Twitterature: some highlights

From Macbeth

Banquo seems to have died in the forest. Oh well!


From Hamlet

WTF IS POLONIUS DOING BEHIND THE CURTAIN?


From Emma

Jane and Frank were together all along? Who saw that one coming? Good thing I was never interested. Not in the least.


From Frankenstein

I'm definitely not responsible for this.


From Anna Karenina

Alright, twenty rubles says that I can toss my bag in the air, run across the tracks, and catch it before the train arriv–


From Mrs Dalloway

On a side note, has anybody noticed that @Septimus's posts have become a little erratic since the war ended?


From In Cold Blood

My Southern background and career as a New York literary homosexual will no doubt win me the trust and favor of these Midwestern farmers.

But I'm fairly sure the technology doesn't exist

Emboldened by the success (so far at least) of the Christmas cake, I set off into unknown waters yesterday and decided to make a Christmas Puddin' as well, something I've never done before in my life. A dear friend had asked me if I knew how to find the justly fabled puddin' recipe of equally justly fabled Adelaide chef Ann Oliver, so after a little sleuthing and help from the lovely Prof Barbara Santich, also justly fabled in foodie circles, I found the recipe and upon reading it was inspired to have a go myself, if only to find out whether something as apparently disgusting as suet really could be somehow successfully incorporated into a justly fabled Christmas Puddin'.

Stage 1 is now bedded down in the red bowl, and since one bowl of dried fruit soaking in alcohol doesn't look all that different from another bowl of dried fruit soaking in alcohol, especially if it's the same bowl, I won't take and post another photo.

But what I would dearly, dearly love to do is blog the smell. The smell, in the order in which the ingredients were added, is of combined raisins, sultanas, dried cranberries, candied peel, glacé ginger, glacé cherries, glacé apricots, soft pitted dates, lemon juice, blood-orange juice, grated rind of oranges and lemons, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, Guinness and cognac.

Fresh, dark, sweet and sharp. Overwhelmingly all of those things at once. Seductive beyond measure.

The bowl is covered in clingwrap while the fruit soaks up all the groggy juicy goodness, and hidden away high up in a dark cupboard, safe(ish) from the depredations of tortoiseshell omnivores, treacherous weather and puddin' thieves.