Ginger Tablet

Joining a Club and Making Pops

I recently joined the Daring Bakers, an online baking club with monthly challenges. This was an unusual move since I'm not a real 'joiner'. More of a misanthrope who occasionally feels like getting drunk with other people. Joining tends to involve group activities centered around displays of athletic fortitude and I hate that stuff. But at least in an online club I would never have to complete a scavenger hunt or go paintballing. And although I also tend to bristle when there are rules and guideline that I haven't made up myself, I do like a challenge and I think that constraints are interesting and it is this part of my manifold personality that spontaneously signed all of me up.

This month we were supposed to make Cheesecake Pops. Little bits of cheesecake on lollipop stick dipped in chocolate. That's cute. I had wanted to make cheesecake for a while, so I was initially enthused. Plus I had a baby shower late in the month and that seemed like the perfect venue for a ridiculous cheesecake snack. But I'm pretty picky when it comes to cheesecake and there are only a few things I'm willing to entertain. One is a classic all white no-nonsense cheesecake with a graham cracker crust and the other is an apple toffee cheesecake with a hint of cinnamon. There was just no way I would be flexible enough to dip balls of cheesecake into chocolate. It just didn't fit into either of my approved categories.

But I still pretty much kept to the rules. I made the half the cheesecake recipe, but I did add a little hint of cinnamon. And I did include a sort of superfluous stick in there. A hunt for lollipop sticks wasn't really turning my crank, so Cadbury Fingers was my compromise. I baked and cooled the cheesecake as required. Stuck the biscuit sticks into them. Left them in the freezer overnight.

Then instead of chocolate, I caramelized some apple slices and slipped them under my frozen pops. I made a caramel sauce and scantily enrobed them. They sat on little gold papers. My flatmate's comment was "those look cumbersome". She was right.

They were really difficult to eat. Not at all like a lollipop. More like a really gooey wee square of cheesecake with a biscuit sticking out the top. I like the idea of dessert coming with a handle, but the cheesecake was glued down by the caramel so the biscuit was a useless apendage. But they did elicit a fair number of Mmmms.

I think it's fair to say that the biscuit here was more than unnecessary and I won't be making these again. The cheesecake, apple and caramel combo was pretty hot, though. That will probably be repeated. But in easy-to-eat full-cake form.

I had a quick glance around the other members of this club (there are hundreds) and theirs look prettier and easier to eat. They followed the rules. If you want to see what things were supposed to look like, you can find better examples here at the Daring Bakers' Blogroll.

I don't know if I'm going to be a valuable member of this community. I'll give it another month or so.

Pictures from Passover

On Sunday night I took surreptitious pictures of our Passover Seder. We used the most delicate Passover dishes and this year as my grandfather called out the ten plagues, I managed to keep up and dropped ten tiny stains on my plate.

 

I managed to drink all four glasses of wine as well. Elijah must have helped me a bit.

Once again my internal glutton squashed my internal photographer and by the time the camera came out, my matzoh ball soup was gone.

In a tribute to my father, I put salt in my soup without even tasting it first. I'm sure it needed it.

And while I spent most of the weekend anticipating this brisket and tzimmes, braised together in an incredibly tender, flavouful and unphotogenic heap,

the real reason I made the five-hour journey to London was to hear my grandfather sing.

Smug Bread, Happy Gut

Making homemade bread is a fragrant and delicious way to feel superior to those around you, but according to this article, it also could be a lot easier to digest than the commercial stuff. Sensitive Geniuses take note.

Whisky Galore at Glasgow International

In the tiny window between Thursday night and Sunday afternoon I managed to attend 19 art openings and three parties and go to one pub. I am broken and incapable of focusing either my thoughts or my eyeballs. The recovery process is ongoing. But while I can't have a nap, I do have my acute sense of accomplishment to keep me going. I have no regrets about this weekend; I grabbed every free beer and whisky cocktail that I could. It would have been impossible to do more. Here's what Friday to Sunday looked like:

Friday:

This day served as a reminder for why I no longer go out on Thursday night if I have to work on a Friday. Fortunately the openings started early that afternoon.

Maurice Doherty at The Science Centre

Embarrassing but true: when I walked into the gallery and only saw bottles of Barcardi Breezer on offer, I was a little bit excited. Alcopops are not permitted to urban brats normally, but I absolutely would have drained one had it been the only thing available. But despite the display, when I approached the bar there only seemed to be beer in the ice bucket. I had a Corona instead. Points for: cold beer and white wine, lime for my beer, real glasses, a selection of juice for people who don't want to start drinking at 4pm or for those of us still trying to replenish our fluid levels from the night before. Slightly weirded out by the server's latex gloves. 8 out of 10.

Callum Stirling at the Mitchell Library

Famous Grouse is a sponsor for GI and I thoroughly approve. J and I started with a whisky and ginger ale while we tried to make new conversation with people we had already seen at the previous opening and a couple of times the night before. I suggested that we just start a game to replace these chats as we will inevitably continue to run into the same people over the course of the weekend. Everyone laughs: everyone is too tired to think of any games. We resign ourselves to repeating our small talk endlessly. J and I move on to the much nicer whisky and ginger beer. He has another one. I think about it, but by the time I get to the bar, they're out. I decide that that's probably just fine. The opening's almost over anyway. 8 out of 10.

Catherine Yass and the CCA, Harald Turek at Intermedia

 Dropping our bikes off back at J's and wolfing down a small and provisional dinner, we next arrive at the CCA. This is a major space with a chronic shortage of alcohol at their openings. They also have a proclivity for entering into dodgy booze sponsorship arrangements (pear cider is vomitous). How pleasantly surprised we were to once again be offered whisky and ginger beer and for there to still be quite a good amount left even though we'd arrived more than halfway through the opening. It wasn't spectacular, but it was decent. 7 out of 10.

Low Salt and The State: The alcohol wasn't free here, and my exhaustion was kicking in. We had a (very cheap) pint and went home to watch Whisky Galore which had just arrived by post. A happy coincidence.

Saturday:

A day lovely enough for me to wear my new sun dress. Albeit with tights and my cardigan firmly in place. I had started formulating my strategy days earlier, and it is precisely this level of planning that allowed me to attend nine openings in five hours, using no form of transportation other than my wee feet.

Jonathan Monk and Tramway

On the alcohol-front, it was a piss-poor start to the day. One harried server grumpily poured tiny glasses of sweaty wine in the face of a massive glut of people. No beer, no special drinks. The red was fine, perhaps even more full-bodied and drinkable than I would anticipate at an opening, but normally Tramway puts on a better effort. Unenthused. 5 out of 10.

To be Alert is to be Decorative

Run-of-the-mill crates of beer at the door of a dirty industrial space. Perfect. It's normally all I ever want. I also liked the way we were offered a beer before we even entered the space and the pulltab tops of the Tuborg. I wore mine like a ring for the rest of the evening and showed it to a lot of people who were not at all interested. 7 out of 10.

Ernst Caramelle at Mary Mary

We had four minutes to see this show. D, my companion for the evening, made us extend it to eight minutes when he saw the bottles of Baltika. In the end we needed 6.5 of them to neck the bottles and make a quick decision about the nature of the show. Sub-standard beer bottle opener, though. 8 out of 10.

Kalup Linzy at Washington Garcia

There were approximately 300,000 people in attendance for Kalup Linzy's performance that evening and we all liked it. It was in fact a minor miracle that allowed the Glasgow art scene to enjoy and laugh along with songs that were basically addressing complex identity politics, a pretty unfashionable subject matter around these parts. In homage to this miracle (and because I couldn't move) I didn't find the bar until after the show. At that point my already-jubilant mood was promoted to giddy levels by the glasses of rum and coke on offer. I love rum and coke; it reminds me of a lot of good things in my life. The young lad pouring the drinks looked like a boy I used to scoop ice cream with almost ten years ago (not a euphemism). I drank two while wadding in warm pools of nostalgia. I loved everything then. 9 out of 10.

Kate Davies and Neil Bickerton

At this point I was definitely drunk. Instead of drinking more, I looked carefully at the art work in a fashion I only adopt when I am trying to look more sober than I am. If I had wanted a beer, I think there would have been one, though. 7 out of 10.

xxx

Melanie Gilligan at Transmission

Do you want to be my best friend? Because by the time I got to Transmission I was pretty sure I wanted to be yours. After hugging my former tutors, I proceeded to play bartender and open up bottles of beer for all my best friends (i.e. the people around me whose names I knew). When someone opted for wine instead, I was affronted. When a girl actually mistook me for the bartender and asked me for a beer, I politely pointed to the opener on the table in front of us. I then ran upstairs to the upper gallery where the art was located. It was a quiet and involved performance. I put on my extremely focused face again. I got bored and started to tell my friends about how my bike lock exploded earlier that day. I got shushed and left the gallery. I can't remember what kind of beer Transmission was serving, but there was a lot of it, even late in the evening, and apparently some wine, too. 7 out of 10.

Laurence Figgis and Sharon Thomas at Glasgow Print Studios

This place was serving Samuel Adams so the Americans were psyched. I imagine I would have started punching people in euphoric fits if someone had handed me a Labatt's 50 at that moment so I won't judge them. When all the non-Americans  started complaining of the too-sweet taste I took the opportunity to tell them exactly how Canadians tend to feel about American beer. My friends appreciated my cultural insights. Additionally, I thought that the provision of rice cracker snacks and jelly babies was genius.8 out of 10.

Karen Cunningham, Luca Frei and Babak Ghazi at Project Room

The beer at the Project Room was free. Crazy. 7 out of 10.

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The night continued. I eventually took myself home when my conversation slipped well into the 'inappropriate' zone. I slept with all my clothes on.

Sunday:

I woke up early and perky because I was probably still drunk. I completed some needlework and drank a lot of water, went back to bed for a while and then grabbed some brunch. There were still openings on my itinerary. I ate a lot of carbs and pork products to prepare.

Katri Walker and Dani Marti

These kind folks had a wide variety of juice. That was really nice. They had beer too, but I just couldn't face it. Juice and crisps. That's everything I ever wanted right at that moment.8 out of 10.

XXXXXX

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Ani Baronian and Nim Wunnam

This show had interesting looking cheese and crackers and grapes. It was a classic touch. They were also making cups of tea for their visitors which was lovely. My body was quickly shutting down and didn't want to ever accept anything into it again. Except maybe some sausage. and a bit of chocolate. But still, it was a good offering for a Sunday afternoon. No alcohol, but really no one was missing it.8 out of 10.

That was the end of GI for me. It was exhausting, it was informative, it was pretty fun. I never did find a really immersive magical spectacle of an opening -- not that the work itself wasn't magical (because some of it is), but the openings themselves didn't quite match it. There was rarely music, hardly ever food and while there was plenty to drink, a lot of the time it wasn't that special. I'm greedy during festivals: I want to be overwhelmed and amazed. Because of this, no one achieved a perfect score of 10 glasses this time. But there were some really solid efforts in the Provision of Free Booze and I would like to thank and commend the participants of Glasgow International for that.

Because I'm still tired, I haven't provided individual links to the shows and artists. Instead go to the GI website here to find out about times and locations. It's worth it even without the promise of free beer.

Glasgow International: The Quest Begins

Last night Glasgow International opened and I dutifully went to all of the shows I could sneak my way into. Here's where I found free booze:

Jim Lambie at GoMA

I was excited about this. I thought it might be swish. This is a major show in a major space by one of the Glasgow art titans. I had fanciful visions of champagne and canapes. That was before I heard they were expecting 3000 people. Then I had visions of long queues and feeling stuffy. Unfortunately, I was eerily psychic.

This is what's appropriate at a large-scale opening: You walk into the main exhibition area and scan the work and the crowd and figure out where your friends are. Once you have established the location of your community, you join the queue for drinks. If this queue exists at all, it should be just long enough to scan the room for art and friends and enemies once more and perhaps have a little flirty banter with the person ahead of you. Then, armed with your beverage (preferably a special cocktail, nice beer or drinkable wine) you can swoop over to your friends and laugh and point at the people art around you (in an amused and constructive way).

This is what actually happened: We arrived quite early and had to line up to get into the main room. Once inside, we could see no art nor individuals in the heaving mass of humanity crawling about the hall. There was an epic queue for drinks, and since the art was invisible, we didn't even pretend to look for it. After waiting for a long time in the stagnant line, it started to move quickly. This was because they had run dry. Half and hour in. Not a good sign. A stampede to the upstairs bar ensued. I sent J and tried to look at art. As there was no alcohol in the main room anymore, half the population cleared as well and it was possible to at least catch some glimpses and spot some friends. J never came back down, so I had to go upstairs to the permanent collection (i.e. not what I was there to see). He was pinned into a room choked with people all desperately glugging. This wasn't even a sign of the alcoholism of the nation, everyone really was just hot and thirsty and tired by now. I grabbed my glass of wine from him and immediately got back in line for a second one. Good thing, too, because they were out once more a few minutes later.

Now, I know it's not my inherent right to expect a glass or two of wine at a regular art opening. But this was a big event on the social calendar. Stops should have been pulled. It was reasonable for me to expect magic. If you are going to print that many invitations, you need to expect that many people and plan for them and not make them feel like inconvenient cattle. It is not appropriate for your guests to have to wait so long for a drink. Some of them were probably important, even. And having security guards barking at us and barring us from already-crowded rooms was awkward. We were invited attendees, not bargain hunters banging down the doors at 6 am on Boxing Day. A little civility would have been nice. 

Poor form GoMA.

4 out of 10 glasses

Jonathan Scott at the Glasgow Art Club

Perfectly appropriate variety and quantity for a smaller opening scheduled in between bigger events. Plus nice washrooms.

8 out of 10 glasses

xxx

Jim Lambie's Afterparty

The real afterparty had a stupidly rigid ticket system. These puppies were hard to come by and each invite only admitted one. Poor. People need to bring dates.

Anyway, just up the way from that party, Jim Lambie opened one of his studio spaces, brought in beer and a DJ, curated a wee show, and threw a bunch of glitter on the ground. Anyone was invited. I didn't stay that long because I had a ticket to the real party (thanks A!), but I thought it was a super generous gesture and I liked the glitter and the art.

9 out of 10 glasses

The GI Launch Party at the Social

Studio Warehouse has installed a bar in their gallery for the duration of GI and this was the first event. It was pretty good, ample drink tickets for a range of beer/wine/cocktails, DJs in the slick indoor bar area, live bands playing under the railway arches outside. There were even waiters carting trays of snacks in a startling admission that we cannot live by free beer alone. Loads of pretty people, but not enough for toes to be trampled. It felt like an amped-up version of a typical Glasgow art scene party and I guess that was an appropriate vibe for the evening. The dancing was quite late coming, only getting started as I was leaving (these are not related facts) and I also was not a fan of the strict ticket system, but as all my dear ones managed to score some in the end, I'm only deducting one glass for that.

Good job, folks!

8 glasses out of 10

I'm already tired, but there's three more days of this. Will anyone achieve 10 glasses? Stay tuned...

The First Ever "Outstanding Achievements in Providing Free Booze" Awards

Food is not a priority this week. Instead, all nourishment will be gleaned from contemporary art and free beer: it's Glasgow International again!

This festival kicks off this weekend and runs until the end of April. You can read about the shows and events at the official website.

And since every gallery and loads of alternative venues will be hosting new shows, there are a lot of openings to attend. This translates into a lot of free beer to be consumed.

While I will be formulating loads of incisive, harsh and lazy opinions about the work on display, that's not what I'll be sharing with you. Instead I've devised a basic system for evaluating the quality of the alcoholic offerings at each of the openings. Each event will be marked, and the results will be posted as quickly as my hangover will allow me near a computer. My awards for Outstanding Achievements in Supplying Free Booze will be declared on Monday.

Events will receive a mark out of 10 for each of these criteria:

* Amount

* Quality

* Variety

* Correct Serving Temperature (i.e. is the beer cold? does the red wine feel a bit sweaty?)

* Availability of Correct Serving Vessel (i.e. did they run out of glasses for the wine?)

Special awards may be given for:

*Most obscene amounts of hooch

*Best sponsorship arrangement

*Prettiest people drinking free alcohol

*Horniest/Funnest party as a result of the free alcohol

Everything kicks off tomorrow night, so watch for the first post on Friday. Until then, pray for my liver.

Lucky Horse, Evil Grape, New Magazine

Two things that have just happened:

* I put a bet on a horse in the Grand National. Actually my co-worker placed one for me. I have no idea what any of this means, but say a little prayer for Naunton Brook if you get a chance. This whole betting on a horserace thing makes me feel so cultured and like I really belong to part of a great and tasteful tradition.

honestly. Put it, all of it, far far away.

* I also just ate a grape that was somehow carbonated and spicy. Now my mouth is itchy and my stomach is lurching gently. If I die and I win this bet, my winnings can be divided amongst all of you, my dear readers, my lovely pets!

And one thing is going to happen:

* My delightful friend Jeremy (who, btw, has really nice colouring. Have I ever told you that JPM? It's true.) is launching a new magazine called Pinnacle. I think it's happening tomorrow. Go to the party if you are in the Tdot (that's old slang, right? What do people say now?). Check out the website if you are global. I think it's supposed to get more exciting soon. Not that I don't love balloons.

A Brilliant Idea, a Gratuitous Cherry Blossom

Although I'm more than up for foraging and baking bread on a Sunday (once I stop huffing), that's definitely not how I eat on many weeknights. Especially if I am only cooking for myself. At those times I revert to the recipes in the "extremely quick and forever reliable" folder in my brain. One of the staples and stars of that collection is frozen tortellini. I'm not proud of it, and if frozen stuffed pasta isn't your thing, then just ignore the rest of the post. Look at the flower.

If you do sometimes rely on frozen pasta, then this is for you. Do you ever screw up the cooking times with your tortellini? That stuff is delicate. If you undercook, you could end up with spinach and ricotta ice cubes inside the dough and if you let it boil for too long, you get disgusting mush. There's about a twenty second window where these guys are perfect (or as perfect as they're going to get), and I have yet to figure out exactly what it is. Sometimes I hit upon it by sheer luck.

Because I consistently strive for perfection in everything I do, I came up with a solution for my disappointing pasta: I steamed it. Yup. I treated them like little Chinese dumplings, threw them in my steamer and let them go for about 10 minutes. Actually, I have no idea how long I let them cook for; I was too preoccupied with my sauce. But unlike boiling, it's fine to ignore your steaming pasta. It's a much more gentle process, so the window of perfection is a lot bigger. I would say between 8 and 15 minutes, although I am definitely making up those numbers. In the end, you get hot pasta with all of it's textural integrity intact. It might even have a nicer texture. Plus you don't have to drain it after. You could also try this trick with fresh pasta. No reason why it wouldn't work.

After I first did this, I forced my flatmates to acknowledge and discuss my brilliance for 20 minutes. The fact that they avoided me in the kitchen for four days afterwards was undoutedly a sign of their respect for my culinary skills.    

Losing an Hour, Gaining Wild Garlic Breath

The morning when the clocks go forward is possibly my least favourite morning of the year. I wake up already an hour behind, those sixty minutes cruelly stolen. It makes no difference that I gain it again in the fall. I couldn't care less about the extra daylight that evening. At that moment I really feel that missing hour and all of the activities that could have filled it up. This evil, short day just dares me to try and get anything accomplished in 23 hours. Clearly impossible. Plus it always happens on a Sunday, the day of the week forever fraught with latent homework-related fears and other phantom anxieties.

After (a ridiculously late) breakfast Sunday morning, I flopped myself on my bed. J asked what I was going to do that day before our dinner plans later on in the evening.

K: I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I don't have time to do anything. I guess I should go into my studio.

J: That sounds like a good idea.

K: Except I don't have any good ideas for art anymore cause I'm stupid.

J: Oh, don't worry, I don't think the world actually has any new ideas to offer.

K: Maybe I'll go for a bike ride.

J: Sure. Where would you go?

K: I don't know. Around the parks. Maybe not. All the trails are stupid. (pout.pout.pout)

J: (casting an appraising glance around my less-than-tidy room): You could do laundry.

K: Stop trying to find activities for me.

J: Do you feel like your life is a bit pointless right now?

K: Yes! Everything is stupid and I never get anything done.

J: OK. Good. Well, I'm going home now. Let me know what time we're having dinner.

K: (Dives under the duvet. Pout. Pout. Pout)

The lack of an hour had triggered an existential crisis and my response to it was decidedly shallow. The train of thought went something like this:

"My life is currently stupid and I don't have any new projects that I find exciting and the books that I'm reading are fine but not exceptional. How can this be solved? Well, it can't be. Nothing will ever be exciting again. I ate all of my fantastic fruit compote and I miss it already and I want to eat it forever and ever. I'm dead without it. And I'm excited to wear my new shoes (thanks Mom!) to dinner tonight and it's really stupid that I have to wait seven hours to do that. I will never have another fulfilling activity again so I have to console myself with compote and shoes but I can't, so I'll just lie on my bed and pout."

Seriously. Anxiety-driven pouting is one of my fortes. It was definitely time to kick my ass into shape.

Not wanting to face my studio, I opted for a bike ride. I would try and find new bike trails and go up some steep hills and try my hand at a bit of early spring foraging. I like the idea of foraging. You get fresh, sometimes tasty and sometimes weird stuff for free. It's a skill you can use in the post-oil age. That's what I'll be doing when I'm not darning your socks. You can forage during bike rides, too. And it's free. J says that foraging makes us horribly cliched Guardian readers, led by Hugh to go trample in the fields and hedgerows looking for dinner, convinced that we're saving the world. But I don't care. I am willing to let Hugh lead me. Plus, secretly J likes foraging for all the reasons I do (especially the free part). So equipped with a map, my copy of Food for Free and having memorized this weekend's Guardian article on collecting wild garlic, I set off.

My book and the article said that this wild garlic was plentiful right now. That it's an easy thing for the novice forager to find. My thoughts upon entering the large country park near my house were not optimistic though: I didn't see any of this stupid garlic anywhere. It was supposed to look like lily of the valley leaves, but all I saw were rhododendrons. So I kept on riding, long enough for my legs to start aching a bit as I wove through the hilly trails, trying valiantly to not hit the pedestrians and their dogs.

Eventually I got to the river. I had never been down this path before, and although it was pretty packed with Sunday strollers, the banks of the river were thick with bright green leaves. Some would say they looked like lily of the valley, I would say tulips. Propping my bike against a tree, I picked one of these leaves, broke it in two and took a whiff. Garlic! Really green and fresh smelling garlic. Loads of it! This stuff is so easy to find that even a whiny brat in the throes of an imaginary life crisis can stumble across it!

I continued down the path now completely at peace with my place on the earth. I climbed more hills, refrained from mowing down toddlers, gazed at the fat pussy willows that were dotting the riverbanks and spotted some tiny and angry and prickly shoots of rhubarb, remembering their location for another forage a little later on. Ahh! Look at all the things I accomplished. If I had had a to-do list for this bike ride, I would have managed to cross everything off it, I bet. What a lovely ending to my too-short afternoon.

Of course, then the hail started, so I had to rush back, grab some of those garlicky leaves, squash them into my bag and race home. And what did I do with the wild garlic? Well, once again I deferred to Hugh's article and made myself wild garlic scrambled eggs on toast. Eggs may be the most accommodating way to try out a new soft herb. So I whisked two nice fresh, free-range ones in a bowls with s&p, and a dozen tiny cubes of butter. The toast went in at the same time as a blob of butter landed in the saucepan. After it melted, the eggs slipped in too and were quickly worked into soft and pillowy folds. I never used to put butter into the raw egg mixture, but it makes the scramble really delicious and never rubbery. Toast pops, eggs are done and the two are joined together in my stomach.

Next up, a fresh mayo for the dinner that night and some loaves of white bread to dip into it. Now that my legs were all sore and tight from biking, it was time to exhaust my arms. There was a lot of kneading first, and then a lot of whisking while the dough got fat. Sure you could use a food processor to make mayonnaise, but I don't have one and along with foraging and darning, intensive whisking is another useful skill that you'll be really happy I have post-oil. I took four egg yolks and sprinkled them with salt and started to whisk. I wrapped a tea towel around the base of my bowl to stop it moving around so I could continue to whisk and start to add a teensy stream of oil into the mix with my other hand. A tiny thread of oil, really. You have to be so delicate in the beginning, but then you can get a bit rougher later on. I used half sunflower oil and half olive and added it until I liked the consistency of the mayonnaise. And I couldn't stand the burning feeling in my arms anymore. Then I added more salt and about eight chopped leaves of the wild garlic. Lovely. Perfect with the fresh bread. Again, a fresh mayonnaise is a reliable buddy for almost any kind of soft fresh herb. And the bonus about using wild garlic leaves is that the garlic flavour, unlike a normal aioli that can become really overpoweringly if left for a while, is a much more subtle and bright. Although it will intensify after a couple of hours, it won't take over.

So, a couple of hours after thrashing around my bed in a panic of uselessness I had discovered a new bike path, found and experimented with a new plant, exercised all my limbs to the point of collapse, baked bread, made a mayonnaise and a tasty lunch. And it was still light outside. And it was finally time for me to put on my new shoes.