Single Entity

1) You inadvertently pronounce "tomato" as "tomahto".
2) When you say "pasta", the vowel is no longer the "a" of "father" but that of "man".
3) You are momentarily confused when someone from home talks about "pants", because you've come to accept that "pants" means underpants rather than trousers ("sweatpants" are a ludicrous and mind-boggling idea in this context).
4) Your inner monologue develops a broad Scottish accent, even though you cannot actually pronounce it. Or even understand it.

That is all.

Oh my god, I had the best day ever yesterday. For serious.

I started off in Pittenweem, where I got the key to St. Fillan’s cave from an adorable little café called The Cocoa Tree, and then proceeded to wander down this little wynd to the cave where St. Fillan supposedly lived during the 8^th century, writing sermons in the dark by the light of his luminous left arm. I felt all daring and adventurous using the giant old-fashioned key to unlock a gate that felt like it hadn’t been opened in years. It took several tries to make the key turn, and after all that effort, I was ready for some 8^th century arm-luminosity. It actually only took about five minutes to see the entire cave, which was not all that impressive, but I spent a good twenty minutes just sitting on the ground, trying to imagine what it would have been like if I were an 8^th century monk with a luminous left arm (I kept hoping that my arm would start to glow, but no luck). In the end, I was just sitting in the middle of a cave. But just when I was leaving, I turned off the electrical lights they’d installed in the centuries following St. Fillan and went back across the antechamber and into the cave itself…and froze with terror. Even though I knew I was the only living thing in there, with the exception maybe of some bats that I could hear squeaking in the chamber above, I was convinced there was some kind of danger in there. I could feel my heart beat just a little harder when I heard footsteps passing outside of the gate. All my senses were suddenly on edge. Now, this says one of two things: Either I am a giant coward who is afraid of the dark (quite possible) or times were a lot more terrifying back in the 8^th century when lighting was hard to come by, luminous arms aside. It totally trumped my imagination exercise of the past twenty minutes. What a feat, Fillan, sitting in the dark all the time, even with the light of your luminous left arm. Kudos.

After that, I walked about a mile and a half to Anstruther, where I got the UK’s best fish and chips (officially so!) and then looked around for the Smuggler’s Inn, where a sex club called the Beggar’s Benison used to meet in the 18^th century (I first learned about it from this Slate article). It turns out that the Inn had closed just last week, so I went around the corner to another old-timey looking pub called the Dreel Tavern. Walking in, I was hit with the overwhelming atmosphere of “old”. There was a fire crackling, the décor was very 18^th century, there were old-timey lanterns covering the lights, and the ceiling beams were exposed, a sure sign that this was a relic from the olden days. It was a cozy little place, and possibly my favorite pub in Scotland.

There was a crew of regulars, and the woman tending the bar knew them all by name and didn’t need to be told what they wanted to drink when they came in. One would enter, she’d already have his drink in hand, ready for him. The only other woman at the bar was a wry local who bantered easily with the others. I liked her right away, and even more when she saw my notebook and began spicing up the conversation so I could have something better to eavesdrop and take notes on. Eventually I began to ask questions about the history of the place, and they were all local history buffs and began to tell me overwhelmingly all about the history. Apparently the Dreel Tavern is the oldest building in Anstruther – James V of Scotland stayed there in the 16^th century – and is haunted. Most of the places around there have quite a history with smuggling, as well. And the Beggar’s Benison…well, I didn’t get much information about that. One of them had read a book on the subject – the one, I’m sure, who’s mentioned in the Slate article – and all he would tell me was that “they were a bunch of nobles involved in a lot of debauchery”. I’m sure he wasn’t very eager to discuss a sex club, even a historical one, with someone young enough to be his daughter. Everyone assumes, for some reason, that I’m an innocent young lady, which makes it difficult to get information about sex clubs. They did, however, make up for this by telling me about the Pittenweem witches, who were apparently connected with St. Fillan’s cave and were held, after they were accused, in a church that I’d walked past three or four times that day. One of the men even went back to his house to fetch a book about the witches, which he then gave to me (although it’s difficult for me to solicit information about sex clubs, I am apparently a target for free books).

I am excited to go back to Pittenweem after I’ve read the book and take another look around. Perhaps I will sit in the cave again and imagine what it was like to be a woman accused of witchcraft, and perhaps knowing more about the history of the cave will transform it from an ordinary cave to a terrifying cell. So, although my investigation veered off course, I had a most informative and exciting day. I call it a success.

Oh, and then I came home and visited the Pictish cemetery at midnight, just in case I hadn’t had enough history.

I have just discovered that treacle is like unto molasses, which they don't have in the UK. This means that I can make delicious things like molasses crinkle cookies and gingerbread!

Also, I just gave a gingerbread cake to the flat downstairs, whose cake tin I always borrow and keep for months on end, and they were happy, and that made me happy. I don't like to return a pan empty, and besides, this way they keep letting me borrow it. "This is the most useful piece of equipment we own!" Luke said when I gave it to them.

I enjoy being the giver of random cake.

I love to cook. Mostly I just putter around in the kitchen and hope things turn out for the best, but I really enjoy it. I'm comfortable in kitchens*. I usually resist the urge to blog about the things I cook, because how interesting could that really be? But last night we had some adventures in the kitchen that I was rather proud of.

It was an hour or so before MM was scheduled to show up. I'd told him that someone on the cooking rota would be making dinner, although it wouldn't be me because my turn had been the night before. But of course, exam-time disruptions in the rota meant that no one had planned on cooking. So there I was with a minimal amount of rice, some bread, a few mushrooms, two onions, and a bell pepper and no time to walk a mile to the store and back. S, looking through the cupboards with me, found R's leftover potatoes from baked potato night and a few more peppers. MT could contribute cheese, tomatoes, and chocolate. So we made it up as we went along.

For an appetizer, we sliced the potatoes into thin rounds and tossed them with olive oil, salt, and spices and baked them at about 390 degrees (rough conversion from Celsius) until they were crispy. Looking at our combined main course ingredients assembled on the counter, we decided what we could do with them. Our first step, naturally, was to saute the onions and mushrooms with some garlic (S helpfully turned up to stir them around once they were cooked and the heat was off). Then we toasted some bread in the oven and grated it to make breadcrumbs and added them to the onion and mushroom mix (we tried toasting the bread in the toaster first, and that...didn't work so well. We got bread chunks instead of crumbs). We scrounged for a carrot in the refrigerator, chopped it finely and added it for color. MT added some vegetable stock for flavor and texture, since it was getting dry, and then threw in tons of "Herbes de Provence", garlic salt, and sage. We halved the bell peppers and then stuffed them with our mixture, topped them with grated cheese, and stuck them in the oven until the cheese melted. Add some red wine (from a box, of course), and voila! A classy meal.

MM arrived in the middle of our panic, but was luckily just rather amused at our situation (and impressed by our inventiveness!). It was, in all, quite a culinary adventure. We had the attitide of "You have an ingredient that might work? Throw it in. Hopefully it will turn out well." Much more exciting than actually knowing what we were doing, and a success in the end. Excellent.


You know, this blog is quickly going to turn into a domestic-things type blog if Caroline keeps writing about sewing and I ramble as much as I want to about cooking. Quickly now, someone write about current issues! Start an intellectual discussion!

*I have to throw in the disclaimer though: this is not because I feel it's my rightful place! If I didn't like cooking, I damn well wouldn't. I do what I do because I like it, not because I'm anti-feminist. Okay? Okay.

Medievalists say the darnedest things, you know. While studying for my medieval history and medieval literature exams, I keep finding the silliest sentences, especially in books about the middle ages in film. For some reasons, medievalists, especially those who are also interested in film, are way more informal in their writing than you'd expect. Older medieval historians are silly in their own stuffy-prose sort of way, of course. Here is a small sampling:

First, John Aberth writes

But historians are not ones to be dictated to by cranky literature professors.

I really enjoy this quote because this semester I've been the equivalent of the cranky literature professor. Yes hello, historians? It does not really matter who the "real" Robin Hood was. It has no bearing whatsoever on the legend, which has evolved to become a literary thing, whatever historical roots it may or may not have. GIVE IT UP. Ahem.

Next, Fredric L. Cheyette writes

For the word "feudalism" is not a simple universal concept like "table" or "unicorn".

Now, table is possibly a fairly universal concept (questionable: sideboard?), but unicorn? Is "unicorn" really a universal concept? Why bring mythical creatures into this? What an unexpected concept that Mr. Cheyette asks us to grapple with while we simultaneously work out what feudalism is.


Lastly, an essay in The Medieval Hero on Screen describes Lancelot as "beefy but sensitive", which is just hysterical. Lancelot the Beefy But Sensitive. Heh.


Listening to me cackle over my books one time too many, my flatmate shoves "Causes of Acceleration and Newton's Laws" into my hands and says, "Here, read something sensible."

Sensible, indeed.