CEO is back from LA – he has been out there since two weeks ago for Oscar’s season and frankly, I’ve enjoyed the break (and used the time wisely to learn skills including InDesign, website building, and Photoshop). I know the moment he lands (his arrival time has been imprinted in my brain the moment I booked the flights) thanks to a barrage of emails and texts coming through from his phone. 11 Hours of thinking time can be very dangerous. Phone calls pour in for meeting requests with Him and thank you notes arrive in regards to our latest celebrity bash - and I know that up until Easter things are going to be very busy indeed.
As central London is hit by torrential downpour, I sit back in my chair grateful that I was sensible enough to bring in homemade soup for lunch, and with CEO safely away at a lunch meeting I have no reason to venture outside. That is until I receive a call from him asking me to go over to the restaurant he is currently at and collect his bags.
Begrudgingly, I put on my (very sensible and very un-cool) ski coat which I have taken to wearing as it continues to amaze me that a thick coat can keep me warm AND dry regardless of the weather (I am no coat-wearer, much to the horror of my aunt). I power-walk over to the restaurant where I see him sitting at the counter deep in (French) conversation with his client. After repeating his name and trying to catch his eye, I resort to tapping his shoulder lightly – feeling like some crazed fan in an upmarket dining room with scruffy hair and an oversized ski jacket. He turns to me and points over to the corner to indicate where his bags have been stores, and there sit three large Fortnum & Mason bags containing CEO-esque purchases: champagne and books. He also rattles off a list of tasks, meetings and dinners to schedule whilst I stand desperately trying not to forget anything as I am without clipboard, notepad or pen. I grab the bags and head for the door when a waiter stops me and points to a table of an elderly couple who are looking very alarmed and almost choking on their food. And then I realise, as the waiter slowly reaches for the three bags clasped firmly in my hand that they are not CEO’s... and in fact I have just tried to leave the restaurant with someone else’s Fortnum & Mason shopping.
The waiter then heads over to the other bar where he fishes out a battered leather satchel and L.L.Bean canvas bag in bright blue, which I recognise instantly. Despite my apologies to the couple, they still glare at me like I’ve just tried (and failed) to pull off a shopping-thieving heist in broad daylight, and I hurriedly leave before I can cause any more havoc.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
A Second Attempt at Arson
By the second night, Ollie had decided he wanted pancakes as well and I still had the jug of batter mix in the fridge from my failed attempts the previous evening. So after a successful session of cutting his hair without the loss of limb, he entrusted me to make some more pancakes without setting the kitchen on fire again.
I used a large pan, and decided to make smaller scotch pancakes to avoid any disasters. Despite this, I still managed to drop a lump of butter onto the stove AGAIN, but was able to wipe it away before it caught fire. The pancakes survived, and Ollie was delighted with his stack of belling-style nutella and banana pancakes. I flicked the induction hob off and did the washing up and that was that.
Or so I thought! The next morning Ollie headed into the kitchen and suddenly I heard the same 'CONNIE' my Dad would growl when I was 6 and had stomped on a sieve. I leapt out of bed and dashed to the kitchen. 'You've left the hob on ALL. NIGHT.' he said. I just can't believe it... Apparently this had been the one time he hadn't obsessively checked all the hob switches before bed, and I'd gone and left it on. I can never tease him about his OCD again. In my defence, the hob switch had been resting between 9 and 0, so whilst it was still hot, I don't think it had been on really hot...? I hope. And the good news is I haven't 'burnt the element out' or whatever technical term it is. I think for not I'm just going to sit with my hands in oven gloves and rock in the corner of the sitting room, as far away from the kitchen as possible. I'm starting to feel like Edward Scissorhands with my culinary expertise rapidly going down the drain. All I can do is be thankful that pancake day is a year away and in the meantime I need to work on not setting fire to the kitchen!
I used a large pan, and decided to make smaller scotch pancakes to avoid any disasters. Despite this, I still managed to drop a lump of butter onto the stove AGAIN, but was able to wipe it away before it caught fire. The pancakes survived, and Ollie was delighted with his stack of belling-style nutella and banana pancakes. I flicked the induction hob off and did the washing up and that was that.
Or so I thought! The next morning Ollie headed into the kitchen and suddenly I heard the same 'CONNIE' my Dad would growl when I was 6 and had stomped on a sieve. I leapt out of bed and dashed to the kitchen. 'You've left the hob on ALL. NIGHT.' he said. I just can't believe it... Apparently this had been the one time he hadn't obsessively checked all the hob switches before bed, and I'd gone and left it on. I can never tease him about his OCD again. In my defence, the hob switch had been resting between 9 and 0, so whilst it was still hot, I don't think it had been on really hot...? I hope. And the good news is I haven't 'burnt the element out' or whatever technical term it is. I think for not I'm just going to sit with my hands in oven gloves and rock in the corner of the sitting room, as far away from the kitchen as possible. I'm starting to feel like Edward Scissorhands with my culinary expertise rapidly going down the drain. All I can do is be thankful that pancake day is a year away and in the meantime I need to work on not setting fire to the kitchen!
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
How Not To Make Pancakes
Hallelujah! It's pancake day again. I've been craving pancakes since I realised Shrove Tuesday was upon us again... yesterday.
I raced home this evening, dreaming of all the guilt-free Nutella I could eat, with bananas all chopped and folded up in a gloriously stodgy yet fluffy pancake. During dinner we had a small incident with some questionable pasta sauce, but I didn't let that deter me. After I'd tidied away I set about making pancakes, using the three vital ingredients that every cupboard has: an egg, plain flour, and milk.
I take pride in the fact that I do not require a recipe for a batter mix - it's all about getting the right consistency. If it's too thick, you add more milk; too sloppy: more flour. So I popped my penultimate Clarence Court Burford Brown egg into a pyrex jug, and started pouring out the flour. There were a lot of large crumb-like objects in the packet which I assumed were just larger clumps of flour, and among the noise of the butter sizzling in the pan and the extractor fan, I said to my boyfriend 'I didn't know flour had a best before date?' after seeing that the packet in my hand read '2012'. Then, after giving the nearly-empty bag a good shake and more 'crumbs' falling out into a heap on top of my beautiful (and expensive) egg, I looked down and realised that the flour was spotty... and had weird seeds in. All this was done with a narrative to my boyfriend, until I suddenly realised that these 'seeds' were grey and wriggling. In an instant, I shoved the jug into the sink and ran into the bathroom in terror to wash my hands and make sure I hadn't accidentally inhaled a whateverthatwas or had one crawling up my arm.
By the time I returned (in washing up gloves and outdoor boots) the boyfriend had disposed of the flour and egg contents, so I spent the subsequent half hour emptying out our food cupboard and binning anything in open packets or that we hadn't used in months (lentils, pearl barley, paella rice). I also interrogated the boyfriend who insisted that the rice, icing sugar, raisins and dry pasta would be safe as weevils (what a disgusting word) don't like dry or sweet stuff and they don't have the amino acids that flour has. I then phoned my Dad for secondary guidance who advised that if I got the pan hot enough I wouldn't have to worry about weevils - they'd provide extra protein, followed by a call to my mother for some sympathy - who suggested SIEVING out the weevils. Sometimes I think I'm adopted.
So back to square one, feeling traumatised and seriously considering living a gluten free lifestyle thanks to the flour fiasco. After deciding that I really did want pancakes and that it was worth using up the last posh egg, I dug out a Kilner jar of flour - probably even older but with a trusty seal to deter any creepy crawlies - and started again. Making the batter went smoothly this time, sans hiccups, and it was all starting to look quite promising... until I set fire to the kitchen.
I added some mixture to the hot, buttery pan and swirled the mix around. The first pancake came out quite thin and crispy, so I added a bit more mixture on the second go. As I was twirling the pan around - very gently - half the pancake suddenly stuck to the pan so I gave it a small nudge and before I knew it, the other half had slopped right over the pan and across the entire hob, like pancake vomit. I let out a short scream, prompting the boyfriend to check from the safe distance of the sofa if I was alright. So far, things were still under control if a little messy, so I replied 'no, no.. It's fine' whilst scraping the batter mix off with the spatula. Then suddenly, the melted butter used to grease the pan - which had also slopped onto the hob - set on fire in such a comical way, and all I could do was scream a bit louder and stand there waving an empty frying pan madly at the hob as the flames quivered on the glass hob - leaving me utterly speechless, and remembering something about using a damp cloth to put it out. Thank goodness the boyfriend had sense to take on board the seriousness of me becoming speechless with stifled yelps and rushed over in time to guide the pan directly onto the flames to put it out.
The pancake mixture lay in a horrible splatter across the stove and there was now a giant burnt crust forming on the stove and bottom of the pan. If you had been there at that moment, you would not have believed that in on a 'good' day, I am quite the talented chef. The remains looked like a pancake slaughter session or the aftermath of a food fight, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I ended up doing both. At the same time.
It took the boyfriend a while before he could see the funny side... He was more bothered about the glass stove, our security deposit, and scraping off the gloopy mess from the hob, whilst I was sad about wasting my last two Clarence Court eggs. We opened the kitchen windows for the first time in months to rid the room of the billowing clouds of smoke that would invariably set the fire alarm off (fortunately we were relieved of that calamity), and attempted to scrape the burnt batter off the hob ring which arguably made the damage look even worse. Boyfriend then got annoyed because I'd promised to cut his hair that evening and pancakes had taken priority (duh), and if I couldn't cook a simple pancake without setting the house on fire, why would he let me go near his head with a pair of scissors? (Like cooking, I am extremely skilled in the art of men's hair cutting... just not this evening it seems.)
Suffice it to say, there was no hair cutting this evening... And I ended up skipping the lonely cold and crispy pancake and having a banana with Nutella instead, feeling like I had the opposite of the Midas touch. I am also mentally scarred at the idea of any form of cooking now, thanks to the culinary catastrophes I experienced in the space of two hours, leading me to believe that maybe I should have given up and gone to bed after the pasta sauce debacle. There is a lesson to be learned here about flour, the importance of Kilner jars, and the dangers of making pancakes.
I raced home this evening, dreaming of all the guilt-free Nutella I could eat, with bananas all chopped and folded up in a gloriously stodgy yet fluffy pancake. During dinner we had a small incident with some questionable pasta sauce, but I didn't let that deter me. After I'd tidied away I set about making pancakes, using the three vital ingredients that every cupboard has: an egg, plain flour, and milk.
I take pride in the fact that I do not require a recipe for a batter mix - it's all about getting the right consistency. If it's too thick, you add more milk; too sloppy: more flour. So I popped my penultimate Clarence Court Burford Brown egg into a pyrex jug, and started pouring out the flour. There were a lot of large crumb-like objects in the packet which I assumed were just larger clumps of flour, and among the noise of the butter sizzling in the pan and the extractor fan, I said to my boyfriend 'I didn't know flour had a best before date?' after seeing that the packet in my hand read '2012'. Then, after giving the nearly-empty bag a good shake and more 'crumbs' falling out into a heap on top of my beautiful (and expensive) egg, I looked down and realised that the flour was spotty... and had weird seeds in. All this was done with a narrative to my boyfriend, until I suddenly realised that these 'seeds' were grey and wriggling. In an instant, I shoved the jug into the sink and ran into the bathroom in terror to wash my hands and make sure I hadn't accidentally inhaled a whateverthatwas or had one crawling up my arm.
By the time I returned (in washing up gloves and outdoor boots) the boyfriend had disposed of the flour and egg contents, so I spent the subsequent half hour emptying out our food cupboard and binning anything in open packets or that we hadn't used in months (lentils, pearl barley, paella rice). I also interrogated the boyfriend who insisted that the rice, icing sugar, raisins and dry pasta would be safe as weevils (what a disgusting word) don't like dry or sweet stuff and they don't have the amino acids that flour has. I then phoned my Dad for secondary guidance who advised that if I got the pan hot enough I wouldn't have to worry about weevils - they'd provide extra protein, followed by a call to my mother for some sympathy - who suggested SIEVING out the weevils. Sometimes I think I'm adopted.
So back to square one, feeling traumatised and seriously considering living a gluten free lifestyle thanks to the flour fiasco. After deciding that I really did want pancakes and that it was worth using up the last posh egg, I dug out a Kilner jar of flour - probably even older but with a trusty seal to deter any creepy crawlies - and started again. Making the batter went smoothly this time, sans hiccups, and it was all starting to look quite promising... until I set fire to the kitchen.
I added some mixture to the hot, buttery pan and swirled the mix around. The first pancake came out quite thin and crispy, so I added a bit more mixture on the second go. As I was twirling the pan around - very gently - half the pancake suddenly stuck to the pan so I gave it a small nudge and before I knew it, the other half had slopped right over the pan and across the entire hob, like pancake vomit. I let out a short scream, prompting the boyfriend to check from the safe distance of the sofa if I was alright. So far, things were still under control if a little messy, so I replied 'no, no.. It's fine' whilst scraping the batter mix off with the spatula. Then suddenly, the melted butter used to grease the pan - which had also slopped onto the hob - set on fire in such a comical way, and all I could do was scream a bit louder and stand there waving an empty frying pan madly at the hob as the flames quivered on the glass hob - leaving me utterly speechless, and remembering something about using a damp cloth to put it out. Thank goodness the boyfriend had sense to take on board the seriousness of me becoming speechless with stifled yelps and rushed over in time to guide the pan directly onto the flames to put it out.
The pancake mixture lay in a horrible splatter across the stove and there was now a giant burnt crust forming on the stove and bottom of the pan. If you had been there at that moment, you would not have believed that in on a 'good' day, I am quite the talented chef. The remains looked like a pancake slaughter session or the aftermath of a food fight, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I ended up doing both. At the same time.
It took the boyfriend a while before he could see the funny side... He was more bothered about the glass stove, our security deposit, and scraping off the gloopy mess from the hob, whilst I was sad about wasting my last two Clarence Court eggs. We opened the kitchen windows for the first time in months to rid the room of the billowing clouds of smoke that would invariably set the fire alarm off (fortunately we were relieved of that calamity), and attempted to scrape the burnt batter off the hob ring which arguably made the damage look even worse. Boyfriend then got annoyed because I'd promised to cut his hair that evening and pancakes had taken priority (duh), and if I couldn't cook a simple pancake without setting the house on fire, why would he let me go near his head with a pair of scissors? (Like cooking, I am extremely skilled in the art of men's hair cutting... just not this evening it seems.)
Suffice it to say, there was no hair cutting this evening... And I ended up skipping the lonely cold and crispy pancake and having a banana with Nutella instead, feeling like I had the opposite of the Midas touch. I am also mentally scarred at the idea of any form of cooking now, thanks to the culinary catastrophes I experienced in the space of two hours, leading me to believe that maybe I should have given up and gone to bed after the pasta sauce debacle. There is a lesson to be learned here about flour, the importance of Kilner jars, and the dangers of making pancakes.
The remains of the second pancake.
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