I've just got home from Christmas Day celebrations with my family and tuned into new Dr Who. I'm currently writing this from underneath my bed where I am trying to recover from the shock of the revamped opening credits and score, because they are clearly the worst thing to have happened to Who since the last time it did, whenever that was.
As I recover, I shall recount my day to soothe the awfulness of it all. My day started at 8, when I awoke and padded downstairs for a coffee and a sneaky peak at the goodies Santa had left. A bag bulged promisingly, and I settled myself in front of the television. I promptly got out a book, because early morning television opens up whole new vistas of awfulness, and five minutes of Horton Hears A Who was sufficient to convince me that the Jim Carrey I grew up with and loved has finally gone the way of Candy's dog.
Before long, I was joined by my parents and finally my sisters. Nobody in my family has ever really been a morning person, and that distaste of hours that finish in -AM has clearly only grown in my absence. However, we got down to tearing open paper and tugging at sellotape with first joy, and then frustration, and finally desperation as we tried to use teeth, scissors, and at one point a tin opener to get into our gifts. No luck. My mother wraps presents as though she is not wrapping presents, but in fact binding a lesser demon. I suspect the reason nobody's seen Cthulu is because my mother sent him a gift, and he's still trying to get into it. He's persistent.
With gifts given and received - "What I got" is a game that has been played all day on Facebook, and quite frankly it's bored me to tears, so if you're interested in what I got then ask - we got dressed and made ready to head out into Christmas Day.
So that took me all of half an hour, and gave me an hour with which to amuse myself. I watched the first episode of Beauty and the Beast, which was quite frankly abysmal, and ironed shirts. I grow a little more like Jeeves and Wooster every day; I am still quite unforgivably posh, but I am mastering the art of "Indeed," "Very good," and "Of course." I am yet to fully grasp the intricacies of "Are you quite sure?"; it tends to come out more sarcastic than intended. But we live and learn.
One of the things I learnt today, for example, was that even amongst the morally bankrupt and the unrepentantly bigoted there is a spark of creativity; apparently "If it's not all white, it's not all right," which is a charming thing to say and has a masterful cadence while maintaining the repugnancy of white supremacy. I must note that the speaker controlled themselves masterfully, as they chose to speak this choice phrase before my cousin's very brown, Thai fiancée came in. It's the little touches.
I shan't bore anyone reading this with the intricacies of my family; I am quite sure there are similar pockets of your family with whom you do not speak, perhaps because of a difference of politics, of opinion on rights, or even religion. There may be some overlap, in which case, bingo! There are no prizes.
The only other thing of note is that I set a pan full of brandy on fire and poured it over a christmas cake, much to the consternation of our youngest family member, and my parents outed my dog, which I strongly oppose on ideological grounds and that it should be up to him to come out whenever he wants.
I'm back to Dr Who, where I'm pretty sure a mere 8 minutes in we've had a gay, cross-species wedded couple. I look forward to seeing how well that goes down over on BBC America. I am sure reaction will be 100% positive.
In any case, it looks good so far.
Showing posts with label flambé. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flambé. Show all posts
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
Saturday, 22 December 2012
The road flows like a river
Which at the moment, in the UK, is not a metaphor. On the way home today we passed two canoeists and a frigate. Still, I am now warmly ensconced in the jolly old bosom of the family home, replete with Christmas tree that is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
I shall try to give some idea of its magnitude. In Little Shop of Horrors, Audrey II starts tiny and grows until he takes up an entire corner of the room.
The Christmas tree from which I am cowering would eat Audrey II and still have room for Audrey III. I'm stunned there are still presents under the tree. Perhaps the tree is only carnivorous. Perhaps it is cannibalistic. I fear discovering it making its insidious, arboreal way into my room in the dead of night, departing silently and leaving only a pile of needles that are incredibly hard to pick up.
So: yesterday I finished off the last of the food in my fridge, and knocked together a carbonara. The recipe is quite simple; 25g parmesan, 25g pecorino, 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk all combined with a very decent helping of pepper. Like seriously decent, it's called carbonara, so let's see plenty of black pepper in there. You can use the egg white to make almost any cocktail better, binding the ingredients and giving a thicker, creamer finish and a lovely foam. Start cooking some pasta, up to you how much and what kind. While that's happening, fry off about 75g of bacon - I use lardons, because they have some nice fatty bits that render down really well - with a glove of garlic. Get rid of the garlic with a slotted spoon. Mix the egg-cheese-pepper mixture together gently. Drain the pasta, chuck it over the bacon, get it coated in grease, and then throw on mixture. Stir it around, coating the pasta in that tasty goodness. Chuck it all in a dish. Eat it. Crush your enemies. Don't forget to wash up.
Now, I had no garlic. Most people would ask their neighbours for some garlic, or possibly just miss it out.
I doused my lardons in Zubrowka, a Polish bison-grass vodka, and then set it on fire.
It was awesome.
If you flambé in wine, you get a reddy-orange flame, which is awesome. Vodka, by comparison, burns blue - bright blue - with a yellow edge. It gives one a massive rush, especially if one realises far too late that one has left the damnable spoon in the ban and consequently set fire to that as well. Puffs out very easily, though, so no problems. It also gives the bacon a lovely, light, almost woody, almost citrussy taste and goes incredibly well with everything else in the mix. Highly recommend what I discovered by accident.
This morning, however, did not go so well. Having left all of my presents at the flat, I found myself queueing for the Eurostar behind the most nightmarish, upper-class twit-of-the-year couple in the world. Oh, how they nattered in nasal towns about if he knew "Biffy" Jones who's a Westminster man, and if she knows Sheikh Al-Banier because he played cricket with him at Eton, don't you know, and before very long the temptation to unhinge my jaw and attempt to swallow them like a snake.
Bizarrely, it got worse, when they started talking about their internships. He is at the Assemblée Générale, because "Uncle David at the Ministry had a little word, you know" and she's at Vogue, because "Mummy knows the editor or something." Both agreed, however, that absolutely nobody gets a job through the normal methods.
To every entitled twatting toff who's ever got an internship or a job through family ties, not because they're qualified, but because Uncle David is at the Ministry or Mummy knows the editor or because your grandmother is the Queen - don't trumpet it. Especially not in France, because there is a long history of revolutions here against upper-class twits.
Still; it's easy to take a step back and laugh at them. Their lives sounded utterly dull, and their chatter as inane as its contents. I've learnt this year, in just three months, that it's really an excellent idea to take a step back when one's instinct is to explode. Or swallow people with your dislocated jaw.
On the other hand, when it comes to the NRA, just feel free to get absolutely furious.
I cannot, I can not believe that there are still people who think that making more guns available is a suitable strategy, that armed guards in schools is not madness, and that a press conference in which you announce such a bizarre position but refuse to take questions is going to do any good at all.
It's the start of a new era, people. The Mayans were right. We just read it wrong.
I shall try to give some idea of its magnitude. In Little Shop of Horrors, Audrey II starts tiny and grows until he takes up an entire corner of the room.
The Christmas tree from which I am cowering would eat Audrey II and still have room for Audrey III. I'm stunned there are still presents under the tree. Perhaps the tree is only carnivorous. Perhaps it is cannibalistic. I fear discovering it making its insidious, arboreal way into my room in the dead of night, departing silently and leaving only a pile of needles that are incredibly hard to pick up.
So: yesterday I finished off the last of the food in my fridge, and knocked together a carbonara. The recipe is quite simple; 25g parmesan, 25g pecorino, 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk all combined with a very decent helping of pepper. Like seriously decent, it's called carbonara, so let's see plenty of black pepper in there. You can use the egg white to make almost any cocktail better, binding the ingredients and giving a thicker, creamer finish and a lovely foam. Start cooking some pasta, up to you how much and what kind. While that's happening, fry off about 75g of bacon - I use lardons, because they have some nice fatty bits that render down really well - with a glove of garlic. Get rid of the garlic with a slotted spoon. Mix the egg-cheese-pepper mixture together gently. Drain the pasta, chuck it over the bacon, get it coated in grease, and then throw on mixture. Stir it around, coating the pasta in that tasty goodness. Chuck it all in a dish. Eat it. Crush your enemies. Don't forget to wash up.
Now, I had no garlic. Most people would ask their neighbours for some garlic, or possibly just miss it out.
I doused my lardons in Zubrowka, a Polish bison-grass vodka, and then set it on fire.
It was awesome.
If you flambé in wine, you get a reddy-orange flame, which is awesome. Vodka, by comparison, burns blue - bright blue - with a yellow edge. It gives one a massive rush, especially if one realises far too late that one has left the damnable spoon in the ban and consequently set fire to that as well. Puffs out very easily, though, so no problems. It also gives the bacon a lovely, light, almost woody, almost citrussy taste and goes incredibly well with everything else in the mix. Highly recommend what I discovered by accident.
This morning, however, did not go so well. Having left all of my presents at the flat, I found myself queueing for the Eurostar behind the most nightmarish, upper-class twit-of-the-year couple in the world. Oh, how they nattered in nasal towns about if he knew "Biffy" Jones who's a Westminster man, and if she knows Sheikh Al-Banier because he played cricket with him at Eton, don't you know, and before very long the temptation to unhinge my jaw and attempt to swallow them like a snake.
Bizarrely, it got worse, when they started talking about their internships. He is at the Assemblée Générale, because "Uncle David at the Ministry had a little word, you know" and she's at Vogue, because "Mummy knows the editor or something." Both agreed, however, that absolutely nobody gets a job through the normal methods.
To every entitled twatting toff who's ever got an internship or a job through family ties, not because they're qualified, but because Uncle David is at the Ministry or Mummy knows the editor or because your grandmother is the Queen - don't trumpet it. Especially not in France, because there is a long history of revolutions here against upper-class twits.
Still; it's easy to take a step back and laugh at them. Their lives sounded utterly dull, and their chatter as inane as its contents. I've learnt this year, in just three months, that it's really an excellent idea to take a step back when one's instinct is to explode. Or swallow people with your dislocated jaw.
On the other hand, when it comes to the NRA, just feel free to get absolutely furious.
I cannot, I can not believe that there are still people who think that making more guns available is a suitable strategy, that armed guards in schools is not madness, and that a press conference in which you announce such a bizarre position but refuse to take questions is going to do any good at all.
It's the start of a new era, people. The Mayans were right. We just read it wrong.
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