some good things make a post

Oct. 14th, 2025 11:25 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett
  1. did eventually get myself out to the plot (after aborting the first attempt and going back to bed when I realised I'd made it almost to the main road without my bike helmet). successfully acquired More Saffron.
  2. cooked a lot of beetroot, most of which I grew, for dinner -- one of the books I acquired from Oxfam just for interest, The Modern Vegetarian, has a "textures of beetroot": keftedes, tzatziki, a bulgur pilaf and a salad using the greens. I had a mix of colours, and the ombre gold-to-pink were very pretty in the salad. (and picking over the leaves very, very carefully yielded a tiny snail! who is now in the viv.)
  3. I am continuing very slowly on the mend from the probably-a-cold from nearly a month ago: today I didn't get any active minutes walking up and down inside the house to hit step goal.
  4. the post brought Fancy Chocolate. even some of it is Fancy Chocolate in my preferred flavour of same!
  5. I have somehow achieved having my accounts almost agree with reality about how much cash is in my wallet! and I think I've found the remains of at least one Missing Receipt in the back pocket of a set of trousers, which does at least provide an explanation. it is very satisfying when I actually manage this.

vital functions

Oct. 12th, 2025 10:24 am
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Reading. Brosh, Woodin, Saunders, Stocks, Duncan )

Watching. Another Farscape, while bleaching A this morning. Read more... )

Playing. The Tukoni: Forest Keepers demo. Once again a very soothing delight: potter gently about making other forest creatures happy, in a setting of gorgeous art. Exactly what our frazzled nerves needed.

Quite a bit of Fluxx.

Cooking. A butternut squash and quince stew with pipián, courtesy of the Wahaca cookbook.

Eating. A picnic of misc takeaway from Hammersmith station complex on Saturday afternoon! Ben's Cookies! Strawberries! Pizza Express this evening because No!

Exploring. The Autumn London Pen Show, where I spent only the planned amount of money on the planned thing and was delighted with the outcome. :) Little bit of a poke around Hammersmith followed by the Westfield centre thereafter.

Growing. Spinach! So much spinach! I am starting to harvest it. I am very pleased by this. And of course SAFFRON of which there has been LOTS (i.e. I might have enough home-grown saffron to make one or possibly two recipes, which is vastly more than I've ever had before and Extremely Exciting).

Observing. The bat! Possibly even two of them this evening, definitely not gone to sleep yet.

[stationery] ... oh NO I love it

Oct. 11th, 2025 10:30 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Went to the Autumn London Pen Show! Got the Lamy 2000 EF nib ground down to a needlepoint by Thomas Ang! Did not properly notice until settling in to play with it properly that it's got this amazing slightly stubbish character to it! And he also tweaked my Platinum UEF nib to be slightly less Horrendously Dry (which had somehow not occurred to me as a solution), and... having now settled down for a bit more writing for the evening, I think I might actually really like having two UEF/needlepoint nibs to use different colours of ink in.

The idea was to reduce the number of pens in regular use by dint of retiring the Platinum, not increase it. Oh no.

Some other things! The Rudi Rother Pelikan is even prettier in person; I still do not get the appeal of Leonardos (though to be fair I think my sense of their general appeal is massively skewed by That One Very Active Person who thinks they're The Most Beautiful Pens In All The World); the Visconti Van Gogh series do not impress me any more in person than they do in photographs; next time I can justify buying another TN insert The Inked Paw are delightful and we had an excellent chat and Trying Each Other's Pens while I was in Thomas Ang's queue (and they slightly discombobulated me by asking me if I had an Instagram when I flipped through my notebook to show what I use the UEF for...)

... yeah no I am just absolutely delighted by this ridiculous pen, EXCELLENT outing + date activity, Ben's Cookies also successfully acquired, Very Happy.

proof of saffron

Oct. 10th, 2025 10:43 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Another nine strands today. :)

a saffron crocus in flower, petals somewhat chewed

(Photo actually from Wednesday 8th, of the first one!)

[food] ... cursed

Oct. 9th, 2025 10:07 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

You know the way I just said -- I just said -- that I had worked out how to make wagamama's current menu yield something I was actively enthusiastic about eating?

WELL GUESS WHAT. THIRD TIME UNLUCKY.

I had really not expected the pad thai to vanish in a menu overhaul, okay, what on EARTH.

(So we came home and ate butternut squash & quince stew instead, and maybe by the next time it is Ritual Wagamama O'Clock I'll have resigned myself to eating something that isn't The Thing I Just Worked Out.)

kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

In My Ridiculous Pen Collection, I have a Lamy 2000 (largely inspired by Ant Newman of UKFountainPens waxing lyrical). I got it second hand, as with all but one of my pens; the one that showed up cheap came with an F nib.

Read more... )

[growth] SAFFRON

Oct. 7th, 2025 06:34 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

This morning I had Physio at The Hospital Up The Road, which is a really good way to get me to actually go to the allotment (which is round the back of the hospital site, so the way this usually goes is I cycle to the allotment, drop my bike off, and then cut through to the opposite side of the site where Physio Happens, thereby not needing to faff about with bike locks).

Upon my return from physio (which was not... great; I got probably-a-cold two and a half weeks ago and my cardiovascular-respiratory situation is still Distinctly Not Happy) I actually paid slightly closer attention to my saffron bed -- the last couple of trips I've been all "ugh, nothing doing, I should really weed but UGH clearly the saffron has all DIED yes I KNOW that this is the traditional time of year for me to be convinced that The Saffron Has Died only to discover--" and indeed not only were there multiple clumps of saffron, most of them have flowers that are clearly going to happen Any Moment Now.

So today I have come home with six saffron strands, and am expecting A Bunch More, and have reinspected the saffron containers on the patio and established that one of those has them starting to come up as well -- and so now, obviously, I need to work out what to do with the RIDICULOUS RICHES represented by... maybe like two dozen strands of saffron. (Yes I also have a stash of shop-bought.)

Saffron & bay custard tarts with sticky blackberries? More saffron and cardamom panettone pudding (which we know we like)? Saffron rice pudding? All the saffron recipes from Sweet, which is possibly going to be my next cook-(almost)-all-the-way-through project? Lebovitz's saffron ice cream, to go with the planned quince sorbet? Saffron buns? Literally any of the obvious savoury options??? SO MUCH CHOICE.

vital functions

Oct. 5th, 2025 08:41 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Reading. So many things. Or at least it feels that way. Unsure if actually So Many.

Melzack & Wall, McRobbie, McGuire, Duncan, Stock )

Cookbooks )

And I am now TWO months behind on Dreamwidth. TWO. Ahahahaha.

Playing. Several more rounds of Fluxx.

Tukoni: Prologue, "a point-and-click puzzle adventure" featuring beautiful botanical art. Very very much enjoyed this tiny snippet (a mushroom! that makes it rain! when you pat it!) and am mildly dismayed at the five-year gap between the release of this prologue and the subsequent demo of what will theoretically be a full game...

Cooking. ALSO SO MANY THINGS.

  • another recipe from East: chilli tofu
  • green beans in tomato sauce with fennel seeds, feta, and toast, loosely inspired by a thing out of the latest Ottolenghi cookbook (in the sense that I went looking for confirmation of my sense that the thing I was thinking of doing would work, found it, and promptly carried on with my intentions rather than the recipe I was distinctly less into)
  • smitten kitchen's vegetarian cassoulet, with the addition of Dubious Protein Chunks
  • a quince cake, which I made a lot of modifications to, and of which I am dubious, probably because of those modifications (but A seems to like it, so that's a win)
  • hazelnut and treacle Welsh cakes, leaving us with two remaining recipes of any interest in the tourist-tat Welsh cakes cookbook (cranberry + white chocolate is a no, as are the two recipes containing bacon; double choc chip is a maybe, and I'm willing to consider that Caerphilly + leek might have merits but A is distinctly more dubious)
  • soda bread! notable because (i) not sourdough, (ii) using the buttermilk culture I have successfully kept alive this time around (and have now refreshed), and (iii) I ignored all of the instructions about Handling It As Little As Possible and as a result it achieved Structural Integrity, which I usually do... not manage

Eating. I have successfully worked out how to make Wagamama's current menu provide me with food I will actually look forward to, which is A Great Victory. Located the last of last year's seasonal Dark Chocolate With Raspberry and have been gently nibbling it. QUINCE. And another variety of apple from an abandoned neighbouring plot at the allotment; this one is Very Crunchy and Very Red but not particularly flavours.

(The tree that got planted so as to encroach on my plot is some kind of cooker, unsure which, because my usual approach to cooking apples is James Grieve from my mother's garden...)

Making & mending. I think that, inspired by some helpful answers on reddit, I have got my clicky fountain pen clicking reliably again? It was doing a thing where it wouldn't lock, and it was pointed out to me that probably the issue was going to be located in the knock not at the trap door, so I... wrote the pen dry, rinsed out the ACCUMULATED DUST OF THE YEARS (THANKS DADFORD ROAD), and since then it's been behaving beautifully. Long may it continue.

Growing. There are still tomatoes? Also kohlrabi. I only managed a single flying visit to the plot this week; at some point soonish I'm going to need to get A to take me over with the car so I can retrieve from the greenhouse the various peppers I'm hoping to overwinter. I do not appear to have been issued with a Non-Cultivation Order in this round of inspections, which is a very welcome surprise!

Observing. A has seen the bat! I have not seen the bat because I have been Preoccupied with Other Things (misc). But the bat has not yet put itself to bed for the winter. <3

some things!

Oct. 2nd, 2025 10:20 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett
  1. Bookshop.org is now doing ebooks in the UK. Unlike Hive, they do not apply DRM to everything. V excited about this!
  2. I think -- think -- I have worked out an Acceptable Wagamama order, at least for the time being. I'm mildly annoyed about needing to order extra vegetables in order to have enough vegetables in my vegetable noodle dish, though. (The yasai pad thai + wok-fried greens is not My Favourite Thing They've Ever Done, but it is better than anything else I have managed to make the current menu disgorge. Which is useful, because we have A Routine, and it involves Wagamama.)
  3. I have POACHED SOME QUINCE (I am turning windfalls I located round the corner into cake, and the Gift Quince are probably going to turn into a Ruby Violet sorbet recipe). I am going to make a cake, probably with added bay leaves, as I think I mentioned, probably tomorrow but the quince won't hurt for spending a bit longer sat in syrup. I am contemplating the merits of showing up on the doorstep of the folk with the quince tree, with some cake, and being all "hello yes I made this with windfalls onto the public path, I will very happily make you more things :) out of quince :) if you don't know what to do with them :))) which I am KIND OF ASSUMING YOU DON'T given that the branches overhanging your garden are still COVERED IN THE THINGS, unlike the branches overhanging the public byway..." (The social anxiety almost certainly means I won't actually do this, but I am, you know, considering.)
  4. Meanwhile today's poking around at recipe books introduced me to the concept of medlar sticky toffee pudding, which is now extremely high up my list of things to do with this year's medlar as and when we get any. (Recipe is in a book I'm not actually going to get from Oxfam, or at the Torygraph.)
  5. I continue to really enjoy looking at the Pelikan Art Collection pens (further links from within that one). It is possible I tripped and fell and spent more time reading about them this morning.

some. good. things.

Oct. 1st, 2025 09:07 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett
  1. Clean, hot, on-demand running water.
  2. I do not thus far feel particularly inspired by any of the recipes in Mary Woodin's The Painted Garden Cookbook, but I am very much enjoying leafing through the watercolours.
  3. Bread came out of the oven not terribly long ago and will be breakfast tomorrow; I'm looking forward to it (probably with spiced medlar jelly, yes yes).
  4. Continuity Gripes notwithstanding, I have this evening been extremely glad to have several October Daye short stories I'd not yet got to.
  5. The pen I was using to take notes on The Challenge of Pain was running out of ink juuust enough that I was having to have repeated attempts at the odd letter, but not enough that it stopped writing before I was done making said notes. Great Satisfaction Achieved (and I'm hopeful that the thorough bath it has just had will mean it starts behaving better...)
  6. Various greenhouse peppers continue to pep. The purple jalapeños are thus far mysteriously very much green, the thing that I think is a poblano (there was a mishap with labels) is setting fruit, and I've got no idea what exactly the short very bushy thing is but that too is now covered in flowers so with a little bit of luck I might even find out soon.
  7. The second sowing of kohlrabi I'd entirely given up on... appears to be coming up after all???
  8. A is a Very Good A Indeed and has finished unpacking the car following the event back in the first half of September. Before we wind up driving it across London again. And has cleared a bunch of the pile of Misc to take out to store in the garage.
  9. Fancy moisturiser.
  10. Warm Bed. yes. good. off I go.

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