Citric acid

I was eating my breakfast grapefruit half this morning when I realised it was very bad tasting. On closer inspection it seemed a bit off. It was brown. Eurghh Granny! Someone didn't have her glasses on when she was laying out breakfast this morning.

I thought I'd better finish it as I didn't want to distress her, and I only had a bit left anyway. 

But now I feel a bit sick. 

I don't really feel well enough the finish this blog post. Maybe later. 

Great fruit

I was on the train at 8am on Easter Friday, sitting behind three people on their way to Alton towers. Unfortunately for them they were annoying and I was tired and so began an hour of possibly subtle mind games.
There were two Australian women, one British guy with a black leather studded wrist band who cleared worshipped their particular brand of exoticism. He practically didn't even talk. He just listened wide eyed to them screech about "wagging school" and how "there isn't a Pret in Brisbane".

I peeled my piece of fruit and listened to them discuss, confused, what the smell was. "Whaaaat's that?" They howled. "It smells like oorrange and cooffee? Maybe it's a chocolate orrange?"

It's Grapefruit suckers. I decided I'd tell them where the smell was coming from if they guessed it but they didn't. I wondered if I should put my peel in the pocket of her coat which is over the back of the chair.

One of the girls then flung her hand over my seat. She needs her nails cutting. She might like it if I did them for her.

Luckily for them I shortly arrived at Rugby station. I took the peel with me, the law abiding citizen that I am. But then left it in the car. A day later Mum said, "Is it you who has left that orange peel in the car?"
Oh God not this again. GRAPEFRUIT!  It's GRAPEFRUIT! You'll be telling me there isn't a Pret in Monks Kirby next.

Heaving

I decided to take Louis out on a hot date to Craft in Hackney Wick for pizzas. We walked along the canal to find the place very busy but with a lucky table outside in the evening light.

I was feeling the romance flowing with our 9% craft ales until a Spanish girl with a very low cut top asked to share our picnic bench. We were snuggled on one side leaving her the whole other side to parade her breasts on.

Oh great. I was expecting to eat a feast not to stare at it! Is Louis looking? Can't tell. Maybe he's nuzzling my neck just to crane forward for a better view? Maybe he hasn't even noticed and it's just me? Maybe I should ask for the pizza cutter to cut open my own tee shirt? Hers are only a bit better than mine and that's just because she's fatter!

Ah Maybe when the pizzas come I could rub some melted Stilton into Louis' eyes. That's the one.

When they came they were very nice. As heaving  with ingredients as her chest.

We had sweet potato and Stilton and walnut, and something with some other vegetables on.

A girl named Fran

Some bitch named Jack seems to have stolen my schtick. Just because she's a tomboy and she knows the supermarket freezer cabinet like she knows the cover to cover of the tv times (because she never goes out either I assume) she's shot to fame. Oh puhlease. I've been passing off frozen veg  and quorn mince as gourmet bolognaise for years! Would it help if I got a little boy? Not really sure where to get one of those. Frozen aisle? Distract its parent in the Aunt Bessie section.

Failing a book deal I can still please the fans at home. This is a recipe I stole off her. Tit for tat.

Pearl barley risotto with sweet potato. Just cook the sweet potato, then cook the pearl barley with stock over it. Then add feta. As simple as her raggedy hair cut. 

Sick of you

Lexie and I are spending too much time together now I live at home and don't see any friends. I came home from uni the other day to find he'd eaten my last other companion in a fit of jealousy. A near life size white chocolate dog. I found the red ribbon once snappily adorning my dog's neck at the top of the stairs in a pile of dripping sick. Lexie clearly also had a side of grass.

Seeing as I now feel Ill anyway I don't mind eating a churned up bowl of something in the same colour scheme. I made a salad of pink grapefruit, peeled cucumber, avocado and nuts. I ate it quickly trying not to look like I liked it too much incase Lexie's watchful eyes suspected an affair and snatched it from my jaws. SO clingy.

Suckle on this

Sam is so weak now that I'm wondering if I'd better start breast feeding him. I must be full of milk since I learnt about my oestoporosis prevention window (age 29 practically no more calcium gets in) and started yoghurt loading. I had eight today.
I'm surprised it doesn't just drip out and stain my extensive range of woollen clothes. When I actually have a baby I'll probably end up accidentally breast milk water boarding it.

Sam seems to like being held like a baby anyway. Good practise.

Mollycoddling him further I made us these soft oat and nut snack bars to keep us going. I mixed porridge oats, all mum's honey because i'm sweet like that, jam, nuts and peanut butter together then baked it with a topping of seeds. Having no teeth he does take a while to eat a bar of it but it at least that'll keep him busy whilst he lives forever.

Fran and the beanstalk

It's a point of pride for me to eat the entire apple. Stalk, pips, core. My party trick shall we say. It started when I was working at the eating disorders unit and my delusional soon to be ex boyfriend and soon to be sacked co worker told the patients that apple pips had cyanide in it. To prove a point I ate a whole apple sans stalk infront of a table of malnourished patients with open mouths.

Then I was on the overground recently and I heard three ten year olds talking. "I can eat the whole of an apple" said one smugly. All of it? The others chorused. "Pips, and the core", she bragged. "Oh but not the stalk."

That was when I upgraded. All or nothing.

By now I'm pretty experienced at my apple party trick but I had a bit of a shock recently when an apple pip dropped out my mouth shortly before eating. And it was growing a stalk.

What if that was inside me? What would happen? I've known Douglas Firs grow in people's lungs before from inhaled pine needles. Nice dark warm environment.. This would surely go the same way.  I decided not to chance it. I'm probably magical enough! I shall stick to my other two party tricks of downing a pint of water and letting people touch my upper arm skin.

Shiny happy people

Had a funny dream the other night that I was giving a speech at my (heavily feminist) wedding. I was winningly telling the guests how much I love Louis because he makes me the person I want to be- a more shiny version. And I had a heckler! This rude person shouted back " yeah only shiny when he comes on your face". How rude and untrue.
Well you're uninvited!

What is actually shiny is the sheen of melted cheese on top of this cauliflower pizza I just made. It's meant to be a healthy alternative to dough. You grate cauliflower and mix it with egg and chopped garlic and oregano and basil. I was going to make twice the recipe amount, thus buying twice the amount of cheese listed made sense. But then I got fed up of grating cauliflower and my skin (so similar looking) and ended up with less cauliflower- more Parmesan and mozzarella.
I laid out the base on a baking tray and blanketed it with with much more mozzarella, ringed red onion, and sliced tomatoes. I had it with just as oily sweet potato chips.

It was delicious but I had a greasy tongue in my mouth all night.

Hot and brothered

After some fun evenings playing Hansel and Gretel with Sam...
Not really, his food bowl just happens to be too near the open fire. Anyway- I was pretty worn out. I really needed to unwind.

I made, well, actually Mum made- which is even more relaxing, this Tunisian chickpea broth.


Its a broth of chickpeas, stock, onions, cumin, harissa, lemon. Over a chunk of crusty bread in a bowl. Top with chopped pepper and a poached egg. It was amazing. Sam and I have eaten it for the last four lunches. I'm fattening him up....

Acid trip

Louis asked me if I'd ever done drugs the other day. Well... I don't think so. Sometimes the grains from others' noses might have flown accidentally into my enlarged facial pores on the air con breeze but other than that..

There was that time I put speed into mine and a sleeping Bob's drink at 3AM, wondering how else we could get through till 6am in a club in Nottingham. But I felt bad straight away and removed it. Then we just went back to Alex's to begin hogging the bed.

Revising hard now I'm not even relying much on paracetemol or coffee, but I have totally overdosed on pineapple chunks. Granny likes to buy them for me as they're from Costa Rica...and I also went there once. I also get mango because I once told her a patient ate five in a row.

Anyway, I ate an entire pineapple in one sitting and now I feel HIGH. and Sick. I thought the come down would come the day after?

A more sensible way to eat pineapple would be to make pineapple upside down cake which i'd like to make after exams to celebrate. That and warm custard. That would surely end a club night and have people drugged into their duvets.

Properly squashed

Seeing as my foraging is going so successfully Bob and I thought we'd take it to the South Bank. We happened upon a lovely stretch of raised beds of vegetation cared for by users of a mental health charity. Mmmm. How kind of them. Don't mind if we do.

But then we saw the sign. Oh dear. Spit that out.

It's just not safe to live in London anymore.

I rushed back to Monks Kirby to forage leeks, potatoes, mushrooms, and broccoli from the fridge for tonight's dinner.

You're knicked!

My self esteem sky rocketed recently when I realised that clearly I taste SO good that Lexie practically ripped a pair of my knickers off my body and munched them up. I tried to get them back but he was enjoying them so much.

"Mmm woof woof I'd give you a Michelin star for these woof woof".

 Ahh thanks Lex. You might as well finish them.

Do you know what else tastes as good?

The mushroom and leek pie I made when Louis visited me. It was overflowing with juices. We finished it off with red cabbage, mash potato and some green veg to give us a bit more strength for gobbling up a second helping.

Angela Gircle

Ever wanted to not pull on a night out? Ever wanted to only discuss boys and monthly pains? Ever wanted to create a restaurant of entirely girls in your own home? Well we succeeded in three at once recently chez Chaz. Chaz had invited me and Bob, Anna had her friends and Rebecca had hers.

Somehow Rebecca managed to pull off dinner for 16 of sausages, green mash and copious amounts of gravy. Whoops sorry 'only veggie girl'. Only meat gravy. And whoops drowning your plate. Why don't you scrape it off with a knife? Or I could lick it off? Your face?

It was lovely. Very "bustling". We kept having to go in Chaz's room for a bit of ambience. Why doesn't Jamie Oliver ever think of that? Maybe if he'd ever move from his restaurant table he'd lose some of that "I'm famous" weight. 

Bottling out of freshers week (circa 2012 or something)

 When I started university (again..) Granny rang me up to say that she hoped I wasn't going to  be one of those getting drunk in freshers week. She'd seen them in the paper.  I heartily agreed with her.
I was going to be busy preserving fruit  rather than my modesty anyway.

First I had a few new squeezes to attend to. No that that kind! My hands are more than full with Louis. I had stewed crabapples juicing in an old sheet so I could strain all the liquid through to get liquid for jelly. I had rosehips warming in a pan. Blackberries in the freezer. And pears still to be peeled. All needing my knowing fingers' attention.

Mum said I should say to my new classmates the next day. "I bet none of you did this last night?"
"Mum we're in Leicester... When I meet someone who knows what a crabapple is I'll let you know..."