Happy New Year, everyone!!

I hope that all my readers will have a fantastic year in 2009 and that it will be happy, healthy and full of amazing food!

I’ve been reminiscing about the best bits of 2008 and above is a (slightly messy) collage of my favourite recipes from A Spoonful of Sugar.  But while I’ve had a lot of fun in my own kitchen this year, I’ve had some great experiences at restaurants and visiting local producers.

In January Dave took me to The Fat Duck for my birthday, a restaurant I’ve wanted to eat at for years and it was every bit as gloriously wacky as I’d hoped it would be.  He followed that up with lunch at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay for our wedding anniversary in July.  I’ve been thoroughly spoilt this year!!  In February I spent a weekend in deepest, darkest Devon cooking Italian at Ashburton Cookery School.  I hope to be able to squeeze in another weekend there in 2009 as it was fantastic!

Closer to home, I’ve discovered lots of great farm shops, spent a happy weekend eating my way round the Bristol Organic Food Festival, picked apples at an organic orchard, and butchered half a pig.  I had great fun baking cupcakes with a friend and baking a Bertie the Bus birthday cake for Lucas’s second birthday!

I managed to fulfil one of my New Year’s Resolutions and had my very first harvest of butternut squash which were sadly, not as tasty as they looked.  I shall keep trying though, and hopefully we’ll have a much better summer in 2009.  I am planning to grow lots of borlotti beans after falling in love with the creamy richness of the fresh bean last summer.  I also had fun cooking my way round Italy, but did get thoroughly bogged down in the north of the country, so I shall continue my Italian armchair odyssey this year!

Yup, 2008 was a good year.  I hope that 2009 will be at least as good, but hopefully even better! Thank-you for continuing to visit and comment.  Happy New Year!!

Today is the fifth anniversary (or should that be birthday?) of A Spoonful of Sugar!  I can’t believe that it’s been five years since I first posted—about my stollen, if you were curious.  I still remember how nervous I was, and how I wondered if anyone other than family, friends or colleagues would read my little blog.  And then, slowly, ever so slowly, people started to arrive.  Clotilde, Alberto, Renee (of the sadly now defunct Shiokadelicious.com), Deb… So many people have come and gone over the years, and I’ve loved getting to know them all!

This year has been particularly fantastic, with very special means at both The Fat Duck and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, a weekend cookery course in Devon, and plenty of foodie outings.  I’m still thrilled beyond belief at the morning I spent at Perry & Son butchering half a pig—I’m looking forward to picking up my Christmas loin of pork—and I don’t think I’ll ever forget how wonderful it was to pick my own apples at Our Small Farm.  Definitely a great year!

So I’d like to say a big thank-you! to everyone who has visited A Spoonful of Sugar over the years, encouraged me to try new foods and techniques, suggesting suppliers and telling me about fantastic new restaurants.  Thank-you, all!

And now for dessert!  I did think about reprising the stollen for this birthday post, but when I spotted some incredibly early rhubarb in the farm shop, I knew I had to make something special with it.  I’m not a girly-girl, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anything pink in my wardrobe, however… I find the lurid pink of forced rhubarb impossible to resist.

The recipe which follows is a slight reworking of ‘Rhubarb and Custard’ from John Campbell’s fantastic book, Formulas for Flavour.  I tried the original recipe last year and unfortunately it didn’t go so well due to the wrong size of rings, a too-runny centre, and a rather horrid ginger sponge base. However, the flavours were fantastic!  So, I’ve swapped the frozen creme anglaise in the original recipe for a frozen creme brulee, replaced the ginger sponge with a thin slice of stem ginger cake and pared down the garnishes as I thought it was quite beautiful already.  I won’t lie to you, this dessert is a lot of work, but I felt the occasion warranted all the dirty dishes and utensils.

The rhubarb mousse is so light and fluffy with a great balance between sharp rhubarb and sweet, creamy mousse.  Nestling in the mousse is the custard component, beautifully speckled with vanilla, and silky smooth and pairing beautifully with the layer of rhubarb geleé below.  Last, but by no means least, is the stem ginger base which I loved, but Dave would have preferred something crunchy.  Perhaps some sort of feuillete?

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Summer berry trifle

I’m not big on memes, but I couldn’t resist The British One Hundred when I saw that Helen had created it in response to the Omnivore’s One Hundred that’s been doing the rounds lately.

British food is in the midst of a renaissance–long may it continue–and seeing this meme has reminded me that British Food Fortnight is coming up. Well, it’s at the end of October, so still a little while away, but this is a good way to get yourself in the mood for some seriously good food.

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At New Year, I decided that I’d try growing some fruit and vegetables this year. We’re now in May, so the time seems ripe for a bit of an update.

My apple tree–pictured above with Dave and Lucas–seems to be relishing its home at the bottom of the garden. It’s now a smidge over six feet tall, has plenty of leaves for its size, and has produced the cutest little pink blossom. As our neighbour has a huge mature apple tree in his garden, I’m hoping that the bees drawn to his tree will deign to visit my little one.

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s a family apple tree, meaning that there are three varieties grafted onto the same rootstock. In my case they’re Katy, James Grieve, and Cox. All dessert apples, and all very yummy. I love Cox apples! Family trees tend to yield lighter crops than normal trees, but I doubt this will be a problem for us. I’m not sure that three people could munch their way through a bumper crop of apples!

On the subject of trees… here is our ancient, gnarled and much-neglected plum tree in the wilderness corner of the garden. Its blossom has already been and gone, so I expect that it will be fruiting enthusiastically later in the year. I do wonder if I should be ripping that ivy away from round its trunk and perhaps pruning it, but the crop gets bigger each year so perhaps it prefers to be ignored? I did give it some (very fishy) fertiliser back in April whilst I was lavishing love on the apple tree. So, it’s definitely had more care this year than per usual!

My little bay tree lives on the decking alongside my pot of garlic and flat-leaf parsley. I should probably prune it back to its original conical shape and dry out the leaves myself. Fresh bay is such a treat and I still get a real kick out of being able to walk outside and snip some!

The garlic and flat-leaf parsley are my two biggest successes to date. They’re both bog standard supermarket purchases. I had space in the strawberry planter last year–birds ate all the young berries. Not a success–so planted out one of those living herb containers. Surprisingly it flourished and it’s still going strong this year. The garlic got planted on a similar whim. I just broke up a bulb of garlic, pushed the cloves into the holes of the strawberry planter and left them to it. Judging from the huge shoots, I’d say that the garlic is doing pretty well–wouldn’t you?

Indoors I’ve got some butternut squash seedlings that are growing at an incredible rate. I splashed out on a packet of Cobnut F1 butternut squash seeds. Apparently Cobnut is a fast-growing variety, bred for Britain’s climate, and with a small seed cavity so more flesh. I can certainly vouch for the fast-growing part! The seedlings will get planted out at the end of May when all danger of frost will have passed.

So far growing my own fruit and vegetables has been really satisfying. I’m very proud of my small efforts and I can’t wait until I can harvest something!

I am delighted to announce the arrival of our son, Lucas Alexander, on the 22nd of October at 11.20pm! He weighed in at 9lb 7oz and is, of course, absolutely perfect in every way. We’re both absolutely besotted and still find ourselves spending large amounts of the day marvelling at how we’ve managed to create such a beautiful, happy boy.

Lucas is now 8 weeks old and is growing nicely–he clocked in at 12lb 2oz yesterday. He’s getting very ‘talkative’ and makes lots of gurgles, coos and (of course) screams. He’s full of smiles, too, and I can’t wait until he giggles or laughs for the first time!

Life is wonderful, if very tiring, just now. I’m hoping that once Lucas settles into a loose routine that I’ll be able to get back into the kitchen, even if it’s just to make old favourites instead of slaving over the stove for hours on end. Right now I can’t imagine having enough spare time to bake bread or ice a cake!! Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way….

Due to massive amounts of comment and trackback spam, I’ve changed the comment system. You can now only comment if you’re registered with the Typekey comment service. This is a free system run by Six Apart–you can learn more about it here. Trackbacks have also been disabled.

At one point I received approximately 250 spam comments/trackbacks a day, despite having spam protection, which took up a huge amount of time and was one of the reasons I took a hiatus. To those of you who do not wish to register with Typekey, you can still email me if you want to comment.

Thanks also to everyone who’s emailed me. Yes! I will be back properly and I’m looking forward to taking part in the next Sugar High Friday.

*taps on screen* Anyone still out there?

It’s been quite a while since I last updated, but I’m sure you’ll all be delighted to know that I feel terribly guilty about it on a daily basis! Life has been fairly hectic, and whilst I have been cooking, the results have either been completely unphotogenic or the camera batteries have been flat. Sod’s law, eh?

I have a batch of cookie dough chilling in the fridge just now, and I’m hoping to make time to cook a few tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even manage to take a few decent pictures! Also, I’m heading out to a travelling French food market with a friend tomorrow; I’m hoping that there’ll be some great goodies there that I can tell you guys about.

Debbie, from Words To Eat By, tapped me last month for the music meme that’s been going around. I must be the last person to respond to this, and given all the erudite music that everyone’s been talking about… I’m a little intimidated!

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I’m proud to say that A Spoonful of Sugar has been nominated and made it through to the finals of the “Best Cooking/Recipe Blog” category in the Best of Blogs Awards. Amusingly, the awards are named after the perenially annoying comment spammer, Bob. You can vote by clicking on the graphic on the right-hand toolbar or by clicking here.

I’m not sure who nominated me, but thank-you very much, whoever you are!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that Santa was good to you (if you do the present thing, that is) and that you’ve also been indulging in lots of luscious food today. We’ve had a lovely dinner with the in-laws and I’ve spent the evening nibbling on some wonderful chocolates. Bliss….

Huge thanks to Yahoo! for making this blog their pick for the day. What a nice surprise to wake up to!