Tuesday 5^th June, 2018 0800

The lemon meringue adventure.

Realising it was going to take me rather some time, I opted to spend almost my entire Sunday afternoon in devotion to producing something which followed the BBC Good Food recipe to the letter. It should be pointed out that I long ago came to the realisation that recipes are merely ones chance to have a stab at creating something which will never look like the glorious picture shown and, more importantly, screw it up as per directions and learn from their mistake. The mark of a competent cook is knowing what to do next time to kiss it better.

First bad advice was to blind bake the pastry case. This, even though I only did so for half the recommended time produced, instead of a soggy bottom, one which in the end product required a road drill to actually slice portions off.

The curd, I am proud to say, was beautifully citric, gooey and immensely lemony.

Then came the bold new horizon – the meringue.

I am, as my father was wont to say, somewhat cack-handed so anyone accomplished in the art would have cringed at watching the meal I made of separating egg whites and yolks but I got there. This was getting excruciatingly exciting, for the first time I was going to make egg whites turn white and fluffy without actually cooking them. I started with a hand whisk but rapidly lost impetus and broke out the machine. Ten minutes on the machine saw little change in the egg. I persisted. After half an hour of high-speed agitating, still my eggs hadn't produced the glorious soft peaks promised in the recipe. I couldn't help but wonder how the hell my Mother used to do it by hand! I was exhausted using an electric whisk!

In the end I carried on, added the sugar and cornflour, assembled the pie and to hell with the consequences. I could always buy ice cream. The final product, as you can see, was less Himalayas and more Norfolk.

 It was however eagerly devoured by my guests, who, amazingly, had never eaten meringue before (the Mercans called it “crust”) and declared it to be most efficacious.

By then of course, fuming that I hadn't been able to replicate a simple thing made by housewives the world over daily, went online to see what went wrong. I was stunned. I had no idea that one small, errant blob of yolk was sufficient to screw the whole thing!

At least I know for next time.

Yesterday afternoon I called Brenda while my cleaner was here, as arranged. She had gone to the finance department with my concerns and had answers. Yes, I can submit an e-ticket for business class but need to take a screenshot showing my flight with both business and economy prices displayed. No problem there, I just learnt how to take screenshots. In addition I need to take another shot of the UK/RMB exchange rate on the day of purchase. Again no problem. The only sticking point was that they asked me to buy my flights in sterling. Always my intention to do so for the international ones but not domestic – Ctrip gives by far the most advantageous prices but bills in CNY, ergo I take a hit on exchange rates and fees. I said I would use Bank of China for domestic flights and this apparently is acceptable. All that angst over the past couple of months and see? They can do it when they put their mind to it.

All I need now is the green light to start moving.