Writing Prompt

Write a story or poem set in a supermarket.

RECIPE: Easy Meat and Potato pie

Easy Meat and Potato Pie



Ingredients:

one pack of chopped up stewing steak
one large carrot, peeled and diced
one large onion, peeled and sliced
one small stick of lettuce, washed and finely diced
one large potato, peeled and diced (larger chunks than other veg)
one knorr rich beef stock pot (or equivalent stock cube)
a glass of red wine (plus another to keep you company while you cook)
a generous spoonful of redcurrant jelly (optional)
a pinch of herb salt
pepper
a few shakes of smoked paprika if you fancy it
squirt of brown sauce
olive oil
cornflour
bay leaf
ready-made frozen shortcrust pastry, defrosted
egg yolk for painting on top of pastry

Method:

1. Brown the meat in a casserole dish suitable for using on hob. Set meat aside.
2. Fry veg in olive oil in casserole dish until beginning to soften.  Return meat to casserole dish and stir to mix stuff together.
3. Add stock pot, herb salt, jelly, paprika, brown sauce, a generous dessertspoon of cornflour, and stir well. Add wine. Stir well.
4. Barely cover with hot water from kettle. Add a bayleaf. Cover and cook in oven on a low heat (160 on a fan oven) for about an hour, until meat is tender. The gravy should have thickened. If not, mix some more cornflour with cold water and add a little to the stew after it has cooled slightly, stirring well.
5. Set aside until cold. Then tip into a pie dish.
6. Roll out pastry.  Cover top of pie, paint with egg yolk and cut two or three inch-long air vents in top.  Cook in oven at 180 (fan oven) until pastry is cooked.

Alternatives:

• use different vegetables.
• use different flavourings - different spices, herbs, chilli, garlic, tomato puree
• use rough puff pastry

What I've learned recently: We can't all be natural blondes...

But I could be a natural grey...

My father is a natural blonde, and my mother is a natural brunette.  My maternal grandmother and most of her children (except my mum who took after her father) were natural redheads.  In a properly organised universe, I’d’ve inherited one of these distinctive hair colours, wouldn’t I? But, no –  after a few years of baby blonde hair, I eased into my teenage years with hair that, at best, during hot summers, was honey-blonde, and at worst (ie, most of the time) was what could diplomatically be termed ‘mousey’.

But I did get the sort of skin that so often accompanies ginger hair: vampire-pale, mole-speckled, bursts into flame at the first hint of sunshine.  So that’s ok. Thank you, Universe.

Anyway, at seventeen, I decided that dying my hair tart-blonde would be a good move.  My dad always said blondes have more fun (and he should know, as he ran off with our teenage babysitter when I was seven), so I figured I was ready to embrace the high life.  I chose the palest permanent blonde colour available, and remained that colour for years, not counting the periods when I added orange and back combed it into a monstrous frizz. [I was always drawn to punk rock].

                                           

Having blonde hair really did change my life. I got a lot more attention from men, for one thing, which was a surprise to me as nothing else about my appearance had changed.  Except that I maybe used an excessive amount of slap – looking back, it was possibly my resemblance to a 1950s streetwalker that got me all the masculine attention. What is it about blonde hair that taps into so many men’s libidos?  Beats me. It did cause me a problem when I first fell properly in love, however, aged 23 (I’ve always been a bit slow), as I allowed the object of my affection to believe my blonde hair was natural.  I actually couldn’t believe he truly thought it was real. I mean, my eyebrows are brown (if you know what I mean). And I’m not from Sweden, or one of the Midwich cuckoos.  But he believed I was a natural blonde and I let him continue to do so because I couldn’t bear the thought of disabusing him of this idea which had clearly become part of what he loved about me. When he did work it out, we were more or less finished anyway, but it didn’t help.

Anyway, in my thirties, I started going for darker, more natural-looking blondes, and then I spent many years with my hair coloured in various shades of ginger, which actually suited me better than any other colour.  The problem with ginger hair colours is that they fade more quickly than other colours, the lovely vibrant orange shades turning…well, mousey.  So I eventually moved onto shades of what were called ‘light brown’ but always look quite dark to me. I try to use reddish browns, and sometimes I just go for the full-on ginger look despite the inevitable disappointment that a fortnight of hair-washing will bring.

                                         

So, why am I going on about hair colours?  Well, the thing is, I haven’t coloured my hair for about two months now, and the natural colour is beginning to show through. And, shock horror, quite a lot of it seems to be grey! It’s still dark at the roots, but there are definite silvery streaks at the front and sides.  Now, I have no problem with being grey.  My partner’s hair went grey-white in his thirties and he later grew a beard so he looks like Captain Birdseye these days.  We never have a problem choosing someone to be Father Christmas. I have a friend who is my age and naturally grey, and she is gorgeous and looks younger than me.  But most of my friends dye their hair.  My mum dyes her hair. My colleagues dye their hair.  It’s a class and geographical thing, I think.  I am from northern working-class stock – council house, comprehensive, FE college – and women like me, in my generation, dye their hair.  They just do.  I rarely wear make-up these days and I have been the recipient of disapproval from my peers and elders because of it.  Anyone would think I’d started wearing sackcloth and jesus sandals! I have several much more middle-class friends from an older generation in London and they have all grown old gracefully and sport lovely grey and white hair. But no one has seen my natural hair colour, including myself, since I was seventeen.

I mean, it's not as if showing my true colour would transform me into a prune-faced, squinting granny with no teeth, complaining about how much better things were in the old days, is it?  Not immediately, anyway. I'd have to put some work in.

                                           

So, I’m thinking – Lockdown has already made me cut my hair into the worst bob the world has ever seen, so why not take the opportunity to grow the colour out altogether?  I could at least see how grey I actually am (before I quickly get the Clairol out, sobbing hysterically). 

But now, just to spite me, The Clown Prince has decided to send us all back to work in a few weeks, hasn’t he? 

Listen up, Boris, two months isn’t enough time to grow out several inches of hair, and I can’t go back to work piebald, can I? Have some compassion for your citizens, man…