Tuesday thoughts

Goodness, but this 'ere food blogging malarky is turning out to be even more fun than I anticipated it would be!

Have I told you the latest regarding the Avocado explorations?  I can't remember, but briefly, if you were ever considering making cold Avocado soup involving a fairly expensive piece of blue cheese - don't.  Vile.  Enough said.

The postie delivered my prize from Whimsical Wife's competition to win some Flying Pumpkin Lanterns and I was so excited!  We haven't had a chance to use them yet, between inclement weather and running out of time on Halloween, but I'm sure they'll be fun when we do!

Hubby had a brilliant idea and reminded me that I still had some money from my birthday  vouchers left with Amazon, so why didn't I buy Ottolenghi's "The cookbook", which I'd been renewing religiously ever since I borrowed it from our Library.  An inspired idea! Having had a look on Amazon, it transpired that the price had been significantly lowered on both "The Cookbook" and "Plenty" - so I got the pair of them.  ~hugs them to herself~  Such joy!  Just looking through them at the photography is enough, never mind the fact that simply all the recipes are saliva-inducing.  Rarely have I felt so protective over a pair of books.  I'm cooking a recipe from each this week and, rather than have them spoiled by cooking fallout, I'm going to type and print out the recipes I'm using.  I think I might cry if the books were marked in any way, right now.  Sad, isn't it?  However, thanks go out to Laura for supplying the wherewithall for them.  ~blows kisses~

Now, here's something exciting!  I had an email yesterday from the PR folk who are running the "secret ingredient" campaign for Heinz Tomato Ketchup.  They'd seen my recipes for Sausage Goulash and Spicy Minced Beef both included ketchup and wanted to know whether I'd be interested in having them included on their Tomato Ketchup Facebook site.  Needless to say, I responded that I would very much like them to be included, so long as I could include a link to my Rhubarb & Ginger blog - as it needs all the publicity it can get right now.  Ha!  Fun, eh?

Another exciting thing is that I saw a Tweet from Quadrille Books on Twitter today, asking for food bloggers to review one or more of their new recipe books.  I replied saying I'd love to - and am now expecting "My Kitchen - real food from near & far" by Stevie Parle.  Apparently Stevie spent time living on a houseboat in London, as I did in Kingston, and it sounds as though the recipes in the book could mirror those I like to produce.  So I'm excited about receiving that - and the review will appear on Rhubarb & Ginger very soon.

Last, but a long way from least, is the news that we are having Sparky for a week again.  Sparky is a Parsons Jack Russell terrier - and one of immense character.  Once more, this is down to Facebook and Twitter, as Sparky's owner placed a message asking whether anyone in our area could recommend a holiday kennel for dogs and my friend Laura put her in touch with me.  We had Sparky for a week a few months ago and loved having him here.  We dubbed him the Father Jack of Jack Russells, as for all the world, he appears to have the same propensity for yelling "drink ~ feck ~ gurls!", except in Sparky's case, I suspect it's more "ham ~ biscuit ~ chase!".  We can't wait!

So - all these things have happened as a result of Twitter, Facebook or Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger.  Awesome!



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