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They came down hard on his head
Sep. 27th, 2017 02:21 pmSo, once upon a time I used to write stuff here about what I did. Which is useful, because I have an increasingly terrible memory.
This summer I have done many things that have not got written. I confidently predict that in about five years time there will be some form of argument in my household about what bands we saw at Indietracks in July, and I will have no record to back up my claims.
I will attempt - successfully or not - to remedy that, but in the interim, I think we better pick up with the now.
( Weekend Miscellany )
This summer I have done many things that have not got written. I confidently predict that in about five years time there will be some form of argument in my household about what bands we saw at Indietracks in July, and I will have no record to back up my claims.
I will attempt - successfully or not - to remedy that, but in the interim, I think we better pick up with the now.
( Weekend Miscellany )
Yesterday morning, I attempted to make some scones. I have, historically, not made terribly good scones so thought I'd branch out and try a different recipe.
( Scone but not forgotten )
( Scone but not forgotten )
See what it's like to be blue
Apr. 28th, 2017 11:06 pmThis is a very negligible entry, whose principle job is to check out whether the Android app which claims to do DW-posting works at all. If you're reading this, then yay!
I'm also experimenting with images. Yes, this is not an exciting post.
( Green! )
I'm also experimenting with images. Yes, this is not an exciting post.
( Green! )
Place your hands
Jan. 6th, 2017 12:15 amOk, ok, I admit it. Over the Christmas period I watched the festive editions of Bake Off, and was once again sucked into thinking "oh, that looks fun".
( Shoe Reef )A colleague just wandered past with an extremely fancy box of chocolates (agency gift, I think) and offered me one. I chose one that looked like a little tiny barrel.
(There was a legend available, to tell me which was which. But it was very long, and I decided to go for pot luck instead.)
I bit into it... and was extremely surprised to find some sort of liqueur chocolate ganache. That's not right. Little chocolate barrels contain caramel. That is the rule.
Isn't it? Should it be?
I mean, everyone knows salt and vinegar crisps go in blue bags, but Walkers has been openly flouting that for years. Is it reasonable to assume that little chocolate barrels contain caramel, or was I just born in an era where Cadbury's Roses were the height of sophistication?
(There was a legend available, to tell me which was which. But it was very long, and I decided to go for pot luck instead.)
I bit into it... and was extremely surprised to find some sort of liqueur chocolate ganache. That's not right. Little chocolate barrels contain caramel. That is the rule.
Isn't it? Should it be?
I mean, everyone knows salt and vinegar crisps go in blue bags, but Walkers has been openly flouting that for years. Is it reasonable to assume that little chocolate barrels contain caramel, or was I just born in an era where Cadbury's Roses were the height of sophistication?
Why they called me that I do not know
Dec. 31st, 2015 03:13 pmDue to a shopping mishap yesterday, this house contains a lot of (what I believe to be) oriental garlic. It tastes a lot like wild garlic. Beyond the sorts of things mentioned in Wikipedia's usage notes, does anyone have any particularly good recommendations for uses thereof?
Come on, boy, d'you want a ride?
Dec. 4th, 2015 12:05 pmSaturday started well, with brunch in a local cafe.
( Best breakfast ever )We wombled around the independent record labels' fair in Spitalfields - and bloody hell was it busy. It seemed also to incorporate all of London's independent brewers (beer is very like records) and the place was heaving. And then we moved on...
( New Bedford Rising )Hello! If you are a person with complicated dietary requirements, maybe you can give me some advice.
( Advise me! )
( Advise me! )
I'm gonna slice a lemon in two
Jul. 28th, 2015 05:23 pmWhile doing something work-related online, I ended up reading this recipe. Which was not work-related.
Anyway, the recipe is for "Spinach, blueberry, almond and blue cheese jar salad". Which seems to be like a regular salad, except you put the ingredients in layers. In a jar. And I thought, err, yes. Pretty. But surely it'd be a right old pain to eat?
Then I scrolled down, and discovered that the page has an entire repertoire of "jar salads". Is putting salad in a jar a Thing now?
Do you eat it out of the jar, or decant onto a plate? Isn't a 1kg Mason jar a rather heavy thing to carry your bait to work in? (Though I concede it might be more environmentally-friendly than a plastic box.) Is a jar salad purely something to be used in some form of office lunch oneupmanship contest, only to be trumped when people begin carrying their packups in shabby-chic'd furniture, or recycled kimonos?
Enquiring minds need to know.
Anyway, the recipe is for "Spinach, blueberry, almond and blue cheese jar salad". Which seems to be like a regular salad, except you put the ingredients in layers. In a jar. And I thought, err, yes. Pretty. But surely it'd be a right old pain to eat?
Then I scrolled down, and discovered that the page has an entire repertoire of "jar salads". Is putting salad in a jar a Thing now?
Do you eat it out of the jar, or decant onto a plate? Isn't a 1kg Mason jar a rather heavy thing to carry your bait to work in? (Though I concede it might be more environmentally-friendly than a plastic box.) Is a jar salad purely something to be used in some form of office lunch oneupmanship contest, only to be trumped when people begin carrying their packups in shabby-chic'd furniture, or recycled kimonos?
Enquiring minds need to know.
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies
Jul. 21st, 2015 09:39 amI asked a question a few days ago: in the context of something you might eat for tea, what is a growler?
Not, despite suggestions, a beer bottle. And I probably couldn't eat a whole iceberg, even a small one. A growler, as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
huskyteer rightly (and firstly) said is a large pork pie.
I'd have said growler was a West Yorkshire term, but my faith was somewhat shaken when ar_gemlad didn't know it. Wikipedia thinks it is "a Yorkshire artisan pork pie". Artisan be buggered, it's all about the size in my book. If it isn't big enough to slice and share, it's no growler.
This question was prompted by seeing a stall advertising growlers at Glastonbury. I forget exactly what they were (some form of bacon burger?) but established fairly swiftly that they weren't what I was expecting.
I'm interested to note kotturinn's claim that it's any meat pie big enough to be "guaranteed to stop the growlings of a hungry stomach".
I'm distressed to note that lnr thinks I've asked this question before!
Let's call the whole thing off
Jul. 16th, 2015 08:56 amToday's daft question: if I told you I'd had a growler for tea yesterday, what would you think I meant?
(Actually, I didn't have a growler yesterday, I had prawn and chili linguini for tea. But the question stands.)
"What next?" is the question
Jul. 11th, 2015 11:13 amI promised, a few days ago, that I would do a separate post about the food I ate at Glastonbury. In some ways, this wasn't a great year to do it. Hot weather and a slightly dicey stomach meant I probably ate rather less than usual - in ordinary years, the net effect of being surrounded by amazing food stalls is that I have about five meals a day.
I endeavoured to take a snap of everything I ate, but be warned! They really are snaps. Food photography is hard, and due to feeling like a massive idiot taking photos of my food, I tended to get it over with as quickly as possible. There are also a few where I only remembered half way through a meal, and it's pretty much impossible to make a half-eaten dish look nice.
( To The Food! )
I endeavoured to take a snap of everything I ate, but be warned! They really are snaps. Food photography is hard, and due to feeling like a massive idiot taking photos of my food, I tended to get it over with as quickly as possible. There are also a few where I only remembered half way through a meal, and it's pretty much impossible to make a half-eaten dish look nice.
( To The Food! )
When it's time to party we will party hard
Jun. 4th, 2015 01:30 pmMore dispatches from the kitchen...
( Dairy-free trifle )( Whole poached salmon without a fish kettle. Or a whole salmon. )Damn right it's better than yours
Jun. 1st, 2015 09:41 pmA couple of weeks ago, in between a slew of jolly nice 40th birthday parties (others', not mine) I tried to make cheese.
( Cheese! )She drives me crazy like no-one else
Mar. 13th, 2015 10:27 amFollowing on from the farago of the Boston beanslast week, I present...
( Vegetation gone mad )Hotter'n a pepper sprout
Mar. 3rd, 2015 01:50 pmMost uncharacteristically, I bought some groceries at M&S at the weekend. Among them a packet of green beans. At least, I thought they were green beans. The packaging informs me they are Boston beans.
To me, Boston beans are baked beans. But fair enough, I'm willing to accept they are an obscure variety of the green things. "Especially chosen for their dark green pods", says the label. I am unclear why a dark green pod is a desirable thing. Also they look perfectly average bean-colour to me. Anyway.
Whilst lobbing some into a pan of water last night, I noticed a further bit of text on the packet. "This product must be cooked," it said. "Do not eat raw."
What?
I frequently eat green beans raw. So do many people, but apparently they are mildly toxic. But even Wikipedia can't help me out with how toxic they are to someone with no ongoing digestive/immune issues. ("may be harmful if consumed in excess", you say. Of course they are, that's what excess means. If you suffer no ill effects, it wasn't excess, it was just a lot.)
Today has not been wasted: I have learned something. I don't imagine I'll stop nibbling on the occasional green bean, though.
To me, Boston beans are baked beans. But fair enough, I'm willing to accept they are an obscure variety of the green things. "Especially chosen for their dark green pods", says the label. I am unclear why a dark green pod is a desirable thing. Also they look perfectly average bean-colour to me. Anyway.
Whilst lobbing some into a pan of water last night, I noticed a further bit of text on the packet. "This product must be cooked," it said. "Do not eat raw."
What?
I frequently eat green beans raw. So do many people, but apparently they are mildly toxic. But even Wikipedia can't help me out with how toxic they are to someone with no ongoing digestive/immune issues. ("may be harmful if consumed in excess", you say. Of course they are, that's what excess means. If you suffer no ill effects, it wasn't excess, it was just a lot.)
Today has not been wasted: I have learned something. I don't imagine I'll stop nibbling on the occasional green bean, though.
