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Monday, June 21, 2010

just once

I'd like to eat a meal and not find one of my hairs in it.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

choux and chewbacca

Another entry in my extended research into procrastination.

Today JC came round to help my bake my own birthday cake. But not just any cake, croquembouche (french for 'crack in the mouth'. Not crack as in amphetamines sold in dodgy neighbourhoods, crack the verb, as in I cracked my favourite coffee cup). This was to be my first ever croquembouche.

Croquembouche is choux pastry, filled with custard (ours was chocolate) and then built into a conical shape around a metal mould, and held together with hard toffee, which is also spun around the resulting pyramid to make think web of strung toffee.

It was much easier than I thought (partly due to the gift of new, and expensive piping bags) and we only ended up with third degree burns to 75% of our bodies from the toffee.


We had about six pastries each before I went door knocking the neighbours with kids to off load the rest. I have hurt my jaw from all the toffee and am going to have to go an lie down in a minute, such is the sugar crash currently going on in my endocrine system.

However in a short web browse before my nap, I checked some emails and some new posts. Garrett at Vanilla Garlic who has also had a recent birthday was talking about the prices of cookware in some store I am not familiar with. Googling it to find out what he was talking about I found these:


I think it is fair to say that my life will never be complete until I own a set of Star Wars pancake moulds.

Also, France drew with Uruguay in the first set of Group A matches early this morning. All matches were draws. I got up early to watch France play. Found the game to be dreary beyond words and went back to bed. We're up against Mexico next I think. Hopefully this will be a better match.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

feet and butter

Today is a good day. A remarkably good day. It is cold and misty, the way I like it. But, still, the sun is shining a way that indicates that the washing in the machine may end up dry today.
And in the machine? Socks. Well, other things too, but predominantly socks. It seems that every time I lift up something in my house: a book, the saucepan I like to cook pasta in, one of the cats. There's a sock. Now, I'm not the greatest housekeeper in the world. I know everyone says that, but I really mean it. Seriously - I live on my own. I don't have to keep the house clean for children, or husbands, or visiting literati. I only have to keep the house clean for me. And most of the time I couldn't be fucked. I'd much rather read a book, or cook pasta, or sit with the cats. But the sock conundrum probably can't be all down to me. Can it?

OK, part of my disinterest in domesticity is now well placed with my penchant for footwear. I wish my camera was working, and then I could show evidence for this. Currently on the floors in my house are twelve pairs of shoes. And that doesn't include the pair on my feet. So it would come to reason that I would have many socks. But so many? But, undeniably the evidence is there. A washing machine full of socks, and a Persian rug in the lounge where the only thing obscuring the cat hair is the shoes. But today at least the socks will be dry.

Another reason today is a good day? I am supposed to be curbing my spending now that I have joined the ranks of the part time employed. More frugality, less indulgence. Ba-bowh. Today I spent the same amount as you would spend on a good steak on butter. French butter. Methode traditionnelle butter.

And to put the butter on? As close to proper French baguette as you're going to get in Adelaide. With creamy, rich, lush to die for French butter on it, so that the softness of the bread spreads the wonderful feel of the butter over every inch of your mouth.

Dreamy.

Today is a day of dreams. It's a day when I can dream that my thesis is not in as bad a shape as I fear it is (it's not the whole thesis. Just the research design. OK, yes I know that's the whole thesis, but give me this dreamy day). It's a day when I can dream of lying in bed all day listening to rain on the roof. It's a day when I can dream of Greek islands, and Czech castles. Of long, luxurious lunches with my favourite people and drinking pinot noir around crackling camp fires in my sleeping bag. It's a day when life feels like it's going to be OK forever.

Not bad, really.