Chocolate and Christmas

Merry Christmas, world!
After a full roast Christmas lunch and lots of champagne yesterday, today it is time to lay back and recover. The water down at the beach was beautifully cold and clear this morning, and I've already lost one game of Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit (but only just). Lacking interesting the Boxing Day Test (I've had had my silly-cricket-phrases-giggle already over 'orthodox right glance') and the Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race - and the resulting battle for the family television - I thought I would post a recipe from my Not-Quite-Christmas Dinner held on Wednesday.

As-Yet-Unnamed-Chocolate-Dessert

One block dark chocolate
Four tbsp unsalted butter
Two tbsp water
Two tbsp sugar
Five eggs, separated into yolks and whites
One packet Italian shortbread
One espresso

Melt the chocolate, butter, water and sugar in a metal bowl (or saucepan) placed over a saucepan of boiling water, stirring constantly. Once all melted, take off the heat and let cool for a few minutes (one track and announcement on Triple J). Stir in the egg yolks. Beat the egg whites into stiff peaks and gently fold into the mix (if beating eggs with a fork start beating a lot earlier). Place chocolate mix in fridge. Get a springform cake tin, line the bottom with greaseproof paper, and then make a base of shortbead finger that have been briefly dipped in the espresso (leaving gaps is fine). Cut other fingers in half, and place around the edge, cut end down. Pour about half the chocolate mix in, place another layer of shortbread dipped in espresso, and then pour remaining mix. Refrigerate for at least another few hours.
Serve with raspberries and cherries sprinkled over the top.

An Odds and Ends Post

Some interesting thoughts on feminism and how we read and write blogs.

Mazzy is a Bad Influence - she has got me hooked on Bunny.

On the sewing front, the Italian camisa is slowly taking shape seam by backstitched-with-linen-thread-seam. In another few weeks it may be together enough for me to tell if more gores will be needed, though hopefully not. Working with linen thread has been okay - not nearly as nice as silk but still a step up from evil unnatural fibres.
And speaking of unnatural fibres, I'm using them to make some Christmas presents. It felt both decadent and dirty to walk out of Spotlight with 100% artifical non-medieval-looking brocade and dancetime satin. The machine should be coming out of the box tonight and after that it's back to the purity of natural fibres.

Not The Nativity

This goes way beyond having four wise men...
I think I will concur with Rowan William, and echo 'oh dear...'

Research Remembering

This is more a note to self: Refractory with articles on fandom.

Chaos Follows

'Chaos follows.' This warning on the library printer (about the dangers of printing multiple jobs at once) seems applicable to my life at the moment.

The lights have just gone off (and luckily, now back on again) and the sound of power tools is resonating through the library. The joys of working in the university out of term time when it is assumed that library renovations won't inconvience anyone. I'd work from home but I can't face the thought of moving all the accumulated junk (no, research, really) from my carrel. Working at this time of year is difficult - the hot sunny days (and early library closing times) suggest days at the beach and evenings on the balcony with wine and cheese, while a number of accumulating and overrun deadlines (what first two thesis chapters?) mean that this student-free time should really be spend being productive.

At the moment I'm working on papers for two conferences in February. One is for 'Victorians and the Other' (the AVSA conference) which I've called 'The Other Women: Interrogating Sexuality in the Lost Race Romance', and the other for 'Old World, New Worlds' (the ANZAMEMS conference) titled "My brother, my captain, my king': Old Masculinities Meet New Technologies in Lord of the Rings'. Research for this paper involves playing video games, so maybe working over summer won't be quite so bad.

And it is almost Christmas - which makes a Christmas junkie like me rather happy. I've put up my decorations at home (if in a slightly improvised kind of way) and the sisterly decorating of the tree at my parents happened last week. Tomorrow I plan on an exceptional organised present shopping expedition, because the tree really does need the finishing touch of presents underneath it!