Food, blog, food, blog

It's me again!  Little me, back again, updating you all on this blog.  Once a year is like, plenty enough, for anyone isn't it?  That's what SJP says!
Well, Darryl and Jordan got together with each other and I got feeling a bit left out, so I started seeing Marcus again, and he didn't like sharing the bed with me and Darryl and Jordan, which I so didn't get, as I was lovely and toasty-warm and there was always someone to cuddle, so the next thing I know he's saying that someone has to sleep on the couch.
How the hell did that someone end up being me?  I slept there one night, with my Buffy slippers and my Jersey Shore dressing gown and this fleecy blanket thing that Ethel brought back from some third-world country she visited (oh God, I mean, Ethel.  Like you would!) and I woke up all cold and stiff and unloved and I decided enough was enough, so I moved back in with Mummy for a week.  Mummy was just back from touring in an aquavan so she was all like Cher in Mermaids and she and I just drank Limoncello all week and had a great time.
But then on Thursday Mummy sobered up a little and went down to the house in the country to feed the dogs or something, and said that when she came back she wanted to see that I'd done something productive.  Like, totes not going to happen!  I nearly had a job once, working in some miserable little council office where they implement government housing policies or something, and I remember distinctly this woman there with a bad perm and brown teeth who kept making everyone feel bad about themselves, and like, there's just no way I could have a job after that.  I mean, her dress clashed with her boots, and I'm sure that if I'd seen her bra and knickers I'd have taken my own straight off and given them to her as a spontaneous act of charity.
But Mummy's insistent, and she pointed out that I had this little blogette and said she wanted to see me adding an entry to it.
"The kitchen's empty," she said.  "We sent the cook off with the children when Social Services picked them up to make sure that they wouldn't be undernourished in some council estate somewhere, so it's not even like the last one where she just died in there and no-one noticed for a week."  (I remember that, that was the week I was on my toast-and-cigarettes diet, and when I finally got to the toast part I found the cook face down in the dirty dish-water in the sink.)  "Go and cook something and then write about it.  You're really good with words and verbs and things, so show me.  Make me proud."
So like, anyway, she's totes so, like, correct about me and words.  I've got verbiage coming right out of my fingers!  So I went and had a look at the kitchen.
So there was this dried pasta stuff, long, thin, brittle, and there was some red sauce stuff in a jar, and I thought, people eat pasta when they've got no money don't they?  And I realised then that I could add human interest to this blog by cooking for like, poor people, like the gardener and the pool boy and his deaf sister and people like that.  So I thought, let's give it a try.
So, I put the brittle pasta stuff in a glass dish and put it in the oven to bake it.  I put the sauce, Tabby-cat or Tabsi-Cola or something like that – it was just a little bottle but I thought that the pasta was supposed to be the main ingredient so it didn't matter – in a pan to boil, and then I realised that I should pick out a wine to go with it.
Then I remembered that Mummy has a Sommelier to pick out wines, so I found him in the wine cellar, crying for some reason, and showed him what I was cooking.  And you know, it was amazing!  One minute he's really upset about something, and then when he realises what a wonderful person I am, cooking for poor people, he really cheers up and ever starts laughing, though there might still have been some tears there as well.  I invited him to dinner, but he said that he's just had his stomach stapled and can't eat for a week.  What a good idea!
I got the gardener and the pool boy in and got the baked pasta out of the oven, but it didn't look very different to me, and poured the boiling sauce over it, and there really wasn't all that much of it.  I served it up, and they looked up at me with this look in their eyes that I couldn't interpret at first, and then I realised that it must be gratitude, which I never see from people like Edith.  It actually made me want to cry a little then, so I encouraged them to eat up and  went out in the hall to have a little cry and be impressed with how... noble I am.
When I came back in they'd eaten it all up and were already back at work.  They're dedicated, saintly people, and I have decided that I shall cook lunch for them everyday now.

I'm back!

Gosh, it's been so long since I posted anything on this blog, lol, I hope you all totes didn't die while waiting for me to update! I'm sure you all remember that I've decided to become a food blogger, and that it all got a bit derailed when I had to move house just as I started blogging. Well, it's been a manic mess for the last six months! Honestly, every day I just sit there in bed after Darryl's left and think "What would SJP do?" Well, that's not completely true, before Darryl it was James, but I was still wondering what SJP would do. And before James it was Matt, but I never had much time to wonder what anyone would do then if you get my drift! How do I giggle girlishly in a blog?
So anyway, Jordan's gone off to do something with motorcycles somewhere, and he looks just so yummy in those leathers of his I almost made him come back and spend the morning with me, but then I remembered that Darryl might be back this afternoon so I didn't. But right, anyway, Jordan said he didn't feel like eating out again tonight, and when I offered to order in he looked a bit taken aback and said that he'd quite like to try my cooking. And at first I'm all like shocked and wondering what he thinks I am, and then I'm wondering if maybe the maid died and no-one told me yet, and then, right, I totes remember this blog and all you wonderful readers waiting on the edge of your chaise longues (I had to look that word up in the dictionary! I'm such a scholar!) and so I said yes. And then I phoned mummy, because those cookery books were just so heavy and such a drag; they're all "do this, then do that!" and there's no room for creativity.
"Samantha," said mummy, "I'm at a day spa with Maurice. He's called social services and had them take the children away for a week, and we're touring the Shetland Islands in an aquavan. I don't have the number of the catering service with me, you'll have to do it yourself."
Well, I don't mind telling you that I threw a little bit of a tantrum then, but I calmed myself down and thought of you wonderful readers waiting on tent-hooks (is that right? It looks weird...) and decided to man up. Bitch up. That's better.
The counter-girl in F&M looked a little like SJP before her nose job, so I figured I could trust her.
"Cook book!" I barked, gesturing with my handbag and concussing some wretched orphan child running loose in the store. She produced this brick of a book called Bocca and pointed me at the Food Hall, while some irritating poor woman clutched at my sleeves and bewailed some child she had. I shook her off, walked over the concussed orphan, and found myself a personal shopper. She didn't seem very grateful, but she carried the basket and found the ingredients for the recipe I picked, and that was good enough. Naturally I had the food delivered home so as not to have to carry any bags that don't contain clothes.
Jordan and Darryl came home together, so I chastely kissed them both (less than a minute each! What would SJP think!!) and showed them what I was going to make.
"Bone marrow risotto?" said Jordan. "Is that peasant food?"
"I'm trying veganism," said Darryl, looking thin and waif-like. My heart went out to him. "I don't think I'm allowed to each risotto, isn't that made from parrots?"
"It says here that there's a restaurant called Bocca," said Jordan looking at the book. "Why don't we go there and let them do the cooking?"
And over dinner I found out how Darryl and Jordan already knew each other really quite well and...
but that's not for this post, that's for the tv mini-series!

Still food blogging

I'm so hung-over. So very hung-over, and it's totes not my fault. Jenn came over, and she brought Darren with her, who brought his sister, who brought her best friend and her twin, and they all wanted to try Coddled Eggs in Wine just the way I described it in my first post. And at first they were all Ewww and then I remembered that the martinis had helped a bit the first time, and soon we were coddling eggs -- well, egg-nog -- and drinking martinis, and... and now I feel like I'm being punished for being such a good cook and host. Hostess.
The reason Jenn came over, and brought Darren with her, who brought -- hang on, I told you all about that in the first paragraph. I won't bore you and tell you again! (Well, not in the same post, anyway. Read more about it tomorrow!) is because I have to move house tomorrow. I mean today. So she was going to help me pack, and so was Darren, but we wanted to eat first, and that means I never actually got started on this packing thing. Well I did, before they all arrived, but then I had to unpack some stuff to find the martini-shaker and the egg-nog coddling thingy (saucepan! See, I told you I was hung-over), so I'm now less packed than I was before.
Oh lord, what would SJP do?

Right, that was clearly the right question to ask, as I realised I could just hire people to pack for me. They were a bit rude on the phone when I explained that I wanted them right now, but I pointed out that I was a government worker and they jumped to it after that. I'd like to think it's because people respect the work we do in government, but I overheard one of them saying it's because they thought I was going to go postal. Hah. Like I'd know what to do with any post, I have a secretary for that. I mean, a PA.
So, cooking was going to be a bit tricky today, so I thought I'd do a salad, and I'd forage for the leaves myself, a really green post. But when I went for a quick walk round the shops, there were no free plants anywhere, which was a bit disappointing. Finally I stopped and asked the cute server in Dean&DeLuca where the foraging department was, and he said that foraging was all about going out into the countryside and picking things there. I slapped him. Naturally. (And got his phone number, but more on that when the media're interested in my blog.)
Well fine, I saw a park on my way to a restaurant the other day, I can forage there. Only I get there and realise I've no idea what the plants look like. In the end, I pulled up some pretty flowers and grabbed some clean-looking leaves and ran like hell when the park wardens saw me. Some of them are good shots, good enough that I now need to petition for park wardens not to be allowed firearms.
So, today's dish was park salad, and I poured a pot of mayonnaise over it, sprinkled some green stuff from a jar over it, and gave it to my helpful movers. (About that jar... isn't taramasalata supposed to be pink?)

Food blog

So, it seems I've just turned thirty and all my friends, who all watch old Buffy re-runs, Sex in the City re-runs and complain that the Jersey Shore makes them feel a little ridiculous now and then, tell me that I need to do something to stave off the mid-life crisis. What crisis! Lol. (Oh dear Lord, did I just write lol? Perhaps this crisis is happening faster than I thought. What would Sarah Jessica Parker(SJP) do?)

Right, crisis averted for the moment, as I remembered where I left the cocktail shaker (a gift from my father when he divorced my mother -- I'll go into that in more detail in a month when I can't stand to cook any more because it's all going horribly wrong, and because I'll have had a chance to attract media attention by then too. And they'll need something juicy to keep directing people to this blog!). Martinis all round. By which I mean, I'm surrounded now by martinis, and people, they don't keep. I am going to have to drink them all!

Ah, the martini is good, but I've just been back and counted all my exclamation marks and I think I've blown the budget for the month on them. So no more little pointy things with dots underneath! Except for that one.... Oh god, what would SJP do?

The plan for this blog (yes, yes I have a point you see) is to do something with my life. Something meaningful, something worthwhile, and something that will get me a book deal and my own tv show before I'm forty. Something like... a cross between Buffy and Sex in the City, only set on the Jersey Shore. With a bit of Desperate Housewives thrown in for good measure. But in order to get there I have to have a bit of a silly, but exacting, challenge. So I've picked a cookbook off the shelf (ok, it's the only one I own, and that's because Jenn gave it to me last year when I said I ought to blog about food), and I'm going to cook my way through it, every single recipe, in a month.
Ah, the book's called 1080 recipes. Probably not going to do that in a month then, not if I still want to watch TV, get manicures and swan round to the Devonshire to lord it over the girls! (Oops. That's not really an exclamation point, honest.) OK, well, we're going to cook all the recipes from there in a year, unless I get that book deal first. Which I hope I really do.

First recipe then, opening the book at random, is Coddled Eggs in Wine Sauce. No problem.

Well, I have no eggs, so I'm substituting egg nog, and I've drunk all the wine, so it's a martini instead, and... and... I can't see very clearly any more, so I'm going for a lie down. I'll blog about this when I wake up again. That's what SJP would do.