Thag you very buch

It's Karen's birthday, and people are coming around this evening, and I have woken up with a cold, oh yay. I don't know if this is Karen's cold from before or Laurie's cold from now, but either way it is a nasty American cold and I am a poor victimised Britisher with no antibodies and my throat is sore and my head aches and I do not want.

Also, I've just done a phone interview with a nice Canadian journo who wants to write about strange residencies we have known. It'll be in the Globe & Mail on Saturday, apparently. I don't know what I said; I'm sick, I may have rambled. I was on the phone, I may just have stuttered incoherently. It was all a long time ago, my times of residence, sculptures, Taiwan...

Last night we went to see the wonderful Victoria who is making our wedding clothes. Karen got draped, and I learned the word "toile"; and I tried on the pinned pieces of my tailcoat. Which is just fabulous. I've never had a tailored coat before. This could become a habit...

Give us this day our daily Baz

Why is it that commercial limes are always so disappointing? I thought maybe here in the land of fruit they'd be juicy, but no. Maybe I should add to our citrus orchard. I'm not sure how many trees we can actually fit into the yard, but I'd like limes. And Seville oranges. A marmalade tree!

Anyway: I have squeezed three limes into a very plain tomato-and-coriandercilantro salsa, without making any noticeable difference. I shall add a fourth just before people start dipping.

I have also set some very plain bread to rise, in a spirit of experimentation. None of this do-what-you-know, falling back on old stand-bys, oh no. Where would be the fun in that?

Also I have boiled up the oranges for a second batch of marmalade tomorrow, and shifted things around a bit in the clubhouse, and considered totally reorganising the kitchen. By me, equipping a good kitchen is a slow process, picking stuff up as you need it or find it, trying maybe two or three variations before you get the right piece. It can't actually be done with a list on a wedding registry, however grateful we are to those who are giving us a head start from Sur La Table or Bed, Bath and Beyond; it's about the little things, the right spoon and the right knife, what works in the hand and in the kitchen and in the cuisine*. That's my problem, maybe, that I'm leaving a mature kitchen and I need to accept that it'll take ten or fifteen years to replace it. I can make a start, though, with a little planning. It doesn't need to be haphazardous. (For a moment there I thought that might be a neology, but no: Booth Tarkington used it in The Magnificent Ambersons, apparently. I wonder if Orson Welles did?)

Otherwise, I have mostly been lying on the sofa reading Le Guin and speaking to cats. I'm not honestly that sick, just muzzy and untuned. And well medicated, that too.

Here is your daily picture of Baz:



*As witness, I've made bread twice since I got back, and I need to change my arrangements. At the moment I have to knead on a pastry-mat, and it slides about and is amazingly annoying. I can't work direct on the counter as I prefer, because it's tiled and the dough gets caught in the cracks and starts regrouting all uninvited. I need either a serious heavy board or a slab of granite, I guess...