Satsuma peel, just out of the sugar syrup at the very beginning of the drying process

I’m going to be making panforte very soon. One of the absolute keys to its success is that you make your own candied peel to go in it.

It’s not as hard as it sounds and if you wanted to make extra for bagging into presents, just double the quantities. You need to make it about two days in advance so a good idea to make this now if you want to try panforte. I got this recipe from the Waitrose magazine a few years ago, but I cut it down to make just enough (ish) for my panforte.

You need:

The peel from two oranges cut up into strips. Or one orange and one lemon.

You can, in theory (and I have done this perfectly successfully) just use the peel from some satsumas that you’ve eaten. In other words, you don’t really need to sacrifice two perfectly good oranges. Especially given that you’ll be chopping the peel up, not presenting it.

250g granulated sugar

some caster sugar for afterwards.

If you’re using the quantities above, i.e. not very much, use a small saucepan. Put the orange peel/satsuma peel in the saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to boil and simmer hard for 15 minutes. Drain, cover with fresh cold water and do the same, this time cooking it for another 11-20 mins. You want the peel to be tender, but not mushy so watch it if you’re using thin peel from satsumas. Thick peel from oranges may take longer.

Whilst that’s happening, put the sugar in a saucepan with 125ml of cold water. Slowly bring to the boil so the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat.

Drain the tender peel and put it in the sugar syrup. Put the pan back on the heat and simmer for about an hour – uncovered – until there is very little syrup left. Leave it longer if need be.

Be careful as sugar syrup is very hot so whilst you can leave it unattended you do need to make sure you haven’t got any monkey children that can reach this.

When done, lift out using tongs and place onto baking parchment lined baking trays. Leave it somewhere to dry out for two days. I put it in a (switched off) warming drawer. When it’s dried out, put the caster sugar in a small plastic bag (how much you use is up to you, you know like a handful) and throw the peel in, shake it around and you have candied peel! I then leave it back on the tray to set for a few hours before using it.

These are the bath bombs in their cases, drying.

Bath bombs usually come in a ball shape (SpaceNK’s come in tablet form, tray posh) and you chuck them in the bath and they fizz like a giant Alka Seltzer and can also colour the water at the same time. Some also have things in them, like flower petals, that are then released into the water and float around like…floatsam or jetsam or whatever it is. I’d look it up but I’m meant to be writing a Very Important Piece about something terribly grown up, and if I go and look up the difference between floatsam and jetsam, before I know it, it’ll be midnight and I’ll have got onto a  Killer Whale site and enrolled on (another) trip to Antarctica.

Bath bombs cost a disproportionate amount of money for what they are. So for ages, since I bought one in Lush and almost died at the price, I’ve been really determined to make our own. I mean, how hard can they be? I can make sourdough bread FFS.

Well they’re not hard to make. Not hard at all. But finding a recipe for them was not easy. This may have changed since I last looked, and you’ll probably now all post links to 25 different sites where you can find a recipe for bath bombs. But look, when I looked there were very few, or they were all hard to follow. I’m guessing this is because they don’t want you to know how easy and cheap it can be to make because bath bombs must have a mark up of about 12,000 percent. Although that said, you do need to make them on a fairly small industrial scale as the ingredients aren’t always easy to find locally (do try though, eh?) and so you probably will spend about £12 on them, or something (I haven’t actually added it up as I’m easily distracted).

What I’m getting at is that you will probably have to make a few to get value for money.

It’s a good idea to wear a pair of disposable gloves, we always have a box on the go for cleaning out the chickens, working on the car etc, we get ours from Lakeland but most supermarkets now sell ‘one use gloves’ (which is a lie cos you can use them more than once). I also find wearing some sort of mask (or Hermes scarf tied round your face if you’re posh) an idea since I get a right sore throat after making these. They’re probably carcinogenic or something. But you have to suffer for your home made crafts. Ask Kirstie Allsop.

Then you need a bowl and ultimately you’ll need something to put your bath bombs into. We used little paper muffin cases but those silicon muffin trays would be ideal. Although the bath bombs we made are small (they’re for my daughter’s Christmas cards to her school friends, we always make cards with use, but I know I will have to put a ticket in them saying Bath Bombs DO NOT EAT), but bath bombs work best when made a bit bigger – they give a longer fizz and will colour the water more effectively.

The ingredients you will also need are sodium bicarbonate, citric acid, corn starch (cornflour works fine), some food colouring, some essential oils and some glycerine. Now you can buy all of these ingredients (save for the food colouring) from your local chemist or online from Summer Naturals.

Decide on what you’d like to use as a measure, it could be a table spoon or a cup, depending on how many you’d like to make. I’ve found you always need more than you think.

Then you take

2 measures of sodium bicarbonate
1 measure of citric acid
1 measure of corn starch
a few drops of food colouring
a few drops of good quality essential oils – I use lavender and orange, you could I suppose also use your favourite perfume, but I’ve not tried this  yet (all my perfumes are in spray bottles anyway so not sure how I’d do this).
and a good few squirts of glycerine

It’s not madly precise because you don’t have to be. You mix it all together with gloved hands (if you don’t have gloves use a spoon. It’s a bit like making an apple crumble and rubbing the butter and flour together. When you get a handful of the mixture and press it together it should stay, if it doesn’t add a bit more glycerine and corn starch.  You then pack it really tightly into whatever mould you’re using and let it dry out overnight/for a few days. Put it in an airing cupboard if you’ve got one. Then turn them out and they’re ready to use or give as presents.

You could also added dried flower petals to the mix, which would be nice I guess.

Christmas wreath made from stuff from my garden

As a child, when you just don’t appreciate what you have, because you are a selfish, selfish little bastard, I was very keen to live in a huge house in America. I’d seen them on films. Double fronted houses with ballroom size rooms, fridges you could live in and gardens you inevitably got married in.

What I had was a two bedroomed flat in central London with no garden. Not even a window box. Nevermind that to have a house that big, you generally had to live in Wisconsin. Nevermind that, growing up, when all my friends had to take two buses and a train home, I could almost walk home or take an affordable taxi. Nevermind that I was near all the shops and, importantly, John Lewis. Nevermind that I never knew a world existed outside of Zone 1. (Does it?)

Come Christmas, I really wanted a wreath on my door. But this seemed completely out of place in our block of flats. So I never had one and thus, dear reader, I have been chasing Christmas wreaths ever since.

When I finally wrenched myself out of the west end and moved into Old Street, I had a huge, 2″ steel door which I decorated every Christmas with a wreath from Columbia Flower Market. It was not cheap.

When I moved to the country I decided to make my own wreath. After all, now that I had a garden to plunder why should I pay for someone else’s green frippery. But how to start? This is where the wonderful mums on I Want My Mum (a website I co-founded and now no more) helped me out. Someone directed me to this site. Now look. This isn’t the most glamorous site. But let me help you. What you need are these padded wreath bases, which as you will see, are cheap. They are great because, being green, even if you have gaps it doesn’t really show. We make a big one for the front door and a small one for the playhouse.

You gather lots of foliage (a word I can’t pronounce) and tie it round the wreath with this wreath binding wire. It takes a bit of practise but we always make really great  looking wreaths. I wouldn’t recommend the berries you can buy on  that site – too artificial looking, best if you can get some real ones (although if you live in the country, the birds swop down and try to eat them). I also add dried slices of orange and apple, you can add pine cones, whatever you damn well please. (Dry the fruit in a really low oven overnight or use a dehydrator.)

It’s a fun thing to do by yourself, with the children, etc. And aside from the wreath base (which you can re-use each year) it shouldn’t cost you anything if you can forage the foliage.

This blog is about things I, personally, use (consume!). And I haven’t used, or even tried, this new coffee machine from Miele.

The new Miele CM5100 Barista Coffee machine, approx £1000

But I am a veteran of coffee machines (my father was one of London’s original baristas) and I’ve had a Miele built in coffee machine for nearly two years now. You can read a full review of the one I have (the CVA 5060) here. The Barista has just launched.

It’s a first for Miele because previously you could only get a bean machine that was built in, the only freestanding coffee machine they did used Nespresso capsules, which not everyone liked for various reasons. Personally I wouldn’t touch a Nestle product.

So to be clear: I haven’t tried this machine. But I do rate Miele coffee machines as the best domestic coffee machines you can buy and if it makes coffee anything like the machine I’ve got, you’re in for a treat. Most domestic machines (and in fact, all of the ones I’ve ever tested) haven’t got enough steam action for the milk. The Miele one does.

(A nice thing to do in this weather – if you’re not driving – is to make an espresso correto, which is an espresso with a dash of brandy/whisky.)

Many, many years ago, when I had, really, nothing better to do with my time, I used to wear stockings and suspenders.  I actually think that girls who wear stockings and suspenders aren’t my sort of girl. It’s so tried at. And let me tell you, despite what ANYONE says, they ain’t comfortable.

But I did. Possibly because I was less sure of myself or had the kind of life where putting stockings and suspenders on was a feasible enterprise of a morning.

One day I was wearing trousers. Smart trousers. I put on some shoes that really needed hosiery with them, not socks. But I was wearing trousers. It’s on occasions such as these I guess you wear pop sox. But pop sox are, absolutely, not my thing. I totally see they fulfil a purpose but not any purpose I’ve come up against so pressingly that I’ve had to put them on. I find them depressing. So I put on my stockings and suspenders under my trousers which, let me tell you, is dedication to duty.

Now all that was bizarre enough. Except at the time (this is relevant) I was on the Pill (if any member of my family is reading this, that’s a pill for medical reasons and nothing whatsoever to do with, you know, the sex). And as the day progressed, I developed this rather alarming pain in my leg.

For those of you who don’t know, the Pill increases your risk of DVT (deep vein thrombosis). I worked in Soho (of course) and around the corner was a family planning clinic. So I dropped in and said “I’m on the pill and I’ve got this really alarming pain in my leg”.

This really nice, hippy-ish doctor saw me. He had a pony tail and I remember him because he was so nice. “Well, pop your trousers off and lie on the bed so I can have a look at your leg” he said kindly. “I’ll be back in a minute.” And off he went.

This flung me into deep panic. I knew the procedure for removing my trousers. And if I’d been wearing pop sox I would probably have removed both of them. If I’d been wearing tights (WHY hadn’t I just worn tights?) I would obviously remove the whole tight. But I was wearing stockings, what should I do? Remove both of them? This just seemed odd. If I did that should I also remove my suspender belt? Didn’t that seem like too much undressing? Would he wonder why I was undressing so much? Should I keep my stockings on? No unthinkable, he clearly needed to examine my leg. So I did what any other insane person would do. I removed just one stocking and laid myself on the bed. The doctor came back, and of course he didn’t raise an eyebrow at my one stockinged leg, one naked leg.

But I felt really fucking stupid.

I got the all clear, at least physically, and got dressed and went back to my office.

“I saw a really nice doctor” I said. I described him. “Oh Hank Wangford” someone said, “the Country and Western singer! He works there as a doctor.” I don’t know why, but this made everything so much worse.  Actually it could have been worse still. It could have been Rich Hall.

This brings me, not neatly at all, to my current craze with finding Good Socks to Wear with Trousers. For years now, ever since I ditched the stockings and suspenders under trousers (under anything) I’ve searched for proper socks that reach to the knee, but are of really good quality and of fine denier (of an ‘unimaginable thinness’ as an interview with Julio Iglesias once said of his socks) that could be worn under trousers.

I’ve never found them. And now that I’m older, wiser, have children and live in the country, my concern is not with thin socks but good knee socks. This means they need to be: warm, comfortable (I will not wear socks that are itchy), nice looking and preferably have a high wool content (but not be itchy, have I mentioned I don’t like itchy). Not to wear with ‘fine shoes’ but to wear tucked into boots/wellies and under trousers. Preferably in plain colours and not mentally expensive. I know you can get cashmere knee socks for £35, thank you.

The hardest criteria to fulfil, as you will see, is that the socks are plain. Even when the other boxes are ticked, finding plain socks in wool, blah blah blah: impossible (not if you’re a man, cos you have delicious Pantherella socks, but I can’t wear those as they’re too big).

Burlington argyle socks are not plain, but great in every other sense. They’re not cheap at a tenner each, but I’ve always preferred to have less, good stuff than lots of rubbishy things. I go by ‘price per wear’ when shopping these days (as you can when you don’t have to slavishly follow fashion). Plus I’ve had two pairs of these socks for seventeen years and they are only just wearing out. But you try finding women‘s Burlington knee socks, in wool, available to buy in the UK. And when you do, tell me. I’ve found plenty places that promise to do them, but you either get there and they’re cotton, or they’re ankle socks or something else is not right.

I went into Johnny Loulou’s recently and just wanted to tear my hair out at the lack of warm knee socks that didn’t cost £30 plus. I did however, find these in John Lewis and they do address most of the issues, except, whilst I like the stripes for a bit of fun, it’d be nice to also have them in plain colours; but hey that’s really asking too much it seems.

John Lewis wool (40%), silk,  nylon, elastane sock, £8.50.

Recently I discovered some really useful, every day black over the knee socks from the M&S children’s department. These cost £4 for two. They’re cotton rich, so not warm in particular but they’re great for chucking on when it’s not too cold and you need some knee socks (they’re longer than knee socks but you get the idea). In fact the girls’ department of M&S threw up some pretty good socks, because they go up to a grown up size 7. There are these for example which have a bit of angora in them that are really nice.

I have some excellent, really long, really warm, dark cherry-red cashmere socks that I bought from Ollie and Nic some years ago. They are great to wear with my sheepskin boots but no good to anyone else as they’re not stocked anymore.

In the end the shop that had the best selection: patterned, plain, not expensive, comfortable (not wool but warm) was Uniqlo £6.99 a pair. I know I mentioned this company only yesterday but hey ho. Or rather ho ho ho.

A couple of years ago, I was sent two stretchy T-shirts from Uniqlo. One was a cream crew neck, the other a purple scoop neck. I read the first two lines of the press release, as you do, before putting it into the recycling. I gleaned enough information to learn this was some sort of modern thermal wear.

And they were relegated to my drawer.

Most of my life, I’ve worn Damart underwear. As a child, my mum got them sent over from my Parisian uncle – bright turquoise, short-sleeved thermal vest t-shirts. I can’t say I liked them. When I got undressed for PE I stood out like a traffic incident sign.

As soon as I could, I stopped wearing vests and started getting sexy with my La Perla underwear. I was fashion editor of a national newspaper, I had my place in the front row at shows to think of.

When I became fishing correspondent of the Independent, all this changed and keeping warm on the banks of huge rivers in Scotland, in January, became a keen quest. I tried all the thermal underwear I could get my hands on Patagonia (most of my other fishing clothing-kit was Patagonia, and it was/is excellent), Marks and Spencer, Damart and various others that I’ve long forgotten the names of. It was all pretty useless. Except for Damart (see, Mamma knew a thing or two and let me tell you, she still does). Thankfully, its designs have improved since my turquoise vest days. However, the catalogue is still crap and they really should redesign it because there are some really pretty little vests that they do, in great colours, that are hidden hidden hidden in amongst the hip huggers and giant slippers that you put both feet into.

Anyway. The one problem with Damart underwear (I still recommend it as the warmest thermals you can buy) is that you cannot, under any circumstances, tumble dry it. And, as is the way when you’re busy, the odd vest does sneak in and then it shrinks. So I had a lot of Damart vests that were really small. When I was pregnant they barely covered my breasts, let alone my bump as well.

At the bottom of the drawer, recently, I rediscovered my Uniqlo Heattech t-shirts. Now, they are not super warm. Don’t go putting them on expecting to be able to step out on a freezing day and not feel the cold. But they are a really useful warm, extra layer. The t-shirts come in three styles: crew, polo or scoop. But you can also get leggings, tights, socks, leg warmers, SHORTS. I went into the Oxford Street store on Friday and stocked up with socks, more t-shirts, nearly bought leg warmers but didn’t (wish I had) and the leggings had sold out.

The fibres are all synthetic (acrylic, polyester, viscose, elastane – the generic name for Lycra which is a brand name), but I’ve tested them RIGOROUSLY and even after a hard day’s cycling/being on the tube/rushing round London there is no stinkiness. The t-shirts are so fine and stretchy and LONG (BRILLIANT if you’re pregnant by the way).  You can read all about the technology here. The t-shirts work brilliantly under jumpers (I hate jumpers right next to my skin). They are also thin enough to wear under dresses.

T-shirts cost £12.99, but until 22nd December you can buy two for £19.99. Don’t panic if you’re not near a store, you can buy everything on line.

Addendum added 17th December: the leg warmers are weird. They’re seamed, so not as stretchy as they could be. I have really slim calves and I can just about get them to knee height. So these are fine if you want to wear them a la Fame, as ankle warmers, but for anything else be warned they’re not very stretchy.

£4 from Paperchase

I saw these today in Paperchase. They are lovely. They slide flat so you can post them but spring up to be a ‘snowglobe’. There are various designs, from a fairly minimalist snowflake, Christmas trees, this one (Christmas in the Country, got it for my eldest as she’ll love the detail), a Santa and of course a nativity scene (that IS what it’s about, despite what Coca Cola would tell us).

Not cheap at £4 but my eldest and I make all our other cards, so it’s nice for her to have something from her folks that she’s not expecting. Last year we bought each other laser cut wooden Christmas decoration cards from Igloo which were beautiful. (Not sold on the website but if you have a branch  near you see if they do them again this  year.)