alexist

"Travel will still be free on the Tube, buses, DLR and tram services from 2345 until 0430."

Well, if we can't ride the Tube, I suppose we could call it free, yes...

And from the realtime travel updates - all lines except the Jubilee are listed as having a good service. The Jubilee has minor delays owing to an earlier signal failure at Stanmore.

Amazing, the RMT go on strike and we still have a good service!

Alternatively, according to the strike information, "some stations and parts of the network may be closed". No information on what those might be.

Good thing we planned to drive anyway.

I seem to have killed the kitchen scales. I was washing them off (I'd been weighing butter straight onto the surface) and I appear to have gotten water inside. Bugger.

What's more, I did this right before I was about to make a pan of brownies. I have American cups, so the flour and sugar weren't a problem (especially as the recipe is American so I have the cup measures), but I had chocolate and butter to weigh. In the US, baking chocolate comes in pre-wrapped 1 oz squares, and butter in 4 ounce sticks (with tablespoons marked on the wrapper), but my baking chocolate is in a bulk slab and the butter comes in 250g blocks.

(BTW, I HATE HATE HATE baking in cups now that I've converted to scales. So much messier, and more to wash. When you weigh, it all just goes into the mixing bowl.)

Luckily, President have 25g marks on the edge of the wrapper, and I can convert cups and ounces to grams. The chocolate was harder. At least it had its total weight on the outside: 28oz. So I worked out I needed 1/7 of that and managed to hack off approximately the right amount.

I've been making these brownies since I was about 10, and my mother's been making them even longer, so at least I could recognize whether it all looked OK.

On top of that, I underbaked my blondies a little too much. They've got white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts in, so they're going to be super rich now. Oh well. Anyone with a sweet tooth? :)

(Cheesecake in the fridge, it looks fine. I cometh laden with goodies.)