Good things
'Cause counting yr blessings can help you to appreciate 'em:
1. Margaret Atwood interview on Front Row yesterday evening. So many revelations! How one of the world's greatest novelists might have gone for a successful career as a children's party entertainer rather than booking her way to the Booker! Margaret's past as a decorator of 'interesting' cakes! How crucial the word gutted (when used as an adjective) was to The Penelopiad making it into the bookshops! Margaret's pivotal role in the development of the Pop Tart! The ancestress of hers who wasn't quite hanged as a witch (the neck wouldn't break)! And lots more. Oh Margaret A, so wise, so dry; this interview really delighted me and put a spring in my step (I was listening to it on my mobile phone - which still feels bizarre - while walking to the shops). Made me want to finish off reading all of her writing, and then reread all the books I've already read. Because they're ace. Fortunately, I took Curious Pursuits out of the library last week, so that's that one sorted. Yay yay Margaret A.
2. Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie's Radio 2 show, which makes me feel all warm and cosy remembering days of yore when Mark and Lard did the graveyard shift on Radio 1 (which I listened to religiously during the mid '90s years I was getting into music in a big way, and introduced me to so many bands, as well as films, poets, tv, books... &c. Oh, and was extremely funny, to boot) which Mr. Maconie came onto as a correspondent every now and then. The Radio 2 programme is a different animal, but with enough features in common w/ the old show - friendly banter, decent records, bands live in session, a Northern slant, much daftness, Noddy Holder - for it to be a welcomely companionable soundtrack to many of my weekday evenings.
3. Meeting up w/ Bill yesterday for the first time in Gawd knows how long. It was really good to see him, and to catch up a bit (even if I didn't make for the most cheery conversationalist - sorry!). I'm glad I took the chance to pop by on the off chance :-)
4. The fact that I was able to get myself up, washed, halfway presentable and out of the house in sufficient time and w/ sufficient success to propel myself as far as Canton Tesco and back (about 40+ mins walking), and w/ enough bravery to call in on friends of my own volition while I did so. Given that, in recent weeks, I've mostly been either in bed, skulking about the house in my nightie, or getting myself ready to face the world only just in time for all the shops to have closed, this really counts as an achievement for me, however slight it might seem to many of youse. It sucks being sick; but it means you kinda have to celebrate the small stuff, or you'd end up topping yrself.
5. I made PIE.
Apple and blackberry. Yum yum yum.
It's traditional to use the leftover pastry trimmings to decorate thelid w/ leaves or something, but I've made more than enough pastryleaves in my time. I've long been interested by the idea of food in fancy dress generally, and food that demands to be eaten (Albert The Magic Pudding, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe's Dish of the Day) has a fascination all of its own. I'm sure Margaret Atwood would agree. So today's baking ended up taking an impromptu Alice in Wonderpie slant - Lewis Carroll has plenty of anthropomorphised edibles amongst his characters, after all, the joints of meat which it's rude to try to eat when once you've been introduced, the melancholy soupless Mock Turtle, bevies of oysters trotting after the Walrus and the Carpenter &c. Even the Cheshire Cat might owe his origins to cheeses moulded in anti-mouse defensive forms!
Butanyway, yes. I'm getting sidetracked. I wasn't cooking mock turtles or oysters, nor even a cake, though it should have been. This is a pie. It wants to be eaten. That's it's raison d'etre, after all, so it's only reasonable that it spells it out for you. Or me.
Brushed the pastry w/ milk, and dredged it in golden caster sugar to give it a nice sugary crust. I brushed the cut out shapes w/ a little strong black coffee to tint the lettering in the hope it would help it stand out a little more, as I'm anal a bit overkeen; it doesn't make any real impact on what the pastry tastes like, anyway.
Oh bugger, I should've checked it sooner. Damn these unlit ovens. Oh well, at least you can understand it, amidst all the blackened pastry.
Missing portion of pie was served1 hot with chilled single cream. One must obey the pie.
* * * * *
So, yeah, that's one way to spend a Saturday evening. Pieing it up. Lamingtons tomorrow! I've baked the cake part already, after consulting bluebellrock at some length, so Sunday'll see me cubing it and sloshing about w/ chocolate icing and dessicated cocoa-nut. Yeah! Let's get caking up those arteries!
Okay, that's it for the list. Most of everything else is really pretty awful, still. But at least I managed to get up to five.
1 By me, to me. Being a Polly No Mates at least means that the answer to Who Ate All The Pies? is always gonna be a given.
1. Margaret Atwood interview on Front Row yesterday evening. So many revelations! How one of the world's greatest novelists might have gone for a successful career as a children's party entertainer rather than booking her way to the Booker! Margaret's past as a decorator of 'interesting' cakes! How crucial the word gutted (when used as an adjective) was to The Penelopiad making it into the bookshops! Margaret's pivotal role in the development of the Pop Tart! The ancestress of hers who wasn't quite hanged as a witch (the neck wouldn't break)! And lots more. Oh Margaret A, so wise, so dry; this interview really delighted me and put a spring in my step (I was listening to it on my mobile phone - which still feels bizarre - while walking to the shops). Made me want to finish off reading all of her writing, and then reread all the books I've already read. Because they're ace. Fortunately, I took Curious Pursuits out of the library last week, so that's that one sorted. Yay yay Margaret A.
2. Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie's Radio 2 show, which makes me feel all warm and cosy remembering days of yore when Mark and Lard did the graveyard shift on Radio 1 (which I listened to religiously during the mid '90s years I was getting into music in a big way, and introduced me to so many bands, as well as films, poets, tv, books... &c. Oh, and was extremely funny, to boot) which Mr. Maconie came onto as a correspondent every now and then. The Radio 2 programme is a different animal, but with enough features in common w/ the old show - friendly banter, decent records, bands live in session, a Northern slant, much daftness, Noddy Holder - for it to be a welcomely companionable soundtrack to many of my weekday evenings.
3. Meeting up w/ Bill yesterday for the first time in Gawd knows how long. It was really good to see him, and to catch up a bit (even if I didn't make for the most cheery conversationalist - sorry!). I'm glad I took the chance to pop by on the off chance :-)
4. The fact that I was able to get myself up, washed, halfway presentable and out of the house in sufficient time and w/ sufficient success to propel myself as far as Canton Tesco and back (about 40+ mins walking), and w/ enough bravery to call in on friends of my own volition while I did so. Given that, in recent weeks, I've mostly been either in bed, skulking about the house in my nightie, or getting myself ready to face the world only just in time for all the shops to have closed, this really counts as an achievement for me, however slight it might seem to many of youse. It sucks being sick; but it means you kinda have to celebrate the small stuff, or you'd end up topping yrself.
5. I made PIE.
Apple and blackberry. Yum yum yum.
It's traditional to use the leftover pastry trimmings to decorate thelid w/ leaves or something, but I've made more than enough pastryleaves in my time. I've long been interested by the idea of food in fancy dress generally, and food that demands to be eaten (Albert The Magic Pudding, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe's Dish of the Day) has a fascination all of its own. I'm sure Margaret Atwood would agree. So today's baking ended up taking an impromptu Alice in Wonderpie slant - Lewis Carroll has plenty of anthropomorphised edibles amongst his characters, after all, the joints of meat which it's rude to try to eat when once you've been introduced, the melancholy soupless Mock Turtle, bevies of oysters trotting after the Walrus and the Carpenter &c. Even the Cheshire Cat might owe his origins to cheeses moulded in anti-mouse defensive forms!
Butanyway, yes. I'm getting sidetracked. I wasn't cooking mock turtles or oysters, nor even a cake, though it should have been. This is a pie. It wants to be eaten. That's it's raison d'etre, after all, so it's only reasonable that it spells it out for you. Or me.
Brushed the pastry w/ milk, and dredged it in golden caster sugar to give it a nice sugary crust. I brushed the cut out shapes w/ a little strong black coffee to tint the lettering in the hope it would help it stand out a little more, as I'm anal a bit overkeen; it doesn't make any real impact on what the pastry tastes like, anyway.
Oh bugger, I should've checked it sooner. Damn these unlit ovens. Oh well, at least you can understand it, amidst all the blackened pastry.
Missing portion of pie was served1 hot with chilled single cream. One must obey the pie.
* * * * *
So, yeah, that's one way to spend a Saturday evening. Pieing it up. Lamingtons tomorrow! I've baked the cake part already, after consulting bluebellrock at some length, so Sunday'll see me cubing it and sloshing about w/ chocolate icing and dessicated cocoa-nut. Yeah! Let's get caking up those arteries!
Okay, that's it for the list. Most of everything else is really pretty awful, still. But at least I managed to get up to five.
1 By me, to me. Being a Polly No Mates at least means that the answer to Who Ate All The Pies? is always gonna be a given.