venta

I was making pavlova bases last night (in a massive rush, about 10:30pm, because my day didn't go at all to plan).

I was breaking eggs, and separating them. Doing it the sensible, grown-up way my mummy taught me rather than the slapdash way I often do: crack egg, separate into small bowl, examine for blood specks, those weird white blobby bits, bits of shell, etc, then tip into bowl you're actually going to beat egg whites in.

Which was just as well.

Egg 1: Managed to break yolk on cracking, got yolk in the white (=> no good for meringue).
Egg 2: Off. Yes, really. I've never actually met an off egg before, despite being a bit vague on use-by dates. It was immediately obvious something was wrong, as the white was twice as runny as it should have been. And it smelt bad. But, weirdly, it didn't smell "of rotten eggs".
Egg 3: Managed to break yolk. See above.
Egg 4: Success!
Egg 5: Success, but what an awful lot of blood needed to be fished out.
Egg 6: Success, but when I threw the shell into the bin I missed, and it splatted all over the kitchen floor.

Conclusion: do not try to separate eggs in a hurry. I've never managed to do the shell-juggly separation thing successfully, but I'm not usually quite so incompetent. I use a plastic egg separator, which I hear is frowned on in some circles. Disappointingly, I'd finished by the time ChrisC came in and reminded me that the coolest way to separate eggs is with a water bottle. I even have a bottle put by for just this purpose :(

(Those of you who worry about food waste will be delighted to hear that eggs 1 and 3 were stored safely in the fridge and turned into tamagoyaki for my lunch box today. The yolks of eggs 4-6 (and also 7-9, I was making two bases) are in the fridge awaiting a more convenient season. I think their destiny is probably custard, unless anyone wants to suggest exciting things I should do with 6 egg yolks.)

Now I just have to get the bases to Lancashire without mishap. And I have to hope that the rather lovely holiday cottages we're staying in have an electrically-powered means of whipping cream, or I'm going to look quite silly and have rather weary arms...

(If mishap occurs, I shall delete this post and claim I was going to make Eton mess all along.)

As a special seasonal thing, M&S are selling turkey, cranberry and stuffing-flavoured crisps. I tried them in November or so. They're fine. They taste like generic savoury-flavoured crisps.

They're also doing port and stilton-flavoured crisps. I...

Well. I don't really like flavoured crisps all that much. And cheese-flavoured things are invariably disastrous. Port and stilton crisps are clearly going to be disgusting.

But I was curious.

Not quite curious enough to buy some. But curious enough to persuade one of my colleagues to buy some. And then to steal one.

They are unbelievably disgusting.

(At least, according to me. They don't taste like port. They certainly don't taste like stilton. They don't even taste like cheese-flavoured crisps. They are bizarrely sweet. M'colleague, on the other hand, quite liked them.)

I'm quite a fan of Promod for online clothes shopping (although, like most clothing retailers, they sell some ghastly stuff as well).

Today in Promod's 'Romantic Boutique' section I learned that their delicate colours "will sublime my skin".

Ow!