Kitchen Diaries

So right now I’m cooking chilli. I’ve got an onion and a clove of garlic softened in my steel pan, and about a pound of beef mince has gone in on top of it (note; I’ve been told a couple of times that you can dump a lump of frozen mince into a hot pan and break it up that way. You can, but why bother when the defrost function on a microwave works so much better?)… ground coriander and oregano added now, and with the can of chopped tomatoes the whole thing is bubbling away nicely. One finely chopped chilli and a sprinkle of chilli powder and I’m done. Only thing left to decide is if I can be bothered to cook rice to eat with it or if I should just have it with some toasted bread.

The most bizarre thing happened to me on Friday. As I was walking into the chaplaincy to pray and worship before Hot Choc this guy, coming out, stops me and says “Mate! How’re you doing?”. I had no idea who he was, but he knew me by sight; His name was Michael, and he was in the year above me at Twyford, now doing the first year of a PPE bachelors. Hot on the heels of this, I met a guy who’d come to Hot Choc for the first time that night, whose name was Andrew. He had been three years above me at Twyford, and was on the TFG weekend where I became Christian! The weird thing was, remembered me from that weekend; “Yeah, you were really quiet… kept yourself to yourself” (although I don’t think that anyone who had to contend with my singing or the incessant stream of Blackadder quotes that was my everyday conversation back then would describe me as quiet). And now I’m doing Hot Choc on a (almost) weekly basis, sharing my faith with complete strangers! God has really brought me to strange places. I should probably do some talking with him about where I’m going… although obviously wherever He takes me it will be cool.

You’ll have to excuse me for a minute, as I’m eating chilli (om nom nom…)

Mmm, chilli is good…

Ahem. Well obviously, after getting in at the unusually late 4.30 am after Hot Choc, the next morning was pretty much gone. I woke up and thought “Wow, that was a lovely sleep”. Yes Edward, that’s because it’s now eleven o’clock. Ah. Sunday was awesome, not least because of the amazing worship at Westwood, and the feeling that God really wanted to move in some people (which He did, and it was mightily awesome) although I did prefer it last Sunday, when Adam Roebuck wasn’t talking (sponsored silence), just because it was amusing to see the slips of paper he had prepared to deal with his pathfinders. These included “You can’t abuse me unless you are also sponsoring me” and “Any attempts to make me make noise will be met with beatings”. God loves you, kids. Sunday evening was, as ever, spent at Focus, where Rachael and Nathan tried to discredit the Bro Code, and criticise my choice of wingman; Rachael was outraged that I had not chosen Nathan, I was dubious on account of the fact he and Rachael had spent the previous day on a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon and called in at the Edinburgh Woollen Mill where Nathan had almost purchased a cardigan. Note to all men, everywhere, under the age of seventy; do not under any circumstances, wear a cardigan. It is preferable to unravel it, learn to knit and turn it into a jumper. Believe me. Anyway, given how prone he is to Rachael’s matchmaking machinations, I decided against him. A number of others nearly made the grade, but no final choice has been made, beyond David Lindley as Official and London Wingman. I hasten to add that this conversation was completely facetious and has no real meaning… (and at this stage some random guy came in and started writing god knows what on the blog… blog funny word that similar to log except it as a B at the beginning, not a capital b of course the lower case one like the baboon with a shotgun… I will leave you with that analogy and return you to your regular scheduled broadcasts)… (first guest writer… go me… aka Ducky of Ducky’s Random Rants, which included such subjects as the possibility of bananas in pyjamas actually walking down stairs… amongst other things).

…right. Um, I’m so sorry. That will never, never happen again. This man is responsible.

Other stuff that has happened this week; today I got to use the motorised shelves in the library, which have touch buttons that light up, so I felt like I was in star trek… too much fun. Oh yes, and I had Tuesday almost off, because I was sick as a parrot for most of it with this blinking cold. Still, a day in bed feeling like someone has put polyfiller up your nose and is currently operating on your skull with a cold chisel is a day well spe… actually, no, it isn’t. On the other hand we had our last aesthetics lecture which was oddly liberating, although on balance they have been the lectures I have enjoyed most, overall. I’ve never had a boring aesthetics lecture, despite my lecturer’s slightly odd habit of somehow working naked women into the slides whenever possible. ES177, your lectures will be missed.

Rogues Gallery, Part III

University people’s turn once again, I fear. Time to talk of some of those who make life here just that bit more interesting. And there’s none more interesting than

Alena Frankel

Ah, Frankie. As is obvious from this picture, Alena has dominion over the element of fire, or at least fire poi. She is also in the habit of inviting me round for tea, then asking to borrow my crockery, knives, cocktail shaker, mugs and other sundry items. For some reason one of her saucepans was also in our flat’s kitchen for a couple of months. She is a first year maths-phys student, is an underrated artist and will physically leap up and down with glee at the thought of a Hot Choc on a cold night. She also has grapheme-colour and mirror-touch synaesthesia, which means she perceives letters and numbers as inherently coloured. For example, she says the letter E is yellow, which is appropriate since both my name and myself are also yellow. When she isn’t chasing me round the kitchen table of flat 130, she is generally attacking Ben. Likes; Lady Grey Tea, her graphics tablet, vegetarian food. Dislikes; me, Ben, her coursemates, the entire world… sometimes you catch her on a bad day.

Ben Leveret-Jaques

Ben is to bowler hats what squirrels are to overly eloquent Facebook statuses. He is rarely seen without his except, I believe, when attending Kasbah, a Coventry club. He once described his kitchen bin as ‘like the cookie monster’, and is the only person I know who will willingly regularly trek out to Heronbank to see Alena and, by proxy, myself. Alena and Ben met at the Freshers party on the first night of term, at the copper rooms bar. Alena informed him she was founding an indifference society. “Meh,” Ben replied, and a friendship was born. Both Ben and Alena are awesome people, and deserve whatever money you can give them to fund their life on the run from the Police.

Matt Brennan

Matthew is el Presidente of Photosoc, and has done some pretty awesome work with that camera of his. He is also a climber here and is the only Yorkshireman I know who doesn’t like tea. Capable of more than he lets on, including Cymraegicide (the killing of Welshmen). He realised he was a geek when he SSH'ed into a server the other day; I wasn't surprised, his laptop runs on Linux and prayers. Matt is a dude.

George Meakin

Fellow Engineer George is mostly known to this blog for being better at me at things, such as Judo, climbing, computer games, Engineering, random spinning kicks (seriously, in a fight between Neo and George, I couldn’t call it). He now refuses to do Judo because he ‘might hurt someone’ although he’s not afraid to palm strike the desk in between lectures. He’s like a sort of elephant; calm, clever, dignified and capable of killing you in 234 different ways. He does, however, have a fatal weakness; he falls asleep in every morning lecture; “Ed, I wasn’t asleep, Ed, I was listening, no I was, really…zzz” one day George will wake up and conquer the world with his power of awesome, but he’ll do it in such a nice way no-one will mind.

Catherine Richardson

Catherine is lovely. A Christian Focus stalwart, she was crestfallen when I informed her that dinosaurs were dead and were never coming back. She also went to the same school as Aleena, oddly enough, (Tiffin in Kingston, aren’t London people brilliant?) and has been for a swim in the Heronbank lake, contrary to University Rules and Regulations, simultaneously breaking the rule about keeping the noise down between 0000 and 0800. Tut tut. In her spare time, Catherine runs around campus dressed as a giant turtle raising money for charity.

Quote of the Week

This week, we have yet another golden moment from Emma herself;

(walking along street in Earlsdon in broad daylight)

“Hey Emma, watch out for the tree”

“Ahhhhhhhh!”

It seems she is incapable of walking along a pavement safely. Have a great week, everybody, and God bless you as you go into Lent.

Ed, the man in the shed.