| Coconut Joan
No compunctions about eating dessert first |
My road, which you’ve seen in the autumn.
Parker’s Piece, a wide expanse of green just south of the town centre.
A pub on Regent Street.
Cambridge Market goes on through rain, hail and fog.
Shops on King’s Parade.
I’m not sure what the BBC is doing at King’s College today.
On Trumpington Road.
On Pembroke Street.
A carpark at a museum on Pembroke Street. I guess ancient sea monsters need a place to park, too.
Joan in the Matrix
While at the shops just now, I had a brainwave. I have been deprived of ice-cream for months because we don’t have a freezer in our house. I’ve just realised that with daily highs of no more than 3°C, I can now buy masses of ice-cream and leave the tub outside!
I lost my hairbrush to the roving blackhole in my bedroom. This was an emergency. I immediately left the house for Boots, a store I mentioned a few months ago. I wanted to earn some loyalty points.
With my hair forming a halo around my face, I picked out a nice black comb for about £3. Near the check-out, I spotted some Christmas wrapping paper. I pulled out a gold foil roll with a red berry pattern. For about two minutes, I stood there contemplating my choices.
“Hello, Joan.” Suddenly, Owen was also standing in front of the wrapping paper display.
“I lost my hairbrush,” I said by way of explanation. “So I haven’t brushed my hair today.”
“This hair also hasn’t been brushed.” Owen gestured to his short hair, which, I’d guess, would never need to be brushed. “What are you doing now?”
“I’m trying to look for wrapping paper that isn’t so Christmassy. I think this is the closest I can get.” I showed him the gold-and-red-berry combination, and a silver roll with white swirly patterns.
He glanced at the rolls. “Still looks pretty Christmassy to me,” he said, dashing my hopes. “You won’t find anything but Christmas paper here at this time of year.”
I was crushed. “I do have a few Christams presents that need to be wrapped but that won’t use up the whole roll. I wanted to save it for presents later on.”
“Ah, I see. Very cheap of you.” Before I could decide whether or not this was an insult, Owen added, “Or very sustainable.”
I knew only one response to this. “I love it when economics and sustainability coincide!”
I can no longer be called a bad cook. On Tuesday, I hosted a dinner party all by myself (with dishwashing support from Dino).
On the menu:
I made rice and my guests brought salad and Christmas crackers. I think I fed seven people for about £20. Bargain!
From Internet speak in world of own, I discovered New Scientist’s article Just can’t get e-nough, which says that ‘Google-stalking’ is a ‘modern malady’. If you look to the glossary on the right of this blog, you’ll see that I defined ‘Google-stalk’ on 18 July 2004. Only last month, I referenced myself about the term. I made it up! I contributed to Culture!
People here tell me that it is unusually mild in England this year. Before I arrived, I was warned that I would be very cold. However, I haven’t yet pulled out my woollen jumpers, let alone my thermal leggings.
The cold snap arrived today. Cambridge has been humming under endless and continuous thick fog. I was thankful for the leather gloves as my bike cut through the biting greyness.
You know it is truly cold when you go outside to empty the compost tray, and the compost bin lid is frozen shut.
I live in an old English town. There are many little stores. I walked into one and found myself surrounded by shelves stuffed with trinkets and knicknacks. I waited a minute before the shopowner came out from the back room. He looked like a hobbit, with a craggy face framed by bushy white eyebrows. His colourful tie was tucked into his front pocket. He even spoke like a hobbit. I walked out with a pair of computer speakers, which he dug out from a mysterious second storeroom.
As many will know, I’m not the sharpest tool in the kitchen. My mum winces whenever she watches me fumbling my way around the stove. I thought that I was getting better at cooking here in Cambridge but today, I returned to my clumsy self.
I had 350 g of mince left so I decided cook fettuccine bolognese. I’ve watched my mum do it before. It looked pretty easy, even for a kitchen klutz. To minimise the risk of disaster, I prepared and lined up all the ingredients on the bench before turning on the stove.
While the pasta simmered in one pot, I fried chopped onions and mince in a pan. “Almost done!” I thought. “Just add sauce.”
I bought the jar of tomato and basil sauce just an hour ago. Placing my hand over the lid, I twisted. Ungh. Nothing happened. I took a deep breath, angled my hands further around the lid for greater leverage and twisted again. UNGH.
“Okay, Joan, don’t panic. You probably just need a greater coefficient of friction.”
I grabbed the red-and-white checked tea towel. Wrapping the it around the lid, I twisted again. The lid didn’t budge.
“Um, um…” I could feel the old anxiety building up again. “It’s a metal lid. I can run it under hot water and it’ll expand more than the glass jar. It’ll be easier to loosen, then.”
I sat the jar under the hot water tap then tried opening it again.
“Noooooo! Why am I so weak?” I had the brains but not the brawn. In the mean time, I could almost hear the the pasta wilting, the onions burning and the mince rubberising over the heat.
“Stupid thing!” I thought grumpily. “What are you made out of?” I scanned over the ingredients.
“Hey, I have all of this stuff.” I blinked a couple of times as an idea grew inside me.
I tried the jar a final time before giving up on it for real. Then, darting between my cupboard, the fridge and the communal spice collection, I pulled out a can of chopped tomatoes, my tube of tomato concentrate, the leftover half onion I had wrapped up before, dried basil, garlic powder, salt and sugar.
I threw it all into the pan and it began bubbling with satisfying vigour. Taste, add salt, sugar, more basil, more garlic, taste…
For the final touch, I chopped fresh chilli and poured it in. I tasted it. Wow! What a kick!
The meal was very tasty. And now, I don’t need to buy tomato-based pasta sauces ever again!
‘Not in my backyard’ or ‘NIMBY’ is a very human attitude. I got it all the time while working as an engineer.
“We’re not going to have that toxic waste dump here! Put it in the city!”
“Incinerators give you cancer! Would you want to live near one?”
Alex told me that residents of Oslo are shouting NIMBY — for the American Embassy! I’ve never thought of the American Embassy as an undesirable neighbour. It makes a sort of sense; I guess the Norwegians are wary of a bomb attack.
I’ve done a lot of riding today. I visited a friend’s house in Girton, a suburb to the north of Cambridge. I had to climb a big hill to get there and fight the wind coming back into Cambridge.
I was a little disheartened when a thin old lady riding an antique of a bike with a basket in the front overtook me. Here I was, on my 15-speed mountain bike wearing an aerodynamic helmet and a backpack to announce to the world that I was a student (in the prime of my life). Back to the gym I go!
Delicious links
