fun with links

Oh, now I’m just being sil­ly (these links are of my trea­sured Lin­da Lee John­son bracelet, thanks, dar­ling Lulu). Seri­ous­ly, though, I have been learn­ing how to put links to oth­er blogs I like in the side­bar of my front page. Do look. I’m so proud of myself, learn­ing to write lit­tle “html” thingys that make these hot links appear. “Lar­a­land” I love because Lara is a delight (a young exer­cise-mad mum in Maryle­bone), then “Fayefood” will give you an idea for din­ner near­ly every night (plus her lit­tle boy Fer­di­nand gets up to some amaz­ing high jinks and con­ver­sa­tion), and of course my friend Caz’s devo­tion to Matthew Mac­fadyen. “Free Rice” is a total­ly addic­tive vocab­u­lary-test­ing site that is char­i­ta­ble as well. Well, any­way, dip in if you like. I’ll keep adding them as I remem­ber places I like.

What I REAL­LY need to fig­ure out, how­ev­er, is how to build a recipe index. It’s all very well for me to expect you all to scroll through enor­mous­ly long and bor­ing posts just to get to the recipe embed­ded some­where in it, when all you real­ly want is to know how to make “Kris­ten’s Pre­ten­tious Meat­loaf.” Well, that’s a bad exam­ple because the recipe appears right at the top of the post. Does any­one out there know how I could build an index? What I want is to have a list, like I have my list of links, and you could click on, for exam­ple, “seafood” and get my fab­u­lous scal­lops recipe, with olive oil and pars­ley. With­out hav­ing to slog through all my descrip­tions of our sum­mer activ­i­ties (although who could resist this Janey facey).

It’s all brought up, how­ev­er, some thorny issues. Say I want­ed to build a recipe index divid­ed into cat­e­gories, like “pas­ta,” or “seafood.” Does my scal­lops recipe go into pas­ta because it’s with spaghet­ti, or seafood because the main ingre­di­ent is scal­lops? And how about mush­room risot­to? Is it a side dish, because it’s a starch with some veg, or is it poten­tial­ly a main dish for veg­e­tar­i­ans? I’m get­ting my knick­ers in a twist because every recipe seems to be a mine­field of dan­ger­ous cat­e­gori­sa­tion. Is there a sep­a­rate sec­tion for chick­en, or poul­try, or does it all come under the head­ing of “meat dish­es”? Or is “meat” only red meat? And is duck poul­try or meat? I cer­tain­ly can­not have a head­ing “game” with only recipe, that’s for sure.

I think I’m miss­ing the boat here, real­ly. I don’t think my blog, or my future cook­book, is real­ly just a list of recipes. It’s real­ly more of a mem­oir (of, sad­ly, a com­plete­ly unre­mark­able life!). Maybe my recipes should be in cat­e­gories like “com­fort food,” although one per­son might grav­i­tate to mac­a­roni and cheese, in that mood, while anoth­er whips up lob­ster en gelee. I just don’t know.

Speak­ing of com­fort food, and com­fort in gen­er­al, I am find­ing the world so bewil­der­ing late­ly that I’ve gone all out for din­ner tonight: mac­a­roni and cheese for a main course, and I’m tak­ing my dar­ling friend Beck­y’s advice and includ­ing some Dairylea, a sort of British baby cheese, for extra creami­ness. I remem­ber liv­ing in France in high school and encoun­ter­ing my first “real” cheese, my expe­ri­ences to date hav­ing been lim­it­ed to Amer­i­can, Parme­san in a green can, and Velvee­ta. I found that at age 16 I def­i­nite­ly pre­ferred all the famil­iar fla­vors and found Brie, Camem­bert and the like com­plete­ly unpalat­able. As a joke, the fam­i­ly I was liv­ing with bought me some “La Vache Qui Rit,” known here as “The Laugh­ing Cow,” and expect­ed me to find it total­ly degeu­lasse (dis­gust­ing) and be con­vert­ed to “their” cheese. No such. I still adore Vache, and Dairylea is very like it, only in slices, just per­fect for that mid­night grilled cheese. With the mac­a­roni we’re hav­ing spe­cial “slow food” bangers from Food Fore Thought, and sauteed red pep­pers and broc­col­i­ni. I feel a def­i­nite need for all things famil­iar and cosy. I must say, I tried to be a good per­son today and turn around the dif­fi­cult or upset­ting things in my life and see them as… oppor­tu­ni­ties. To achieve some­thing, or get through some­thing, or rise above some­thing. As opposed to just feel­ing over­whelmed! Did­n’t have a marked suc­cess, but I shall try again tomor­row. Just for practice.

This after­noon found us all at big King’s Col­lege, the big sis­ter to Avery’s lit­tle prep school, for her inter­view there. A gor­geous Adam build­ing, span­ning actu­al­ly six hous­es in Maryle­bone, and the most loqua­cious admis­sions direc­tor (or per­son of any kind, for that mat­ter) that I have ever met. Not one of her sen­tences, once begun, end­ed in ANY­THING like the sub­ject mat­ter with which she had begun. Com­plaints about the end­less rain became solil­o­quies on her skill with bath­room tiling, con­ver­sa­tions begun with talk­ing about the charm of prep school uni­forms mor­phed into dis­ser­ta­tions on the bad behav­ior of her grand­son (clear­ly remark­able in every way). She seems rea­son enough to send Avery there! From there Avery was whisked away by the head­mistress and then after a suit­able inter­val, we our­selves were brought in. Such sit­u­a­tions always make me look down at my hands and stam­mer, do you feel that way about female author­i­ty fig­ures? A for­mi­da­ble woman like the bow of a ship, only with soft­ly quirk­ing eye­brows at some bit of par­tic­u­lar­ly British wit. Very calm­ing. I had no idea: if the child sits the exam at School #1, and is also apply­ing to Schools 2 and 3 in the same group, only School #1 sees the actu­al exam itself, what they call “the script.” The oth­er schools see mere­ly the score, report­ed by School #1. So the rules may say that it’s entire­ly up to you where your child sits the exam, but had I worked out this extra detail ahead of time, I’d have thought, “Hmm, I won­der which school I want to have Avery’s actu­al SCRIPT in hand, and not just some­one else’s inter­pre­ta­tion of her mark.” Alas, too late. Actu­al­ly prob­a­bly she sat the exam at the right school any­way, but not through any parental bril­liance on my part.

It’s exhaust­ing. And we don’t even DO any­thing! Poor Avery on parade. She seems to thrive for the most part, and when asked, “What do you look for in a school, Avery?” replied calm­ly, “I like to meet friend­ly peo­ple. If I meet some­one unfriend­ly, I might wor­ry that that was the whole eth­ic of the school. Not that it’s hap­pened, so far.” Ever the diplo­mat… thank good­ness for her father’s influence.

Righty-ho. I still have my apron on which must mean, gosh, we haven’t eat­en yet. Maybe that’s what’s got me ker­fuf­fled: so far my food intake today has been enor­mous glass of juice made of beet­root, cavo­lo nero, cel­ery, pear and pars­ley. Not exact­ly the diet of cham­pi­ons, more like a pun­ish­ment for sins as yet uncom­mit­ted. Actu­al­ly I real­ly like my juices, so tomor­row maybe a lit­tle Dairylea on the side…