Bridget McNulty

Broccoli and Cheddar Soup

// July 13th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blogs, Inspiration, Recipe of the Week, food

Raise your hand if you loved the movie Julie and Julia. Really, who didn’t?

We watched it while we were away and it awoke in me a deep desire to cook. Not just to cook boring old regulars (which is what I’ve always done), but to cook wonderful, inspiring, deeply delicious meals. I mentioned before that part of my new job is going to be testing out recipes every week, sort of a Recipe of the Week Challenge. But the blog is taking toooo long to get off the ground, so I’ve resorted to using Facebook to share recipes. And here, of course!

Today is the first day of this cooking challenge, and I wanted to mention a little of why I love to cook… It’s only a recent love, so I’m still learning how it makes me feel and the various pleasures it brings me, but here are a few:

* I love that I can put together raw ingredients, and come out with something warm and tasty, that didn’t exist before.

* I love that when I come home from work and my head is all full of computers and To Do Lists and planning, I can focus solely on the food – on chopping the leeks and stirring the soup – and that moment is all that exists.

* I love that the more you cook, the better at it you get. This might sound obvious, but it’s a confidence thing. Right now I’m not attempting anything too difficult, but I can already tell that I’ll be able to do quite tricky things in the not-too-distant future.

* And lastly, I love that it results in food, and eating. Because really, what greater joy is there than a homecooked meal shared with someone you love? I can’t think of one right now…

So join me! If you please. This week’s recipe is for Broccoli and Cheddar Soup – mine is bubbling on the stove at the moment. It’s really easy to make, and actually pretty good for you (it uses a whole lot of broccoli). Directions below.

I’ll post my photo of it tomorrow – please feel free to comment and post pics of your soup too!

Broccoli and Cheddar Soup

Ingredients:
• 2 leeks, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• Oil, for frying
• 4 cups broccoli florets
• 2 cups (500ml) chicken stock
• 1 cup (250ml) low-fat milk
• 1½ cups (375ml) grated cheddar

Serves 4
Fry leeks and garlic in oil until soft.
Add broccoli, stock and milk.
Bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until broccoli is tender.
Add cheese and mix well.
Blitz until smooth using a stick blender.

Photo from Fresh Living magazine.

Marmalade, magic and mist

// June 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Cape Town, Inspiration, Tea Parties

Believe it or not, I can actually talk about all three of those things…

Let’s start with marmalade.
I made some! From scratch. In my kitchen. It was terribly satisfying.
I don’t actually eat marmalade, but my man loves it so I thought I’d give it a go. What do you think? Pretty, hmmm? Maybe if you’re nice to me I’ll share the recipe next week.

The magic part comes directly from Madame Zingara. I went to the show last night and it blew me away! Extraordinary stuff. The tent is from the 1920s, entirely mirrored and decadently decorated on the inside, and it is filled with colour and life and wonder. Extraordinary performers – acrobats and hula hoop girls (twenty hoops in one go!) and roller skaters and singers, it was honestly jaw-droppingly good stuff. The food was wonderful too – four courses perfectly prepared and delivered (even though there were 300 people there). And, lastly, the company was fab. I was lucky enough to be with my man and four other fabulous folks, including one of my favourite bloggers – I Want That.

And, lastly, mist.
I’m working late today, for the first time since I started this job. It’s Friday evening and I’m ready to go home, but I’m waiting for some files to transfer, and they’re taking a long time. Outside it’s starting to get dark and the mist is rolling in over the mountains. It’s wintry today, and I am so ready to go home to my nice cosy flat, have a hot cup of tea, change into my schloompfy pyjamas and do nothing much of anything but eat dinner and hang out with my man for the night.

Lovely!

Small Daily Challenges

// June 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Decisions, Life (and the living of it)

Those words are all caps on purpose. You see, I think it’s the Small Daily Challenges that turn us into the people we really are.

Allow me to explain…
As most of you know, I recently got a job. This might not sound so extraordinary, except that for the last couple of years I’ve been working for myself – from home – freelancing. That means minimal interactions with people I don’t like, and no work I don’t enjoy. It might sound like a dream-world, but surprisingly, after a while, it starts feeling stagnant. If you only do what you like doing, you never learn how to do anything else. Aaand if you don’tt ever interact with people you don’t gel with, it’s difficult to learn Advanced People Skills (again, all caps intended).

So what I’ve learnt in my two months on the job (woohoo! Two months already!), apart from the heaps and heaps of practical stuff that has made me way more hireable, is that it’s the Small Daily Challenges that shape the kind of person you become. When faced with a snotty colleague, how do you respond? Do you retaliate or smoothe things over? Given the option of badmouthing someone who really deserves it, do you speak out or hold your tongue? In situations that are delicate and full of subtext, do you stir the waters or try to play peacemaker?

I think it’s this delicate dance of learning how to work with other people that turns us into someone who is admirable and trustworthy, or someone who you have to watch every word around. And I am trying, as much as possible, to be the former and not the latter. Who knew? An office job is as much about personal relations as it is about sitting in front of a computer.

I wonder what I’ll learn next?

Photo: Incase

Working 9 to 5…

// April 8th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // Cape Town, Life (and the living of it), Time

… Is actually quite a nice way to make a living. Yes, believe it or not, I have a Job. A Real Job, involving an office, a desk, colleagues and regular working hours. After over 2 years of freelancing and six months of jetting around the world, it’s quite an adjustment, let me tell you!

But, so far, a rather lovely adjustment. I’m the new Digital Online Editor of Fresh Living magazine, Pick n Pay’s foodie mag. It’s pretty much the only magazine I buy, packed full of recipes and suggestions and lovely photographs, and I intend becoming a much better cooko before many months are out! Watch this space.

Obviously, I’m still in the starry-eyed beginning stages of the job, helped no doubt by the fact that I’ve only been working a week and most of that week was a weekend (hooray for 4 day weekends!) Nevertheless, here are the things I’m enjoying about being employed:

•    Time to focus. At home there are always a million things to do, many of them work but lots of them home too, but when you’re at work, although there’s a long To Do List, it’s all work-related. This is surprisingly refreshing.

•    Feeling cutting-edge. When you’re at work for 8 and a half hours, there’s time to do things like watch videos and read Twitter updates and keep a finger on the pulse of what’s happening.*

•    Challenge. A whole heap of it. I feel more challenged this week than I have for months of working for myself… With other people asking me to live up to my potential, I already feel as if I’m growing.

And yes, I have to wake up early to get to work on time, but it’s rather lovely being up in the cool quiet stillness of the morning. Packing a lunch isn’t so much fun, it’s true, but I just need to learn to be more adventurous with my lunch ideas. And – the biggest surprise of all – I actually kind of like working with other people! Who’da’thunk? Perhaps I am less of an anti-social troll than I anticipated.

(PS: One of the main reasons I’m enjoying it so much is that it actually IS 9 to 5 – well, 8.30 to 5. So I’m home by 5.30pm and have 5 whole hours of real life before the day ends. Lovely!)

* I realize this is only because I’m working in Social Media and Online, so it’s pretty much my job to be cutting edge. Brilliant!

Photo by EverJean

WAIT! I thought of another two (apart from The Paycheck, which is so obvious I don’t think I need to mention it).

* Coming home is such a pleasure now. It’s like retreating to my nest, my own sacred space. Whereas before, because I was home all day, I didn’t have that sense of, “Ahhh…. it’s so lovely to be back.”

* I have to be more inventive with my clothing. This is a biggie for me – left to myself, I’ll wear the same, boring, comfortable clothes day in and day out. But I actually really enjoy putting together outfits! And now I have a good reason to.

Okay, that’s all for now. Got to go to work!

Something more.

// January 16th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Inspiration, Life (and the living of it), Love

Now, obviously it’s because I’m reading Eckhart Tolle’s ‘A New Earth’ (subtitle: awakening to your life’s purpose) but I’ve been thinking a lot, this week, about our grander purpose in life.

I suppose because we were all on holiday, and now we’re back and? Is this all? Work all week and hang out with friends and in nature on the weekend? It’s lovely, don’t get me wrong, and I love what I do with my everydays, I think I’m so extraordinarily lucky to be able to fill them pretty much as I please.

But shouldn’t there be Something More?

And not even something more like a goal to be reached, because I’ve got that too! My novel is being published in the USA in May, I’ve written a rough draft of my new novel, I’m filling my days with purpose. But. I can’t shake the feeling that that’s not really why we’re here. Surely there has to be something deeper? Tolle said something that really struck a chord with me about how who we are is not our function. I may be a writer, but that’s not who I am. Who I am is something far greater, and wider, and deeper.

And all I can come up with is that we are here to become Who We Really Are, to live our best selves, to continuously challenge ourselves to be more and more loving.

What do you think? Too heavy for a Friday morning?!

Nose to the grindstone.

// December 9th, 2008 // No Comments » // Blogs, Life (and the living of it)

Yip, that’s me. A mere few hours away from finishing all my work for the year and hooo-boy am I grumpy! I’m just so sick of working. Ready to be on holiday. Lying in my hammock reading a book. Waking up late. Not thinking about work.

And much as I know the grumps are caused by a resistance to the work at hand, and that if I could change my attitude it would all be much easier, it doesn’t seem to help.

I. am. tired. of. working.

It’s been a long year. Seems to be everyone’s chant at the moment, doesn’t it?
I’ll report back when I’m on the other side of this cement mountain.

In the meantime, check out 1000 Tiny Things I Hate (http://tinythingsihate.blogspot.com/) – one of the only things that can make me laugh when I’ve got the grumps!

Sick day -

// November 4th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Decisions

Ah, foolish me!
I thought I could work myself nonstop and not get sick… And then I thought that I could keep going even when I didn’t feel that well, and not get worse.

Today I’m rectifying all that – with a sick day. A lying-down-all-day day. A Seinfeld watching day. A no-brain day. And let’s hope tomorrow the fog has cleared and I feel well again!

Sleep, glorious sleep…

// November 3rd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Life (and the living of it), Time

My mom always said that sleep is the greatest healer, and I have to admit I agree with her…

These past few weeks, while I’ve been working myself to the bone to finish my deadline on time, I was amazed, pretty much every night, how I’d go to bed feeling exhausted and depleted, and wake up full of beans again (except not really beans, because I despise beans).

Sleep really is the most wonderful gift, isn’t it? No matter how tired / sick / grumpy you are, a good sleep is guaranteed to help. So in the two or three days since I handed in my deadline (hooray!) I’ve been trying to get as much of this wonder drug as possible… Can there be anything better than a late afternoon nap? A doze in a hammock? A slipping-into-sleep while lying in the lap of someone you love?

I’ve always felt that human beings putting themselves to bed is a marvelous thing. We’re so mean to ourselves all day – we work too hard, we poison ourselves with junk food and alcohol and cigarettes and medication, we don’t exercise, we get too stressed – but then, at the end of the day, we put ourselves into comfortable clothing, pull back the sheets and tuck ourselves in. And that is something pretty special, I think.

Here’s wishing you a wonderous night’s sleep tonight (or a nap this afternoon if you should be so lucky!) and promising to be a more regular blogging buddy now that the madness has passed!

I haven’t disappeared completely!

// October 30th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Inspiration

I’m just slowly slowly working through this giant deadline. But it’s due tomorrow! So I’ll be back then, to talk about life, and love, and everything else.

Till then, a quote from Esther and Jerry Hicks (www.abraham-hicks.com)

This is always true: What I think and how I feel, and what manifests, is always a vibrational match. But here’s the big kicker: What manifests isn’t manifesting instantaneously. So, you’ve got all this buffer of time leeway that makes you sloppy… If you thought a negative thought and a brick would instantly fall on your head every time, you’d clean up your thinking. But you’re not here to be punished about your thinking. You’re here to use your thinking—and your focus—to create.

Celebrate good times!

// October 26th, 2008 // No Comments » // Laughter, Life (and the living of it)

It was my man’s 30th birthday on Friday and we had a huuge (and wonderful!) party.

It was a great big gathering of all his favourite people in a super-cheesy club with the most amazing 80s music (courtesy of the Wedding DJs) and a 70s Sweat theme. Everyone dressed up, everyone danced their feet off, everyone let loose. And as we danced (and danced and danced and danced) and sang along to fun tunes, and laughed and drank and revelled, I couldn’t help thinking how amazing it was for everyone to be celebrating together. Nobody was thinking about work, or about how they looked (because everyone looked crazy dumb) and everyone was just having fun.

Fun! Remember that?

I think so often we’re so busy being busy we forget to let loose and enjoy ourselves… to celebrate life, and love, and the people we love. To have a little fun.

A worthy goal for this week, no? Especially seeing as everyone seems to have kicked into end-of-the-year stress a little early!