Increasingly, I have to trick the dog into going out for a walk. At the sight of the lead she hides under the kitchen table and I have to lay a trail of gravy bones to get her into the porch (where there is nowhere to hide….). She has a point. The rain is ceaseless,Continue reading “Coorying In”
Category Archives: baking and cooking
Reversing the sausage…
We are back to alternating days of grey sleet and rain and frosty sunshine. Comfort food has come to the fore and I am snazzing up my porridge with the pears I bottled in late summer. I thought I had overdone the bottling this year but I am powering through them. I like the wholeContinue reading “Reversing the sausage…”
Asceticism Abandoned
This morning, after considering the bathroom scales, I donned leggings and exercise wear with the tentative thought that, if the weather was not sufficiently clement for gardening and Lachlan was hogging the dog, I might hit the exercise bike. Obviously not immediately, I put a jumper on too and determined to work up to it.Continue reading “Asceticism Abandoned”
Listing to port
This is the time of year when the dreariness of the weather (stuck on the spectrum from drizzle to downpour), the necessity of eating the remaining dribs and drobs of Christmas chocolate and the sheer impossibility of deciding on and then commencing a new project together force a sedate (and sedentary) reconsideration of the pastContinue reading “Listing to port”
Rebooting
Between the celebratory bookends of Christmas Day/Boxing Day and Hogmanay/New Year’s Day I have successfully rebooted the Ruthven system by switching myself off and then on again. Several days of barely cooking have passed and, somewhat astonishingly, the leftovers from the gargantuan turkey and slightly more reasonably sized ham are largely all used up. AsideContinue reading “Rebooting”
T-1
I have finally sat down with a gin and tonic and my feet are gently throbbing. However, I think the initiative has been regained. Monkey’s jumper is complete – so that’s the most important thing done. Wrapping paper has been plastered on anything that looked like it might be a present and some that didContinue reading “T-1”
The Christmas warp speed effect
So it has been a few days since I hit the keyboard. “Why so?” I hear you ask. Reader, I was blindsided, as I am every year, by the realisation that Christmas is only a week away and I am sitting on a gazillion half finished projects all designed to be completed by Christmas and,Continue reading “The Christmas warp speed effect”
Better than Gravybones
I have established that there are some things Lyra likes more than gravy bones (her dog treat of choice). Usually any wandering off or other errant activity can be interrupted, and order restored, by bellowing loudly “Baby puppy, gravy bones” (and producing said treat). Over the last few walks, however, we established the limits ofContinue reading “Better than Gravybones”
Gourmet Sunday #2
Yesterday was my second turn in the “Gourmet Sunday” slot. The boys were heading off to do a friend’s garden so Lyra and I would be left to let the day develop. I was up with the lark (or by 10 past 8 at any rate) and had two loads of washing on, Saturday night’sContinue reading “Gourmet Sunday #2”
The corn snack universe sends a gift
Yesterday was Keith’s gourmet Sunday. A fine rack of lamb was consumed and dinner conversation meandered from the sublime to the ridiculous as per usual. Ignorance being no barrier to heated debate at Ruthven, Lachlan and I piled into a spirited argument on the meaning of infinity. We are nothing if not ambitious. (This provedContinue reading “The corn snack universe sends a gift”