{"id":32865,"date":"2016-08-05T06:30:42","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T18:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=32865"},"modified":"2016-07-30T20:44:06","modified_gmt":"2016-07-30T08:44:06","slug":"so-you-dont-believe-in-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/08\/05\/so-you-dont-believe-in-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"So You Don&#8217;t Believe In Magic&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/08\/07\/gorgeous-words-chocolat-by-joanne-harris\/chocolat_joanneharris\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26548\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-26548\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Chocolat_JoanneHarris-105x150.jpg\" alt=\"Chocolat_JoanneHarris\" width=\"105\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Chocolat_JoanneHarris-105x150.jpg 105w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Chocolat_JoanneHarris-210x300.jpg 210w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Chocolat_JoanneHarris.jpg 332w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 105px) 100vw, 105px\" \/><\/a>I recall attending an evening with novelist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joanne-harris.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Joanne Harris,<\/a> of <strong><em>Chocolat<\/em><\/strong> fame, who assured her audience that of course people still believe in magic &#8212; you only had to see how many line up every week to buy a Lotto ticket to know <em>that!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>My real-life magic takes a more ordinary form, but every time I bake I think: <em>&#8220;Yeah, Joanne Harris is right. Of <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">course<\/span> there&#8217;s still plenty of magic left in this world.&#8221;<\/em> Baking is an act of alchemy, after all, and alchemy is definitely magical.<\/p>\n<p>Consider scones, for instance. When you take flour, baking powder, a pinch of salt and milk mixed with water and stir it all together, it looks pretty unappetizing. But stick it in the oven for 10-15 minutes and <em>hey presto<\/em>, you&#8217;ve got this:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/08\/05\/so-you-dont-believe-in-magic\/scones\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-32866\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-32866 \" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Scones.jpg\" alt=\"Scones\" width=\"632\" height=\"474\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Scones.jpg 832w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Scones-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Scones-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 632px) 100vw, 632px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;d I tell you? Magic, for sure! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recall attending an evening with novelist Joanne Harris, of Chocolat fame, who assured her audience that of course people still believe in magic &#8212; you only had to see how many line up every week to buy a Lotto ticket to know that! My real-life magic takes a more ordinary form, but every time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32865"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32875,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32865\/revisions\/32875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}