Stoled froots iz da sweeetestest.

[desperance]

I was peeling a mango to my breakfast, and Mac was making a great deal of fuss about it. A very great deal of fuss.

I reminded him that he had made the same fuss yesterday, and I gave him a piece, and he wanted it not at all. But that was yesterday - apparently - and this was today, and want want want...

So I gave him a piece. Again. And he spurned it. Again.

So I felt quite confident in leaving the plate of peeled cubed mango on the coffee-table there while I went back into the kitchen for more coffee.

Are you thinking "Chaz, will you never learn?" And if not, why not?

Came back, to find him nom-nom-nomming on a chunk to which he had helped himself. Makes all the difference, apparently. And then I had to fight him off until the plate was empty, and he may very well still be licking off the glaze.

In other news: it's always hard to remember that I do not have to work, that the book is finished; it's generally harder to remember what else I do, those days I do not work. 'Specially when I've made myself a work-sized pot of coffee.

So I shall read through something I have to read, as preparation for a story; and then, because this is the season, actually I do know what I need to do instead of writing. I shall cook, and I shall clean.

It occurs to me that while I shall roast the capon on a bed of veggies this evening - what are these roasting-racks that people talk about? Veggies! Veggies are the only roasting-rack: they lift the meat above the fat, and absorb all those lovely flavours, and flavour the juices, and make soup after - and shall much enjoy gnawing on a freshly-roasted leg tonight, the real reason for the great bird is not, is never this first meal. I cook it for the leftovers: all those soups and sandwiches and curries. I might make a capon-and-ham pie, once I've cooked the ham. It's like that: I just love having quantities of cold flesh in the fridge.

Also, there are boys. They might figure, somewhere in this equation. We can haz capon? (Not if you steal my mango, young man...)

Comments

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

Came back, to find him nom-nom-nomming on a chunk to which he had helped himself.

Of course ... this morning we show Chia her latest plate of yummy cooked chicken, and she spurns it, preferring to pursue me round the kitchen, on principle, I think. An hour later, she discovers a miraculous plate of cooked chicken on the floor, omigod, om-nom-nom. I swear that cat is not going to last much longer, not through any deficiencies on her part but because I will strangle her in frustration.

I'm with you on cooking for leftovers, by the way. Our Christmas order never varies: 4lb gammon for Christmas Eve ( with leftovers, and stock), 41b chicken, cooked on Christmas Eve, to be eaten cold on Boxing Day (with leftovers, and stock), with pheasant on Christmas Day (no leftovers, but stock). There may be a chicken and ham pie in that, a gammon and rice casserole, several plates of cold cuts, and anything else I can think of. I love cooking for/with leftovers at Christmas.

[timill]

The main recipe in Robert Farrar Capon's "The Supper of the Lamb"* is "Lamb for Eight Persons Four Times" - an exercise in having the leftovers first. And in Due Economy Without Sacrifice.

*which I was pushing at Chaz a day or two back...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

That? Just sounds ideal. And reminds me of m'childhood, when my siblings and I would fight to lick out the bowl my mother mixed the cakes in; she used to have to hand out spoons of uncooked mixture - the "little licks", we called them - to those of us who didn't get the bowl, and there was a constant campaign among us that next time she should cook the little licks while we got the uncooked cake...

[anef.livejournal.com]

Do you have any good ideas for leftover roast beef? I seem to have quite a lot.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Try this:

French Leftover Beef (http://mantias.blogspot.com/2005/12/french-leftover-beef.html).

[anef.livejournal.com]

Looks good - I'll give it a go.

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

My parents worked in a mission school in Kenya in the fifties. The guy who ran the school had the best mango tree in the area in his compound. When mango season came around, there was always a special sermon on the Commandments.

Everyone agreed in a loud voice to "Thou Shalt Not Steal". But things got more complicated. "Thou Shalt Not Steal Mangoes" was often met with muttering. Outright revolution greeted the sub-clause "Thou Shalt Not Steal the Bwana's Mangoes".

As a result, in our house, anyone presenting a mango dish is asked, "Ah, But Are They The Bwana's Mangoes?".