Moussaka

I don’t honestly even like moussaka much. By my wife loves it (and aubergines more generally), so a while back (pre-lockdown) she ordered it in a supposed Greek restaurant, only to find that what arrived resembled a shepherd’s pie: very little aubergine all mixed in with the meat sauce, and with a layer of mashed potato on top in place of the white sauce. Ugh.

Here’s how it should look (stolen from a recipe on the BBC website)

Anyway, being the exemplary husband that I am, I cooked a moussaka for her, more according to her preferences. This is the recipe I landed on (having read two or three that were in the ballpark but not quite right).

What I’ve been reading lately, part 38

Tremendous Trifles — G. K. Chesterton

One of the better ways to approach Chesterton is through a collection like this one, consisting of 30 or 40 or so short, self-contained pieces in which he thinks about things he has seen or done. He is always a keen observer, quick to see beneath the surface of things, and able at drawing analogies between trivial occurrences and the most profound matters. And of course, he is fun.

The pieces collected as Tremendous Trifles vary rather wildly in quality, but in any one of them fails to appeal, there’s always the knowledge that the next one will be along soon. It’s the second time I’ve read this (see my notes on the first time), and won’t be the last.

Home-made beefburgers

These are very much better than anything you get in a shop.

They are really simple to make. Here’s how.

I’m getting better at this pizza thing

I didn’t think to get a photo before I’d eaten a good chunk of it:

But here is last night’s pizza — one of three that I made. Fiona’s was topped with olives and anchovies, Jonno’s with BBQ chicken. For my own, I planned to go 100% traditional and use only tomato sauce, mozzarella and a few basil leaves, but I chickened out at the last minute and added sliced chorizo.

ScottKit in the wild!

Thanks to a tweet (in Spanish!) from Zona Fi, I have learned of not one but two series of adventure games being written in my toolkits for building Scott Adams-format adventure games!

The first is written in ScottKit, the newer and better of the two:

It is Jason Compton’s Ghost King, an interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which you can play online at Netlify (though I can’t find a way to download it).

Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the statues?!

What I’ve been reading lately, part 37

High Society — Ben Elton

Elton doing what he does best, colliding a cast of somewhat stereotypical characters (the corrupt politician, the drugged-out singing star, the teenage runaway) and working with the sparks that fly — and doing so with rather more craftsmanship than he is often credited with.

Gavin Burrows on William Hartnell’s Doctor Who

Different Doctor Who fans have responded in different ways to the shallow disappointment that is the Chibnall/Whittaker era. I have reluctantly written something about each episode, despite actively disliking plenty of them. Elizabeth Sandifer seems to have pretty much given up. Andrew Rilstone has written about the most recent season (having quite rightly skipped the previous one), but is also reviewing Tom Baker’s tenure from the start.

But maybe the most interesting response has been that of Gavin Burrows.

Making pizza from scratch

This is a recipe adapted from one that my good friend Charles Ledvina gave me. I have only made it once — to good effect — so I am blogging this mostly so that I have an easy way to find it. If you find it useful, too, all well and good.

The first pizza as it came out of the over. The cheese is slightly toasted, because I left it in too long, hoping to char the crust.

What I’ve been reading lately, part 36

The Magician’s Nephew — C. S. Lewis

I don’t quite remember what the specific stimulus was for my starting to re-re-re-read Lewis’s classic Narnia books. But this must be at least the tenth time through, going back to when I was eight or nine. (These are often referred to collectively as “The Chronicles of Narnia” but that it exactly what they are not. They are stories, with no pretense to historic verisimilitude or exhaustiveness.)