Butternut

Was going to post about what's cooking writing-wise at the moment but thought it best just to keep things simmering away (on low) on the back burner. And I'll post about butternut instead - which is a staple food over here - with butternut soup, butternut mash, butternut pie. Hub loves it and now I'm a reluctant convert.

When my daughter was little I used to sing her this little song:

'You can't butter up a butternut
You can't butter up a butternut
La la la la'

The one day hub brought home a particularly big butternut and I drew a face on it and some ears and my daughter fell in love with it and named it 'Baby Butternut' and wrapped it in a blanket and took it for walks in her pushchair and kissed it and put it to bed. Ah. Then she forgot about it and it rolled away down the back of something, somewhere in her bedroom.

One day - weeks later, craving his favourite vegetable, hub remembered the butternut and retrieved it sneakily. Hearing a bloodcurdling scream I ran to the kitchen to find my daughter in tears and orange slices piled up on the table.
'Daddy's killed Baby Butternut!' she sobbed.

Biscuits

Someone wanted to know how to make magic biscuits - I really can't remember - there's some here (but I can't vouch for them)

Ours had cinnamon in - in fact they were kind of like cinnamon shortbread. Its all in the mix - and for them to work - they have to get into the right mouths - you can't just leave them at reception..

Snatched girl - a great movie waiting to be made

Well there's been that big story in the news about the snatched Austrian girl Natascha. Sad but fascinating and has all the ingredients of a great movie so I'm sure chequebooks are being waved at her as I blog. Stockholm syndrome or not, she sounds remarkably self-possessed. But who knows the full story yet? Her rumoured pregnancy indicates a more subversive side to what went on. But still - it's the type of story I'd like to tell. I can already see those mesmerising, circular cat and mouse scenes between the caged captor and child - dark and disturbing. Here I must point out I don't do 'dark and disturbing' much at all - I just feel drawn to the details of this story- the little girl who ran away when her parents were arguing and met a wolf ... a truly grim fairytale...