Design snobbery

If you criticise a design because the final result doesn't look good or do the job, your criticism may be valid.

If you criticise a design because of the software that was used, your criticism is invalid and you are a design snob.


(Note, it's perfectly OK to criticise a design because a poor choice of software has resulted in it not looking good or doing the job. Because you're criticising the result, which is what matters.)

Light spam

I've been getting quite a bit of spam to my business email saying things like:

As knowing that you are in the LED lighting market . Now I am writing to establish business relationship with you .

Well, the email is kirsty(at)lampbiblepictures.co.uk. Obviously I sell lamps :-)

Hedgehog potatoes

Aka Hasselback potatoes.

I didn't make this recipe up, but I did it a bit simpler than some I've read - I didn't faff about with preheated baking trays of oil, or iced water or anything unneccessary like that :-)

You will need:

• Potatoes (new or medium)
• Oil
• Seasoning if you want

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. (Recipes say do it a bit hotter for medium potatoes)
2. Scrub potatoes.
3. Slice each potato in narrow slices, but don't slice all the way through. Tip from Nigella - place potato in the bowl of a wooden spoon to slice - that means you can't slice through by accident.
4. Brush potatoes on both sides with oil, place on baking tray sliced side up.
5. Season.
6. Cook for 45 minutes or so (longer if bigger), until brown and a bit crispy.
7. Yum!

Hedgehog potatoes - before cooking

Hedgehog potatoes - after cooking

I did quite a few potatoes as I had some needing used up. So I just had them on their own with a little gravy and salad. Obviously could be used in smaller quantities with meat.

It would be interesting to slice them both ways, in a criss-cross pattern - would look even more hedgehog-like.

The bloodmobile

This is really cute. I also learned quite a lot from it!

The Ingredients League

At last, finally, you can buy these! 

'A fun way to teach the functional properties of different ingredients in food products.

It is designed to complement the SQA Health & Food Technology National 4/5 course: Food Product Development.

20 comic-style PowerPoint presentations teach the properties of five ingredients: flour, sugar, egg, fat and liquid.'

(I thought I had it all sorted several days ago, and then discovered my files were too big to upload. Which involved a lot of re-jigging - for more or less the same end result.)

Book cover

Was playing myself and came up with this:

For no reason - just because I was listening to it on the radio.

Design wouldn't make much sense if you didn't know the book, but I think that's fair enough for a classic.

(I have now discovered why my pictures were coming out grey on my blog. Apparently it is auto'correcting' them. To stop it doing this, you have to change a setting in Google+. If you aren't on Google+ you have to join it - for the sole purpose of making your pictures appear as they should. Logical.)

Ebenezer

We sang this on Hogmanay, and I've been meaning to post it ever since...

Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed* His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Robert Robinson

 * Interpose: 'place or insert between one thing and another'. i.e. his blood comes between us and danger.