The chestnut experiment
So today I noticed that the bag of chestnuts was still on the bench, the one I bought over a week ago. So far, nothing particularly unusual, Martha Stewart does not live here. But I've never cooked chestnuts before and it occurred to me they might start to go mouldy soon, if not already. So I boiled them for a period which I imagine to have been 20 minutes (how long does reading aloud two chapters of The Wishing Chair plus random four and eight year old question fielding take?) and then I peeled some. The first one tasted perfect. None of the others quite lived up to it. I would do it again for that yummyness.
Then I got distracted by remembering the garage sale down the road, the need to find gorse flowers and the small matter of a rugby league game.
You should not get distracted in the middle of peeling hot chestnuts. Peeling cold chestnuts doesn't really work as the inner skin won't peel off cold.
As for other cooking matters, I can't quite reach beyond the blur of fish and chips last night and after league this afternoon. Favourite Handyman cooked tonight. I am frustrated by the frequency with which dinner comes around. Every 24 hours. Every 24 hours. I no sooner get rid of one meal than it is time to think about the next. Given I am also trying to build the immune system up of my spotty daughter (more spots. Two weeks after they began, there are still more new spots), I can only be thankful for her broccoli passion and for mandarins and persimmons.
I did some more sewing. My darts are better than some in the past, but the adjective 'slapdash' is still the first which comes to mind. The bodice fits. Not perfectly (see the comment on slapdash darts), but it does go around me and there is no obscene puckering as happens whenever I try on a cotton or linen fitted bodice style in a shop. Progress then. Now I'm starting to get my head around altering the skirt for my sticking out tummy (not pregnancy, just ordinary, long lasting, fatty flesh). I've had 1.5 glasses of wine and have thirty minutes before the supermarket closes to decide whether I will succumb to a new bottle or go to bed and read. Except last time I looked there was a spotty child in there. Oops.
This is a photograph of the bodice thus far. Quite useful things, pink paisley sheets from the Sallies.
Yesterday. The swimming pool in the bottom left is actually our driveway.
Today's league game. Although I believe that is Fionn in the centre of the photo (an improvement on most of my league photo attempts, though naturally he doesn't have the ball in this one either), I've included this picture because I love ordinary small town New Zealand scene that frames the field. No posh advertising here, just a rusting roof, some jagged hedge and the magnificent bush.
One smidgen of advertising though. Who puts money in our town? Oh yeah. Wanna be a greenie living right beside some difficult economic questions? Come live in our town.
Then I got distracted by remembering the garage sale down the road, the need to find gorse flowers and the small matter of a rugby league game.
You should not get distracted in the middle of peeling hot chestnuts. Peeling cold chestnuts doesn't really work as the inner skin won't peel off cold.
As for other cooking matters, I can't quite reach beyond the blur of fish and chips last night and after league this afternoon. Favourite Handyman cooked tonight. I am frustrated by the frequency with which dinner comes around. Every 24 hours. Every 24 hours. I no sooner get rid of one meal than it is time to think about the next. Given I am also trying to build the immune system up of my spotty daughter (more spots. Two weeks after they began, there are still more new spots), I can only be thankful for her broccoli passion and for mandarins and persimmons.
I did some more sewing. My darts are better than some in the past, but the adjective 'slapdash' is still the first which comes to mind. The bodice fits. Not perfectly (see the comment on slapdash darts), but it does go around me and there is no obscene puckering as happens whenever I try on a cotton or linen fitted bodice style in a shop. Progress then. Now I'm starting to get my head around altering the skirt for my sticking out tummy (not pregnancy, just ordinary, long lasting, fatty flesh). I've had 1.5 glasses of wine and have thirty minutes before the supermarket closes to decide whether I will succumb to a new bottle or go to bed and read. Except last time I looked there was a spotty child in there. Oops.
This is a photograph of the bodice thus far. Quite useful things, pink paisley sheets from the Sallies.
Yesterday. The swimming pool in the bottom left is actually our driveway.
Today's league game. Although I believe that is Fionn in the centre of the photo (an improvement on most of my league photo attempts, though naturally he doesn't have the ball in this one either), I've included this picture because I love ordinary small town New Zealand scene that frames the field. No posh advertising here, just a rusting roof, some jagged hedge and the magnificent bush.
One smidgen of advertising though. Who puts money in our town? Oh yeah. Wanna be a greenie living right beside some difficult economic questions? Come live in our town.
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