The week is long. The weekend is short. So how better to say 'ha!' to one and 'hello, darling' to the other, than with a glass of champagne? None. That's how. So Fizzy Fridays were established, and it's a great invention.
I wish I could claim credit for it, but I can't. I stole it from Nigel Slater. I think he was writing about KitKats at the time, but he mentioned routinely opening a bottle of champagne at the end of the working week and a huge alcoholic lightbulb went on over my head.
It doesn't have to be champagne (although it is worth going for the real deal. You don't have to drink it all ((note to self)) and then you can have another glass with Saturday's lunch) but it does have to be fizzy. Have whatever you like. Herself likes Prosecco, which is lovely, but I like the hard-core dryness that only comes from real Champagne, and I like feeling that I'm worth it.
So this Friday sling your satchel in the corner, turn up the stereo and pour yourself a glass of champagne. You'll soon see - it's not called bubbly for nothing.
Monday, 12 March 2012
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
235. A Half Day Holiday
I was allowed to carry some holiday over from last year, and today is the deadline for taking it - so I've got the afternoon off. Herself has decided to take the afternoon off too, so we've decided that we'll see the Nicholson\Mondrian exhibition at the Courtauld.
I'm not sure I've had half a day off before. I'm sitting at work (working very hard, obviously) and the prospect of walking out of here at 1 and not coming back is rather appealing. I've got some errands to run this afternoon that aren't usually possible in the week, and with any luck the exhibition won't be rammed so we'll be able to see the art, rather than just the backs of people's heads. It might have been a good opportunity finally to have a go on the London Eye, but it's overcast today so why bother.
Anyway, so far I can heartily recommend it. Half days - who knew?!
I'm not sure I've had half a day off before. I'm sitting at work (working very hard, obviously) and the prospect of walking out of here at 1 and not coming back is rather appealing. I've got some errands to run this afternoon that aren't usually possible in the week, and with any luck the exhibition won't be rammed so we'll be able to see the art, rather than just the backs of people's heads. It might have been a good opportunity finally to have a go on the London Eye, but it's overcast today so why bother.
Anyway, so far I can heartily recommend it. Half days - who knew?!
234. The Idea of Exercise
If you are a sixth generation Irish woman with shoulders built for the potato harvest and a somnambulant metabolism, you have to take exercise or be on a perpetual 1000 calorie a day diet. Recently I have been doing neither, and as I don't like diets (they actually DO make you fatter in the end) I've been thinking about exercise.
I like the idea of running, but I don't like the pain from the tendinitis I've still got in my pointless, useless heel.
I like the idea of swimming, but I don't like swimming costumes, swimming hats, swimming goggles, swimming pools, verrucas or chlorine.
I like the idea of cycling, but I don't like the idea of being turned into jam by the 390 bus.
I like the idea of the gym but I don't like the idea of having to go at 6.30 in the morning.
What I really like is walking quite slowly to the pub. And herein lies my problem.
So I'll do some cycling, now that the weather's a bit better. It's 40 mins or so each way from town to Hammersmith which is a decent day's exercise. A bit of common sense keeps me from the wheels of the bus and a pump and an allen key deal with most mechanical problems. I think it's a shame that I can't be cool while I'm cycling, but it seems to be beyond me, so I"ll have to leave my ego at the door. But with any luck the cycling will keep the spread from spreading and I'll be able to go on eating nice food and drinking nice wine. That is my goal - no more, no less. So the idea of exercise becomes the much less adorable reality of exercise - a sweaty girl in neon and a silver mushroom head heaving a shabby black bike inelegantly from W1 to W6 twice a day. Life is so prosaic.
I like the idea of running, but I don't like the pain from the tendinitis I've still got in my pointless, useless heel.
I like the idea of swimming, but I don't like swimming costumes, swimming hats, swimming goggles, swimming pools, verrucas or chlorine.
I like the idea of cycling, but I don't like the idea of being turned into jam by the 390 bus.
I like the idea of the gym but I don't like the idea of having to go at 6.30 in the morning.
What I really like is walking quite slowly to the pub. And herein lies my problem.
So I'll do some cycling, now that the weather's a bit better. It's 40 mins or so each way from town to Hammersmith which is a decent day's exercise. A bit of common sense keeps me from the wheels of the bus and a pump and an allen key deal with most mechanical problems. I think it's a shame that I can't be cool while I'm cycling, but it seems to be beyond me, so I"ll have to leave my ego at the door. But with any luck the cycling will keep the spread from spreading and I'll be able to go on eating nice food and drinking nice wine. That is my goal - no more, no less. So the idea of exercise becomes the much less adorable reality of exercise - a sweaty girl in neon and a silver mushroom head heaving a shabby black bike inelegantly from W1 to W6 twice a day. Life is so prosaic.
Monday, 27 February 2012
233. Cookbooks
The collection is spilling out of its (limited) shelving these days. Herself pouts when I buy new cookbooks because she is under the entirely erroneous impression that each book should earn its keep. Poor girl. She doesn't know that cookbooks are for reading in bed and looking at the pictures. They're for inspiration and encouragement and comfort at times of strain. And yes, I have cooked out of most of the cookbooks I own, but by no means all. Buying a cookbook is a statement of intent, as far as I'm concerned, and no more.
Most of my favourite, don't have to think about it, cook on automatic pilot, recipes came long ago from cookbooks and then were committed to memory. Some I still have to check no matter how many times I make them - like pancake batter and Kosheri and Jamie's baked beans.
And they come in and out of focus depending on my latest culinary enthusiasm. At the moment it's baking, so Nigel will come out, and Hugh, and my new boyfriends the Herbert Bros.
In moments of doubt I have Delia's Complete Cookery and Leith's Bible. Both are excellent. Best loved are Nigella's How to Eat, Nigel's Kitchen, River Cottage Every Day and the Internet.
You never have to pay full price for them, they're often quite beautiful, and obviously they are full of deliciousness. I need more shelves.
Most of my favourite, don't have to think about it, cook on automatic pilot, recipes came long ago from cookbooks and then were committed to memory. Some I still have to check no matter how many times I make them - like pancake batter and Kosheri and Jamie's baked beans.
And they come in and out of focus depending on my latest culinary enthusiasm. At the moment it's baking, so Nigel will come out, and Hugh, and my new boyfriends the Herbert Bros.
In moments of doubt I have Delia's Complete Cookery and Leith's Bible. Both are excellent. Best loved are Nigella's How to Eat, Nigel's Kitchen, River Cottage Every Day and the Internet.
You never have to pay full price for them, they're often quite beautiful, and obviously they are full of deliciousness. I need more shelves.
232. Baking bread
For years I have tried, and failed, to bake my own bread. They always either failed to rise, or came out of the oven as lethal weapons. It was sad, and disappointing, and a waste of time and money.
Then, recently, there was a show called The Fabulous Baker Brothers on the telleovision. I knew of Tom Herbert before (he tipped up on a Mary Portas show, and he's cute so I paid attention), but now here he was showing me how to bake stuff! And of course I had been making some very basic errors.
I made my third loaf of soda bread yesterday. They're still a tiny bit hit and miss but they are always edible and tasty. So, armed with confidence and a greater degree of knowledge, next weekend I will attempt to make a loaf of white bread. And I will keep going until I get it right - because it's true that baking your own bread scratches some deep atavistic itch. And as I seem to have become a soup-eating, cycling, water-preserving, natural-fibres kind of person, it feels like the next logical step. Soon I will be wearing socks with my Birkenstocks, and then I'll have to kill myself. My only hope is that I'll have baked some decent bread before then.
Then, recently, there was a show called The Fabulous Baker Brothers on the telleovision. I knew of Tom Herbert before (he tipped up on a Mary Portas show, and he's cute so I paid attention), but now here he was showing me how to bake stuff! And of course I had been making some very basic errors.
I made my third loaf of soda bread yesterday. They're still a tiny bit hit and miss but they are always edible and tasty. So, armed with confidence and a greater degree of knowledge, next weekend I will attempt to make a loaf of white bread. And I will keep going until I get it right - because it's true that baking your own bread scratches some deep atavistic itch. And as I seem to have become a soup-eating, cycling, water-preserving, natural-fibres kind of person, it feels like the next logical step. Soon I will be wearing socks with my Birkenstocks, and then I'll have to kill myself. My only hope is that I'll have baked some decent bread before then.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
231. Spoonerisms
I find it annoying when everybody's favourite spoonerism, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy", is attributed to Tom Waits. I mean, seriously. Surely it's much more likely to have come from either W.C. Fields or Dorothy Parker? Rather than Tom Waits, that gravel-voiced dour-merchant?
But it got me thinking about spoonerisms and why I find them so funny. I've decided it's because they make the English language ridiculous even while it makes perfect sense. So "You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a whole worm. Please leave Oxford on the next town drain" is good, but "Someone is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another sheet" is better. I suspect this is a very English thing.
It's not a Spoonerism, but my absolute all time favourite funny silly word thing is,
'Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.'
Never fails. Thank you, Groucho.
But it got me thinking about spoonerisms and why I find them so funny. I've decided it's because they make the English language ridiculous even while it makes perfect sense. So "You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a whole worm. Please leave Oxford on the next town drain" is good, but "Someone is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another sheet" is better. I suspect this is a very English thing.
It's not a Spoonerism, but my absolute all time favourite funny silly word thing is,
'Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.'
Never fails. Thank you, Groucho.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
230. Online sales
Or, to give them a more personal title: "Yet another excellent way to waste time and money"
If you're one of those people who has the time and mental acuity to go physically to a shop, try on the item you like - and then wait for the sales, you have my respect. I buy random things online because the photo looks nice and IT'S HALF PRICE, and then spend the best part of a week going to post offices, filling in forms and feeling disappointed. But there's something exciting about the whole process. Because after all, if it doesn't all go horribly wrong, if I don't end up looking like a sack of potatoes in an ill-fitting case, then maybe the opposite is true. Maybe I'll have bought something in the sale that looks good - and IT WAS HALF PRICE! I think it's a risk worth running. And at the end of the day, we need to use our post offices, or they'll be closed down.
If you're one of those people who has the time and mental acuity to go physically to a shop, try on the item you like - and then wait for the sales, you have my respect. I buy random things online because the photo looks nice and IT'S HALF PRICE, and then spend the best part of a week going to post offices, filling in forms and feeling disappointed. But there's something exciting about the whole process. Because after all, if it doesn't all go horribly wrong, if I don't end up looking like a sack of potatoes in an ill-fitting case, then maybe the opposite is true. Maybe I'll have bought something in the sale that looks good - and IT WAS HALF PRICE! I think it's a risk worth running. And at the end of the day, we need to use our post offices, or they'll be closed down.
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