Recently in Life with Little Missy Category

Just picture the scene: an ancient chateau set amidst vineyards in the heart of the Bordeaux countryside, guests from all over the world gathering together on the terrace to celebrate a wedding, May sunshine breaking through the clouds as the couple stand in front of friends and family. C'est tres romantique, non?

This was the idyllic setting for our friends' wedding last Saturday week at Château Lagorce. Just back at the cottage after days of travelling, the whole event still seems dream-like. The location was amazing, the French celebrant's memorable accent bringing to mind Rowan Atkinson's priest from Four Weddings and a Funeral and the continuous stream of pre-dinner canapés were extraordinary (earthy beetroot gazpacho, perfectly seared scallops, crunchy fried morsels of tête de veau or calves head). I, unfortunately, had to leave before  dinner was served - Little Missy decided that it was time for bed - but I did see plates beautifully cooked duck going past as we headed for home and heard tales of croquembouche (a French profiterole wedding cake) for afters.

We - suckers for punishment - decided to drive over so that we could camp but unfortunately the weather wasn't warm enough. Of course, we only found this out after a very disturbed night under canvas when LM decided to tell all our neighbours exactly how bloody cold it was at 3am. A move to a nearby hotel for the wedding and a subsequent stay in a cosy mobile home at an exceptionally good camp site near Saint-Émilion proved to be money well spent as we all got much more sleep. So the tent didn't get too much use this time round but at least it didn't take up too much space in the car and there was plenty available for wine loading on the way home. And that wasn't all we loaded. With whole aisles of cheese and chocolate in the hypermarches, I was in heaven. When the Husband unloaded the car I'm sure he wasn't surprised to discover stashes of chocolate bars, saucisson, camembert, cider, tins of duck and pork cassoulet, and bread tucked in amidst the clothes and sleeping bags! 

A few recommendations: 
We travelled over on Irish Ferries' Oscar Wilde from Rosslare which is perfectly adequate although very slow (9.30pm departure, 5pm arrival the following day) but came home on the more comfortable Pont-Aven with Brittany Ferries, which delivered us straight to Cork after only 14 hours. It is slightly more expensive but the fact that it cuts down on travel time at sea and in Ireland and also serves better food and coffee makes it well worth the extra money. 

Landing in Cherbourg and leaving from Roscoff (nice town, good for food) meant that the area around Rennes was a good place for stopping in each direction. On the way down we stayed at an Accor hotel on the outskirts of the city which was far nicer that its unpromising outside appearance. For the homeward journey, the bride's sister pointed us in the direction of the inexpensive and easy to find Logis Auberge Du Cheval Blanc in the picturesque town of Chateaugiron so we didn't have to do battle with Rennes traffic for a second time

We also took advantage of her research for places to stay after the wedding, ending up at the wonderful Domaine de La Barbanne. They have a range of campsites and well-equipped mobile accommodation options, it's 30 minutes walk to Saint-Émilion, has two free buses going each way from the campsite every day and there are plenty vineyards within 10 minutes walking distance. I'd go back there in a shot - if it didn't involve 7½ hours driving from Cherbourg in a car with a Little Missy.

It's been a big week in the life of a Little Missy. She's been happy to stand up and cruise around the furniture ever since we were in New Zealand then, two weeks ago, just shy of 11½ months, she took off. Starting with little unsteady forays in the sitting room, she started to walk on her own, chortling with pleasure, arms windmilling by her sides as she tried to balance and master this new means of locomotion.

Last Monday we had to take a trip to Cork to buy her first pair of real shoes and, although she made me look like a pushy Mama, refusing to walk in the shop despite an audience of six (two aunts, one honorary aunt, two shop assistants and myself) watching on, she's been loving the new freedom, especially outside, that the shoes give her. And what's that all got to do with food? This momentous shoe purchase just happened to coincide with the end of breastfeeding, and a corresponding new freedom for me.

After being allowed plenty of feeds while travelling in New Zealand and Vietnam, especially on the 11 flights we took over the six weeks we were away - justification: if we were going to make life easier for ourselves while travelling, there had to be a little give in the (always loose) feeding schedule - it was rapidly down to four a day when we returned to Ireland. Straight off, I took the opportunity to kick the unnecessary middle of the night feed that had crept in while we were away from home and teeth were coming through. Wailing baby in the middle of the night when you're staying in someone else's house? A feed is obviously the easiest way of calming and quieting things, giving her the idea that 3am wake ups were a really good idea. She got a sudden shock when we were back within our own four walls but, luckily enough, adjusted quickly.

Gradually I dropped the other feeds during the day, just sticking to the one first thing in the morning while it was still dark and cold. Although LM does sleep through the night now (dating from just two days after returning home - no jet lag for her!), we're woken by a dadada, gradually increasing in crescendo and fury, any time from 6am onwards. With no central heating at the cottage, in the cold days of February and early March, I fed while the Husband went and lit the fire. Ice on the inside of the window panes will do that to you. Only when it was cosy warm would LM and I deign to grace downstairs with our presence.

Then, one morning last week, I decided to give her breakfast at the table instead of a feed in bed. And that, quite simply, was that. Or should be. Although a hearty grubber in every other way, she refuses to drink milk from a bottle, cup or sippy cup. After being worried for a while and thinking that I was going to be stuck breastfeeding until she reached the age of reason, I saw sense and decided to incorporate milk into her meals. She also eats plenty of cheese and natural yoghurt and gets offered milk regularly - I'm hoping someday she's just going to decide to take it.

So, new shoes firmly on her little feet, Little Missy has her independence from Mama and Mama - after nine months carrying and almost a year feeding her - is finally feeling like a separate person again. A momentous occasion? I think so. Watch out world, here we come!

Sometimes, in this house, baking is not just for the bigger members of the family and, along with the Flapjacks and Shortbread, there's even a tin marked with Little Missy's name. It's currently filled with these twice-baked Banana Spelt Biscotti, which I love because they are easily made, contain no sugar and it's up to you about the kind of flour you use. These, along with LM's favourite rice cakes, are perfect afternoon snacks - and easily portable - but she is quite happy to munch on them at any stage, and especially loves a small smear of marmite on the biscotti when we're at home.

I first came across these first in New Zealand, when LM loved the Teething Biscotti, made by her Kiwi Nana from a recipe from Nicola Galloway's Cooking For Your Child. Back home, I used up some spelt flour from the storecupboard, although you could, of course, use plain flour or, as Nicola suggests, rice flour. I also added a pinch of ground cinnamon as we're all needing warming spices for this continuing wintery weather. She recommends giving them to babies aged from nine months but, as with any dietary directions, judge by your own child's abilities to deal with food.

As I only needed the egg yokes for this recipe, I used the whites to make the batch of Macaroons that you can see behind the biscotti in the picture. I'm not entirely happy with that recipe so I won't share it here but, unless you have a trustworthy Macaroon recipe, you could use the spare egg whites for meringues and they also freeze well. The biscotti, however, do sit around happily in an airtight box for a couple of weeks or you could store them into the freezer if you want to use them to relieve teething pains.

Pavlova and barbeques, hokey pokey ice cream and long blacks: we've abandoned the cold and damp of an Irish December for Christmas in New Zealand! The Husband, Little Missy and I left Cork last Saturday and eventually arrived in Nelson on Tuesday. This way LM gets to spend her first Christmas with her Kiwi family and we all get to enjoy some proper summer weather (we are, however, hoping to bring the sunshine home with us...)

This time we travelled with Malaysia Airlines, who, we discovered, are brilliant at dealing with children, overnighting in Kuala Lumpur on the way. Travelling with an eight-month-old baby is a little more challenging than travelling solo, to say the least, but at least we're two to deal with one, rather than the other way round. It would have been quite useful if the one out of the two doing the packing had managed to travel a little lighter but small baby = many nappies, changes of clothes, sleeping bags, small toys and books for distraction - and that's just the carry on luggage.

One of the other advantages of coming over with Malaysia Airlines is the food. Take the Malaysian offering for meals and you won't go far wrong, with dishes like nasi lemak and beef rendang on offer. LM didn't fare as well in the dining department, both flights having only two basic Heinz baby foods but I was able to bring a good amount of food, both homemade and jarred, through security in Cork, Heathrow and KL airports without any problem.

Little Missy was great on the plane from Ireland but I wouldn't like to have been the hapless inhabitants of the room next door during that night in KL as she disregarded the eight hours time difference and stuck resolutely to her normal sleep time, which turned out to be 4.30am in Malaysia! Still, it was worth it for the break from travelling, not to mention the mugs of teh tarik, trays of roti telur and, one of my all time favourites, spicy laksa johor that we got a chance to devour while there.

Now, with Christmas almost upon us and a family wedding fast approaching, we're planted here for most of the next month. Plenty of time to soak up the sunshine, enjoy vineyard and brewpub visits, savour the fantastic food both at home - the Husband's mother is a fantastic cook - and around Nelson, and introduce LM to all her family in the southern hemisphere. Merry Christmas to all!

Coffee and cake - kaffee und kuchen - can you think of a better thing to warm you up on a bracingly cold Berlin afternoon? Over the course of ten days in Germany there were a lot of stops with Little Missy for a variety of sweet treats - and a lot of walking to compensate! Herself, myself and the Husband were staying at an apartment in the Friedrichshain district so, with the Husband gone from early to late on his course, LM and I set off to explore the city together. Mornings she slept then, as soon as she cocked an eye, she was scooped up, wrapped warmly, landed in the pushchair and we took off.

It took me a little while to figure out how to manage the u-bahn with LM so I discovered that walking from the apartment to Alexanderplatz took just over half-an-hour along the historic Karl Marx Allee. Half way there, Café Sybille was always a welcome stop for refreshments plus a side helping of history from its mini-museum on the building of Stalinallee, the Communist-centric former name of Karl Marx Allee. If we got as far as Alexanderplatz before LM needed a stop, the food department on the ground floor in Galeria Kaufhof was another good spot after I figured out how to work their system. Basically, grab a seat in the back corner and find a place to park the pushchair, figure out what you want to eat from the menus on the tables and order from the surrounding counters. For a sugar hit, their cake counter, piled high with lots of delightful sweet things (a tart of caramelised nuts on a biscuity base was a favourite) is particularly good.

Managing a pushchair plus a Little Missy around any city on your own is not the easiest and I did end up walking past plenty of places that looked great but weren't so easily accessible. That said, once I found the u-bahn stations with lifts (all clean and most of which worked), the city was much easy to travel around - praise be for barrier-free travel - so we roamed around the Tiergarten (tip: if you have a baby with you, you get to skip the two-hour queue for getting to the top of the Reichstag building), spent mornings in the Spandauer Vorstadt (grab some bircher muesli at Milchhall Berlin or Blintschiki in Gorki Park) and, in the last few days, discovered the delights of our Friedrichshain district (eating pizza from a woodfired oven at Pizza da Dante, taking away some beautifully decorated treats from Cupcake Berlin or visiting my local 50s milkshake bar at Milkabilly).

As Little Missy goes to sleep these days between 7pm and 8pm (if we're lucky!) there wasn't much chance for evening adventures but, when the Sister came over for a few nights, herself and myself did get a night off to head for dinner with The Shy Chef. But that's a whole other story...

The Little Sister, who finishes college early on Fridays, was around yesterday so we took Little Missy for a walk that turned into an impromptu blackberry picking expedition.

Not being very organised, we had to use LM's hat for a basket, gathering (and eating) the berries while we strolled down the road. Blackberry season seems to be going on for ages this year, with a sunny September ensuring that there are plenty of fruit for eating and for cooking with rather than the usual one-or-the-other situation.

Our hatful of spoils, gently simmered with a little water and mashed with a banana, turned into an easy lunch for Little Missy. She devoured it (with a little help from the Little Sister!), lumps and all, making appreciative humming noises all the way through. Would that feeding babies will always come so easily.

I've only managed to go to the cinema twice since Little Missy arrived on the scene, an enormous drop off when compared with the four or five films a week I might go to see when I reviewed films for the RTÉ entertainment website. I used to go see those films during the day, and for free. That was a Very Good Thing - even if the films were bad, and some were really, truly horrendous.

A couple of months ago I went to see the latest Harry Potter with the Little Sister in Mallow. LM decided to throw a colicky/hissy fit at home, almost driving the Husband to distraction while I sat on oblivious in the cinema. Once I went to the Big Scream, a parent and baby screening at Cork Omniplex in Mahon Point but the film on offer that day was Angels and Demons. About two-thirds of the long, inexplicably convoluted way through, I decided - as I wasn't being paid to review films anymore - that I was well within my rights to leave.

When I heard that Julie & Julia was being released in Ireland in September, I was determined to see it and had the Husband lined up to do another night of Little Missy-sitting. Then I got an email from the Cork Omniplex - this month's Big Scream film is, ta da!, Julie & Julia.

For any other similarly film-deprived parents, this month's screening is taking place next Wednesday, 16 September, at 10am and, despite all the babies around the place, I've definitely been in films when there's been more noise from a more, ahem, mature audience. The Big Scream films are just €7.00 for one adult and one child under four years.

Last year, on a trip to London, I picked up a spork - a light plastic utensil which features a spoon at one end, fork at the other and serrated knife edge on the fork side - in a kitchenware shop and I've rarely been without it since. The last quarter of 2008 was taken up with train trips to Dublin as I worked on the Foodtalk documentary series and, food on the train being what it is - or isn't - my spork was invaluable.

Breakfast on the early morning Mallow-Dublin train was made easy by making sure there was some tortilla left over from last night's dinner to pack and eat en route but it was on the homeward leg, normally in the late afternoon, that the spork really came into its own. Short on time, I often ran into Fallon & Byrne or Avoca to choose from a selection of hummus, crackers, cheese, bread and pâté with, perhaps, a few cherry tomatoes thrown in for good measure.

After my usual last minute scramble to make the train, I relaxed, ensconced in my train seat, and - to the amusment of my fellow passengers - happily cut, scooped, spread and (s)forked up my supper. At that stage in the year, pregnant with Little Missy, I just couldn't wait until I got home for food or stomach the limp train sandwiches.

Since LM has started on solids, the spork is back in use again. For the last week, while we were housesitting for friends in East Cork, it let me prep her lunch on the move. Bananas, nectarines, pears or, on one day, much to Little Missy's distain, a kiwi fruit were brought along in a little bowl, peeled, chopped, mashed and fed to the child while we were out and about. While we were able to enjoy lunch in the Ballymaloe House Café (yum), Stephen Pearce Emporium (yum) or Aherne's of Youghal (hmm), LM chowed down on her own food, making it a positive experience for us as well as the other diners!

The only places I've seen these sporks in Ireland are in the shops at Ballymaloe House and the Ballmaloe Cooking School (priced about €2.95) but I think that they should be easy to find in outdoor shops and you can see them online at http://www.light-my-fire.se/230-147-spork.htm. Well worth picking up - for children of all ages.

Tablefuls of tapas, full English breakfasts, bags of cherries, good coffee aplenty, savoury bacon baps and decadent brownies - just a few of the things that Little Missy enjoyed, albeit second hand, while in London at the weekend. After a hissy fit at Cork Airport - yes, we were that couple carrying a screaming baby through the plane as the other passengers turned their heads, hoping that we wouldn't sit near them - she settled into enjoying her first trip abroad.

As we were over for a brief, all-too-short meeting with her Kiwi grandparents, we didn't have our usual list of things to do and eat. We just took it easy, spending quality time with Nana and Poppa, taking time out when LM wanted to eat to relax over a coffee ourselves. When not feeding, she spent her time travelling on my hip in a sling or in the pouch on her father's chest, looking around with big blue eyes and charming the inhabitants of London.

We stayed near Spitalfields so, although I didn't to get to St John Bread and Wine this time, we did manage a dinner at Meson Los Barriles with the Artist. Tapas and babies turned out to be a good mix and meeting up with the Artist, a former housemate during our Dublin years, was an unalloyed joy. She knows me well, presenting LM with a baby-sized pink spatula for future cooking adventures, with instructions to make sure she gets to lick the bowl out properly!

We were back at the Spitalfields market the following morning to try out Leon for breakfast. Much of the menu was familiar from the my well-used Leon cookbook, the baps were good and we finished up with a yummy Black Forrest Knickerbocker Glory while LM slept on the bench beside us. We also wandered over to the famous - and crowded - Borough Market for a quick look but, with baby, Husband and suitcase in tow, I did no more than check out the busy stalls and grab provisions for a picnic in Hyde Park.

We didn't get to cover as much ground as we normally do on our London trips but it was more than made up for by the fact that Little Missy seemed to thrive on the experience. Hopefully this is a good omen for New Zealand at Christmas time!

Ever since Louise Sowan of Sowan's Organics put me on to Cork Coffee Roasters I've been a fan. Their full bodied Rebel City Espresso is a fixture in my kitchen and I rarely manage to go past their stall at the Mahon Point Farmer's Market or events like the Mallow Food Festival without getting my hands on a caffeine fix. The Sister is even worse. She is luck enough to live around the corner from the Cork Coffee Roasters café. As a result, weekend phone calls between us are punctuated by her frequent stops at CCR to order yet another cappuccino. Meanwhile - especially since Urru Mallow closed down - I'm stuck in the sticks with nothing to comfort me except my stove top espresso maker.

While I was pregnant with Little Missy I suddenly, to my absolute horror, went right off coffee. I had to turn to hot chocolates (not too much of a problem if it's from Urru or the Ó Conaill Chocolate café but horrible most other places) for my caffeine highs during those months. Cork visits were more likely to involve a trip to French Church Street for a dark cardamom at Ó Conaill Chocolate than a visit to CCR. Fortunately, not long after LM was introduced to the outside world, I was back on the black stuff with a vengeance.

Today's trip to Cork made me realise, once again, how much I love Cork Coffee Roasters. Firstly, there's the coffee which is dark and rich and tastes so good, even when I make it at home. CCR is owned by Master Coffee Roaster John Gowan who, after 20 years in Seattle, returned to his native Cork to specialise in hand-roasted small-batch coffee blends. Not content with producing the best coffee in Cork, John then opened the café on Bridge Street. It's a simple set up - great coffee with a few good things to eat (courtesy of the Natural Foods Bakery) - but there's a relaxed, friendly feeling about the place that adds up to far more than the sum of its parts.

If you're not doing the dive-and-roll quick takeaway coffee, Cork Coffee Roasters is a great place to sit in while watching the world go by. Little Missy gives it the thumbs up too, having had her second breakfast there today, nursing away while myself and the Sister were downing our coffees. There's also a changing table in the bathroom for any nappy emergencies. Now all I need to do is persuade John Gowan to open a CCR outpost in Mallow, Fermoy or Mitchelstown.

Since Little Missy arrived on the scene, the breadmaker has been working at full tilt. The loaves aren't the most beautiful but, then again, looks aren't everything and the convenience and flavour more than make up for it. A few mornings a week, before the Husband heads out the door to work, he loads it up with the ingredients for a Fennel-Aniseed-Caraway Loaf and, as Little Missy and I snooze away, it kneads, proves, knocks back and bakes a loaf of warm, sweet-smelling bread. At least, that has been the routine.

This morning, though, I did a bit of disasterous fiddling with the mixture - thought it was too dry so added some water then figured it looked wet so put in some more flour - and left it to go on its own merry way, or so I thought. I didn't realise that the amount of mixture added up to a little more than the machine could cope with until, a few hours later, I smelled burning and caught sight of smoke pouring from under the lid.

Fortunately I was there in the house to catch it before it caused too much damage, and it was promptly switched off, plugged out and emptied outside. The bread had flowed over the sides of the internal baking tin and was burning, creating copious amounts of acrid-smelling smoke, onto the cooking element that heats the breadmaker. There'll be no upping the quanitities of ingredients in future, always presuming that I'll be able to use it again!

Here's the recipe for the Fennel-Aniseed-Caraway Loaf that we make at the moment. My midwife recommended I take the fennel, aniseed and caraway seeds in a tea to help my milk production when I started nursing Little Missy but they taste far better in bread. You don't need to be producing milk to enjoy this bread: it's especially good toasted and eaten with boiled, scrambled or fried eggs.

My breadmaker is a Cookworks Signature Stainless Steel one from Argos that I got via Gumtree and I normally use it, as below, to make a 2lb loaf. For this machine, you put the liquid in before the flour but I know some machines are different - just check the manual for your own machine.

I've been getting out and about a good bit recently - Little Missy always in tow as she doesn't like to let her food source out of sight for too long - and I've noticed that lunchtimes have suddenly become more complicated. It's not as easy to hop on a bus and head down to Cork as I used to do regularly, meeting up with one of the Sisters or the Small Brother for lunch at The Continental (Ballymaloe-style food, never as busy as it should be), Annie's gastropub (the walk up to Sunday's Well will work up an appetite for their fantastic food) or The Liberty Grill (close to UCC for the Little Sister, with enough big burgers and chunky sandwiches to keep any errant student happy).

Now, with pushchair attached and car a necessity, it's not as easy to manoeuver our way into the city centre. A trip to Limerick's Crescent Shopping Centre - H&M there is one of the few places that stock a choice of reasonably priced nursing tops - led to a horribly burnt O'Briens' toasted sandwich, eaten in the car as I fed Little Missy. A trip to Mahon Point on a Wednesday led to me getting a horrible bagel at The Bagel Bar in their food court, after which I vowed never again to rely on shopping centre food offerings.

An abortive journey - someone forgot their essential photo id - to Cork to get Little Missy registered was made up for with a very pleasant, relaxed lunch at Jacobs (make sure you order the D&B - Date & Butterscotch Pudding - for pudding). After you get past the four steps at the entrance, the airy spacious room is very easy to manage with a pushchair and, if you choose well, lunch need be no more expensive than the rubbish served at O'Briens.

Second time round, registration went without a hitch so, as it was a Thursday, we took the opportunity to meet up with the Husband for lunch at the Mahon Point Farmers' Market. We arrived there first so there was plenty of time to look around at our lunch options. I picked the steak sandwiches that were being sold by Gar's Sandwiches, a stall that also had proper spicy ginger beer, brewed down Dingle-direction. The Husband went for a chicken wrap, with juicy roasted peppers and onions although, as some rugby players turned up to order armloads of wraps before him, his wait was much longer than mine. Little Missy insisted on her own lunch as I was eating, something that was easy to facilitate at one of the many tables and chairs scattered around the market.

Free parking, a choice of good food for a sociable lunch and plenty of other stalls for stocking up makes the Mahon Point Farmers' Market a great lunchtime choice, especially as I get to catch up with friends and family there. Any other suggestions for baby-friendly lunch venues welcomed!

...beautiful, solemn-eyed, unexpectedly straight-haired, long fingered little girl! Little Missy is a week old today and we're gradually getting the hang of each other, just enough so I get to actually turn on my computer for five minutes while she sleeps for a while.

Food is obviously her priority - she takes after both her parents that way, although her appetite seems to be more in the Husband's league! - so I'm also eating for Ireland to keep up with her demands. It says a lot for my newly developed hunger that I even devoured the CUMH food (think soggy toast, grey lamb stew and inedible vegetables) while I was stuck in there, along with the more palatable flapjacks, blocks of cheese, tubs of hummus, oatcakes and bags of apples that the Husband kept me supplied with.

Being home, the food has definitely taken a turn for the better. The Husband has been cooking up a storm and all those meals that I froze in the weeks before Little Missy was born are now coming in handy. The fact that we're only a few miles from my parents has also been brilliant. Bags of scones, boxes of messages, stews and lasagnes have all been arriving on the doorstep since we came home from the hospital.

Our newly acquired breadmaker is kept working hard - it's always much easier to put on a loaf of bread rather than go to the shop. My morning toast comes enriched with milk-producing fennel and aniseed, making a tasty line-up of soldiers to dip into a boiled egg, fresh from our hens and sitting in one of the cheerful eggcups from my Naas Cousin.

Still quiet behind me. Life is good. Time to grab lunch, methinks...