Wednesday 29 October 2008

Culinary Genius: Cauliflower and Cheddar Soup

Step aside, dear pumpkin, for I have a new favourite soup.

The New Covent Garden Soup Company's recipe for Cauliflower and Cheddar (in their Soup for All Seasons book) is, simply, puree'ed cauliflower cheese, that staple of Sunday lunches and carveries everywhere.

It's heaven in a bowl.

Sunday 26 October 2008

I just don't get Strictly Come Dancing

I don't understand the appeal of Strictly Come Dancing, I really don't. It baffles me why people are so eager for it, so fervently drawn to little-known people failing to dance well, week after week. And I really enjoy the film Strictly Ballroom, so I'm not a Dance Fascist.

I've seen scraps of the show for the last couple of weeks, and on the basis of that experience it seems very repetitive; as far as I can make out, I've seen the same people doing the same dances in the same outfits. And just as badly.

I'm also horrified by the length of the show - running for some 16 weeks, it seems, which just seems flagrant, excessive. And there's a results show - absolutely crammed with filler - the day after the main event (I watched it). Apparently there's some sort of update broadcast on a secondary channel every single day.

I mean, what's all that about? Some kind of elitist Big Brother?

Sunday is for playin'

Today, I made an apple pie, finished my book (Pies and Prejudice) and bought a coat.

The Sparkly One made a pumpkin lantern, but that's a whole other story.

Monday 13 October 2008

De-spectacled in the sauna

Every conversation is a podcast made by anonymous faceless people that sit intimately close to me. If we passed in the street I would not know them.

Friday 10 October 2008

Rabies, revisited

Today's lavender injection, the second of three, is administered by an eager-to-please medical student, under the nurse's close supervision.

Afterwards, a tiny carnelia flower blooms on my flesh.

Saturday 4 October 2008

Fortune cookie wisdom (2)

Fortune cookie fortune 'Ignorance never settles a question'

Ugly cutlery

Yes, I know that beauty is a subjective measure, and to my eye this cutlery is shockingly, surprisingly, stunningly ugly:

Ugly Cutlery by Muji

The picture doesn't do it justice, by the way; it's actually much uglier in real life - all the worst things about airline cutlery, somehow made more intense, more lumpishly crude. And don't feed me that "cheap and cheerful" line - this cutlery has no cheer whatsoever. It doesn't even have that pitiable cuteness that mawkish things often invoke.

Meaning that it doesn't do anything for my aesthetic. Your mileage, natch, may vary.