DIY Beeswax Wraps! Part Deux 🐝

We're at that point where I need to re-wax my wraps. Actually, we've been at this point for a while, but I didn't have any beeswax handy and I was feeling a bit lazy. I've gradually picked up additional fabrics specifically for this project because a few of my wraps have disappeared over the years from lending it out to friends and family. Also some of these fabric designs are just too cute.

Now that my beeswax wraps are functional again, I find myself using them all the time. I like that I can mold the shape to cover up any half-cut fruit or vegetables I end up with (which happens a lot since I'm usually cooking for one). The bigger wraps are useful for sandwiches and cake because they have a little more structure than plastic wrap. And I guess they're probably better for the environment.

I used the lessons I learned from the first time I made beeswax wraps: I got some yellow fabric, I used my nonna's pinking shears, and I ended up using the oven instead of the ironing board for this batch. Well, that last one was because I no longer have easy access to an iron. The oven takes more time but it was effective.

Next time I'll just buy beeswax beads instead of getting a bar and grating it. That was actually the main reason it took me so long to make some more wraps.

MIND THE GAP

My mom has been a certified Angliophile for as long as I've known her. I grew up with her faithful watching of the latest Coronation Street, Emmerdale, and EastEnders. We'd have a full English breakfast on special weekends, complete with beans on toast. She keeps up-to-date on the Royal family and actually got up early to watch the King's Coronation. She has basically been preparing for this trip her whole life.

I haven't travelled with my family for almost 20 years. The biggest trip we've ever taken was to Italy more than 25 years ago, when I was a child and therefore did not help with planning anything. This time, I offered to plan this trip to lower my parents' stress. I told my mom to just tell me what she wanted and I'd make it happen.

Our itinerary consisted of:

• Museums and galleries
• Castles
• A giant Ferris wheel
• Walking along the Thames
• And eating traditional British fare

The National Gallery

I'm thankful that pretty much all of the museums and galleries were free. We went to so many that it’s hard to choose a personal favourite, but the National Gallery is definitely up there. I went in without having done much research beforehand, yet seemed to stumble upon a famous art piece with every turn.

Natural History Museum

We managed to squeeze in the Natural History Museum on our last day and I'm really glad we did. The blue whale skeleton at the entrance was stunning. I couldn't resist buying "On the Origin of Species" from the giftshop - science is a subject that will always have a special place in my heart. I studied life sciences in university so you can bet we learned all about evolution in introductory biology.

Although I try to keep my personal book collection relatively minimal, I ended up buying 4 books in total on this trip. I also bought gorgeous hardcover editions of "Watership Down" and "The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes", and a small book on V&A patterns. I thought so many of the V&A patterns were beautiful and wanted to remember them in some way, but I also didn't want yet another tote bag. I have somehow managed to accumulate way more tote bags than one person would theoretically need in their lifetime.

Victoria and Albert Museum

The V&A was a museum where we ended up spending way more time than anticipated. In my opinion, the website does not do a good idea advertising exactly what it contains. It's a large museum with so much to see that most people seem to tire themselves out on the first two floors - the upper floors were relatively quiet and peaceful as a result. The statues were my personal favourite. I was surprised by how enormous David is in real life.

The British Museum

However, we spent the most time in the British Museum: approximately 6 hours in total. I gave myself a personal mission to find all the artifacts that are also in Animal Crossing. We did have a break halfway through our visit with afternoon tea at the museum and it was so good! I discovered I really enjoy clotted cream on scones. I've had afternoon tea before (in Canada), and while it's pretty good, this was definitely superior.

There is so much to see in London that we filled up our days easily. Initially I had wanted to plan a few different daytrips out of London, but in the end my family decided to take it easy with a more relaxed pace. However, I did manage to successfully negotiate a half-day trip out to Windsor.

Clotted Cream Ice Cream at Windsor Castle

While I am not particularly interested in the Royal family, I often hear about them because I am a citizen of the English-speaking world. One of my friends recommended going for a tour of Windsor Castle instead of Buckingham Palace and I'm glad I took her advice. The State Apartments are grandiose and stunning, and I particularly liked the Moat Garden.

Buckingham Palace

Wellington Barracks

Of course, we still visited Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards. We knew it’d be super crowded right at the palace gates so we decided to watch the new guards getting ready at Wellington Barracks. They played "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough" and "Sweet Child O' Mine".

Twin Flake 99 at St. James's Park

Then we wandered back to St. James's Park. It was such a beautiful, sunny day so we wandered around eating ice cream and watching ducks. Actually, it was sunny with blue skies for pretty much our entire trip. The guys who sold me ice cream told me to enjoy this weather because it's not usually like this - I guess we brought the sunshine to London. ☼

The London Eye

The one day that was cloudy was the day we went on the London Eye, but I think that worked out for the best so we wouldn’t be roasting in a glass pod. I had actually deliberated for a while if I should book tickets because they are pretty expensive and I heard the queue could be up to an hour on a busy day - even with pre-purchased timed tickets! But I personally love Ferris wheels and this particular one was on my bucket list. In the end, I'm glad I forked over the money because apparently my dad also loves Ferris wheels and this became the highlight of the trip for him.

Tower of London

We also decided to go for a tour of the Tower of London. The tour was led by a Yeoman Warder (or "beefeater") that liked to tease the American tourists. Canadians remained largely ignored, which I am absolutely fine with because I prefer laying low.

Sky Garden

Another highlight for me was Sunrise at Sky Garden. Basically you get to enter early for a breakfast consisting of a pastry and coffee. But the real appeal was that you can take your time looking out onto the city with a lot less people invading your personal space. (It got very, very crowded once it was officially opened to everyone.) It was so beautiful with the sunlight streaming through.

Notting Hill

My preparation for this trip involved studying British media. I watched Notting Hill for the first time and suddenly understood the appeal of young Hugh Grant, so of course we had to find that iconic blue door! My mom especially loved looking at the colourful houses of Notting Hill.

I'm glad we went to Portobello right at opening because it was crowded by the time we left. Most of the markets were pretty darn crowded. We only had one (known) pickpocketing attempt, but thankfully we came out unscathed. Anyway, turns out thrifting for antiques isn't really of interest to me or my mom, but we got some coffee and souvenirs. Oh, and I bought a tote bag.

Holland Park

We made sure to eat all the classic British food, like a full English breakfast, fish 'n' chips, and a Sunday roast. But we also enjoyed the simpler things: a Ploughman's sandwich while enjoying the tulips in Holland Park, sausage rolls in the ultra crowded Covent Garden, and cheese and onion crisps while strolling along the Jubilee Walkway. I will especially miss the Percy Pigs.

St. Dunstan-in-the-East

Lessons from exploring London:

• Book everything early. I planned very far ahead and booked most things 1-1.5 months ahead of time, but some timeslots were already filled up by then. I would have booked things even earlier if I had gotten sooner confirmation from my family!
• The Tube is incredibly easy to navigate, but avoid rush hour (like most cities). 
• I highly recommend the Citymapper app. It's way better than Google Maps for planning transportation and will even tell you which train cars are busiest (eg. go to the middle car or to the end).
• Everything in London is stupidly expensive, so make use of the free things. I basically doubled the price to get a rough estimate in CAD.
• Toronto now feels like a poor mimicry of London.

I guess the hallmark of a successful trip is when someone immediately starts planning the next trip as soon as they get back. Which is what both my parents ended up doing. I'm glad to see my efforts were appreciated!

LITERARY KITCHEN: Butter

I had a vague assumption of what the book would be like going in from the blurb on the front - it seemed like a typical murder mystery / serial killer novel. This is not a genre I am particularly interested in, despite going through a phase many years ago where I binged the first 3 seasons of Criminal Minds (I couldn't stick around without Gideon). But I picked this book up from the library because the cover design was good and I am shallow.

Fortunately, my assumption was wrong and I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. This seems to be the opposite opinion of most people because they were also expecting (and wanting) a crime thriller. Yes, the characters are flawed and while I didn't particularly like any one of them, I enjoyed reading about them. Their problems are not unique but these problems exist in real life nonetheless, and they will continue to exist because there is not necessarily one satisfactory solution.

The book is definitely long-winded and overly descriptive. However, the food descriptions were apparently effective because I made rice and butter as soon as I finished the first chapter. After this, I made it a personal goal to make the different dishes Rika cooked as I read along (within reason).

I ended up having to buy more butter.

Chapter 1: Butter and Rice (and Soy Sauce)

It was late at night when Rika first made butter and rice and she ended up eating the whole pot. However, I am not a fictional character and did not want to sleep on a full stomach so I made a small bowl. I liked that this dish is so simple that it's practically inviting the reader to join Rika and make some rice with butter as well - which is the first step to getting immersed in Kajii's world.

Chapter 2: Tarako Pasta

I followed how Rika made tarako pasta in the book, except I couldn't find fresh shiso leaves so I just put on parsley for some mandatory greenery. Luckily I was able to find the most essential ingredient: salted cod roe. It makes a simple, tasty pasta. I'll probably make some for my parents whenever they visit me next, but I'll try to make the sauce with cream like I've seen in online recipes. I'm going to see if the weekend farmer's market has some shiso leaves.

Chapter 6: Quatre Quarts

In the book, the recipe is 150g of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour with some lemon zest mixed in. I used the same ratios but 113g of each because I only had one stick of butter. This led to a smaller and less impressive cake, but it was tasty nonetheless. I like how incredibly easy this recipe is. I've been looking up variations of this recipes online and found some helpful tips to improve my cake for next time - I might try orange zest next, instead of lemon. Or I'll add a glaze.

Chapter 11: Macaroni Gratin

I generally don't bother buying alcohol so I didn't have white wine to cook the prawns. This is not due to abstinence but rather sheer lack of interest - I don't want to have a bottle of wine that will then sit in my fridge for an indeterminate amount of time. Also, wine is costly. I made a few other ingredient substitutions so this dish is not faithful to what Rika made in the book, but overall I rate it as edible. I appreciate that this recipe made me go outside of my usual repertoire - I like cooking but I hate everything else that comes along with it (mostly the cleaning), so I often default to a few easy recipes with minimal set-up and clean-up. Unless I'm feeling energetic and hopeful.

Chapter 16: Roast Turkey

Yeah, I'm not doing that.

I can understand why this book is polarizing but I enjoyed it. While I do not agree with the protagonist all the time, I found it easy to follow her train of thought as I am also a female in her 30s with an awareness of the misogyny that pervades society. The specific brand of misogyny may differ since I do not live in Japan but it exists nonetheless. Just like in the book, most of the women I know are aware of this and are just trying to find a way to exist.

The Crochet Chronicles

Life is full of chronicles.

For 2025, me and my friends all made bingo cards because they were trending on social media so we saw them everywhere and seemed inevitable at that point. They also seemed like a lot of fun. We all need more fun in our lives, except for that one friend who decided to instead fill his up with work-related tasks and personal improvement (in an overly critical, unachievable way). I chose to focus on a mixture of fun, things that push me a little outside of my comfort zone, and tasks that I've been meaning to do for years.

One of my tasks was learning to crochet.

I didn't plan to crochet a lot. I just wanted to learn the basics so I could make a fried egg coaster and sprout cable ties. I chose these patterns specifically because they were cute but seemed relatively simple since I saw Youtube tutorials on them labelled "for beginners". Except I had already attempted to crochet once in 2020 and quickly quit out of frustration - what are those abbreviations? How am I supposed to know where the stitch is? Oh, I've lost track of where I was.

After 5 years of growth and maturity (one would hope), I attempted this again and have actually managed to stick it out past that initial learning curve. Turns out you really do get better with practice. I initially resisted buying more yarn because who has the room and/or money for these things? I have enough craft supplies as-is. But cute crochet tutorials kept popping up on my feed and suddenly my world had opened up after learning just a few basic patterns.

Several months in and it's become one of my main hobbies. I've watched a lot of TV and movies while I crochet, especially the X Files (I want to believe). I crochet on buses and trains and feel like a granny (non-derogatory). My friends and family have all received crochet experiments of varying quality against their will, and will continue to do so.

My crochet hooks are my nonna's. I got her crochet hooks, her sewing box, and her pinking shears when she passed. They are well-used but in excellent condition. Her and my nonno were typical old school Italians who made most things from scratch. She crocheted me a baby blanket when I was born, which must have taken forever seeing as how long it takes me to make a keychain. She also made a crochet clown with dangly arms that scared me for years after I watched the Poltergeist. And I remember the tiny, intricate doilies that adorned most of the surfaces of their house when I was young - it didn't click that she made those ubiquitous doilies until years later, as I'm sat in my 30s and looking up various crochet tutorials. I didn't expect that learning to crochet would allow me to connect with her a decade after her death.

Crochet is such a labour of love.