Potato gnocchi with ham and sage. Mise en place, misplaced

I am the queen this afternoon. 

Aurelia brought me a tiny green plastic cup and placed it on top of my study table. With sugar, Her Excellency? she asked me politely. No thanks, just a tablespoon of honey, please. I replied with my right hand holding the cup, a little finger pointing up.

While I was pretending to be part of my daughter's imaginary story, I wanted to distract my mind to more urgent matters, my next exam. I tried carefully to turn my eyes from the royal scene of the room to the screen of my computer where it was displayed, for a long time, a page about "Hygienic in restaurants" one of the subjects of the introductory course of my new career of Patisserie.

I had all the materials set up or mise en place - gastronomic French term that refers to organize and arrange the ingredients. The computer, colourful pens, stick-on-it notes for my resumes, a rubber and a new black notebook - happily decorated with stickers of cars by my second son's busy three year old hands.

Aurelia left the room to bring me a magdaleine from the kitchen to have with my tea. Sorry, Her Excellency Queen, I forgot.  I smiled at her but was thinking, Great! Back to my study. It was my fifth go after four unsuccessful attempts during that day. 

I put my invisible ear plugs to pretend I wasn't listening to the noise coming from the children in one of the bedrooms and  began to look at the screen. My sixth try. I read the first paragraph of the text, underneath the title. Something related to the direction of the food preparation, that it has to go forward so it doesn't get contaminated when…mama!!!! whereee arrre youuu?? I want my plane but baby "guanan" took it. Es mio!! I could hear now Gab crying downstairs, followed by baby Juanan. Gab was shaking vigorously the metal bars of the safety child gate at the bottom of the stairs. He was desperately searching for me.

I intentionally arranged my study on the top floor when I was enrolled in the course a month ago.  Obviously, I was hiding myself from my own family. I needed to go through my notes and get a few ideas in my obsolete head to be able to pass the first exam. I don't know why but it seemed an impossible task. I wasn't putting the blame on the demands of my children, that was unfair. It was my lack of concentration on the screen. After finishing a law degree and my masters, I hadn't really touched a book again for many years. 

I have heard that once you have children, some neurons evaporate with the birth. 

- Does it mean I have lost the only one I probably had? I asked sarcastically my girlfriend. Lucky me, she was not only my running buddy but also a good psychologist.

- Perhaps your brain doesn't get the signals of "studying" or "working" soon after you have babies. Even when you actually sit down in front of the books or are in your office, it will take you a while to concentrate, but it is normal. It is only transitory. It is like when you stop running for a long period, you cannot pretend to run a marathon on your first day!

I kind of felt relieved. Although my mise en place was misplaced by motherhood, affecting my focus on the study, it was going to be a temporary face, as I repeated it to myself. It wasn't all lost, despite my initial disappointment of not getting the habit back straight away.

On my defense, the fact that perhaps children did not like much the idea that mum was studying and not jumping in the trampoline or making figures with play doh, made me feel guilty. Like many non-working mums, my kids spend most of the day with me, until a couple of weeks ago, when I decided to shake my professional life and give it another chance on taking a new journey to follow my passion. I accepted this course as a full time job.

Believe it or not, diplomat's wives do not have always the opportunity to continue their professional life the way they wished. We need to adapt our skills to the circumstances and pass a few barriers such a language, low local salaries, degrees not recognized,…Instead, we can do short courses, study by correspondence or being part of some volunteering work, for example. 

Back to my frustrated moment when the kids were fighting about an orange plastic plane called Dusty while I wanted to continue with the food preparation chapter, I did what you supposed not to do, I gave up. I turned off the computer and disconnected from being a mum - student to be a mum, a single word. I played with the plane with Gab and Juanan pretending to be a pilot.  When my three children were all fast asleep, I left their small world and quickly went up to my cave to study. 

Eventually, within a few days, I learnt to organize my time better. Amazing the things  you are able to do if you have a good schedule in your head that suits everybody. I squeezed those two hours at night intensively…and my concentration increased. Like it used to BEFORE I HAD KIDS. My friend was right.

On the other hand, my kids accepted better the idea of "mum-student" when I made the clever decision of studying in a book shop near by, instead of playing "hide and seek" on the top floor.

Potato gnocchi with ham and sage

The gnocchi recipe is from the cookbook Rafael, which also has a fantastic restaurant in Lima. It is my favorite so far. I made up this dish during that frustrated week I shared with you above. Cooking helped me a lot to put close attention of what I did when I couldn't do it in my studies. 

And my daughter was my best support, in every sense.

Gnocchi

• 3 kg potatoes (floury)
• 4 egg yolks
• 100g parmesan cheese, freshly grated
• 150 g flour 00
• Sea salt
• nutmeg
• 2 kg table salt

Sauce:

• a few fresh sage leaves
• unsalted butter 
• 6 slices of Spanish jamon serrano, thinly cut in small pieces
• Freshly grated parmesan 

1. Preheat oven 180 C
2. Cut the potatoes in half, lengthways. Put them together (in one piece) and place them on top of a oven tray covered by table salt (this will help to absorb all the moisture). Cook them for an hour until very soft. Peel them and pass them through a "potato ricer" twice.
3. Add the egg yolks, salt and mix well. Add the flour, cheese and nutmeg. Knead the dough gently. It should be soft, not dry.
4. Put a big saucepan of salted water over high heat.
5. Make a long thin roll. Cut it in 2cm pieces. Give it a shape with the back of a fork to help the sauce to stick to the gnocchi.
6. Meanwhile, add a knob of butter to a frypan with a few fresh sage leaves. Swirl them around once the butter is melted and continue until the butter gets brownish and the leaves crispy. Place the leaves on a piece of kitchen paper.
7. If the water is boiling, place the gnocchi carefully to cover the bottom of the saucepan. When the come up to the surface, take them out and put them on a warm serving dish. You might have to repeat this step again to finish cooking the rest of the gnocchi (I kept some, well covered, in the freezer).
8. Serve about 10- 15 gnocchis per person. Pour some of the butter on each plate, sprinkle a good amount of jamon serrano, decorate with three or four crispy sage leaves and grate fresh Parmesan cheese on top.