"You are the butter to my bread, and the breath to my life" - Julia Child

A quick note about butter: please use it with abandon.  

Salted butter is the only way.  And for heaven's sake, if you can't get your hands on butter, don't substitute with margarine, spreads or other horrid imitations.  No one wants a fake 'buttery taste' - they just want the butter.  The only exception is that in certain cakes (like my banana bread) a flavourless vegetable or sunflower oil is a decent alternative.  And if you love butter as much as I do - try making your own.  It's surprisingly easy and a great party trick.  

Pour a tub or two of double cream into a mixer.  Using the whisking attachment, whisk the cream at a medium speed until it's thick.  Continue whisking but keep a close eye on it and suddenly the magic will happen: buttermilk will start spurting out of the whipped cream and sloshing around the mixing bowl.  You may need to take cover with a tea-towel.  And there you have it - buttermilk and butter!  Separate the two and be sure to keep the buttermilk for using in other recipes.  Then squidge the butter together and rinse several times until the water runs clear (this stops any residue buttermilk souring the butter).  It's easiest to shape the butter into a ball in a bowl of cold water, and then pat it dry before salting (preferably with sea salt).  

I like to press my butter into tiny wide-lipped pots, smooth the top and garnish with yet more sea salt for an elegant accompaniment to home-made bread for a gathering but you can get even more fancy with stamps or flavourings - monogrammed herb butters anyone?  In the unlikely event you have any left over, the salt should preserve it in the fridge for a couple of weeks. 

Being such a greedy child, most of my memories are food-related and I distinctly remember being in kindergarten and having grown mustard and cress in old yoghurt pots filled with soggy wads of kitchen roll.  After waiting patiently for the cress to grow, we were finally able to harvest our straggly cress and our teacher showed us how to make butter for our cress sandwiches.  We were seated in a circle and a jam jar of cream was passed round and round for each of us to shake. My memory gets hazy at this point but I seem to remember after a long time we finally had butter.  I tried replicating this recently while away from my mixer but didn't have much luck.  It might just have been my lack of patience or 20 other willing hands!

Jumping In At The Deep End

I'm a fully paid-up member of the perfectionist club.  An 'all or nothing' type of person.  If I can't do something properly and to my ridiculously high standards, I'd rather not do it at all.  And it all seemed to be working well for me until recently.  Until I became a mother.  

Now I no longer have the time or ability to be a perfectionist.  My previously sharp brain is fuzzy after back-to-back pregnancies and countless sleepless nights and time is a luxury I can't afford.  And frankly, if I do happen to chance upon a scrap of time at the end of a day, I'd rather use it to wallow in something totally self-indulgent like box sets, my Pinterest addiction, or a wedge of cake; than waste it fretting over tiny details, obsessing over mistakes, or ironing.  In fact one of the truly great discoveries of motherhood, other than the astonishing hijacking of your heart, is that clothes don't actually need ironing.  To be fair, friends had told me this for years but I just didn't risk believing them, so diligently wasted days of my life ensuring every item I wore was crisp and freshly pressed.  Apart from pants - even I knew not to sink that low!

But while the ways of a perfectionist had ensured a lovely home, a successful career and being generally pulled together, I was starting to wonder how much I was missing out on.  How many opportunities were wasted because I didn't have time to throw myself into them totally and utterly?  Did anyone else really care about my gruelling standards other than me and my pride?  I was increasingly seeing peers bravely pursuing projects and risks that I had toyed with the idea of myself but didn't feel I had the time to give them my full and undivided attention, so had put on the back burner.  Because I couldn't bear the thought of trying something and failing.  Being a perfectionist was really a convenient hiding place from the truth - I was a coward. And it was holding me back.

I've been meaning to start a blog for years.  Oh I've attempted to make a start several times.  I designed logos, I researched how to code, I even commissioned a template.  But I never got round to actually publishing anything because I wouldn't risk sharing a creation before the package was completely polished.  And I didn't feel I had enough time to achieve perfection.  So of course, nothing ever came to fruition. 

It's taken my pouty-lipped daughter to show me that life is all the richer for abandoning unnecessary chores and getting by on half-measures. Seeing my to-do list multiply and half-finished jobs pile up is a small price to pay for the pleasure of watching her destroy my architectural masterpieces with a squeak of delight.  And judging from her squeals, I gather food is all the more enjoyable when smeared all over your face, body and anything within reach.  

Watching her sleep all splayed out with clenched fists high above her head, completely oblivious to trail of destruction left in her wake, I'm reminded not to waste precious time trying to perfect things and that if I need to get anything done, I'm really just going to have to get on with it.  Before she wakes up....

So now I'm facing the future as a recovering-perfectionist and I'm proud to say I've just rattled this out during nap-time and have only proof-read it the once.  Well once properly and a final skim-read but that's real progress!  So bear with me while I attempt to be brave and jump in at the deep end.