Get your cook on

At the moment I have the house to myself and I am having such a good time. It's not that I dislike my flatmates or anything, I just really like being able to put music on as soon as I get up and sing as loud as I like and do a little dance around the lounge without anyone watching. I had great plans to finish the book I'm reading and do the heel turn on my sock and write a draft budget for taking our show elsewhere next year...but none of those things happened. This happened though:

I made Coconut Whispers from the beautiful book Ladies a Plate. Mine didn't look as perfect as the ones in the book but they tasted really really good. They're very quick to make too. I think next time I'll try having the oven just on 'bake' instead of 'fan bake' to try to get a more even all-over colour.

Alex, Ed and I went a bit crazy and had classic movie Sunday two weekends in a row. I especially bought a cheap wee DVD player for my TV so we could have it at my house and I even decided to make dinner for everyone (including Alex and Ed's respective partners). Making dinner for five people is probably not a big achievement for most people and sure, I've done it before for my family. But I don't think I've ever had more than one friend over for dinner at a time and made something from scratch (i.e. without the help of a 'Maggi Cook in the Pot' packet mix) so it was a bit fun for me. I had lofty ideas of making Julia Child's beef bourguignon but I didn't have all day or the right type of casserole dish that can be heated on the stove top as well as put in the oven. So I ended up making a beef and mushroom with red wine casserole from the good old Edmond's cookbook. It was delicious! It's made me realise that I don't have to be just a Maggi packet girl - although Maggi is indeed magic when you get home from work hungry and want something decent in not too much time. So I still stand by my Maggi love.

Last weekend for classic movie Sunday (which was actually a Saturday, but let's not quibble) we watched Singin' in the Rain which I have seen before but was happy to watch again. It's fun and frothy with amazing tap dancing and some excellent songs like 'All I Do Is Dream Of You', 'Make 'Em Laugh', and 'Good Morning'. My favourite quote was 'She's so refined, I think I'll kill myself.'

This afternoon we watched Key Largo. I had never heard of it before but when I asked for Citizen Kane at the video shop (are there even any videos left at 'video shops'? I don't know, but it seems wrong to call it 'the DVD shop'. Maybe this will be one of those things where we still call it 'the video shop' and our kids will be like, 'Muuuum, that's so old fashioned.' I hope so.) the man said they didn't have it but if I was looking for a classic he'd recommend this one. We decided to give it a go because it has Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in it. Overall, it was pretty funny; it's not meant to be, but some of the things they say are just so ridiculous. It's all very suspenseful with gangsters and a hurricane. Mostly I love the way Humphrey Bogart talks, so it was nice to see him again after Casablanca.