Corgan’s day out

by Cake in the country

It was windy out. It was cold. It looked like rain. There was only one thing for it, we were going to the beach. What else would you be doing in cold, wet and windy weather. So after inducing a healthy level of excitement in Corgan, we opened the boot and in he jumped. And boy oh boy was he staying there til he smelled some seaweed!

(This is after dad got sawdust. Farm car. It’s always a mess 😦 )

So after much:

‘Are we right?’
‘NO Where’s the dog’s lead?’
‘It’s hanging up by the back door’
‘No it’s not that’s the horse’s lead!’
‘Well can you not use the horse’s lead?!’
*Cue disdainful look. ‘Eh.. Noo. How can y0u even suggest such a ridiculous idea. The very notion of such a thing, I.. I can’t even begin to-‘
‘OK! FINE! Where IS the dog’s lead then?!’
‘I don’t know, that’s why I asked you in the first place! Oh- oh hang on. It’s in my pocket. Never mind…’

Yes. This happens at least twice a day in our house. You know how people say they’re losing their marbles? Yeah we pretty much had none to begin with.  But anywho, we made it to the car and I proceeded to cause Hannah to enter a near fatal cardiac arrhythmia by opening the middle seat thingy so corgan could pop his head through like:

This? This here? This is Corgan’s happy face. (It’s also Hannah’s near Myocardial Infarction face, i.e. Not pretty) Corgan is currently thinking ‘OhBoyOhBoyBeachBeachBeachBeachBeachBeach SQUIRREL BeachBeachBeachIloveyoufortakingmetotheBeachBeachBeach’

As soon as we got there he proceeded to take off like the wind and race straight to the Dunes where he spent the next hour sniffing at questionable looking (and I assume lovely smelling to him) items like it was going out of fashion. Boy oh boy does he love the beach.

Every so often we’d call him, and he’d come back with the most loving look a dog hath ever bestowed on an owner. And then he’d bound back towards the dunes and roll in something smelly.

I, however, acted with slightly more dignity, or so I like to think, and assumed my usual role of ‘the one that gets left behind whilst taking photos’. Here is one of those photos:

I do rather like the beach, despite the grey and wet and windy weather 🙂

We walked back along the water. Corgan tried to drink it. Constantly. He just doesn’t learn, that dog. I fear he picked up Banana’s naivety when I left for College the year we got him. Sigh.  What’s a dog owner to do?!

Best Garlic Bread Ever. Ever.

by Cake in the country

Right so I have teased thee muchly with claims to the best garlic bread in existence. I must admit, up until a while back I too was a patron of the icky prepackaged overbuttered trash that one buys in shops. Have I mentioned that the true nature of proper cooking has only been revealed to me in the last few years? Now I’m hooked. Hooked! I am addicted to cooking. I need to start up an over-cooking anonymous meeting.  ‘

Hi. Hi I’m Sarah and I have a problem. I need to feed people. I really do.

Here, I made cookies for the meeting.’

Anyway, on with this! I had occasionally tried making me some garlic butter with crappy garlic paste, and that was half-arsed so I gave up. However, I made a trip to Carluccio’s (YUM food, the spinach yolky for 11 euro is savage. Crap. Have reverted to Sligospeak. I shall rephrase: The delicious dish containing spinach amongst other items is simply beautiful darlings) before Christmas there, and on a whim, ordered some garlic bread. And it came out, and I took a piece and bit into it. And my life changed. It really did. This garlic bread was amazing. I mean it had that spiciness of good garlic, a rich butteryness, and the ciabatta balanced it all out perfectly. So I was converted. I am now, my dear people, a convert.

The next day, after I woke up from garlic bread dreams, I set out to make some of this garlic bread. I picked up a ciabatta from the bakery, grabbed a few cloves of garlic, and set to work. I chopped the garlic meticulously, it was fiiiine! As in I diced it fine, I am not attracted to garlic like that. And here’s how you do it. Grab yourself a loaf of good ciabatta, a few cloves of garlic, some fresh parsley and some fresh chives, and a good chunk of butter. Real butter. Byebye diets. (I don’t believe in ‘Diets’ anyway, just in moderation. Unless it’s chocolate)

So I started by cutting the ciabatta in half lengthways – you can do it in slices either, personal preference edit. I lightly toasted the crust side under the grill.

Then I turned it round, burnt both hands, and got my finely chopped garlic and sprinkled it onto the bread. I popped that back in under the grill for about a minute or two and started slicing my butter in really thin slices. I also finely chopped my parsley and snipped a few chives in tiny little bitty pieces (I love chives. Love). I slid back out the bread, scattered the herbs on, and places thin slices of butter over the whole lot. Here’s the thing, as butter melts, it soaks through the bread, and brings all that garlic goodness with it. Yeah. It’s bloody amazing. It really is.

(I confess, it’s not ciabatta, cos I had none)

This one, however, was made with 2 day old home-made onion bread. It was amazing:

Toast until just brown and yummy looking and enjoy. Enjoy a lot. I insist on that.

Grilled cheese: Irish style

by Cake in the country

Ok so this whole ‘Grilled cheese’ Shenanigans is also known as toasted sandwich, and in my experience largely consisted of ham and cheese up until about 8 or 9 years ago and the concept of ‘panini’ appeared in Ireland, to general suspicion and disregard. One must remember that pre-cheap flights era most country people were used to only the following sandwiches: Ham. Ham and Cheddar. Sugar (In less prosperous times). Jam. Tinned salmon or tuna. Leftover sunday roast beef. Leftover sunday roast chicken.

These would be 2 slices of white/soda/brown bread slathered with copius amounts of Kerrygold Irish Creamery butter (Heavenly butter) and for the mad adventurous types a bit of mayonnaise.

So when all this brie and pesto stuff started up it was a whole new concept for we farmer folk. A now welcomed concept- see that ad with the farmers building walls- something we have grown used to along with the rest of the world and it has changed our tastebuds for the better!

So here is a traditional Irish take on a classic. Anyone on a diet, look away now.

2 thick cut slices of white bread (not the rubbish bought in a pack type, go to your local bakery or make it yourself :))
A small handful of Irish (Kilmeaden/Dubliners) extra mature cheddar cheese
About 1/4 ball of buffalo mozzerella
A sprinkling of parmesan cheese
2 thick sliced hickory smoked rashers (source locally if at all possible)
A smidgeon of wholegrain mustard with guinness (made by lakeshore)
Irish creamery butter – Kerrygold all the way

Yeah, sounds good doesn’t it!

So here’s what you do:

Grill or fry (argh, arteries solidifying) the rashers until nice and well done. I like mine crispyish at the edges. Trim off the fat and use the nice lean stuff.

Grate or chop up all your cheeses and mix them all up nicely in a bowl.

Take your 2 slices of bread and lightly cover with the Guinness mustard (or lather it on if that’s your thing). Pop on your yummy rashers (that you haven’t eaten. I know that missing bit was merely a casualty of cooking) on top and place your cheeses on. Put your second slice of bread on and here comes the melty bit. Butter the outside of both sides of your nearly ready sandwich.

Now there are 2 ways to do this. You can heat up a good heavy pan, preferably cast iron, and cook your sandwich thatta way, or you can pop it in under the grill. Either way you want to cook each side until golden brown and there’s melty cheese peeking at you from inside your sandwich!

Serve immediately but try not to burn yourself too much 🙂

The best-sounding medical terms/jargon/products Part 1

by Cake in the country

Every so often we come across something that has the most wonderful ring to it. Here are my favourites, what they make me think of, and what they actually are

1. Moxifloxacin: (Mocks–eeeee–flocks–a–sin)

Sounds like: a golden haired rabbit’s name. Is actually: A flouroquinolone.

2. Dysdiadochokinesia

Hah- try saying that one! Ok ok here: Dis–dye–ad–o–ko–kine–eas-ee–aa

3. Peptostreptococci

Sounds like: Fun sweets. Picture an energetic 90s haired kid thrusting the pop box of sweets toward the camera.  Is actually: Bacteria

4. Glomerulopathy

Sounds like: Someone is sad/something to do with bells. Is actually: Disease of the glomeruli in the blasted kidneys

5. Erysipelas (Er–iss–ipp–el–iss)

Sounds like: A character in a fantasy book. Is actually: A well demarcated nasty skin condition

6. Babinski’s reflex

Sounds like: Foreignspeak for baby. Is actually: A reflex associated with UMN Lesion

7. Proximal Myopathy

Sounds like: A good band name. Is actually: Muscle weakness in the near muscles

8. Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism

Its just lovely.

9. Frusemide

Sounds like: A yoghurt. Is actually: A diuretic

10. Rifampicin

Just has a fantastic ring to it.

11.Syringomyelia

Sounds like: A breed of dragon. Is actually: Spinal cord cyst

12. Berry aneurysm

It just sounds so pleasant and plump. Its not tho.

13. Bigeminy

Sounds like: An english expression of surprise (e.g. Bigeminy Theodore, the afternoon tea was 46 seconds late today). Is actually: Irregular atrial rhythm

14. Lymphangitis (Limf–ange–ite–is)

Sounds like: Something to do with elephants. Is actually: Inflammation of lymph nodes

15. Eosinophilia

Sounds like: A princess from ye olden times. Is actually: Not. It’s when you have eosinophils! Lots of them

16. Henoch Schonlein Purpura

Sounds like: A phlegmy greeting. Is actually: A type of vasculitis

17. Plasmodium Falciparum

Sounds like: Just has a lovely ring to it. Is actually: Malaria- the bad kind. Fire the quinine into ya.

18.  Cryptosporidiosis

Sounds like: What leaves Superman in trouble. Is actually: What left all the Galwegians in trouble.

19. Gastrocnemius with emphasis on the C (Gas-tro-{k}Neeem-eee- us). You don’t actually pronounce the C

Sounds like: Nothing I’ve ever heard before. Or a flying car from the future. Is actually: a muscle in your leg

20. Amoebae (A-mee-bee)

Sounds like: A personalised insect. Is actually: Plural of Amoeba (ah leaving cert science, how I miss thee)

Apple crumble you say?

by Cake in the country

Well it doesn’t contain chocolate, therefore it’s not top on my list of desserts, but its a bit of a staple really! And I had a mighty surplus of apples that were teetering on the verge of ‘I’m not going to eat them, they’ve been on my shelf a week or two’ So I whipped up a heavy on the crumble dish of apple loveliness. And because I am a nice person and I am generous and completely modest, I am sharing with you. I did happen to make way more crumble than was necessary so I scaled back a tad. This may still be crumble heavy for all your crumble amateurs out there, but there’s nothing worse than measly amounts of crumble.

Oh also, my batteries in my weighing scales ran out so this is in Cups.

Apple Crumble, trad style:
6 – 8 apples- preferably big cooking apples (If very big you can cut back on the amount- 4-5 giant does the trick).
2 tablespoons demerara sugar (If apples are super bitter pop in another tablespoon or two)
1 tbsp cream flour
1 tsp yummy ground cinnamon
1 and a half cups of cream flour
5 oz butter, cut into pieces (unsalted please. I would not like to be charging you for consults on the old ticker in a few years time. Also make it cold butter- easier)
1/2 cup of demerara sugar and 2 tablespoons to sprinkle on top!

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Grease a nice tin that you would like to put your fantabulous crumble in.

Peel and slice your apples into a bowl. Sprinkle the flour, sugar and cinnamon over the apples and give them a wee twirl around to coat all the slices nicely. Then pop them into your preprepared nice tin and get to the crumble part before they get super brown and icky looking. (You could to these steps backward if you wish)

Crumble time. Now. I have said I’m a fan of speeding things up, what with my course taking up a lot of time. You can do this nicely in a food processor. Pop in your flour and your butter and give it a whizz until it looks like yummy breadcrumbs. Alternatively you can rub the butter into the flour old style. Cold hands, cold butter, tips of the fingers to rub it in – If I can ever afford a video camera I will show you how to do this and other stuff. Today I was helping Mary shop for almost unheard of audio equipment and I had issues walking by the camera equipment.

Recipe. Yes. Em.. Oh yes so when it resembles somewhat fine breadcrumbs you may add your sugar and give it a stir. Then you merely need to sprinkle it over the yummy apples! Lightly sprinkle the sugar evenly on top for a nice crunch – woohoo! Sin e 🙂

Into the oven for about 40 minutes or so until its nice and brown. Not black. Black means burned. And burned is not tasty. Most of the time. Not on crumble anyway…

So when its done and NOT burned (‘NOT’ – that’s the operative word, must remember that)

Serve with freshly whipped cream and enjoy 🙂

Our dinner party plan:

by Cake in the country

So the lovely Jennifer and I have had quite the few chats about the most entertaining dinner party we could have. Our mutual respect for comedic genius has largely influenced this list. In particular a few of the good old Irish comedians and  Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Also influencing our decision was our mutual love of rugby. The ones that don’t fit into these categories really don’t need explanation, lets face it.

We would therefore like to invite the following to dinner:

Ewan McGregor

Charley Boorman

Dara O’Briain

Neil Delamere

Simon Amstell

Josh Groban

Tommy Bowe

Cillian Murphy

Yes. Is that not the best dinner party list you have ever seen? If any of the above see this, you’re invited to dinner with Jennifer and I. Give me a shout and we’ll set it up!

P.S. I’m completely serious.

Italia Part 1 – The beginnings

by Cake in the country

So seeing as I am a poor student and thus never do anything but sleep, eat, watch comedy shows and look at the occasional book or twelve, I have decided, in the interest of you, my readers, to rewind back to 2007 and write a few bits and pieces about my favourite ever summer adventure thus far: Italy.

I had a wee inkling back in the Arts days to do a bit of travelling (inkling currently on mute until financial situation looking a bit happier) and so it came to me- the clouds parted, the sun shone upon me and the heavens spoke to me. And they impressed upon me the idea of TEFL… Of course! To teach English would suit perfectly. I mean, I speak the language, how hard can it be?!

So I signed up and Tefled myself up the walls for a week or two. And then promptly forgot about it until I received an email telling me my time to complete the course was up. I hurriedly paid another fee (via the parents, bless their wallets) and finally finished it up a while later. And voila, just like that, I was a qualified to teach english as a foreign language.

Flash forward a few months to Oxford, where I was sitting at a grey desk in a greyish room in a greyish type of student accommodation: I believe I was transcribing what I distinctly remember to be 30 hour interview, despite the total time of it misleadingly reading a mere 45 minutes? Nonsense I tell you, it was most certainly around the 29.5 hour mark. So I was sitting there at about half past 11 at night, bored and procrastinating. Aaaand as one does, I happened to check my email. And I happened to find the TEFL summer jobs email that gets sent round every so often. And I just happened to browse through it. And, just for the hell of it, as I had nothing else to do, I clicked apply on a few of the summer camps jobs, knowing full well that I wouldn’t get the job anyway. However apparently the camp were on the look out for randomers such as myself and they asked me nicely to prove someone such as myself can speak english, and on production of my certificate and a copy of the auld English degree they double checked it, frowningly triple checked it, and gave it a ‘well it looks real enough, lets see if she can make it over’ doing and asked me on board.

Well, that sorted it. I was going to Italy for a month in the summer. Most excellent. Given that most of what happened for the next few months revolved around exams and such and nobody really gives  hoot about such things, I shall fast forward again to the day before I flew to Nice.

Just to bring you up to speed – the plan was to fly from Dublin to Nice (in France), hop on a bus to town, find the train station, get a train to San Remo in Italy. This is all without a word of Italian in my vocabulary, you understand, and about 20 or so of french. Such as the one phrase we taught Orla going into Leaving Cert french spoken exams: ‘Je deteste la francais , l’ecole et la (le?) prof’ (This stuck with me over the past few years of course). By the way if those la/le thingys are incorrect I apologise profusely and beg your forgiveness. I am not a language person I’m afraid. But I was going to San Remo! (Like in The Talented Mr. Ripley – wonderful film!)

There we would be trained in the art of shouting at Italian children or such and be assigned to our Italian homes, where we would receive a new mammy and daddy of the Italian fashion. Beloved Italian homes… Anywho, so the wonderful Christina who was organising the whole shebang found out our flights and kindly emailed those who would be on the same ones. I was to meet a ‘Liz from Belfast’ and a ‘Derek from Florida’ at Dublin airport. We all got each others numbers and such and the plan was to find each other and become ‘BFFs’. Yeeaaaah. I was a little apprehensive about this whole meeting shenanigans, and pictured myself ending up sitting beside a couple of crazies and such, possibly due to watching just a little too much telly (Red eye anyone?). Speaking of telly I am currently watching The Shining. That kid is all kinds of scary… As is his charming father.

So on with the story. I headed down to Dublin for an 8am flight to Nice and give Liz a text. We were to meet at the desk. Now there is little that you will do in life that will make you feel quite as noticeably awkward as standing beside a check in desk not queueing, and looking out for a person that you do not know and who does not know you. You stand there, giant rucksack propped against your feet, keeping one leg in the strap in case somebody tries to rob the bloody thing (I’m from the country, you hear stories). If someone had tried they still would have gotten it and probably would have broken my leg to boot. In retrospect this was not my most intelligent decision regarding stance. You must remember that this was approximately 6 o’clock in the morning though, and it can be (and has been) said that I am not a morning person. Ar aon nos, every few minutes a grumpy looking ruffled person dragging a clicking wheeled suitcase (my rucksack and I snorted in laughter at these squares) would come and stand behind you until you shuffled around, trying not to trip on the aforementioned strap, and awkwardly mumble something about ‘not actually queueing if you want to go ahead there’. You were, in return for your honesty, fixed with a stare that would have turned Hell into a place resembling the North Pole, and the grumpy person would snatch their roll-y suitcase up, mutter under their breath (a lot of this was en Francais) and saunter off to stand behind another unknowing traveller innocently waiting to meet their soon to be BFF’s.

And so I stood there, giving shy smiles to anybody who looked as though they were looking for a clueless Irish girl who was off to Italy. I got a lot of confused looks from people passing by. And then I heard a resounding Belfast accent from behind me ‘Sarah?’ It took me a second to put this information to use. I remind you of the 6.30am thing. It went something like ‘…Sarah.. That’s my name… Ha, imagine’ *No reaction. ..Hey that sounded like a someone with a Belfast accent. *No reaction. Oh hang on am I not  I looking for Liz with a Belfast accent looking for me i.e. Sarah?’ Theeere we go *Wheel around. ‘Oh, Hey, I’m Sarah! Hi. Yeah that’s me! Hi, how are you? How was your bus from Belfast???’ (And then ‘Eh, you are Liz right? I’ve just babbled onto you for a whole minute please be Liz’)

Sidenote: Just got to the ‘All work and no play’ part of The Shining. Rather scared the bejaysus out of me.

Well it was Liz! That is how I met the lovely Liz. She was training as a teacher and up for the craic! We chatted away about the usual awkward mundane stuff as we made our way through security and during the hour or two we had to wait! There was no sign of Derek, however, until we arrived in Nice (FRANCE, I WAS IN FRANCE!!! For all of 3 hours). His adjoining flight had come in late and his luggage had been mislaid (shock!). We all found each other in Nice though,  and had a wee chat and such and got to know each other. And neither of them were crazies! It was all rather lovely.

We somehow managed to figure out how on earth to get out of the airport and found a bus that looked like it might be going in a direction of some sort, and any direction was good for us! Hey, we were in France! Miraculously it dropped us off in a place resembling what may have been the town centre and dotted with pastry shops and cafes. We were in France! In fact we were famished in France. And surrounded by dainty looking cafes with the most amazing scents wafting out. My chocolate radar was buzzing. We stumbled, bleary eyed, over to the nearest dinky little shop, a tiny affair with shelves behind a glass screen loaded with delicious looking pastries of all types. We each bought about 12 and hastily devoured them in a single bite. All 12 of them (I never exaggerate). It was heaven.

Following this massacre of French (real French!) pastry, we hopped to it and, having acquired some unclear directions from a cafe worker/random lady in an apron (I don’t know how the french fashion rolls in Nice) involving much gesturing of weird wheel type movements and ‘chooo-chooo’ sound effects, we deduced that the station was about a days hike south over a mountain, through a jungle, and I believe a final 4 hour boat trip away. So off we went.

It turns out that it was 2 streets away, and since we found it on our way to the mountain, no harm was done. We were able to obtain tickets without the same level of gesturing as ‘San Remo’ and using an index finger as a universal sign for ‘1 ticket’ and ‘1 way’ seemed to do the trick.

We boarded a train for San Remo and lo and behold it left the station on time! It was madness!

But there, my dear readers I shall leave it for part one. Part two will be forthcoming, but for now I have to go and cower under my blankets in fear, as I know that if I leave my room after watching The Shining there will most certainly be an axe-wielding maniac waiting for me. It’s just a fact of life. So it’s hiding under the blankets for me. Until I remember the 6th sense and that terrifying bit.. Oh deary me.

Buonanotte…

The internet hates me right now

by Cake in the country

As it was so aptly put by Mary. I know why… It’s still mad at me because I ignored it yesterday during lectures… Even though I apologised. I spent hours with it all evening, but the damage was done. And now its shouting at me with popups, refusing to let me listen to iRadio via streaming, and shuffling it’s feet and lagging a good 5 clicks behind me. It refused to keep up with my required speed of internet browsing (i.e. Somewhat faster than dial-up), stubbornly ‘loading’ for whole minutes at a time, progress bar creeping along, getting my hopes up, only to ‘time out’. Timing out is the equivalent of my internet sticking its tongue out at me and running away to hide where I won’t find it.

I just want us to be friends.

If this were Tuesday I could have called it ‘Tuesdays with Mary’

by Cake in the country

Geddit?

So the day started with me getting up on time and making it into lectures for 8 (bah) and despite looking a wreck and a half I was quite content. Until of course I get asked to go take this history off our fake patient. And naturally I haven’t been practising so a bit rusty on the whole SOCRATES (is mnemonic for pain questions to ask) thing. The first few are fine – Site, Onset, Character, Radiation. However right there is where I promptly forget all other pain questions and stare blankfully at fake patient, giving a sheepish smile that clearly announces ‘This girl = Idiot. After a year and a half she still blanks on histories. Eeeehhh, that’s a big fat duck egg to you Mrs.’ But after a few minutes of mortifying buffoonery and bumbling questions, I was let off the hook and thankfully and bashfully stumbled back to my seat in shame. And promptly zoned out. Which may be the reason I’m a bit rusty.

Well, that being said and done, the day continued and most of what I can remember revolved around my insisting to Mary that I could not, under any circumstances, go on a mini road trip with her to get her car fixed. Absolutely not. No chance. It’s simply impossible my dear. Well.. No. No I just can’t… Ok I’ll go.

So class finished and we vroomed off to her car-fixing people who informed her that her car has mutated into a double accelerator car. Yep. Its got a hidden accelerator on the other side of the brake. (Auto car- no clutch) James Bond style. But enough about Mary’s higher state of evolution car…

The real adventure started on our way home! With a  skip and a jump, we hopped into the car, programmed the sat nag and took off. We approached a junction. We spent a few seconds frantically shouting  ‘Is this the road? Which exit? This isn’t a roundabout! Where’s the roundabout sat nav- WHERE?! Do you SEE a roundabout?!  Wait, is it this one?’ And promptly took a wrong turn. Then we spent a further minute or two glaring at the mistaken sat nav whilst she huffed and recalculated. And just to really rub it in, she sent us right back around in a circle. She announced ‘Drive 600 metres and turn left (you could hear her sigh in frustration here) And then turn left again. And then turn left again. And you’ll be preeeeetty much back where ye started. You imbeciles. Have you got that now? Can you maybe manage that?’

She actually said all these things. She did. Well she implied it. The distaste in her jaded voice implied it.

Well after a few successful left turns, we came to another junction. I’m pretty sure satnag did this to us on purpose. Somewhere up there, (I picture the sat nav lady sitting in one of those computer filled rooms directing people into lakes and such and laughing manically) she was sitting in a high-backed leather chair, with a white fluffy cat, watching to see if we would follow her directions and then slowly twirling around 180 degrees on the chair as we did, her laugh growing as she watched the turmoil she put us through. Anyway, this junction happened to be another super awkward one with a Luas line running across it. Do you know how awkward it is to  go to turn left only to find a load of Luas tracks looming before you?! Do you? Well its quite a surprise, let me tell you. Luckily, thanks to Mary’s lightning fast thinking and possibly due to her mutated car (I’m pretty sure it also thinks and took part in the swift correction of path) we managed to make it to the proper road and had a successful left turn. At this point satnav woman raised her fist to us with a cry of ‘Next time I’ll thwart your travel plans, Mary, next time…’ and turned her attentions to some unsuspecting foreigner driving through Connemara who suddenly got the instructions to take a left and unhesitatingly drove into a river.

Our trip home a success, we decided it was high time we went cookery equipment shopping. Mary had her sights set on a pastry cutter/blender apparatus, a cake tin, a good knife, and a sieve, and I.. Well I had no intention of buying a thing, despite my needing (NEEDING) sandwich tins to bake a cake. But no, I knew I could not afford to buy such things and of course I would not be exiting the shop with 2 sandwich tins, a garlic press, a pastry brush, silicone cookie sheet,a spatula,a mixing bowl and toaster bags; No sirreee that was not me with all of those items.

Ahem.

Well, I directed Mary into the store. We were prepared and threw a cushion under her jaw before it hit the floor.  We were greeted by rows and rows of baking tins, spatulas, whisks, knives (in a non Hitchcock psycho way naturally), the mixing bowls. The beloved stand mixer that I had to be dragged away from, biting and scratching, calling out for it. Mary and I have a mutual appreciation of cooking equipment. It makes beautiful beautiful goods. Sigh. I could have spent hours in there. We did spend quite a while. (Discovered a Yankee candle  refuge also. I repeat, was very productive afternoon). On paying for our loot and lobbing it all in a bag, Mary was still pastry blender and sieveless, so we took a wander over to TK Maxx, where I had previously stumbled upon a nice item or two. Up the escalator we went and strolled over to the home-wares section. And lo and behold there was the pastry blender. Mary scooped it up and quick as a flash we came across a sieve. I then had to be dragged (again) away from multiple packets of mini loaf tins – so CUTE, mini cookie cutters, mini-saucepans, mini-bundt cake tins – do you happen to see a pattern here? Alas, I didn’t buy the beloved tins. I placed them back upon the shelf, knowing in my heart that they would miss me as much as I would miss them. I’ll likely wake up suddenly in the night after dreaming that I lost those baby tins and realise… well… realise I never had them in the first place…

Hmm… I fear I’m becoming far too dramatic re tins. Must scale back a tad. I still want them though. Should I be passing I may MAY buy a pack.. May. (You know I will.)

Happy and once again trying to understand why we don’t share a kitchen (And what a kitchen of wonders that would be. Wonders and no counter space), we traipsed back to the car and drove home, silently, in awe of our super new super cool kitchen apparatus, Mary gracefully dropped me off, and I ambled into the house where I fell upon and devoured delicious Sloppy Joe’s that were made and given to me by the aforementioned mutant car owner/driver. Heaven in a bun let me tell you! Followed by Week2Day2 of couch to 10k app on iPod. Must keep to schedule! Which wasn’t too bad so feeling rather happy with self. A rather productive Monday I believe!

How was yours?