Whoops

Fully intended to write last night... and then I woke up. Not that it was a particularly strenuous weekend. Rock and Roll is well worth seeing; I mean, it's Tom Stoppard so that's a good beginning point and the performances are also excellent. I was particularly impressed with the actress who played Eleanor and Esme - her final scene as Eleanor was just gutting and she was a totally different, physically convincing figure as Esme. At the beginning of the play I had a bit of trouble with Matthew Newton - it has to suck having a high profile personal life as a stage actor - but as the character of Jan got older he was totally subsumed in the role. Although the sound was a little off to begin with (you really need to be able to hear the words clearly) this was rectified quite quickly; it was moving, stimulating, funny and frightening. Communism, socialism, rock music, love, youth and age, the role of the 'mind'... I can only put the departure of a group of beautiful people who were sitting in front of us down to the suspicion that they rarely encounter anything in the world they find more interesting than themselves. 

Sunday was peaceful and marked by two foodie things of interest. First up, in celebration of my planned trip I put on The Proclaimers and made shortbread. It strikes me that one of the very many things that make it unlikely I'll ever be married is my resolution that 500 Miles will feature heavily in the service. Anyway, Margaret Fulton recipe - very simple but reasonably hard work. The creaming of 250g of butter and half a cup of sugar by hand to the light and fluffy stage was followed by around 20 minutes of kneading after the 4 cups of flour were added. This, according to Fulton, is the key. The dough is fun to work with albeit a little nerve wracking at first because it stays quite crumbly. It came out of the oven looking exactly like shortbread! And it also tastes exactly like shortbread! Injury count: two blisters, one cut, one burn. That's pretty good for me. 

And for dinner I concocted a pasta that should have been completely over the top but somehow wasn't. I griddled little lamb steaks (I assume this, as they were in the freezer without identification; note to self, buy permanent marker) coated in za'atar, panfried some asparagus in anchovy butter, roasted some capsicum and then sliced everything up and mixed it through the pasta with a generous squeeze of lemon juice. It was the za'atar + anchovy butter combo that could have been dangerous but it turns out that they work very well together. And asparagus in anchovy butter simply rocks. 

Hope all the workers out there are having a lovely morning! xxS