Summary of one long week...
Sep. 25th, 2004 04:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lonelybritWell, first lesson of the day is to always, always check inside of the mug before you pour the milk. Because if not, you run the risk of finding a drowning spider bobbing about under your nose when you lift said mug to drink... yurgh!
Started doing some voluntary work at our local Oxfam shop. Turned out to be great fun. If rather sobering. On my first day I met a Russian lady who had worked there for 18 years. She and her husband had come to England after they had both been sentenced to two years in labour camps. And on my second day I met a lovely man who turned out to have left Rwanda eight years ago. Apart from a cousin in Sweden, this man is all that is left of his family, who were all wiped out during the war. So yes. Very glad I went there.
Well. Suffice to say it was an experience. Thank you all so much for your tips and advice. They have all been noted down for the next time (hah!) I try this.
It actually went well in the end. In that the chicken was served and no-one keeled over from food-poisoning. Which is always a big plus.
The first and fun part was buying the wretched bird. Which meant wandering around the Covered Market in the centre of town. A nice place. A market that's covered and old as something quite impressive. One area is full of the bakers. Another area the leatherworkers. Another the grocers, etc. My port of destination was the butchers' area. A place increasingly less child-friendly as the more and more spawn find the sight of bunches of pheasants, quails, braces of hares and the odd deer hanging cold and limp from the rafters a rather distressing sight.
Anyway. That was fine. Found the right shop and bought one free-range organic chicken, complete with scaly legs, the odd tuft of feather and a small bag of something red and blobby.
There was the slight moment of panic when, upon taking a cautious peek into the bird's insides back home, I saw something white, long and distinctly intestine-looking vanishing away from me. Cue one rather panicked phonecall to my father's office.
LB: How do you gut a chicken?
LB Snr.: I have no idea.
LB: But... you worked in a fish and chip shop! Gutting a fish. Gutting a chicken. There can't be that much difference!
LB Snr.: ...
LB: Well apart from them being different species of course.
LB Snr.: ...Why does this always happen to you?
It was resolved when I reminded myself of all the grisly tasks I'd had to do when we used to have sick/dead/newborn rabbits/guinea-pigs. If I could face them then I could damn well face one dead decapitated piece of poultry. And in I went... Only to find to my intense relief that it was just a piece of flappy skin that had got stretched and then tucked inside.
Shut up. I'm new to all this, okay?
By this point I was late and ending up drowning the poor thing in butter, salt, pepper, and stuffing bits of garlic and orange at random strategic points.
It turned out okay. My timing was all to pot, the potatoes being boiled and ready about an hour too early and the parsnips only just cooked in time. But other than that. Yes. Success all round. Yay me.
I have also started looking into this 'personal mood theme' thing. The key point seems to be that you need your own webspace to upload said pics to. Erm... Anyone know where's a good and ideally not too pricey place to get some of that? Is bandwidth something important for this?
Started doing some voluntary work at our local Oxfam shop. Turned out to be great fun. If rather sobering. On my first day I met a Russian lady who had worked there for 18 years. She and her husband had come to England after they had both been sentenced to two years in labour camps. And on my second day I met a lovely man who turned out to have left Rwanda eight years ago. Apart from a cousin in Sweden, this man is all that is left of his family, who were all wiped out during the war. So yes. Very glad I went there.
Well. Suffice to say it was an experience. Thank you all so much for your tips and advice. They have all been noted down for the next time (hah!) I try this.
It actually went well in the end. In that the chicken was served and no-one keeled over from food-poisoning. Which is always a big plus.
The first and fun part was buying the wretched bird. Which meant wandering around the Covered Market in the centre of town. A nice place. A market that's covered and old as something quite impressive. One area is full of the bakers. Another area the leatherworkers. Another the grocers, etc. My port of destination was the butchers' area. A place increasingly less child-friendly as the more and more spawn find the sight of bunches of pheasants, quails, braces of hares and the odd deer hanging cold and limp from the rafters a rather distressing sight.
Anyway. That was fine. Found the right shop and bought one free-range organic chicken, complete with scaly legs, the odd tuft of feather and a small bag of something red and blobby.
There was the slight moment of panic when, upon taking a cautious peek into the bird's insides back home, I saw something white, long and distinctly intestine-looking vanishing away from me. Cue one rather panicked phonecall to my father's office.
LB: How do you gut a chicken?
LB Snr.: I have no idea.
LB: But... you worked in a fish and chip shop! Gutting a fish. Gutting a chicken. There can't be that much difference!
LB Snr.: ...
LB: Well apart from them being different species of course.
LB Snr.: ...Why does this always happen to you?
It was resolved when I reminded myself of all the grisly tasks I'd had to do when we used to have sick/dead/newborn rabbits/guinea-pigs. If I could face them then I could damn well face one dead decapitated piece of poultry. And in I went... Only to find to my intense relief that it was just a piece of flappy skin that had got stretched and then tucked inside.
Shut up. I'm new to all this, okay?
By this point I was late and ending up drowning the poor thing in butter, salt, pepper, and stuffing bits of garlic and orange at random strategic points.
It turned out okay. My timing was all to pot, the potatoes being boiled and ready about an hour too early and the parsnips only just cooked in time. But other than that. Yes. Success all round. Yay me.
I have also started looking into this 'personal mood theme' thing. The key point seems to be that you need your own webspace to upload said pics to. Erm... Anyone know where's a good and ideally not too pricey place to get some of that? Is bandwidth something important for this?
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-24 09:25 pm (UTC)and as for the chicken.. lol.. so cute ;)
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Date: 2004-09-24 10:51 pm (UTC)you're the one that told me about it in the first place.. thought I'd help and pass the info along ;)
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Date: 2004-09-25 03:52 pm (UTC)LOL, and yes. Halleluja for Photobucket! :)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-25 03:51 pm (UTC)Oooh, it works it works!! **huggles**
And I'm glad someone sees some kind of plus side to my utter ineptitude in the kitchen, LOL!
no subject
Date: 2004-09-25 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-25 03:55 pm (UTC)It is so my new cyberfriend at the moment... LOL.
And... oooh! Pretty Spike with wings! *bounce* Perdy :)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-25 03:58 pm (UTC)I did save the spider's life though. Carefully pulling it to safety with my fork before lovingly flinging it to the opposite side of the kitchen...