I just spent an hour reading Nigella Lawson’s How to be a Domestic Goddess, all curled up under a quilt on the couch. I took it out from the library as a half-joke; now that I am fully employed in the care and maintenance of a home I suppose I am in a position to see being a Domestic Goddess as a promotion. Sitting around reading cookbooks is not a usual pastime of mine, but this one is like having a chat over a cup of tea with a lady who has done a lot of cooking and knows what she likes, and what is easy and rewarding to make. It is delightful, and has lots of gorgeous pictures to drool over too. In her introduction to Blueberry Muffins she describes store-bought muffins as a “dry mass of aerated wodge” and I thought to myself – “that’s exactly it. dry, aerated wodge. there is no better way to describe store bought muffins.”
Baking is comforting to me. I was getting all stressed out over unpacking and cleaning and making this house feel like our home, and when I felt myself getting upset about not having all the stuff that I wanted, bookcases, shelves, armchairs, etc, etc, I decided to bake some banana bread. And when the house filled with the warm, beautiful smell it suddenly felt a lot more like home. I’ve yet to bake yeast bread, but I’m working up to it.
And yes, it’s still snowing. I look out the window and can’t believe what I see. It’s like we’ve been transported to another world, a land of iced gingerbread houses and reindeers and sleighs. It’s completely magical. When I remember back through the years that I lived in Vancouver as a child, I can remember only one other time when we got as much snow as we have now. I can remember a lot more years hoping desperately for a white christmas and ending up with a wet, brown one. Louis is not quite so enchanted with the new snowy landscape.

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