shadowspar

1. Bookshop.org is now doing ebooks in the UK. Unlike Hive, they do not apply DRM to everything. V excited about this!
2. I think -- think -- I have worked out an Acceptable Wagamama order, at least for the time being. I'm mildly annoyed about needing to order extra vegetables in order to have enough vegetables in my vegetable noodle dish, though. (The yasai pad thai + wok-fried greens is not My Favourite Thing They've Ever Done, but it is better than anything else I have managed to make the current menu disgorge. Which is useful, because we have A Routine, and it involves Wagamama.)
3. I have POACHED SOME QUINCE (I am turning windfalls I located round the corner into cake, and the Gift Quince are probably going to turn into a Ruby Violet sorbet recipe). I am going to make a cake, probably with added bay leaves, as I think I mentioned, probably tomorrow but the quince won't hurt for spending a bit longer sat in syrup. I am contemplating the merits of showing up on the doorstep of the folk with the quince tree, with some cake, and being all "hello yes I made this with windfalls onto the public path, I will very happily make you more things :) out of quince :) if you don't know what to do with them :))) which I am KIND OF ASSUMING YOU DON'T given that the branches overhanging your garden are still COVERED IN THE THINGS, unlike the branches overhanging the public byway..." (The social anxiety almost certainly means I won't actually do this, but I am, you know, considering.)
4. Meanwhile today's poking around at recipe books introduced me to the concept of medlar sticky toffee pudding, which is now extremely high up my list of things to do with this year's medlar as and when we get any. (Recipe is in a book I'm not actually going to get from Oxfam, or at the Torygraph.)
5. I continue to really enjoy looking at the Pelikan Art Collection pens (further links from within that one). It is possible I tripped and fell and spent more time reading about them this morning.

1. Clean, hot, on-demand running water.
2. I do not thus far feel particularly inspired by any of the recipes in Mary Woodin's The Painted Garden Cookbook, but I am very much enjoying leafing through the watercolours.
3. Bread came out of the oven not terribly long ago and will be breakfast tomorrow; I'm looking forward to it (probably with spiced medlar jelly, yes yes).
4. Continuity Gripes notwithstanding, I have this evening been extremely glad to have several October Daye short stories I'd not yet got to.
5. The pen I was using to take notes on The Challenge of Pain was running out of ink juuust enough that I was having to have repeated attempts at the odd letter, but not enough that it stopped writing before I was done making said notes. Great Satisfaction Achieved (and I'm hopeful that the thorough bath it has just had will mean it starts behaving better...)
6. Various greenhouse peppers continue to pep. The purple jalapeños are thus far mysteriously very much green, the thing that I think is a poblano (there was a mishap with labels) is setting fruit, and I've got no idea what exactly the short very bushy thing is but that too is now covered in flowers so with a little bit of luck I might even find out soon.
7. The second sowing of kohlrabi I'd entirely given up on... appears to be coming up after all???
8. A is a Very Good A Indeed and has finished unpacking the car following the event back in the first half of September. Before we wind up driving it across London again. And has cleared a bunch of the pile of Misc to take out to store in the garage.
9. Fancy moisturiser.
10. Warm Bed. yes. good. off I go.

And then today's cookbook browsing introduced me to the concept of allorino! But the internet can't agree on whether it should be made with bay leaves, bay flowers, or bay berries. So clearly the correct solution here is Some Of Each, right.

(I am also contemplating whether I want to add finely chopped fresh bay to the quince buckwheat upside-down cake that is high on my priority list for things to cook over the next few days, given how much I love the Ottolenghi lemon & bay cake...)

Meanwhile, my other recreational reading today introduced me to the concept of the "Brompton Cocktail".

( End-of-life care circa the 1980s, with specific reference to terminal cancer. )

Reading. ( Brosh, McMorland Hunter & Hughes, Melzack & Wall )

Dreamwidth! Down to two and a half months behind.

Writing. So many e-mails about objects. So many.

Watching. Farscape S02E06, Picture if You Will. The discussion about which of the Highly Specific Fetish Big Bads it was who was resurrecting in this particular context was entertaining in terms of highlighting the, you know, motifs. Of the work.

Playing. We have just managed some Fluxx. <3

Cooking. Batch of puff pastry for the sake of making two (of the three) things in East that call for it (because I could not quite bring myself to buy pre-made). Pleased with how the puff came out; mildly dubious about both the tomato, pistachio + saffron tart and the banana tarte tatin, but on the level of "I am unlikely to make these again", not "I regret making them".

Eating. On Tuesday we hit the point of Make The Internet Bring Us Pizza. The Pizza was very welcome.

Yesterday, Saturday, we went to say goodbye to Ruby Violet, i.e. we had cake for breakfast, along with hot chocolate. The flavours were all ones I was familiar with but I'm still pleased to have had them. (It is not impossible I will decide I want to make another trip by myself, though, especially given that they currently have the malted milk on...)

As mentioned we then also availed ourselves of an Ethiopian-and-Eritrean Veggie Combo and a piece of Japanese Curry Bread, both of which I am pleased to have experienced.

Exploring. St Pancras Waterpoint! Brief turn through Camley Street Natural Park.

Growing. Spinach that I thought was unlikely to still be viable turns out to in fact still be Extremely Viable! Spinach is go! And the lambs' lettuce has self-seeded nicely (so in fact I also had some of that plus some allotment rocket accompanying the tomato tart). Tomatoes continue to produce tomatoes. Peppers various looked very happy last time I went to see them so now I want to overwinter them all. At home, the pineapple continues to grow and the lemongrass isn't obviously dead yet (and I'm doing something right with at least the larger of the two orchids...)

Observing. BAT, extremely obliging with the aerobatics. Good sunsets. Cyclamen various. Moon.

Ruby Violet, my favourite source of ice cream, are continuing as a business (I feel like that bit is important to say first) but will alas be closing their King's Cross parlour for the last time at 5 p.m. Sunday next, the 5^th of October. They're apparently still intending to have their ice cream van at Granary Square during the summer, and to have a variety of "pop-up shops" around London, but... gosh I have a lot of feelings about the amount of post-therapy ice cream I have eaten at the lovely big wooden table indoors and on the benches and grass outside.

So today we went to say goodbye (and I managed to drag a university friend into joining us, as they're also independently fond), in the form of Dessert For Breakfast: apple crumble + the hazelnut & hazelnut brittle ice cream for me; sticky toffee pudding and coffee mocha ripple for A. Hot chocolate for both of us. (I'm very glad we had the Afternoon Tea Experience in 2023 for Animals Week; by the time I thought to try booking a farewell repeat it'd gone from the online shop.)

We followed this up with some slightly more savoury food from around the entire Coal Drops Yard situation (one veggie combo from an Ethiopian-and-Eritrean stall, mostly for me; one Japanese curry bread mostly for A); fifteen minutes or thereabouts poking around St Pancras Waterpoint, an old water tower that was having a serendipitous open day; and a quick poke around the Camley Street Natural Park, which A had not previously met.

I'm very glad we did it.