The Eggsfiles

The EggsFiles: my ironic commentary on social networking in 2010 – I’m fairly convinced people don’t want to know what I had for dinner, breakfast or high tea, however Eggs have come to symbolise not only the daily struggle (or not) of breakfast on tour, but on a wider level the cultural differences that bind or separate us, all symbolised by The Presence or not of the Fried Egg on our Breakfast table, which serves as a symbol for so much: our whole eggistance in fact. Just think of me as the Mulder and Scully of Breakfast Perplexities, trundling across Europe. Because the Eggs are Out There!

Eggsceeding all Eggspectations: Cancun

Dinner at the Buffet: row of EGGS

My breakfast as told in photos:

first course: bread 3 kinds of butter inc. truffle butter and two kinds of jam/marmalade including chili

Second course: melon in tea. (also melon on stick, but had eaten already oops)

third course: chocolate mousse (yes early for that but delicious!) mandarin foam yoghurty thing with chocolate

fourth course: potato with a whole load of breakfast tasting stuff, (dig in spoon to bottom) – lost track a bit there

fifth and main course: poached egg in mushroom porridge with tacos…

sixth course and final: tiny tiny breads, pancakes, cakey things

all rounded off with small cup of perfect chocolate

- I forgot one course in the middle which was a ham and cheese sandwich, and some salmon cracker things

all interspersed with IMMACULATE Mexican coffee, black sugared with a taste of orange peel and a dash of cinnamon

now that’s what I call Breakfast!

more from last night’s buffet

Eggsplain: ahhh! now it all makes sense

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago I went to a Progessive School in deepest Surrey. The countryside was beautiful; the time I spent there priceless, the education I received, and I mean education in the broadest sense of the word, has stayed with me for life. I made friends who are still some of my dearest friends, and I wouldn’t change any of the time there one bit, well not many bits.

But the food, oh my goodness, the food was simply awful and it was reminiscing thus over foods that brought me the Eggy Epiphany that perhaps the whole of the Eggsfiles rests simply on this early experience of Eggs both Good and Bad.

“Worse meal ever?” asked someone on our little school page on the social media network thing. Without missing a beat I had it: Fried Eggs and TinnedSweetCorn for High Tea.  Prolly the most disgusting thing you can think of, and the only way round it was to arrive at the serving hatch at the last possible moment before it closed, when all the eggs in their congealed state of curling yoke and white flab swimming in fat were finished and the cook had to fry you an egg from scratch. Then you could simply pass on the TinnedSweetCorn, the smell of which is liable to render me extremely ill even unto this very day. Favourite meal: Sunday breakfast. Firstly coffee, by my high standards today (the bar having just been set  even higher by the Deliciously Girlie coffee I was given in Hawaii) it would probably be undrinkable, but it was the only day of the week when we got coffee for some reason.  I am only just wondering now why we got coffee just that one day – or at all.

Secondly, it was the only day of the week we could lie in. I have always been -and  to some extent continue to be – completely hopeless when it comes to getting out of bed with a spring in my step; a personality often referred to as a Lark. I am an Owl.  I have always been an Owl, and little is about to change on that front since my job relies on me being more Owly than a Larky. To have one day a week where I was not shaken, roused and rustled out of bed was sheer bliss.  Except that not rousing oneself meant missing the best breakfast of the week. I cannot remember what the other breakfasts were, only that they encompassed stewed tea and toast, but the third great thing about Sunday Breakfast was that it was Boiled Eggs, and the appealing thing about these Boiled Eggs, was that they were not just any Boiled Eggs, they were boiled so long in advance that they were Hard Boiled Eggs by the time we got them.  This was a source of complete satisfaction to me because until I was 17 years old and no longer at Progessive School, I would not eat a Soft Boiled Egg for love, money or the secrets of the Universe.

So there you have it. Best and worst meals at school involving Eggs.

Meanwhile in other News there is Internation Egg Day! Yes! It is 12th October and there will be more Eggfiles on this very topic coming to you soon.

Because the Eggs are Out There.

Eggshale: 28 days and counting. (Or how I learnt to stop worrying and love the Blue Twirly Thing)

Everyone in Paris smokes. Everyone.  Except me.

Babies in pushchairs, dogs, habited nuns, ancient ladies with string shopping bags, policemen.  I swear I even saw a pigeon with a gauloise in its beak. Am I delusional? No it’s merely (merely?  ha!) that it  is Day 28, which means, my fellow Eggsfilers, that it is 28 days since I put a stick of nicotine to my lips.

How did this come to pass ? Probably the only way it could, I became so sick with a chest infection that I spent 10 whole days simply lying on the sofa, consuming nothing more than soup and yohurt and an awfully, awfully large amount of tv. My big meal of the week was a boiled egg (of course) and I cannot begin to express (eggspress? sorry!) how terrifically exciting that was.

I have watched everything under the sun.  Even every Midsommer Murders, after all it’s doesn’t really matter if you doze duing an MM does it? Everyone ends up dead anyway.  Then there are those twilight hours when it seems impossible to sleep but there’s nothing on t’telly except Bingo or that great American import: The Infomercial.  I have watched demonstrations of everything from bright green steamers which clean floors, windows and grout; body shapers which replace bras; crafting kits which stamp and emboss and glue, all of which are dangerously poised to become entangled in my mind as one kind of giant idea which encompasses all of these functions.  For 10 whole days, non-stop, I lay on the sofa while a pack of Marlboro Lights lay on the kitchen table with its last cigarette untouched.

So on the Eleventh Day when I descended from my sick bed, it seemed to make sense to seize the day and continue not to smoke, one little day at a time. I know that’s a convoluted way to express stopping smoking but one of the things that really worked for me is rather than saying I’ve quit, to announce the number of days it is that I haven’t smoked.

Once I rose weakly from my sick-bed I was fearful, dear Reader, utterly fearful that I would not be able to last very long.  Screaming emails scorched my computer screen once I had strength and courage to open up my laptop. They were even more screechy and flaming hot than usual. Instantly my pulse quickened, my breath (still shallow) rose and fell in disorder, my temperature which had not been significantly high during the days when I was lying prone, shot to a point of producing a feverish sweat. Oh and my mood: I was running right out front for the Irritability Oscars. How was I going to cope with being on tour again the following week? I would surely kill the first band member to ask the first asinine question of the tour in a frenzied stabbing, while singing that mad violin piece that ushers in the shower scene from Psycho.

T’were patches what saved me, patches dear Reader, patches saved me. Patches, and the Blue Twirly thing.

to be continued…

and thanks to Dr Strangelove…

Eggsport

The Eggsfiles apologise for their silence, they will be coming to you in longer form later, meanwhile here’s something you could try at home, I did, just to be able to report back to you that it was a failure…

The most unusual way to cook eggs

 By Jo Romero | Food Glorious Food – Thu, Mar 29, 2012 12:27 BST

We’ve all heard of boiling, scrambling and poaching — but have you ever roasted an egg? From coddling to scrambling it inside its shell, we try out some of the less common ways of cooking an egg.

Scrambling inside its shell

Scrambling an egg still in its shell is thought to have originated in Japan. And, according to an article on the Instructables website, you’ll need a pair of tights to make one. Push a raw egg down one of the ‘legs’ of a pair of fairly thick tights, holding the foot end firmly. Twist both ends so the egg can’t escape and then spin the egg by twirling it in front of you in a circular motion. Be careful not to hit the egg with anything as you spin it, and continue spinning in both directions for about 2 minutes. The egg will sound gloopy. Carefully remove the egg from the tights and boil for 8-10 minutes. For some reason these eggs are more likely to crack on boiling and so they often don’t come out as perfectly formed as a boiled egg.

and here’s my failed attempt:

maybe I used the wrong colour tights?

Eggstortion: Regent Street A week before Christmas.

What was I thinking? Regent Street, the last Sunday before Chrimble? Must really have lost the plot. For goodness sake, I didn’t even venture out into the vicinity at this time of year when I worked in Oxford Street, and that was 34 years ago. But there I was: out and about in Regent Street not thinking ahead about the morass of people who were of course lunging along , mass en mass en mass. And furthermore probably not buying a thing!

I went to Regent Street to go to Liberty’s because it’s the only place in London that sells Korres products, although for how much longer is anybody’s guess. Korres is a Greek cosmetic line, and like me you probably suffered a frisson of fear pushed into some collective memory from the 1930s  if you saw the news stories the other week about the Greeks removing their cash from the banks in sacks; never mind the more on-going news about the “deepening Eurocrisis”. I’ve written about Korres the last time this blog was more about shopping than eggs, so no more to be said on that front.

Thirty-four years ago the whole Regent Street Christmas lights thing was much more exciting. Or at least that’s how I remember it. Although maybe it’s just the dim recollection of the year they first used lasers in the Oxford Street Chrimble lights, and we were all so afeared of a laser possibly taking out an eye that it gave a wholy different frisson to the event.  I believe it was the same year that they put a huge inflatable King Kong on the top of the Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch, which roared or whatever King Kongs do, in a rather ineffective manner at odd intervals. Were we in an economic decline then by the end of the 70′s? Surely headed that way but then I was so much younger and it didn’t seem to matter so much, which worries me because now I wish I’d taken notes to better equip me for this 21st century version.

Well of course once in Liberty’s one certainly wants to wander around a bit, perhaps pick up the odd little gift or something. So wander I did,  although pretty soon it turned into wondering or whatever the next mental state up is after wondering. “Let me look” I thought to myself,” in the Haberdashery, perhaps they still have those silk hand dyed embroidery threads in lovely whites and reds running pink hues as one fades into the other, or gun metal blues and smokey greys. And perhaps if they are not too expensive I will treat myself to one.  Just one”.  But no treats for me that day. The Haberdash is now sadly all kits and no kaboodles now. So I can emphatically let you all know what you won’t be getting for Christmas. It will not be a very, very, very small piece of linen for which Liberty’s is charging £2.60.  For a 2 inch square of linen. I kid you not.

I love Liberty’s and certainly if I had all the money in the world everyone would be getting lovely, lovely Liberty’s presents but even then still not exorbitantly-priced extremely tiny pieces of plain linen, because surely there has to be nicer gifts. With all the  ”don’t you know we’re headed for Dire Poverty” (or going to hell in some kind of haberdashery handwoven basket) that’s in the air, it is pure addition of insult to injury to be selling such things. Darnit I could cut up some of my own linen supplies and package it for half the price and still make a vast profit. I can flinch with the best of you at a small rug for a few hundred quid, then we can both turn away sighing  ”oh it’s Liberty’s and some people are just rich enough”, “the rich are different to us” etcetera.  But a piece of linen?

So time to return home with Korres alone in bag, and thoughts turning yet again to the eco-eco-economy (or even eco-eco-ecology however one ends the word it’s all darn gloomy). It maybe  fun for a while the playing the austerity game; but now we are in it  for the long haul and I’ve never seen so many free taxis whizzing by. Gone are the days when I’d jump one just to get home.

Actually while standing at the bus stop (for what seemed like another thirty-four years) watching the yellow lights of taxis whizz by and writing this blog in my head, I did happen to look up and see that  interspersed with the cheap tasteless lights there were some sparkly  ones looking like diamond crusted spiders webs, which nearly made up for everything, just for a minute. And for that almost sublime moment The Box of Delights; that lovely John Masefield children’s novel popped into my head; that moment at the end when everyone starts singing their heads off in midnight mass, and for that instant, just the one, no bigger than a very eeeny teeny piece of linen, I was reminded of the magic that is supposed to be Christmas.

Lurgys and the like have prevented this blog being posted with any kind of season timing, and a question for spellcheck -there’s always one- why can’t lurgy be plural?

Eggsamination: T S Elliot, Embroderies, Button-holes and reading too many books at once (oh and that Facebookthingy)

I am in the process of working on 3 embroideries. This is not as strange as being in the process of reading 3 books, which I was until recently, but as I’ve finished one, it’s whittled down to 2 – unless I pick up a third. That’s strange because it’s something I never do, never ever, well until now and I cannot tell you what has brought this on, because I have made it a lifetime rule to always finish a book and never start one before finishing another, the ONLY exception I have ever made to this rule was when in my teens I was trying to read the whole Lawrence Durrell Alexandria trilogy, and just couldn’t finish them, I doubt I shall ever try again, as once I read Gerald Durrell  and found out Lawrence was about as pompous as his writing it would be an act of supreme fortitude to go back. Actually I lie. I also bailed out of Dostoevsky in my teens, but excuse myself on the grounds that I had started reading the big D as a self-imposed task t0 read All the Russian Greats. Dostoevsky was the last on my reading list and I just couldn’t see wading my way through a book where the protagonist apparently drank a pint of vodka on rising each morning.

So back to embroideries, which are perfectly possible to do three at a time, and I have set myself no rules to do otherwise. There’s a sort of tangled logic in this because sometimes one is in the mood for doing button-holes, sometimes chain stitch. Sometimes just sewing on buttons. As there are a limited number of buttons on any garment and therefore a limited number of button-holes it follows, as surely as the night follows the day, (yes went to the marvellous production of Hamlet at the Young Vic yesterday so this blog likely to be peppered with quotes) that to have several items on the go at one time allows one (me in this case) to satiate each need accordingly without a surfeit of buttons and button-related items on the garment in question.

rock and roll waistcoat made with backstage passes

I can’t go into detail about the all garments here, as at least one of the recipients is on that Facebookthingy and the surprise element would be put into serious jeopardy. But the garment which I am emboldening for the Aged P for Christmas can here be mentioned. The Aged P  - by the way is my ironic name for my mother, who has all wits and faculties about her, and is only not on FB because she thinks it’s really not  for someone of 82. She’s quite proficient on email and other stuff, so it may only be a matter of time.

But I shall seize that flower of safety before she does get all 21st century and address the question which is looming uppermost in my mind since starting this garment.

Firstly, I shall describe it merely as a waistcoat upon which I am embroidering a poem. Nothing new there, all my modified garment/gifts have been thus recently. (garments/poems) The poem I chose was nothing too serious; The Old Gumbie Cat  from TS Elliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. I have an battered and beloved 1950′s edition, which I’ve had a very long time.

But having embarked on this poem I have a question for TS.  Okay,okay  so he was Poet Laureate and therefore allowed of kinds of literal and figurative poetic licence, but what the heck is a Gumbie ? Huh? It’s not in any dictionary, what is a Gumbie? and why has it taken me the best part of 40 something years to even ask? Try googling it, just try…

I’ve chosen this poem because we had a lovely tortoiseshell called Jennyanydots, who lived to a very ripe age, but What Oh What is a Gumbie? I have been asking myself, mainly because in embroidering a word you get to think about it a bit longer than usual.

Gumbie cat in progress

The other thing I’ve been engaging in is a bit of interaction on the old Facebookthingy, with people I was at school with.  Someone created a page for those of us who attended in the 70′s and 80′s and I’ve found myself between buttonholes enjoying the banter. I mention this only because I have been reminded of my status as one of the School Poets, and was thinking about the creative writing course I went on (after I left school) and how one of the Guest Poets “accused” me of emulating TS, (they didn’t mean Old Possum’s Book Of). I took umbrage at this, simply because at 18 I really didn’t like him all that much, – all that weariness is for much older souls.Fog and sad old men. I solved the problem for myself, as it was the absolutely first time anyone had been in anyway derogatory about my writing,  or rather no-one up til that point had been anything except overly enthusiastic – by writing a poem about the whole incident. In retrospect it was the last really decent poem I ever wrote. And no, I not going to reproduce it here. So there we are, decades on; I appreciate all of TS so much, much more and am still embroidering.

Now it’s back to button-holes and chain stitch for me, before this blog gets any longer, I have set a rule that Blogs should not be overly long, more matter and less art perhaps?

Eggstol: or Sardines, Daisy and Scrambled Eggs

My friend Daisy had –  and may still have for all I know – a morbid fear of shell in scrambled egg. I think of her phobia when my nearly perfick golden fluff of nourishment harbours an innocent piece of brown or blue fragment nestling down amongst the egg so innocently and meaning no harm.

Daisy also – and this follows quite logically – hated bones. She probably still to this very day hates bones in any shape or form –  in sardines or obviously anything more sinister, such as a real fishbone rather than those soft crunchables that are so delicious in amongst the silvery jewels of sardines lying quietly side by side. If she ever reads this she would prolly wince and shudder.

Scrambled Eggs formed a substantial portion of our diet back then when we were 16, 17 18, and doing The Duchess of Malfi and DH Lawrence for A level. Back then when we barely thought about keeping our teeth or hair colour beyond henna.

As for me, when home from trolling the breakfasts of the world seeking out Eggs of an Edible Nature, there is nothing more wonderful than the perfection that is the Boiled Egg. The white solid, the yolk so yellow it springs out at you, and runs amok down the side of the Eggcup; better than all the hosts of daffodils imaginable.

To think I wouldn’t look a soft-boiled Egg in the eye til I was 17.

Today I’m taking my niece to see Hamlet (which she is doing for A’Level) at the Young Vic. I mention this simply because I’m on a caution not to make Omlette: Prince of Danish Bacon jokes.