Thursday 25 June 2015

PEACH TEA COOKIES



When your loud mind is kept quiet by late night cab rides and origami in toilets and voices and friendly smiles, it does seem like the sky has opened up for a moment, and a light hits the skyscrapers and the rooftops and your skin and the City looks all pretty and shiny below your feet. But when midnight comes again and reality falls right onto your head from four metres high, the only companion you’re left with is a face so tired and puffy that you could cause criminal offence by the way you look; along with a concerning amount of broken things to fix. It’s only then that you finally realise you’ve got to take your usual crammed bus home and hang your head in shame, have porridge for dinner and employ what’s left of your strength to dig out that recipe you came up with during that part of your life when you were crossing paths with a part-time cookie monster and full-time ally. And even though there’s a high chance of your face being painful to look at for quite some time still, sitting together eating tinned fruit salad and sipping Turkish bottled water and munching peach tea cookies makes you feel like things are a little bit less broken already.

Sunday 21 June 2015

MELONPAN - JAPANESE BISCUIT BUNS



You know it’s time to make Melonpan when your Japan guidebook has been collecting dust on a shelf for almost a year, but still you can’t wait to print out yours and your daddy’s tickets to Morocco this week. And never mind the nosebleeds, David Wilson falls from the sky to improve your life like jam on toast.
Don’t ever tell him I said that.
And when Alex and Lauren and I sit on the steps on our lunch break with tired and crumpled faces like a punk version of the three musketeers. Or when your new mission in life becomes giving Cake Wednesday a Chinese twist.
But also when you think your heart is going to burst from sorrow and guilt (although someone’s there with you this time), and when you just don’t know whether you’ll be flying half a world away in a couple of months.
Because it turns out that sometimes (but only sometimes) change isn’t so terrifying, and it’s nice to sit in your (not for long) flat munching vegan sweet buns with a biscuity crust until you finally allow the seasons to turn.