So, I'm about to try making ox tongue for the first time. Well, the tongue itself, obviously, comes pre-made, but I'm trying to make it edible for the first time. At 1.5kg of solid meat, it is the biggest piece of meat I've ever tried to cook. Sadly, only just put it in the pan now, and is going to take at least 50 mins per 500g...basically, poor Fish will probably not be eating it tonight. I'm boiling it, taking off the tough outer skin and then going to flash fry it in a lemon marinade, and serve with parsley sauce and roast potatoes. In theory. Except that there's no way I'll be able to serve any of this before 12am at the earliest. Never mind. Cold tongue is famously nice.
Was a long day today, like most of the days. I've realised I have once again forgotten to take home a job spec that my friend has passed to me. Maternity leave in an agency for 8 months. The pay will be rubbish, and the job uncertain (if I even got it). However, is still tempting as I would get to deal with that greatest of all things: real books. I am truly sick of happy endings. Would love to see a Mills and Boon end with utter death and destruction. Just once. 'Can this innocent debutante teach dark-hearted Lord Denford that love can heal the deepest of hurts?' No! No she can't. She is going to fail, and be Crushed Forever by her inability to maintain a functional adult relationship. She will, in fact, die alone, having constructed a noose by ingeniously dismantling a whalebone corset. Meanwhile, Lord D shall die a happy drunken death, mid-coitus, at 41.
Life is unfair and sometimes I wish our books were ever allowed to reflect that.
On the other hand, when a romance story does work (I'd say 2% of the time, my more romantically-minded and less slush-allergic colleagues (they like both Glee and Twilight) would say more like 10%), it is wonderful. I'm still in it, I think, because that moment when the two characters make it, and you truly believe that this is it for them - they will be together forever and everything in their worlds will be just slightly better for it - is one of the warmest, most glowingy feelings that are legally available.
