Back in the days before Nigella completely lost the plot, she had a low fat section in "How to Eat" called temple food.  This was essentially for days when you need to remember that your body is a temple, and treat it accordingly.

I came across the blog below, and was intrigued enough to cook both recipes last night.  They fall very firmly within the category of temple food.  I can report that they are full of vegetabley goodness, very tasty and (for those who care) both vegetarian and dairy-free.  Also Michael remarked that I was welcome to cook that again any time, which I count as a success.

http://buggydoo.blogspot.com/2008/05/asian-greens-and-spring-vegetables.html

The quantities suggested make two large helpings.

It raineth.  I have spent most of the morning grumping about having agreed to row in a race at 3pm this afternoon.  We did the same race last year in the rain and it was utterly miserable.  Having carelessly won our first heat we had to sit in our boat in the rain for 45 minutes waiting for the next heat.  It was so cold we didn't take even take our waterproofs off to race.  Which normally you would do because you get very hot rowing.

But, hurrah, our boat organiser rang up just now to say she was cancelling because the opposition couldn't confirm that they were going to turn up.  Heigh, ho!  My Sunday afternoon rescued after all.  I have however volunteered to row (non-competitively) on Monday, but hopefully the rain will have stopped by then.

So, back from Brittany where we spent a week with la_marquise_de_ and the Marquis and laosin, feeding our various obsessions. 

We saw menhirs in ranks and singly, striding over the hillsides, standing shyly in forests, wallowing through the earth like whale calves, thrown down and abandoned, used for sheep scratching posts or the back walls of sheds.  We climbed into numerous dark (and often dank) tumuli to peer at faint traces of carvings without (I might add) the benefit of a torch. 

We visited castles of many different grades of ruination.  The Marquis prefers the authentically ruined castles, preferably those with a boggy moat. He particularly likes climbing towers, ruinated or otherwise, and then wandering along ramparts to view the machicolations. Some towers had dark and slimy staircases, or serious pigeon infestations.  Some had oubliettes or garde robes.  There was one where each floor of the tower had a lavatory hole installed vertically above the one below.  We speculated on how these were used in practice, without coming to any definite conclusions.  We inspected gateways with or without portcullises and/or drawbridges.  

We also found many beautiful gardens, all of them (from memory) with attached castles (funny, that).  Apparently the Bretons are at least as keen on gardening as the English and (said one curator with a sniff) more original.  The rhododendron season was just starting, and some azaleas were out as well.  One castle had a plant sale, with flame coloured rhododendrons, and we contemplated (briefly) buying one in a pot and trying to take it home on Ryanair.  Decided not.

The astonishing thing was that the tourist season had not formally opened and therefore most of these castles and tumuli and gardens we had almost entirely to ourselves.  The downside was that some things were shut or under repair, such as the archaeological museum in Vannes, and the opening hours could be  a bit erratic.  But still.

Although there are Roman ruins in Brittany, it did not appear that any were visitable.  I was therefore reduced to exploratory eating.  Interesting things that I ate were:

Salad with gizzards and duck confit
Goose rillettes
Fish with andouilles (the local sausage made with chitterlings)
Pizza with andouilles, mustard and cream and fresh tomatoes
Crepes with scallops and leeks. 
Other crepes.
Scallops with leeks in a curried cream sauce (yum!).  Apparently the leek is a classic accompaniment to the scallop in Brittany.
Monkfish cheeks in a curried cream sauce (not at the same meal, obviously)
Seafood platters with oysters, prawns, langoustines, whelks and winkles.
Pink grapefruit flavoured ice cream (particularly welcome after a hot afternoon climbing All The Towers, yes, Every Single One Of Them, of Fougeres castle)
Ice cream with sea-salt flavoured caramel
Far (a solid custardy sort of cake rather like clafoutis, with prunes or raisins in the bottom)
Kouign amann (a sort of pastry cake with lots of butter and sugar)

and we drank lots of cider which I much prefer to English cider, being softer and fruitier, less acidic and much less alcoholic.

Have just been out weeding the front garden to the accompaniment of the Sunday Afternoon Drummer from the left and free-form jazz from across the road. 

Now, weeding our front garden is bad enough, as it is mostly paved or tiled.  Weeding consists mostly of digging dandelions out of crevices with the aid of a broken kitchen knife, so it's one of those Sisyphean tasks.  In fact, why did they bother to invent all those dull and repetitive torments in the underworld (you know, carrying water in a sieve, rolling rocks up hill) when they could quite easily have set someone to weeding dandelions?  Adding free form jazz is the equivalent of the daily vulture coming to rip your liver out.

So, anyway.  A good 2/3rds of the dandelions and other eager little weedlets gone.  Another hour or so would probably kill it, except I really can't stand the musical accompaniments any more.  Have come inside to Soothe my Nerves.

It's raining.  This is Good For the Garden in one way, obviously, but I had intended to get out there and do some more weeding.  I spent a couple of hours yesterday, doing some work on the woodlandy bits at the back.  This is not a huge area  - maybe eight or ten square metres, with an apple tree and some bushes at the back. It's shady and I've been trying to get some woodland plants to grow under the trees - foxgloves and pulmonaria and hellebores and such like.  It's full of bluebells and celandines at the moment, with stinking iris at the back, and it's covered in a mat of general weedstuff that I can't name. 

There is creeping ivy, and stuff that might be groundsel, or possibly chickweed (or is that only in ponds?), and that sticky stuff with long fingers that grows all over everything but is very shallow-rooted, and lots of something very pervasive with serrated leaves.  No, not dandelions, although we have plenty of those, thank you.  All I know is that it isn't ground elder (which is a bit like saying, well, I don't have housemaid's knee).   I almost fell upon the alkanet with relief, not because it's good (which it isn't) but because I know what it is.

So I dug away at this stuff, and made some space for my Sissinghurst White pulmonaria to breathe and split them up as recommended by the chap at the nursery.  They seem a  lot more fragile than the blue and pink varieties, but very pretty.  I've  done the same on the other side with my alchemilla, which seems to come back year after year despite being neglected and swamped by weeds.  My posh aquilegia that I bought last year (Black Barlow) seems to have survived the winter although no flowers as yet and of course all the normal aquilegia is rampant and I shall have to go around thinning them out.  My aim is to replace most of the weedy sorts of aquilegia with some prettier ones, with yellow or white flowers and long flying spurs.

Anyway, if anyone knows a good website for identifying weeds (with large and detailed pictures) please send me a link.  If I'm sending plants into oblivion, I'd at least like to know what they are.  And it's very hard to complain adequately to other people "and the flowerbeds are absolutely covered in X" if you don't know what X is.

Went to see Single Spies at the Arts Theatre last night with Michael and laosin.  This was two Alan Bennett plays, An Englishman Abroad about Guy Burgess in Moscow and A Question of Attribution about Anthony Blunt in his day job for the Queen.  I enjoyed them both although the theatre was very hot and I felt a bit dopy due to having had a pre-theatre dinner (with a nice Chilean rose) in the restaurant upstairs beforehand.  Oh, and Nigel Havers was playing both Burgess and Blunt. 

They were both small scale sorts of things - that you could see easily being done on TV or as student productions - and interesting in different ways.  I don't think Bennett was was particularly saying anything with either, but just looking at the two particular situations.  The horror of Burgess' existence in a small flat in Moscow, exiled from the things that made life worth living.  A Question of Attribution was more complex, full of double entendres about fraud, forgery and attribution, and a painting possibly by Titian in which third and fourth men appeared after cleaning/x-raying.  I think I'll try to get hold of the script (Oh, and I see Amazon has it as an audio-book as well). 

I thought you might like to know it's breakfast time.  No, really.  We always have breakfast at 5.30 am.

The other human forgot to feed me.

I was just interested.

No, that's not my cat-sick on the carpet.  Some other cat did that.

I just thought you might like to know it's tea time.  No, really.  Tea time starts at 4 pm.  I don't know why you think it's at 6 o'clock.

So I was at coth's on Friday night and unloading stuff fromms_cataclysm's car and I Dropped My Handbag in the road and didn't notice for ten minutes and then after we had searched the house and the car and the road (at least twice) and it was Still Not There we decided that somebody probably had stolen it so I spent the next hour on the phone cancelling my credit cards and everything, and then trying to report it to the police who said Oh No we won't take details over the phone you have to come to the police station to report it. 

So then flickgc said have something to eat first because the police station is bound to be Horrid and Full of Drunks on a Friday night and you will have to Wait For Hours and this seemed like good advice so I did.  And I was trying hard to be calm even  though it was Really Annoying and Upsetting and then Caro 's mobile rang and it was my brother John who had just had a phone call from my sister Claire in Australia who had had a strange phone call from someone in Ilford at 5 o'clock in the morning (Australian time) to say that he had found my handbag in the road and was trying to reunite it with me.  She said she thought it was someone trying to sell her insurance, and only didn't put the phone down because he had such a strong London accent. 

So, anyway it turned out that this extremely helpful person lived two doors down from coth and he had phoned the police who had been totally uninterested and told him to take the bag to the station the next morning.  He then found my address book in my bag and started ringing my relations.  Who were all totally confused as they couldn't think why my handbag should be in Ilford without me.  They then seem to have spent Friday night ringing each other up and leaving messages on my answering machine.  So I got my bag back and it was completely intact and everything was in it even my £5 in cash.

So it could have been a lot worse, and I am extremely grateful to the kind gentleman in Ilford and will send him some M&S vouchers to say thank you just as soon as I get access to my frozen bank accounts which may take a while (sigh).  In fact the thing that I was most worried about (after I had cancelled my credit cards) was that my season ticket was also in the bag and I could see myself spending some time at Cambridge station trying to get it and my photocard replaced and this would be Very Trying.  I'm so pleased that he made the effort rather than just handing the bag to the police the next morning.

I've dutifully been trying the exercise that my sister Caro (WINOLJ) recommended to get through the backlog - you know, reading one "old" book for every new book read.  At times I look at the shelves full of old books (that have been unread for at least six months) and wonder why I ever thought I might enjoy reading them.  Then I came across The Bull Calves by Naomi Mitchison.  And I thought "why not?" (Well, for a start it's 532 pages long, although this does include over 200 pages of footnotes which do not all have to be read, although some of them are quite interesting.)

The Bull Calves is a picture of some of her ancestors, the Haldanes, in June 1747, as Scotland tries to recover from the effects of the '45 rebellion.  It starts off so slowly that I almost gave it up - the first chapter consists of introducing a crowd of people who are virtually indistinguishable, despite there being two pages of family trees at the beginning of the novel (a bad sign, I generally think).  And she refers to them variously by their title, or their first name, or their nickname, which while realistic is not great for the reader.  And then there are people christened John who are called Robert, and that sort of thing, or vice versa.  But then one of the younger girls starts asking her Aunt Kirstie about her girlhood, and her boyfriends, and gradually it takes off.  And then I was gripped, because suddenly you're introduced to Jacobites and witches and Red Indians and traitorous cousins, and it's great. 

She's also made a huge effort to invent a language that resembles what the characters might actually have spoken, but is easy to read for the non-Scot.  I love historical novels where the writer has really thought about the language and does not (for instance) have characters in Regency or Victorian England using Americanisms just because the author has a tin ear for language, or can't be bothered.  One of the reasons why I love Georgette Heyer so much is they way she invented Regency slang in the same way, by taking elements of thieves' cant and turning it into something that the modern reader can understand.

So I was quite pleased to find a number of other Mitchisons on the unread books shelves.  The next one I picked up is called Sunrise Tomorrow, and looks to be a heartwarming story set in Botswana, written more than twenty years before Alexander McCall Smith bought up the franchise.  and then of course I remembered the African connection, and why thinking about Mitchison always reminds me of Doris Lessing, who has also written science fiction.  And I wonder vaguely why Lessing is so much better known than Mitchison, who appears to be at least as good a writer. 

My coffee machine is giving up the ghost, alas.  It is a Rowenta Brunch machine that I got from John Lewis a few years ago now, for £50.  It is leaking in various places, and currently held together by Plumber's Mait (do not laugh - Plumbers' Mait is very good for those Awkward Joints that Will Leak).  It has a number of excellent points that do not seem to be universally replicated on machines currently available.  Namely:

• It has a vacuum jug, and this together with the microwave means that I can have decent hot coffee when I need it
• Cheapness (I mentioned that, didn't I?).  The cheapest I can currently find for the same sort of machine is about £90 for a Krups, closely followed by the John Lewis own brand at £100.  For a coffee maker.
• Size.  It does not take up huge amounts of space on the counter top, unlike these all-singing, all dancing coffee makers that grind and press and make expressos.  Or those from Siemens that cost an arm and a leg.
  
• It makes good coffee.

I have, needless to say, tried eBay and the internet, but with no success.  So I think I am going to have to bite the bullet and pay for a new expensive one, and hope that it works as well as the old one.  It's either that or rely indefinitely on the Plumber's Mait.

Went rowing and yes, it did snow a bit.  But actually I was glad I did it, and came back all invigorated.  You could  tell it was cold, though.  None of us took any layers off  even for the energetic bits.  

It's now Monday and I'm pretty achy in more places than usual - evidence that I haven't had any proper exercise since getting back from skiing.  Must Do Better.  Also did Pilates this evening in the hope that it would do something for the aches.  It did but I am convinced I am the fattest person in the class (as the pregnant lady wasn't there), and looking at my wobbly bits in the mirror wasn't exactly morale boosting. 

More exercise lined up for Wednesday (sigh!)

Had an email this morning from the organiser of a crew that I sometimes row with, asking if I would like to sub in on Sunday morning, at 8 am.

I said:  Umm, in theory.  But isn't it going to be snowing?

She said:  Take no notice of the weather forecast! 

And the consequence was....

Went to see a couple of items at the Cambridge Wordfest this morning, with ms_cataclysm. 

First up was a discussion with Jill Paton-Walsh who finished writing the last Dorothy Sayers book about Peter Wimsey, Thrones, Dominations, and Nicola Upson who has just written a detective story with Josephine Tey as the detective.  Having said to myself, 'Josephine Tey - how dare she!'  when I first saw the novel in print, I have now been won over to at least being willing to read it.  Upson explained that she started off trying to write a literary biography of the author, but although her dual careers as a playwright and crime writer have been well documented, there was nothing much in existence about her private life, and the project more or less foundered, although Upson did manage to interview a number of her theatre cronies including John Gielgud.

Jill Paton Walsh has been an author I  have long admired, ever since reading Farewell Great King many years ago, and then more recently Lapsing among many other excellent novels.  She was on the panel as a detective story writer, and mentioned in passing that she was the second choice to finish the Sayers novel after PD James, who had said that it couldn't be done.  I must say I think we have been (or rather the novel was) preserved from a terrible fate as I can't believe James's rather chilly, charmless style would have done it any favours.  Walsh also revealed that she felt qualified to write about Lord Peter Wimsey as she had been in love with him since the age of 14, and therefore had the insight into his character that a lover would have.  Speaking as someone who has also been in love with Wimsey since age 14, I fully support the endeavour.  She commented rather sadly that one reason why she loved Wimsey was that he was one of the very few men (in her experience) who actually wanted to marry a woman who was his intellectual equal.  And finally she revealed that she had plans to write another Wimsey novel (hurrah!).

Then on to Sara Paretsky, interviewed by Michell Spring.  Paretsky is, as you might expect, intelligent and articulate, and has a lovely deep, slow voice.  She talked about her new book, Bleeding Kansas, and how Kansas seemed to be a microcosm of cultural clashes in America. There was a  large plastic model of a cow on stage behind her, which seemed to be deliberate.

Then we went and ate sushi.

We went to the National Theatre to see Much Ado About Nothing last night, with Zoe Wanamaker as Beatrice and Simon Russell Beale as Benedict.  I thought it was terrific, and I'm so glad we saw it, even if we did manage to get more or less the last two seats in the upper circle which happened to be not next to each other.  The two leads just sparked off each other and their sparring came over as spontaneous and genuinely funny.  Everybody spoke their dialogue as if it was real, and even the Dogberry stuff was made me laugh.  The director had thought really hard about the physical humour of the play and it all seemed very natural, particularly the bits where the principals are following each other round the set trying to overhear conversations about them, and falling into the swimming pool which I really didn't expect.  [I wouldn't have mentioned this except that the play seems to be at the end of the run, I hope I'm not spoiling ti for anyone].  The director also took the false accusations against Hero completely seriously, which made me realise quite how close the play is to tilting over into a Romeo-and-Juliet style tragedy.  But here the friar actually saves the day.  Michael and I spent some time discussing whether the Hero part of the plot is completely bonkers, and I think we decided that it was deliberately so, in order to contrast with the more sensible and grown up relationship that Beatrice and Benedict end up with.  Well, maybe sane rather than sensible.

shewhomust requested the end of the cheesecake story, and as she must, here it is. 

It required staggering amounts of philadelphia cheese and whipping cream.  700g cream cheese, 225g caster sugar, 350 ml whipping cream.  After that the 2 eggs and 40g flour are a trifle.  Umm, no, that doesn't sound quite right.  Nugatory, in any case. 

The goop just about fitted into my food processor.  The recipe said blend the cream cheese and sugar, beat in the eggs and cream, and then "carefully fold in the flour and vanilla extract.".  Why?  I tried the carefully folding, both inside and outside the food processor.  The flour rolled itself into gritty little balls which I could tell was Not Right.  Eventually I put it all back in the processor and blended again, and fortunately the gritty little balls disappeared (phew!). Next time I will "chuck flour and vanilla extract in carelessly". After that however there was cream-and-cheese-and-vanilla-and-sugar flavoured goop everywhere.  (Had to lick some of it off, yum).  Then carefully mix in the sultanas and rest of the soaking liquid (now slightly lemon and vodka flavoured goop, more licking, yum.)  Oh, I have to cook it now, OK.  Clean out food processor, mostly with fingers (having discarded nasty sharp blade).

In the oven it puffed up beautifully, filling the whole tin, but then when I took it out, unpuffed again.  But it tasted pretty good, especially with the poppy seeds on top.  My rowing crew, however, are all Ladies of a Certain Age, and they all seemed to know How Many Calories were in it.  Everyone had teeny little slices, so only half of it got eaten.  But then Michael and I finished it off over the next couple of days.  OK, it was mostly me.  But Michael did like the slice that he got.

THE END

My sister (WINOLJ) suggested that one way of coping with the unread books piles was to read one "old" book, then a "new" book, then an old one again.  Old is open to definition, but in my case let's say I've had it on the shelves for more than six months.  So I picked up a "very old" book which la_marquise_de_gave me many years ago - Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov.  My goodness, 500 pages of short stories about life in the Siberian gulag.  Starvation!  Overwork!  Beatings!  60 degrees below!  Gosh, I am going to be so improved when I have finished this.  I have reached page 258 - more than halfway!
[Bad username: ]

Having a meal with the rest of my rowing crew this evening.  I was asked to bring a pudding - something creamy.  OK.  I don't usually do puddings, but I quite like...cheesecake!  Yes, those baked, puffy ones, they're nice.  Looks through cookery books for cheesecake. Finds various recipes.  Which one is best?  OK, this Polish-style one looks interesting. 

"Soak sultanas in flavoured vodka overnight."  Problem.  We do not have overnight.  Oh well, over morning will have to do.  Other problem.  Do not have flavoured vodka.  Except for some chilli vodka that was left over from an experiment with chocolate stuffed chillis a couple of years ago.  Do not think cheesecake with chilli flavoured sultanas will quite work.  At least I have some plain vodka.  OK, grate lemon zest over sultanas, slosh in vodka, squeeze over lemon.  Hope this Will Do.

Go to Sainsbury's (haven't gone yet as am supposed to be Working, not making cheesecake).  When's the latest I can go?  Well, it will take about an hour to make, including baking, an hour to cool in the oven, then longer to cool completely.  Supposed to taste better the next day, as well.  Decide I should have Started This Earlier....

Time to stop thinking about cheesecake and Do Some Work.  More later (maybe!)

I'm about halfway through The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon.  It's very entertaining, although I'm finding the slang a bit impenetrable.  What on earth is a shtarker, a shammes, a shomer or a patzer?  I'm just letting it roll over me.  And it's a detective story, which I love.  A police procedural, set in the (alternate-world) Jewish enclave of Sitka, In Alaska.

I was going to say "and the man can write", a muscular prose stuffed with engaging metaphors.  And then I came across "Landsman careens to his feet".  What?  No way!  It would have been implausible if the author had written "careers to his feet" as the guy has just been shot and is lying face down (prone) in the snow.  "Staggers", or "lurches" or "climbs" would work. But careens - aargh!  And then, a few pages later "Sometime in the middle of the night, Goldy careers into the room."  Better.  OK, put the first one down to crap editing, which I guess is the lot of even Pulitzer prize winners these days.

Went for a run this morning.  Cold and foggy.  The damp gets the chill right into your bones somehow, and into your lungs.  The cars were iced up and the pavement slippery in patches.  Stringy spider webs sagging in the hedges. 

Still, now I feel all warm and virtuous and deserving of porridge.

Tired now.  Got up early to go rowing.  Cambridge v beautiful in sunrise.  The frost just turning into dew on the fields, and the sky deepening from pale to cerulean.  Rowed exhaustingly, then rushed home, had shower and breakfast and went out for a walk and pub lunch with friends.  Scenery full of buds and blossoms, crocuses, daffodils and hawthorn.  Also mud.  Walked past a number of large houses into which I contemplated fitting all the books and CDs and clothes and Michael's stuff, all tidily and with everything in its place.  Sigh.