Woh, flipped two hundred posts yesterday without even noticing! Slaps on back for me...Writing tonight as a curry 'reduces' - randomly poured too much liquid in and at present I have soup... but it will be tasty when it is a little smaller. Spent some time today remembering meals we used to eat before the budget measures were introduced; entertained myself for a while in workland adding up virtual shopping bills for meals that are currently beyond my spending power, and it is quite scary really. Pad Thai; once a staple dinner - would have needed noodles, prawns, nuts, lime, green beans, some coconut milk, chillies... *uh-uh*... my favourite avocado and cottage cheese salad - chillies again, cottage cheese, avocadoes, limes, coriander...*uh-uh*. Don't even get me thinking about anything including steak! Pomelo and smoked chicken salad!! ARgh! One thing I know for sure; I will have some serious cooking blowouts in the new year at some point. The best thing, for there is always a best thing, is that deprivation sure does focus your appreciation of a foodstuff: I sneakily treated myself to a £1 tub of pineapple and just ate a piece. Woh. That. Was. Good. Not, it has to be said, as cheap as the whole pineapple we devoured on a boat in the floating market at Can Tho in Vietnam, nor quite as welcome as the chunks on skewers in Bangkok after a particularly arduous and circuitous walk to Wat Arun; but pretty damn good. Food memories are always the best as well... some things can transport you as sure as being there, which can of course be bitter sweet if you are not, but it is a powerful thing.
Staying with the budget note, which is relevant in the run up to Christmas more than any other time, I scored a mighty bargain today. If I were a believer in such things I might feel that the hand of fate rested lightly on my shoulder at lunchtime; I do try very hard not to believe in it as I am innately practical and realist, but it sure does get spooky sometimes... Stu is in need of boots for work and reticent to spend the money that these things cost, especially as he is hoping above all that he is nearing the end of his kitchen career and the things may soon be redundant. Sadly, his DMs are on their last legs and have holey soles, so the need is great. In his wisdom, he suggests that I try my favorite occupation, the charity shop crawl. Off I goes at lunch time and in my first and favourite shop (Shelter in Morningside) I find a pair of size ten Timberlands. This is after Stu commented that 'boots rather than shoes would be best, and about a tenner.' They cost a tenner. He is a size ten. There were no other mens shoes for sale.
I had to try really, really hard not to look for angels on the way back down the hill; I bet they were up there on top of the tenement, snickering...
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