My problem with January, apart from the hair frizz that I mentioned yesterday, is that it’s the month that you’re supposed to be getting it altogether – you know, the losing weight, writing that novel, decorating the whole house, making your own yogurt every morning before breakfast, running 10K without needing a defibrillator. It’s what you’re ‘supposed’ to be doing, or at least planning to be doing and then making yourself feel like crap for not actually doing it.
I applied for a writing job last week and I wanted to write a little bit about this whole New Year thing; the world going to the gym. It then occurred to me that perhaps people don’t actually do that. Maybe it was just a cliche. I put the question out there via Facebook and got a mixed reaction, some do – most wanted to lose weight and some had signed up for the gym. Someone then said that it was the time that gyms throw all their amazing offers out there, when they seduce us. Please don’t think me a simpleton, I’m not, but the whole gym thing is, well, it’s not my cup of tea, it’s as foreign to me as Mongolia or Mogadishu and I’ve only actually been inside a gym twice in my life. I did spend every Friday for three years at the gym in Edinburgh but that was in the pool, or, who am I kidding, in the cafe.
Anyway, it’s this pre-determined stuff, this expectation – from who? From Weight Watchers, from extortionate gyms, from women’s magazines that tell me that I’m not really beautiful or thin enough, from clever, manipulative advertising and marketing heads, I don’t know? But I do know that it makes me want to run a mile and do exactly the opposite.
So I made truffles – with booze in them. And I ate them drinking Malbec, with my lazy arse on the sofa, feet up watching episodes of Mad Men. And it was really, really good.
Ingredients
For the dark ones
6oz good dark chocolate, broken up
4 fl oz double cream
2 tbsp Sailor Jerry spiced rum
Cocoa for dusting
For the white ones
Switch the dark choc for white, I used prosecco in mine too – but I think vanilla vodka would be amazing with white choc too. Clare, who gave me this recipe, uses violet liqueur and by God, there are not enough superlatives available to tell you how good they are..
- Heat the cream in a good saucepan until almost boiling
- Remove from the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until it’s all melted
- Stir in the booze and leave to cool for about 30 minutes
- Whisk until the mixture holds a peak and then chill for about an hour
- Sieve some cocoa into a bowl, or icing sugar if you’re making white chocolate truffles, take a teaspoon’s worth of the mixture and roll it into a little ball and coat it in the cocoa
- Place in little sweetie cases to help them stay in one piece
I think we need to add “our alternative gym” to that 2013 list Table. I can see the TMD (Truffles, Malbec and Dan Draper) workout being a winner!
Yeah, another winner I think Barnes! I was late to the MM party and I’m box setting it up – ace! x
Better late than never, in fact I envy you watching it all for the first time – what a delight! MM is just class.
I know a love a boxsetathon – now there’s a sport I could throw myself into..
Lots more fun than extreme ironing
I’m great at planning to do things or at least at telling myself I should do them. Actually doing them is another matter.
The diet thing I started several months ago and that seems to still be more or less working. I’m not losing weight as fast as I was but I’m not putting it on either but as for, for example, taking up Badminton again, let alone going to the gym, no. Not happening but I hope it will start happening soon because I enjoy playing Badminton, I just don’t enjoy getting my act together to get into town to do so.
Yep, it’s the actually doing them that scuppers me too!
I don’t make resolutions any more, but I could definitely resolve to make more truffles and eat them with wine
Then that shall be your resolution RJ!