Donations for disaster relief in Japan.

  It has been so sad reading about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We have given a donation through the Red Cross www.redcross.org.uk  and also to Humane Society International at www.hsi.org . Everyone knows about the important work carried out by the Red Cross; we also wanted to support Humane Society International who are working with Japanese animal welfare organisations and other international animal welfare organisations to help the animals caught up in the disaster.

   We have been planning a trip with the children to the ancient Roman settlement of Verulamium, a.k.a St Albans, to visit the Roman theatre, the hypocaust, and the Roman museum. We wanted to take a Roman meal to eat so we've been researching Roman foods. Grapes, figs, olives and nuts are no problem, and I've made a spelt loaf shaped like an Imperial eagle- apparently the Romans like funny-shaped bread!
    Unfortunately the snack of choice in ancient Rome seemed to consist mainly of rotting fish, so we had to dig a bit deeper for more inspiration!
   We thought that houmous might feature in ancient Roman cuisine but apparently there is no evidence that the dish is particularly ancient- it just seems old, somehow, doesn't it?
   I read that Romans ate sourdough bread. I've always wanted to make sourdough bread; a friend gave me some sourdough starter a year or so ago but it died. Another friend trusted me with some of her starter and I've had it for about  ten days now and everything seems to be going ok!
   I've been looking on the internet for information about the use and maintenance of sourdough starter and it all begins to seem a bit surreal- people seem to write about their starter as tho' it is an animal, giving tips on 'how to feed your pet': twice a day if it lives in your kitchen, apparently, some people even giving theirs occasional  little treats of sugar. And then, after all that feeding and nurturing and monitoring and anxious hovering, you're encouraged to divide 'your pet' into two, use half to make dough and eat it!
   Anyway, I did all that- it was probably made easier to do because I hadn't had it long and wasn't yet bonded with my starter! So now we have some Roman style spelt sourdough bread ready for our trip. We tried it and it definitely had that lovely sourdough slight tanginess, so although it didn't rise that much I was pleased with my first attempt at sourdough.
 I have given my starter some more flour and water to eat and then, after some time to let its food go down, I popped it in the fridge; it's sleeping in its Swedish Glace tub at the moment and seems fine..