Fiction, Food, Faith and everything in-between

                                   Come Holy Spirit and kindle in us the fire of your love. Day of Pentecost Sunday 23 rd May 2021 Acts 2:1-21, Rom 8:22-27, John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15   Our reading from Acts this morning tell us the story of Pentecost. Pentecost was a Jewish festival, also known as the Festival of Weeks and it celebrated the giving of the ten commandments, as well as the  spring harvest. The people of Israel would present offerings to God from their spring crops. Jewish law at that time required all adult Jewish men to attend the festival in Jerusalem and so people would travel from wherever they were living to attend the celebration and Jerusalem would have been busy with many pilgrims. The disciples, Mary the mother of Jesus and other followers, had formed a community of prayer and they were waiting as Jesus had told them to, for the Holy Spirit.   And th...

Paul Hollywood's Chilli with cornbread. The different stages are from top  to bottom. First the chilli, then the cornbread and cheese mix, then time to eat after cooking of course. 😋 Of the nice things about working from home, is having the time to cook at any time, instead of doing the M&S dash before rushing home from the office, or after a long trip from visiting ports. I will hopefully resume my visits in a few weeks time, but I won't be going back to the office. We are closing our main office in London 😃 and will have a small hub office somewhere with most days working from home. Blended working just like the perfect blend of Chilli and cornbread. 😂😋 The recipe is at the link below https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chilli_beef_cornbread_76029 Bon appetite 😋 

The proof of the Cholla was indeed in the chowing down. I made Cholla for the first time. It was a bit browner than it should have been and I was hoping it would taste good. It did! The proof of the Cholla was in the chowing down!  When I tasted it, I was truly surprised by how good it was. From now on I won't be buying bread from any of my local stores because the bread I have made so far tastes so much nicer. In his book 'How to Bake' Paul Hollywood says that the quality and taste of bread in the UK has declined because commercial baking processes do not let the bread prove (rest) sufficiently before baking. I can understand this, because a commercial baker would need to make enough bread to supply the market and therefore they would be pressurised by the need to meet their sales volume. That's probably why small and artisan baked bread is so popular. What has surprised me about bread baking is how easy it is if you have a good recipe. I think Paul Hol...

  Dreams and Shadows of Biafra   My earliest memories of Biafra are the same as my earliest memories of my father. I can remember sitting next to my father on a bed and I touched his arm. He turned to me and he said, 'Can't you see your father is crying ' and it was many years later that I realised he was crying because of Biafra. It would have been 50 years ago today. I didn’t see my father cry again. He was crying at the loss of the dream of Biafra                                          Me and my Dad in Jos, Nigeria circa 1982 For me and for many of the Biafran diaspora, Biafra is a presence that haunts us. It is a part of our history that is not spoken about and yet we try to make sense of it by reading, watching plays and attending lectures. All of this in an attempt to understand this dream that was on the cusp of being realised and yet failed so painfully. I...

I am learning how to bake bread and I am really enjoying it. I am determined to work my way through Paul Hollywood's book. It is great fun and tastes good too! I think I am certainly better at baking than I am at blogging because I have no idea how to arrange these photos!                                                                Soda Bread                                           This is a fab book. Well worth buying.  This tasted really good!