A post not about cats, but cooking

Last night, I attempted to make Arthurian fudge cookies. Two-thirds of the batch I cooked last night, and they melted in the oven and turned into a passable if very thin brownie slice. (K, I have a packet for you in payment for finding the recipe...)
The rest of the batch I refrigerated over night, and they stayed in cookie shape, but burnt on the bottom before their tops went shiny and cracked as per the recipe. Sigh. The refrigerated dough had the texture of ice-cream, however, and was positively delicious in its own right. (ed: actually a few of the cookies survied and they look crap but taste awesome. munch munch munch.)

Yesterday I went to the shop to buy milk and was assaulted by my inner carnivore, resulting in the purchase of topside fillets. I suspect I'm a little iron defficient- I bought some spinnach as well, and despite the fact that it tastes completely gross, I munched on raw spinnach leaves with great relish all the way home. Om nom nom.
I attempted to make Topside Cordon Bleu (instead of veal or chicken). Which would've been an odd taste combination anyway, except that the cheese melted right out of the middle, and I accidentally crumbed it in cornflour instead of breadcrumbs, not knowing my way around Awesome's pantry as well as I know my mother's. On the other hand, I concocted absolutely stunning potatoes in garlic and chive butter.

On a more successful note, I had my Wife out to dinner and fed her Spinnach and Ricotta Aglotti, and impressed her immensely with my ability to make white sauce without a recipe. She says she knew she was onto a good thing when she married me.

Oh, and on an entirely unrelated note, you should all go and watch this short and humourous clip about medieval music.

Song of the week

Does not appear to be available on Youtube but you can download it here.

Lyrics

Dark Sonnet

I don't think that I've been in love as such
although I liked a few folk pretty well
Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch
for brave men died and empires rose and fell
for love, girls follow boys to foreign lands
and men have followed women into hell
In plays and poems someone understands
there's something makes us more than blood and bone
And more than biological demands
for me love's like the wind unseen, unknown
I see the trees are bending where it's been
I know that it leaves wreckage where it's blown
I really don't know what I love you means
I think it means don't leave me here alone

©2005 Neil Gaiman

Recording by his PA, The Fabulous Lorraine, in her role as one half of the goth duo Lorraine a'Malena.

(no subject)

I have a terrible case of the hiccups.
Miss Kitty is fed up with me spending all my time on the computer and periodically prances up onto the desk and plonks herself down between me and the keyboard.

In other news, this living all by mineself out in the 'burbs is lonely. kayloulee, goblinpaladin, you feel like coming out here (say, tomorrow or tuesday night- after that I have to disappear into a pile of Gawain) and helping me eat the rest of the Spinach and Riccotta Aglotti, and save me from talkin' to myself for a few hours?

In an attempt to alleviate the boredom and/or expend some of the many many pieces of bungled cookie slice I've eaten today, I went for a walk. I had intended to just go for a bit of a wander around the streets- Lane Cove is a nice place, where people actually smile when they pass you, and sometimes they even say 'hi'! Anyway, instead I stumbled across the Lane Cove-Tambourine Bay bushwalk. It's *beautiful*. It runs between two main roads at this end, but down quite a steep ravine so that you can't notice it. It's lovely open bushland- not the dense scrubby stuff we have at home- and when I got to the point where the path was too boggy for my slippery boots, I tacked off and did a little bushbashing down to a pretty little creek. As I was standing there just above the creek wondering what I should do next, I realised that the other bank was someone's backyard, and made my exit feeling vaguely like a trespasser. But I intend to bring some Sensible Shoes back and walk the whole way down to Tambourine Bay before I leave here...