A Cow in Horse's Clothing

It's shocking.

I've recently been reading a collection of articles on the horse meat scandal, but as if that whole fiasco wasn't bad enough, there seem to be a bunch of people out there trying to act cool about it.

"People eat horse meat all the time!"

Yes, I know, it's very popular in France. But I'm sorry, I can't see it happening in my kitchen. Mainly because I like the cute moonwalking Shetty in the Three advert, and especially if the pony trying to infiltrate my pot is doing it under false pretences.

The best/worst piece I read was in the main national Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat (sorry, Finnish article only). Someone had interviewed horse owners at a riding stables to see what they thought about eating their mounts. Most of the riders thought it a good idea, as long as the slaughter process was humane.

What?!

I refuse to believe that any normal family would feel completely happy about their daughter's pet pony ending up as part of someone's Sunday roast. Or worse still, if old Rosie was the main ingredient in their own dinner. Please tell me I'm not mental to be thinking this?

Anyway, I'm glad I never bought that jar of ready made baby spag bol for Felix. At least he has been spared the Trojan horse in his ready cuisine. 

Although now the doubts creep in. What if chicken isn't really chicken? What do they put in cheese? And can anyone prove where fish fingers come from?

Ironing, The Devil's Invention

Guilty, is decidedly how I feel.

My neighbor told me that she has just removed their spring clothing from vacuum bags and washed everything, ready to hang in the wardrobe. Just in case, she said, for that unpredictable Spanish March weather. An ex-colleague informed me that she removes dirt from between her bathroom tiles with a cue tip dipped in a special chemical she orders from abroad. Another few acquaintances apparently spend weekend mornings ironing.

The conclusion I draw from all of this, as I nod enthusiastically, insinuating that I too do all those things, that I must be one awful, slovenly, bad example of a housewife. I mean, these women are not ladies of leisure, they work and have kids. So where do they find the time and energy to do all this extra cleaning and ironing? It is a mystery to me.

My bathroom has never seen a cue tip, unless it's about to go into an ear, and the only times anything gets ironed in our house is if it's absolutely necessary. Even then it always gets done in a stressful rush, because we are the original lastminute.com family, permanently late for everything.

Luckily my husband shares my aversion to housework. He agreed to get a fortnightly cleaner when our baby was born, even though I wasn't working, and he doesn't seem to mind the fact that the duster and the mop rarely come out in between the blessed woman's visits. And he reckons that ironing is the Devil's invention. These are just two of the many reasons why I love him.

Please don't think that we are dirty people! I assure you that our house is hygienic enough. Well, at least for our liking. The baby is thriving despite the occasional clump of dog hair on the floor. Don't they say that regular contact with bacteria strengthens one's immune system?

So there, the truth is out! Whenever baby Felix falls asleep, unless I'm working, I don't rush to clean the oven after all... 

Nope. I put my feet up, switch on a soap and drink tea. Beats scrubbing floors any day.

Fat, Glorious Fat

Slim bank account, fat waist. Welcome January!

I blame the supermarkets. As soon as the tinsel-dressed panettone was on display in late October, I went at it. Just a little taste, I said to myself.

So I sampled my way through November and then, well, December was almost kind of Christmas anyway.

I proudly resisted chocolate until Christmas Eve when I ate half a crate load of Ferrero Rocher - and that was after seafood, cold meats, duck, potato gratin and varied desserts.

More and more food - made principally out of sugar, cream and lard - kept finding its way to our kitchen cupboards and into our stomachs: gifts from friends, corporate presents of cakes and sweets my husband brought home... never mind the stuff we bought in. We were gifted a two ton Christmas log made with marzipan, which my husband and I don’t even really like. That went in under five days.
Then it was NYE 2012, time to celebrate! At this point we were sweating slightly when we squeezed into our party gear and ate the canned Christmas goodies for dinner - smoked salmon, pate and various cheeses, a couple of limp lettuce leaves on the side for show. We went out, and since the baby was staying with his grandparents, spent the following day on the sofa watching telly and, yep, you guessed it, stuffing our faces.

Come 3rd January I suddenly couldn’t sit down comfortably in my skinny jeans - the ones I’d been so proud to squirm into after my post natal diet. When you lounge around in pyjamas with an elasticated waistband, you don’t notice the spreading Michelin.

Oh well. Christmas is once a year and they say it’s what you eat between January 1st and 23rd of December that counts. So this week on a mission to put an end to the ugly chocolate binges, I bought a bag of sunflower seeds to nibble on. Like a pair of fat, greedy canaries my husband and I crunched our way through two bags whilst watching Breaking Bad. Today we bought a third.

And dammit, I still know there is a giant Toblerone in the pantry.