Pink put Pixie to bed by himself, while I had a blast… Read more →