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I have, today, made my first Soup of the autumn: carrot and leek and celery and a couple of potatoes for good measure (and I then added frozen peas to my portion, because I like them cold and not at all cooked and definitely not reheated repeatedly over the course of a week). Bread and cheese, fruit to follow. I didn't manage Monday Morning Soup Ritual this week, as you can tell from the fact that it's Tuesday, but. Soup.

Some other bits and pieces: I have reached the stage of Squash Week where I have more recipes I want to make than I have squash with which to make them (... and one spaghetti squash) (for which I have at least some open EatYourBooks tabs). I hit refresh in my Oxfam tab aaaaaand the sale has cycled around to 30% off 3+ books. I have a chilli order ready to go as soon as my new debit card arrives OR I get over myself and see whether the credit card is actually behaving. There is a batch of onions caramelising in the Instant Pot. The current pain book is abruptly unexpectedly absorbing -- it's much more Sociology Of Pain than I'd quite been expecting, but it's potentially building to making at least some of the argument I want to from a refreshingly different angle to everything else I've come across in my background reading so far, and in the meantime in spite of my frustrations with it it's prompting lots of Useful Thoughts.

And I am wearing my Seasonal Leggings (courtesy of Mardy Bum, findable primarily on Facebook, or Instagram for a bit of an idea) and my Extremely Enthusiastic Slippers, like so. ( Read more... )

Reading. No finishes, lots of fragments.

Started: The Old Guard: Opening Fire, Rucka et al. Their faces are WRONG and I don't LIKE it. (Shared Reading Experience.) I also don't like The Smoking, and I really feel the absence of the baklava scene.

In progress: Forgotten Fruits, Stocks, which despite saying I was going to DNF I have continued working my way through, with occasional grumpy squawks; Index, a history of the, Duncan, in very small nibbles; and I'm now a third of the way through Ouch!, Kerr + McRobbie, which is much more sociology than I was expecting when I bought it, having failed at that point to register that one of the authors is a sociologist. A bunch of the neuroanatomy is irritatingly (and unnecessarily! they could have just been less specific!) wrong; we've had a lengthy case study focussing on endometriosis but as yet no indication that they're actually considering the role of ongoing tissue damage. Not ruling out that they'll get there, though.

Dreamwidth catch-up: UP TO SEPTEMBER.

Listening. Cornish waves recording.

Cooking. Ridiculous Textures Of Beetroot from The Modern Vegetarian (good, did like); mildly underwhelmed by Bengali five-spice roasted squash, a totally acceptable meal it was very pleasant to be able to stick in the oven and forget about while I did something else; and stir-fried pumpkin with cashews from Rosa's Thai Café: the Vegetarian Cookbook.

Buttermilk continues to work. Managed some bread. Baked some crabapples and then singularly failed to actually make the ginger-and-lime caramel to coat them in, so this lot probably needs composting and I'll try again next week. Maybe. (Raymond Blanc recipe, from The Lost Orchard, which I much preferred at least so far to Forgotten Fruits.)

Eating. Particularly excited this week by Limonera pears, which are apparently DPO Spanish-cultivated Docteur Jules Guyot! All of the descriptions say "very reminiscent of Williams, flavour not as good unless you get them just right", to which I add that they are sliiiiightly firmer fleshed in a way that I think is an active plus.

I am very much enjoying yoghurt + hazelnuts + a drizzle of quince syrup.

Creating. ... took some photos of some plants?

Growing. MORE SAFFRON. Still very excited by the saffron. Also the chillis. (Home saffron also now definitively coming up, in the trough if not around the fig, but no sign of it intending to flower, alas.)

Cannot tell if the windowsill lemongrass is in fact just dried out or if it's in the Growing Many Roots stage. Grumpily aware that going digging is counterproductive. Pineapple continues pineapple.

Observing. A MUNTJAC. There was, at the plot, A Great Rustling out of the plum tree on the neighbouring plot, and I looked up and thought, for an entire moment, "gosh that's a remarkably large fox with a remarkably short tail", before my brain caught up with the data it was actually being sent. Less than twenty metres away. Think that's the closest one of them's ever been to me (at least that I've noticed)!

Debit card in amended name theoretically on its way to me. Two sets of Objects belonging to Players are now OUT OF MY HOUSE and IN THE HANDS OF ROYAL MAIL. And on the way back up the hill, when I was in less of a hurry, I paused to Observe Some Plants.

Ergo: Some Plants.

1. did eventually get myself out to the plot (after aborting the first attempt and going back to bed when I realised I'd made it almost to the main road without my bike helmet). successfully acquired More Saffron.
2. cooked a lot of beetroot, most of which I grew, for dinner -- one of the books I acquired from Oxfam just for interest, The Modern Vegetarian, has a "textures of beetroot": keftedes, tzatziki, a bulgur pilaf and a salad using the greens. I had a mix of colours, and the ombre gold-to-pink were very pretty in the salad. (and picking over the leaves very, very carefully yielded a tiny snail! who is now in the viv.)
3. I am continuing very slowly on the mend from the probably-a-cold from nearly a month ago: today I didn't get any active minutes walking up and down inside the house to hit step goal.
4. the post brought Fancy Chocolate. even some of it is Fancy Chocolate in my preferred flavour of same!
5. I have somehow achieved having my accounts almost agree with reality about how much cash is in my wallet! and I think I've found the remains of at least one Missing Receipt in the back pocket of a set of trousers, which does at least provide an explanation. it is very satisfying when I actually manage this.

Reading. ( Brosh, Woodin, Saunders, Stocks, Duncan )

Watching. Another Farscape, while bleaching A this morning. ( Read more... )

Playing. The Tukoni: Forest Keepers demo. Once again a very soothing delight: potter gently about making other forest creatures happy, in a setting of gorgeous art. Exactly what our frazzled nerves needed.

Quite a bit of Fluxx.

Cooking. A butternut squash and quince stew with pipián, courtesy of the Wahaca cookbook.

Eating. A picnic of misc takeaway from Hammersmith station complex on Saturday afternoon! Ben's Cookies! Strawberries! Pizza Express this evening because No!

Exploring. The Autumn London Pen Show, where I spent only the planned amount of money on the planned thing and was delighted with the outcome. :) Little bit of a poke around Hammersmith followed by the Westfield centre thereafter.

Growing. Spinach! So much spinach! I am starting to harvest it. I am very pleased by this. And of course SAFFRON of which there has been LOTS (i.e. I might have enough home-grown saffron to make one or possibly two recipes, which is vastly more than I've ever had before and Extremely Exciting).

Observing. The bat! Possibly even two of them this evening, definitely not gone to sleep yet.

Another nine strands today. :)

(Photo actually from Wednesday 8th, of the first one!)

In My Ridiculous Pen Collection, I have a Lamy 2000 (largely inspired by Ant Newman of UKFountainPens waxing lyrical). I got it second hand, as with all but one of my pens; the one that showed up cheap came with an F nib.

( Read more... )