Why This Is Hell

Yesterday was a bit of a trudge, not settling to write, but today, despite an expotition to Paddock Wood and the other Tunbridge Wells, has been more productive of reading. Tomorrow I shall tackle Shikasta.

I awoke this morning to birdsong and a crunching noise; the crunching outlasted the birdsong briefly. A sparrow sang as it went, leg by leg. The trip to Paddock Wood was to see a crucifixion exhibition, the centrepiece of what was designs by Marc Chagall for stained glass windows in Tudeley church. There was another Chagall, a recent discovery, a Gilbert Spencer, a Graham Sutherland or two, a Lee Miller, comic books. Interesting. Then I walked back towards the station and caught a bus to Tunbridge Wells where I was made angry by being diddled out of change and had a sneaky pint of Harvey's Sussex Best. I'd not done this end of Tunbridge Wells before - oddly at the Pantiles, I'd had the sense I was missing something, in fact I thought finding the Pantiles was the rest of Tunbridge Wells, but I hadn't gone uphill from the station before. Despite the coffee shops, I think I prefer my TW. But I found a Julian Graves and bought dried fruit and a Rooks and bought some pork, which even now is slow roasting and smells delicious.


( LXXIV: William S. Burroughs, Port of Saints (1973) )

( LXXV: Doris Lessing, Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971) )

( LXXVI: Barry Malzberg, The Destruction of the Temple (1973) )

I made these for when we were playing golf this week - though managed to eat about half the stash before I got to N's, and B happily munched another third. N demanded the recipe and made his own version, which was much stiffer, and used broken chocolate bars. I found his dough difficult to work, and resorted to a rolling pin. Mine came out rather flat - think ginger nuts - his more rounded. The consensus was that mine just had the edge on taste/texture but it's a close run thing.




Chocolate Chip Cookies

The measures are in American cups (8 fl oz, about 200g??), although I used British ones (5 fl oz) even though I'd looked it up.

1/2 cup butter - that's a mean half of your standard 250g pack. Use unsalted if you like
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar - or 1.5 cups of white sugar and add some black treacle. In fact add black treacle anyway.
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Chocolate chips - up to 350g, but I got away with 100g or so
2 1/4 cups plain flour - that's probably more than a pound. 500g
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt

Soften the butter, let cool, and mix with sugar, eggs and vanilla.

Mix flour, bicarbe, salt in a bowl.

Stir the dry into the wet.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Roll bits of the dough into balls. Depending on how claggy your mix is, you may wish to flatten them before you put then on a greased baking tray.

Cook at 375F/190C/Gas mark 4 for 12-15 minutes. They will still be soft, but harden on cooling.

They can be stored for up to 5 days. Yeah, right.

N likes sprouts. This was news to him late last year - I doubt he's had a whole lot of home cooking for years, and I suspect like many he's experienced the whole "even though it's January it's still not too late to start cooking them for next Christmas" thing. I've cooked them a few times for him now, and the last couple of times he's cooked for me he's done them. In fact, he even cooked them for his brother at Christmas, who also likes them. Three minutes in a microwave seems to be adequate. I fancied ringing the changes tonight, and looked for something slightly different.


Thus it was that I cooked four new things tonight, which was a little uncautious but seemed to come off. I'd planned some kind of meat sweet and sour or stir fry, but Tescos ( - ah, Tescos, thereby hangs a tale - but yesterday they  ) didn't have anything suitable. I had some beef mince indoors, and I tried for something vaguely Chinesey, but couldn't find my five spice so it was more Indian in the end. This was also bulked out with rice, which I get right most times these days. This was to go with the sea weed, which I finally decided I ought to try cooking. The oil took a while to get up to heat, so the first batch was a little soggy, but the rest hit the mark. I've enough left for two more servings, although I may try doing it with cabbage. When I bought the sea weed, I also bought some gelatinous rice balls, which are poached from frozen and were interesting. Neither N nor I know if we like them, but they are at least interesting. Finally I did sweet and sour brussels sprouts, which he really liked, although I have to say I thought the parmesan came through a little strongly. I'd meant to add some sherry to the marinade, but I forgot about this when I got home. Still, I have half a pound of them left, so I could do them with my remaining half of the toad in the hole from yesterday.

I have to say I am impressed with myself. A year or so it used to terrify me to cook for somebody else - with the exception of chocolate puddle pudding - but this was three new recipes and one concoction. Go me.