It was during this week in 2005 Van Tuong Nguyen died in Singapore. At some point in his young life he hooked up with the wrong people, became involved in drugs and was caught carrying drugs from Cambodia to Australia. He was executed at 11.00AM New Zealand time, and at that moment I was sitting in my oncologists waiting room for a follow up appointment to my 6 monthly CT scan. As I waited I was thinking about the Nguyen family and in particular his mother. I said a quiet prayer for her, asking her God to give her strength and courage to face that terrible moment in her life.
The next moment I was sitting in front to my oncologist hearing news which was not good. I had developed a secondary cancer and would require surgery and a second round of chemotherapy.
I cancelled a lunch appointment I had for one o'clock, went home and waited for the surgeon to call.
While I waited I baked .....Panettone , Pavlova , Pita . A few days later I packed my Bag and went to hospital.
My surgery was followed up with 18 three weekly cycles of chemo. I didn't feel like spending any time in the kitchen and most days I didn't have the strength to lift my camera to take photos of any baking. I spent most of the next 8 months on the couch in front of the TV watching the cooking channel.
Twelve months after that awful day, I'm on three monthly check ups, hopefully the chemo will have taken care of any further cancer cells, and I'm facing the world again. Apart from some lingering side effects of the chemo which make life a little uncomfortable and may take up to 12 months to disappear, life is good. I have decided I'd make the baking of Panettone an annual event at this time each year.
Panettone 2006 was a bit of a disappointment as it did not rise as it should. It still tastes like a panettone should and I could easily eat the lot, if Bryan doesn't beat me to it. The added bonus of baking panettone is the house smells deliciously of sugar and yeast and lemons. I won't share the recipe as I'm not sure if it is the recipe or bad yeast that is the problem.
