'Do you think he's pleased to see you?'
Saturday 11 October 2008
Dirty pasta
Terry made delicious pasta, but Gianni, 'a little man holding on tight', didn't want to let all the fusilli go.
'Do you think he's pleased to see you?'
'Do you think he's pleased to see you?'
A new addition
It lives in the under-stairs cupboard. The cupboard under the stairs.
A Dyson. A Dyson dust-buster.*
When we moved into a house, it was high on my list of things to buy. Don't get me wrong, I love Horace (the Hoover; also a Dyson, purchased for my flat as the only vacuum in Peckham that would nestle into a small cupboard, due to its revolutionary telescopic hose), but we've never worked well together. Terry has a much better way with Horace, and we agreed early on that he'd be in charge of hoovering and I'd be in charge of... oh, gosh, everything else, by the looks of things. Somehow, we've been here 11 months and I've really never felt the need for a hand-held. T was doing pretty well at hoovering fortnightly in principle and 3-weekly to monthly in practice, and the blips when it got done less frequently were easy to excuse since we had a new baby. Only the baby's not that new any more, and the hoovering hadn't been done for 6 weeks by the time Terry got to it last weekend. To his credit, he's very thorough, but getting on for 3 hours to hoover a two bedroom terrace is verging on the preposterous. Since a pair of lesbians, a gay and a bickering couple then pitched up for the evening and brought leaves and what not with them, it got me thinking about the dust buster idea again. I ran it by T and he agreed (he's got the money now: I'm on a hundred nicker a week; I have no say), so I sought help from the magic web and found the cheapest, and then did as I always do with big purchases and got scared about being £x poorer, and didn't order.
In the night, trying to get back to sleep after feeding the baby, I remembered that we'd mulled over having a cleaner, which we never did because I'm uncomfortable with yet another recurring cost but primarily with asking someone else to clean up our mess. Once I worked out that the Dyson would cost the equivalent of around 4 weeks' cleaning, it felt like less of an extravagance so I ordered it the next day and it arrived mid-week, and Terry got it out of its box today. (Re: tardiness: I, post-natally, have no truck with instructions and T - well, he works late then comes home and does nowt).
Like Horace, the DC-16 (it took us 12 days to name the baby, this could take a while) is fantastically engineered, with really clever touches that just can't be recreated in prose (poetry to follow). Terry was impressed with the battery charger/dock and found a little nook for it underneath the stairs; he then finished reading the instructions and found that the device has to be attached to the battery while it charges, so drilled two more holes further down the stairs and moved the little dock, and 'Dennis' (temporary name) now has a full-time home:
*Apologies to ?Black and Decker for use of their proprietary name for the hand-held vacuum cleaning device.
A Dyson. A Dyson dust-buster.*
When we moved into a house, it was high on my list of things to buy. Don't get me wrong, I love Horace (the Hoover; also a Dyson, purchased for my flat as the only vacuum in Peckham that would nestle into a small cupboard, due to its revolutionary telescopic hose), but we've never worked well together. Terry has a much better way with Horace, and we agreed early on that he'd be in charge of hoovering and I'd be in charge of... oh, gosh, everything else, by the looks of things. Somehow, we've been here 11 months and I've really never felt the need for a hand-held. T was doing pretty well at hoovering fortnightly in principle and 3-weekly to monthly in practice, and the blips when it got done less frequently were easy to excuse since we had a new baby. Only the baby's not that new any more, and the hoovering hadn't been done for 6 weeks by the time Terry got to it last weekend. To his credit, he's very thorough, but getting on for 3 hours to hoover a two bedroom terrace is verging on the preposterous. Since a pair of lesbians, a gay and a bickering couple then pitched up for the evening and brought leaves and what not with them, it got me thinking about the dust buster idea again. I ran it by T and he agreed (he's got the money now: I'm on a hundred nicker a week; I have no say), so I sought help from the magic web and found the cheapest, and then did as I always do with big purchases and got scared about being £x poorer, and didn't order.
In the night, trying to get back to sleep after feeding the baby, I remembered that we'd mulled over having a cleaner, which we never did because I'm uncomfortable with yet another recurring cost but primarily with asking someone else to clean up our mess. Once I worked out that the Dyson would cost the equivalent of around 4 weeks' cleaning, it felt like less of an extravagance so I ordered it the next day and it arrived mid-week, and Terry got it out of its box today. (Re: tardiness: I, post-natally, have no truck with instructions and T - well, he works late then comes home and does nowt).
Like Horace, the DC-16 (it took us 12 days to name the baby, this could take a while) is fantastically engineered, with really clever touches that just can't be recreated in prose (poetry to follow). Terry was impressed with the battery charger/dock and found a little nook for it underneath the stairs; he then finished reading the instructions and found that the device has to be attached to the battery while it charges, so drilled two more holes further down the stairs and moved the little dock, and 'Dennis' (temporary name) now has a full-time home:
*Apologies to ?Black and Decker for use of their proprietary name for the hand-held vacuum cleaning device.
It's hard to make coffee sponge cake with espresso
Really, I'm going to have to invest in some instant coffee. Instant!
On Wednesday, I went the wrong way (thanks, TomTom) to see F and 9-week cutie, with a bunch of spare baby clothes (thanks, in.spite) and a flat sponge. I partially failed in my mission, which was to take some of the clothes Babs has grown out of and her two/too small sleeping bags, though I made up for it with some extras that she didn't want and some that she did, and we pledged as I left to add to the glamour in our lives by going together to Brent Cross some time soon.
As previously documented ("I don't really like chocolate"), F lives in a house is under renovation, with only a semi-functioning kitchen. Since she also has a tiny baby, and I'd invited myself over for mid-afternoon, I thought I'd better take a cake. And of course I like baking, and it makes me feel a little bit heroic that I can fit it in - though really that's more due to Babs being a good baby than to me being a good housewife/mother.
My mum's rule of thumb for sponge cakes scales up from 4oz of everything and 2 eggs, and because we were short on eggs I went for that size, even though the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book ('The cook's classic companion') showed a victoria sponge at 6oz, and I didn't bother to measure the cake tins. The cakes were consequently a little on the thin side, and no amount of raspberry jam and dredged icing sugar could disguise it*. The cake was pretty yummy, and our oven gives good top-crunch (for a day), but it tasted kind of dense, and straight-talking F didn't feel the need to refute it when I apologetically said so.
Terry was all, 'Oh! Cake?' when he found out it wasn't for keeping, so I promised to make him a chocolate cake the following night. He negotiated hard, and his coffee cake has duly made today, Saturday - 'When there's time to eat it.'Unfortunately on Saturday there is less time to make it, even with two pairs of hands. On Thursday evening I could have whipped one up while supper was cooking, today it went in the oven at 2pm, when I dashed up for a shower, having: put away the washing up, breastfed the baby, put away yesterday's washing, made breakfast for T and me, done two further loads of washing up, ditto two of laundry, watched Saturday Kitchen in bed with T while Babs slept for 60 minutes, poached fish for the baby's lunch, defrosted carrot for the baby's lunch, breastfed the baby following her 3 teaspoons of lunch, made tea for T, made lunch for T and me, made espresso for the cake and spilt nascent cake mixture on the floor while rescuing espresso from hob.
To be fair, Terry helped with the espresso, but even though we put even less water than he first put, it still wasn't strong enough. Sure, it was strong enough to be absolutely foul when I tasted it, but the baked cake has just a whiff of coffee to it, and the frosting - rendered so loose as to dribble down the sides of the cake** - likewise. So I ripped off a tip from my mum, from the coffee drizzle cake she made back in the days when I was too young to have a palate that could take coffee, and drizzled the remaining few tablespoons of coffee over the lower cake, into its open, porous bottom (now top). Then on with the frosting, and on with the top. I refrained from dredging icing sugar on the basis that the damn frosting (yup, Betty Crocker) was sweet enough, so it's not as pretty as it could be.
Fortunately, once I was done with flavouring and drizzling and frosting, it was time for afternoon tea. T's comment? 'All this needs is some icing sugar on top...'.
In my mind? If he'd only followed through with his promise - central to his negotiations - that he'd bring me a handful of instant coffee portions from the cutting room, left over from the shoot....
*Dammit. Not the professional outcome to whichI aspire.
** Ditto! Dammit!
On Wednesday, I went the wrong way (thanks, TomTom) to see F and 9-week cutie, with a bunch of spare baby clothes (thanks, in.spite) and a flat sponge. I partially failed in my mission, which was to take some of the clothes Babs has grown out of and her two/too small sleeping bags, though I made up for it with some extras that she didn't want and some that she did, and we pledged as I left to add to the glamour in our lives by going together to Brent Cross some time soon.
As previously documented ("I don't really like chocolate"), F lives in a house is under renovation, with only a semi-functioning kitchen. Since she also has a tiny baby, and I'd invited myself over for mid-afternoon, I thought I'd better take a cake. And of course I like baking, and it
My mum's rule of thumb for sponge cakes scales up from 4oz of everything and 2 eggs, and because we were short on eggs I went for that size, even though the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book ('The cook's classic companion') showed a victoria sponge at 6oz, and I didn't bother to measure the cake tins. The cakes were consequently a little on the thin side, and no amount of raspberry jam and dredged icing sugar could disguise it*. The cake was pretty yummy, and our oven gives good top-crunch (for a day), but it tasted kind of dense, and straight-talking F didn't feel the need to refute it when I apologetically said so.
Terry was all, 'Oh! Cake?' when he found out it wasn't for keeping, so I promised to make him a chocolate cake the following night. He negotiated hard, and his coffee cake has duly made today, Saturday - 'When there's time to eat it.'Unfortunately on Saturday there is less time to make it, even with two pairs of hands. On Thursday evening I could have whipped one up while supper was cooking, today it went in the oven at 2pm, when I dashed up for a shower, having: put away the washing up, breastfed the baby, put away yesterday's washing, made breakfast for T and me, done two further loads of washing up, ditto two of laundry, watched Saturday Kitchen in bed with T while Babs slept for 60 minutes, poached fish for the baby's lunch, defrosted carrot for the baby's lunch, breastfed the baby following her 3 teaspoons of lunch, made tea for T, made lunch for T and me, made espresso for the cake and spilt nascent cake mixture on the floor while rescuing espresso from hob.
To be fair, Terry helped with the espresso, but even though we put even less water than he first put, it still wasn't strong enough. Sure, it was strong enough to be absolutely foul when I tasted it, but the baked cake has just a whiff of coffee to it, and the frosting - rendered so loose as to dribble down the sides of the cake** - likewise. So I ripped off a tip from my mum, from the coffee drizzle cake she made back in the days when I was too young to have a palate that could take coffee, and drizzled the remaining few tablespoons of coffee over the lower cake, into its open, porous bottom (now top). Then on with the frosting, and on with the top. I refrained from dredging icing sugar on the basis that the damn frosting (yup, Betty Crocker) was sweet enough, so it's not as pretty as it could be.
Fortunately, once I was done with flavouring and drizzling and frosting, it was time for afternoon tea. T's comment? 'All this needs is some icing sugar on top...'.
In my mind? If he'd only followed through with his promise - central to his negotiations - that he'd bring me a handful of instant coffee portions from the cutting room, left over from the shoot....
*Dammit. Not the professional outcome to whichI aspire.
** Ditto! Dammit!
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