Bumper xmas issue
Show some zest
Show some pity
DISCLAIMER: This post is really long, with not that many jokes. But it has a lot of pictures.
ADDENDUM TO DISCLAIMER: Just put some hysterical jokes in, reckon it’s well worth a read now.
“OMG, where do I even begin right now?”
I had a week off work and, rather then hiring a cosy cottage in the Cotswolds or jetting off in search of winter sun, I stayed at home and stuck masking tape on my tracksuit bottoms. To add to the excitement, they’re not even my tracksuit bottoms. Then I cooked enormous quantities of food I’m trying to avoid eating in anticipation of xmas corpulence and watched my boyfriend wolf it down (ELEVEN okra fritters in one sitting! If it’s allowed to mention your boyfriend and use exclamation marks in the same sentence without breaking the rules of decency!) Then I bought an All Saints dress I didn’t really want! The exclamation marks are a mask for the pain.
Raise your game
Lower your standards
The fashion was actually fairly suitable staycation attire, as luck would have it.
Lounge hour
Visiting hour
Unfortunately I have been stung by using the magazine as my photo reference again. I was staying away from computers, what with being on holiday from the usual daily obligations. Of course now I come to snatch the online photos off the Guardian website and I find they’ve used all these different poses again. How can I make this mistake so often? Oh well, let’s truck on nonetheless.
Get
Your
Coat
(Goat? Goitre? Wayne Hussey?)
I’m having problems getting the originals of these photos to load, for some reason. I know you’re desperate to see, so here’s the first and the second.
Good colour matching, I like to think? It’s just a shame I look so… disheartened isn’t quite the word. Bereaved?
The next issue ruddered me back into familiar and much-dreaded territory. I so hate copying the photos of the actual journalists. When I recreate the models’ poses, it’s possible to set aside vanity in the interests of taking one for the team. I feel I’m representing The People in our centuries-long battle against The Models. Yeh what’s delusional about that? Yeh? Come on then!
With the real people it’s difficult because you think ‘Ahaa, a real person! This one’s going to be easy!’ And then it isn’t, and then you’re sobbing in the wastelands outside your city in a white dress covered in dirt, in the rain, with violins. Actually you’re by a gravestone. Your face is covered in teras. TERAS! A futuristic version of tears! You will never even look as good as a normal person.
Actually even worse than the comparison thing is the fear that one of the below people might see the blog and be all creeped out. It’s like if a girl at school walked past you and a photo of YOU dropped out of her bag, and then another photo dropped out and it was that girl dressed up as you in that photo! Stalker! Weird! It’s EXACTLY like that!
Anyway we know why we’re here.
Jess Cartner-Morley
Write in with a caption - I can't be fucked
Imogen Fox
Ridden with pox (this one was quite good wasn't it)
And now some spaces
to take us on to a new subject matter
maybe a subhead
Onwards foodwards
Spiced parsnip gougeres
Spiced swede poogeres
These were nice. No parsnips so, with the flick of an expert wrist, I substituted swede!
I actually managed to eat one, then walk out of the room. In fact I did this with all the week’s dishes: had a very small portion, then froze the rest for xmas. It may quite seriously be the first time I’ve ever exercised self-restraint. Feels incredible. All powerful. Scientological.
Orange and pistachio stollen bars
Orange and pistachio stolid bar
Wrongly photographed, right recipe. Based on the postage stamp-sized portion I ate, I’d say this was pretty great stuff.
Foot-long herb 'heros', with sausages and chilli cranberry sauce
Inch-long herb 'victims', with sausages and chilli cranberry sauce
These victims are going to be our Christmas Day breakfast.
That’s like something a proper blogger says isn’t it? I’m feeling so lifestyle!
Onion seed breadsticks, with shots of smoked salmon cheese
Onion seed pugil sticks, with clots of smoked salmon cheese
Very tasty and easy breadsticks here. Recommend trying them. Think Monica might have something to say about my presentation though. Oh my, a revelation – Monica is what’s missing from this blog! I must contact her asap for some feedback.
Membrillo and stilton quiche
Jam and stilton quiche
What’s this? Oh yes, the quiche. Now this was really nice. Also been stuck in the freezer to be resumed on Boxing Day. Even Whole Foods didn’t seem to have membrillo, so I used fig jam, apparently to no detriment. It’s just like a sort of ploughman’s in a tart, no? That was an unsavoury turn of phrase, in hindsight, and I shouldn’t have used it. Let’s pray for computers to be invented so I can delete it.
Spicy okra fritters
Greasy, acrid shitters
Finally, the fritters. I found them seepingly cloggetory of the arteries but my flatfellow very much enjoyed them, as we have heard, so they must have some merit in the universe. Or rather in Hades by now I expect.
more pauses here
And for afters
A reel of painfully aspirational photos of my flat. Efforts at interior styling have, as usual, fallen and fractured their coccyx.
Dining booth
Feeding trough
Living room
Existing room
Kitchen
Addiction (to gin, by the looks of things)
Exterior
Posterior
Conclusions:
- The grand conclusion of the day is that I have now fried most of my money in oil, bagged it up and frozen it
- If you see what I mean
- So now I have to stop again, enjoy Christmas, wear what I want to the office party, and return at some point in the new year
- This is just a prediction; I may write again tomorrow
- If you’re thinking of doing some cooking for the days in and around xmas, I really do recommend the quiche and the breadsticks. And the stollen bars
- Happy Xmas/See you tomorrow! To be deleted when we know what happens!
- Suspense!
- Been reading too many American writings and it’s stained my blog with exclamation marks and a ridiculous tone and loads of caps and italics, so prob best have a detox anyways
- Oh god bye
- Byeeeee
I've always found it funny when people write letters to the Guardian's Weekend magazine complaining that the recipe ingredients are too middle class and the fashion only looks good on thin people. After all, it's just a magazine. Or is it? I decided to follow its recipes, fashion and lifestyle advice as closely as possible, to see if the aspirations promoted therein can really be achieved by the average reader who is not especially wealthy, not necessarily model thin and is obliged to work regular office hours. This blog has no affiliation whatsoever with the Guardian but I link to the Weekend magazine website for the purposes of illustration. 
Guardian Girl 
Must do some serious FB stalking, find out where you and your boyfriend! live and burgle your freezer in the middle of the night. I’ll bring my swag bags for life.
My mum made membrillo, and it was more like jam anyway. The Reading crowd was rather enchanted with it.
Love your blog! Look forward to reading it – especially the food bits – so many recipes I want to try from the Weekend mag but never get around to…. don’t know where you find the time but very pleased you do!
I don’t really find the time so much as wrestle it out of the hands of far more worthwhile pastimes. Seems more worth it if I’m sort of cooking for two though. Send me your address next time and I’ll post you some half-raw pastry.
oh man, love the tartan shawl thing! can I ask where it’s from? that’s part of the spirit of the fashion shoot thing, right?!
Sorry, I’ve been remiss at checking in. It’s from Urban Outfitters. I took it on holiday to Scotland once and felt like an idiot all week. Works better in London.