I had to refill the coffee jar this morning because the amount left in it was only about a teaspoon and not enough for my kind of drink. I watched as the little coffee granules poured into the jar and realised something which made me smile.

I remember when I was little, whenever Nana and Grandad came to visit mum would buy slightly more expensive coffee especially for them. I remember looking with awe at this different stuff to what my mum would drink: it came in little lumps instead of a thin powder. I always held that coffee with a special reverence.


Who knew that today I would be a big coffee drinker in my house? That today I would be looking at the brand and strength of coffee my mum bought with slight disdain? The thought that I once held those simple little granules in awe of their awesomeness makes me laugh. Since then I have experienced the caffeine shakes many, many times; often because I couldn't resist another delicious espresso.

This week we are going to need all the coffee we can get, it's going to be pretty busy. My brother is getting married and we have to sort out food, family, outfits, parties, presents, food, more food and more parties. I'm looking forward to it.

"Oh, it's a disaster isn't it!?"

A couple of years ago my little sisters and I decided to try and make a sponge cake. We followed some random recipe, plonked the mix into the oven and waited. It came out flat, hard and gooeyish on the outside. Not like a sponge at all.
There and then I decided that I didn't have the talent for sponges, so have restricted my egg-white baking to Pavlovas and meringues for the last couple of years. Until the other day when I watched a YouTube video about how to make a sponge. She gave such wonderful instructions and it was naturally gluten free [made with cornflour.]

Another background aspect to this story:
The other day I was lying on the floor thinking about food [as you do]. I realised that I hadn't had any cooking disasters in ages, or that if I did: the disaster always turned out for the better [like my scones that turned into delicious crackers.] "What if I'm a kind of cooking invincible?" I thought. It would be awesome, but still it's not a very cool superpower. "What if that thought of invincibility gets to me and I try all sorts of nonsense and get stung in a probably very humiliating way?"
"What if I tried to make something, like a pav, fail and then have to turn it into something nice? [not traditionally with heaps of cream of course, that would be cheating.] Hmm, that would be an interesting game."
I went over in my head all the hundreds of things I could do with a failed pav. Still, the word "invincibility" had been placed in my head and was now in my subconscious.

So I planned to make a sponge cake. If I had thought logically I wouldn't have done it without more research into 'the secrets of the sponge'. However that little invincible subconscious voice was doing it's thing.
So this weekend while my parents have been away I have planned to make this wonder sponge.
This morning straight after breakfast I started baking. It was fun, I love the recipe - it looks like the batter should produce a sponge when you pour it into your cake tin.
I was excited so took this photo of it in the oven:


The thought of failing again did cross my mind. Something about not counting chickens...

But I ignored it. How hard could it be?

But check out the result. It reminds me of a huge lump of soft hokey-pokey. It also has a slight baking soda taste, perhaps my heaped teaspoon was too much?



I suppose I got my wish ay? "Invincibility" went to my head. Cooking superpowers indeed! Huh! My little brain is still screaming: "But you don't have disasters! How could this happen to you?"

Now I get to decide what to do with this failed sponge. [I'll keep you posted.]

So sponge people [not saying you are spongy] what did I do wrong?
Let me list some things that may have been a problem:
-opening the door during cooking.
-leaving it in the oven for half an hour after it was turned off, [but not till the oven had completely cooled. I didn't know -thought I'd treat it like a funny Pav....]
-too much baking soda? is that possible?
-I had it on fan bake, it never has been a problem for Pavs - or is a sponge more sensitive [perish the thought!]

Please enlighten me! If you don't know anything about sponges how about you try guess who said the quote in the title of this post?

At the moment I'm waiting on the phone, listening to study link's holding music. I don't think it has been updated in years. I think that because I'm currently listening to "Loyal" - you know, the little theme song for the kiwis [that seemed like it was on continuous loop in every public place] two America's cups ago? [2003] We lost, so obviously the song has never been heard since, excluding only sports reviews which look back on the sad occasion.
Until now.
I heard it while waiting for the queen of all bureaucratic bodies to answer my call.
I think they must have a procedure to rid themselves of useless callers, fifteen minutes minimum before anyone answers - whether they are free or not. No student in their right mind could possibly withstand the onslaught of old easy listening music being blasted into their ear drum without a real burning cause to ring.

I've got little reason to complain really, I mean they ARE processing my information. It just takes them a whole week to process a simple fax. In the meantime they send out a [second] letter to me; demanding the information that I had sent a week before.

So I ring up again. I've done this lots because I know about bureaucracy, you have to keep ringing it and shouting at it's ears [the poor call center people] to get anything done. I don't shout, but I certainly wouldn't mind a bit of forceful talking. Just a few minutes ago, when I was talking to a studylink representative I shockingly reminded myself of my dad when he rings people [he probably enjoys talking to bureaucrats]. Speaking very firmly with the clear idea of making the other person feel like a complete idiot; I explained the problem. But I failed. Perhaps I'm a novice at forceful talk, or perhaps she was just a very experienced professional who sounded like a computer. Probably the latter.

This is only study link. Legend has it that our whole Justice system is even worse. Perish the thought! That is what will stop people committing crimes, the threat of getting caught up in endless and very slow bureaucracy and not the punishment at the end... when it manages to come.

Anyway, I am still waiting for that student allowance.

More waiting... [ok, ok, it isn't a hospital waiting list... so? How hard is it to get people to shuffle paper? It's not surgery!]


Hopefully there wont be any more problems and I can settle down to concentrate on study. [And food. I just made some gluten free hot cross buns!]

So, do you feel my pain? Have you had any unfortunate run-ins with scary bureaucratic form filler-inners?
Have you had any contact with bureaucrats prior to 1999?
Please send us verified proof of your contact with the bureaucrat[s]. Faxes from unverified fax numbers are not valid, please get a JP to sign all papers and forms. In triplicate.

I had another dancing moment the other day. I seem to have lots of them at the moment, perhaps no gluten is having a good effect on me? Perhaps I now have the energy to express the triumphant moment with some sweet moves? A few months ago I would have said "Yay!" - but dancing or any kind of enthusiastic arm waiving was beyond the threshold of energy that I was willing to expend.

I've been dying to try and make some gluten free bread for the last month or so. Somehow the diet is getting a bit boring and I just want a sandwich.

I really, really want a sandwich.

So I begged Mum to buy a bread flour mix for me so I could at least attempt to make something that resembles bread. I knew that it would most likely end up as a savoury white cake-like thing. But like mum explained to the others: 'whatever she makes she HAS to eat. We can chuck our food out to the chickens if it tastes gross, she can't.' Gluten-free ingredients are quite expensive, by no means is mum going to let me throw anything out. So with slight trepidation about the muck that I might possibly have to eat should my exploits fail, I put an apron on and started baking.

It was an awesome recipe, the smell of yeast was so nice. As I mixed everything up and waited for it to rise I started scheming about hot cross buns - one of the special foods that I think I'll cry if I can't eat.
The three 'glutenous' things I'm not willing to do without on special holidays:
-ANZAC biscuits
-Hot cross buns
-Oleballen [dutch doughnuts on new years eve]

Apart from those three things I think I could survive. But the approach of Easter has been on my mind, hence the bread experiments.

Have a look at the results: [make sure you ooh and ahh, because these babies really deserve it.]



Not counting lame scone impersonations, this was my first sandwich since the 25th of November. Oh, it tasted so good!
I'll keep you updated on my hot cross buns. By the way, I used the Bakels bread mix, it is amazing! Unlike most gluten free breads [in my big sister's experience] it does not resemble: cake, wood shavings or really, really stodgy gross doughy homemade bread.
It was nice and soft. My sisters and mum even said that it tasted like normal bread. W00t! My taste buds aren't warped after these few months!

For all my fellow gluten freesias

I can't help it, I just have to share my amazing muffin experiences with you. Yesterday I did some amazing study and was finished heaps earlier than I anticipated. As a little reward and because I have been dying to chew something of that texture for the last fortnight - I made muffins.

When I tasted these first ones; I danced. I have eaten the gluten versions before [love them!] and these don't taste any different. Sure, like most gluten free stuff they don't keep very well but I'm freezing them so it should be ok.


My coeliac sister loved them so much she demanded the recipe as soon as she bit into her first . I'll share it with you too.

Shannon muffins:
1 C flour [I used simple baking mix]
1 tsp baking powder [edmonds is gluten free]
2 eggs [the original recipe says 1, but I thought that 2 was better]
Salt and Pepper
1 C grated cheese
1 C milk
2-3 rashers of bacon - chopped finely
Herbs - as much as you like, chives, parsley, oregano or basil.

Mix all together. Place in well greased muffin tins, bake 10 - 12 minutes at 220c. [for mini muffins I turned it down to 200 instead.] Makes 24 mini muffins or 12 normal sized ones. If you are making normal muffins cook for 12-15 minutes.

I also made these other ones that I have dubbed Healtheries healthy looking berry muffs. It was another dancing moment when these came out of the oven. I was so amazed, they didn't fail! The recipe is on the back of the simple baking mix packet.

I just realized that I've told everyone [who bothers to read this] all about my food trials and evil medical experiences but I've only done one post on my study. This year study is going to be a really big feature in my life, so here goes: listen as I proclaim the wonders of sitting at home and reading dry text books.

You might know that I'm studying information and library studies. The only way you can do it in New Zealand is through the correspondence polytechnic. I keep telling people it's fine with me because "I'm pretty much a correspondence girl." Truly, I was home schooled since before I knew there was such a thing as school. For me home school meant this: do housework, do boring maths and English, rush to read the material mum set out, write the project and have lunch. Then you get the afternoon off.
Ahh, the joys.
Sadly, it's not like that when you're doing 'real' study. I'm going to study full time, a weird concept for the correspondence tech who's major users work full time, have kids, have a life after that and also manage to study in there somehow.
But I still get to lounge in the sun on a beanbag while I study. Jealous? I hope so.
I don't mean to brag, but not only am I doing a diploma... I'm doing two. Mahaha! Hurrah for cross crediting! Because I chose my papers well, after this year of hard-core boringness, I'll only have one paper to do before finishing the first diploma and then two more to finish the second. W00t! That's all I can say.

This week is the beginning of my full time study.
This means that:
1) I'm going to get up before 9 every morning.
2) I have a plan mapped out and even checklists to tick off to keep me motivated. I love checklists.
3) I'm going to get heaps of creative ideas and have a major urge to go shopping, read a long novel, cook heaps of food, play the piano for hours or pretty much anything that I can't do because I have to study.

But hey, I'm looking forward to being qualified and getting the bits of paper. Look at the majesty of the rolled up parchment! I hope I get a hat, if so I also hope that I can keep it. [doubt it though, sigh.]I think that I find studying from books and correspondence the easiest form of study. How about you? Do you like listening to people droning on about something bland? Or are you like me and prefer to read it? [no doubt so you can skim over the extra boring bits...]