Soda Bread

I traveled abroad for the first time when I was in sixth grade. My dad and I took a trip to England. We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express just down the street from Victoria Station, we saw the British Museum, Harrod's, Stonehenge, Bath, Dover, York, Leeds, and went to a dinner show at the court of Henry VIII near St. Katherine's quay. It was the first of four trips I would make to England. I was homeschooled from fifth grade through graduating high school and was lucky enough to have many opportunities for travel, particularly foreign travel.

That first trip introduced me to the cuisine of the United Kingdom. Sparkling water is more common than still, meat pasties are more common than sandwiches, and if you do have a sandwich it probably has prawns on it. Strong black tea is a staple not a luxury, biscuits are cookies, and shortbread is divine. I loved it and I love it still. Maybe it's the Irish in me but despite traveling through Europe and Asia, a meat pastie and a hot cup of tea still makes my mouth water more than anything else.

At the moment, my fascination is focused on baking the perfect loaf of soda bread. I've made three loaves in the past week, trying to get the right balance of crisp crust and soft interior. It's actually quite the challenge. Yeast and heavy grains were not common in Ireland so the rise in bread had to be gained by activating baking soda with buttermilk. You have to work quickly to mix the dough because if you let it sit too long the process runs its course and the dough toughens. Anyway, I think I'm almost there. I do better baking the dough as a large loaf in the oven, rather than baking it as farls on the stove-top. I still have a ways to go. I would like to achieve a softer crust. I'm getting another pint of buttermilk tomorrow to make more. I think Buddy Holly might be growing weary of soda bread.

Tour: The Niche

Welcome to The Niche. The new writing room. To make myself come up here and work I decided to gather around me all the things that inspire me. 

The desk is an antique. It belonged to my great-great-grandmother and matches a dresser in our bedroom. It's quite beat up and does not have the width for a normal office chair but I love it. Buddy Holly keeps threatening to replace it with a proper computer desk and I won't let him. I will chain myself to this desk if I have to.

The oriental rug I got from Church. 

My Japanese calligraphy set and dishes.
There's a second dish off to the left.  

My Chinese tea cup.
This was bought from the tea house at the Summer Palace in Beijing.

I have no idea how to justify these trinkets. They were given to me and I love them.
The dog is carved from wood, my grandmother made it for my dollhouse,
styled after our family's golden retriever.

My Anastasia music box.

My parents gave us this frame.

I've never changed the original paper advertisement out of it.

My Japanese prints. A friend from Kobe gave them to me.

Fountains Abbey, Ripon, England - my favorite spot in the world.

My motto.

I set up two cork-boards to pin ideas too. But they were pretty bland, so I made them pretty.

The postcard is from the Opera Populaire,
better known as the opera belonging to one Phantom.

 Snur collected X-Men cards when we were kids. I don't know where they are now but, before they disappeared, I pilfered two cards. One is Domino and, of course, my idol, Shadowcat. 

All that's missing is a couch. And then the writing...of course.

Mismatched Earrings

There is a custom in China, when two friends (girls) meet, to exchange an earring.