carrots, crumpets and Karl Ove

"I never had periods of doubt followed by periods of self-belief, it was all mixed for me, and the doubt that coloured such a large part of my thinking never applied to the larger picture but always the smaller picture, the one associated with my closer surroundings, friends, acquaintances, girls, who, I was convinced, always held a low opinion of me, considered me an idiot, which burned inside me, every day it burned inside me: however, as far as the larger picture was concerned, I never had any doubt that I could attain what I wanted, I knew I had it in me, because my yearnings were so strong and they never found any rest."

- Karl Ove Knausgaard

When I was a teenager, on one of the many afternoons I sat around the outside table at mum and dad's chain-smoking with my besties, I was wearing a fluro aqua tsubi t-shirt, the brand plastered over my chest with the "ts" and the "bi" stretched in a way that was more gross than sexy and we played a silly game where we had to rate ourselves out of ten. I gave myself an eight and the girls howled with laughter. I remember being surprised myself, but I did not downgrade it because there, on some level, I really did think I was quite amazing. Not in relation to others: not a day went by when I didn't wonder how I had come off in a conversation. Did I appear smart or had I looked like a fool, oh, I had looked foolish. They don't like me, she's only talking to me because she was being polite and so on and so on. But there, in amongst that dirty sea of doubt, was this faith in myself as an individual.

It has always confused me, how I could be almost crippled by self doubt and at the same time be propelled by such steady self-belief. And it was not until I read that paragraph by Karl Ove Knausgaard that I have been able to make the slightest bit of sense of it.

So thank you, Karl Ove, for this and many more flashes of insight (so many that I wonder if someone could have leaked my darkest, inner-most self to your inbox) and ps I am considering starting a separate blog that is dedicated solely to quoting you page by page from everything you have ever published because I love you. You and Anne Lamott.

But until I get that up and running here are some cooking bits and pieces from the week that was.

The most exciting thing to come out of my kitchen this week were these crumpets from Michelle Crawford's excellent book A Table in the Orchard. The recipe is also here on her blog. I didn't have any crumpet rings, or even egg rings, but used this tiny pan instead (you can buy similar ones online from Megan's store) and it worked very well. I guess it was a little slow which is why afternoon tea turned into a crumpet dinner as well.

And the other kitchen moment of note was these gorgeous baby beets and carrots out of the garden, roasted in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper and in the last ten minutes a good drizzle of honey. Hard to beat.