h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

the bus driver goes so fast, taking every bump full-on and every corner at 45°, that you get to spend the rest of the day at the edge of your ing nerves.

Happy Friday everyone Weekend plans?

That's ever day. I ride the Crazy Train to work. 55 mph, then slam to a dead stop. Between stations. Whee!

Heading to work in a few. Weekend plans- nothing much for this weekend, because next weekend is going to be *too* exciting. Laundry, jaunt to grocery store, walks at the park, and loads of watching movies and being otherwise shiftless.

Sounds like a plan. I'm going to see a friend on Saturday evening, I went out with almost 15 years ago. Sunday if it's nice I might go to the May Day festival in Alexandra Park, but not for too long with the last match of the season going on across town.

My plans are this:

http://www.goape.co.uk/ContentArticle.aspx?Id=85&ate=214

Followed by this:

http://www.sac.ac.uk/consultancy/wigwams/

Going Ape sounds like fun. Camping, not so much. My idea of roughing it is a motel room without a coffee maker.

Let's just say...it wasn't my idea. The kids are bringing friends, so I was persuaded on the misapprehension that the kids would share one wigwam and the grownups the other. But one of the friends is too scared...

Oh, dear.

Well, I'm sure it'll be at least a bit fun, especially with kids along.

Have a lovely time, Ed.

It was the lady friend’s birthday yesterday. We went to an all you can eat vegetarian restaurant on... Irish noight I bought her some cowgirl type boots and a stylaphone that I hooked up to loads of effects on my laptop and bogarted drastically to make drum and bass. It's actually surprisingly phat. Tonight I eat pizza and watch horror films.

Sounds like a great time!

Today or tomorrow, I try my hand at making seitan from scratch for the first time ever. The pre-made stuff isn't necessarily super-pricey, but I thought I'd see if it's more cost effective to make it myself. It's possible- a 2.5 serving packet of seitan runs about $3.50 or so; the 12 oz bag of vital wheat gluten was $5.49. Factoring in that I always have the other ingredients on hand anyway, it seems like I might come out ahead a bit. Plus I get the fun of having my hands in gluten.

No pizza for us tonight- we ordered in last night and I had eggplant "parmesan" on garlic toast. That's enough junk food for one weekend.

I'm getting into the flow of wiki-ing your food stuffs pc. This seitan sounds good. I might see if any of the asian food shops we have do it. Also mock shrimps, or similar. I've got some corriander and chillies growing so I want to know how to make spicey vegetarian fish cakes before they are ready to eat.

One of my favorite cooking blogs is the Post Punk Kitchen; here's a alink to their seitan recipe (just in case ):

http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=112

I didn't make any today but may well do so tomorrow.

Chris, I enjoy cooking as much as I do because I have an audience. When I was living alone, I didn't cook much at all because I like to cook a LOT more than I like to eat.

I've made seitan once before, starting withy a bag of strong bread flour. It involves *lots* of rinsing and soaking.

I used 1/2 cup cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup vital wheat gluten- so no rinsing and soaking at all. Phew! I don't have time for all that.

>>Chris, I enjoy cooking as much as I do because I have an audience.

I also enjoy cooking as a team activity and miss having a viable kitchen.

I can't cook as a joint effort- other people get in my way and they just won't do things the way I want them to.

What takes the fun out of cooking is when there's no one to *eat* it. I don't see eating as recreation, and also don't care to eat the same thing more than twice in a row, so leftovers wind up in the garbage. It's not as much fun cooking when you know half of it's going to go uneaten. Sigh.

If I had people over for more than just a fleeting visit I might make more of an effort, but I have on average about one guest every month.

That'd be a busy month for me, too. I just need to learn to manage to make smaller batches of things. Or work in a restaurant.

Have you heard about that Saudi cookery show for ex-convicts? It's called "Can't cook. Got no hands"