Fame and fortune

This last fortnight or so has been nothing if not exciting. Many extraordinary and unusual happenings have been explored; many interesting people and places have been experienced. So to speak.

Anyway, one of the truly amazing heady highpoints was opening the new issue of Blankpages, which hit the interwebs on Tuesday (and which you can download here), to find this very blog featured in the Blankpicks section, written this month by 330 Words editor, #beatoff collaborateur and my friend Tom Mason. I had known that Words & Fixtures was going to be mentioned, and that the blogging baton would be passed on to me to give my choice in issue 33. What I didn't know was quite how many lovely adjectives and descriptions Tom was going to employ!

Surely nothing, ever, could beat: "She’s a bit like the local Lauren Laverne of literature". Goodness me. Perhaps my work here is done.

Hope you like jammin' too

I've been busy this week copywriting for the soon-to-be-launched new and improved Big Green Festival website, along with various other extra-curricular tasks. Maybe it's because I love pies that I have my fingers in so many, but Chorlton's Big Green Festival was my first so it occupies a special place in my gravy-laced calendar.

This year, CBGF celebrates its second birthday (on Saturday 27 March) and, like any festival worth its road salt, it's now got its own fringe! Here are posters for the first two fringe events, one of which is tomorrow at the fabulously named Jam Street Cafe. Someone once told me that it's so named because the road on which it sits, Upper Chorlton Road, takes you up to the jam factory. I don't know if that's true or not; it would be something of a circuitous route to the soon-to-be former 113-year-old Duerr's HQ on Prestage Street in Old Traffo. Whatever, we jammin'...

Pie-making with a difference

I'm quite liking The Blogpaper, as mentioned yesterday. It seems to be quite good at bringing curious things to my attention. Today, I've been checking out Toxel and their many and varied "design ieas and tech concepts", and their link to Ed Bing Lee's magnificent knitted American-style fast food.


This perfect slice of pumpkin pie is from Lee's Delectables Series. It makes me think of the Double R diner in Twin Peaks.

Piekus

Made my second pie in as many weeks. Both have been plate pies, made with shortcrust pastry. That is the best kind of pie you can have, in my humble pie opinion. Unless it's a pork pie, which is a different kettle of fish (or, at least, a different kind of pie).

Anyway, the last pie I made was rabbit, in tribute to the sad demise of classic musical duo Chas and Dave. The latest one was chicken, using the leftovers from Sunday's roast (it is a recession, y'know).

So, there I was, standing in the kitchen rubbing butter into flour and gazing wistfully out of the window at the newly trained jasmine, when inspiration came to me. In a flash. Like it does. That's when I started making up haikus about pies; piekus, if you will.

Here's a selection of the tasty morsels. Let me know what you think.

Pieku #1: Prize Pies
Pastry case, golden
Glaze. Crimped, pimped: three leaves, two slits.
Fit for first, this one.

Pieku #2: Mind The Gap
Meat and potato.
Chicken, mushroom, leek; steak n'ale.
Pork, mustard on't side.

Pieku #3: On A Theme By Queen
I want a pie. I
Want a pie. I want a pie.
And I want it now.

Pieku #4: Not My Type
Shortcrust. Suet. Puff.
Plate pie. Pudding. Vol-au-vent.
Well, each to their own.

Pieku #5: Lady Killer
"You're too damn flaky,"
Shrilled the woman, knife in hand,
Expertly stabbing.

Pieku #6: Man Slaughter
"You're a right pudding,"
He muttered under his breath,
Then dug in sharp teeth.

Pieku #7: After The Beatles
I am the pie man.
I am the pie man. I am
The pieman. Coo-coo-ki-choo.

(Copyright Clare Conlon, as if you were going to nick this rubbish.)

Snack attack

Also seen in the Padstow vicinity...
Printed on the bag which contained a famous Cornwall carry-out:

Authentic, homemade Cornish Pasties made where possible,
with fresh and locally sourced ingredients

It's my guess you can make pasties pretty much any place there's
an oven, so "where possible" counts out a) up a sea cliff,
b) down a tin mine, c) on a beach, d) in a cider orchard, etc.
(It's a grammar question, in case you're puzzled. There should
be another comma after "made".)

Still, it's true what they say about pasties staying warm for ages
(so miners could put them in their pockets on leaving the house for work and they'd still be toasty by lunchtime). This one kept radiating heat until at least halfway to the aforementioned rubbish pub.

Mishape: fast food nation

Saw a bloke wearing a tee announcing I Heart Chips (not dissimilar to the I Heart Pies one in 29 April entry). How on trend.

Mis-shape: fat Ts

Was perusing @technicalfault's Twitpics, and came across this beauty:



I was also tickled by the "sex, drugs and sausage rolls" one I saw in town the other day. I'm just hoping I don't see them on fat lads all summer, as that would be a chronic case of negative irony (if such a thing exists).