Of Red Cabbages and Things

It has been proven impossible to cook braised red cabbage for less than sixteen people.  D. Smith’s recipe calls for 2lb of cabbage, 1lb of apples and 1 lb of onions.  She claims this serves four.  Even allowing for cooking reduction, that’s going on a pound per head.  Even without any other dishes, that’s a big eat, and you wouldn’t want a plateful of nothing else, would you?|

As it turned out, it served the three of us on Saturday, twelve or so on Sunday (not everyone chose it from the vegetable selection on the table), and there was still some left over. And, I understand, over again.  It’s a shame, because it’s a brilliant dish.  Trouble is, you can’t buy less than a kilo of red cabbage, and if you use a quarter of one, to serve three, all you can do with the rest is pickle it.  Which is fine, but not necessarily a job for the morning of a great big, great family post-Christmas/New Year lunch.

I know, it can be frozen.  But making too much of something and then freezing the remainder is all very well, but you don’t want it forced on you, do you?  Especially when your freezer is already crammed full.

In other things:

I saw a sign on my way to Norfolk, outside a café, which actually said ‘NO ARTICS’, but which I read as ‘NO ANTICS’, which momentarily put me off.  And coming back into Reading, one of those sanctimoniously patronising homilies they display when there’s no real traffic information asked ‘ARE YOU VISIBLE ENOUGH?’  You have to think about that, don’t you?

And, I’ve had my first try at Sudoku.  Or three tries, to be honest, all at the same puzzle, all ending in failure.  I’m good at deductive logic but bad at spatial connections, which means that, in this case, the latter frustrates the former.  So I’m going to persevere, in order to improve the latter.   I’ve gathered together the essential ingredients – a pencil and a rubber.  Oh, and a functioning brain.  One thing I’ve learnt (or re-learnt) recently is that one must keep on learning.