Nic Dempsey

New Routines

Posted on January 8, 2013 by nicdempsey

I’ve been thinking a bit about my routines. This has been prompted by reading so many posts about New Years Resolutions/Intentions/Goals, quite a few people are committing to new housekeeping goals. Getting on top of the laundry, making the bed every day, getting a cleaning routine sorted and so on. It’s been making me feel pretty good, because I’ve realised that I’m actually more on top of my cleaning and housekeeping than lots of others.

As I get older, I’ve become more like my mum and less like my dad. So washing up is done before I go to bed, I come in and hang my coat up, I make my bed as soon as I get up (mostly to avoid getting straight back in it as soon as I’ve had breakfast), weekly I change the sheets and towels every week, rubbish and recycling gets done weekly and I am mostly on top of the washing and ironing.

However, the days of having an excel spreadsheet for my cleaning routine (oh unemployment, sometimes I miss you) are long over and whilst the flat isn’t a pit, the oven hasn’t been cleaned in I don’t know how long and I’m rubbish at cleaning the floors. I need to find a way to deal with it.

So new plan, aside from being generally more mindful about putting stuff away after I’ve used it, I’m going to focus on one room when I do my normal cleaning. So clean the flat as usual and give a deeper clean in turn. Sometimes that could be cleaning the oven, or sorting out cupboards, whatever needs most. Starting this weekend, with the bathroom. Next week is the kitchen, followed by the bedroom and then the living room, then back to the beginning.

I don’t know if it will work but I want to give it a try

How do you keep on top of the housework?

Posted in Goals, Home, How I Live | Tagged Being tidy, cleaning, Goals, housework, routine | 5 Comments

The Weekend

Posted on January 7, 2013 by nicdempsey

I’ve managed to have an action packed and a quiet weekend.

I started my weekend with being a good daughter. Ok, I think that I’m always a good daughter but this weekend Ma needed to move things out of her kitchen and into boxes to prep for the nice man to come and fit a new kitchen. At last, visiting mother won’t involve being whacked by suicidal cabinet doors determined to break themselves on your head! Ma was using this opportunity to have a general clear out and I was getting a set of shelves to go into my cupboard which would involve cleaning it out (which is one of my January goals).

This is a long winded way of staying that I stayed at Ma’s on Friday night. We had dinner, did the crossword and had an early night.

Up early on Saturday to sort out Ma’s house, that done we walked some stuff to Oxfam, took stuff to the dump. Went to my house, via Sainsburys to do some food shopping, and then cleared out and re-organised the cupboard. One January goal down and I know it doesn’t look immaculate, I know what’s in the cupboard and more importantly where it is! On paper, or more to the point blog post, it doesn’t sound like much but it was an amazingly productive day, in which things got done. I went to bed feeling that I’d earned my sleep.

Sunday dawned wet and misty but determined to repeat the success of Saturday, I got up at 8am and went for my first run of the year. I need to cut 15 minutes out of my 5km to get to my aim but I felt good for going!

Home for stretches, a shower and breakfast. Then to housework, I de-Christmased the flat and took the tree down. So many pine needles, I broke the hoover with all that hoovering! The house is restored to normality after Christmas and extra tidy for the new year! Then cooking for the week, falafels for lunch, applesauce, cherry compote. The ironing and washing and all the other stuff that needed to be done.

The only problem for me with a day like that, is that I can’t stop. I keep seeing the little jobs that only take five minutes and doing them. So I didn’t sit down and paint my nails or read my book or catch up on anything on iPlayer, I just ran out of time doing little jobs!

Like I said it wasn’t an exciting weekend but I feel like I’ve set myself up for a successful week, which is probably the right thing for the first weekend of the year!

What did you get up to over the weekend? Quiet productivity, mad social whirl or a mix of the two?

Posted in Home, How I Live, Ma | Tagged 2013, 4 to 6 January 2013, January 2013, the weekend | 8 Comments

Sunday Music

Posted on January 6, 2013 by nicdempsey

Today is Epiphany. So the music was going to have to be We Three Kings. I was one of the Three Kings when I was about 9, in that year’s school play, I was picked for my ability to be loud not any natural acting talent! Anyway as a result I know all the words to this hymn so have chosen the version by Harry Connick Jr. that has no words!

Posted in Music | Tagged Harry Connick Jr., sunday music, We Three Kings | Leave a comment

2013 New Year, New Goals

Posted on January 5, 2013 by nicdempsey

So today is Saturday and time to list the goals for January. As it’s also the beginning of the year, I’m going to set goals for 2013. Updates on goals will be posted on Saturday, sometimes that will be a straightforward, this is how it’s going, sometimes, I’ll talk about different things. I’ll report on the yearly goals every three months. That way hopefully, it’ll keep me accountable and ensure that I don’t get to the end of the year having done nothing about them.

Lots of people have made New Year’s Resolutions, some have set words that they hope will guide them for the year. I’m going to set goals and the theme for all of these goals is ‘build’.

First, I’m going to confess. Part of how I deal with things is to act like I’m a grown up when things are going wrong. In 2009, when I lost my job a month after I moved into a new flat, I kept saying, it’s not a disaster, no-one died. I stand by that, there was good and bad in the nine months that followed. Then I got a job and then after a year, it ended and it was another eight months before I found a stable permanent job. I’ve been in this job for over a year and it’s lovely to be working, especially as so many people are unemployed at the moment, I do realise how lucky I am. However, there was/is a recession and things cost more so taking a job that earned £4,ooo a year less than I was earning in 2009, meant that I never really got back on track and I never really got to grips with what was going on. There was a significant amount of thinking that if I ignored it, it would go away. Yes, I’m aware that behaviour is not big or clever and you don’t see mummy or daddy doing it (actually I saw Dad doing it all the time and I don’t have the grip on money or numbers that the rest of my family have!)

Cut to 2012, I’m not homeless, I’m still very lucky but I need to get to grips with money and my spending, I need to think about saving money. I do pay into a pension, I have a good credit record but these things seem to be luck rather than judgement on my part. I am going to be 40 this year (how did I get to be this old!) and I have 28 years to retirement. I don’t own and am unlikely to ever own a property, I do live in one of the world’s most expensive cities after all, but there are things I can and should do.

So this year’s goals are about building for my future. Being financially healthy, actually healthy and spiritually healthy.

So 2012 goals are:

1. Run a 5km in under 30 minutes. The Dempseys, that’s me, Ma, Ben and maybe Lu are going to run a 5k early this year and while I’m happy for Ben to beat me, I don’t want to be humiliated by my little brother!

2. Run a 10km, no time target for this, but under 1h10m would be great. Once I’ve conquered the 5km I’ll need a target. I’ve done 10km before, would be nice not to be 3rd from last this time!

3. Use the gym twice a week or give up the membership. We get cheap gym membership but it’s not cheap if I’m not making use of it. Twice a week equals about £2.50 a gym visit so worth it.

4. Have a medical. We get them once a year at work and it’ll give me an idea of what I need to do, other than the generic lose weight, eat better etc. It’s part of my whole facing up to what is, rather than ignoring it.

5. Keep a record of my spending so I know what is or isn’t in my bank account. Good or bad, knowing is better than not. Yes I know I should already be doing this but I have a huge case of financial arrested development.

6. No credit card usage at all for 2013. I don’t think that by 2014, I’ll have paid them off entirely but the best way of reducing the debt is to stop using the cards! I know this, I’ve done it before.

7. Set up a ‘Christmas’ account to pay for next Christmas, have at least £120 in that account. £10 a month is nothing really and will help buy presents.

8. Volunteer That could be in a food bank or it could be for something else. I need to work at building something outside of just myself. I have a feeling that 2013 is going to be a hard year for a lot of people.

9. Buy no more than 12 books. My book buying habit is out of control. I have lots of unread books in the house, I can borrow them from the library, Amazon do a lending service for Prime members and my mother has a houseful of books, half of which I’ve never read. It’s not like I’ll be lacking for books!

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10. Painting. I’ve been here 4 years in July and the white walls are not as white as they once were! The bathroom did get painted last year but the rest of the rooms are in dire need of a refresh. So at least, I’d like to paint the bedroom and kitchen!

For January, I’m going for the traditional resolutions.

I have already started these, I have to say that the last three days of the week have hurt as a consequence!

1. Drinking. There 31 days in January and aside from the New Year’s Day champagne, I’m not going to drink in any of them. After January normal service will resume and I won’t drink during the week. So many people go dry in January, I don’t think I’ll feel left out at all!

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2. Food. I will take a packed lunch to work every day and I will eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

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3. Coffee. I love coffee and my two cups in the morning are bliss. But I have a Illy habit and it’s expensive. So rather than give up my favourite coffee, I’m cutting down on it. I’ll drink it three days a week for January (probably Friday, Saturday and Sunday!). The other 4 days of the week I’ll drink herbal tea!

4. The messy cupboard. By the end of January it will be tidy. It will have new shelves, I will be able to find things in it!

5. Sleep hygiene. The time off over Christmas has made me realise how rubbish getting up in the dark is. I don’t mind the weather in the winter, but I hate that it’s so dark. It seems to make everything harder that it needs to be. I’ll quite happily get up if it’s light outside, even on very little sleep. However, as I don’t have any choice but to get up in the dark and I can make sure that I get enough good quality rest during the week. Sunday to Thursday sleep rules are. No computers after 9pm. In bed and ready for sleep at 10pm.

6. Self Care. One of the things about living on my own and being single is that no-one ever sees me naked. This is not a huge problem but just before Christmas, I realised that I don’t do nice things for my body. I wash, I condition my hair, I remove the hairs that seem to pop up on my chin (seriously, no-one tells you about that, in your late thirties, your face decides that it would like to grow just a couple of hairs from your chin, just for the style of the thing!) but I don’t remember to epilate my legs in the winter or moisturise and my feet are beginning to look like they belong to a hobbit! So I will moisturise every day, I will remove hair weekly and I will look after my feet!

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Posted in Goals | Tagged 2013, 2013 Goals, January 2012 Goals | 4 Comments

Friday Night Cocktail

Posted on January 4, 2013 by nicdempsey

It’s not really that surprising that I got given some cocktail related stuff for Christmas. Amongst them was The PDT Cocktail Book by Jim Meehan. I have a FNC, the Green-ish Deacon that originated from this book, but I’d never read the book, I reckon that I read enough about cocktails on the web and really don’t need any more encouragement.

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This book is a beauty. It’s very simple in the way that the Savoy Cocktail Book is (as the introduction says it was supposed to be) but a little more bossy. As a general rule the Savoy Book states Italian or French vermouth, gin, vodka etc. Whilst the PDT gives the brand names of the drink. So Plymouth Gin, Punt e Mes, Rittenhouse Bonded Rye Whiskey and so on. It’s much more aimed at people in the industry and at home no-one (however hard we try!) is going to have a bar as well stocked as that, so the first thing I did reading through it, was look at the cocktails, I had ingredients for. I’ve found in trying new cocktails that it’s always a good way to start as most people have distinct preferences in spirits, no point trying to get a whisky/ey drinker that doesn’t drink cocktails into a rum cocktail, try them with a whiskey sour, manhattan or old fashioned first! Warm them up to the idea of cocktails and go from there.

The same idea applies to regular cocktail drinkers, most of us have a go to cocktail, for me it’s the manhattan or martini so I always have gin and whiskey in the house, and it’s useful to have more than one cocktail that you can make using the ingredients you already have.

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So I found this, the Improved Whiskey Cocktail. Except I still don’t have any absinthe, let alone the Vieux Pontarlier Absinthe listed in the recipe. So I used the Pernod that I do have.

The cocktail is an amped up Old Fashioned. This is something that I’d give to Ryan and ask him what’s in it.

The Improved Whiskey Cocktail (slightly adapted from The PDT Cocktail Book by Jim Meehan)

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What

2 oz Rittenhouse Bonded Rye Whiskey

.25 oz Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

.25 oz Simple Syrup*

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Pernod for rinsing the glass

Lemon twist for garnish

How

1) Add all ingredients except Pernod to a mixing glass filled with ice and stir.

2) Strain over ice into a chilled, Pernod-rinsed rocks glass

3) Garnish with a lemon twist.

*this is easy to make, equal amounts sugar and water, heat to dissolve the sugar, let it cool, use. Alternately, mix sugar and water, leave for an hour or so, the sugar will dissolve by itself.

Posted in Booze | Tagged Angostura Bitters, Friday Night Cocktail, maraschino liqueur, Rye Whiskey, simple syrup, The Improved Whiskey Cocktail, The PDT Cocktail Book | 1 Comment

Friday Links

Posted on January 4, 2013 by nicdempsey

The first Friday of 2013. How’s the year going for you so far?

1) Would you feed people Spam? I would not because it’s horrid, and spamapes? Just take a moment and reflect on the horror of that word..

So when someone tells me the way to cater for holiday crowds, in the midst of a double-dip recession, is to serve “spamapes”, I’m not wild with excitement. I’m told one can of spam can make up to 40 canapes for 5p each, and “make a party one to remember!” I’d prefer a handful of peanuts to spam bruschetta, far east spam balls or choux spam and cheese.

2) Best Cookbook of 2012? I’ve kind of given up on Nigel Slater as none of the cooking that he does nowadays seems in any way to relate to how I live or cook. The cookbook I’ve used most this year is probably Bill Granger’s Everday, which didn’t come out in 2012.

Jamie Oliver has done it again. For the second year running, his latest book, 15-Minute Meals, is occupying the No 1 slot on Amazon’s best-selling list. He and the other big names in food (Nigel Slater is a few spots down) are helping cookery books outsell every other genre. Of course, all the best-selling food books are backed up by TV, but this doesn’t stop them being good – I still rate just about everything brought out by the River Cottage empire (this year, Three Good Things) and I’m delighted that the gloriously stylish, eclectic Jerusalem also makes Amazon’s top 15.

3) The magic of money. Giles Fraser nails it again, I was having a very similar conversation with Ma over Christmas about a person we know.

What do I mean by magic? Forget Merlin. Forget Potter. I mean the belief that there is ever a short cut out of the constituent limitations of our humanity. That there is a way, instantly, with the flick of a wand or a credit card, of changing ourselves from one thing to something else entirely. Abracadabra. Magic is the escape fantasy of those who cannot cope with the fact that we are limited creatures, that we will grow old and die, that we can never have everything, that we will always be dependent on food and oxygen and the love of others, and that, because of this, we will often feel pain and loss. Magic is the belief that there is some other way of dealing with all of this other than simply by dealing with it.

4) The Honours System. Personally, I think it’s wrong and Danny Boyle and Ken Livingstone were right to refuse. For me it’s about the Queen handing them out. I know we’ve just had the Jubilee and I have no objection to the Queen as a person. It’s the position she occupies that I object to. The Honours system is everything I object to in our system of government. I want a republic!

It would be easy to view the New Year honours as the culmination of the year in which patriotism was rehabilitated; a bit more harmless pageantry, a chance to celebrate the best of Britishness in all our diversity. After all, the recipients making the headlines are largely the heroes of London 2012, and who would begrudge them further recognition for their phenomenal achievements? It’s only when you learn that Danny Boyle has apparently turned down a knighthood for his contribution that those niggling doubts start prodding at your conscience.

5) On Making New Year’s Resolutions. Worth thinking about.

The advice that Mullainathan and Shafir have for resolution-makers isn’t that you refrain from trying to better yourself, but rather that you lock in commitments to self-betterment that won’t require vigilance or attention in the year ahead.

6) Housing. I’ve been banging on about the housing crisis for years. Good to see that some action is being taken, but it’s not nearly enough or from Central Govt.

Julia Unwin, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in her assessment of an “increasingly desperate” economic landscape, highlighted the vicious circle of working poverty in which people move in and out of insecure, badly paid work, “remaining poor … as they struggle to improve their lives”. The same can be said for housing, as fluctuating incomes force unwanted moves between housing tenures, from owner occupied to private rented, and then from better quality to poorer quality rented accommodation.

7) On the Catholic Church in the UK and how it treat gay people. I can’t even.

The church itself is to be handed over to the “ordinariate” of former Anglicans opposed to women priests. The Anglican subculture from which the ordinariate emerged was extremely camp, concerned with dressing up both physically and spiritually – so it’s difficult to see this as a decisive blow against gay Christianity. But it is a clear victory for Catholic conservatives

8) The Perfect Hot Toddy. I’m not drinking this month and I don’t have a cold but if you are and you do, this is a great place to start.

Plus, and perhaps most importantly, there’s that all-important psychological effect: nothing is more comforting on a cold, wet day when your eyeballs are about to pop out of your head, than a steaming glass of something hot and alcoholic to thaw you out. Surely even the grumpiest of January scrooges couldn’t begrudge us a little flu relief?

9) The C of E has problems too. Could do better.

The clergy of the group of parishes where I served worked on ways to inform people who would not accept communion from a woman when I was to preside, so they could choose to go to a different service. Or we would make sure that there was also a male priest available to distribute the hosts. There was frequently some aisle hopping, which I came to ignore on the surface, but deep down, I was hurting. My male colleagues did not have to put up with this, and it went completely against the church’s teaching that the worthiness of the priest does not affect the validity of the sacrament

Posted in Links | Tagged Friday Links | Leave a comment

The Day in Food: Back to Reality

Posted on January 3, 2013 by nicdempsey

Life resumed it’s normal pace yesterday. After the joy of Christmas, it’s time to knuckle down and grind through the last months of winter.

On Tuesday night, I set myself for success, I shut all screens down at 9pm and was in bed, lights out at 10pm. Apparently the universe does not reward good intentions and I completely failed at falling asleep or staying asleep.

It felt like I was awake half the night. At 6am, after what was possibly the worst nights sleep in the world, I had to get up in the dark and go to work. Also one of the weird things about me, is when I’m tired, I’m often sick. Yep, if it’s very bad, I throw up, mostly though I just feel nauseous. Not fun. So I didn’t start the day feeling great. The best thing to do is eat something, preferably something that will give you some energy.

Breakfast: Mint tea / Pint of water with berocca / Half a slice of walnut bread with butter and gooseberry jam / Porridge with apple sauce and cooked blueberries and cherries /Lemon and ginger tea to take out with me (not pictured).

The applesauce is my usual and the berries and cherries were cooked with a bit of apple juice from frozen.

Snack One: Low fat plain yoghurt with some more blueberries and cherries/Lemon and Ginger tea / Water

Lunch: Lentil, roasted veg & egg salad. A slice of Christmas cake and a pear / More water

It’s usually 2 eggs but I forgot about them last night when I was boiling them and was reminded when one of them exploded! So this is remains of them, somewhere between one and three eggs worth!

Snack Two: Graze pistachios and a banana / More water / Lemon and ginger tea

Snack Three: Mushrooms

I always get home hungry and generally reach for a couple of mushrooms. I think I prefer them raw rather than cooked and it’s better than coming home and eating cheese!

Dinner: French Onion Soup with Comté / slice of walnut bread / couple of mouthfuls of custard / 4 chat au longues

I had planned a nice ‘treat’ dinner for today as I knew it would be a long day. I ended up not eating the all the custard. I just didn’t fancy it.

There was more water and more tea. But I forgot to take pictures of that.

Best thing was the onion soup. I love that soup.

Did you go back to work today? How was it?

Posted in Food | Tagged eating habits, Food diary, My Day in Food | Leave a comment

Mince Pies and Mincemeat

Posted on January 2, 2013 by nicdempsey

I know that it’s January and that a post on mince pies is maybe not encouraging for people who’ve embarked on a ‘New Year, New Me’ health kick. However, these are good and I am proud of them so here they are, later than is probably useful but at least next Christmas, I can point you to this post!

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Mince pies are a proper British tradition, you could quite happily spend from September to December eating mince pies, they are everywhere. A long time ago, mince pies actually contained meat as well as dried fruit and very little sugar. Nowadays, the only savoury thing about them is the use of suet in the mincemeat and their name.

Most people buy mince pies but I’m not keen on the shop bought ones, there’s too much mincemeat and the pastry is an unappealing mixture of crumbly, soggy and far too sweet. Home-made mince pies, are smaller and nicer, so of course at some point I was going to have a bash at making my own. However, if I was going to make my own, everything in them had to be as home-made as possible and so I decided to make the mincemeat too! I’ve been doing this for about 4 years and I can’t imagine Christmas without making them and giving them away.

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Making your own mincemeat sounds labour intensive and scary, but it isn’t. It really is a case of assemble the ingredients, bake for a bit and stick in jars. In fact, the cheat’s ‘take a jar of shop bought mincemeat and pimp it with extra brandy and fruit’ is, I feel, more of a faff than making it from first principles. I didn’t make mincemeat this year, I had a couple of jars in the cupboard from last year and they tasted better this year. So please don’t feel that this is something you have to fit in December, you can do it about the time you start a Christmas cake, or any time at all. In fact so inspired am I about how good the ‘matured’ version of this was, I’m probably going to make mine in January and feel like a domestic god for the rest of the year! If you are going to store it for any length of time, it’s important to make sure that the suet melts slowly and covers all the fruit, this is what preserves it. I’ve never had the problem, but I’m pretty sure that slowly fermenting (and rotting fruit) is not fun! So do make sure that you use the suet and properly sterilise the jars. This isn’t difficult, just wash them in really hot, soapy water, dry with a clean tea towel (or put them through the dishwasher) and put them in the oven, gas mark 4, 350F, 180C, for 5 minutes. Remember not to touch the insides with your fingers!

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When I first started making these, I turned to Delia for the recipe and then made it even less complicated and left out the nuts. I generally use ordinary suet but vegetarian suet also works well if you want to make the vegetarian. For pastry, I generally use this recipe, but any good pastry recipe will do, puff pastry works well. The only rule, I have is that the pastry should not be sweet, the mincemeat is sweet enough and you don’t want to guild the lily!

Mincemeat (adapted from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course).

Makes 6lbs. You will need enough jars for this amount!

1lb / 450g bramley apples chopped small

8oz / 225g shredded suet

2lb 4oz / 1.25kg luxury mixed fruit

12oz / 250g soft dark brown sugar

zest and juice of 2 oranges

zest and juice of 2 lemons

4 level teaspoons mixed spice

1/2 level teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 level teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

6 tablespoons brandy (optional)

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How

1) Combine everything apart from the brandy in a large roasting tin. Stir and mix together well.

2) Cover the tin with a clean tea towel and leave in a cool place for at least 12 hours.

3) Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 1/4, 225°F (120°C). Cover the roasting tin loosely with foil and place it in the oven for 3 hours.

4) It will not look pretty, there will be lots of melted fat. Don’t worry, it’s supposed to look like that!

5) Leave to cool, stirring it every now and again.

6) Once the mincemeat is completely cold, mix thoroughly again and add the brandy if using.

7) Put in sterilised jars and seal. Store in a cool, dark cupboard.

Once you have the mincemeat and are ready to go. Roll out the pastry and cut into circles and fill a bun tin (the kind you use for fairy cakes and jam tarts!). Fill the pastry with 1 to 2 teaspoons of mincemeat and roll out the pastry again and cut out shapes to go on the top. Stars are traditional but you could completely cover them or use a different shape! Brush the tops with milk and bake in a medium oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Posted in Christmas, Cooking, Food, Home, How I Live | Tagged making things from stratch, mince pies, mincemeat | 15 Comments

2013

Posted on January 1, 2013 by nicdempsey

Welcome to the New Year.

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These photos are from the walk I took with Richard, Sue, Sarah and Jackie last year. It was an lovely cold and sunny day. It was also the walk that persuaded me that it was time to buy some walking boots!

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I don’t know what this year holds, I have a couple of ideas of what I want to do and maybe even a rough idea of how I want to achieve it. At the moment though it’s all a bit vague and I’m happy, for today, to let it be vague. To enjoy the day off work, knowing that the routine of my everyday life is on hold today and begins again tomorrow.