Winterchut (AM)

Do you guys get bored when, on a Monday morning,  we tell you about what we did on the weekend? If so, sorry you guys. And see you tomorrow, because this post is about the Winter Chutney Club meet at Miguel and Legsley's on Saturday.

If you've been here before, you know what goes down at Chutney Club. People make a bunch of jars of chutney. People get together and eat them with things, then swap their jars. People have a wonderful time. That's Chutney Club.

Normally there is a good balance of sweet and savoury things. Not this time. Everyone  inadvertently made a sweet thing, which meant we basically spent three solid hours eating sugar. Except for David who made butter, so in fact we spent three hours eating sugar and butter.
If I was five, this would be my lifelong dream and this post would be coming to you from a person who was ready to die because she'd done it all. But readers, I'm not five any more. Not by a motherflipping long shot. My dreams have changed and rightly so, because  spending three solid hours eating sugar will do things to a person. You know that feeling of having a sugar high? That happened after about 45 minutes. What happened after that I have no benchmark or words for. No words, because I'm not entirely sure I've come down yet. I mean, I haven't had a hunger signal in about 40 hours now. I did take some photos though. Let's let them speak for me.

First up, we see butter by David (background),  and toast in the shape of teapots with marmalade by Blizzie.

Effing cute/effing yum. 

Here we have croissants by Miss Soft Crab's own J.

Hot. 

Fancy a little flourless orange cake with marmalade glaze by Miguel and Legsley? Of course you do.

Also visible: the salted caramel and cream tarts I made. PLease refer to bottom right of image, in front of J's croissants.

We all ate every one of these things, and from this point on, the photos start to get a little incoherent.  

That's partly my fault, because I thought it would be a good idea to give the camera to baby. 

Check this out: 

It looks like a dream sequence, right? In fact it is a photo Baby took. Somehow he managed to capture the mood of the day perfectly. That kid has a gift.

Anyway, while Baby was getting his Annie Leibovitz on, we were still eating. 

Eating things like these donuts Biggie Little made. 

I don't know how that pig got on the table. 

And these macarons Little Wonder made.

Salted caramel to the left, pink grapefruit to the right. 

By the time the rhubarb and apple tart that Welly made came out, neither baby nor I were in a position to photograph it. I had taken a spot on the floor, where I rested against an ottoman, and watched while Legsley drew some elephants for Baby.

I love these elephants and looking at them soothes me. 

I don't know how long I was there for, but by the time I came to, the tart had been chopped up in to take home packs for everyone. Lets hope J got a picture of it beforehand. She's always been the more responsible one.
Don't get me wrong, we all had a wonderful time. I guess it's just been a long winter and I feel like part of my brain is still in hibernation and or/sugar coated atrophy. I'm pretty sure I'm no alone though. This came through from Miguel yesterday.

I hope you find your knife guys.  I don't have it, BTW. 

In praise of siblings (PM)

Siblings do rule!

I've got two of 'em and they are both swell. Sadly I did not see them this weekend. But I did see some of LB's.

I learned from Paz that he is so blind he did not see K at the supermarket the other day. So that he did not see her expectant face looking up at him  fall as he walked past ignoring her (K's words not mine). I also learned that he has worn through yet another pair of shoes and, seriously, that guy is walking around with his socks touching the ground through his shoes. Not for the first time mind you.

I also learned that while siblings do rule, and therefore I'd like to give Baby one, I do not want to give him three. LB's sister is pregnant with her fourth baby and boy does that look tiring.

Siblings rule! In moderation!

Too much of a good thing.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!! You thought Ira Glass was your boyfriend! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

But don't feel bad. Even though I totally elaughed my head off at you (arguably with you) in cyberpublic (and actually laughed my head off in real privacy). As if I know how much is enough! I make this mistake all the time. With cheese. With alcohol. With Kanye West tracks. I don't know when to stop.

When I lived in Japan I used to dream about Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters all the time. Like they were my friends. As if being absent from my actual friends was somehow being channelled into dreams about Buffy because I had watched so much of it I would dream about those guys as if they were my friends. Get it?

Is this about not being able to self-limit or not being able to draw a line between fantasy and reality. I am not sure exactly, but either way I am beginning to wonder if some sort of professional intervention is needed. Oh well. I'm sure I am fine. Back to you mate.

Look, the space between waking and reality is a hazy one. You know how sometimes you have a dream and then you can't remember if that thing actually happened or not? Or you are stuck with a feeling you had in the dream all day long as if whatever was going on in your head went on in reality. Sleepy time is fuzzy time mate. Anyway, it's lucky that it was dark in your bedroom so Ira didn't have to see you blushing when he came to bed.

How much is enough?

There is a story from my childhood that I always tell people. It's the butter story. Most of you have heard it, but for those who haven't, it goes like this.

When I was little, I used to think bread and butter was the most delicious thing in the world. Really, it was the butter that blew my mind so much, the bread was just a delicious vessel. I used to want to put layer after layer of butter on my bread, but Mum insisted that we just have a thin scraping, I assume for health reasons. In my view, this was never enough. I mean, if a little bit of something is good, then surely more of it is better, right?

One time, Mum and Dad were going out for the evening and I decided that while they were gone I was finally going to eat as much butter as I wanted. However, I am famous for my inability to show restraint in certain situations, so as soon as the doorbell rang to announce the arrival of the babysitter, I went at the butter like a seagull on a bag of chips. I was at with a teaspoon, just shovelling that delicious stuff in to my mouth.  By the time Mum and Dad came to give us a kiss goodbye, I was lying on the living room floor in a butter coma.  I may have been crying, I don't really remember. They just shook their heads and looked a little embarrassed for the babysitter.

All I know is that I was lying there,  feeling like I wanted to die and wondering where I had gone wrong. I didn't realise that there was such a thing as too much of a good thing.
I feel like there are a million stories from my childhood that go like this. If I think little bit of something is awesome, I go and seek out much much more of that thing and  then it goes horribly wrong. I didn't seem to be able to stop when I was still having a nice time, I would always push on until shit got real and then the good times were over. Obviously this happens less and less as I get older, but I tell this story now because the same kind of thing happened  recently and I guess it just reminded me that sometimes, I still find it difficult to know how much is enough. 

In this recent example, I went overboard on listening to  This American Life and the consequences were a little pathetic and a lot ridiculous.  How can you overdose on listening to TAL? I hear you ask. Well lucky I am in a sharing mood guys, because I am totally going to tell you.
Because I love TAL, I listen to it all the time when I'm pottering about doing stuff at home.  But lately, I have been listening to it when I go to sleep. At first I thought this was a great plan, particularly for those times I wasn't totally exhausted when I went to bed. I would read for a while and then play a TAL podcast and drift off to the sound of Ira Glass saying his pretty pretty words. It was a  real treat.
I should have stopped there, but of course I started doing it every night, and now I've gone too far.
I know this because the other night I drifted off to sleep very quickly, and then awoke with a start about 15 minutes later. When I heard Ira speaking in my half-sleep state I thought to myself, oh good, Ira's home and then waited for a sec for him to come in to the bedroom and get in bed with me. And then I became fully conscious and realised that Ira Glass is not my boyfriend and was not in fact about to get in bed with me, but rather was just talking to me through the interpipes.  When I realised this, I felt my cheeks go red and I basically had to lie in bed, blushing in the darkness.

This shouldn't happen, guys. I really need to figure out how to draw a line.