Sheer delight
My organza jodhpurs are at the dry cleaners today so I had to make do with Primark skinny jeans. Seeing photos of myself in skinny jeans makes me think back to a time many moons ago (when I was actually a lot thinner but that’s almost irrelevant).
I was at a barbecue and I bumped into a guy I’d previously met at a party, at which I’d been wearing a miniskirt. He said: ‘Oh hi, you’re the one with the Robert Crumb legs’. I later gave him hell for this comment and he told me he’d meant it as a compliment. Instead of clipping him about the ear, I decided to believe him, since he is very much below-and-to-the-left of the mainstream in his tastes and since you may as well see the bright side of things. It’s always a good idea to find positive role models for yourself, making the most of what might otherwise be considered flaws (sod having Darcey Bussell as a hero). This way, when an old Jamaican chap shouts ‘Hey big legs!’ at you in the street, you are able to take it as a compliment. As I go about my daily business I constantly screen a playreel of stormin Russ Meyer girls, Robert Crumb drawings, Nigella serving nibbles and Marilyn wiggling around in satin in Some Like It Hot in my mind’s eye. I recommend this to any not-small lass who is vulnerable to the odd guilt pang about taking up too much space. Go girls! Anyway here’s the outfit:
Sheer delight
Sheer fright
Conclusions:
- I spent ages looking for skinny jeans that fit and Primark was the only place to come up trumps, which is a pretty dire state of affairs.
- I did try more with my pose today, can you tell? A little bit? I still look a bit haemorrhoidal don’t I.
A pepper or two
Last night Adam and Thomas came over for dinner and I cooked ALL of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s aubergine/pepper/chilli suggestions in a sort of nightshade-family feast. Most of them were a bit disappointing.
The baked aubergine/yoghurt/coriander dip with pitta was probably the best bit, and it’s translated into lunch the next day better than the pepper/tomato/scrambled egg dish, which was nice, but is a bit squeam-making to eat cold. The deepfried chillies were downright dangerous as one of them exploded in the pan, flying through the air and splattering my entire kitchen (if you could call it a kitchen, and if you could call it ‘entire’) with burning olive oil. Good job there were no newborns around. The battered aubergine and pepper slices were pretty much disastrous – soggy and mostly tasteless – but then I’ve never been much good at this type of battery. The stuffed pepper with beef and dill was bland in itself but very nice combined with the ultra-tasty pine nut, spinach and goats cheese one.
All in all aubergines and peppers aren’t my favourite veggies anyway and I remain unconvinced. I’m looking forward to trying the red lentil and coconut soup tomorrow for a bit of flavour.
Oufitwise I feel pretty OK in what I’m wearing today but the photo tells a different story (Captain Pugwash and the Gender Reassignment Therapy).
The return of my lovely silk FARHI by Nicole Farhi still fails to show it in a positive light. One day you’ll see its greatness.
This isn’t a good angle for me really. I’m crossing my fingers that the Guardian does a CCTV-inspired, shot-from-above fashion story soon. I’m getting sick of the sight of my underchin.
In style
On stile
My new day’s resolution for tomorrow is to really get some dynamism into the pose. Watch this space.
In other news, I’ve been umming and ahhing a lot over one of the Measure entries this week – the Shaun Leane jewellery. I checked out astleyclarke.com and I really love the collection – except the one piece I could vaguely afford, which is the cherry blossom pendant. The rest of it is all vintage-looking and beautiful and reminds me of a Flower Fairies drawing, which I’ve always had a residual young-girl love for, but that single cheaper pendant looks more Keepers. I’ve decided not to part with my cash. Keepers always seemed to cause bad blood anyway. (If you picked up on them, please excuse the feminine hygiene implications of that sentence – it wasn’t what I meant.)
Dip/stick
Today’s photo is a self-portrait because I couldn’t leave the house in what I was wearing. Would you take me seriously if you bumped into me around the office wearing this?
If I’d only had a coral Margaret Howell blouse, some drawstring moleskin trousers and perhaps a tiny pair of hips, I’d be looking chic today. Oh, and a pair of clear-rimmed specs. But these garms are the closest I could get and, as you can see, tracksuit bottoms (Fat Face 1999 – not really Best Dressed material) an orange top, cropped Primark shirt and fancy-dress glasses do not a professional lady make. I changed into black h-h-h-harem pants and swapped the shirt for my beloved Farhi by Nicole Farhi covering-up mannish shirt thing so I looked less like I’d soiled myself, added a big scarf to make it look like I had some kind of intention for my appearance and headed off to the bus stop flowingly. I do look like a psychodrama workshop facilitator today but that’s probably better than looking like a plain old psychodrama. Today I’d like to add an extra dimension to my snap by providing the soundtrack that was going on in my head as I looked in the mirror. For those who have spotify: http://open.spotify.com/track/1Vchex0xowRj9k59RLvRfo.
Step out
Stay in
Dinner last night, on the other hand, was a steaming success. It was Hugh’s Muhamarra recipe, a very tasty affair involving walnuts, bread, olive oil, baked red peppers, chilli flakes, lime juice and caramelised onion chutney because I couldn’t find any pomegranate molasses. Once I was on Guardian Soulmates – why not, since I outsource every other decision in my life to the Guardian, let it choose me a lover as well? I met this guy and Jesus Christ was he a bore. He was even more smug than me. He was sick with the nation because it promoted cultural low-browism by celebrating Harry Potter. I unfortunately hit upon the subject of his difficult relationship with his father within ten minutes of meeting him – purely accidental – and the tense diatribe that followed was a terrifying to behold, and highly awkward to react to over a conversational pint of Strongbow. Anyway I went home after a while and shortly afterwards decided to choose my own menfolk. But the point of this story is that he harped on at great length about how amazing pomegranate molasses is, and how you can use it to add depth to any flavour, and how you can get it any Turkish shop. But I was in Sainsbury’s in my tracksuit (because I’m now running everywhere in order to maintain this experiment without growing out of the last remaining giantsize harem pants) and I couldn’t find any, so I just bought some Taste the Difference chutney instead. It’s a bit soapy to be honest. ANYWAY, the dip is stunningly delicious. You must make it. If you can’t be bothered to do the bits involving the peppers, the paste made with all the other ingredients is delicious in itself. Walnutty oily rich wonder with bread dipped in. I ate plenty of it before I added the peppers. Hugh told me to add the rest of the ingredients after the peppers but I rebelliously ignored him. I was wating for the peppers to cook so I thought I may as well get the rest ready.
Also I used my hand blender! If you’ve been reading from the start you’ll know this is a great thing as it marks my triumph over the emotional scars I earned during an egg white incident.
Here are the photies:
Muhamarra
Muhm-muhm-ahhh
I know it looks kind of like a feline production here but that’s just any ungarnished dip for you isn’t it? I added extra chilli flakes, chutney and cumin so it’s got quite a kick. It’s making me mildly perspire as I eat the remains for lunch while typing this.
Conclusions:
- I’m taking a long moment to appreciate the fact that I changed out of that heinous outfit before coming to work.
- I strongly recommend trying the dip.
- Peeling red peppers is pretty tricky even after doing the oven/plastic bag trick but the dip doesn’t appear to have suffered by having skins in it.
Resurrection
When I started this blog I decided to pretty much keep the whole thing quiet, bar telling a few friends who helped me take photos or directly asked me what the hell I was doing after walking in on me photographing myself in a bikini with a walking stick between my thighs. Rather than fabricating some phoney story about Hannibal Lecter for the post-gendered/neo-hiking era (I don’t know at all what I mean by this but it sounds like a joke, which is half the battle) I told them what I was doing and gradually developed a small but loyal following of regular readers with whom I enjoyed sharing my adventures in Guardianland. A few other people happened upon it while searching for Dan Lepard recipes (poor souls didn’t get much help here), Andy Pandy (again, sorry folks) and female humiliation (probably not what they had in mind) . Some of them kept coming back, and I decided the rest of the world could do without seeing it really.
But a few weeks after I decided to jack the whole thing in I posted the link on Facebook, since it was sitting there all finished with, which then led to something to do with Twitter and something to do with Stumbleupon and some other things I can’t quite get a grip on, which then led to bemusing amounts of people actually asking me not to give it up, while on their knees with tears on their faces. I have always felt it was my calling in life to sacrifice my personal dignity, large amounts of cash, my physical health and all my spare time in order to provide mild entertainment to friends and acquaintances. So it is with a heavy heart, a light wallet and an ambivalent smile that I’m resurrecting Guardian Girl.
My first post back should really be an extra special one, but it isn’t. It’s not even spectacularly unsuccessful. Just an unflattering photo of me in a checked shirt and a fairly insipid but I suppose satisfying rice and meat dish.
On Saturday morning I went off to buy the paper, accompanied by the slightly jaded cousin of my old sense of trepidation.
I sat on a bench and cracked open a can of Special Brew followed by Weekend.
I thought:
Food: same old, same old.
Lauren Luke: Christ alive, no offence to her but she looks like a burns victim this week. Bronzing is supposed to be SAFE.
The interior design bit: hilarious for reasons I’ll elaborate on later.
Fashion: more shirts and trousers.
Not much had changed while I was away – except that they’ve started putting some of their fashion pictures online! Hooray! This makes life much easier as you can see in high-def the look I was aiming for. Maybe I’ll even be able to stop taking rubbish-quality photos of the magazine pages soon.
The Measure was more interesting. I instantly clocked that I wouldn’t be able to afford anything by Dries van Noten but that Topshop was on the list too. Astley Clark jewellery – possible. The Reiss belt is lovely, and in fact I packed myself off to Angel that very day and bought me one, which cost an eye-watering 60-odd quid and made me feel extremely guilty. It’s not that lovely after all – it looks a bit Dorothy Perkins when you combine it with most of my other clothes. That 1971 collection is very nice, a bit Dallasy and a bit Suzi Quatroey, but when I put that sort of jangling stuff on I just look like I’ve been doing guilty trolley dashes down Primark again (which I usually have).
On Sunday it was time to face reality and get back into the cookery properly again, so I tackled Hugh’s first recipe of the week, which was something called Maqluba.
My actual-genius friend Jesse came to dine and ate the food happily but seemed relieved when she found out it was a Guardian recipe, as it was licence to come clean with the truth – that it “could do with a bit more salt”. I quite agreed, especially eating it cold the next day when this kind of dish is usually extra tasty. I perhaps should have used more than one stock cube. Also I chopped my herbs way too big again – bad gal. I forgot to cut them with scissors like a helpful commenter on this blog told me to do months ago.
Coming up soon is the first photographic evidence in a long while. Hold your breath.
First of all a little bonus (I wouldn’t get too excited): the old piccies that damaged the camel’s back last time around in August before The Break.
Strike a pose
Completely fail to strike the correct pose
This makes me wonder about my brain functioning. You can imagine what I’m like in an aerobics class – windmilling around in Studio 2 while the rest of the class is doing press-ups in Studio 1. I think I just forgot to look at the original picture properly. Or at all.
I have also uncovered the last recipe I cooked, weeks ago, to say thanks to the cat godfathers for looking after My George while I was in Hamburg living the unfettered life. It was a lime pie, one of Dan Lepard’s, and it tasted kind of nice but I burned the pastry so it went black and crumbly. Also I made the tragic error of purchasing these squidgy golden kiwi things – a different type from the usuals. I really don’t recommend them. Luckily I also had a packet of bog-standard kiwi fruit (how globalised consumerism has moved on since the rationing era) and they turned out to be enough to cover the pie with.
Kiwi tart
It's a start
Right then, with that out of the way, here’s last night’s dinner (and today’s lunch):
Maqluba
Maq-loser
Mine lacks lustre doesn’t it. I overcooked the tomatoes intentionally to try to destroy some of their innate evil. It sort of worked. I also ate most of the delicious toasted flaked almonds I was supposed to scatter on the top before serving, as they were just too tempting and too close to hand to ignore. Altogether it was a pretty drab dish for something that involved so much preparation and so many flavourings. Where did they all go? Stolen by the force of heat.
So on to the moment I’ve been dreading – today’s outfit. I’ll be frank with you; the past six weeks have not been kind to me. I have reappeared in cyberworld looking like a shadow of my former self, if shadows were larger, paler and messier than the original, which would make the world a very different place wouldn’t it? I do hope to return to form at some unspecified point in the future. In the meantime please bear with me. I am ‘everywoman’ after all, it’s all in me.
Get shirty
Get surgery
That really is a hideous return to the project. Nevermind.
My head is going the wrong way because I still have very fragile connections between brain and body even after that half a chapter of The Alexander Technique for Dummies I read seven years ago. And despite photographer-Cari shouting: “Spread your legs wider!” repeatedly at me as I slumped on the sink outside a cubicle in which another colleague was trying to do a quiet wee, I preserved my dignity over getting the picture right. Obviously if I’d been wearing white silk bloomers there wouldn’t have been a problem.
On a happy note, please admire the snazzy bathroom in which I pose for these photos. We moved offices at work, so it’s bye-bye tampon machine and hello clean grouting from now on.
Conclusions:
- Hugh slacked off a bit on taste this week. Also did you know the recipe called for holding a plate over the pan of boiling meat and rice and turning it upside down? Have you seen the level of success with which I am able to copy a very simple seated pose? Put the two together and you’ll see why I didn’t attempt this – I just used a spoon.
- Topshop sold out of that amazing UFO dress ages ago, apparently.
- Reiss does do wonderful accessories but who’d pay £60 for a belt? Oh.
- Lauren Luke’s make-up gives her the appearance of a Marbella-dwelling ex-pat and makes me look like a sweaty grub.
- It’s good to be back.
Sunday 16 August
Big disappointment today as I travelled all the way into town with my French Connection discount chum to buy the blouse in the Measure and found it wasn’t in the shops. What’s the blooming point telling us all how perfect the thing is if none of us can buy it? It looked like a great blouse as well, and French Connection is full of very nice stuff at the moment so it was tough not to cave in and get something. But I didn’t.
Adding to my aggravation was the fact that I was wearing a jumper on a hot day, a requirement of the between-summer-and-autumn fashion shoot this week. Here’s me dicking around in some more undergrowth. The scarf was courtesy of a friend who had it tied around her cat’s carry basket, along with a beautiful Lanvin one. Can you imagine how stylish you have to be to carry your cat around in a Lanvin-trimmed box?
Wheatfield
Whigfield
Not really putting my back into it there – relying too heavily on the pastry belly for balance.
And talking of which – here’s dinner. It’s a pie!
I used up a load of vaguely mouldering fruit I had left over from when I couldn’t be bothered to make fruit leather last week. The addition of vinegar to the pastry threw me a bit and the dough stank of it, but the finished product was great. Excuse the blobs of creme fraiche. I forgot to think about aesthetics for a moment.
Apricot
Money shot
Never one to do things by halves (unless they are a pastry recipe), I have an ear infection in both ears at the moment and must leave this desk now to crawl into a dark corner and feel sorry for myself, possibly aided by tonight’s veggie soup recipe and last week’s Dallas boxset. At least the Guardian can look after the poorly among us, even if it can’t consider the skint.
Conclusions:
- Ear infection necessitates brevity.
- Why Measure always so expensive/unavailable?
- Vinegar in pastry not too rank.
- Use up old fruit in pie.
- Creme fraiche not pretty.
- Nurofen.
Saturday 15 August
First impressions:
Fashion
- My lack of a large selection of gilets in differing fabrics is going to set me back a bit here – and finding grass long enough to stand in rather than on, let alone a wheatfield, is going to be quite a challenge in Hackney.
- Plus another bunch of menswear that, when recreated with my own wardrobe, just means jeans and a shirt every day.
- I popped over to the home of my internet-connected friends to Google most of this stuff in order to gauge how attainable/affordable it was going to be. The French Connection blouse looks lovely and is even more affordable given that I get 50% discount there thanks to my wunder-0-chum Adam, but aside from that every single thing (trainers, jewellery, bag) costs way more than I could afford, even given my determination to follow this experiment faithfully. Disappointing. I wonder how much the average Guardian reader earns?
Recipes
- Bloody hell, not more pies! Just as I thought my cholesterol might be returning to within five cream cakes of normal levels.
- Veggie soup looks nice, soups are usually easy and cheap to do – goodo. Plus anything with pesto in or on it is always good by me.
- Another pie. Sacre bleu.
Brain and heart
- I’ve mostly been avoiding cataloging the more emotional side of the advice in the Weekend magazine because I intend this blog to be more of an experiment about the do-ability of cooking, dressing and shopping as the Guardian suggests than about my psychological welfare each week. After all, there’s narcissism and then there’s narcissism. There’s some very good advice in this bumper happiness issue, by the looks of things, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to use my blog as a gratitude diary. What happens on tour stays on tour (in this scenario the tour is my internal life, and be happy it’s staying that way, since my internal life would probably have at least one thing in common with Aerosmith’s Get a Grip tour of 1993-94).
Make-up
- No Lauren Luke! I’m relieved to have a break from uploading four close-ups of my face shot in bad light, and it’ll be nice to wear make-up that goes with the clothes I’m in. Only it’s mostly menswear this week, so looks like I’ll be bare-faced this week.
So the outfit today was just shirt and jeans for me as I don’t have a wide range of trousers to get it right. The photo was a little tricky, but my friend Thomas managed to get a pretty good snap of me hanging backwards off a park bench in some undergrowth. You can’t really see the clothes but since they didn’t match very well anyway today, the photo is really just for keeping up appearances.
After summer
Dafter summer
Chicken pie
Don't judge a book by its cover
-
There’s not enough grass in London. Or wheatfields. Could Agnes Denes pay a visit? Perhaps I should’ve popped to Dalston Mill for a photoshoot.
-
There aren’t enough cooking ingredients in Tesco Metros. They’re for those times you just need beer and some filled pasta things aren’t they. Planning, planning, planning.
Thursday 13 August
Alice band
Gastric band
Only kidding about the gastric band thing.
It was weird copying Jess Cartner-Morley rather than a model today. I felt a bit stalkerish for doing it.
She’s a ‘normal girl’ testing high fashion to see which looks work realistically, and then I’m copying her to see what works really realistically. It’s like that infinite cat thing.
In fact now might be a good time to reflect upon some of the things I (might) have learned in the first five or so weeks I’ve been doing this experiment/blog/whimsy/narcissistic rubbish.
When I first started I saw myself as being pretty much on the Guardian‘s side in the battle, as I suppose I saw it, between clueless, complaining readers who had the time to write indignant letters about the availability of curly kale, and a bunch of bright young things who knew something about fashion, cooking, brains and how they work – life, I guess. It’s only in retrospect that I realise I was really thinking that, and how barmy it sounds.
While I am still of the opinion that a lot of readers’ letters to Weekend are unnecessarily pedantic and often miss the point entirely, I am starting to come around to some sort of solidarity.
I know that the Guardian‘s lifestyle supplements are intended as guidelines only – in fact probably not even that. They should come with a disclaimer. The middle-class reflexivity and self-aware tone of most of the writers also propagates the idea that it’s all a bit of a laugh in a way, aha-ha-ha-ha, and who’d really take such things seriously when we’re all clever people with right-on personal politics and we know what really matters in life.
Of course a lot of that is true and I’m not going to join in with this tiresome white-middle-class-bashing that every white middle-class person suddenly feels obliged to do in order to show they know how white and middle class they are.
But when you do take what’s between the pages of Weekend to its logical conclusion, what you get is a lot of contradiction. OK, so you’re not supposed to take it to its logical conclusion – for one thing it’s protected from that treatment by admitting to its sins before it’s even begun, and besides, it’s only a bit of a laugh in a way, aha-ha-ha. But in fact it has a lot of power, let into the kitchen/cafe/garden every Saturday morning and allowed to show us its wares like a travelling salesperson with a suitcase of prize dusters.
I always thought it was my friend, because it spoke how I spoke, looked how I looked, and talked how I talked. But now I am starting to see that it might be just a little bit of a backstabber, and perhaps I talk that way and look that way and think that way because I’ve been friends with it for so long. In fact it might really be making me feel a bit slovenly, a bit fat, a bit poor and a bit unsuccessful. But I feel guilty talking about it behind its back like this when I’m not really sure whose fault all this really is – after all the Guardian never forced me to hang around with it and we were only having a bit of fun all along.
Gosh it’s hard being so middle class isn’t it?
So damn reflexive.
And so… on to pastures greener – Dan Lepard’s gougeres, yay!
In DL’s recipe he described these as ‘puffs’ whereas mine really came out like mini-scones, which is no cause for complaint. I didn’t buy enough olives or parmesan cos I didn’t check the recipe – slapped wrist for that. So mine could’ve been tastier, but they were still delicious.
I’d never encountered this way of making dough before and was a bit alarmed when I added the eggs to the hot pan and they started to scramble, but I just stirred like mad with my face scrunched up and that seemed to do the trick.
The very best thing about these gougeres was that I piled some on a plate and took them into the bath, where I watched Dallas on my new portable DVD player. It was like being at a badly tiled 80s cocktail party. Albeit with no cocktails.
Gougeres
Li'l scones
Conclusions:
- I had no idea Dallas was so hilarious. That Lucy is brilliant, and the moment wotsername tells her dad she’s married Bobby Ewing – a-hee! Acting!
- If you’re planning to watch Dallas re-runs any time soon, definitely combine them with Dan Lepard’s black olive gougeres. This was one occasion when the Guardian totally came up trumps with its lifestyle suggestions. No contradictions here, no angst, no complaints. Pure luxury.
Wednesday 12 August
Lady
...and the Tramp
On this day in history… a simple black dress, ballet pumps and an up-do. Mercy me.
Pie
Dry
Violet
Violent
-
Blanching vine leaves makes all the diffference, I imagine.
-
I’m getting a bit tired of the limited scope of the Sainsbury’s fresh herb selection. Isn’t everyone using them since Jamie Oliver started ripping them up and bunging them in everything? I’m sure they’d sell fine.
-
Experimentation with quantities isn’t always going to work – and with dry breadcrumb topping it didn’t.
-
River Island has the odd nice blouse. As always with that shop, though – stay away from naked flames.
-
Can’t wait to climb into bed early of an evening with that night’s recipe and a new episode of Dallas. Does this mean I’ve become old before my time? Undoubtably.
Tuesday 11 August
My magnificent pal Adam had very thoughtfully brought some geeky spec frames with him when he visited me at the weekend, so that I might better replicate this look:
Glasses
Farces
I don’t think I’ll rush out to buy a pair and you’ll be pleased to know I didn’t wear them at my desk – only in the bogs. I think prescription-free specs are just about acceptable but if they don’t even have plastic in them, let alone lenses, they ought to be attached to a fake ‘tache in a dressing-up box.
After work I went on a little Measure-fulfilling mission, which was fun and successful. This experiment hasn’t dictated that I buy too much stuff lately, apart from a million pounds-worth of cooking ingredients each week, so I didn’t feel too guilty. Plus these were actually quite reasonable suggestions – a useful jacket and a white dress to do some small justice to the Ibiza dream despite not having the time or cash to book a holiday. I visited no fewer than four Warehouse concessions before I found the right jacket in the Argyll St branch, but it is a nice blazer, although not especially flattering. Bit Poddington Peas if you know what I mean.
Then I popped to Topshop and found a white maternity dress reduced to £12. I highly recommened maternity wear to anyone who doesn’t already have some in her wardrobe. It’s so roomy. Admittedly I do look quite pregnant in this dress and you can tell its intended use from the fact that the hem dips down at the front to take up the slack for the baby who’s meant to be there but, in my case, isn’t. It also has an elasticated panel in the front, come to think of it. Is it a bit Hand That Rocks the Cradle to wear a maternity dress when you’re not pregnant? Could it jinx my fertility forever? Never mind – I’m as barren as a nine-bob bit anyway.
By the time I got home I was ready to fail at the last of Hugh’s fruity recipes. Lemon verbena syrup sounds delicious but I’ve yet to find it on sale in the shops near me and it was 9pm by the time I arrived home from town. As usual I paid homage to his ideas (just to keep up the momentum of the experiment really) by eating some cakes. Heh. Ummm..
Because my performance with the recipes has been unforgivably disappointing so far this week I offer a photo as a peace offering. It’s the back of the t-shirt of a man I was walking behind down Edgware Rd. The slogan is the catchiest thing since Yes We Can.
- aMAZing
My second gift to you is a snippet of conversation I overheard as I stood next to a young couple looking at floral dresses in Warehouse. The girl motioned to a particular example and said: ‘How about that one?’
‘Nah,’ said her boyfriend. ‘It wouldn’t suit you. I tell you who wears that sort of stuff a lot and looks really good in it though, and that’s my ex, Lizzie.’
She smiled sweetly and asked ‘Oh, did she?’ as they walked off arm in arm. I hope she was planning to slip some arsenic into his tea later.
Conclusions:
- No geek specs for me.
- Thank goodness the week of fruit preserves is over, as these recipes almost made me give up the whole experiment. It’s disheartening to aspire to such a distilled mainstay of rural life when you have neither the time, the equipment nor the patience to yield results.
- Next up is Yotam’s yoghurt pie, which I promise to cook to the very best of my ability.
Monday 10 August
Another day of grave failure on the recipe front, but the fashion is continuing to be easy to copy this week, which makes a nice change from feeling awkward in a strange combination of garments every day.
Today I christened the maxi-dress I bought courtesy of The Measure a few weeks ago, with a belt as decreed. It did feel weird being at work in a floor-length dress, but in terms of professional integrity it was preferable to having a stuffed tiger attached to my shoulder.
Here’s the visual aid for the day:
Feather
Whatever
Posing skills still need polishing.
As for dinner, the idea of going home and setting berries to macerate for hours, only to strain them and boil them with vinegar and all that… I just couldn’t be bothered. I love berry vinegar and I’m sure it’d taste delicious, and if I lived at River Cottage I’d love to have a go at making my own. But I think this activity is not really designed for twentysomething London dwellers in tiny boxroom flats with limited kitchen space, equipment, time and patience. And who want to spend their hard-earned cash on something they can actually eat for dinner, rather than drizzle over the top of it. It’s far more economical to pick a kilo of fruit from your garden than buy it from Tesco that’s for sure. £2.50ish for 170g of raspberries!
So I paid lip service to Hugh’s recipe and serving suggestions by eating a few raspberries on the way home and having a goat’s cheese salad and some chicken for dinner. That’s about as close as it gets sometimes.
Conclusions:
- It is possible to wear a black maxi dress with a silver cuff neckline to work without feeling like a total idiot.
- As for homemade fruit vinegar – best left for the future of sunsoaked lawns, blooming veg patches, musty utility rooms, adorable kids and endless lazy weekends that I’m sure is just around the corner.
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 
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