Misc.

[kaberett]

Today in doctors: I have bronchitis (I am forever amused that so many illnesses are just called [Greek for body part]+[Greek for "it's a bit cross"]) and an antibiotic prescription and stern instructions to spend some time steaming myself. Apparently I am to expect coughing for two weeks after the end of the antibiotic course, just Less Bad Than This. On the upside this has provided some helpful-for-my-brain calibration on "what's bad enough to bother a GP about" in this specific domain, so hopefully less time it'll involve less angst.

Today in cookbooks:

• the copy of The Fat Duck Cookbook that I had espied in the window of a closed charity shop yesterday was... still there. So I popped in to make its acquaintance, having already told myself very firmly that it was probably going to be twenty quid and I wasn't to get it if it was more than a fiver and anyway it was probably offputtingly mostly meat... so I sat there leafing through it, increasingly absorbed, and finally grudgingly checked the price. Which was £6. So I got it, obviously.
  
• while browsing the library shelves for more of the Leiths books, I came across an actual copy of smitten kitchen every day, found a sticky-toffee-pudding waffle recipe, and decided I needed to bring it home for A to poke at (his current favourite waffle recipe -- have I talked about the waffle iron here? -- is a lightly tweaked version of smitten kitchen's essential raised waffles, adapted to work better and more consistently with our set-up, and writing it up For The Old Blog is on my todo list), and then to my mild outrage found... a recipe... for porridge... I'm actually plausibly willing to eat, neatly solving at least some of my breakfast problems (provided I use non-calcium-fortified milk): caramelised pear baked oatmeal.
  
• ... and also The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry, which looks like a fascinating memoir of a year (two years?) of study at Le Cordon Bleu, so I intend to nestle into that good at proper.
  
• finally in Today In Cookbooks, I continue getting on very well indeed with the Leiths How To books; I think this attempt at sourdough is going to be my best yet, possibly to the point that I get to tick "get competent at sourdough" off my culinary skill acquisition list for the year ("learn how to make neat pastry" is also tentatively in the running for getting ticked off, again thanks to Leiths). I will find out tomorrow.

This week in allotment: compost bin had cooled down a fair old way again due to running out of food while I was in the Peak District, but I gave it a big feed onnnn Saturday, and temperature was rising again by Sunday evening. (I'm about to have another big feed for it, because I'm using up the last of the frozen veg stock in tonight's stew and therefore boiling up a new batch from the scraps bag, which will then go to become More Vegetables.) The squash is recovering well from the powdery mildew; the damage is increasingly less miserable. I only have one large fruit ripening up, though, so I'm not convinced I'm going to get a whole heap of them this year even if I do let them just keep going in the unseasonable weather. The spinach, however! Is doing magnificently! So our future contains A Lot of spinach.

This week in HOUSE: A has indulged me A Great Deal on the topic of DIY, including an IKEA trip to acquire (1) a blackout blind and (2) a curtain rail. The idea is to make the living room both more lightproof (for when we have guests staying) and warmer (because A has pre-existing Big Velvet Curtains that will cover the French window nicely, in addition to the current slightly flimsy blind); he put up the blind last night while (heteronormativity!) I was making pasta sauce (using tomatoes from the patio and courgettes from the allotment...).

Comments

[alexwlchan]

Belatedly, *pom poms* for doing the Grown-Up Thing and going to see your doctor. I would have encouraged you to do so had I seen the earlier post before you’d actually been. Sucks about the slightly-cross-body-parts, but at least you know now. Hope the antibiotics run without incident.

Allotment: I have a bin full of shredded paper. Want it to feed the compost bin? I realise it’s not as good as a pile of actual rotting food, but bringing that on a train might make me unpopular…

And hooray for House things! And IKEA trips. And improving the living room. I look forward to seeing it all at some point soon. :-D

[kaberett]

YES PLEASE THE BIN ENJOYS YOUR SHREDDED PAPER TRIBUTE (I have been gradually feeding it all of A's past-the-statute-of-limitations financials)

yessssss please come visit house

[kaberett]

(I will feed you vegetables grown on financial paperwork and finest compostable packing chips This Time Next Year)

[worlds_of_smoke]

I'm very glad that you went to the doctor. ♥

[kaberett]

grumble grumble grumble etc :-p feeling pretty knackered but hopefully I get to rest this weekend...

... give or take the DIY in preparation for the housewarming...

[shanaqui]

I can't stop giggling now at "cranky bronchi" as a translation of "bronchitis". :D

I wonder if I should point Lisa the way of some of these cookbooks.

[kaberett]

MY CLASSICAL EDUCATION HAS EQUIPPED ME WELL.

They are for a wide range of different purposes (like, the smitten kitchen one is for actually cooking out of; Fat Duck is basically for interest & theory...) but I am super into them.

[harpers_child]

I am intrigued by your list of cookbooks. The SU loves a good cookbook and prefers the kind that come with science (Alton Brown style). I'll look into the Leiths books for him.

What kind of compost bin do you have? I'm hoping to get a garden put in the back before next spring. We currently have a hand me down bin in the back, but it doesn't work very well. (It's in the lowest spot of the back yard inefficiently making dirt because that's where we need dirt the most.)

[kaberett]

The Leiths books do an excellent job of explaining why they're telling you to do what they're telling you to do for the purpose of home cooks; the Blumenthal comes with Even More Science of the "liquid nitrogen" and "molecular gastronomy" variety. :D

[mathemagicalschema]

Not to give you any unwarranted optimism, but the last time I had bronchitis, I saw my doctor assuming she would do absolutely nothing for me, just like every other doctor I had ever seen about a cough, but she prescribed me antibiotics (and we rejiggered my asthma meds) and the cough went away in a matter of days.

It was kind of freaky. I would have expected at least another week and a half of coughing normally.

[kaberett]

WEIRDLY ENOUGH I was feeling way better after the first day or so of drugs! I'm still coughing a bit and I still clearly need to take it easy (grump grump grump), But Hey.

[vass]

This is good to hear. I'm glad your lungs are cheered by the reinforcements arriving.