alexist

The New York Times had an article on Joyva. Now I'm craving some marble halva.

But not the chocolate covered jelly rings you get on Pesach.

:)

Yesterday morning, I went out, first to the farmers' market at Marylebone, where I got some fruit. They actually had medlars! Didn't get them though, as for medlar jelly you need them at 2 stages of ripeness and they didn't have any bletted ones. If I'd bought them and waited, either a) they would've hit the right stage of over-ripeness when I was away or b) I wouldn't have been able to buy any firm ones when I needed them. No quinces though. Shame, lamb and quince tagine is lovely.

BTW, I never see regular (Hachiya) persimmons here, just Sharon fruit :-( The latter are the ones that can be eaten firm, so supermarkets and greengrocers don't get complaints from people who don't realise that persimmons have to be left till they turn to jelly. Hachiyas have better flavor, though, and are fun to eat. They're the ones that are heart-shaped, rather than tomato shaped, if you ever see them. Buy them and leave them till they look like they're about to go rotten, then eat. I recommend using a teaspoon.

Afterwards I headed to the food fair at Covent Garden, which was fun. I had a yummy bastilla and bought more stuff, including German cakes. Mohn for me, rhubarb for Neil.

In the afternoon, it was unpacking time! Our flat was an environmentalist's nightmare from the packing peanuts and bubble wrap. But I now have a full set of pots and pans :-) OK, the 11L casserole was temporarily added to storage, along with a few other things (mixing bowl set, cafetiere, a few baking dishes). Neil moaned about the number of pans. Tch :)

Put 2 boxes into storage, Neil set off an alarm, came home via Waitrose. I had a nap, then made toad in the hole and mashed potatoes. I am very satisfied with my new mouli (food mill). The only problem is that the holes in the discs are a little larger than I'd like; I had to use the medium instead of the large for potatoes. I suspect that the fine disc won't be as effective as the one my mother has. Mind you, I'm still searching for the gadget that will remove raspberry seeds (the only effective method I've found is a fine sieve and elbow grease).

Must remember to get a deep 8" tin for fruit cake. Should also get a smaller roasting tin. I really like Mermaid bakeware, by the way; it's really nice and heavy and easy to clean. Not nonstick, but hard anodized, so a bit of soaking with Fairy Liquid loosens everything up.

Bed at 9pm. oops :)

The New York Times election maps (click on "Interactive feature") is very interesting. People who are just looking at "red" and "blue" states would do well to look at this, which breaks it down by county, population, and influence. You can see that it's not as simple as coast vs. center. Urban vs rural is the big theme--the rural areas are the most strongly Bush, as is most of Texas (unsurprising). (Austin, which is a liberal university town, and the overwhelmingly Hispanic Rio Grande Valley and El Paso went Kerry.) But in much of the South and Midwest, the pattern is more mixed, and many counties that went Bush weren't overwhelmingly so.

The population map is important; it keeps you from despairing at all the red areas on the map. It may look horrible that the western Great Plains is all deep red in the county map, but frankly it's not very relevant, because hardly anyone lives there. It's not as skewed as a map of Australia would be if they did a presidential election (the map of Australian parliamentary constituencies is a hoot) but western Kansas is pretty damn empty. Just ask anyone who's driven on I-70 to Denver. :-) (I've been told it's almost hypnotic; there's nothing but wheat fields as far as you can see.)

I went to the butcher's in Golders Green to get a chicken, and what did I see? VEAL CHOPS! Proper rib veal chops!! I'd just been telling my mother that I was dying for some because I never saw them here.

Naturally I had to buy a package even though it cost me £13.44 ;-)

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