Onwards and Upwards

I watched "Julie & Julia" with one of my flatmates the other evening and was struck by the dedication someone can give to a blog. Not to mention finding something constructive to do around it. If you haven't seen the movie, I'd recommend it. A woman (Julie) cooks her way through Julia Child's French cooking cookbook in a year and blogs about it every day. We came up with the conclusion that this also apparently helps your married love life greatly, and so I have promised to get him the Julia Child cookbook as a wedding present pre-emptively. But as far as movie inspiration goes, not only should I probably keep up with my blog more, but I certainly don't turn up my nose at the chance to learn new recipes. Sebastian and I tend to subsist on the same five meals that I cook on a regular basis.

1. Pasta of some description or other.

2. Meat of choice (usually sausage or chicken kievs) with pan-roasted potatoes and veg.

3. Chicken curry with rice and naan. (Half of the time I cheat for this and just pick up the ready-made stuff at Waitrose or Somerfield)

4. Chili and rice (occasionally with biscuits or cornbread if I'm up to it)

5. Soup and croissants or breakfast food.

Really, I need some more new and interesting ideas. We also made a New Year's resolution to cook at least 2 new recipes each month. I think we did in January, but last month was definitely at half mast. We *did* make my mom's paprika chicken, though, which turned out beautifully. The only difference was that because of the paprika I had it was spicier than Mom's usual. Time to get back to it, I think. We'll have to find something dinner-like to try out as most of our recipes have been desserts. Pumpkin muffins, white chocolate cheesecake, Mars Bar cake, apple pie and ice cream, pumpkin pie...you can see where our priorities are. Of course, my current craving is for some speculaas cookies, so that may have to be the next endeavour.

On the wedding front, I just got back the printed components of our invitations from Mail Boxes Etc. I highly recommend them: the girl behind the counter was quite patient with all of my intricate and slightly anal instructions on how many of each .pdf to print off and on what sort of card stock it was acceptable. Really, I was thrilled when I saw how they turned out. I think this is the first time that I've pulled out the paper-guillotine with anything like enthusiasm. Normally, I do it as a time-filler: something that's not studying, but is still productive. This time, I've been gleefully cutting out RSVP cards, monograms, and inserts and there are piles of massacred card stock clippings all over my floor. Much as I thrive in a clean room, there's something great about the energy implied in a room that's been taken over by one of my frantic craft projects. Hopefully, it'll inspire me to keep being productive throughout the day. It's now off to the Wallace Collection to try and scrounge up some dissertation inspiration.