If there is one thing that Don and I really disagree on, it’s how many kitchen props and gadgets I need. The answer is more than I have. And then there’s the storage of said gadgets. So I guess it’s really two things that we disagree on. If I had it my way the counter tops would be clear but I could magically press a button every time I needed my food processor, blender, kitchen aid, toaster, soda machine etc to appear. This is clearly not an option. Instead I keep the most used items out on the counter and the rest I pull out the stepping stool for, climb up and lug them out of high up places, unravel cords and then attempt to place them neatly back after wards. If they aren’t neatly put away one runs the risk of cords getting tangled and a food processor-caused concussion.  This was a chore when I wasn’t eight months pregnant…now it’s just a bloody hassle. Don would rather the counters were always clear too (except maybe for his keys, his hat, his ID card, his water bottle and yesterdays lunch Tupperware that uses our counter top as its dumping ground). It’s a big problem for those of us who live in small spaces but demand a well-equipped kitchen.

Recently I’ve been wondering whether my blender deserves a priority spot on the counter top. I’ve been making so much soup it seems to be all I use these days. Unfortunately I haven’t been very good at the writing down the recipe as I go part….nothing but pure laziness on my part and perhaps a pinch of pregnancy brain, which happens to disable ones ability to multi-task. I now know what it feels like to be a man. Perhaps I’ll stop giving Don such a hard time…

Last night I had a moment of clarity and managed to do both. Hurrah! I made potato and bacon soup and then grated cheddar on top because when I woke up yesterday it was 13F in NYC and Don had painted the heating switch shut. Even my neighbours rising heat couldn’t keep me warm and so on days that cold, new years resolutions or not, everyone could do with a little extra padding on their hips to keep them warm. It’s actually really not all that unhealthy- but eating a bowl of potato soup with bacon and cheese makes me think i’m eating a bowlful of creamy mashed potatoes, which gives me feelings of equal parts pleasure and guilt. Lets hang on the pleasure part though. The soup is creamy but sans cream. There is bacon fat but no butter- and really this has got to be better for you than french fries.

With most soups I like to blend everything together- maybe its just how I grew up eating soup but I like how a blended soup brings together all of the flavours in every bite. Unblended soups can have a cleaner, healthier taste but that’s not really what I’m always after. Having said that with this soup I decided to leave a third of it unblended so that there was some bite…more hearty stew than soupy mashed potatoes but still creamy. I threw a handful of spinach in the bottom of my bowl because well baby needs greens but it’s perfectly delicious on its own…even without the cheese.

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Potato, bacon & cheddar soup

Creamy, hearty…..what more could you want?

Makes 10 cups

3 slices of thick cut good quality bacon, sliced (around 1cm thick will do)
2 large leeks, white part and light green only, cleaned and sliced
1 medium-sized onion, diced (1 cm or so thick)
2lbs Yukon gold potatoes (or Maris piper etc) peeled and cut into 1 cm cubes
1 garlic clove, diced (about 1 tsp)
couple of sprigs of thyme
48fl oz/6cups chicken stock
Splash of milk
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Good strong Cheddar cheese, grated to serve

• In a large nonstick pot over a medium heat, cook the bacon until most of the fat has rendered and the bacon is beginning to look crispy (don’t let it get really crispy!) Remove any surplus bacon fat, leaving about 1 Tbsp in the pan.

• Add the leeks, onion and potatoes to the pot and stir together. Cover and let soften for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Remove the lid and turn the heat to medium-high. Stirring every once and a while allow the vegetables to take on a little colour- about 3-5 minutes. Add the garlic for 1 minute, stirring to combine,

• Stir in the thyme and chicken stock and bring up to a boil. Turn to a simmer and let simmer for 10-15 minutes until the vegetables are very soft. Remove the thyme sprigs.

• Blend 2/3 of the soup in a blender then return to the pot. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add a splash of milk or cream if you would like it thinner. Bring back up to a simmer then stir in cheddar cheese to taste or just serve each bowl with a mound on top that your eating companions can stir in themselves.

My belly has become prime real estate. There’s a bidding war going on between my ever growing baby and the space in my stomach to feed said growing baby and baby is winning hands down. He/she is a ruthless negotiator and as my stomach gets shoved into a tight corner eating has become more of a challenge than a pleasure. It’s a good lesson in pacing myself. Us Helm’s and our days competing at the boarding school dinner table have not made us genteel feeders but pregnancy has taught me how vital it is to slow down.  Otherwise what goes down will get kicked (quite literally) back up.

Gone is the joy of the first trimester and the glow of the second- the third trimester has hit like a ten ton truck full of ugly sticks. My back hurts, my right hip hurts and my life has become one long kegal exercise as I try to ward off any unfortunate incidents resulting from a surprise left-hook from my little real estate tycoon. Ahh pregnancy….you were so wonderfully uneventful up until now. Which brings me to my real point of being here today.

Millionaire’s flapjacks. Hello.

Now before you start questioning how I could take a perfectly healthy flapjack and smother it in caramel and chocolate- let me remind you of two important facts. 1/ I am a hugely pregnant woman with raging hormones and 2/ don’t delude yourself, flapjacks were never healthy in the first place. Sure they mostly consist of oats but sugar and butter weigh in at a close second and third place so really what’s a little caramel and chocolate too?

It’s pure joy- that’s what. Fortunately, I was destined to share these at the second annual NY cookie swap supporting Cookies for Kids Cancer or else baby might have had something to say about them. Or perhaps more likely, would have kicked up a fuss about how many I was trying to squeeze in my stomach. I’m telling you, It’s a war in there.

There are many over-achievers one comes upon in this world. Some are commendable and the others are just plain annoying. These sprouts fall into the latter category, I hope you’ll agree. I’ve decked them out with so many good extras you might be wondering if they still count as eating a vegetable (look if the government thinks pizza is a vegetable then these definitely are). Think of these as Superman rather than Clark Kent.  Your average sprout…pretty plain looking, pretty bland, uninteresting. Toss in some superpowers though…in the form of pine nuts, bacon, caramelized shallots, a squeeze of lemon and a little parm and they may as well be flying through the sky in a lycra suit saving us from the baddies. Please feel free to step in and stop me at any time…..

What I’m trying to say is that there are vegetables and then there are pimped out vegetables and sprouts frankly need all the pimping out they can get. So this holiday season, help a sprout out, will ya? The process is remarkably simple. All you need is one pan- you could do it in three and multi-task but this will take all of twenty minutes to do from start to finish so you may as well save yourself (or the magic elves you live with) the washing-up. You can also make ahead all the add-in’s or exclude some all together…think superman without the cape but still the power to fly. If you’re serving this as part of a meal with all the trimmings….say Thanksgiving for example then you may want to omit the cheese. If you’re just serving a roast chicken with potatoes go the whole way and add in everything. Or if you’re the over-achieving guest who offered to bring a side-dish, bring this one. It may even outshine the hosts turkey. Hey if anyone can outshine the turkey, it’s superman…I mean super sprouts.

It turns out that when your pregnant you become fair game to weight/size related comments. I didn’t sign up for this. Sure, I signed up for the weight gain alright, the complimentary back ache too plus the water retention, the low immune system, nose bleeds….you know standard pregnancy symptoms- but comments on my weight…nope didn’t sign up for that. When has it ever okay to comment on a woman’s weight and where she carries it? Apparently, when one is pregnant. I think Don is more excited anticipating my belly button popping out than the baby (it’s going to happen). Maybe people think that they’re being funny or cute but asking a pregnant girl if she’s sure she’s not having twins is not such a knee-slapper when you happen to be said pregnant girl.  Also if you’re going to make comments like that then you sure as hell better give up your seat because my back hurts from carrying all this extra weight around. I have a work colleague who thinks it’s hilarious to say that I’m eating for three (I’m not). Yesterday he ate an enormous slice of chocolate cake for breakfast…so I asked him if he was eating for three now too.

I worked on a Macy’s ad recently. We made Martha Stewart’s Sour Cherry Coffee Crumb Cake from the Baking Handbook to photograph on a new cake stand. I like coffee cake- I adore the crumbs. I don’t understand why there isn’t coffee in it like the name suggests but I can get over that, it’s just too darn good to spend time worrying about it. Coffee cake reminds me of an old friend I had growing up. She always had Entenmann’s coffee cake in the house…the kind of thing we would never have in ours. I loved the buttery crumb topping- the cake I could frankly do without. Martha’s cake used sour cherries, we used frozen black cherries on the shoot- I decided any fruit could be used and apples won. The fact that they are the only fruit in the market right now made it a pretty easy choice. I like how the fruit sits in a single layer- it varies up the textures- cake, then apples, more cake, then crumb topping…you can’t just take a nibble of this cake, you have to have a slice. Heck why not make it an uneven three slices.  I didn’t have sour cream so I used buttermilk and the texture turned out much lighter than the original. I added a hint of orange, keeping the cinnamon just in the crumb topping so as not to overpower the cake with spices and cut down on the sugar. I also added oats and whole wheat flour to the topping- making it more like how I make a fruit crumble. I’m a fan of this cake…..and I’m pretty sure baby is too. That’s baby singular.

Apple coffee crumb cake

Makes one 9 inch cake- can be made in a tube pan

For the crumbs
300g/ 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
300g/2 1/2 cups flour (mix of plain and whole wheat)
150g/ 3/4 cup light brown soft sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp salt
75g/ scant 1 cup rolled oats

for the cake
260g/ 2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
110g/1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g/ 3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest 1/2 orange
1 cup buttermilk (or yogurt or sour cream)
1 average sized apple- i like something sour like Bramley or Granny Smith, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2 inch cubes(about 1 1/2 cups)

for the icing
65g/ 2/3 cup icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
zest 1/2 orange
enough orange juice to make a nice drizzle (about 1/2)

• Prepare a 9inch/23cm cake tin by greasing with oil and then lining the bottom with parchment/greaseproof paper and re-greasing. Heat the oven to 18oc/350F/Gas 4. Make the crumble topping- mix together your dry ingredients (minus the oats) and then rub the butter in, using the heat of your hands to soften the butter and make clumps. Add the oats and squeeze between your fingers to make different sized clumps. Measure out 2 cups and freeze the rest for a crumble topping for fruit or scones or another cake.

•  For the cake sift together the flour, raising agents and salt. In the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment beat the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract on a medium speed until light and fluff- 2-3 minutes. Beat in the orange zest. Add the 1/3 of the flour mixture, then 1/2 of the buttermilk, then 1/3 flour then the remaining buttermilk followed by the remaining flour. Beating gently in between ingredient additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

•  Spoon half of the batter into your prepared pan. Arrange the apple cubes in a single layer, making sure that they don’t touch the sides of the pan (they will stick and burn). Top with the remaining batter, spreading so that it’s smooth and even. Sprinkle over the crumble topping.

• Bake until the cake is golden brown and springs back when touched- about an hour. Rotate the pan half way through cooking. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool for at least 15 minutes before tryint to remove from the tin.

• Meanwhile, make the glaze by sifting the sugar into a bowl and adding the orange zest and drizzling over a little juice as you whisk until you have the desired consistency- don’t add too much at once you will probably only need 2 tablespoons. Drizzle over the cake and slice up!

People like to talk to pregnant people. I like most other city-folk have always kept myself to myself on the subway, in a coffee shop or in the line at the check-out counter. It’s not that I’m not polite it’s just that I don’t have a tendency to strike up conversations with strangers- and I don’t usually attract the attention. When I get my hair cut or nails done I want to catch up on the latest gossip magazines…not make idol chatter. Call me anti-social…perhaps I am a bit. Being pregnant though, I’ve been making friends with all sort of strangers…I’m not even given the option. People like to talk to me. And here I was thinking all this time that I was just boring. Suddenly throw a baby in my belly and you can just call me interesting!

Of course, being interesting is not all it’s cracked up to be. For starters it’s kind of repetitive answering the same questions over and over. When are you due? Do you know what it is yet? Have you thought of any names? Do you have a preference for what it is? Have you had any weird cravings? How are you feeling? It’s all well-meaning. My replies are always followed up with an opinion or a story about somebody else they knew. Generally speaking they are never nice stories- people don’t like to share the stories about the friend they had who had the easiest pregnancy in the world and then barely blinked before they had popped out their child out who was immediately able to breastfeed, never cries and slept through the night from day one. Those are the stories you don’t hear. Nope. When you’re pregnant your old friends and your many many new friends want to share the stories that scare the crap out of you and perhaps even pass judgment on your own ever expanding waistline…are you sure it’s not twins? First I wasn’t showing enough…now apparently I look like I’m due next week.

To the disappointment of everybody who inquires- and for an interesting person I’m having a decidedly boring pregnancy. The baby is doing great, we don’t know the sex, I’m not willing to share names(because everyone one knows someone they don’t like with the same name), I’ve had zero cravings and I’m feeling just fine (because honestly, nobody really wants to hear about the weird rash I had, the itchy skin, the fact that my hips hurt from sleeping on my side and how tired I am come 8pm). Compared to a broken leg, pregnancy is like lounging in a pillow of soft clouds….

Soup. I’ve been eating more and more lately as the evenings close in sooner and the cooler air comes in. It’s so quick and easy- filling, healthy….all the things you want when you’re eating for two (or one and a 1 1/2 lb baby). This one is Cauliflower and thyme but what I love is how versatile you can make it. Curry powder and cauliflower are a great pairing and so is cheddar. You can add all of these as heat up a small batch. The rich golden colour comes from the carrot and slightly caramelizing the vegetables first…don’t skip this step it makes all the difference between soup that has depth and one that tastes and smells of cabbage.

Cauliflower & thyme soup

This soup is so thick and creamy that you will swear that there is potato and cream…fear not this is wonderfully healthy. Minus the butter and the optional cheese!

Makes about 9-10 cups

3 Tbsp butter
1 large onion, peeled and fairly finely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and fairly finely chopped
1 large celery stalk, fairly finely chopped
1 head cauliflower, stalks finely chopped and kept separate from the finely chopped head
2 garlic cloves
a few sprigs of thyme, leaves picked (about 2 tsp)
1 quart good quality stock (chicken or vegetable)
1 cup milk
salt & pepper to taste
Grated extra sharp cheddar to serve, optional

• Heat the butter over in a large heavy pan over a medium heat until foaming. Add the onion, carrot, celery and chopped cauliflower stalks and stir to coat in the butter. Turn the heat to low, cover and let sweat slowly until really soft- about 15 minutes. Stir every few minutes.

• Remove the lid and turn up the heat. Allow the veg to take on some color, scraping the bottom of the pan if the vegetables begin to stick- about 5-10 minutes.

• Add the thyme and garlic and stir for one minute then add the finely chopped cauliflower head.

• Stir then add the stock and the milk and bring up to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and then cover and allow to cook for 5-10 minutes or until the cauliflower in tender. Liquidize in a blender until really smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste and then reheat to serve. Grate over cheddar if using.

I’m not good with weeknight suppers. I’m not even just shy of good I’m downright terrible. There’s something about being on my feet all day cooking that makes me not want to stand on my feet and cook anymore when I get home from work. All I can think about is getting on our lazy boy and getting my feet up. Even having the energy to communicate with my husband can be a challenge sometimes. People assume that because I’m a foodie that I always cook and eat the best foods but the truth is…all my good intentions fall on the back burner by mid-week. I can sit an wax lyrical to somebody about how they could plan ahead for the week and what they could cook but do I follow my own advice? Heck no!

Back before my accident if there wasn’t food on set to bring home for dinner then I would often opt for a bowl of yogurt with berries (and homemade granola) for dinner, the same old salad or last nights Indian take away leftovers stir-fried with rice with maybe a sprinkling of fresh coriander….I’m embarrassed to write this. Don was always happy with a quick pasta thrown together with things in the fridge and so that’s how we ate. I’ve just never been able to get my act together on the weekend to make things that I will still want to eat come Wednesday night. Don’t get me wrong- there’s a lot of cooking that takes place on the weekend but that’s just to get three homemade meals on the table over two days- and even if I go to the effort of making a couple of loaves of bread they never make it much past Tuesday. And you can call this an excuse but my fridge is usually so full of ‘work’ come Monday morning that I don’t want it laden with dinner food for the week. In my next house I will have two fridges.

Since my accident there have been some changes to this not being able to plan ahead thing. Partly because I now have somebody else to think about- somebody who’s relying on me to give it a good quality meal three if not more times a day. He/she is growing rapidly and is capable of giving me quite a hefty kick in the tummy these days. Yup, I’m pregnant and yes, in case you were wondering, I got pregnant with my leg in a full length brace. That seems to be what most people are interested in asking these days but that’s all the detail you are getting! My little bambino is due in February which means that assuming this baby follows his own mother’s strict enforcement of punctuality I’m already well over half way. It’s a crazy feeling- there are days when I look at my swelling belly and think- how in the world did this little miracle happen? Now that the cat is out of the bag- there will be more blogging about it…and don’t worry there won’t be any strange food pairings…I haven’t had any cravings. Well, maybe chocolate but that’s just standard!

Now that I’m pregnant Don and I have been thinking about the kind of traditions and values that we want our family to share. In doing so we realized that we had already gotten into a lovely habit ourselves- a late brunch on Sunday followed by an early bowl of soup for dinner in the evening. I like an early supper on Sundays- it has a way of easing that Sunday night stress feeling.  In the summer I’m sure it will change but for now as the weather is changing it’s lovely to come home to a hot bowl of soup after a long day at work. I forget sometimes that soup doesn’t have to be complicated and it doesn’t have to be boring and without depth. I’ve found that a little butter makes all the difference, a dash of cream at the end makes it taste more luxurious and special, the quality of the stock is of utmost importance and if you allow your veggies to pick up a little colour before you add the stock there will be so much more flavour to be had.

Of course I realize that I can’t feed my kids soup every night for dinner so I also threw together a big beef casserole this weekend- half to freeze, half for this week. A simple one- beef, onions, carrots, mushrooms a stout beer and beef stock on low and slow for a few hours. I let it simmer in the oven whilst I had soup going on the stove…it was remarkably easy. Now I just have to work on getting meals for the other three weeknight meals.

It’s official. I am no longer a lady of leisure. Two weeks ago I was given permission to give the crutches the old heave-ho and heave-ho them I did. With glee. Good riddance you fair weathered friends. So now it’s off the lazy-boy and back to the kitchen. Suddenly I’m wondering if having a broken leg was really as bad as I had whined. I mean I did get to spend four months without having to set a single alarm clock. Four months to take each day at a leisurely pace, catch up on Netflix and even plan a bathroom remodeling job. That was all towards the end though I suppose- I wouldn’t take back those first six weeks for anything.  What I missed most was the cash flow into my bank account. Only seeing it flow out is not nearly as fun. So hi ho hi ho it’s off to work I go…I suspect I’ll long for my afternoon naps even more now, my lunch dates with friends and mid-day trips to the pool when it’s nice and quiet. Sigh…..I’m already planning what I’ll do with all my time when I have my next surgery.

In the meantime- I think you and I should talk cake. More specifically Lemon. Drizzle. Cake. I know. I was sort of shocked to realise that I had not previously posted about it either. What was I thinking? When it comes to lemon drizzle cake I’ve been somewhat of a recipe whore over the years. Unable to settle on the definitive one I’ve flirted with Nigella’s, a Good Housekeeping, Jamie’s and most recently a BBC Good Food Magazine recipe. The foundation of this cake is the Good Food one which is intended to be used as a layer in a wedding cake. Thus, needing to be firm and hold up in a tier it’s level of syrupyness is not quite up to par. That of course can be quickly remedied. Being that self-raising flour is not at all the same thing stateside I opted for cake flour. The result was a much more tender crumb- a sort of softness that makes you want to cuddle up in bed and rest your head on a slice of it. Okay so perhaps that’s not true. I mean why cuddle cake when you can eat it- but you get my drift. So I upped the amount of drizzle and in doing so cut the amount of sugar in the actual cake slightly so that it sort of netted-out. Until I decided to cover the whole thing in a lemon icing because it just makes it that much more tempting. Like you needed to be tempted further.

I made this for a very special occasion. My dad’s 60th birthday. An avid cyclist, complete with flashy lycra bike-wear it was only appropriate that it included a bike. My original idea was a far cry from this but when the cake came out with a crack in the middle I decided that it would have to be covered (okay so it wasn’t all about tempting you) and the bike was piped on top. Piping is not a skill that I claim to be proficient in but I was pretty chuffed with how this came out. The key things are to practice first on a bit of parchment paper and make sure that your icing is the right consistency- as in thick. Everything else is down to a steady hand and having the sheer guts to just go for it.

This pie is dedicated to Jennifer Perillo whose husband, Mikey died suddenly last weekend. I sat shocked at the kitchen table Monday morning when I heard the news- had I remembered to tell my own husband that I loved him that morning? I woke up every morning this week thinking about her and her little girls, thinking about how short life is and how you just have to embrace and make the most of every single minute. I’ve only met Jennie once but through blogging and Twitter she has helped me out on numerous occasions and for that reason I wanted to do something for her. In the blogging community we all asked if there was something we could do- she asked us to make peanut butter pie and eat it with the people we love. I can’t even begin to imagine what Jennie is going through, nor do I ever want to have to- but I can make pie. My thoughts are with you and your little girls Jennie.

If you live in NYC and haven’t eaten food from ‘Wichcraft- then you probably don’t work on magazine photo shoots. If you work on photo shoots, as I, then chances are you’ve tried everything on the menu. For breakfast they do an amazing  Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich- ask for it on toasted multi-grain bread. For lunch their albacore tuna over green with fennel, olives and preserved lemon is my number one choice. But no ‘Wichcraft meal is complete without one of its famous cream’wich cookies. The pièce de résistance.  They have chocolate ones, and lemon poppy but my favourite are the peanut butter. They are crispy on the outside with a creamy peanut butter filling holding the two cookies together. They are terribly delicate and buckle in your hands if you don’t take it all in one bite. They have so much butter and peanut butter in them that the grease seeps right through the paper bag like fish and chips. After Levain bakery, these might well be my favourite cookies in the city.

I’ve always wanted to recreate them- well a version on them. Perhaps one’s that aren’t quite as greasy and with a little less sugar but still maintain the same crisp and delicate texture.  I like the malted wholesome flavour that adding a little whole wheat flour to baked goods add- and with a bold flavour like peanut butter you can get away with it without the risk of it seeming…healthy. And perhaps a filling that adds a little contrast but still makes sense to the flavour of the cookie. Raspberry jam? You can fill them with just the jam, but I mixed it with some cream cheese so that they still kept a creamy filling. Like the one’s at ‘Wichcraft, you’ll want to eat them the day you make them or else they turn into a soggy mess (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

When I was at boarding school, Saturday nights were essentially junk food nights.  Being the only non-school night of the week I guess the school felt it necessary to fill our bellies with things that might absorb at least one of the too many beers we all planned on drinking at the pub. Or the vodka that someone had sneaked in from a day trip to Peterborough. The teachers knew and yet mostly turned a blind eye…I’ll never forget my housemistress walking into a room of my fellow housemates all gripping mugs filled with vodka and coke as if they were cups of tea and her saying: I hope that is nailpolish I smell girls. And then she walked out and we all giggled like… well like schoolgirls.  Generally speaking I was more interested in the going out part, sneaking vodka and wine bottles out of the house stuffed in my cullotes and the cheese toasties that we would make once we’d run back down the drive to make curfew, than what was on the menu for dinner. There were some nights though….they served these bacon (back bacon- not the streaky kind) and cheese turnovers. Bacon and cheese wrapped in puff pastry bought from the local bakery….I mean come on! Enough to clog an artery and soak up a pint of beer. I loved them.

When I went back to visit my parents a few weeks ago it was so hot that we couldn’t bare to put the oven on most of the week. But after seven nights of salads we thought maybe we could survive the added heat for half an hour. We made these asparagus, mushroom & goats cheese parcels inspired from my favourite pie book, aptly named Pie.  I used a mixture of goats cheese and cream cheese a little lemon, caramelized red onions, sautéed mushrooms and of course asparagus. A somewhat healthier option that those that I ate back in my school days….but then I don’t need all that grease to soak up alcohol anymore! They would be delicious with ham or bacon though so of course I encourage you to experiment. Oh and did I mention that these are easy enough to make on one foot, because they are.