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Have moved the blog to Wordpress.  Please follow the blog at http://www.perfectingpru.wordpress.com/.

It's going to be so much more fun, with lots of more posts from now on.


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Martha Mondays - Lemon Souffles

For, I think the first time since beginning the Martha Mondays projects I did the project on Monday. 

I was looking forward to the souffles as they have been on my list of things to cook for ages and after buying ramekins I was all set. 

The recipe is pretty easy.  I did manage to get a bit in a muddle when I halved the recipe and I was doing it in a hurry.  This is the second time that I have cooked from the January issue this week (chicken paillairds on Saturday which were wonderful) but each time I have wished that there was some guide at the top of the recipe saying roughly how long it will take (both preparing and cooking).  I always skim through the recipe and see that I need a couple of minutes here and a couple of minutes there, and then all of a sudden I've been in the kitchen for half an hour!

Enough of my rant - but if you are looking Martha Stewart people - please take note, it would help me so much.

The verdict was surprising.  Dad liked it (which was a shock) but mum and I thought they were too eggy and not that lemony.  All three of us had never tried souffle before.  I only ate the top of mine as I wasn't keen on the texture.  I don't know if I will make souffles again but I may give a cheese one a try, maybe.

Thanks for a great choice of project Brette, I'm pleased that I got to cook something completely new.

Lessons Being Learnt #1

This is a quick, rambling post as I have something that needed to be written down which has been bothering me since Friday.  I told someone something that wasn't mine to tell.  It won't cause the person to lose their job, go to prison, go to Court or anything bad.  But I shouldn't have told the person the truth when they enquired about my friend.  Instead I should have held my tongue and said that I didn't have any information. 

It seems that it would have been best to have lied.  I hate lying to people especially for something where everyone is really concerned about the topic/person involved. 

I have apologised to all concerned and I have apologised to them again as well.  But I cannot apologise anymore.  I don't know how this will end up being resolved, I hope that it will just fizzle away and my apologies are accepted or a good shouting match ensues to clear the air.  But mainly I hope that my friend continues to get better and is well again to return to work shortly.  I miss her.

I didn't mean any harm in telling the truth when I was asked. 

But as it is my aim to 'perfect' myself, I must learn from this mistake, and I have.  I have learnt that I don't want people to tell me information if it can't be passed on because I'm not good at having to look at someone and tell them the wrong thing.  Secrets are different and I can hold those for eternity, but general hush-hush information is best not told to me. 

I have felt guilty about this, cried about it and continued to think about it for four whole days.  I have learnt my lesson dearly and hope that friendships haven't been lossed over it. 

So I send this into the blogging world, not wanting any response but just to put my thoughts down and hopefully start to feel better and continue to learn my lesson and to stop thinking about it all the time.

Martha Merchandise

A trip to New York and a morning spent seeing a live taping of the Martha show would not have been complete for me if I hadn't bought lots of Martha products.  Apart from the magazines, Wedgwood collection and books (which I order on-line as book shops over here rarely have Martha books in stock) there are no other Martha products to be found.  I always hope that Martha will find a supplier over here to carry her products - Harrods would be ideal for me. 

So, mum and I took ourselves to Macy's in New York.  Mum and I had both been to Macy's years ago and never thought too highly of it then.  We still don't.   I find the staff to be pretty rude, the building quite shabby and the products are never displayed greatly.  I think Martha could do with making a one of her staff from head office go in and neaten it all up (something that mum and I took to doing whilst we were in there).  We didn't purchase bed linens (something that I had wanted to do) due to their price, which maybe if the pound had been stronger against the dollar I would have done.  We didn't buy Christmas items either as there was very little displayed and I didn't like the glittered seashells that they had in store.  However, I did find the Martha products for kitchenware to be in good order (I hate having to hunt around for products too much and as such am never a good shopper in the sales) and purchased a bowl for utensils, a cake tester, a recipe calculator (so clever - it divides the measures, multiplies them and triples them) and measuring cups.  Bearing in mind that we had our luggage allowance otherwise I would have been tempted to buy more.  A skillet was on my list but I never found one.  I had also wanted a Martha Stewart mug, with the logo but it seems that they didn't do them.  Maybe they don't do them at all.

On the day of the Martha show mum and I stood in line with our Martha merchandise order forms which a member of staff had been handing out and ordered two aprons (one for me one for mum, a tote bag and a hooded jumper).

We are both so pleased with our purchases.  I have used all of the items and they are great.  The measuring cups are especially great as you fill them to the top as opposed to the old ones I had (Nigella Lawson ones) which had the measure inside the cup.  The hooded jumper has proved to be warm and soft and although I do not usually wear clothing with names or logos on it, I am happy to have the logo of the show on my right arm.  The tote bag is sturdy and carried Christmas presents into work with ease. 

A trip to Kate's Paperie also saw the purchase of Martha's Crane & Co. Christmas cards which are beautifully designed and I will take great delight in sending these next year. 

The products we picked really were 'good things'.

Snow in London

Last year snow in London and the UK in general, brought everything to a standstill.  This year is no different.  Whilst I like the snow, I want a lot of it so that I can stay inside and hibernate.  But it was not to be.  It snowed from 9.00pm last night here and I still managed to get to work (there was only an inch).  We had snow on and off all day but at 3.00pm it started to really come down and they closed work at 4.00pm so that we could go home.  I was so glad.

Here are photos I took with my gorgeous new camera at work and in the back garden.

Martha Mondays - Silver Dollar Pear Pancakes

It was my pick for Martha Mondays and I chose Silver Dollar Pear Pancakes.  This was new to me as we have the crepe variety at home and had never tried making buttermilk pancakes.  I couldn't find Bosc or Bartlett pears and went for the Comice variety.  They were fine.  I didn't have a clue how to core an apple with the peeler so cut the pear into rounds and then used an icing tip to remove the middle.  They looked quite good.  Mum requested that we take the peel off the pears so I did.  They marinated in the maple syrup and cinnamon as I made the batter.  This was easy to make. 

We don't have an electric griddle so mum and I worked together using two frying pans and made four at a time.  They weren't the prettiest of pancakes, as they fell apart when we tried to flip them but I didn't mind. 

(I will be keen to see how everyone else's turned out and will want tips on getting them into rounds for next time!) We loved them.  I served them at the kitchen table on New Year's Day.  We had maple syrup on them which we usually never have in the house and both mum, dad and I really enjoyed them. 

I hope everyone else enjoyed the recipe. 

Anthropologie Purchases

I'm just back from a trip into London to Anthropologie on Regent Street.  After hearing about the sale in US stores I figured a trip was due to the one here.  I am so happy that I went.  Anthropologie prices are pretty expensive and I still think that they changed the dollar for pound sign on the price tickets without changing the prices but I will have to overcome that. 

Two tops, a scarf and a paperweight for my boss's upcoming birthday were purchased and I couldn't be happier.