Billygean.co.uk

Compulsive Reading

Nov 29

On cakes, yarn and adhesive aids

by billygean

“Wow,” MindReader says, surveying the kitchen. “Wow.”

“Our Christmas cake will be done at,” I look at the time “eleven pm, which is a bit naughty, but it’ll be good!”

“Um,” MindReader says, looking at the mountains of washing up.

“So, can I put wool in the oven?” I say (because I have).

“Wool?”

“Instead of string. To tie up the baking parchment.”

“Are you serious?” MindReader says. For once, he is not amused, his blue eyes instead wide and incredulous.

“I had no string,” I say feebly. “You should’ve seen me with the parchment. It was a nightmare to get it standing up and then tie a bow around it. It kept curling it. I had to blu-tack the sheets together.”

“Blu-tack?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any blu-tack still in the oven?” MindReader stares at me.

“There might still be one piece.”

“Near the cake?”

“Quite near. But – BUT – I wanted to be good! Look! You’ve just got home to the smell of a Christmas cake baking!”

“But – Billygean – there’s wool! In the oven! And blu-tack!”

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(who knew cooked blue string was pink?!)

baking disasters MindReader

7 Comments »
Oct 16

Scenes from a week in October

by billygean

I sip my hot chocolate.

“Our work has natural cooling methods,” OldHousemate says, “which I think just means windows.”

“Ah,” I say, and laugh. “You’ll need fans in the summer.”

We pause. “Fan don’t actually blow air though, do they?” I say. If I were in a cartoon there would be a lightbulb above my head.

“Don’t they?”

“No,” I say. “They move air.”

“Oh,” OldHousemate says, and I should point out she is the housemate with whom I struggled to count to one million. “Why do they make us cold then?”

“I spose they move the air around…”

“But so do windows.”

“Good point,” I say, uncrossing my legs and eating the cream off my hot chocolate with a wooden stick like the imbecile that I am.”Maybe faster air is more cooling?”

“Who knows?” OldHousemate says. “Is a mystery.”

We stare ponderously out of the window.

***

“Please help,” I say to MindReader.

He looks up. “Just put the cheesecake on a plate.”

“I have tried to cut a slice and it won’t work. The base isn’t set. I have made a crumble.” I hang my head. MindReader follows me to the kitchen where he flops a lump of lemon-flavoured mascarpone onto a plate and adds the “base” onto the top of it. His mouth twitches at the sorry site of my cheesecake crumble.

“Can we call it a deconstructed cheesecake?”

“We can,” he says. “In your restaurant.” He eats a spoonful of the creamy topping.

“If you were served that in my restaurant and it looked better but tasted the same – would you send it back?”

“No,” he says, licking the spoon, “but there is absolutely no way I would order food at your restaurant.”

"Deconstructed Cheesecake"

baking disasters blonde moments Friends

6 Comments »
May 8

Scenes from the past week

by billygean

“Hello,” MadFather says, walking out into the blazing sun. MindReader is reading the Guardian. I am lying down on a towel, sunning myself and feeling ill.

“What are we up to?” MadFather says, sitting down with a cup of tea.

MindReader smiles. “Oh, well, we’re in 2008 at the moment, how about you?”

***

“I read your story…” BestFriend says to me during one of our long weekend chats. I do not tell her that I am in my rabbit onesie and sitting in the garden like a lunatic.

“Thanks. Did you like it?”

“I did! I laughed lots.”

I pause. The story is about life after someone’s death.

“Did you?”

“Yes…”

I decide privately BestFriend has not read the story, and feels guilty about this.

“It’s supposed to be a first chapter of a novel,” I explain, “from an extract they give you. But it might be printed in Grazia in which case I think it should work on its own too.”

“Mmm. And the extract is about – a woman knocking on a door and her life is changed forever?”

“Yes.”

“Right… Billygean, Did you send me the right attachment? The story I read was about why Britain’s so obsessed with the X Factor.”

“Oh!” I say. “Ohhhh. I didn’t THINK you should find the story funny. My story’s about death!”

“I didn’t know what to say! A woman knocks on the door… Her life is about to change… And she realises she loves X Factor!”

***
“Now ice them over this tray,” MindReader says. “Over it, as it’s dripping.”

I have made cinnamon buns. When I have enough energy to bake (an EXHAUSTING task), it is time to go back to work and test the water.

I ice the buns messily, occasionally spooning the icing sugar, milk and vanilla extract mixture into my mouth.

I don’t realise until it’s too late that one of the buns I have iced that doesn’t fit on the tray is in my hand, the icing dropping off it, all over the work surface, the floor and my socks.

“Billygean!”

“Sorry, sorry…”

“How stupid are you?!” MindReader says with a grin. It is a fair point. I’m doing the exact opposite of what I should be doing.

“Just because somebody does one stupid thing doesn’t make them stupid.”

“Okay.” MindReader meets my eye. “How about if they do 3,000 stupid things in a row?”

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20110509-003856.jpg

***
I am blow drying my hair, very bored now by my 11th day in the house (bar dog walks – I still haven’t missed a day though not without stress). I am trying to achieve Kate Middleton-like volume and I read somewhere you should blow dry your hair upside down.

I flip my hair over my head and begin blasting the hair dryer at it. I get a bit confused about up and down, though, and I end up with the hair dryer IN my hair.

Before I realised what’s happened the back of the hair dryer has sucked in my hair. I try to pull the hair dryer off the hair but it is stuck.

I can actually stand up with the hair dryer still attached to my head.

I spend a while unravelling the hair. I have to cut some bits out, mostly from The Fringe area (oh, it had been getting so long!)

I wouldn’t recommend the upside down thing.

The extra volume bit ain’t so great, either.

baking disasters blonde moments illness

2 Comments »
Apr 28

The frequent mentions of The Box indicate it is all The Box’s fault

by billygean

I am making Vietnamise noodles for dinner and am feeling very smug.

Because of the whole gluten-free issue, we miss things like Fajitas. Therefore I thought the solution would be to buy an expensive-rice-wraps-and-mungo-bean-noodles-dinner-kit from House of Fraiser. Yes.

MindReader walks into the kitchen. “How’s it going?”

“Fine, fine,” I say, stirring the chicken and vegetables. I add the noodles because the box says to, and they sit in a bit of a gloopy mess in the middle of the stir-fry.

“Hmm,” MindReader says, prodding the noodles with a spoon. “Looks a bit strange?”

“Yes.”

I begin coating the rice-wraps in water and putting them in between pieces of kitchen roll as instructed by the box.

“I’ll just…” MindReader says, mixing the noodles in. They refuse to blend and sit in the middle of the frying pan like a big jelly fish.

“Anyway,” I say, trying to draw his attention away from the jelly fish. I begin faffing at the sink.

He gets two plates out of the cupboard. “Shall I just do the wraps?”

“Yes.” I water our plants and rinse a bowl.

“Um,” I hear MindReader say.

“What? What?”

I turn around.

MindReader demonstrably peels a wrap from the kitchen roll. Only – half of the kitchen roll remains welded to the wrap.

WE HAVE WRAPS MADE PARTLY OF KITCHEN ROLL.

“I mean we could pick it off…” MindReader says, pulling off a tiny strip of kitchen roll from the large wrap.

I hunt through the wraps to find a non-stuck one. There are none.

MindReader pulls another strip of kitchen roll off another wrap. “Billygean.”

“Yes.”

“How many of our friends do you think are currently doing things like this?”

baking disasters blonde moments living in sin MindReader

2 Comments »
May 6

The cheesecake, although not quite set, is rather tasty

by billygean

I am making a cheesecake. MindReader is watching the football. It is domestic bliss.

Except I’m a crap cook, remember.

“Hurry up!” I say into the pan.

“It’ll melt quicker if it’s not in one big lump,” MindReader says from the living room 5 feet away.

“How do you know I hadn’t cut it up!” I say.

“Because I know you,” he says.

A few moments later he has joined me. Of course. His arms encircle my waist. “What are you going to put it in?” he says. “We don’t have a cake tin…”

“I just thought I’d put it in that casserole dish,” I say. “It doesn’t matter what shape it is does it?!”

“Oh if it doesn’t matter what it looks like just make it on the work surface then.”

baking disasters

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Apr 20

On the ice cream

by billygean

“You have GOT to try this,” I say, just before bed.

“Hm?” MindReader says, blowing out our candles.

“The ice cream!”

“Oh no,” MindReader says, “I don’t really like coconut.” (which proves what a good and selfless girlfriend I am).

“No really, you have GOT to try it.”

I bring a spoonful over and MIndReader dutifully opens his mouth.

“God,” he says. “It’s like…. it’s like BLU TACK.”

baking disasters

2 Comments »
Apr 18

Reasons to believe my coconut ice cream will be rubbish

by billygean

Hello from the land of not-really-well-enough-to-bake-but-doing-it-anyway-and-feeling-crap!

1. The recipe said I had to cream the egg yolks and sugar together until it was pale and creamy. However, mine remained bright yellow and then my arm started shaking and I thought – the first fatal mistake of the day – it’ll probably be fine. I now have a giant blister.

2. The recipe said to heat this mixture in a double boiling method. After researching very thoroughly what this meant, I realised I didn’t have any suitable containers to put into the boiling water. I rang MadFather and he said to use a bowl I didn’t really like. But it didn’t sit quite tight on the pan and loads of steam escaped which was the opposite of what was supposed to happen. So the mixture (complete with eggs!) never really got warm, but I thought – nevermind.

3. I was supposed to add the creamed coconut but the little sachets remained solid (you are supposed to put them in boiling water for a while) There was lots of boiling water in the double boiling pan and for some reason (I am very messy) I became overwhelmed with where to put the sachets SO I PUT THEM IN THE KETTLE. Thank God MindReader was playing football!

4. I used 50g sachets of coconut (4 of them!) when the recipe callled for 250 MILLILITRES of coconut cream. So I added some coconut milk for good measure. And then realised that perhaps grams and millilitres aren’t the same, but the internet is very ambiguous on this matter.

5. I placed the bowl of weird eggy mixture over cold water to cool it. But how was I to not know EXACTLY how much water i’d need for the bottom of the bowl to touch the water but for the water not to overflow. So the eggy mixture got FLOODED and I had to POUR THE EXCESS WATER AWAY.

6. MindReader has just walked in, surveyed the mess, and suggest we get separate kitchens!

baking disasters

3 Comments »
Nov 3

Conversations in the kitchen

by billygean

“Make sure you check on the spuds, too,” MindReader says, about to close the door. I love that he calls potatoes spuds.

I am cooking on my own. My ability to stand up for a while, combined with the restless boredom that only the end of a chronic illness can bring, means I have – shock horror – taught myself to cook a bit.

I say a bit.

“I can’t,” I yelp.

It’s true. The barbecue sauce (containing fennel seeds! Fennel seeds.) is very complicated. I am chopping fresh garlic, measuring out soy sauce and simultaneously frying onion. I am also de-seeding a chili and roasting vegetables.

Suddenly I am very hot.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the misted-up window. My hair is huge and full of humidity.

“You can,” he says. “Just check them every five minutes or so to check they’re not – you know – burning.” A slight pause, just long enough to indicate perhaps he doesn’t like burnt dinners.

“Okay,” I say. “Every time itunes selects a new song, I’ll check the potatoes.”

“Okay. And then toss them a bit, in the olive oil?”

“No. I can check them; I can’t guarantee I’ll act on it. Okay?” I frantically crush the garlic and throw it in a pan.

He smirks slightly. “But then they might go funny…”

“So I just – toss them?” I say.

“Yeah – just – ” he gestures tossing a pan.

“You would toss them. I might turn them all very slowly and autistically. Which I don’t have time for.”

Radiohead comes on.

“Fair enough.”

baking disasters illness living in sin MindReader

1 Comment »
Sep 3

According to MindReader it doesn’t taste ‘all that bad’.

by billygean

“I’m going to bake an apple pie,” I say to MadFather. “And – bake my own pastry.”

“Blimey,” he says, following me into the kitchen.

We do it in three stages, with lying down time for me. And let me tell you, it is very stressful to have to leave a disaster to go and lie down.

But I digress.

The breadcrumbs stage goes okay. If you squeeze the “breadcrumbs” it does become dough but we can’t all be perfect can we?

The adding eggs does not go so well. I do not understand the term gradually, and my chronic illness hasn’t, as I’d hoped, taught me any patience whatsoever. At the end of the egg-adding (which by the way took lots of concentration for me to add the yolk and not the white) the dough is so sticky that when we put it into the fridge to ‘chill’ it sticks to everything and when we get it back out again – oh dear God – out come mustard pots and jars of jam IN THE DOUGH.

Cue rest.

Rolling dough obviously does not go well. Dough that is consistency of chewing gum does not “roll”.

Am supposed to roll out pastry until twice the size of baking tin, drape over and pat down to form a case.

Just like that.

This reminds me of when my year nine art exam said “draw a person and be sure to get the proportions right!”

I got 29%.

Pastry rips whenever we pull at it. Obviously it does not form a sheet. So. We cut out four rectangles and STICK THEM WITH BUTTER onto the insides of the baking tray. Then we make a base.

Cue rest. And deep breathing. And a text to MindReader which reads “PS. If you mention that I attempted to make a pie today I will deny all knowledge.”

The filling stage goes (relatively) well. Soak sultanas in orange juice (?) until plump. Soak them for two hours longer than it said. Sultanas not plump. Nevermind.

Apples which MadFather chopped in advance are VERY brown and resemble CRINKLE CUT CRISPS. Add them anyway.

Time to make a LID for the pastry. Roll out remaining pastry. It is still like chewing gum and does not roll.

I rip up the half-rolled-out “lid” and begin to stick it in lumps and clumps all over the top of the filling.

“What are you doing?” MadFather says.

“I think it is called LOSING MY SHIT.”

baking disasters Dad illness

6 Comments »
Jul 23

Improvements in health and baking

by billygean

“It says here,” I say, pushing my new fringe out of my eyes and squinting at the recipe, “that you boil the orange for two hours until soft – done – and then blend it. Including the skin.”

“Right,” MadFather says, his hands covered in orange. “Why did you choose this recipe when we don’t have a blender?”

“Oh.”

“It’s okay,” he says, “we can just – well, mush it up. And grate the skin.”

“It’ll be fine,” I say, picking up a cheese grater.

“That’s why we’re crap at baking,” MadFather says, grating the very soft orange down the side of the grater. He looks at the orange mush in the bowl. “This is going to be rubbish.”

Half an hour later we have something resembling a cake mix. And I am still not tired!

The kitchen is hot so I open the door and sit on the step outside for a moment. I look across the street.

Our neighbour gets something out of her boot. It is a brand new blender.

I roll my eyes.


(the cake is for Mindreader who got a distinction on the law course I deferred. I have no candles hence the decoration is slightly – er – seasonal).

baking disasters MindReader

2 Comments »
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