Teaser Tuesday - Mar 29

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The film jumped. Here again was the blurred view of the same intersection, apparently deserted, the same heavy flakes of snow obscuring the view, but now the clock in the lower corner read 02:12.

The private investigator trawls through CCTV footage in Robert Galbraith's 'The Cuckoo's Calling'. (maybe not next week!). We've - as a book group - recently started another sequence of novels for each month on themes and are starting off with crime.

Mutterings - Mar 28

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Hope :: Centre
2. Notification :: Email
3. Destiny :: 's Child
4. Soda :: Syphon
5. Interfere :: Abuse
6. Wedding :: Blood (the Lorca play)
7. Bald :: (as a ) Coot
8. Guided :: Missile
9. Galaxy :: Car
10. Difficult :: Crack (ah, it's the Eiger - I thought it might be somewhere in the Peak District!)

Mutterings - Mar 22

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Slept in! :: Pillow
2. Brother :: Big
3. Highrise :: Leeds
4. Pizza :: Box (food or Sun computer?)
5. Trivial :: Pursuit
6. Humming :: Bird
7. Screams :: Munch
8. Marker :: Magic
9. Idealist :: Hope
10. Fat :: Trim (probably using the knife to remove it rather than any implications for the figure!)

Aberdeenshire Rowies

I'd not made these for many years and eventually remembered what they were called, found the recipe and made them for post-church breakfast this morning. Some people asked for the recipe...
this is my version of the one in Elizabeth David's English(!) Bread and Yeast Cookery:
Ingredients:

• 500g white bread flour
• 250g butter
• 20g yeast
• c300ml warm water
• 3tsp salt
• flour/cornflour for dusting

Cream the yeast and make dough with the flour, yeast, salt and water to make a soft dough.
Let rise for 30-45 minutes.
Cut the butter into cubes of around 6mm
Roll out dough thinly c 36x24cm
Place half the butter cubes evenly over the dough, fold up in thirds and turn.
Rest it in the fridge for c 15 mins.
Roll out again as before, scatter the remaining butter over it and again fold the dough.
Let rest for 15-30 mins in the fridge.
Roll out again and cut into around 50 pieces around 3cm square
Put on floured cooking trays - they won't expand much so don't need to be very widely spaced.
Let rise for 30mins.
Cook in 220C oven for 15-20 mins - the rowies will leak butter so the cooking trays will need a lip at the edge!
Cool on rack, I cooked them the day before and they re-warmed pretty well.

Recipes on the web suggest the authentic version is to have c 120g lard in addition to the butter and cream them together! This version is definitely tamer!

Teaser Tuesday -

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples’ dropping,
When the grasshopper comes to trouble,
And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble,
And all winds go sighing
For sweet things dying.

Bit of an atypical teaser as it's the poem by Christina Rossetti which introduces Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling's) the Cuckoo's Calling - the book title occurs earlier in the quote! Our bookgroup book of the month, and this is a easy (and good) read - at least so far! I intend to tease something from the actual text next week!

Mutterings - Mar 14

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Puzzle :: Monkey (aka Auracaria and a Guardian crossword puzzle setter of blessed memory)
2. Bolt :: from the blue
3. v.2 :: .1
4. Cottage :: thatched (or via Kenneth Williams - upright!)
5. Command :: Performance
6. 99 cents :: Discount
7. Attic :: Column (I hope there were that sort as well as Doric - yes here)
8. Crash :: Bump
9. Damp :: Patch
10. Area :: Cover

Mutterings - Mar 8

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Meteor :: Bolide - my astronomy background - though I had to look it up for spelling and meaning!
2. Piggy bank :: Rattle
3. Star Trek :: Scotty
4. Nail polish :: Chip
5. Theme song :: Credits
6. Bubble :: Squeak
7. Peeled :: Eyes (and maybe trousers)
8. Teal :: Duck
9. Container :: std:deque (c++ language reference!)
10. Survival :: Fittest

Teaser Tuesday - Mar 2

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

She came and got it for me, and after she put the bottle back I could gloat over there being more gone out of it then out of the crme de menthe bottle. "Now everyone will think the cherry brandy's the popular one," I thought.

Cassandra sample's the pub's spirit section in a final teaser from Dodie Smith's 'I capture the castle' which I finished last night. Here's my previous teaser, I think it rather overdoes the quirky and I wondered if Harper Lee had seen it before writing To Kill a Mockingbird, totally different environments and one narrator far more frivolous than the other but...

Mutterings - Mar 1

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Hold :: Fast
2. Stubble :: Plough
3. Checking account :: Balance
4. Dove :: Soap
5. Hollow :: Palm
6. Shape :: Kexagon
7. Full :: Glass
8. Nails :: Painting
9. Masking :: Tape
10. Host :: Communion