Guardian Girl

The final report from last week’s issue, rather late because I’ve been off having a free will again (it keeps bursting through) concerns these cheddar torpedoes. Yes, mine looked like Iceland garlic bread, but they tasted…they tasted…so good that my boyfriend and I polished off the lot (minus one torpedo we physically couldn’t fit down our gullets [I tried]) in about 10 minutes. It was 11pm by the time I’d got home, mixed the ingredients up in a bowl, allowed the dough to rise in various stages, brushed over the egg wash and all that biz, and by that time you tend to get an appetite for The Thing in the Kitchen.

But check it out – I used an egg wash, and measured the ingredients again! That’s like two recipes I’ve actually followed in the past two years! I really might be turning into someone who does things properly, and it might be almost entirely down to Lepard and Ottolenghi, whose instructions I must finally concede do tend to have reasons behind them. This whole lesson has raised the question: exactly what battle do I think I’m winning by halving rising time, chopping veg three times too big, not peeling stuff, not cooling stuff, not melting stuff and so on? I’m sure it’s not so much laziness as a sort of impotent rebellion. Which leads to the question: are these scenarios the most appropriate way to channel impotent rebellion or should I set my sights higher? Perhaps measuring flour could be a cure for political apathy? Christ, I’ve discovered all the answers!

In the meantime, back to the eating. It is nobody’s fault but my own that I am fervently greedy. Looking at this week’s tart recipe out of the corner of a weeping eye, for example, I didn’t think ‘I could have a slice of that with my Sunday cuppa.’ I thought ‘That’s one step closer to a mobility scooter.’ The only way to get around this is by avoiding the stimulus all together – some people just got their synapses arranged that way. So I’m taking this week off cooking while I go for a few runs and eat a few chicken breasts, maybe drag my crucifix around for a few hours if I can find where I left it.

Outfitwise, last week’s fiction special and resulting lack of the usual two fashion stories meant I ran out of models to copy and had to ape (?) Jess Cartner-Morley instead. This has happened a few times before and it tends to infuse the day with an uncomfortable sense that JC-M is about to walk round the corner in the same outfit and give me a withering look. The fear isn’t helped by the fact that she actually lives round the corner, apparently. Anyway let’s just pray for plenty more fashion pages in future.

Over the edge

This week’s fashion is, so far, causing a persistent bad mood. Can’t they just have one fashion shoot inspired by Trog or the Sammiad instead of all this Dallas-ish spangle? Filtered through my pathologically unglamorous world, golden vestments and sultry pouts just seem to turn into orange Primark hand-me-downs and gormlessness. It generates a great sense of dejection, it really does.

• Doing this thing, there are weeks of great elation during which I genuinely feel I’ve attained a higher level of capable existence, pottering around with sage plants in my manicured hands and wearing accessories. But when it falls down, usually because life can’t always be organised around gold lamé and plum tarts, I feel the lack. Lord knows I feel the lack.
• Better lighten up a bit.
• Isn’t it incredible what you can do with an iPhone app these days? Just check out those colour-filling skills on display above. You’d think it’d been done by a professional artworker.