Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Despite the title of the blog and the tantalising picture of caramel slice at the top of the page, some of you may be feeling that my entries have been sadly lacking in food content. Rest assured that I haven't given up cooking in the least, and would like to prove it by offering some photographic evidence of the latest creations. So, first up: the other day at work one of my colleagues grabbed a left-over piece of bread dough, rolled it out thin, slapped some pepperoni and cheese on it and rolled it up to form what she described as a stromboli - basically a rolled-up pizza. I'd never even heard of this delicacy before, but after one slice, hot out of the oven, I had to make it for myself. The ingredients are up to your imagination and whatever you happen to have in the fridge, so mine consisted of a smear of tomato paste, a few blobs of ricotta left over from a spinach-and-ricotta-lasagna experiment, some grated cheddar and parmesan, chopped slices of sandwich ham and some f...

We've got a Wii! I have to say, they are one awesome bit of kit. Normally we'd be a bit leery about shelling out that much money on something non-essential, but we had some vouchers which we didn't know what to do with, and we'd played on Wii's a couple of times at friends' houses, so... we decided to splash out and have a bit of fun. So far we have mostly tried bowling and tennis, plus a bit of boxing where Graham pummelled me to a pulp several times and then felt too guilty to continue! It's really good; the software is sensitive enough that it feels very realistic, while simultaneously being much easier than in real life, so you get that additional boost of feeling like a pro. A triple strike (turkey) in actual ten-pin bowling is beyond my wildest dreams, yet I've achieved it a couple of times on the Wii. Likewise the most I can do with a real tennis racket is maybe hope to hit the ball, but we got up some fun rallies with our virtual doubles....

When my feet take me out the door for my daily walk, they usually head in the direction of Trinity Park. This piece of green space alongside the Trinity River is one of the few nice places within walking distance, and there's always something to see there. Along the river itself there are usually egrets flexing their long necks and stalking the shallows in search of fish. A group of cormorants stands solemnly on a metal ring in the middle of the stream. Turtles the size of dinner plates poke their square heads out of the water, or sunbathe happily on the bank, slithering hurriedly into the water as you approach. In the duck pond flocks of multi-coloured waterfowl home in at the first sound of bread hitting the water. A couple of latecomers skid to a stop as they hit the water and join the gobbling throng. The squirrels, too, seem to have got in on the act, and a couple approach to within a few feet, sitting up on their haunches like a pair of begging dogs. Most of their...