Saturday night was a faux BBQ. We womanfolk of the flat decided it was time to use our poor forgotten BBQ again.
We dragged it downstairs (through the flat), so that it was in a more alluring position, on the front steps. On the way we dropped kitty litter from the drip-tray all over the carpet and had moments of wishing Kyle was home. But we got it there.
What we really cooked (and I use the term 'we' liberally, as most of it was Reidun) was a roast with lots of veges. Most things had a turn in the BBQ, but did a fair amount of time in the stove and oven too. So, it could just as easily have been an oven-roast.... but the principle was that we were using the BBQ.
The crackling got burnt, but after a good scraping off we ate it. At first we just nibbled it, so that Reidun wouldn't feel it had been wasted - but then we became addicted to the grease and we polished it off before dinner had even been served. Crackling is a good ice-breaker for a dinner party.
We had roast pork with home made apple sauce and jus. We had broccoli with home made cheese sauce. We had a spinach, pear, blue-cheese and walnut salad (my only contribution). We had a medley of roast vegetables, including kumara, potato, pumpkin and carrots.
We had gin and tonic with lemon wedges. I used to think they were only for depressed old ladies - I am now converted to the joy of them (or I have, in fact, become a depressed old lady myself and in denial). We had red wine (the one with a pretty picture of a lady riding a bicycle on the label). We had more red wine (from the cask).
I commented that I felt like I was in the scene at the end of Jamie's Kitchen, where everyone is handing around the food, and there's loud laughter and funky music in the background. Pukka tukka! I like it when actual dinner parties feel like that.
There was apple crumble (using the apples from our back-yard) with chai-whipped-cream and gourmet vanilla ice-cream.
We three and our guest then watched Strictly Ballroom and Dirty Dancing. There was a theme. We commented knowingly on top-lines and heel-leads. I pointed out that the thrust of the plot for Dirty Dancing was everyone pulling together to get an abortion. I wonder if it was actually marketed as a family movie, or if it accidentally became a cult classic for every girl growing up in the 80s. There are certainly more steamy scenes and sexual innuendo than you notice as a kid...
Reidun used the left0ver cream to do real chai lattes for us (served in glasses with folded napkins, like the professionals do).
Today I woke up to Reidun knocking on my door telling me there was home-made banana bread and Grease downstairs. I was looking confused at the grease offering, until I realised it wasn't going to be spread on the banana-bread. Carly then gave us some of her home-made onion soup for lunch and there was mulled wine simmering away on the stove all afternoon (to use up the cask wine).
* * *
Incidentally, I played my first game of indoor ultimate for the season tonight. I was on the Zesty team. It was fun. It'll be good if we have slightly less subs there some nights, but it was a nice mix of people. We beat the other Creatures team by a decent margin.
I think our team might have had less brand-new people, or at least our ones caught on really quickly. We had the instincts right and even the brand-new people had decent hands for catching and a nose for the scoring zone. Not many of our passes went wildly astray - good sensible options. Mike held it all steady with some experience and advice.
I played fairly loose defence, since I was marking new players most of the time and didn't want to freak them out. On offence I think I did ok - didn't drop any catches, threw mostly good passes (except for a few overly ambitious ones in the zone). Caught a few points and passed at least one. It's certainly an advantage if you're taller than your marker, once you get down to the key-hole. That element is more like the sports I'm used to, where you can just kinda post up and hold space, waiting for the lob. And passing was a lot easier than in outdoors. Since we had so many subs, you were only usually on for two points, then off for a few. That meant you were always fairly fresh when you were on, so it was easy to fast-break and keep up with your player.
Looking back, I think our poor Cows Go Moo team had a real baptism by fire - our first game ever was on a day where there were gale-force wind warnings on the radio. If we'd started with indoors, we might all have been a lot happier from the get-go! And it suits our style of game quite well, with the quick passing up court, rather than set plays.
It was a bit odd going from playing with all my friends to playing on a team where I knew one person's name confidently. It's always a bit of a flash-back to high-school days, where I'd be the youngest on my basketball team and I could easily go to practices and say 'hi' and 'see ya' but nothing much in between. It's Shy Katie territory. I made a few in-context comments, like 'Good point' and 'Sorry about that - kinda led you into the wall with that pass' and 'Nah, I'll go on next point.' But nothing terribly chatty.
I've gone from being the captain to being something way down the line, quite happy to just follow and do what I'm told. I think the Creatures franchise is a place where they have more than enough chiefs, so I'm happy being an Indian.
*Note: The title of this blog is how a kid in my class actually read out that line from 'Twelth Night' when we were doing a read-through last term. Teaching has its humour.
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