Martha's Marvellous Munchies

It's unusual that Graham makes requests for his birthday.  But for this one he asked if I could make a birthday cake with a picture of Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes on it.  (He's not especially a Lewis Hamilton fan, it's just that the Mercedes happens to have a big number 44 on it.  Guess how old he was this birthday!)  Now, drawing racing cars is not my particular forte, but you know, since he's my husband and all, I figured I'd have a go. There are plenty of pictures out there, of course: a quick Google Images search turned up this one , and I sat down to try and transcribe it onto paper.  My pencil drawing came out well enough that I felt able to carry on - at least, it looked roughly like a Formula 1 car and the perspective wasn't completely screwed up. The cake was a simple sponge cake.  I marzipanned and iced it, and set to work.  With the drawing in hand, cutting out the shapes in fondant was relatively simple, as I could trace the lines onto the

Last week my Bible study group discussed Genesis chapter 22 - the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son Isaac.  At first reading this can seem a brutal story, of a jealous and possessive God determined to wring every possible concession from his follower, before relenting at the very last second and grudgingly supplying a sheep instead. But as we talked it through, I came to see that there are other ways of understanding it too.  Like most Biblical stories, we are given very little insight into the thoughts and emotions of the characters.  We have to recreate them as we read.  Sometimes it's as if we were reconstructing a building from the clues in its excavated foundation.  And like in that archeological task, we often bring our own ideas about what the construction should look like, as well as following the pattern of other buildings of that time.  It's possible to recreate two very different buildings from the original foundation stones. Here are two possibl

Very occasionally, we plan to have a barbeque.  Much more often, we look out the window about 3pm and decide the weather's right for one.  So sometimes the food available includes traditional barbeque staples such as sausages and burgers, and sometimes it includes... well, parsnips. Partly this is due to my dislike of eating too much meat, even when grilled outside.  But once those coals are glowing it's a shame just to cook half a dozen sausages.  Chunks of potato work well, courgettes are some of my favourites, tandoori vegetables were deemed too exotic, mushrooms are pretty good.  Really, anything you would put in a roasting tin, you can put on a barbeque.  But until now, I had never barbequed a parsnip. These were fairly small ones, so they just got peeled, topped and tailed, and parboiled.  Shake them up with a little oil and seasoning, and they're good to go.  I'm not sure about putting them in a bun with ketchup, but as a side with the sausages and meatbal