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I’ve been out three times this week! Which from a standing start of not-at-all-after-dark for a whole year, is quite something. Monday, Sara and I went to a carol concert at the cathedral (you surely didn’t imagine I’d been on the razzle), which was lovely if utterly freezing. Proper carols and a bit of John Rutter: just the ticket. Tuesday, I stayed at home for a jolly evening of editing (until quarter to sodding eleven) punctuated by intermittent running up and down stairs to see T, who was most restless and now has a cold. Cameron went out (we are like the weather people). Wednesday I went to Sara’s festive girl’s night – Sara is like a bus too; don’t see her for ages then it is every day for a week – getting a taxi home! See me get the hang of socialising again! And last night Sara babysat while C and I went to see Beowulf. In 3D, which was very cool – we had to wear silly glasses and everything. The film itself…well, Mia’s review sums it up rather well: it is very silly, I giggled at his sahf lahndon “I’ve come ter kill yer monstah”, and the strategically positioned candlesticks are hilarious. I can’t believe it got a 12 rating as it was quite explicit and very gruesome in places, and Grendel was rubbish and just not creepy at all. Fun, though!
In between, I made stollen. Anybody who is anybody is making it this year: Christmas cake is just so 2006. I followed Nigel’s recipe, because I love and trust him, but (apologies to Lisa (whose permalinks are knackered but try the 14th December: she made stollen too but not without a little dig at people who mess with recipes)) I did fiddle it a little. I used dried yeast because that is what I had – surely that is what everybody has – and a sultana catastrophe* meant I had to use cherries/peel/currants/cranberries/almonds as the filling, but that works very well. The cardamom is glorious in it but it is rather more bready/less cakey than stollens I have eaten previously. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
*The jar leapt from the cupboard in eagerness and smashed into a million tiny shards on the floor.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 12:44 pm and is filed under food, outandabout, photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.