What?
What about �double entry�?
Its what?..................................oh.
You disgust me.
Its NOTHING to do with book-keeping! *shakes head* Honestly, some people!
My lovely friends The Allens sent me a Southern Living cookery book a couple of years back and every so often I fetch it out and cook up something that makes my dinner guests squeal with �oh, its so DIFFERENT�ness.
Now, seeing as its been pretty jolly hot here over the last couple of weeks (not �Texas hot�, just �England hot�, which is like �Texas Im freezing my damn bollocks off here, actually�), the Geetardude-Shagnasty-Stepfordtart clan have been variously clamouring for us to be able to dine al fresco. Im not keem on outdoor eating as I have a particular aversion to bugs, especially wasps and anything that might take an interest in my dinner and have to be swatted away with a rolled up News of the World (archive edition kept speshly for the purpose, natch!). Im not afraid of bugs (apart from flying ants), I just don�t want to share my dining space with the buzzy, too-many-legged, exo-skellingtony little bastards. Also, I fucking hate barbecues.
See! I wrote about them with much vitriol HERE
Luckily, Southern Living came up with a recipe which enabled me not only to not have to have a barbecue, but also to spend the whole day in idolatry. No, not idolatry, there was no worshipping going on. In idleness, that was what I meant. Ladles and Germs, I give you
SHREDDED BBQ CHICKEN MADE IN THE SLOW COOKER!!!!!
About 2 lbs skinless boneless chicken breast (whole, don�t cut them up)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup ketchup
� cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon mustard (I used a hot English one)
1 teaspoon chilli powder (or half and half chilli powder and paprika)
� teaspoon salt
1 squished garlic clove
Preheat the slowcooker
Brown the chicken quickly on both sides in the hot oil, in a frying pan.
Mix everything else in a jug or bowl.
Put the chicken in the slowcooker and pour over the sauce
Cook for an hour on �high� then turn down to �low� and cook for another 5 hours (Im saying �cook� but you don�t actually have to do anything at all. Go out if you like, everything�ll be fine)
At the end of the cooking time, lift the chicken out of the slowcooker and shred it up with two forks. Chuck all the shredded chicken back in the pot and stir it around in the sauce. Serve, in burger buns (or just eat it out of the pot when nobody�s looking). Serves about 6. Any leftovers are fine eaten cold, in a sandwich, or reheat in the microwave if you want to be poncy.
The first time I made this, I found it a bit sweet so I add more mustard, chilli and garlic than it says in the recipe, just to kick it up the arse a bit.
Sarah Grace, over at the aforementioned Milk and Honey Acres, gave me her recipe for Buttermilk Biscuits (Uk readers � a bit like a PROPER scone, super-light and fluffy. NOT like those dry, desiccating, leaden monstrosities that Mr Tesco (and my nan) think are scones. Not by any stretch of the imagination), so I made those to go with it and they were superb.
I think this chicken would make a great hot buffet dish too as you can just scoop out as much as you like, straight from the slowcooker and there�s NO farting about. Joy.
OMIFUCKINGOD, I joined the gym.
Don�t worry, I�ll wait til you gather yourselves again and have a little restorative brandy to recover from the shock. *fans reader with News of the World after picking off bits of dead bug*
At school, there�s a smallish, reasonably well-equipped gym that I can use at a discounted rate, seeing as Im staff. Unfortunately, the discounted rate is still beyond my fiscal reach so I haven�t bothered to join until now. But then, one or two things came up (mostly some ENORMOUS numbers on the weighing scales) and the school started offering a six week membership (ie the whole school holidays) for �15, so I thought I�d give it a go. I sneak off there early in the mornings, before anyone is up and about at The Palace, and do my sweaty red-faced thang relatively undisturbed. Much as I hate to admit it, it does actually seem to be working and I can feel previously wobbly bits starting to be less so and previously quite-sticky-outy bits now becoming, if not exactly svelte then certainly more streamlined. Yay me!
Oh, and there�s tennis courts there too so me and Wee Treacle went off for a game of tennis on Wednesday. Anyone who�s been with me for a long time might remember that I paid for Treacle to have (very expensive) tennis lessons for a very long time so I thought that she would be able to give me a pretty good game, even though I haven�t played for a while.
Nope. She was shit. �36 every six weeks, for about three years, and she�s still shit. I need to play against someone half decent so that my wobbly backhand and wild lobs can be sensibly returned by someone who knows what they are doing. I DON�T need someone to a) miss the ball completely despite spinning around like a top b) thwap the ball 400 miles into the air only for it to come back down to earth a good 4� short of the net c) habitually hold the racquet in the manner of someone fishing dead frogs out of a pool with a spoon or d) to have a backhand so devoid of skill that the ball would frequently careen onto, not the court next to us, but the one NEXT TO THAT.
Consequently, in the face of such crappiness, we were BOTH shit. Needless to say, we are now the England No 1 and No 2 respectively. See us at Wimbledon soon folks.
All this exertion is, dear readers, part of an ultimately pointless attempt to stave off the ravages of time. I am becoming acutely aware of the passing of�the passing of�.well�.my GORGEOUSNESS, to be honest.
My bestest girlfriend (a �proper� grown up, who talks sense and everything) asked me, �What do we become? What ARE we, once the label �sexual being� has curled up and fallen off? Before we become �old ladies�, what is that middle bit? No longer Hot Property, but not quite Sweet Old Dear?�
I had no answer, but it was a sobering thought. I KNOW Im being trivial here, so save the berating, but having spent quite a long time, actually, being an object of desire, I don�t know how to NOT be one. Don�t get me wrong, Im not everyman�s cup of tea � never have been � but I know how to get admiring glances and that my carefully chosen flirting isn�t met with hoots of derision just yet. But do I have enough guns in my arsenal to be able to remain visible as a force to be reckoned with, once the bouncy rack and long legs are no longer �wanted on voyage�? Will I cease to be? Will I become invisible? At least for the length of time it takes for me to wait for my bus pass and start thinking orthopaedic sandals are da shizzle.
The mental moodswings, night sweats and ominous �other things� tell me that I may well be hurtling towards menopause and, frankly, I don�t think Im ready to give up my old persona just yet. But, by the same token, I don�t want to become one of those tragic middle aged women who think theyre still �all that� while people snigger behind their hands that anyone could be so deluded. How much longer have I got before a gold bikini, leopardprint sarong and stiletto flip-flops stops being �humorously ironic� and starts being �oh for fucks SAKE, somebody TELL HER!�
When we were youngsters, the mum of one of our number was one of those women. Wrinkled saggy boobs, spilling out of a crochet bikini top, toasted cottage cheese thighs, lipgloss and mane of carefully tousled crispy wirey hair. 3rd or 4th Martini in one hand, Sobranie cocktail cigarette in the other, she�d kiss all the boys (sometimes with tongues) and rake through her hair with her gnarled witchy fingers, tossing back her head like she was sat on the bonnet of an E Type.
We cringed. The boys made fun of her, sometimes to her face but mostly behind her back and we girls shrank with embarrassment and shook our heads. How could she? How could she think she�d still �got it�. We were all 18 or 19. She was about 45. It was pitiful. Im 45 next month and I don�t want to be her. I want to go gracefully. I want to hear �she was fucking lovely when she was a bit younger � you can see that even now� rather than �fucking hell � what DOES she look like?� But I have no idea how to make that transition. There�s no book to guide you through it � the friend I mentioned earlier bought me My Formerly Hot Life and there�s a similar website www.formerlyhot.com but it doesn�t really cut it, Im afraid. Its too rooted in the trivial and there really is more to it than that.
I tried explaining things to L. He doesn�t get it either. He didn�t really understand about menopause (or perimenopause, or anything like that really) and the only thing I could think of was to say �Well�when men reach a certain stage in their life they tend to go and buy a Harley Davidson. Women just stop buying Tampax and grow a moustache instead.�
Im not helping myself here, am I?
Ive got loads more to say on this subject and am quite happy to make myself look shallow and trivial and pointless and to care about all those things that proper grown up women aren�t supposed to give two shits about. Because I was hot once. Honest.
Later