Clearing out browser tabs again...

• Sperm whales hunting squid!
• A Flash developer talking about why he reckons Flash can't work well on iPhone-type devices.
• Artificial Flight and other myths -- a reasoned explanation by Top Birds of why artificial flight would be impossible.
• A Lego robot that can solve a Rubik's Cube in under 12 seconds.
• Maths, neurons, & hallucinations.

Last night featured awesome CULINARY SCIENCE from marnameow & dogrando, in the form of a 12-course molecular gastronomy style dinner. Both food & company were excellent. I should do a proper writeup, but I am tired, so instead I will just mention the undoubted technical highlight: inside-out potato salad, which consisted of cubes of olive oil and chives (a potato-ish texture obtained by use of gellan), with potato foam, and a chive garnish. The blue cheese icecream was also pretty nifty.

fernasto & I had a very splendid meal on Friday at the Greenhouse in Manchester - veggie/vegan restaurant. Alarmingly wide choice on the menu (alarming in the sense that I am unaccustomed, these days, to having more than one or maybe two available options on these occasions), lots of vegan puddings, nice friendly staff, v decent house red. Thoroughly recommended.

This week's new thing to cook: cauliflower mash sandwich filling, as per here but with finely chopped chives & parsley (from the balcony) added as per here. Not amazing - I think I prefer roasting cauliflower if I'm not just going to eat it whole - but not bad.

Am also having another bash at the hot x buns since I'm home & they don't actually take much time input.

Have just finished making vegan hot cross buns.

Conclusion: not bad, but despite doubling the recommended quantities of spices, could still do with a bit more; also a pinch of salt (I was surprised at the exclusion & should have just put it in anyway). I'd put a bit more dried fruit in, as well, although marnameow disagrees.

Also: sachet yeast != dried yeast, so the first go at rising didn't. Mixing in some more actually activated yeast solved that problem, though.

Also to get the tops looking smoother I should have done the thing where you spin the balls of dough before their final rising, to pull the top tight.

I need a baking icon.

Made roasted sweet potato and leek pasta last night, which was v tasty.

Today my neck has seized up again (I kind of knew this was on its way), so I have a stinking headache and am working from home so I can apply heat/ice/whatever. And have a nice lie down when required. It has just occurred to me that ibuprofen might be a good plan. Tomorrow: the osteopath.

catsgomiaow recommended & loaned me Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (as part of 101 things book-recommendation thing).

( V short review - brain not operational today )

Also I cooked kale puttanesca for uon & myself last night. Although without the anchovies, obv, & without the olives because we didn't have any. It was very nice, although another time I'd chop the capers up as they were a bit alarming whole.

I am 30! As far as I can tell it is v similar to being 29 except that I have more shiny things. uon got me some v lovely jewellery; dogrando is also doing so except it's being made up so it's not actually here; marnameow got me a GIANT MAP & some stickers so I can put it on the wall & put stickers for all my insane bike rides on it! It covers Scotland as well as England so I now am morally obliged to do either LEL (London-Edinburgh-London) or Land's End - John O'Groats. Helpfully, my entry confirmation whatsit for LEL (2009) arrived this morning.

Am off work today, so have spent the morning doing carpentry (construction of table-type thing for balcony. It's not one of my best ever endeavours, but it should stay up), making food (review: om nom nom), revising intermittently for tomorrow's exam, and reading the internets. This afternoon I intend to be very lazy. And to finish putting stickers on my GIANT MAP.

So on my 101 things list I have an item about cooking something new once a week for three months. I started last night with something that only barely counts as new, but there we go. And it is at least seasonal, even sort of traditional.

( Lentils and greens )

This morning started my work year terribly well when I took the bike down & discovered Flat Front Tyre. Dammit. At least I got to fix it in the kitchen (warm) rather than outside (cold). Other than that, today work has occurred at least a bit, so that's good. Not looking forward that much to likely v v cold ride home, though.