Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Maybe it was the warm autumn weather.  Maybe it was the fun of peeking into other people's back gardens.  Maybe it was the novelty of standing with other people, listening to real live musicians.  Or maybe it was just the giant pink ice creams. Whatever it was, Melbourne Festival had turned into a surprisingly satisfying afternoon.  I'd seen the posters for it and thought it might be a nice change from yet another walk on a Sunday afternoon, but that was about as high as my expectations had been. When we arrived, the male three-quarters of the family were immediately pleased to see the signs for classic cars at Melbourne Hall.  Shortly afterwards, I was pleased to discover that there were only about half a dozen of them, so that we could rapidly move on to less mechanical works of art. The festival was spread out around the village of Melbourne, in churches, halls, and private gardens.  Melbourne is one of those fascinating places anyway, with archways and alleyways and houses

We like home made pizza in our house.  We like shop-bought pizza too, of course, or the big gooey expensive pizzas from Dominos if it's a special occasion.  But we do like home made pizza.   The only snag is, I have to be around in the afternoon at some point to make the bread dough.  I can't do it on a day when I'm out at work and then pick the boys up from school and don't get home until 4pm.  I don't have to do anything to the dough in the afternoons; I just have to make it by about 2 o'clock to give it time to rise. Cake mixture is easy.  It usually has baking powder in it, plus the air beaten in and held by the eggs, so you can make a cake and cook it straight away.  When I worked in a bakery, those of us who made the cakes worked daytimes.  As we left in the evening, the bread bakers would arrive - hefty guys in sturdy aprons, who would sling around sacks of flour and heavy metal pans - ready to make and prove the bread overnight so it was fresh for the ne