Happy Burns Night!
Haggis! Neeps and tatties! Those are the things in this picture!
We’re having chicken fingers and instant mashed potato.
I like instant mashed potato. Don’t judge me.
I might have a whisky, though. Especially as I have to go finish filing my taxes now.
January 25, 2021 — 8:13 pm
Comments: 9
Farewell and good riddance…
Yay! These came today! They’re for making Chinese dumplings AKA potstickers AKA gyoza AKA Jiaozi AKA 餃子. Yes, of course I looked that last one up.
I love these things. Now I can make them!
I didn’t have any ground pork, so I didn’t bother making proper wonton wrappers either. I had some leftover puff pastry from a disastrous turkey pie I made the other day. That was totally wrong for potstickers but made pretty okay tiny sausage and cheese pasties.
I’m whistling and cooking and slowly backing away from 2020. No sudden moves, people, and we might just make it.
December 31, 2020 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 11
Merry Christmas!
Sandy Claws brought me one of these. Ever since my old office chair went to bits, I’ve been using a hard wooden dining chair at the computer. Elderly butts do not like this.
Ahhh…that’s better.
We are now post-presents but pre-Christmas dinner. We eat ours late.
The turkey is the largest we’ve ever had and there’s some trepidation about getting it into our usual roasting pan, not to mention the oven. It must have been a very peculiar-looking bird in life – its breast is disproportionately huge and its legs rather small.
We’ve had an excellent Christmas and we hope you have, too. We’re hoping to stretch the Christmas mellow across the weekend.
See you Monday!
December 25, 2020 — 7:22 pm
Comments: 22
Not going to lie: Old Christmas looks pretty lit. I’m thinking it was a pagan booze holiday.
Last day of work before Christmas today. That’s usually one of the most awesome days of the year, but 2020 has the power to dampen even that. I’ve had so much time off this year, what’s a few more days?
Still, we are on course for a fine Christmas. We have an obscene amount of food, a beautiful tree, a selection of presents and twelve days of bone idleness ahead.
I like bone idleness. I’m good at it.
I’ll still post, but my heart is with the comfy chair. Talk about whatever you like.
p.s. I’ve looked at the picture some more. Is Pagan Santa wearing a three-toed variant of two-toed shoes?
p.p.s. Wait, did he steal that baby from the house in the background?
December 22, 2020 — 7:21 pm
Comments: 12
Happy Solstice, everyone!
I used to avoid celebrating the solstice, such is my disdain for the larping idiots who gather at Stonehenge every year. Well, ha!ha! they couldn’t do it this year, but you can watch sunrise at Stonehenge via English Heritage’s live stream. Spoiler: this is England. It’s completely clouded over. Go watch dark gray turn light gray, if you like.
I am told the Egyptian Temple of Karnak was built with a solstice alignment, as were some of the towers in Angkor Wat in Cambodia. In Peru, the Temple of the Sun in Machu Picchu has a window that the sun shines through on this day, illuminating a ceremonial stone.
The Roman Saturnalia was a solstice party, and how.
The Chinese have the Dongzhi Festival which, like most Chinese celebrations, revolves around food. Here I took a detour and looked up multiple recipes for glutinous rice balls or tang yuan. I made myself hungry.
In dusty places like Iran and Afghanistan, they have Shab e Yalda, the birth of Winter, on this day. They traditionally eat fresh fruit and think of Summer.
So have an extra helping of gruel tonight! The days are getting longer!
And where did I find this list of holiday delights? Oprah Magazine, of course. I’m not proud.
December 21, 2020 — 4:43 pm
Comments: 7
Have a krakentastic Thanksgiving, y’all
We enthusiastically observe Thanksgiving in this household, thank you very much, but it’s an evening meal for us. It’s only 6 in the evening here, so still prep time.
If you can’t tell, that’s me folding an obscene amount of butter into a sweet potato, before adding a disgraceful amount of brown sugar. In the Souf, where I am from, you’d top off the dish with marsh mallows before baking. I haven’t got any and don’t particularly care for them anyway, so you’re spared that outrage.
When I was a kid, we never could believe our luck that candied yams were considered a vegetable.
Eh. Food looks gross in black and white, don’t it? I hope you have had, are having or will have a splendid feast today and have much in your life to be thankful for!
November 26, 2020 — 5:51 pm
Comments: 14
I’m dreaming of a white chicken…
Baby Sam wishes you the merriest of Christmases!
December 25, 2019 — 12:00 pm
Comments: 11
…1843…
It was last posting day for Christmas cards today. I think I got all mine done, though most I got to hand people in person. Fortunately. Stamps are not cheap.
And the thing in the pictures is the very first commercial Christmas card, 1843. Invented by British civil servant Henry Cole, who realized he was spending much of his Decembers writing holiday letters and thought there has to be a better way.
There’s a fun little post about it on the Library of Congress blog.
They take their Christmas cards seriously here. Although maybe it’s me — maybe people take them seriously in the States, too, and I’m just rough and unsocialized.
Did you send any this year?
December 18, 2019 — 7:25 pm
Comments: 11
Actually…
This would be kind of neat. Can you imagine making a melty little ice Stonehenge around the cheese cubes and canapés? I’d like that.
But Uncle B wouldn’t. He’s British. They don’t do ice.
We get catalogues and emails from all the heritage sites and museums. There’s some really nice things in there and OH HOLY SHIT IT’S £600.
p.s. you can rule out anything that involves a trip to London. Only crazy people go there now.
December 10, 2019 — 10:16 pm
Comments: 18
A nasty, wasty weasel
We make a big deal out of Christmas. I insist. I love festivals of self-indulgence.
Maybe being childless does that. Or maybe I’m naturally a selfish piece of shit.
But it finally happened this year: we have run out of ideas for gifts. Anything either of us could possibly want we either already have or can’t afford. We had decided on a frugal Christmas for sheer lack of any great desire, and we’re still coming up short.
I know a little weasel who’s going to spend the next couple of days paging through amazon.com.
p.s. I made Uncle B sit through The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. It doesn’t travel well.
December 9, 2019 — 9:45 pm
Comments: 22