Experimentation

The break so far has not been great in terms of enough sleep or reading,* but it certainly has afforded me some time to try out some new recipes and mess around in the kitchen. So I made Christmas dinner, and the turkey wasn't quite as good as last year, but the sausagemeat stuffing (first time trying that) was really rather tasty. I also made some Jamie Oliver recipes - jerk ham (fabulous), homemade mulled wine (far too sweet - I think a smaller amount of sugar syrup and no vanilla pod next time), and some truffles with an experimental mix of ginger wine, cardamom and allspice - they were tasty, but I need to work on my presentation, certainly. Which is true for my life in general, I suspect.

* I've managed to re-read Pride & Prejudice and Bridget Jones' Diary, which is much sharper and darker than I remembered and much, much, much less like the film than I remembered. They toned down all the bigotry of Bridgets' relatives (a lot of casual racism that seems pretty realistic), and really toned down how integral her friends are to the book and indeed how little Mark Darcy really is in that book. So there you are.

Yowser

I have eaten my own body weight in roast potatoes. Which, given my eating habits since I got home, is a considerable number of roast potatoes.

Luckily, nothing more strenuous to do today than go and see Sherlock Holmes and drink tea. I don't understand those people who go sales shopping today - I can't imagine anything worse than trying to contain all my potato-induced-bulges into clothes that are too small but are a good deal. Maybe next week...

These Are a Few...

Home so far has consisted of: cheese; bacon sarnies; curry; a lot of footie; cricket; cryptic crosswords; decorating the Christmas tree; and a LOT of yorkshire tea.

It's been great.

Yuck

Your week in marriage bigots news: The stupid NY Senate has just voted by 38-24 to not allow gay marriage.

From Gawker:

And then it went to an up-and-down vote with no one having any idea whether it would pass or not, and then it didn't, because some Democratic senators are cowards, some Democratic senators are bigots, and all the Albany Republicans are both.

You have to laugh, because otherwise, it's just too depressing. But, DC passed a law allowing it there. Good work, capital, good work.

Others are thinking up innovative ways to challenge the status quo, such as the Californians who are trying to ban divorce to preserve the sanctity of marriage (and, of course, call the bluff of same sex marriage opponents), and the British straight couple who are challenging the government for not allowing them a civil union, in order to highlight the inequality between marriages and civil unions. So it's not all bad news.