Experimental Cookery 2015 #26: Spaghetti Tetrazzini

Taking this series to the halfway point for the year, we have one more entry from "Jamie's Italy". I said before that I thought I'd mined that one out, but there was one recipe that I had been interested to try but that LC rejected - even after I suggested cunningly switching the mushrooms for bacon. So, since I had mushrooms in stock, and since LC is currently away, I thought this was the time to give it a try.

This proved to be another quick and easy meal to make, not surprising for a pasta-based dish. By the time the spaghetti was cooked the chicken and mushrooms had cooked in their sauce. At which point it was a case of tossing everything together, seasoning with salt, pepper, and cheese, and then baking in the over for a good long while.

The result was very tasty, probably better than last week's farfalle, which was a surprise. The only slight criticism I might offer is that the quantities are way off - the recipe claimed to be for four, I made a third of it, and ended up with two large helpings. Which conventiently gives me lunch for tomorrow.

This is another one that I would happily have again, but that LC wouldn't even touch. A shame, but never mind - I'm sure I'll find occasion at some point.

And that really is "Jamie's Italy" done, I think.

Helensburgh Highland Games 2015

Yesterday the band took part in the competition at the Helensburgh Highland Games. This was, again, one of the smaller events, but quite a nice one for all that. This was also one of the few competitions with no Grade 4A contest, meaning we played at Grade 4(B) and again at Grade 3. This gave us a rare opportunity to play our "four marches".

It was quite a nice day, with only a few light showers to mar the weather. And, unusually, it was a somewhat civilised start time - the bus picked us up at 9:45. Nice to actually get some sleep! (This was also the second of two "double headers" the band has this year - weekends when we've been playing on both the Saturday and the Sunday. I really don't like those.)

So, we went, we made ready, and we played. And when we came off I was convinced that the Pipe Major was about to say something - he had the same vibe as at Bathgate. And yet, there was no such reaction. Odd. (It did turn out that there was an explanation for that - nothing to do with our performance.)

Then there was a wait of two hours, and we played again. And another good performance, building on last week's successes. So, that's good.

In the end, we came third out of three in grade 4 (3rd for piping and 2nd for drumming), and third out of four in grade 3 (3rd and 4th). So, another two prizes, although one was courtesy of the two sweetest words in the English language.

Next week we don't have a competition. It was going to be Forres (site of the dread bus breakdown), but we elected not to go as we didn't think we'd have a drum corps. Then it was a fundraising event at the Kelpies in Falkirk, but in the meantime LC and I had made other plans.

And the weekend after is The Riding of the Marches in Annan, a competition that has generally been good to us.

This week's mug: The penultimate mug anecdote truly is a mug bearing an anecdote. Specifically, the mug bears the image of the Rooster of Barcelos, and the text of the story of how a dead rooster provided a miraculous sign of the innocence of a man condemned to hang for a crime he didn't commit. I got this one, not surprisingly, when I visited Lisbon some years ago, and I don't think I've ever actually used it!

Next week will be the final mug anecdote, and I have consequently saved my very favourite mug to feature in the last entry in the series. I'm sure you're all looking forward to it as much as I am... or at least looking forward to the end of it as much as I am!

Strathmore Highland Games 2015

This one's somewhat delayed, but included for completeness.

Last Sunday the band attended the Strathmore Highland Games. I'm not sure why I missed this one last year, but I do know I'd intended to go but in the event didn't. It's a fairly small event that takes place in the grounds of Glamis Castle.

The day didn't seem promising when it started - as I left the flat I discovered it was raining quite heavily, and so I returned to get an umbrella. However, as we headed further from Falkirk the weather improved, until it turned into quite a nice day.

We were playing twice, once in grade 4A and again in grade 3. Unfortunately, during the preparations for playing the first time, something went wrong with my drones, which just would not strike up. So I had to drop out at the last minute. The band went on, and played pretty well.

We then got the drones sorted between the two performances, by the expedient of replacing the reeds with an old set I had. This meant I was able to play in the second contest. We played well. Alas, this was the grade 3 competition, where we really didn't have any chance. Still, nice to get a good performance under our belts.

Then there was the usual waiting and the march-past. In the end we came third out of six in grade 4A (3rd for piping; 4th for drumming), and sixth out of six in grade 3 (6th and 6th). So, out first prize of the season, and quite a successful day all told.

Experimental Cookery 2015 #25: Mushroom Farfalle

Once again, I'm on my own. LC has gone out for the evening. Which has the advantage that while she's away I can cook whatever I want! Which, once again, means mushrooms. This one comes from "Jamie's Fifteen Minute Meals", which is a book we actually don't have, but having seen him do it on TV a couple of times I felt I could give it a go. (I'm going to have to pick that book up, actually - the series has been very impressive.)

The pasta for this dish is farfalle, which is the bow-tie style pasta, therefore being the coolest of all pastas. Huzzah! The other component of the meal is a mushroom sauce, which came together very quickly and easily. The whole meal did indeed take me about fifteen minutes to make. (In fairness, I didn't do the salad that goes with it in the show, but I doubt that would have added much - I can multitask!)

This was definitely a success, and one I suspect would be ideal for the vegetarian in your life. I would certainly have it again. Indeed, as soon as I finished I thought I'd quite like to have it again! LC, of course, wouldn't even touch this.

I have a couple of nights alone as well next week, as LC is away again. So they may be another Experimental Cookery featuring mushrooms coming up...

A Really Good Idea... or a Really Bad One

In order to win back Scotland, Labour will need to have a compelling message to deliver, and also someone capable of delivering it. That's one of the reasons Jim Murphy had to go - the evidence was that the electorate had stopped listening, and it doesn't matter what you say if nobody listens.

Unfortunately, though, Scottish Labour find themselves in a difficult position when it comes to selecting their new leader. The pool of candidates is small and, frankly, unimpressive. Worse, the job is something of a poisoned chalice, as they're likely heading for another battering in 2016 and depending on the scale of the defeat they may well expect the leader to resign. (They're busily saying otherwise, but what politicians say before an election and what they say after aren't always the same.)

However, before leaving Jim Murphy has presented Labour with a recovery plan, including the advice (which has been accepted) to reopen selection for the regional lists.

The reason this is important is as follows: in the worst-case scenario, Labour could find themselves losing every single Constituency MSP, and reduced to a core of about 16-18 regional List MSPs. (It's worth noting, of course, that this is a worst-case scenario; it's not a prediction!) In addition to being an absolutely devastating result for 2016, what it would also mean is that they have only a few voices in parliament speaking for Labour - and only a few voices therefore who are able to deliver the messages they need for 2020.

It is vitally important that Labour get the very best people possible into the top positions on the regional lists. Because those are the only people they can be sure of getting into the parliament, and thus the ones who will have to lead any possible recovery. Mess that up, and they'll find themselves in a worse state than the Tories (but not the Lib Dems - things aren't quite that bad).

As I've said, the current batch of Labour MSPs are, mostly, a fairly uninspiring bunch. It's probably fair to say that they're not the people to handle the fight back from that worst-case scenario. And so, reopening the regional lists is a very good idea.

In theory.

But an awful lot now depends on who gets onto those lists. And this is where a large part of me expects to start seeing a lot of the "big beasts" make a reappearance - those former Labour MPs who have just lost their seats and who might now think they want to transfer to Holyrood and want a list position to ensure that it happens.

The reason that would be a problem is quite simple: the people of Scotland have just rejected that group of candidates, and done so emphatically. And if the electorate aren't listening to Jim Murphy, why would we listen to Douglas Alexander, or Anas Sarwar, or anyone else we've just voted out?

So if I were in charge over at Scottish Labour, right now I'd be laying down a strict policy that any former MP who has just lost his seat cannot be placed on the regional lists. Further, any former leader of the Scottish party, and indeed the two failed candidates who stood against Jim Murphy in September, cannot be placed on the regional lists. And, yes, that includes Iain Grey, despite his current role as interim leader. Fair or not, the truth is that none of those people represents the future of the party, and with so much at stake, the party cannot afford to mess this up.

(For what it's worth, I would also be ditching the idiotic Bain principle. The moment you stop defining yourself by what you're for, but rather by who you're against, you've lost - your opponent can then force you into all sorts of contortions, including pushing you to vote against your own policies.)

You might well ask why I care. After all, I haven't voted Labour since 1997, and won't be voting for the next year either, regardless of who they put in place. So, why do I care what they do?

The answer to that is two-fold. Firstly, there are an awful lot of people who do vote Labour, and those people are absolutely entitled to proper representation. Secondly, though, in a democracy it's not healthy for one party to have overwhelming dominance - it's far better if the opposition parties have strong voices of their own, and can present a potential alternative government. And the reality is that in Scotland Labour are that alternative government, and indeed are the only possible alternative government. So I would much rather see them recovering, and thus providing a strong opposition, than continuing on their current path.

(You'll also notice that I haven't said anything about the policies I think they should adopt. That's not my business.)

This Week's Mug: I briefly, and incorrectly, described last week's mug anecdote as the antepenultimate entry in the series, but I then realised that it is this week's mug that bears that honour. This week's mug is a speckled grey mug with a frog on it, as is appropriate for this blog. I forget when and how I received this mug, but it was almost certainly a Christmas present from my parents. This is usually my mug for measuring rice and pasta, but for this week has been brought into service for coffee. Of course, I washed it thoroughly first!

Jurassic World

A short review for this one, I think. And no spoilers.

LC and I went to see "Jurassic World" last night. She had been anticipating it for some time. Our cinema trip was somewhat marred by a spilled Coke, but that's not really the film's fault.

For about three quarters of the film, this is pretty great. It's not as good as the first one, of course, but it's the best of the sequels by quite some distance.

And then... something happens. I don't want to say what, but you'll probably know it when (if) you see it. And for the last quarter of the film, it just sucks. And then it sucks some more... and some more... and yet more.

And then it ends, and that's okay.

Such a shame - it could have been a great film, too.

Anyway, next week is "Mr Holmes", which looks rather good.

#28: "D&D: Dungeon Master's Guide", by Wizards of the Coast

Experimental Cookery 2015 #23: Transylvanian Meatballs with Garlic Sauce, and #24: Fattoush

A double-header this week, as I did two recipes from the third Hairy Dieters book, "Good Eating" (the green one). This is the least successful of the three books, IMO, but it does have a few things worth trying.

The process for both these meals was fairly straightforward, but also quite time-consuming and messy. All in all, the meal took about an hour to make, start to finish. I could probably cut this down a bit if doing it in future - as it is, we have a pack of 10 meatballs in the freezer now for next time.

The results were... okay. LC liked the meal; I was less keen. The Fattoush was rather nice, and quite spicy, but I was a little disappointed in the meatballs, which tasted of mince more than anything else - I'd expected rather more of a garlic hit. Still, there wasn't anything wrong with the meal. I just wouldn't necessarily have it again - and both Jamie's meatballs and the lamb meatballs from the Hairy Biker's curry book are better.

This Week's Mug: The mug anecdote for this week is brought to you by Yorkie. I received this mug as the companion piece to an Easter Egg (I think) some years ago - usually, the egg is accompanied by one or two bars of chocolate, but this time it was a mug (and a smaller egg!) for reasons unknown. As with some of the other recent mugs, I've never actually used this one before.

#27: "Forge of Ashes", by Josh Vogt

Experimental Cookery 2015 #22: Chicken Fajita Burgers

This week's effort is truly experimental - I've taken some inspiration from Lorraine's fajitas and some from those Hairy Dieter chicken meals, and some also from the burger that LC had at The Filling Station recently, but this was mostly just me.

So, I made up my fajita spice mix in a jar. I actually made up a full batch, even though this meal uses a tiny amount - we'll use the rest next time we have fajitas. I use a mix of oregano, cumin, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, a little hot chilli powder, garam masala, and a little cayenne pepper. The chicken was bashed flat and then seasoned with half a teaspoon of spice mix per breast per side.

The chicken was then cooked on a screaming hot griddle - 2 mins on one side, 2 mins on the other, 90 seconds on the first, 90 seconds on the second... and then a further 90 seconds on each side as it wasn't fully cooked. Then set aside to rest.

I then griddled a red pepper, a green pepper, and an onion in the same griddle (with some lime juice) for about a minute, and then toasted the buger buns in the same griddle.

Then assemble: cover a third of the lower bun with soured cream, a third with mild salsa, and a third with guacamole. Add a slice of green pepper and two of red, and then a little of the onion. Add the chicken, then the second slice of green pepper, and then the top bun.

And serve with half a dozen rather disappointing micro-chips. Those could be better.

The result was extremely tasty... and even more messy. Stuff fell out all over the place! It was great though.

Huzzah!

This Week's Mug: I'm using a mug marked with six flags: Bretagne, the Isle of Man, Cornwall, Wales, the Republic of Ireland, and Scotland. I bought this mug while on a band trip to the Festival de Saint Loup a few years ago - the flags show some of the countries or regions involved in the festival. That was a good trip. Incidentally, I've done an inventory, and it looks like I only have four more mug anecdotes to share.

Charles Kennedy

I was rather shocked and quite saddened this morning to turn on my TV only to be confronted by the news that Charles Kennedy had died. I always liked him - he was manifestly a decent and principled guy, and both intelligent and a good communicator.

Indeed, he was probably the single mainstream politician who most closely matched my own political position. He was right about Iraq. He was right that Federalism is probably the only way forward for the UK. And he was clearly concerned with working for a better, fairer country. And indeed it was after the Lib Dems forced him out that they lost my vote (though in fairness, he probably did have to go - tricky beast, politics). And he was also one of very few Lib Dems I was sorry to see lose last month (though, again...).

So thank you, Charles Kennedy. You never knew me, but you certainly made an impact. Rest in Peace.

The British Pipe Band Championships 2015

Well, it was a good ride while it lasted. Our season is now effectively over.

Yesterday was the British Pipe Band Championships, which once again were held in Bathgate. This year they had moved to a new venue, but that made little real difference - I got on the bus and didn't worry about it. And it was a great day - bright and sunny throughout... though it did get a bit cold later.

We went, we got tuned up, and then we played. Everything to that point was fine, and when we came off I was reasonably happy - I actually thought it was our best performance of the year. But the pipe major was NOT happy. He pulled the pipers aside and basically went straight through us. He'd obviously heard something I had not, though I'm at a loss as to what it is.

The rest of the day was the usual waiting, which was eased by a halfway-decent book and also by listening to the Scottish Cup Final (Falkirk lost - boo). And then, after far too much waiting, we went for the march past.

We came last. Out of fourteen bands we came 12th and 14th for piping, 13th for drumming, and 14th for ensemble. So, a pretty dire performance on all counts. As I said, the pipe major must have heard something I did not.

But it was on the journey home that things went most wrong. The pipe major and one of the parents had a big shouting match in the bus, and then there were extensive rumblings of discontent. It doesn't look good.

Alas, this result basically means the end of the season. We were already near-certain to be dropped back to Grade 4A, between not doing at all well last year and only attending three of the five Majors. With this result, I don't see how we can avoid the drop. Which, truth be told, may be no bad thing, though coming back up will be exceptionally difficult.

(Though right now I'm not convinced we'll even make it to the end of the season...)

Anyway, that's that.

#26: "Pathfinder: Forge of the Giant God", by Tim Hitchcock

Update on Goals

The end of May brings us the 150th day of the year, so it's time for another update on goals. We're now nearly halfway through the year, so this update should give some idea on how things should end up.

• Weight: Gah! This has been a total disaster, still. No progress.
• Books: By day 150, I should be 24.6 books through my reading for the year. I'm therefore now very slightly ahead of schedule, having completed book 25. I'm also up-to-date on all the sublists, with the caveat that this month's Pathfinder didn't arrive until Thursday. Still, I'm expecting to finish that before the end of the month, remaining on target. So that's going well.
• Games: Still right on target: five sessions done after five months. However, I'm planning to miss a couple in June and July, but hope to catch up in the last third of the year.
• Work: Still on target.
• Band: This goal is actually done - one of my students played his first competition at Dunbar. Huzzah!
• Super Secret Goal #4: I'm reliably informed that the roof has been fixed, though I remain concerned every time it rains. There are a few small bits of DIY that need to be done, and a redecoration, but things are going well.

Everything seems to be going pretty well, with the notable exception of the weight goal. I have to make sure I have some real progress to report for the next update in July.

Experimental Cookery 2015 #21: Creamy Pancetta Pasta with Mushrooms & Parmesan

As I mentioned the other day, LC is currently cat-sitting for her parents. I've therefore been left alone, and one of my responses to this was to take the opportunity to have a meal with mushrooms in. LC does not like mushrooms, and as a consequence I seldom get to have them, and so now was my chance.

This meal turned out to be more of an adventure than I'd expected. On Sunday, after arriving home, I headed out almost right away to Tesco, where I bought all the things for this meal. Including cream. This evening, while gathering those ingredients together, but thankfully before actually starting the cooking, I looked in the fridge and... no cream! Where could it be?

Well, I searched high and I searched low. It wasn't in the main fridge, nor in the backup fridge. It hadn't accidentally been left in the shopping bag. Somehow, it had disappeared.

So, I had to go out and get some. And, heading out to the car I realised where the cream was: it had fallen out of the bag into the car, and had been stewing there ever since. It was not a pleasant thing.

I got new cream and returned to the cooking. Ten minutes later, I had a meal to eat. It was quick, and easy... and I'd done all the prep work before heading out.

The meal itself was nice enough, but not exactly the best thing ever. It was basically another take on Carbonara, only with mushrooms and bacon instead of chorizo and egg yolks. Oh, and fancy pasta, though I'll probably just use the rest of that up when next I have Carbonara. So, anyway, it was a winner, but not one that would trouble the Nominated Nine. And not something I'll be agitating for LC to try - I suspect she'll be quite glad of that last!

I have no idea what's on the slate for next week. Something not involving mushrooms, no doubt!

(Oh, yes: this one came from Lorraine Pascale's second book, "Home Cooking Made Easy". A good book, though not one I use too often.)

This Week's Mug: This week I'm using the second "Big Bang Theory" mug. It's very similar to the previous mug in construction, but with a different design - this mug has the "atom symbol" that they use in scene breaks in the show repeated twice in green, plus a "comic strip" style set of quotes from the characters in the middle. Alas, the mug is printed very slightly out of focus, so it's actually not very legible.

#23: "Vanity Fair", by William Makepeace Thackeray (a book from The List)
#24: "The Bell Jar", by Sylvia Plath (a book from The List)
#25: "Doctor Who: How to be a Time Lord", by BBC Books

Complete and Unabridged

I've been reading "Vanity Fair" for several weeks now, on and off, and am getting towards the end. Indeed, I hit the three-quarters mark at the weekend, and was looking forward to powering through the last 170 or so pages over the first few days of this week.

Yesterday, I had particularly set myself the target of reaching page 572, thus leaving exactly 100 pages to go. So, I looked forward to around that point to determine where exactly the chapter break fell so that I knew where I was going to...

Imagine my horror, then, when I discovered that my copy jumped from page 531 to page 582! It then had a block of 50ish pages and then jumped back to page 582!

Luckily, it being an old book the text is available online, and so I was able to track down and read the missing chapters that way, and as a consequence I read right across the 'gap' and so am that bit closer to the end. Still, it was a traumatic ordeal.

(I'm not absolutely convinced that the text I found online was itself complete and unabridged, as the hardcopy does at least claim. But at this point I'm not too bothered - even if incomplete it was enough for me to feel no need to go back and check.)

A Mister E

Can anyone explain to me why we persist in using honorifics? That is, why do we still address correspondence to "Mr Vader" rather than just to "Steph/ven D. Vader"?

Apparently, the use of an honorific is a mark of respect, as indeed the term 'honorific' would imply. However, anyone who has been either a teacher or a school pupil must surely know that one can quite easily imbue mister with tones of the utmost contempt.

And, yes, there are a few cases where something might be lost in specific cases - namely where someone has a 'special' honorific, such as "Lord Vader". But that's easily solved - just use a special honorific if indeed the person has indeed earned that honorific.

But for the rest of us, all they add is hassle. Especially when addressing women: is it Mrs, Miss, Ms, or indeed Mx? (And how does one even pronounce Ms? And while the use of the wild-card in Mx is quite clever, shouldn't it really be M*?)

It's not like "Mr Vader" really identifies me all that clearly: I have three brothers all of whom are equally Mr Vader, and I have three nephews who in time will likewise be Mr Vader. (Dad Vader being one of those people with a 'special' honorific.) So, really, you still need at least my first initial, at which point you might as well just use my full name.

(And "John Smith" is hardly going to be better identified as "Mr John Smith"!)

In theory, I suppose, there's marginal value where a couple share the same initial, in which case you could have "Mr S Vader" and "Mrs S Vader", where simply addressing to "S Vader" is unclear. Alternately, though, you could solve the problem using "Steph/ven Vader" and "Someone/else Vader"... or is that a crazy thought?

Of course, mostly this is motivated by sheer laziness - typing LC each time is just far too much effort, where using just C would be much more convenient...

(Incidentally, in case you weren't sure, my surname isn't really Vader. But when choosing a stand-in surname I only had two candidates. The other being Prime. And 'D' is a more believable middle initial than 'O'.)

Experimental Cookery 2015 #20: Harissa Chicken with Bulgur Wheat Salad

This week's "Experimental Cookery" comes once again from the Hairy Dieter's "How to Love Food and Lose Weight" (the white cover). As I've mentioned before, it's a great book. (And one of the best things about it is that the meals neither taste nor feel like diet food - I don't recall having ever had a bad one, and I've always felt pleasantly full afterwards.)

This meal was much like #18, in that the chicken was first smashed flat and then cooked quickly in a pan. The key difference was that it was brushed with harissa paste before the second and third flips to get the desired coating.

The salad was an interesting one, in that we hadn't had bulgur wheat before (and this meant that I was using two new ingredients for the first time). This turned out to be much like couscous, in that it basically just needed to absorb lots of water. It was then tossed with lots of salad ingredients.

Alas, I should have added plenty of pepper to the salad but forgot. Oops!

The meal took considerably longer to prepare than I had expected, but wasn't at all difficult. The result was rather pleasant, although much less hot than I had expected. I also think it would have benefitted from more time for the wheat to dry out before serving - I might be tempted to cook that up earlier and use later.

It was another winner, but again doesn't trouble my top nine. I'll definitely do it again, if only to use up the rest of the bulgur wheat!

I'm not sure what's going to be next. The book had a mini-series of three chicken dishes in a row, hence the past few entries, but that's now ended. Though... LC is cat-sitting for a few days next week and so I'll be alone. Perhaps I'll take the opportunity to do something with mushrooms...

Dunbar Highland Games 2015

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, the Dunbar Highland Games are considered the 'real' start of the season by many bands. Anything prior to this competition is, effectively, a pre-season friendly, but this is the one where people want to put down a marker for the season to come - this is when things get real.

I had been rather apprehensive about this competition all week, as the weather forecast looked pretty horrible. Fortunately, as the week ended the weather shifted, and it turned out that the day was mostly sunny with a few showers (that didn't hit us). But it was very windy indeed.

We performed twice, once in the Grade 4 (four marches) and once in Grade 4A (march/strathspey/reel, or MSR). The latter is our actual grade, so that's the one we really care about. Just as well, really.

We got ourselves set up and ready to play, and all was looking fine. We marched to the start line, and started our first performance... and it was pretty terrible. It started far too fast, and got faster from there. Plus, there was a lot of bad blowing, which meant the drone frequency wasn't constant and some of the high notes weren't right. All in all, a bad performance.

There was one redeeming feature: one of our young pipers got his first outing at a competition, which was good. And, incidentally, completes that part of my goal. Huzzah!

The second performance was rather better, in that we didn't play so fast, it was much more together, and the blowing was rather better. Unfortunately, this one was hit by three specific, and really quite bad, mistakes - the sort of mistakes that happen, and there's nothing you can do about them, and they're unlikely to happen again in the same way. So, a much better performance, but...

Then there was the traditional wait for the march past. At one point there was a suggestion it might be rained off, but that didn't happen. Instead we waited, then we went, and we didn't win anything. A big shock, obviously.

In the Grade 4 contest we were 8th overall, out of 15: 5th and 7th for piping, 12th for drumming, and 5th for ensemble. So, a solid mid-table result, and probably better than we deserved. But good enough to suggest the season might not suck.

In the Grade 4A contest we were 4th overall, out of 5: 2nd and 4th for piping, 4th for drumming, and 4th for ensemble. That was a somewhat disappointing result, but also a fair one. And given the specific issues, hopefully suggests we'll do better other times.

All in all, it wasn't a bad day, though it could have been better. The big test comes a week on Saturday at our first Major of the year, at Bathgate. We'll only play once at that one, in the Grade 4A contest, and we're hoping to be up close to the prize list. Which, sad to say, is a big ask.

This week's mug: I'm running short of mug anecdotes now, so there will only be a few more entries in this series. This week's chosen mug is a white "Big Bang Theory" mug, one of two, which has the guys on one side and Penny on the other. This was a Christmas present a year or two ago. It's fine, but not exactly my favourite!

24 Revisited

I watched the very first episode of "24" last night, having finally started on a re-watch of the whole series (that may well take me four years to complete). To be honest, it was a bit of a shock - it's amazing just how far TV has come in 14 years! But it was also quite amazing how different the show was - Jack started off being fairly happy, the ticking clock wasn't quite so in-your-face, and the show was actually fairly slow to get started. It just wasn't the same frantic race that later series became.

Plus, of course, everyone involved looked really young!

Anyway, it will be interesting watching the whole thing gradually unfolding again, all the twists and turns, and especially the evolution of the format.

Experimental Cookery 2015 #19: Easy Crispy Chicken

Finishing out week 19 of the year, I have another Experimental Cookery. Once again, this comes from "The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight" (the white cover).

This was an easy meal to make - toast some bread, grind to crumbs, mix with some herbs and parmesan, then coat the chicken in flour, yoghurt, and the crumbs, and then bake. I served it with some of the same potato wedges that went with the previous meals.

It was a successful meal, and very filling despite being billed as diet food. I do think there was perhaps too much cheese in the mix, and it could do with some more herbs, but that's just a matter of fine tuning. I expect we'll definitely have this again. It's still not in to top nine though!

Oops

One of my students is competing in the Stirling Mod on Friday, and I had intended to go support him in this. However, last night LC and I were discussing the possibility of going to the theatre this week, and eventually settled on seeing Dara O'Briain at the Edinburgh Playhouse, also this Friday. It wasn't until just after she'd confirmed the booking that I realised I'd been planning to be elsewhere.

Oops.

What was worse, though, was that it then turned out that I had neglected to mention my intention to go to the Mod to LC. I genuinely thought I had done so, but it turns out not.

Oops again. Also, sorry LC!

Anyway, the end result is that we're going to see Dara on Friday. My student will just have to manage without - in truth, our other tutor is going to be setting him up to play anyway, so my role would have been purely ornamental anyway.

Besides, it's worth considering that the band is currently taking too much of my time and concentration. I'm going to need to keep an eye on that for the next few months, given how busy the competition season is likely to get.

I'll let you know how the show is.

Experimental Cookery 2015 #18: Cajun Spiced Chicken with Potato Wedges and Chive Dip

I managed to sneak in an extra Experimental Cookery last night, thus bring me back on target for the year. Though I've also come to the realisation that I'm running out of material for the series - it looks like I've pretty much exhausted both "Jamie's Italy" and "Chinese Food Made Easy", and several of the other books I have provide only fairly slim pickings. So we'll see; I may retire this series early.

Last night's dinner came from "The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight" (the white cover), which is a great book. The meal took a little over half an hour to prepare from finish to end, and really wasn't difficult - the wedges cooked in the oven, the dip was a matter of stirring some ingredients together, and the actual cooking of the chicken involved putting it in a pan and turning it three times. Done.

The result was excellent - very tasty and quite filling. So, no complaints there, and I'll certainly make it again. (It didn't crack my top nine, though!) Following the disappointment of the duck, it was good to get back on track here.

This Week's Mug: Speaking of series coming to an end, I'm getting towards the end of my mug rotation - I think I have three or four left to use so might not make it into next month! This week's mug is a Transformers one - it is a sturdy white mug with Optimus on one side and Bumblebee on the other. Alas, these are the 'movie' versions of the characters, not the 'real' ones, but it will do. However, this mug was previously assigned to hot chocolate duties, so I'm betraying my own system by using it for coffee this week! I received this mug as a Christmas present several years ago, when it came packaged with a sachet of hot chocolate mix and mini marshmallows, hence it's role assignment.