N.B. Please vote on the new poll on the left sidebar. I need to show agents how many people read my blog just coz they googled "enormous tits." It's sure to get me a major book deal.
And I thought being an undiscovered novelist was hard work, ho ho ho.
More later when I'm in limp lettuce mode...
......tick tock tick tock tick tock more than 24 hours later.....
The Next Day...
Soz I didn't update you last night but I got home in limp lettuce mode (catering is FUCKING HARD WORK!) and Nature Boy threw me over his shoulder and whisked me off to bed for a good old rogering to restore me back to full strength. Which it did. Then he was on Ebay all evening watching a dreamy mountain bike so I couldn't get on the puta. Anyway he won it, there's a good story developing back stage about it and I've thought of a great idea for an article he could write for one of the bike mags.
So...back to tarts.
Above: My chocolate tart for sale in a real life shop not just a pretend Fisher-Price one.
I started cooking when I was thirteen. As we were only allowed a certain amount of sweets a week I figured that I could circumvent this strict rationing by making my own, as sugar was always available in the food cupboard. So I learnt about boiling sugar and started to experiment with making my own lollipops. I never stopped teaching myself about cooking; during my late teens, whilst the other students at Uni were all down the pub, I'd be on my own in my little flat in Manchester, baking. Yeah, I was really wild, me.
The magical alchemy of cooking still fascinates me twenty five years later, but the areas that have always interested me the most are confectionery and pâtisserie. However, I've only ever cooked for family and friends before; never sold my wares.
My mates' catering business, Masterchef, (not the TV programme, which appeared years after this original Masterchef) at the bottom of Staniforth Road in Sheffield, has been established for 25 years but has recently expanded, involving the installation of a big open kitchen viewable by customers, an adjoining cafe and outdoors eating area.
Whilst the students are away, I've agreed to work a couple of days a week, the theory being that by only working part time I'd be able to get straight back into the writing on the second book. I've taken a couple of months out already teaching myself web design and am GAGGING at the bit to get writing again, especially as I've got a right arty farty chapter coming up which I can't wait to get stuck into.
Well of course, it's now that I'm realising that not working in paid employment for 2 years and instead being completely skint and focusing on my writing, was a bloody good idea, because whatever the personal sacrifice, the first book got written and edited. Job's a good 'un.
And being out there in the big wide world again, am I writing during my "spare" three days a week? No I am not. Instead I'm being tossed and turned in the froth and foam of "life", as opposed to being an innocuous amoebic form swimming around at the bottom of the sea, writing.
I'm meant to be talking about tarts, aren't I? Oh yeah, I was having fun writing, then, soz. Right. So. Chocolate tarts. Occasionally Bry (aka Nature Boy) takes samples of my baking into work, and all his colleagues love it. In fact one of them has recently put in a personal request for me to make a cheesecake. I like her, so I'll do it.
So I go into work one day (catering business work) with a big chocolate tart for all the staff to share, and my mates, Pat and John, who run the business, are like, "It's great! Let's sell it!"
So it goes on sale that very day with the name "The Seducer Of Women Chocolate Tart" and it sells out before lunchtime!
Cocky, moi? Before teatime I'd told everyone I knew that being a novelist was for losers, and instead I'd become a Chef de Pâtisserie, including the little cervix thing on top of the â.
The next day, one of the regular customers came back and ordered two slices of tart because, he said with a wink, "It works on men, too." Oooooh! :)
Anyway, next time I was in our local deli, I was yakking about grub (it's called "being a foody") to Darren, the owner, and when I told him the ingredients of the chocolate tart and the shelf life (approx 2 hours from presentation to sell-out) his eyes started sparkling and he said "Can you bring me one?"
So, the next Saturday, my chocolate tart was on sale in one of the poshest delis in Sheffield, Sapore, on Chesterfield Road in Woodseats, where it will be on sale every Saturday morning for the near future if you want to try it. Darren decided to call it "Double Chocolate Tart" and once again, it sold out.
I'm now working on a white chocolate version, but so far I'm hitting problems as white chocolate has very different properties to 75% cocoa solid chocolate so getting the texture right is tricky, but I'm getting there. Bry has wolfed down all the experiments, anyway.
I'm kidding about giving up writing, by the way. How can I give up writing when new material keeps rolling past on the conveyor belt, eh?
All Photographs by Shannon Molloy.
The magical alchemy of cooking still fascinates me twenty five years later, but the areas that have always interested me the most are confectionery and pâtisserie. However, I've only ever cooked for family and friends before; never sold my wares.
Far right: My "Seducers." Next to them, "Melissa's Muffins", which are also best-selling crowd pullers.
My mates' catering business, Masterchef, (not the TV programme, which appeared years after this original Masterchef) at the bottom of Staniforth Road in Sheffield, has been established for 25 years but has recently expanded, involving the installation of a big open kitchen viewable by customers, an adjoining cafe and outdoors eating area.
Whilst the students are away, I've agreed to work a couple of days a week, the theory being that by only working part time I'd be able to get straight back into the writing on the second book. I've taken a couple of months out already teaching myself web design and am GAGGING at the bit to get writing again, especially as I've got a right arty farty chapter coming up which I can't wait to get stuck into.
Well of course, it's now that I'm realising that not working in paid employment for 2 years and instead being completely skint and focusing on my writing, was a bloody good idea, because whatever the personal sacrifice, the first book got written and edited. Job's a good 'un.
And being out there in the big wide world again, am I writing during my "spare" three days a week? No I am not. Instead I'm being tossed and turned in the froth and foam of "life", as opposed to being an innocuous amoebic form swimming around at the bottom of the sea, writing.
I'm meant to be talking about tarts, aren't I? Oh yeah, I was having fun writing, then, soz. Right. So. Chocolate tarts. Occasionally Bry (aka Nature Boy) takes samples of my baking into work, and all his colleagues love it. In fact one of them has recently put in a personal request for me to make a cheesecake. I like her, so I'll do it.
So I go into work one day (catering business work) with a big chocolate tart for all the staff to share, and my mates, Pat and John, who run the business, are like, "It's great! Let's sell it!"
So it goes on sale that very day with the name "The Seducer Of Women Chocolate Tart" and it sells out before lunchtime!
Cocky, moi? Before teatime I'd told everyone I knew that being a novelist was for losers, and instead I'd become a Chef de Pâtisserie, including the little cervix thing on top of the â.
The next day, one of the regular customers came back and ordered two slices of tart because, he said with a wink, "It works on men, too." Oooooh! :)
Anyway, next time I was in our local deli, I was yakking about grub (it's called "being a foody") to Darren, the owner, and when I told him the ingredients of the chocolate tart and the shelf life (approx 2 hours from presentation to sell-out) his eyes started sparkling and he said "Can you bring me one?"
So, the next Saturday, my chocolate tart was on sale in one of the poshest delis in Sheffield, Sapore, on Chesterfield Road in Woodseats, where it will be on sale every Saturday morning for the near future if you want to try it. Darren decided to call it "Double Chocolate Tart" and once again, it sold out.
I'm now working on a white chocolate version, but so far I'm hitting problems as white chocolate has very different properties to 75% cocoa solid chocolate so getting the texture right is tricky, but I'm getting there. Bry has wolfed down all the experiments, anyway.
I'm kidding about giving up writing, by the way. How can I give up writing when new material keeps rolling past on the conveyor belt, eh?
***
All Photographs by Shannon Molloy.
© Jude Calvert-Toulmin.
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