pastry …

Pastry and I … we don’t get on. At all. I can barely manage with bought pastry, and if I try to make it myself it’s a disaster.

I’ve tried everything - food processor, mixer, by hand. It all goes grey and shrinks, and is as unappetising as you might imagine.

I’ve been hunting for one of these for a while, and found it at Lakeland [warning: do not go here unless you are of strong will-].

I used it once, and I don’t think it’ll work. I’ve just fetched it out to make some rock buns, and the handle had worked a tiny bit loose, and I didn’t feel comfortable with it. Pete has tightened its nuts (as it were) with his Leatherman mole grips and we’ll see how it goes.

And the rock cakes have just come out of the oven. They *smell* nice, anyway.

[edit] they taste nice too, but they’re not rock buns as I remember them.

Is it me, or is it my oven? [sigh]

alas, poor spoon

Some years ago, we had a lovely wooden spoon - it had a thin head and a long handle, and when I wanted that spoon, it was exactly the right spoon. One day the handle split; Pete mended it with sticky stuff, but it was never the same, and it broke again - with great sadness, we consigned it to the place where wooden spoons go to die.

I was stirring the soup this morning, and was yet again reminded of how much I miss that particular wooden spoon. I have 8 or 9 wooden spoons - some of them have long handles; some of them have thin heads. None of them has both.

Whenever we see a new kitchen shop, we rush in and rummage through their wooden spoons - thus far, we remain disappointed.

It’s all so sad.

note: the spoon in the illustration is nothing like the lost spoon.