All caught up

Right, I've finally completed the proofreading on all the chapters of Arctic Raoul that I've currently got typed up (twelve of them totalling 44,500 words). Again, I'd made quite a few active changes while doing the typing-up, however many weeks/months ago that was [edit: 4^th March], and elected to retain almost all of them — just one I think was probably the result of an accidental skipping of a line during transcription, and I decided it was an improvement anyway.

I did a little more tinkering with the text; the only line that really gave me trouble was the one about the lonely herdsman sitting with his wife (implicit contradiction), whiling away time while (unfortunate repetition) whittling with his knife (undesirable rhyme). He is now an 'unknown' herdsman with a 'goodwife' by the fire — and an 'and' instead of a 'while' ;-p
It's amazing how long that sort of reworking always takes...

Anyway, the whole thing has now been printed off (considerably delayed by the printer's paper feed dying of apparent old age in the middle of the print run, with taking it to bits failing to fix the problem) and has been taken down to the post-box, albeit at about 1.30am. I took the opportunity to reread the entire Christine-section, and found a few more typos that had clearly slipped through previous proofreadings... but it's good. I still think that, of its kind, it's good.( Read more... )

Smothered sausages

How to get two helpings out of one sausage, 1920s style this time (courtesy of "500 Cookery Hints").

For the dish "Smothered sausages", take a large sausage and parboil it together with a couple of stalks of celery. Meanwhile, boil a (very) large potato. When the celery is tender, take it and the sausage out of the pan, slit and remove the sausage-skin, and mash together the chopped celery and sausagemeat. Form the mixture into a roll.
When the potato is cooked, mash it with salt and pepper and a little butter, and mix in half an egg. Mould the mashed potato all around the sausage mixture and brush with the remaining egg.
Cook this roll in a tin with plenty of dripping using a moderate oven for about half an hour, until the top is browned and the inside cooked through. Two servings with a green vegetable or plenty of salad... or use 8oz sausages and 1lb potatoes to make a family-sized roll!