I am in support of Pineapple Alaska

There I was at the Bazaar - or "Bazar", as they call it in Montreal - last summer (Catholic, lots of old lady skirts in autumnal shades for sale, teeny-tiny sweet nuns who could probably tell I was a never-active non-believing Protestant who quite likes C of E churches and cries at carol services), stocking up on 1930s French books, and what did I find but an entire set of Marguerite Patten recipe cards (1967, rev. 1973), translated into French and on sale for only $5?

An idea sprang into my gigantic brain! I would create a new game called Marguerite PotLuck, in which we would dip our cautious hands into said set of recipe cards and cook (and eat) whatever came out, even if it was (and excuse me while I go and experiment "live") Veau Tyrolien or Salade de Hareng. This idea seemed quite brilliant on 8th May 2008 and still is, I believe, quite marvellous.

Over a year later, I am lying on the sofa sucking absinthe through a straw and watching the 'tele' when the people start talking about a new film with Mrl Strp in it called "Julie/Julia" or somesuch. It is about a cook and another cook and it looks quite good. But what is this?!! My keen monkey eyes are distracted by a flash of light that bounces off my glistening glass, throwing into sharp relief the spine of a handsome book on the top shelf. It is called Julie and Julia!!! This is incredible.

A preposterously handsome French friend of mine (who has taken a violent interest in English food and spends much of his time making walnut pickle), gave it to me when I started writing this web-blog. "Darleeng. You must read this. She had a blogue. Now she 'as a book. And darleeng, when are you going to do your cookeeng show on YouTube? You would be MARvelloos." But I did not read it; instead it, like the rest of my books, was left in London for three years whilst I skipped about in other places, including (but not limited to) Amsterdam and Montreal.

Anyway, I picked up the book the other day and started reading it. If you do not know about it (which you probably do), it is the story of a lady who decided to cook the whole of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and write a blog about it. I am really enjoying it; it is charming, in the way Nancy Mitford is charming (no, don't ask me why, I know what I mean), and it has made me think all sorts of things, namely:

1. This blog is now over three years old;
2. In it, I have rarely talked about the things that I really enjoy doing every day; the things that I spend a large part of every evening and every weekend doing.

Those things are:

1. Cooking
2. Shopping for food in shops that sell nice food
3. Cooking
4. Shouting at recipe books
5. Cooking
6. Eating toast and spitting crumbs at The Food Network
7. Cooking
8. Shouting "fuck off!" at Iceberg lettuces
9. Making jam
10. Getting really, really good at making bread
11. Doing complicated things with gelatine
12. Thinking about putting Jamie Oliver's tongue in a tongue sandwich and feeding it back to him.

But I digress. I am very angry because the Julie lady has already done this thing that I thought was so amusing and original, i.e. take an old cookbook and cook out of it and write about it.

This happens to me a lot. I am always having really excellent ground-breaking ideas (for e.g. I invented pepper mill fillers, those loo roll holders that work and jam and peanut butter mixed together in a jar, to name but a few), and then I realise that someone else has done it already. It is the same with Marguerite PotLuck, which is sort of the same idea as Julie and Julia, but with photographs that will enable to reader to view and judge the comparative merits of my version vs. the 1967 technicolour photograph.

What do you think? Shall I worry less about originality (hard as it is to believe that anything I should do would be unoriginal!), and do it anyway? I could be posting about organising my wedding, but frankly the 120 votive candles and candle holders that I ordered when I was drunk turning up at the office today is about as interesting as it gets, and I think it is time to do something I will enjoy very much indeed. And anyway, don't you want to know how the Ananas Alaska turns out?


NB: There would be nothing amusing about doing this with Constance Spry or Elizabeth David, both of whom are from the olden days, but quite brilliant. There is definitely an argument for the comedy value of The Dairy Book of Home Cookery, but I will not laugh at it more than I already have done, for it is a wise and helpful book that I love.

I was sad to hear a poet had died (warning: contains poetry-chat, which many find embarrassing)

I found out by accident today that the poet U A Fanthorpe died in April, which made me very sad. I read a lot of poetry and have books and books of it all over the place in piles; sometimes they fall on my head when I am supposed to be doing something else. I can still recite long chunks of things, from "The King's Breakfast" (which my grandmother used to recite with all the voices when we were in the bath), to "As The Team's Head-Brass" (which I learnt by heart one afternoon when I'd been locked out of the flat in the middle of revising for my English Lit O-Level), and little things like "Celia, Celia" (which makes me think of my friend Louis).

I used to be one of those people who finds poetry embarrassing*, but then something happened and I realised that it is probably the answer to most things. I think it must be very difficult to write good poetry. I have tried, and even with a lot of teaching and help at Birkbeck I was still rubbish at it (but I enjoyed trying more than I have enjoyed most things). On the other hand, it is very easy to write things that people describe as poetry but which are not. (A poem does not have to rhyme, for example, and a good one is unlikely to include the lines: "And that, Mum, is why I love You/And will always kindly think of You.")

Anyway, all that's off the point (if there was one). I am very sad that U A Fanthorpe died because she wrote my favourite love poem. I am afraid I can neither read it nor have it read at our weeeeeding (as MonkeyMother will insist on calling it), as I will fall on the floor in a fit of the vapours and have to be revived with smelling salts and/or a bucket of absinthe. Still, here it is and I hope at least one of you likes it:

ATLAS

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

Please do go and read some of her other poems. I am really sorry she has died. She seemed like a proper kind of poet. You can buy this lovely book, and there are one or two in this book, which I think is brilliant. I do not think it contains the poem my dear pal Pats** may be reading at our wedding ("Being Boring" by Wendy Cope, yes indeed- Ms Baroque, is it ghastly?), but it has lots of other brilliant things in it. I have given it to at least 10 people and even people who had always gagged in that particularly British way when someone said the word "poem" have reluctantly admitted that it makes poems not embarrassing and OK to like.

(Actually, don't buy books from Amazon. Buy them from Jonathan instead. He is a proper bookseller.)


* I can however confirm that there nothing worse, nothing worse in the world, than a bad poet reading his or her really shit poems to you really earnestly even if you've already said "Oh heavens NO! Do give them to me to READ! SO MUCH EASIER to appreciate them!!!!"

** Not her real name.

I had forgotten Tired Dad

Many years ago (about 3), i.e., after I started this web-blog*, but before anything else interesting happened, I went to Glasgow to see a very dear friend. I stopped off at Newcastle on the way, thinking it might be nice to have a look at the bridge and whatnot and get the locals to say "the eighth of May" a few times, which I did and which was, I must say, quite entertaining.

I also had a drink with Tired Dad. What he is like as a person (not bad, as it goes) is not relevant, but what is relevant is that he writes this and you should read it. I do not mean that you should read it in a "you should read this! It is politically important and we are going to melt inside the global warning!" way; no no, I mean: he is a bit odd but fucking funny, and it is worth 1 minute (if you are me and read fast; 5 if you are normal) of your time. Also, it is my annual 'charity day', and I am feeling kind.


* How many of you have read the first ever post? Not many, I'll be bound. You will note that despite the fact that it started quite badly, it has still managed to decline every day for over three years. Quite some achievement, I'm sure you'll agree.

I have photographs of baboons, in Knowsley Safari park, breaking open car roof boxes

I have only one question: who are these people that travel with inflatable monkeys in their roof boxes, and where do they live, that I may shake them by the hand and clap them on the shoulder? And does the inflatable monkey smack of set-up? (And even if it does, who cares? A baboon! With a bra!)

I have been doing some work

... most of which looks like this:



At other times during the weekend, when I am not doing work and whilst the rain pours and pours from the sky, I make jam and put it in the dishwasher:





















In other news, I ordered 120 glassine bags off of the internets today, muttering something to myself about 'wedding favors' (to adopt the ghastly American spelling); wedding favors that I have absolutely no intention of buying or making. I have quite patently lost my mind, and I am very much afraid that only gin can help.

Coming soon: Wedding Porn Pt 2, my excellent recipe for peach and lavender jam, and a preview of my wedding invitation which features something so lovely and so generous that even thinking about it causes tears to spring to my cynical simian eyes.

Pip pip!