Travelling Light...

When somebody tells me I can’t (whether that’s in the sense of mustn’t, oughtn’t or - worst of all - wouldn’t be able to) do something, it’s like a red rag to a bull bolshie cow... Except it appears that an exception has at last been found...

Penguins do not travel light. Penguins like to make sure they are covered for every eventuality, unlikely occurrence, conceivable detour or one-in-a-million random requirement. And have a choice of outfits to wear. So, much as I’d love to be one of those light-footed types casually swinging a squishy leather overnight bag as I skip past the baggage carousel, with the fluorescent lights sparking off my golden hair, my silk scarf fluttering gaily in the frosty air-conditioning and a waggle of beagles left helplessly in thrall in my wake, this is unlikely to ever eventuate.

Picture: Fancy and Fondant on Etsy 

This one is, I think, far more appropriate for a waddling penguin huffling down the endless corridors common to all airports, trying not to drop a trail of extra magazines behind her and worrying that she forgot her cardigan and that she didn’t eat her apple and will thus be accosted by a boggle of beagles...

Picture: Fancy and Fondant on Etsy

This is when I also realise that penguins need bigger beaks... rather than small beaks that make a lot of noise...

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Is It A Dirty Word?

However you feel about the debate about whether you can do everything, should do everything, or if everything can be done at once, there are times when slowing down can be enjoyable. Or essential. It's a bit like spinning round very fast in circles, though (I can't be the only one who used to love spinning on office chairs as a kid... or when nobody else was around when older...) - once you stop, it feels like the rest of the world is still whirling faster than ever.

This poster made me smile when I first saw it*... I don't take it as an admission of defeat, but as a statement of sanity preservation for occasional use.

Picture: Jones Design Company via Simply Seleta

The way I look at it, it's not about telling yourself you can't do seven impossible things before breakfast if you so choose, but perhaps about telling other people. If it was good for everybody to know what you could really get up to, why does Superman have an alter ego...?

* Yep, it's another exception to the Keep Calm rule.

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Return Of The Literalisms – Now With Pie

I know I only said a very short while ago that a (particular) cupcake was female, but while browsing the Cake Spy online store, I came across a t-shirt that got me thinking a bit more about this...

Picture: CakeSpy*

It looks like a cute and innocent t-shirt, with little pictures of pie. But this t-shirt carries a can-opener. For that can of worms** that gets opened by its description as “Unisex Pie T-Shirt”. So pie is unisex? All pies, or just these pies? I’d never previously thought about the gender diversity of pie, but it doesn’t strike me as a food consistently associated with men more than women, or vice versa. Probably because of the sheer range of shapes, size and flavours of pies available.

In search of answers, I went looking for how the French describe pies... une tarte, whether aux pommes, a la crème, a la viande or otherwise, is female. Which makes me think that a separate line of inquiry exists to find out what food the French consider to be male...

While looking for French pies, I discovered that a pie, in French, is also used to describe a magpie and, presumably deriving from that, a chatterbox. And that queue-de-pie, rather than the line found snaking out the entry to the boulangerie, is actually a tail coat. A description that I think is lovely and evocative...

* And if I had a cute little t-shirt with drawings of pie, I might make an exception to my "no ironing" rule before showing it off...
** There needs to be an alternative to “can of worms” found as soon as possible. It’s just not a nice thought. At all. The French appear, in this instance, to lack a answer as well...

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What Have You Got In There?

It’s not about carrying the kitchen sink around with you, but sometimes there just seems to be an in ordinate amount of stuff that needs to be lugged around. Things to eat, things to read, dance gear, cameras, parcels of speculoos delivered to the work address – it starts to become a rather unwieldy pile rather quickly. There aren’t many ways that I relate to Mary Poppins, but the need for a Tardis-like handbag is certainly one of the few.

Finding a bag that fits, if not all of the above (well, it definitely doesn’t need to fit Mary herself, and it rarely needs to fit everything else at the same time) is, well, challenging. Especially when you’d prefer it not to look as though you’re really a pack mule in high heels. They can be too clunky, too hard to get in and out of (for me), too easy to get in and out of (for others), too big (really!) and just... not right*. But there’s been a lurking need for a little while to get a new bag, and it’s proven surprisingly hard to find something that suits. Oh, there are heaps of bags that practically spring out and beg to be taken home – but some of them cost so much that there’d be nothing left to carry around after they were acquired. And, for others, practicality begins and ends with them practically springing out...

During the week, I came across this one...

Bag: Tano Bag "Never Frou Frou" via Unruly Things
 
And it comes in purple haze... they grey is gorgeous and would go with pretty much everything, but purple? Self-restraint is not my friend right now! This one comes in purple haze, too (and might be even better)...
 

Bag: Tano Bag "Self-Portrait"

There were others that begged for attention, too. Like this one...

Bag: Sambag "Madeline"

And this one...

Bag: Opelle Creative "Lotus"

But the extensive hunt ended with this one...

Bag: Marcs "Cavalry Carrier"

What it lacks in being real leather**, it makes up for in its squishy accommodatingness. And it’s shiny, and shiny bags have a way of making themselves, and the occasionally hedge-draggled creature carrying them, look a little more polished.

Now, I just need to solve the problem of the frantic search for whatever’s sunk to the bottom of the enormous bag, and then it will all be sorted. Perhaps I should just leave it at being happy about a new bag!

* Apparently this penguin has occasional fusspot tendencies... who knew?!
** Try as I might, I struggle to convince myself that this isn’t a bad thing that no furry animals suffered to make my bag... perhaps I’d have to stop eating them before I stopped carrying them round as well, and that’s just far too improbably to even credit with thinking about...

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Evacuate Now!

What should we call the person given to mad panicking and leaping about? Note: Blue Penguin, while accurate, is not what I had in mind... It’d be useful to have some sort of identifier. They’re probably pretty self-evident already, but in writing, can be a little harder to spot.

Emergencee – the person who has identified; created or is having the crisis; the source of all panic

Picture: Little Clouds on Etsy 

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Do You Believe In Fairies?

After a long-held suspicion, it’s finally been confirmed that there really is an ironing fairy (he/she/ it just doesn’t ever come and visit me)...

Picture: Sandrine Estrade Boulet

The irony fairy is entirely different, and slightly more mischievous (although far more frequently encountered than the ironing fairy, unfortunately).

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Fries With That?

Burgger! – the weak expletive uttered on realising you’ve accidentally bitten off a bit more that you should’ve at the takeaway shop. Large chips, anybody?

Picture: "Burger Eclipse" by David Schwen from Threadless

There should be limits to how many bad puns can be obtained from one source (less than one, some people might sensibly argue...), but I can't help thinking this picture should be called Total Eclipse of the Heart (Attack).

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Bad To Verse*

Usually, making something rhyme takes away most of the zing, the better part of the syntax, and all of the subtlety. Unless you’re Dr Seuss, in which case the rest of us cower admiringly before you and promise never to make up a dodgy limerick again. But when this verse came up on Gruen a while ago, it reduced me to a quivering heap of giggles...

"If the client moans and sighs

Make his logo twice the size.

If he still should prove refractory

Show a picture of the factory.

But only in the direst cases

Should you show the clients' faces."

Picture: Emilie Ek from Eli Phant

* Luckily, I didn’t promise anything about avoiding bad puns. I should’ve, but... no...

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Black And White And...*

... In another brief diversion from usual penguin-like food-and-random-thoughts postings (Eep! Reality is sneaking in around the cracks!), last weekend there was a four-day trip** to the Hunter Valley prompted by the wedding of some close friends.

So, while detouring, I though I'd share this rather unusual terrace house (in Melbourne) via Desire To Inspire...

It reminded them, and me, of a wedding cake, and was particularly suited following a very classy black and white colour schemes, so seemed a fitting way to say congratulations to the newlyweds!

And I love the match of the wrought iron work with these iced cookies...

Picture: Montreal Confections on Flickr

* Black and white and wed all over... (hiding those bad puns in the footnotes might make them clang slightly less. Might...
** It was actually a long weekend - much as I'd be thrilled beyond belief if four days of weekend could be squished into the available two days of time, I haven't found a way to make that happen yet (Yet?! Well, have to stay optimistic about these things...).

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Eat Me!

Anthropomorphism is something I tend to find myself drawn to, in case that’s not been evident from, among other things, my abject devotion to the Fox and the Polar Bear.

But animals doing and saying interesting things might only be the tip of the iceberg. What about food?

There’s something about this little cartoon, even though it’s much more cute than I’d normally go for...

Picture: CakeSpy

It’s a little bit Alice In Wonderland... I can imagine that cupcake gradually shrinking as she* drinks her Diet Coke**.

* Because that is undoubtedly a female cupcake.
** I wish it really worked like that...

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Saying It With Food

Normally, when you cook for other people, it’s firstly the fact that you took the time and care to prepare something by hand that sends a message. And what you actually make is very important as well. But there are other ways to says things with (or at least while serving) food...

Picture: the Fox and the Polar Bear

There’s the stealth approach, where the message is disguised (preferably under beautifully plated baking). I can’t help thinking of the Fox and the Polar Bear, and their arch-nemesis Mr Completely Bonkers Raccoon, when I see this...

Pictures: Trixie Delicious on Etsy (who did the other ceramics on this post as well)

Alternatively, a more direct approach can be taken with tea, sugar... and a side order of (hopefully) tongue-in-cheek or (otherwise) vinegar...

It could be fun to have a whole set... I think this is a great way to poke fun at how stuffy afternoon tea (to be said in a posh and imperious voice) can become...

This one might be a perfect match for my inevitable failed batch of macarons once I pluck up the courage to give them a go...

Typography and printed-words-as-decoration are something I’m very keen on in general, and am getting more and more of a liking for as I keep tripping over endlessly distracting cool things in that bucket*.

* Which sounds, I now realise, like I’m galumphing about down a rabbit hole with my foot stuck in a bucket. Very Winnie The Pooh. Not quite the intended effect, but sometimes the accidental silly thoughts are a bit entertaining. Just round the edges...

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Another Lifetime

Sometimes, I think it might be good to be a cat – although that really all depends on whose cat you are (or, perhaps more accurately, who you deign to let look after you). It definitely isn’t all beer and skittles in some cases – or trifle and tails on strings, as the case may be a little closer to home.

This picture seems to perfectly capture the carefree life of the cat I might wish to be... endless fascination with small but enormously mystifying things... and perhaps some frolicking followed by a long nap...

Picture: Audrey Hepburn Complex (via Sabino)

Perhaps the trifle-eating cat would enjoy some bubbles next time I visit him...

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What On Earth Is A Congo Bar?

Brownies, slices and bars are a type of baking that I particularly like. They don't have the fidgeting around of individual scoops, balls or dollops being kept a consistent size and distance on a baking tray. They don't show (one cut up) a slight lean resulting from a temperamental oven. And, best of all, they almost always taste wonderfully squishy, fudgy and more-ish. Which is really the most important bit!

Picture: me

 

The more commonly encountered chocolate-on-chocolate-with-occasional-other-bits can sometimes be... well, a little chocolatey. Nothing the slightest bit wrong with that, but it can be good to mix it up a bit as well, and things that aren't too rich tend to be quite popular in the penguin household. Not that this recipe isn't indulgent and gooey - just not too rich...

 

The recipe came via Bakerella*, and is for what are apparently known as Congo Bars. And perhaps, in Australia at least, better known as blondies.

 

Bakerella gives directions for both a "by hand" and a "with mixer" version of this recipe - I did them by hand, and was very happy with the results (it seems perverse, given the ready availability of a Kitchenaid, but it was so very easy). I didn't adapt the recipe a great deal other than that I used Australia cup measures rather than coverting to US measures. I think, at least with brownie-type recipes, that there's a reasonable margin for error, given so much comes down to how firm you like them in the middle, and the baking times - but for any more precise sort of baking, conversions are definitely useful (and a trap for those of us new to getting our recipes online that I've fallen into before... but hopefully not again!).

Picture: me

This is how I made them...

 

What's in them**
2¾ cups plain flour
2½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt (which I don't include, unless a recipe involves yeast - which, funnily enough, this one doesn't)
⅔ cup butter, softened
1 lb light brown sugar (or a mixture of light and dark brown sugar if, like me, you like very treacly brownies)
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
11½ oz chocolate chips
(1 cup chopped pecans is optional and was, in this case, left out)

What to do
1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan forced, or a bit less for the temperamental Smeg)
2. Sieve the flour, baking powder (and, if using, salt) into a large bowl
3. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar and soft (unmelted) butter until they are mixed to a consistent texture
4. Add the vanilla and eggs to the butter and sugar mixture, stirring after each egg
5. Add the flour mixture to the batter and stir to combine (brownies don't like being over-mixed)
6. Stir the chocolate chips into the mixture***
7. Spread mixture into a baking tray lined with non-stick paper (the size tin depends on how thick you like your brownies - I've made these at a variety of thicknesses, but have found around or just under an inch thick is good for this recipe)
8. Bake for around 30 minutes or until golden brown. If you have an over-active and temperamental oven, check them after 20 minutes and they may very well be done - mine usually are (especially important if you like your brownies squidgy - I think this is verging on a necessity, as a non-squidgy brownie is just a confused cake or cookie...)
9. Don't forget to lick the mixing bowl... always worth it!

This has quickly become my go-to, make-in-a-hurry-and-don't-stress-about-it-not-turning-out recipe. Just make sure you have people to share them with, as they're hard to keep away from...

 

* Whose site I love, and am rarely brave enough to attempt things from, give the combination of their beautiful exactitude and my... rusticness. It's something that a penguin has to build up to...
** This was made based on the US recipe, but using Australian measures, so would've had a bit too much flour - which was probably mopped up by the bit too much butter. That's what I like about brownies - there's a healthy margin for error. Next time I make these, I'll do a proper conversion on the recipe. Maybe. Unless it's the usual baking-at-midnight effort...
*** Bakerella adds her flour after the chocolate chips - I prefer to do the chocolate chips last, as it seems to reduce there being any floury clumpy bits - although brownies are very forgiving in this regard, as well!

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Whatever You Do, Don't Look Down

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a penguin. The penguin went to school and, in the course of taking as many English classes as could possibly be managed, was required to read some Truly Awful Stuff. So awful, in fact, that superfluous use of capital letters doesn't even begin to convey the sheer boredom and waffle of some of the designated texts. It is a truth universally acknowledged* that sleeping tablets really just contain finely ground boring books. The industrial-strength ones contain statistics textbooks. And possibly tax law.

Reading the truly awful books** also involved attempting to retain vast numbers of quotes for regurgitation in seven-pages-in-forty-minutes exam responses. For the overly studious, this meant so many quotes that it was a little like swallowing the entire book, with occasional prepositions and expositions omitted. It was a bit like packing jumpers into a space bag - good in theory, but prone to come undone. The fact that a still-scary number of these quotes are still remembered, time immemorial afterwards, and quoted in idle moments between the trifle-eating cat's mother*** and I****, is evidence that, once in, those quotes stay in a lot better than jumpers in a space bag.

But all these ponderings started with a thought. Of a particular book, a particular quote, and the slippery slope of other potential quotes. And crimes against interior design (and, potentially, theatre). Which were all brought firmly back to mind by one picture...

Picture: Chris Maluszynski via Apartment Therapy

The book - actually, the play - was Diving for Pearls, by Katherine Thomson. I'd normally include a link to it on Amazon or some such but, evidencing the unique peculiarity of this publication to Australian secondary schools, there are only three old copies on there. Interestingly, all for my hot air, those three copies are going for pretty decent prices for second-hand plays as well (now, that'll prompt a forage for old and saleable textbooks and suchlike). For anybody wanting to know what it was about, the long version (based on a review of a far more professional staging than the one I remember seeing) is here. The short version can be summed up as "Kath and Kim, without the funny bits".

And the quote which, without the benefit? of the any surrounding context, is, "It's a leagues club, Barbara. It says so on the carpet". Long before I set foot in any sticky carpeted and dubious establishments, this set the scene for what awaited me there. Lurid interior design included. Stickiness of carpet is, in fact, something to be strongly encouraged, if it makes the said carpet anything less lurid. Although some carpets are astonishingly stubborn in their refusal to let their flamboyant glare be dampened.

The play also contained a number of other astonishing displays of erudition. Not the least of which, and possibly the most over-used in collective essays that year other than "To be, or not to be... etc etc ad nauseam and without Hamlet making a bloody decision*****" was "Fuck me dead with a rissole"******.

It's funny just how many vivid memories can be brought back just from a couple of equally vivid carpets...

Pictures: Chris Maluszynski via Wired

* And if it isn't, it very well ought to be.
** Perhaps the point should stop being laboured quite so much. There were also some relatively reasonable books as well. And some good poetry. And a lot of being incredibly silly. Mostly silliness, in fact.
*** She doesn't just make trifles - she's brilliant, among other things, at helping penguins learn quotations. Although it does result in her learning them, too...
**** The quite ridiculous amount of time I spent dithering over whether that should be an I or a me is evidence that quotes (and waffling under time pressure, which has proven to be an infinitely useful ability) may be the only things I learned in English class. Silliness doesn't count. Silliness was there long before English class....
***** Oops, I appear to have thought out loud half-way through an over-used quote. How careless!
****** This is way too many asterisks, and clearly an indication I should cease and desist immediately. Right after hoping that anybody who finds anything to read about on here is also of a persuasion to not be offended by colourful quotes. I just can't bring myself to use asterisks for anything other than footnotes or occasional decoration - certainly not for any variety of ill-concealed censorship, anyway.

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Kittens Grow Up To Be Cats

When I first came across them, kitten heels were a short version of stilettos*. They were a narrow curving heel, around (or up to) 2 inches high. While they came in handy for looking polished when also needing to cover a bit of ground as well as having a certain ladylike charm, they often accented overly large feet. They also, depending on the proportions of both heel and wearer, could give the unfortunate appearance of stilettos which had been compressed to a lower height.

Those little kittens appear, lately, to be growing up to new and far more cat-like heights. A recent update from none other than Net-A-Porter showed this

Maybe it’s just me, but some of those look a little more – well, if not exactly towering, certainly not so kitten-like. A search of “kitten heels” on the website uncovered, amidst so much covetousness, a number of kittens who are all grown up.

Like these Isabel Marant pumps. So wonderful on so many levels. Four and a half inches of levels, to be exact...

They make these Giuseppe Zanotti lace heels seems positively flat at a mere 3.5 inches...

Can they still be called kitten heels if they’re only higher because of a platform sole? Left to myself, I think any sort of platform is at odds with the light and dainty connotations of a kitten heel. Even if they are silver. And Oscar de la Renta...

Does this mean the original kitten heels are now called flats? After all, 30 is the new 20...

* According to Wikipedia, they still are, too...

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Bringing The Garden To The Table

I love the look of this pizza – it makes me think of a summertime lawn. And, much as I adore cheese of almost every variety, I like the fresh look of this one being without cheese. Not that a little bocconini would go astray either, mind you!

Pizza: Eat Yet?

Although what I’d really love to try is actually getting the pesto into the pizza base. Could be a different thing to do for the underneath of a pizza bianca as well... Well, except it’d turn it into a pizza verde, if you wanted to start getting all accurate. And one of the best things about a pizza is that accuracy is really, at best, an optional extra.

It might need to be added to an ever-expanding list of things to cook (especially now I’ve finally braved making my own pizza dough... more on that later, though!)

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The Perfect Cup (Of Tea?)

This might be the first piece of sculpture* (can it be sculpture if it’s not actually sculpted? What on earth is three-dimensional art supposed to be called?) that I’ve had a real longing for, rather than just a passing fancy and admiration...

Teacup: John Lumbus

Art that combines tea and overreaction? It sounds almost made to measure... all that’s missing is a little blue penguin (maybe in a pair of sparkly heels) bobbing up and down on a wave of occasional panic and wildly unnecessary over-excitement!

And it was just so very appropriate for today, as there is afternoon tea... and hopefully not a single, solitary over-reacting penguin. I'm just hoping that it's not going to be a case of the tea today, and the storm tomorrow, though.

* It has already been variously blogged around the interwebs, but was just far, far too quirkily perfect to pass up...

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Wishing For Butterflies

Moth-watering – those biscuits that looked so promising in the shop but turned out to be sadly disappointing. Currently gathering dust in the cupboard, where they’re only likely to be eaten if it’s by pantry moths. They should be thrown out immediately – life’s too short to eat bad baking (or drink bad wine), and nobody wants to encourage the pantry moths...

I couldn’t resist posting these pictures of the Butterfly Room at Singapore House in Adelaide, recently discovered via Apartment Therapy and Brown Button (love discovering (semi) local things from a US interiors website!)

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Can't. Turn. Over.

I can’t flip pancakes. I can’t turn omelettes. And heaven help me if I try to make a stir fry. Sometimes, it’s the simplest things that bring us unstuck – or that don’t bring us unstuck, as is far more the problem! Apparently coordination is granted to some of us in limited quantities, and my quota seems to be used up (and then some) on ballroom dancing. I might’ve been ok to admit defeat on those particular culinary fronts, until my recent discovery that risottos are infinitely better, creamier and less gluggy when shaken, not stirred. I heard it on Masterchef, and it proved to be true.

Agitating a risotto is, in theory, a very good idea. In practice, it results in at least as much agitation of the person attempting to agitate the risotto itself (more in a physical sense than an emotional one, thankfully, but to the general amusement of anybody observing the activity in the kitchen). It also reminds me that risotto is not a particularly light dish* and agitation can be quite wearing - at least to us non-chefly types (who also, sadly, lack asbestos hands).

And then I stumbled on this - the boomerang wok

Picture: Nikolai Carels via Design Milk

Much as its name recalls a pot that you just can't let go of, or that comes back to clonk you on the head when you least expect it (nope, that's just the shelves in the cupboard under the sink... ow!), this is a pan designed to enable its contents to be easily flipped back on itself.

And, unlike most kitchen gadgets that just add to the gathering collection of stuff threatening to take over the kitchen, the cool thing about this is that it's just a wok. A really neat one, true, but something you probably already use for other things, so it can just replace the old, non-flippable version. After all, just because you can flip things in it, doesn't mean you have to. But there could be a lot of lost flipping time that needs to be made up for...

* Ballroom dancing focuses a great deal on building strength in the ankles - a lot less so on the wrists, much to the detriment of my risotto-agitating abilities...

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If The Postman Rings Twice, Who Rings Three Times?

Something about this card strikes me as unutterably Jasper Fforde . There’s a little of the incongruous-combination-of-things about it, but it just works. Overanalysis isn’t likely to shed any further light on it. If you really need to understand, just call the Rhino. I’m sure he must know...

Picture: Fancy and Fondant on Etsy (what a tasty name!)

I think it might be to do with the link between the minotaur (of murderous persuasions) and the rhino... Definitely over the analysis now!

If you don’t want to have to pick up the phone to call the Rhino, it might be handy to have one conveniently situated. Like this, for instance...

Picture: Rice via Madame Fancy Pants (another brilliantly named shop)

Just don't expect the Minotaur to approve...

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Beats A Big Pineapple

Normally, Big Things don’t really impress me. Maybe that’s a result of growing up in a country where there’s a Big Thing on (almost) every corner (sheep, pineapple, prawn, banana... you name it, there’s a big version of it*). Especially big food. I mean, we all see those stories (on slow news days and breakfast TV) about the kilometre-long hot dog or the 25 tonne apple pie or the gyoza the size of a carthorse (can you tell I’m making these up?!).

But this was different. The Size. The Scale. The Sheer Enormity...

Picture: Food Snob via Paris By Mouth

This made me understand that big truly can be beautiful, and that sometimes a skinny model slice just doesn’t cut it**. But my heart races imagining carrying that masterpiece out to a table (and even before that, jumps about at the thought of how hard it would be to keep such large sheets of perfect crunchy crispiness intact). And then I think of poking a finger into all that wonderfully glumptious crème patissiere, and I feel calm again.

* Why are the easiest ones to think of the food-related ones? There are so many others... guitars, gumboots, rocking horses (but the best ones are things to eat!).
** It also makes me think that in France, Big Things are kept for where size really counts...

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Lowering The Bar

Picture: Changizi

There seems to have been a relative lowering of standards with regards to what gets into the Oxford English Dictionary...

• Turducken (although it has the most fabulous definition... "A coming together of three words and of three birds. As a blend of the nouns duck and chicken are affixed to the first part of the word turkey, so a boned chicken is used to stuff a boned duck, which is in turn used to stuff a partially boned turkey. The result, in both cases, might equally be regarded as inventive, elegant, and appetizing, or as an ungainly way of overdoing things somewhat.")
• Big whoop (does anybody say that? Who isn’t in primary school?)
• Girlcott
• Blankie
• and, best of all... anyhoo.

Now, while you might expect the Oxford American Dictionary* or the Macquarie Dictionary to come up with new and strange additions, I was a little taken aback at some of the OED’s latest. Have they followed the fashion trend of having a guest editor? It is a training ground for future Harper’s Bazaar bloggers?

I’m all in favour of new words – I just wish they were for something useful. Or at least interesting. Giving credence to the dodgier elements of pop culture just doesn’t seem like a terribly good justification.

Picture: Robbie Jenkins on Etsy

And while there is usually a fluster of publicity around the new words that get in to the dictionary, is there a quieter and more stealthy process of getting rid of words? Somewhere, in a dark corner of a university, people might be sitting with lists of words to execute. “Galoshes? Nope, don’t need that. Nobody wears galoshes any more.” Or applying the slow death of putting “archaic” next to things, so that anybody using them can be clearly identified as an old fool who doesn’t know their locavore from their elbow.

* Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Shouldn’t it be something like the Yale American Dictionary?

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Freeze! And Step Away From The Cupcake!

Baking is all too frequently an excuse to eat cake batter. Or biscuit batter, brownie batter, icing, butter cream or pretty much any other uncooked precursor to a baked item that I can get my gobbling paws on. Once it goes in the oven, it’s (usually – well, almost usually) much easier to be a little more sensible and a little less... gluttonous.

So imagine my dismay on making one of those so-obvious-it-hurts-but-also-so-obvious-you’d-just-never-think-of-it discoveries while pottering through The Kitchn. Cake batter can be frozen. Gadzooks indeed!

Picture: Ceramic Canvas and the recipe that the cake batter belongs to looks so good...

This opens all sorts of useful possibilities for preparing in advance, and averting panic when baked items might be necessary, desirable, or entirely unrequired but nice to provide. And oh, how I wish I might’ve discovered this possibility oh, say, a couple of weeks ago, when I insisted on skittering around like a ferret on casters making brownies the day before I was married*.

Picture: The Recipe Girl

Not only can it be frozen, but it doesn’t even have to be frozen in nice neat pans. It can be frozen in a zip-lock bag, and squeezed into the tiny cluttered coldness that is my freezer. Woo hoo!

Picture: Spearmint Baby - it was a good excuse for a photo of purple cake batter – I just couldn’t resist!

* Yes, it was fun. Yes, it took my mind off bigger and infinitely more important things. And yes, when I fell in a tuckered out heap the subsequent week, I realised all those unnecessary bits added up to quite a bit of energy (and would’ve justified far more brownie batter, perhaps, so it might have been just as well that I didn’t think of it...)

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Pick A Peck Of Pickled Penguins

Tonight, there is partying. Large partying. The sort of party that requires a penguin to have a cup of tea vast quantity of Diet Coke and a preparatory lie down. Not necessarily in that order. And perhaps a small morsel of something to eat. To avert anything like this resulting...

Picture*: Crafty Dogma on Flickr

And, like many of the best parties, this one will involve a good quantity of the usual suspects. And, most likely, some fairly unusual ones as well...

Picture: Crafty Dogma on Flickr

Penguins often find that kicking up their heels results in tripping themselves up (it's those short legs, you know). But that isn't going to stop them trying. Even in the highest of high heels.

* A recent discovery and, you've been warned, there are many more that are likely to feature on here in due course. Most likely under excuses as thinly veiled as today's... It's (almost) as addictive as the Fox and the Polar Bear. Almost!

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Pimp My Cupcake

Recently discovered, for those who don’t want to lose a strong disagreement with a piping bag - icing decals....

Picture: Hello Frosting on Etsy

Yep, just like you can have flames down the side of your car, or zoos on your bedroom wall, now you too can have all the detail of icing... without having to ice things.

There is actually a whole industry out there for printing into icing. While it can give a whole new (and less messy) meaning to having your face on a cake, I’m not sure that is many rungs higher up the tree of classiness (can a tree have rungs? Mixed metaphors definitely aren’t classy...).

Picture: Daisy Lane Cakes

Although a Louis cake could be classy! When used to give extra detail to an already interesting design, icing sheets seem like a pretty cool innovation.

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Cone Of Silence

The first time I ever had amaretti was a very long time ago indeed – even longer in amaretti years, which are shorter than ordinary years, but gape wistfully amaretti-less in between crunchy almondy indulgences. The first time I ever had amaretti, they came out of a tin just like this one...

Picture: Metalight on Etsy

And they were perfect.

I can’t help but think that, as well as shedding light in murky corners, this pendant lamp gives a sense of the sort of cone of silence that descends during those times of peacefully almost-satisfied-but-nowhere-near-full-yet nomming that occurs in the presence of delicious things to eat...

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