Author: adrian

Badger Bakes

Holiday baking

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Tis the season and all that stuff.
When we became parents to our infuriating and amazing sons we’ve tried to make Christmas special for them, but we’ve slimmed down as the boys got older and their interests moved away from family games and movies to hanging out with their friends online, playing games and chatting and working on projects, which is great because kids should grow up and away.

This year my baking was at its most slimmed down, almost austere in it’s simplicity. I asked the family what they wanted and baked accordingly.

I made buns/rolls (from the Subway Bread recipe that I use) for leftover sandwiches (younger spawns favourite Christmas food)

A pile of soft white leftover sandwich rolls

But the hit of Christmas day were the Yorkshire puddings.

I’ve never had much luck with them and actually don’t like them that much, so gave up trying to make them. But, this week I just happened across a discussion on Reddit where a chef (who hates them, but makes hundreds a week) gave a beautifully sweary breakdown of how to make the perfect Yorkshires. So I gave it a go and the kids loved them, in fact managed to finish off all I made on Christmas day.

So I think I’ll be making more of the “bland pillowy bastards” for my family on a regular basis. Thank you sweary chef from England.

Sweary Yorkshire Puddings
Badger Makes

Knitting and me

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I’m a knitter. 
A man who knits, not that that is a strange thing anymore, well not among the knitting community. Occasionally a journalist will find out about a bright young thing (like Tom Daley) who is also a talented knitter and suddenly gasps all around there are men who *gasp* knit! 

Anyway, I love to knit, it is my mindfulness practice. I used to think that I was a project knitter, but I think I’m actually a process knitter, the actual production of the fabric is so much more important to me than the outcome, even if the outcome is nice to wear.

So I’ll be using this new blog to talk about my knitting projects and processes with lot of nice photos that I take to post on Mastodon for the attention it gives.  

Currently on the needles:

St Brigid by Alice Starmore

I recently completed the back, this is it drying after blocking.
There will be a St Brigid page when I get around to it with more photos

Badger Writes

A new approach and a new blog

adrianLeave a comment

Years ago, before the billionaires became billionaires from buying out everything and subsuming every way we communicated, I blogged. It never mattered if I was read, it was mainly a way for me to share my thoughts on a page, more of a personal journal than anything else.

I got involved with different green living/ downshifting fora, and got to know some great people, then Facebook arrived and ate up everything, exchanging thoughts and ideas and experiences became more about fulfilling a childish desire to show off and that showing off was rewarded and I indulged in that for quite a few years.  

Now all of that (Facebook, Twitter etc) is crumbling, and what was social media is being exposed as really just manipulation and sales, and people are leaving. I left and joined Mastodon, I discovered the Fediverse and it was a reminder of how much joy I had in the early internet, actual discovery of new things, BlogRolls and links and nothing curated by algorithms.  

So here I am again, 16 years later, older, in a different country and trying with this blog to recapture something of how I felt all those years ago on that exciting new internet.

So this is just really for me, a journal, photos of things I made or enjoyed or saw, ideas I had, shower thoughts and memes that made me chuckle.