After a week’s break (phew the time is flying by recently) I am back with the wine and love meme, the weekly Thursday post where bloggers review their week through whines (wines) and loves. You can check out the other bloggers taking part here via Nora’s blog and my previous wine and love posts here.

Wines

• This week I have been very impatient. I want things to arrive already. This includes my engagement ring (bespoke) and sideboard (bespoke) I keep forgetting that having things made bespoke take longer than those of the peg, but jebus, hurry up already!
• My hair needs a cut, but I love the length, just not the ridiculous amount of time in the morning it takes to wash it, brush it and get out the knots which are inevitably back by the end of the day. Does anyone else’s long hair develop huge knots of its own accord?
• Now it is getting light earlier and earlier the cats are demanding their breakfast earlier and earlier. Waking up with a cat on your head at 6am is not fun.
• Night terrors – I’ve been having far too many recently. Maybe it the Stephen King book I’ve been reading, or the stress of the new job, I wish I could go a night without some kind of incident. One of these nights I am actually going to hurt myself.

Loves

• Daylight! You forget (living in Scotland) how much you miss daylight. For the last few days it has been light every day when I get up and leave work. It makes the day feel so much longer to me, even if I am going to bed earlier and earlier recently. So tired!

(btw I am so tired because I am settling into my new job, you also forget how comfortable you can become after (6) years in the same job. Whilst they say a change is a good as a rest, I need my daily rest as I quickly bring myself up to speed in my new role, this is both a wine and a love right now as I do feel invigorated as well as shattered!)

• Getting my phone provider to reduce my data bill from Australia by a whopping £140. I call that a success even if I still had to pay about £80 towards it. Phone companies are thieving barstewards when it comes to using data abroad and I wish someone would step into sort it out.

What are your wines and loves this week?

Miss S x

The word wedding means marriage, it means B and I are getting married. By getting married we want to spend the rest of our lives together. But a wedding means we also get to tell our nearest and dearest that (and have them help us do it) and then have a damn good party. That is a wedding.

What I didn’t realise was the definition of ‘wedding’ also includes many four letter words.

&(&&%^&$%^$%$!!!!

It is so fricken easy to:

• Get upset that you can’t get married anywhere nice without having your reception there afterwards. Venues are greedy. If Saturday is your day of choice then you need 100 guests, a 3 course meal, a wine and champagne package, thousands of canapes and a piper just to get through the door. If we want our reception somewhere else (and less bland and more us) we should be able to.
• Get angry about having to make appointments to try on wedding dresses with your best mate. Wedding shops are rude. When you phone up to make your first ever appointment you do not want to be greeted by “do I need to make an appointment for Saturday? Yes. Can I make an appointment? No” Click. No naming names, but the shop is just outside Edinburgh.
• Think that you actually need to go to every wedding shop to try on every dress type out there; as well, you know you might actually suit a meringue ivory dress with bodice bling even when you really know that at 4 foot 11 that simple is best. Maybe a little something from Chloe instead.
• Worry that even though you want to look amazing that you feel really sick about only wearing a dress once. And being meant to spend upwards of a £1000 on it. Especially when your man, who you normally rely on for honest fashion advice can’t see it or help you with it. Panic!
• Forget that if you buy the shoes you really really like you will get to wear them over and over again. Spending more money on the shoes than the dress is an option, if you make it one.

Then, as you are getting frustrated for the 10^th time that the invites don’t match the table settings, the bridesmaid dresses, the napkins or the venue. (Btw who gives a frick, it’s just because people tell you they are meant to. Or because every design on Etsy has an option for matching inserts…) You are reminded that this is meant to be fun.

…and then you smile.

Just for a second….and then start panicking about the flowers, the photographer, the cake, the first dance, the favours…

..and seriously start considering eloping.

Miss S-zilla x

P.s hopefully next week i’ll be able to show you the ring!

I woke up this morning and thought spring is on its way. Our cubby-hole of a bedroom was filled with filtered light; I could hear the postie* whistling as he made his way up the road, kids chattering as they passed the window. Despite missing almost a month of this year’s winter and well, it being rather mild (ill jinx the rest of February now), winter in Scotland always feels like a drag, the darkness sucking energy from the air, leaving you gasping for a little light.

Despite the hope in the air and croci popping their heads up alongside The Meadows, I still crave hail and hearty food – I am currently cooking a beef, red wine, mushroom, pancetta and root veg stew for tonight’s tea. Whilst I love a good hotpot I also like stews with a twist – throw in some some spices, add some fruit and simmer for hours, the Moroccan way… This stew is one of my more adventurous outings, as it includes homemade chermoula, a marinade usually more associate with fish, but it also adds a zing to lamb.

Slow cooked lamb tagine with chermoula and apricots

You will need:

• A pack of lamb stewing steak
• Dried apricots
• A large onion
• ½ a pack of baby plum tomatoes
• A green pepper (although this goes rather bitter, substitute with yellow pepper for a milder taste)
• A carrot
• 2 large cloves of garlic
• 2 bay leaves
• Enough chicken stock to cover the ingredients
• Fresh parsley (optional)

To make the chermoula, mix together to form a smooth paste:

• Fresh coriander
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• juice and rind of 1 lemon

Marinate the lamb in the paste for at least 2 hours, preferably over night.

To make the tagine:

• roughly chop the large onion, carrot and pepper and add to pan or slow cooker
• fry off the marinated lamb and add to pot
• add the bay leaves, baby tomatoes, apricots, and garlic
• top up the pot with chicken stock to cover the ingredients
• slow cook for 7 hours or until the lamb is falling apart in a pan
• once the lamb is cooked, add the fresh parsley, thicken the sauce with a little corner flour and (my favourite bit) pop the plum tomatoes into the sauce.

Serve with couscous and flat bread.

Enjoy! As usual, let me know if you try any of my recipes.

Miss S the chef x

*Luckily I was up by the time the postie delivered my new work cardigan from Coggles. I love Coggles, in particular their very pretty Sunday Supplement. However thee postie does not love my greying housecoat I am often wearing when I open the door.

To those who have been following my adoption journey up to now you will know that a month ago I went to view my adoption file (the record of my adoption at 7 weeks old) to those who need to catch up you can do. Might be useful, just saying…

Opening my adoption file threw so many things at me at once I didn’t know how to react. It was my mother on a page – her age, her date of birth, her sisters and brothers, what she was good at school, her likes, her height…

I found myself grasping at straws as I read that file – she was small (5, 2) I am small, she was dark, I am dark, she likes dancing, I like dancing, she played badminton, I played badminton – like this person wasn’t related to me, like I was still trying to find a way of making her be my mother, like really all that file held was facts about a 19 year old girl that once gave birth.

It all reminded me of that Friend’s episode where Phoebe meets her real mum:
Phoebe Mum: “Well, I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like we don’t have anything in common. I mean, I like, uh, pizza”.
Phoebe: “I like pizza!”

Apart from the girl in the file really was my mother. These weren’t straws. They were a mother, grandparents, aunties and uncles, a whole family I had only thought about in an abstract way before.

I once wrote that the one thing an adopted child never has is a real connection, a real blood connection. Opening up that file opened up a world of possibilities. They are out there, the file made them all so real. They have all lived their lives for 33 years without me, just as I have them.

He though, my Father, sadly is only referred to in the abstract, 19, a warehouse clerk from Liverpool. There is no name on the papers. It was ‘not given for a reason’. Who was he? Does he know about me? I doubt it. In fact I am pretty sure he doesn’t know I exsit. That shook me up – how would you feel now going through your whole life not knowing you have a daughter?

I wouldn’t know whether to risk shattering his whole life.

But my mother, my family, well, they know about me. I know about them.There is a chance we might be able to get to know each other. On the file there was an address. I looked it up in the phone book, by coincidence or design it looks like the family is still there. Could it all be this easy?

The letter goes out next Friday; the next step is to wait.

Miss S x

Before you get to the pretty, you have to sort the gritty.

By gritty, I mean the arduous task of balancing the guest list and the budget. Let me admit something, I love event planning, it is something I kinda wish I had done instead of the job I do not. C’est la vie. I can enjoy it as a hobby. But boy does it make you question what you want and what you would do to get it…

B and I from the off tried to be clever with where we were to be married – we wanted it to be special – and we searched out a really quirky venue that was so me (and my dad) we got so excited about it we wanted to book it on the spot. Then the doubts started to creep in, practically the venue had many failings, the biggest – the size. It would have meant a very small wedding ceremony and leaving out many of the people we actually wanted to celebrate getting married with.

Whilst neither B nor I have a big family, it was an awkward situation and one which was pushing me into a corner. No one wants to a) have to have a pre-invite conversation with their relatives to check whether they’d come and then b) have to consider who we’d have to drop from the list if they did.

I wasn’t going to put myself in that position. I want everyone who wants to come to be able to come. Whilst the venue was so important to me, the fact that people might not feel welcome at our wedding was not something I was prepared to risk. If our wedding was to be meaningful, happy, fun, and ultimately as stress free as possible, then I had to make a choice.

So, I have to give up the hope of my dream wedding venue and place it into the ‘perfect but impractical category’. Now I guess we just have to find perfect again.

Wish us luck!

Miss S x

P.s Has anyone else had to ask friends and family before their wedding invites went out if they would be coming? Do you think it is rude to do this to get your dream venue?

P.P.s Any suggestions Edinburgh folk for good (value+place) wedding ceremony venues?

I was a complete an utter mess back then, and so obviously in denial about it the whole time. So much was caving in around my ears and I am not sure even the closest people to me (then) even realised how close I was to the edge.

I was also it seems brutally honest, my posts from back then are far too honest to read back over now.

But, happily, things are so different now, not just because B and I came out the other side, but because I came out the other side too.

Confident, Happy, Accepting, Sane, Adult, Stronger. I have come a very very long way baby. Today – instead of thinking of thinking about you as a couple or not in a couple – think how of how much you love yourself more today.

Happy ‘happy day’ to everyone.

Miss S x

Shudder.

Ok, I know there are some impressive brands out there who scream that this process either helps or doesn’t heed the coffee drinking experience, but to me, there is nothing better than sitting on a fresh and bright Saturday morning, radio on and a smooth flat white in hand….Or, to be honest, as I am very lazy, tasty coffee spooned into my little cafetiere and brewed quickly before I throw it down my throat every morning. Ahem.

I must admit though, as despite my love of real coffee, I have little explored the full range of tastes, beans, roasts and variety out there. I have learnt that I like Colombian and mocha beans (not mocha the drink) that Jamaican Blue Mountain is over priced and i’m not a fan of Italian coffee. But that is it. I know I should always buy fair-trade (I do, but more on this later) but I know nothing about where coffee comes from, or how it is grown.

Thanks to Kopi Coffee I am feeling much more educated today. This weekend I was sent a little bag of, wait for it: Malawi Geisha AB Msese District coffee and details of the Kopi coffee subscription service to review. The premise of Kopi is simple: subscribe and every month you get a 250g bag of single-estate / small co-operative coffee from around the world.

Kopi coffee service isn’t cheap I must admit – £9 a month, or £7 if you sign up for a whole year – but the packaging, and brochure about what, who and where the coffee was brewed is well designed and the coffee – and this is the main point – was bloody fantastic.

More please.

I also rather liked Kopi’s focus on small growers rather than corporations – whilst your coffee could come from Malawi or Guatamala, buying small still feels like you are buying local. In short it feels good.

Now, Kopi admit that many of their coffees won’t be certified fair-trade, although, I am encouraged by their explanation that they pay more than fair-trade prices to smaller growers, if this is correct then fair-play to them.

I am a big fan of the monthly box scheme format (JolieBoxUK in particular) and I love getting a surprise package in the mail each month, as despite the fact I am paying for it, if feels like a present just for me.

Coffee for me is a luxury treat; every month I’d looking forward to what was coming next. As Kopi say “we get our caffeine kicks from bringing you something special”.

Thanks Kopi, you have a new fan.

Miss S x

P.s: Kopi might be the indonesian word for coffee – although I must say that I cannot stop associating Kopi with the cat poo coffee from Indonesia which must be the most famous coffee in the world, along with being the most expensive, but, no, I wouldn’t drink it – would you?

This review is sponsored by Kopi who sent me one of their monthly boxes to review. This review is all my own thoughts; I never positively review something if I don’t like the product or the service. I am not for sale.

There is nothing more British than a Sunday roast. I do a roast most Sunday’s, swinging weekly back and forth from chicken to beef. Add roasties, yorkies and veg and to me it is food heaven.

However, whilst we all love finishing a Sunday over a huge plate of food and too much red wine for a school night, the Sunday roast is renowned for being bland, dry and covered in Bisto gravy. Think of how badly Christmas day goes in your parent’s house.

But kids, that is not the only way.

After starting my working career in a pub kitchen making Sunday roasts, oh 20 years ago now, I have become quite an expert over the years. From beef with dauphinoise potatoes and red wine lentils, to garlic and herb chicken with honey roasted parsnips, we Brits can alleviate our national dish (or is that chicken tikka masala?) into something we’d be happy to serve to a visiting European.

For B and I’s recent engagement gathering I had bought a rather large chunk of pork shoulder to make my spicy slow cooked pork (btw do we all get to an age where we think serving food at parties is a good idea?) but I went a little over board and despite vigorous chopping I still couldn’t all the pork i’d bought to fit in the slow cooker. Instead of throwing it in the freezer for another day I decided to pop it in the oven and roast it instead. Not every one likes pork with their chilli sauce after all.

Now I’d never made crackling before, and after scouring the pork and the internet for ideas, I was still none the wiser about how to get that crunchy texture just right. So I gave up and just winged it, and it turned out perfectly – despite the fact my knives weren’t sharp enough to do proper slices in the fat and I’d already removed the fat from the meat during my hatchet job.

I love pork crackling and this is a perfect treat, despite the cooking time.

Slow roasted pork with crackling (totally made up and done with a prayer)

You will need:

• Rolled shoulder of pork (with the layer of fat on top) bones removed
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Mixed herbs
• Sea salt
• Shallots

To make:

• Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees
• Remove the pork fat from the joint, wash, dry and score with a sharp knife.
• Rub sea salt into the fat and put aside
• Put the joint of pork into a roasting pan and drizzle with oil, herbs and stuff bits of garlic in where you can
• Add a few shallots, ends chopped and skins on into the pan
• Place the fat back on top of the pork and put in the hot oven for 30 minutes until the pork fat has started to blister and rise. You need a hot oven to do this. Keep the door shut (like when you are making Yorkshires)
• Reduce the oven temperature to 150 degrees and cover with a double layer of tin foil and slow roast for about 5 hours until the pork is really tender.

To finish off the crackling:

• Lift the crackling from the pork
• heat the oven back up to 180/200 and place the pork on a tray on the top shelf for 5/10 minutes until it is really crispy and tasty.

Serve on fresh rolls with apple sauce and roasted shallots or go the whole hog (ha) and make roasted veg. Food coma ahead!

What is your favourite Sunday roast?

Miss S x

I don’t know about you, but I am still loving writing the wine and love meme, mainly as it a) helps me think out my week, b) realise it is Friday tomorrow and c) most importantly makes me think positively about things. Usually by the time I have finished writing the post I have found some kind of solution to the wines.

Will you be joining in?

Wines

• It seems I rarely get to Thursday these days without a glass of wine. Yesterday was a bad day; one which required pizza and a glass of wine and chocolate chip cookies and lots of cigarettes and 4 episodes of Jericho where I lusted over Skeet Ulrich, him of the gritty teeth (watch him, you’ll see what I mean). B was out for the evening, which was a very good thing, as was on the verge of cracking and snapping. I needed me time and I got it. Whilst I loved my evening to myself, I am whining about it as I have been so positive about life recently and I am sad I needed time out.
• Although I love the bright blue skies of January in Scotland (we have chosen to have our wedding at this time because of this) our lack of proper central heating has meant living in our flat a bitch – even sleeping with 3 duvets (we keep getting gifted duvets by nice people as they think we will freeze to death, enough already) joggers and a housecoat. I always seem to get hot in the night, waking B up as I throw of layer after layer of clothing and going mad scratching as my dermatitis plays up with the changes in temperature. I always wake up exhausted from my night activity, even after 9 hours of ‘sleep’.
• Whilst I am keeping the wedding planning to a regular Wednesday post, budgeting for the big day is not my favourite thing right now. It is all so expensive: meal, booze, cars, cake, flowers, clothes, bridesmaids, hotels, photos; the list goes on and on. Whilst I am insistent that we shall pay for our own wedding (although some lovely people are offering to help out) I am scared that we are going to be living on beans on toast for the next 12 months just for a rubbish meal and cheap drink at the end of it. This is all we can honestly afford. Catch 22.

Loves

• I have been loving the Scotsman Spa. We joined up a couple of weeks ago and have been swimming and visiting the spa 3 times a week. I am feeling better generally, I have more energy (although I am eating loads) and my skin is finally settling down after 2 weeks of sauna, steam and tropicarium treatment. I have yet to pluck up the courage to go to a class or get on one of the torture machines. All in good time, all in good time.
• A work colleague recently lent me a book by Jonathan Brostoff – The Complete Guide to Food Allergies and Intolerance – which I am going to make a start on this weekend to finally help pin down once and for all what causes my relapses so frequently. I have been tested for every illness under the sun, but they still cannot prevent it from happening. However, what makes this a love now is that I haven’t been ill since last year (a miracle for me) and whilst there are various things I could put it down to – including the removal of some stressful issues – one thing is my slow cooker cooking – no additives, good food, very few takeaways and fresh, fresh fresh. I think the whole cycle of cooking helps me.
• Whilst I do not watch a lot of trash TV (apart from DTTB) I do like watching box sets – and recently I have been really enjoying putting my feet up / climbing into bed and watching: Friday Night Lights, The Walking Dead, Jericho, and Breaking Bad. I get bored very easily and need variety so if anyone has any recommendations for other shows I might like, please send them my way. I have both Lovefilm and Netflix (US).

What are your wines and loves this week?

Miss S x

Once we decided to actually you know, get married, after getting engaged (btw the mother was over the moon, she disagrees with long engagements) I decided to start planning the wedding from the very beginning. First, the list; a very long list to tick off over the next 12 months. What to do when. I joined Dessy and Hitched for help. I was going to plan this sensibly.

Dismiss Smidgezilla from the building.

Well, I tried. Instead I have run headlong into far too many things at once and now have, kinda sorted: the date, the guest list, the venue(s), the colour scheme, the outfits, who is making my cake and doing my flowers and the photographer. None of which is 100% sorted, and none which I’m 100% about. For example The cake maker is a family friend, as is the photographer. The cute wedding ceremony venue is tiny and will leave people out, it is so different my sister and her husband are said to be ‘horrified’ by it. The evening venue is a little rough around the edges.

Wedding planning is not and never will be sensible, it will always be whirlwind – however hard you try people other than the bride + groom have designs on it. But we are sticking to our little touches and whilst we will need everyone’s help to make the day move smoothly, we fundamentally believe that the day is for us not other people…and anyway, we are paying for it, we get to say where all the money goes.

In all of this planning, one thing I have discovered though is that I love reading wedding blogs. This is a complete flip for me as I avoided them like the plague before, too sweet, too sickening. But just like style blogs it seems they are a guilty pleasure. I might spend more time annoyed with the perfect people on them, but I can’t stop dreaming that I am then.

Ugh, that confessional leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

The main thing I love about the posts on Rock and Roll Bride, or 100 Layer Cake is not the photos, but the little stories about how they wedding planned the smallest detail, where they found the little touches and where the ideas came from.  Whilst I am sure life wasn’t as perfect as they all make out and there was at least one day when they forgot the favours and ran screaming to the car pulling each other’s hair out –  one can dream.

It gives me hope that I can hang on somehow to the perfect for us (with our little touches, the compromises and the things done just because we have to) Mr + Mrs Smidge wedding.

Any suggestions for keeping control?

Miss S-zillia x

P.s One decision that I have made is that I shall be wearing white/cream, even though as a second time bride it is frowned upon. Take that tradition!