A food processor : A first?!

This week I bought a food processor.

It was a first because it was the first major thing I bought for my mother's kitchen.

For sometime, I have been experimenting with cooking classes. I thought it might be good to go to a knife skills class and then I realised that as I don't cook fish (don't particularly like it) and am unlikely to want to dismember a chicken. What I tend to use knives for are onions, mushrooms, carrots. Yes, vegetables. Do I need a course for that? No. It was cheaper to buy a food-processor.

Why is it a first? I have bought a food processor before but this time it was for my Mother's kitchen. It was the first major purchase for her kitchen.

I have been cooking in her kitchen all my life but since she died it's been where I have been doing the bulk of the cooking as it's been no fun cooking in mine for some time. After she died it was basics as it was for my father who likes straight forward meat and potatoes whether it be fillet steak or sausages. Chicken is fine but stews are tolerated. Potatoes are preferred.

Recently things have progressed and flavour is dominant. Last time I asked, "something I wouldn't normally have". We are never going to go down the chinese, vegetarian and soup route but at least my cooking is different from ready-meals, smoked salmon & boiled eggs.

It's strange being in charge of my Mother's kitchen. I use her radio, her knives, the wonky beater. I know how to bake her apple-cake. I use puff pastry for mince pies as she did. Over the years I have made several meals there and have been responsible for Christmas lunches. We've had loads of meals there. I have cooked for dinner parties. But the kitchen is not a place for being morbid because you need it to eat. There are more ready meals and things in the freezer.

Over the last few months I have started to enjoy cooking again but baking more. I know that a food processor will be used. Gradually the kitchen is feeling more like more like my space. I got rid of things I would never use. Surprisingly getting rid of a few things, made better use of space. It's my choice of recipes. I still haven't been through her files of newspaper cuttings. 

It will never be my kitchen but I am enjoying doing my own thing and with the food processor have put my first stamp on it.

Two Choirs : My 2nd first

Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

And I was filled with such delight

As prisoned birds must find in freedom,

Winging wildly across the white

Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;

And beauty came like the setting sun:

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror

Drifted away ... O, but Everyone

Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Siegfried Sassoon 1919

Siegfried Sassoon wrote this following the Armstice. He had been a soldier, an anti-war protester and an acclaimed war poet. He wrote later how the words had come to him. Perhaps they are an expression of the end of war or inspired by the singing in the trenches but it is a poem that has always resonated with me. Music and singing in particular can be comforting but can also encompass sorrow or, in this case, horror and when you share the emotions via music rather than another person they can be magnified, triggered and sometimes dispersed.

I joined Kensington Singers a few months after my Mother died. I had been thinking about joining a choir since stopping shiftwork. Unemployment, loneliness and the need for belonging to a group prompted me to get on with it. My criteria were simple. No auditions, friendly, near home & not on a Tuesday (clash with Portuguese classes). Kensington on paper (sorry web-page) met all of these plus the web-site said pub afterwards. Now I wasn't in the mood for the pub afterwards & a few years on, I still haven't been but I reckoned that a choir who makes a point of this must be friendly.

When you join a choir, one of the things is that you have a responsibility to the other members and the choir director (Hannah Brine in our case). There are the common things like being on time, remembering your music, helping set up and putting things away. You should also do your homework. Hannah records MP3s for each song and each part. This could be up to 8 if each of the parts split (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). She also sends round a newsletter highlighting what we have done each week and what we should work on for the next week and there is also a concert at the end of each term. This means that you need to spend time outside of the rehearsals practising and getting to know the songs.

For the first term, I failed miserably to do this for about 7 weeks. I was enjoying the new experience of being part of the group but it wasn't working for me. Then I tried to get my mind around a complex arrangement of A Partridge in a Pear Tree. I started crying and I realised that I was struggling because I couldn't face Christmas as my Mother had left such a hole in our family and she so enjoyed Christmas. 2017 was better but again I struggled in 2018 as not only did my Aunt leave another massive hole in our lives but 22nd December was the anniversary of her death.

But still I persisted. Spring and Summer terms have been fantastic. (with the possible exception of singing "Requiem" in the first rehearsal of the term following my aunt's death!).We've sung so much with a great range of genres and works by Eric Whittaker, Bob Chilcott, Billy Joel, arrangements by the King Singers and songs from musicals incluing Sunday in the Park with George. My favourite has to be Baba Yetu from the video game Civilizatin IV. This led to an invitation to sing the Napa High School Alumni Choir at St John's Smith Square. 

A huge highlight for me was being part of the hastily put together WI Choir to perform at the Olivier Awards at the Royal Albert Hall. (spoiler : there isn't a WI choir). We were the choir accompanying the stars and writers of the musical Calendar Girls. We sang Yorkshire. It's not the greatest song ever written but I have now performed with the legendary Gary Barlow! Waiting to make our entrance I was lucky to be at the door where many of the stars came in including Glenda Jackson, Ian MacKellan, Brian May and his wife Anita Dobson. I had the pleasure of singing to the back of Mark Rylance's head. If I had been on the lefthand side of our entry, it could have been Andrew Lloyd-Webber. No pressure!

Why two choirs? I decided last Summer to try Sing Broadway at Citylit. I like Citylit (more another time) and thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked singing with a different group, was slightly scared at doing a solo number for the first time. I discovered I thrived from group dynamics, I can deliver a performance but my sense of timing is dreadful.

Working part-time, I don't do Mondays. Other people may not like them but I don't do them so I decided to try out the lunchtime choir. The first week it worked out fine. The repertoire works for me. One hour at lunch and then 2 in the evening is fun. Different styles but similar techniques. New group. I think it will be just fine.

The 1st first : The Wallace Collection

I have spent most of life in London but I had never been to the Wallace Collection. I am not sure why as I grew up going to art collections. We live close to Dulwich and I went to school there so have been a frequent visitor to Dulwich Gallery all my life. When travelling, Vel I go to galleries and museums including smaller collections such as the Frick. There is no excuse, no logical explanation so last week I went.

My first problem was finding it. This is nothing to do with the Wallace Collection - it's clear on their web-site, it's a significant building. This was my fault. I had assumed it was another building just north of Bond Street. Oops! This meant I arrived later than intended but did get to explore St Christopher's Place which is a surprise of smaller establishments in contrast to the monoliths of the Oxford Street department stores.

I thoroughly enjoyed my brief visit to the Wallace Collection. It's another gem built up by a family with a very good eye and I think these collections are the most special. There's a link between the pictures and it's not overwhelming as the big institutions. (The only time I have been seriously lost in the US is when I have been trying to find the exit in the New York Metropolitan Museum).

Before going, I knew about the Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals I did not know about the Rembrandts, Velasquez, Van Dykes. There is an awful lot of armour and I am afraid that that is one collection I can live without. Dulwich of course has Rembrandts and for a while I was growing up when the local joke was "are the Rembrandts in or out?" Not because they were on loan but because they kept getting stolen. There was also one trip to New York when my Mother and I made our regular pilgrimage to the Frick only to find there was a temporary exhibition from Dulwich and the poster girl was the Rembrandt of a girl.

Back to the Wallace. Oddly one of the pictures that immediately jumped out at me was a version of Velasquez' the Infanta. The light was a delight. Also lovely to see a focus on the Infanta after seeing Picasso's interpretation in Barcelona.

I have always had a soft spot for Hals. He has a way of letting you identify with his subjects. I am not sure his Cavalier is laughing but he certainly has a twinkle in his eye and was probably very good company. If you go to the National Gallery and see his portrait of a family which is so human.

But yes it is Rembrandt that for me is the star. Look at his thoughtful picture of his son. His self-portrait isn't the greatest I have ever seen but it is unmistakable. His portraits in the Great Hall are terrific.

Lots of small details. A Fragonard, Whistler doing a photo-shop version of George IV. Delicate pieces of furniture.

It may have been the first time I have been but I am already planning to go back.

52 ways of banishing ghosts or a year of getting a life

'Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt about that.'

A Christmas Carol. In many ways my life over the last year has been dominated by what I have been calling ghosts. In the last 3.5 years, I have been made redundant, had a short term contract end just as my Mother died. A period of unemployment followed by the job that nightmares are made of. This has been accompanied by the death of both of my mother's sisters within 18 months and the sale of my Aunt's house, next door to my Father's. He is fine but a grumpy 84 year old. I also have a flat that needs gutting, rewiring that I fell write aboutout of love when upstairs' washing machine started backing up into my kitchen so I guess you could say that my life has not been exactly a bed of roses.

Written like that, it seems as though life has been all doom and gloom but it's not. I have a part-time job that I enjoy, I've started new things, got capital and have used one of the things I have inherited from the relatives - resilience. I am unmarried and an only child but very lucky to have good friends and wonderful cousins.

And yet - of course things get me down. I need to challenge myself, do new things, explore a new life. But I can't drop everything and go round the world because I haven't got that much capital and whilst fit, Grumpy (my Father) does like me dividing my time between my flat and his house. To be honest, I like spending time at his house too particularly as it has been a home to me since I was 13.

There are times when I have felt that life is dominated by ghosts. memories of things I did with my Mother, places I have visited, family times, experiences at work, weird and exciting shifts. I miss the eccentric independent life I used to have.

I have never been one to do New Year's Resolutions. After all, what's the point of trying to lose weight or do loads of exercise at the time of year (at least in Northern Europe) when it's dark, cold and miserable. Why add more of that to your life and condemn yourself to fail.

I do however believe in challenges. This year I am challenging myself to do one new thing every week and to write about it. They aren't going to be the big things. Colleagues have registered to do the Challenge 42 and go up Tower 42 or the NatWest Tower as I used to know it. I am not that crazy and besides I did a lot of those stairs in my twenties when I worked for NatWest Corporate Banking or NatWest Markets as it became. Walking down 29 flights was tough enough on the knees! Let's face it, when you go uphill you at least get to enjoy the view but you don't on those stairs.

I digress. My new things are going to be smaller, it could be the new term at choir, a new recipe, knitting technique, a new walk. It can be things I am already doing but a new chapter or perhaps a new book.

What brought this on? Some incredible lows over the last 2 months. It's a year since my Aunt died on 22nd December after a stroke on my cousin's birthday. Struggles with my Father over relatively small things and a huge issue over Christmas Day. To take my mind off things and have a break over the miserable Christmas period, I booked a weekend in Paris. I've been to Paris several times. I could spend so many weekends over there, not because I particularly like the city but because of the cultural jewels. Let's face it, it's a lot closer than New York! This time I decided I wanted to see the Blue and Pink period Picasso exhibition & the Impressionist & Neo-Impressionist rehang at the Musee d'Orsay & the Fauvist exhibition at the Marmottan which featured works in private collections.

I went to book the hotel in the Bastille area which I have stayed at several times but then I stopped. Why? I wasn't going to the opera this time, I didn't need to go back to the restaurants in the area, I didn't have to go back. I went for somewhere new on the Left Bank. To be honest, I think the hotel I stayed at, whilst lovely, was probably over priced for what it offered but Location, Location, Location costs. It was absolutely the right thing to do! I came back with a sense of peace from the Marmotten and joy in the Signacs and the Seurats looking so much happier on the top floor of the Orsay. I laughed when I got involved in a conversation with a Portuguese waiter and then forgot which language I was supposed to be speaking. I had switched off and relaxed.

This is what I want to continue this year so I am going to be writing about the new things in my life this year and possibly some old ones. I might even try and write about the love-hate I have with Picasso[s paintings.

Au revoir pour ce soir.