Read The Baking Life of Amelie Day for Free Online Page A

lie in bed feeling sad a while longer and then the next thing I know it’s morning and Harry has just texted to say he’ll walk me to school if I’m going in.
    Harry.
    Thank goodness for kind, sweet, handsome romantic Harry.
    He’s kind of my salvation.

Totally Moreish Cheese Straws

    To make 12, you will need:
A little bit of butter or margarine
100g (3 ½ oz) plain flour
A pinch of salt
A pinch of cayenne pepper or mustard powder
50g (1 ½ oz) butter straight from the fridge, chopped into little bits
1 egg yolk
50g (1 ½ oz) strong cheddar cheese, grated (the larger the flakes of grated cheese, the better)
Some iced water
1 tablespoon of grated Parmesan (optional)
A pinch of dried sage or rosemary (optional)
    First you need to heat up the oven to 200°C (390°F/gas mark 6). Grease a baking tray with some butter or margarine.
    Sieve the flour, cayenne/mustard powder and salt into a bowl. If you’re into herbs you could sprinkle in some dried sage or rosemary at this stage too. Add the cubes of butter and rub it all in with your fingertips, until you are left with a bowl of what looks like breadcrumbs.
    With a spoon, mix in the egg yolk and the grated cheddar cheese and add a small amount of the iced water (you can chill it in the freezer in a bottle just before you need it). With your hands, knead the mix into a smooth ball of dough. Put this in some cling film and leave it in the fridge for about 10 or 15 minutes.
    Put some flour on a board or work surface and also on your rolling pin. Roll out your dough into a rectangle which is about 4 or 5 millimetres thick. Then get a sharp knife and divide the rectangle into 12 long equal pieces.
    Put them on the baking tray and into the hot oven for about 12 minutes until golden and slightly puffed up. You can sprinkle them with Parmesan if you like (I don’t) and then put them on a wire rack to cool down. Or you can scoff them straight from the oven, like I do. And be warned – once you’ve eaten one, you will have to eat another! That’s because they are so moreish. IF you manage to resist, you can store them in an airtight tin or jar for a couple of days.

Chapter Six
    ‘Ow,’ I say. I rub at the sore area on my chest where you can just see the outline of my portacath beneath the skin. The portacath was put in over a year ago. It lives under my skin on my chest and it makes it easier for the nurses to get treatments into a tube and pumped fast into my body.
    I’m at the special CF centre. It’s a bit like a hospital, but it’s only for people with CF. There’s a whole team of people here to help people like me. As I got diagnosed when I was a tiny baby, I’ve been coming here forever and know everybody in the building. There’s Mr Rogers, the consultant who’s in charge of my health. Then there’s Trisha, the nurse. She does things like pump antibiotics into my portacath when I’ve got a chest infection and she takes special swab samples from me every few weeks to check that I’m not getting a new infection. People with CF get loads of colds and coughs, same as everybody else, but if I get one it can turn into something nastier and make my lungs even more rubbish than they already are. So if I even get the slightest trace of a sniffle, Mum whips me into the CF centre and gets Trisha to take a sample. If the results come back that I’ve got an infection, I’m pumped full of extra strong antibiotics, sometimes for many months. Trish also comes to our house if I’m feeling really ill. Mum and Trish are more like friends now, she’s been part of our lives for so long.
    I also see quite a lot of Diane. She’s the dietician who advises me what to eat and when. There’s Fiona, the social worker who helps Mum with school issues and tells her how to claim the special allowance she’s entitled to for looking after me. And then there’s Tom, the physiotherapist. He taught Mum how to treat me at home with her hands to help loosen all the stubborn mucus in