Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Wouldn't it be nice to just... go? To walk out the door on a nice sunny day and follow any path you fancy, as far as you like. No time constraints, no shopping list, nothing to hold you back. You're free. You're on your own. You're not the only one to have this kind of dream. Alastair Humphreys' book The Doorstep Mile is written for people who want more adventure in their lives, but somehow never quite get around to making it happen. And the top two reasons why they don't are: "I don't have enough time!" and "I feel guilty/selfish/it's not fair on my family!" So you might start thinking that what we all need is less responsibility in our lives. It's a tempting idea, that freedom. But as I considered my responsibilities, I realised that many of them arise out of connection to other people. I shop and cook and clean for my family, because I love them and want to care for them. I help to teach the kids at church because I am connect...

One of the things that characterised 2019 for me was the feeling that I was suddenly hearing from a lot of viewpoints that I'd never heard before.   I realised that most of the people I know are a lot like me, and that other people have a very different way of seeing the world. Put like that, it seems dumb not to have realised that before.  But most of these books have been published in the last 4 years ( Americanah is oldest, from 2013), so maybe, too, these are voices that just wouldn't have been heard, and experiences that wouldn't have been talked about, a decade or more ago. I feel like these books have made me think more about prejudice, identity, and my assumptions about them.  But more than that, they've taken me to new places and helped me to see the world through different eyes.  And that's what books, at their best, are there for. Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging by Afua Hirsch Afua Hirsch was born in the same year as I was, and gre...

Maria thought of plants at school - beans in jam jars... and mustard and cress on bits of flannel.  But what I like, she thought, is not all that but the names of things.  And every single kind of thing having a different name.  Holm oak and turkey oak and the sessile and pedunculate oak.  Sessile and pedunculate... 'What?' said Mrs Foster. 'Nothing.' Holm oak - quercus ilex I have on my bookshelf a faded paperback in a cracked plastic cover.  On the front cover, a girl with windblown hair gazes into the distance; below her, small silhouetted characters in top hats and Victorian dresses parade on a beach; and under them are grey stones with swirly ammonite fossils etched on them in white.  The title, in block capitals, is A STITCH IN TIME by PENELOPE LIVELY. I had never given much thought to the author until I happened upon a book in the library called Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time , also by Penelope Lively.  Despite the referen...

When we went sailing a few weeks ago, I mentioned to one of the club members that I had tried sailing a topper as a teenager, and really enjoyed it.  He asked: "Why haven't you done any sailing since then?" Well. On the face of it, that's a perfectly reasonable question.  On the other hand, why don't we do all these many things that we would probably enjoy if we did them? Because our weekends are already full.  Because we don't know anyone else who does it.  Because it will cost money.  Because we're afraid it will take up all our time. Because the kids don't want to. Because, quite frankly, it isn't that important to us. Which isn't really something you can say to someone who's been sailing for longer than you've been alive.  But that's pretty much what it comes down to. That brief conversation, and a similar one with a tennis instructor, served to point out the difference between those who are "in" an ...

Sometimes it seems frivolous to write about recipes and the small events of my own life, when in other parts of the world, awful things are happening and other people's families are being ripped apart.  Sometimes the knowing seems to demand a response, or even a responsibility, to look up from my own affairs for a moment, to say yes, I see this, however powerless I feel to do anything about it. And I wrote that paragraph yesterday, thinking of the chemical attacks in Syria.  But now there's Stockholm.  And whichever day you read this, there will be something else.  The task of making peace seems too enormous to contemplate. Maybe we should make cheese instead.  Many years ago, I stayed with a family in Romania who became my friends.  I spoke very little Romanian, though some of them spoke English, and many things in their house were very different to mine.  Welcoming as they were, it was hard to feel at home until the evening we made a cake....

Be appreciative It had been one of those days where I felt I was dashing around a lot for very little reward.  Tidying, vacuuming, chivvying the kids around - and now I was in the kitchen starting on dinner while the rest of the family was watching TV.  I'd just finished pummeling the pizza dough into submission when Theo wandered into the kitchen.  He looked at the beige blob in the mixing bowl and exclaimed, "Wow, that's amazing Mum!  You made that!"  A smile broke over my face, and I realised: Yes.  I did make that.  And actually, it is pretty amazing. What is just as amazing is how a tiny pinch of unadulterated appreciation changes how we feel.  Like the yeast in the bread dough, a few kind words turn a sticky lump of a day into something growing larger and lighter.  So I resolved to try and give that gift to myself and to others more often this year.  To stop and look and say, "That's amazing!  You did that!"  To be ap...

How much would you pay for a pink razor? Not as much as before, fortunately, with Tesco's recent announcement that it is reducing the cost of its women's disposable razors to match men's ones.  However, you're probably still paying over the odds if you favour shampoo, deodorant or body wash aimed at women. In fact, once you open your eyes, it appears that the number of products that women pay more for is simply staggering.  If you can bear to read it, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs put together a 76-page report detailing just how much more a female customer is likely to pay over the course of her lifetime. Perhaps, like me, your initial reaction is, "Why don't you just buy the men's version then?"  But of course, the issue runs much deeper than that.  Paula Cocozza , in The Guardian , comments that spending 50p less for men's shaving gel just "make[s] you smell like a cheap man".  Cheap or not, the all-pervadi...

Sometimes it's fascinating to muse on how interconnected everything is.  Sometimes it's scary.  Sometimes a bit of both. I first found out about the South Korean shipping company Hanjin's bankruptcy through this story , about a British artist who is stuck on board one of the ships.  The focus was narrowed down to this single person, who was remarkable mostly because she wouldn't normally expect to be on a cargo ship at all.  And suddenly a business bankruptcy, which would normally be an obscure piece of news to her, is having a big impact on her life. The next story I read covered a captain and crew of a different Hanjin ship, moored off of Singapore.  Unlike the artist, they had every reason to be on board a cargo ship; they work there.  Except suddenly, they don't.  Now they're featuring on world news. Moving on from the people involved, the main concern for many companies is the cargo on board .  Shoppers in the USA probably don't spend ...

Margins. The word, dropped in at the tail end of a sermon, made my ears prick up.  Margins. At first I thought the speaker must mean setting boundaries, creating carefully neat frames around those areas of life so likely to spread into puddles of time.  The quick check of social media that becomes an hour.  The late night reading junk food words.  I envisaged lines of colourful patterns surrounding these things, corralling them into shape. Designed by Freepik As he continued speaking, the image shifted.  He talked about arriving at appointments 15 minutes early, leaving time to be available, gaps for the unknown.  I saw the page of a book, dense black letters in the centre, and white margins around the edge.  That space that we don't really see, and yet it helps to define the story.  If it wasn't there, how cluttered would we find the page?  How difficult to concentrate on the words? Of course, the margins don't always stay c...

To a child, everything is normal. Who knows what is normal for an egg? As a parent, this presents us with quite a responsibility.  Because we very quickly realise that whatever - whatever - we do will be regarded as the way things are.  From bedtime routines to parents arguing, from TV time to what we eat - everything is normal for our child.  They have nothing else to compare it to. And even when they do get old enough to realise that not everyone lives like we do, it's still the other people that are different.  Not us.  Not for a long time.  Perhaps, for certain things, even for the rest of our lives, even when we know better. No, this is normal.  Really. The problem is, as adults, we are still, most of us, trying to work out what's normal.  Especially when we have children, and suddenly a whole host of things become normal that never were before.  Like feeding a baby five times in the night, or negotiating with a screaming...

"Martha, tha's brought me thy wages like a good lass, an' I've got four places to put every penny, but I'm just goin' to take tuppence out of it to buy that child a skippin'-rope." So says the warm-hearted Mrs Sowerby to her daughter in Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic The Secret Garden .  And the gift of a skipping-rope begins a change in Mary Lennox, helping to transform her from a spoilt and sickly orphan to a strong and spirited young lady. This quote was jiggling around my mind the other day, because life was hectic.  "I've got three places to put every minute," I thought.  If I wasn't doing this then I could be doing that , and if I wasn't doing that then I could be doing that other thing... But sometimes, even in those kind of times, there is something that makes you say, "I'm just going to take two minutes out." Money and time share some characteristics; a certain rigidity and a certain fl...

On Friday 11 September, British Members of Parliament discussed an Assisted Dying Bill, which would enable doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to patients with less than six months to live, if the patient requested it. No one could blame you. Save six months of pricey meds. Free up one of those hospice beds. One less mouth that must be fed. No one could blame... No one could blame you. Save your family from the shame. Free them from the waiting game. You won't even know their name. No one could... No one could blame you. Save yourself from all the pain. Freedom from that endless strain. Wouldn't it be more humane? No one... No one could blame you. Save yourself with one small pill. Freedom comes when all is still. All it takes is your free will. No. The bill was rejected, with 118 in favour and 330 against.

Come, enter in, approach the wine and bread. This is no mere remembrance of one who lies long dead. This is an invitation from one whose words all said: Come, enter in. Come, enter in, lay down your nagging fear. Your burdens may be lifted, your sins forgiven here. This table is a still point in all the changing year: Come, enter in. Come, enter in, though not with hate possessed - You need to ask forgiveness from those you have distressed. A blessing must be given if you would now be blessed: Come, enter in. Come, enter in, lift up your eyes again. Remember him who lived and died, compassion masking pain, And view him now in heaven, where he shall always reign: Come, enter in. Come, enter in, receive the bread and wine. Drink deep, eat well, and understand the sign - For in this holy sacrament God's grace will always shine: Come, enter in. This is an old poem.  I wrote it almost ten years ago, arising out of a prayer meeting at my church in Bristol, but i...

I once mortally offended a girl in my chemistry class at university. It was Freshers Week.  We had been standing next to each other in the queue to register for our classes, and exchanged a reasonable amount of conversation.  It was a long line; we had time for more than the first three questions that everyone asks during that first week. (What's your name; where are you from; what are you studying.  In case you were wondering.) Later that day, I was in the bar at my halls of residence when I noticed a girl waving.  Not recognising her, I assumed she was looking at someone behind me.  Finally she confronted me and said, "I was talking to you just this afternoon!" Unsurprisingly, we didn't become best friends. I have since realised that those are classic conditions for my facial recognition difficulties to kick in.  Give me (a) a situation where I am meeting lots of new people, let me (b) meet you only one time, even if we are chatting for ten min...

It's a long, slow build up to spring around here.  I found myself wanting to shout at the daffodils to get moving, as I chivvy Toby to get his shoes on when we're running late.  But finally there's a sunny day here... and another one there... and a tantalising smell of green growing things in the air... and I got my camera and went hunting for springtime. Crocuses Magnolia buds (and blue sky!) Daffodils on the windowsill Flowers on the village green Snowdrops Even an early clump of primroses! Alder catkins A coot adjusting her nest Courting mallards But in the middle of all this new life, I turned on the radio this afternoon and learned that Sir Terry Pratchett had taken the hand of Death.  He was a man of immense imagination and immense humanity. Not many people can claim to have created a world.  Still fewer have welcomed 70 million people into that world with them. And probably only one has made it as funny, serious and fan...

Family is a funny thing. As I grew up, we made regular but infrequent visits to my aunts, uncles and cousins.  My dad's side of the family - the English half - we would usually see once a year, at Christmas.  Every three years, usually in the summer, we would go spend a few weeks with my mom's family in the USA.  When you have memories of little Lizzie slipping her hand into yours as you walked down the street, or of baking Lucky Charms cookies with Eva, you feel like you should know these people. With my American cousins, 1994 Then you start counting, and realise you barely need ten fingers to add up the number of times you have seen them.  Not just in the last ten years.  In your whole life. And now, some of them are gone.  There never will be a chance to get to know them better.  And although you can hardly grieve a person you knew so little, they were family .  Those nebulous threads stringing us all together have just tweaked and ti...

Hey folks!  I learnt a new word today!  I can now proudly proclaim myself to be a flexitarian .  Yes, I wish that meant I'm in training to be a trapeze artist.  Or that I'm a leading world expert on the chemical properties of stretchy materials.  All it actually means is that I don't eat meat that much. Well, big deal.  That lumps me in with a majority of the world's population, many of whom have no choice about the matter.  So why the need for a fancy new word?  Because, it seems, that we in the prosperous West have come to regard having bacon for breakfast, chicken sandwiches for lunch and a steak for dinner as entirely normal.  But also because we in the prosperous West are starting to realise that might not be an entirely good idea. You know about factory farming, of course.  The images of chickens crammed into tiny cages and pigs which never see the sunlight, which we push out of our minds when we reach for our plastic...