who only by moving can balance

... by which I mean: yesterday I spent about ten minutes harvesting less than one sixth of the bush, and got about 600g of redcurrants for my troubles.

Whereupon, of course, I promptly forgot almost everything that one can Do with Redcurrants, with the notable exceptions of Ribiselkuchen (this general idea, though I usually use a ~pound cake base), which I was already planning to make, and Things To Go With Venison Or Steak, which I don't eat.

So. I have poked the internet some.

Things the internet suggests:

• combining with creamy mushroom sauces -- fair enough, we can do another round of the smitten kitchen savoury Dutch baby
  
• raspberry and redcurrant cobbler -- I will need to wait a few more weeks for the raspberries to actually hit ripe in sufficient quantities... well, that or finish off last year's frozen raspberries & Ribisel, in a desperate attempt to make freezer space, once we've consumed today's apple-and-rhubarb crumble...
  
• redcurrant sorbet (optionally with raspberries, see above)
  
• redcurrant custard ripple
  
• in increasing desperation, red berry coulis
  
• and, in defeat, more redcurrant jelly (I am nowhere close to finishing last year's yet)

Any other suggestions?

Reading. More slow progress on Tales from the Inner City, and dipping in and out of recessional's your blue-eyed boys (because I needed the reminder that it's okay to be me, which ybeb does a really thorough job of).

Film/TV. Dosage V, Rodden and Meltdown: oh no Tommy's little FACE. He so BADLY wants her to DO THIS. Aaaaaaaah. Oh no her face when she sends it. (Gosh it is... a thing, knowing what all else was going on in their lives at the time.)

And we finished Leverage! I... really want to care about them, but it just didn't quite gel for me. (Happy to discuss this in more detail in comments! Do not actually want to squee-harsh, though.)

Music. I got home from Cornwall to discover that Adam had pre-ordered hurts 2b human (P!nk) for me, after we'd spent a little time the week beforehand watching music videos (I particularly love what she's doing with Walk Me Home). I love the way it's a concept album about Being P!nk; I love the way it threads a narrative with references and allusions that don't prevent the tracks standing alone; I really want her to be okay. Happy in particular is written Specifically For Me, obviously.

Which has also brought to mind the part where sciatrix has been talking recently about "ASMR", which is apparently a thing now. Like sciatrix, that sensation (or at least the sensation I think is being described) is one that's absolutely just... been part of my life for as long as I can remember, and that unlike the various videos set up to provoke it is... mostly associated with what I'd loosely classify as religious experiences, which sometimes show up in connection with music, and indeed did with part of this album.

(Relatedly: I love Pink Floyd. I have a... lot of emotional response absolutely hardwired to Pink Floyd, such that I really can't actually usefully listen to it while attempting to do anything else, because it just entirely hijacks my brain. Which means that of all the music I've played to Adam, Floyd isn't yet on the list, because I want to be lying on the ground in the dark and just Having An Experience, where most of the introducing-Adam-to-music I've done has been in the general spirit of putting on background music, or playing him a couple of tracks, and I just can't do that with Floyd: it's got to be the whole album, start to finish, without distractions, or my emotions and thought processes end up upended across the floor and it takes me hours and a sleep reboot to properly recombobulate them.)

Culinary adventures. I went to a knife skills workshop!

Additional notable cooking: baby's first attempt at home-made refried beans, because (1) I had a burrito craving, and (2) I realised that the Instant Pot made this actually fairly trivially achievable. I poked around the internet a bit and found some advice, and also I decided to have a go at sweetcorn salsa.

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In summary, I had a craving for burritos that I didn't have to pay someone for, and now I've got proof-of-concept for at-home burritos, and my only sense of mild impending peril is regarding the risk that I'll start actually making tortillas at home. ("We might need a bigger crêpe pan," I said to Adam, mournfully. sebastienne apparently thinks this is incredibly on-brand for me.

Final culinary-adventure-in-potentia: I'm tentatively considering having a go at panettone, and I tracked down (surprisingly easily) wahaca's black bean soup recipe, which I am excited about because I Particularly Enjoyed That. And, again, Instant Pot = I'm actually willing to cook dried beans.

Notable wildlife. First swallow! Also a splendid red kite at rest on the power lines on the way up to Oxford on Sunday.

Notable Pokémon. My very first Mesprit raid had 100% stats, and I actually caught it, which... WELP. No new shinies this week (!), but A indulged me to the tune of spending a lot of yesterday evening Trading Pokémon, which (1) got me a lot more Pokébox space (I'd been saving a bunch of things for him, either because they were from Far Away or because they were potentially interesting), and (2) several Lucky Pokémon. I am delighted about the Togepi and the Piplup; I'm rather more dubious about the Primeape and the Delcatty.

i.e. I came across the concept, didn't like the recipe, and am cobbling one together here to try at some point in the future.

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On Tuesday I turned 27; me_and got me a set of lockpicks and a practice padlock, and took me to Ottolenghi Spitalfields for dinner.

The morning of, they called A to confirm the booking -- and, he tells me, followed up with "... and there's a note about a wheelchair in the booking...?" So, naturally, he braced, and was very pleasantly surprised when what they actually wanted to say was "... we've got a folding ramp and we can get it out for you."

We arrived. "Just one moment," said front-of-house, and went to get the ramp. They did not try to grab me as I was going up it. "Through this way," they said, and showed us to a table for two that was easy for me to get to, adjacent a wall neatly out of the way of everyone's path, with the sensible chair already removed for me to just slot in.

This is much better than even fancy restaurants normally manage; I was -- we were! -- impressed.

Also, they fed us really very well.

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... and then, after a little extra faff involving buying one of the cookbooks, they got the ramp back out and held the doors open and cheerfully let me back out into the outside world, with some commiseration about the part where it had started drizzling gently. However, as I said to A, while it might not have been the best kind of rain it was definitely in my top five, so I was absolutely fine with that.

I had a lovely evening and was delighted; A has, as mentioned, been before and been a fan, so I rather suspect more visits are (however sporadically!) in our future.


Unrelated (except insofar as it's about food, and specifically pistachio cake): someone I know tweaked last month's Smitten Kitchen pistachio loaf cake recipe to include blackberries and lemon.

Paella (and various other rice things) by Yotam Ottolenghi; Clare Ptak's lemon yoghurt spelt cakes.