What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?
I could never identify the hardest personal goal that I set myself because the minute I achieve goals they hold no significance or value to them. Imposter syndrome I suspect or some derivative form of self-deprecation. The most useful goal was certainly to learn to comfortably swim in the cold sea near my home. Not because it is a hugely valuable skill but for some fairly unfathomable reason it gives me an extra kick up the pants to get on with things and procrastinate less.
A valuable life lesson with an obscure start in life.
What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?
I am not a huge small talk person. Some people are adept at such things and have one or two key topics to discuss with strangers. When people discover that I dabble with paint and have exhibited a bit, they often ask who my favourite artist is. The truth is that I have a carousel of favourites.
I am not the greatest fan of Salvador Dali but one of his paintings is forever on my carousel of favourites.
So much going on, and that light emerging from the cliff is something I try to emulate often. Just a little peep of unexpected brightness.
Mark Rothko also spins perpetually on my Carousel.
Right now, as I write this, I am eagerly planning a trip to see The Vanity of Small Difference by Grayson Perry. A man who, like me grew up in Essex and observed class and possessions with interest. Same place and we are the same age.
It is 13 years since I last saw his brilliant tapestries. This week I suspect that he, will once again, be my favourite artist when I am fresh from seeing them again.
Does all this switch back of favourites make me fickle? I am the same about everything that I have an interest in. Certainty is, for me, always enlivened by uncertainty and new information.
Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.
My epic fail occurred one Christmas when I was batch cooking sausage rolls. Enough to feed a substantial quantity of festive guests. I had a large range style cooker and every shelf was filled with unctuous sausage meat enrobed with the best flaky pastry that supermarkets could sell. 30 mins cooking time was the perfect timing to pop to a neighbour for a tiny Seasonal drink. Unfortunately, the neighbours didn’t do tiny and I didn’t do portion control or observe my 30-minute time slot. An hour passed in a twinkling and I was full of festive spirit ( gin). Once home I was in no rush to rescue my baked goods. They were already past anyone’s judgment of edible. When the oven cooled down I swept them into a carrier bag to feed the birds in a local park after Christmas Day. Off to the park I went with a gaggle of over sugared children. I handed over the bag of sausage rolls and paid little attention to the bird feeding, just taking some mental breathing space. Somewhat irresponsibly I had weaponised children and was not paying attention. Each tiny bite-sized sausage roll was a rock in the hands of small children. Birds scattered, fearful of their feathered lives. Other parents and park visitors judged me as I realised that for the second time in 48 hours I had failed to adequately assess the sausage roll situation.
Nobody remembers that I did clear up the mess, no birds were actually harmed and that everyone had a fabulous hour or so in the park.
Every Christmas when a sausage roll passes the lips of any child or adult who has knowledge of that day. Somebody pipes up with the legend of me killing birds in a local park at Christmas time with over cooked sausage rolls because I had drunk too much gin.
All other years my sausage rolls have been fabulous. Nobody ever mentions that.
My poor sense of taste and smell, post-COVID, means that my lifetime favourite foods have changed. Seasoning, unusual flavour pairings, and texture are the things that bring mealtime pleasure on the days when I cant really taste very much and the food world resembles soggy cardboard. This question was timely today as I popped into Marks and Spencer to buy a new madcap product.
Who knows what gustatory delight Caramel Sauce with Marmite will bring? The Original Salt and Pepper Seasoning would certainly have been beneficial to the chips in the top picture. They were the epitome of cardboard
Interview someone — a friend, another blogger, your mother, the mailman — and write a post based on their responses.
Good Morning Basking Shark, of all the creatures I might have imagined eating breakfast with you were not on my list. As the second largest shark in the world I was completely unaware that my chosen breakfast spot, Trevone Bay was also yours.
For me a bacon bap.
For you the attraction is Shrimp, Lavae, Zooplancton, Copepods and fish eggs.
For two hours we watched as you basked in the bay. We watched as families belly-boarded, oblivious to you just 100 yards from their happy squeals.
Follow the boys head up to see the sharks dorsal fin.
What a privilege. The shark however was unavailable for comment. Not wishing to speak with his mouth full.
Not exactly my favourite recipe but definitely the favourite of the week.
Our weekend newspaper has a pull out cooking segment. Most weeks we find something new to cook.
Koftas are a favourite meal and this recipe was so simple and pretty to make, it will definitely become a regular.
The most favourite of these weekend magazine dishes is a chicken and Chorizo dish which also features oranges. We have been making it for years. We no longer refer to the tatty scrap of torn out page that first inspired us. Who even knows if we are adhering to the actual recipe. Do we care?
Not a bit, it whatever form it takes, is a classic family meal.
That is my answer for today but as yet I have not read the recipes in this weeks ‘Feast’. There could be a whole new favourite on the blog tomorrow.
I am no town or indeed city planner so this is entirely a personal fantasy. My city would be a port with a large deep river flowing into the sea.
The river would have islands.
And bridges.
The central area would be traffic-free and would have independent retail outlets and restaurants, parks, libraries and cultural destinations. Book shops and cafes would edge the canal banks while other retailers would cling to the river banks. Low rise mixed use accomodation for holiday makers and long term renters would create calm and shaded squares and back streets. Most importantly the streets would be paved and cobbled with trees providing shade. The real world would be held at bay by the river and canals so the central space could be a kind and comfortable beating heart of the bigger city. A place to connect with people, or not, and to expand thinking and life experience before returning to the real world via water based public transport.
In this fantasy I am simply a city centre kind of designer. The money making, practical and essential suburbs are someone elses responsibility.
If you could host a dinner and anyone you invite was sure to come, who would you invite?
We have been hosting meals for the last 19 days, everyone always attended. Two different groups of relatives. 7 in each group. It would have been lovely if we had a home big enough to host them all at once and that their schedules permitted that. 5 of the 14 live locally the other 9 travelled from London, Hong Kong and Canada.
I realise this prompt wants me to mix an erudite or entertaining group of famous people. But really how awkward and uncomfortable might that be. Far better to go for people I actually know and whose qualities I value. I have chosen my family in this first instance but equally I could throw 14 friends together around a dinner table and be confident of a good time. In either case their names would mean nothing in this context and that is exactly what would make the experience enjoyable.
Could ‘Great Thinkers’ be considered a profession?
I am at my most creative when I indulge in disordered thinking. I am more than capable of productive and ordered thinking. To do so, I always have to translate my disordered thinking into ordered thinking. Sometimes I have to allow my ordered thinking to have a little freedom to wander into the realm of creativity.
I admire the undesirable qualities of great thinkers. Selfishness, reliance on others, assuredness, arrogance, certainty, single-mindedness. Knowing, that in my hands those same qualities would not lead to great thoughts but to an insufferable person. The world does need more great thinkers but it does not need any more insufferable people.
I suppose I admire great thinkers in the same way that I admire great sports people. Knowing that something that is a great achievement would not be in my best interests or within my skillset.
My balance, or imbalance as a thinker is 60/40 or 40/60. Constantly switching from one foot to the other to find my own equilibrium. I admire Great Thinkers, I just don’t have it in me to be one.
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