kestrel

we collect TWO on Monday …

idly watching Children in Need, I saw our very dear friend anna, of Ecats Bridge, in the audience. This is the second year that anna and Mark have run a bridge event to raise money for Children in Need, and hats off to them.

about 20 minutes later, we actually saw anna hand the cheque to His Woganness in person – £36k, if you please!

well *done*, Mark and anna!

xxx from me and perlmonger

new version of www.jordan-cats.org is up.

and about bloody time

why didn’t I get the gin answer, like captainblue?

You will perish of fits. Repeat this to yourself:
“Things can work out even if I don’t get
my way. Things can work out even….”

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by Quizilla

[an adaptation of a Rick Stein recipe]

take some organic pork (or wild boar, if you can get it ..). Cube into chunks, and marinate in some decent dark soy sauce for about half an hour.

then remove from soy, drain and pat dry (if you can be arsed), and brown in some vegetable oil in a heavy casserole dish. I use an ancient and well loved Le Creuset one. Remove pork, and dispose of oil.

deglaze the casserole pan with a decent dollop of dry sherry – rice wine is better, but we don’t seem to have any … I blame the staff. Then return the pork to the pan, with the remaining soy from the marinade, a splosh of water, a large, thinly sliced onion. And some slivered fresh ginger, a few cloves of chopped garlic, some dried tangerine peel (you do need to plan ahead a day or so for this), a couple of star anise and about .5″ of cinnamon stick. Oh, and some Sezchuan peppercorns, which you have toasted in your tiny cast iron spice toasting pan, then ground in a mortar and pestle – well, that’s how we do it.

sling all this in the casserole, bring to a simmer, bung in the oven at gas mark 3, and wait impatiently for about one to one and a half hours. Best served with basmati rice and some chopped fresh coriander.

delicious. Or it will be when it’s ready …

then join the Virtual March.

thanks to drpete for this

I did it in 10 seconds.
I deserved an A+!!
Take the How Dexterous Are You? Quiz!!

can you tell I’m bored this morning? perlmonger has nicked my machine to Photoshop a kitten, so I’m reduced to sitting in the server room reading CIX ///