Tuesday, September 16, 2008

I need a list

It's a really long time since I've done any serious list writing and I feel that my mood requires one of me now...so, in a fairly arbitrary way, here's a list of my favourite things to bake...

1. Chocolate Fudge Cake (the family recipe, which, to the uninitiated is not the kind of chocolate fudge cake you get in restaurants but more a kind of brownie. Gooey in the middle, crisp on top...Armadillos!)
2. Flapjack (to my own recipe)
3. Ginger crunch (so easy, so sickly, so good)
4. Apple cookies (or apple cake or apple anything cos Husbink loves them and I feel like a good wifeling)
5.Black and White Muffins (a little bit of effort goes a long, long way. With all that melted chocolate goodness, how could you fail?)
6. Albert Square (we have no idea where the name comes from but that is what the book calls it...basically a currant and lemon cake with a little bit of icing...another of Husbink's favourites)
7. Chocolate Cookies (the easiest thing in the world to bake yet they turn out amazingly. The first time I gave them to a group of friends they would not believe they weren't bought.)
8. Bread (I'm just getting into this - I've got a bread machine that turns out good loaves of a sandwich-shaped nature but I'm beginning to experiment with hand made rolls and other goodies. Mostly what I love is the whole section where you think it is going to go horribly wrong while waiting for the yeast to do its thing...and then miraculously it does and you come out with light, risen, yummy goodness.)
9. Spinach and Feta Muffins (they're savoury! They must be healthy!)
10. Anything (well, almost...) new...

Recipes on request :)

Slightly Disappointing

I had a wonderful day on Sunday. Well, a wonderful afternoon and evening. The morning was sadly a bit of a let down but I'll not go into that now (another post is brewing I'm sure). So we toddled across to Leeds on Sunday afternoon and while Husbink went to the rugby with Mr SD and a few other friends, Mrs SD and I pootled into Headingly (much faster than I expected from her "I can only go slow now" protestations!) for a coffee and a big old chat. It was marvellous. I love Mrs SD. Then we met up with the rugby goers back at the house of two of them and had a good chatter there too. And then we went to a rather famous (amongst us, anyway) curry house and met up with four more of the old group (and missed those that were missing) and had a lovely, lovely time. I was really in need of people and I got them! It was great to talk and laugh and be silly and talk and eat and... A really lovely evening. We all then went our separate ways (Husbink and I getting home in time to watch Bring Back Star Wars...it was very silly but much, much fun...) So what was the disappointment? Well, it was the morning after. I've eaten at that curry house a huge number of times. We've pined for it while at a distance. This curry house is so well loved to us and our friends that when my mum rang during the meal and I told her where we were she said "oooh, say hello from me!" not to the people but to the building! Right... Anyway, I've never felt ill effect from a meal there (other than self inflicted overstuffedness) until Monday morning. Don't worry, I was not ill, it was in no respect food poisoning or anything severe like that, I just wasn't right. Like you get sometimes after partaking in lesser curry meals. Husbink and I have a twenty-four hour rule that we apply to curries to class whether they were good or not. (Note that this is very different to my twenty-four hour rule for the purchase of shoes, bags, coats...where the accessory rule requires that I am still thinking about the possible purchase twenty-four hours after leaving the shop and thus clearly require the item and must return for it, in the case of a curry, the twenty-four hours should be marked by the meal not in the least playing on my mind!) For the first time ever, this curry house failed the twenty-four hour rule. Which is probably just a reminder that you should never look back.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Growing Up

Over the last few months with one wedding and another and various large social events, I've run into quite a few people that I haven't seen for years and years. And it has been lovely.
I realised the other day that I kept dreading bumping into people from school or whenever because of one ex-friend (and I don't know why they are an ex-friend. Really. No idea. They just stopped talking to me. I did something. I don't know what...very, very weird!). Whenever I run into him it is deeply uncomfortable. He just doesn't seem to be letting go (of this mystery unknown thing. And there is a thing because other people know what it is and won't tell me. Anyway.)
So I'd been dreading running into various people. The kind of people who were friends of friends at school. Sometimes we got on. Sometimes we didn't so much. It was always fine-ish though. You know?
I'd tarred them all with this same brush, I assumed that they all harboured some secret grudge against me that I was never to know of but was to spend every wedding and big reunion regretting despite my lack of knowledge as Husbink and I sat in the corner ignored by all and sundry. Me? Paranoid?!
Not so. It turns out that most of us have grown up! That it was lovely to run into people, find out what they'd been doing, what they are doing, what twists life has taken for them...
It was just reassuring to discover that fundamentally, most people are rather nice when it comes down to it.