My Commonplace Blog
A digital form of the sadly lost fashion for copying out memorable passages from texts. I kept losing my actual book.
Saturday, 2 August 2025
The Huxleys are remembered as a scientific dynasty, but they are at least as significant as a literary family.
Friday, 1 August 2025
Mary still suggested popery for most English people
Mary still suggested popery for most English people. Indeed, one explanation for the failure to develop a stronger Marian devotional tradition in Anglicanism may be that those who had the strongest feelings about Mary became Catholic.
G. Woodman, 'The blessed Virgin Mary in Seventeenth Century Anglican Theology: a study in doctrine and devotion', Sobornost 46:1 (2024), 20
Wednesday, 18 June 2025
'Homemade' begs one question. Whose home? Have you actually seen people's homes?
'Homemade' begs one question. Whose home? Have you actually seen people's homes? Why should biscuits made at home be better than those baked in a factory, a factory that specialises in biscuits? I'm thinking here of Nairn's Oatcakes, Rakusen's Matzo Crackers and Carr's Water Biscuits. We don't seek treatment from amateur surgeons and Sunday dentists.
J. Meades, The plagiarist in the kitchen (2017), 143
Tuesday, 17 June 2025
Unpeeled potatoes are an abomination
SAUTE POTATOES
Do peel the potatoes - unpeeled potatoes are an abomination
Do not blanch them let alone boil them
Cut them into pieces the size of a malnourished walnut
J. Meades, The plagiarist in the kitchen (2017), 121
Monday, 16 June 2025
He promised to remove these carrots in a re-issue of the book, but they are still wrongly and redly there.
It [Lancashire Hotpot] needs very slow cooking in an oven. Into a family-sized, brown, oval-shaped dish with a lid, you place the following ingredients: best end of neck of lamb, trimmed of all fat; potatoes and onions thickly sliced. These go in alternate layers. Season well, cover with good stock, top with oysters, or, if you wish, sliced beef kidneys. There is no need for officious timing: you will know when it is done. Serve with pickled red cabbage and a cheap claret. In his novel The human factor, Mr Graham Greene has the effrontery to add carrots to the dish. He promised to remove these carrots in a re-issue of the book, but they are still wrongly and redly there.
Anthony Burgess, cited in J. Meades, The plagiarist in the kitchen (2017), 83-4
Sunday, 15 June 2025
Avoid. Stick to acid and opium
The best known recipe in the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook is for hashish fudge. She got the recipe from Brion Gibson who had got it in Tangier where it would have ben known as mahjoun. It is of Berber origin. The problem with it is the problem of cannabis in any form - it turns the most delightful people into dull obsessives or insensate, giggling bores or borderline psychotics. Protracted exposure to the wretched stuff causes brain damage. Avoid. Stick to acid and opium
J. Meades, The plagiarist in the kitchen (2017), 71
Saturday, 14 June 2025
They agree to license the song, then donated all the money - very publicly - to its striking workforce
IN the years since, there have been endless request to license the song [Tubthumping]. Almost always, the band say no. On specific occasions, they do make exceptions. One year, the US car company Chrysler offered them £100,000 to use the track on a TV ad. The band knew there'd been a long-running dispute at Chrysler's Detroit plant, it's workers striking for better wages, improved conditions. They agree to license the song, then donated all the money - very publicly - to its striking workforce. 'Chrysler were infuriated,' Whalley notes.
N. Duerden, Exit stage left: the curious afterlife of popstars (2022), 262-3