Look to the Cookie, originally uploaded by Shauna.

Our New York hols are sadly at an end. This here is a black and white cookie as seen on Seinfeld ten years ago; I had to give it a crack. It’s cakey as opposed to cookie-ish, nice and spongey with deliciously gooey icing. Like someone ran over a lamington, then stripped off the coconut. Sorta. Phwoar :)

Draft entry from last September when I was addicted to Nigella Express and Gareth tried to contain his disdain for poncy food programmes.

Notes
- Nigella still foxy
- Has abandoned suggestive deep-throating of runner beans
- Still does "Spontaneous" Midnight Fridge Raid at the end of every episode.

SHAUNA:  I wonder where you get that garlic oil?
GARETH:  From London.

SHAUNA:  I can never find those mini chocolate chips.
GARETH:  That's because they're in London. You can only get them in London.

NIGELLA:  I love making quick and easy food for my friends after they've had a stressful, hard day's work.
GARETH:  Get down a pit!

NIGELLA'S DINING COMPANION:  What is that delicious flavour with the chickpeas?
NIGELLA:  It's a bag of rocket, darling.
GARETH:  That's preposterous. What a tosser. Everybody kens rocket. I come fae Fife and even I ken the taste of rocket!

(I love how when Gareth gets irritated about poshness his speech suddenly turns all Fifer-like, eh.)

"Many commonly used kitchen implements are a threat to health and should be thrown away, scientists have warned.

Washing up bowls and re-usable dish clothes are thought to be a particularly good breeding ground for bugs."

The article is from December 2000. If I'd seen it at the time it may have killed my longing to move to the UK, especially with this quote from Professor Hugh Pennington of the University of Aberdeen, one of Britain's leading infection experts:

"I would like to get rid of washing-up bowls altogether. They are an absolute menace."

"I have a feeling that if you've only seen blogs in the past five years (which is probably 95+% of people reading blogs today) you consider comments to be de rigueur and they are entirely divorced from the original concept of a conversation between the reader and the author of the original post. It's not an intimate conversation, it's just another content management feature available to you on the web.

This has a de-humanizing effect that I'm seeing play out more and more often in the weirdest places. People will post about their idle curiosities on their personal blog ("Why does x happen when I do y?") and instead of seeing friendly answers I would expect many years ago, I'll often see someone early on read into the question and assume all sorts of accusations ("well, maybe it's because you are a, b, and c, and everyone knows it!") and watch most followup comments start from there and go into darker directions."

Well, you do see more moronic semi-literate bawbags popping up these days, but it seems to be mostly on really mega personal blogs of Dooceian proportions. I have more issues with shameless pimpsters that skim one entry and write, Great Post, Shauna! This reminds me of my stupid diet pills / miracle face cream/ revolutionary health website which is 10,000 times more infuriating than the olden days of automated comment spam, because at least that was done by a machine!

At least with the blogs I stalk... there is plenty o' cosy chit chat goodness to be found. And here - 105 comments debating the merits of washing dishes in a plastic bowl? That's the sort of thing that makes you want to hump the internet with ecstasy.