There is a batch of Anna Mae Wong Tea Cakes in the oven as I am planning a little trip to Audio Gold this afternoon.  Not just because I’d like to see the lovely men that work there and one of them has already confirmed that he has my stylus in my pocket but also because I need SPEAKERS.

I tried to set up the new DVD projector last night with no luck.  Partly because I didn’t have the leads I needed but also because (this never crossed my mind) if I want to watch anything other than silent cinema I’ll need to have some means of the sound coming out.  Doh.  More expense!

Am trying to get it all set up for date number 4 with Mr PH.  If it is all working I might invite him round tomorrow evening for “Gin and Its” and a movie…

Just back from the wedding of the century, Grace and Douglas are now HITCHED and what a wonderful day it was!  Great to spend time with lots of the Walthamstow posse, there was much crazy dancing – especially from Cary who was doing his “Rock Lobster” moves and making me laugh.  I DJd on the gramophones for a few hours in the morning and chatted to lots of the parents’ generation about the tunes.

There was afternoon tea and my Gloria cake and Anna Mae Wong teacakes went down well indeed.  When I was making them in a hurry on Friday morning I realised that I didn’t have an essential ingredient – milk.  So I had a scout around for what I could use instead and decided on Avocaat. Oh yummy, yummy, yummy!

Have been pondering on what a wonderful time I had living with Grace and Ginger.  There was a lovely moment during the reception when all three of us had a big love hug.  How things have chanced since we moved in together just 3 or so years ago.  Ginger is now married with a bonny baby boy, and now Grace has tied the knot too.  When is it my turn?!

A momentous day today for Renee who after 7 years working for the Archive is now off to another job, still within the company but not where I can hear her cracking up with laughter about something almost every day.  She’s been behind my right shoulder for about a year now and I will really miss her.  Naturally I made some cakes.  I put some chocolate chips in as I know Renee likes a bit of that, and sprinkled some edible stardust on top for good luck.

Also a momentous day for me, the 1 year anniversary of my midnight flit from Sidney’s house.  I have now been single for a whole year.  I don’t think this has ever happened before.  It’s a weird feeling.  As I’ve been doing a secret blog with an ex-boyfriend about living single I have been thinking a lot about it.  I wonder if I’ve got so used to it now that it will become a permanent state of being.  I have to admit that I really, really, really like the calmness it brings.  Not having someone mess with your head on a regular basis is very nice indeed.  And I do feel that I’ve learned a lot about myself and have started to move my life forward in a very different way from where it was going before.

So tomorrow I have instigated something that may become a tradition.  The Annual Spinsters Day.  Ha ha!  I have taken the day off work and will do lots of things that please me.  I shall go somewhere nice for breakfast, go to the cheese shop in Muswell Hill, make myself some Joan Crawford Creamed White Onions in a Red Pepper Cup, drink Vodka Martinis, fiddle with the jigsaw and maybe even watch a movie.  I shall speak to no-one.  Except possibly any devastatingly handsome man that tries to chat me up.

I’m kicking the tradition off tonight by drinking beer in bed wearing my 1940s bed jacket with the heated blanket on for the first time this winter.  THIS IS THE LIFE!

Had another bash at Anna’s duck dish last night as Daryl (we must get him a film star name) came round for dinner.  The duck was definitely not as nice as when I made it for Edmund and I tried to work out why.  Was it because I’d used a different type of mushroom?  Not enough ginger and garlic?  Too much oil?  This, and the information on the cover of the latest Sainsbury’s magazine that all recipes are “thrice tested” has put me in a quandary.  WHEN will I have time to thrice test all 52 recipes?  For tested they must be, I want them all to be cookable, delicious and a treat to eat.  Hmm.  I must knuckle down.

Daryl did make me laugh as I kept putting down my own dinner (if you know what I mean), saying things like, “It’s not as nice as last time,”  and “it’s OK but not brilliant”.  He brandished his chopsticks towards me saying, “hush up sweetie or I’ll stick these up your schnozzle”, quite rightly observing that a hostess should never draw attention to the shortcomings of her offerings.

I’m just off now to try and put the photo of Edmund in his Silver Screen Suppers T-shirt on the Flickr site…  Check him out: Our Biggest Fan

I’ve got a day off work today and it is bliss.  I’ve got a batch of tea cakes in the oven and I’m still not dressed at 11am.  I’m sure that Anna Mae would have worn something a little more slinky than a muu muu in the kitchen but there is a certain pleasure in cooking in a kaftan, I don’t know why…

So I’m off to town soon for a meeting with some tele folk and am stopping by at Rosalind’s most hated retail establishment, Confetti on Tottenham Court Road.  I sent her there once on an errand and she was apoplectic with fury at the waif like sales assistants and dreamy eyed customers – it’s a wedding shop.  She phoned me up ranting and raving about all the nonsense wedding favours and table settings and nick-nackery people were spending thousands of pounds on for their nuptials.  But they do sell clear cellophane bags that I like to put my Silver Screen Suppers gifts in.

I didn’t have time to make Janet Gaynor’s Ice Box Cookies to take today, and as these guys look pretty rock and roll from their website I have made tea cakes in skull and crossbones paper cases instead.  Kerrang!

Edmund read Tuesday’s post and decided that he would like Anna Mae’s Duck for his dinner last night.  He missed the party and wanted to peruse my new flat.  As a man with a penchant for the 1930s I knew he’d like it. As nosey as I am, he particularly enjoyed perching on my bar stool watching all the coming and goings up and down the garden path.

I put Natalie’s advice into practice by adding ginger, garlic and LOTS of Chinese cooking wine to the recipe and it was DE-LI-CIOUS.  With these modifications I think that this recipe might now have jumped up into my top 5 favourite Silver Screen Suppers dishes.  Apologies to those of you who love the Anna Mae Wong Tea Cakes but the duck is definitely going to be the recipe for her page in the book.

Lovely, as always, to hang out with Edmund.  We had long discussions about writing and relationships.  We both agreed that it was difficult to break habits set in motion by ex-boyfriends.  I am still rinsing things after I wash them up 10 months after splitting from Sidney and Edmund is still sporting boxer shorts even though really he’d like to be in skimpies!  I say BURN THE BOXERS!

Oh my goodness, it feels like being in an industrial kitchen this evening as I try and cook TWO main courses.  AMWs duck – for the first time ever – plus my all time favourite non-silver-screen-suppers dish – Leon’s Sausage, Kale and Flageolets Casserole.  It doesn’t sound like much does it? But my goodness it is delicious.  Lord.  I know why those professional chefs have a million timers going off all through service though.  Ten minutes simmering on that one, add the stock after 15 minutes for that one, turn the heat down on the other one and add the kale…..  Just like all of us in The Completion Club with our timers going off all over the world – where is my POMODORO timing device?

I’m on a new schedule.  Now that my house is well and truly warmed I am going to get on track for finishing this book in 2010.  There will be more test cooking, more sample recipe page writing and more keeping on top of the requests for test cooking recipes.  Apologies if you are still starving and waiting for me to send them out.  Frankly, I am still drunk after the housewarming.  Let’s face it, when I cleaned up next day there were 8 cans of Stella Artois, 3 full bottles of wine and 7 or 8 half bottles left knocking around.  I can’t have them distracting me from my work can I?!  I must get rid of them, by drinking them…  Tonight if at all possible.

I promise that everyone who has requested a recipe to test will hear from me this week – honestly!  The call is still out if you fancy like joining in.  The more the merrier!

OK, oven timer has just bleeped.  Dinner is done.

Stop press – the duck was very good.  But I am going to try it again because Natalie – a brand new friend of the Silver Screen Suppers project – has commented that it is a pretty Americanized version of a Chinese dish.  When Anna proposed this recipe in the 1930s most American housewives wouldn’t have had much – if any – experience of Chinese cuisine. I am sure Anna brought it down a notch for her inexperienced readers.

But just you look out when I have my Chinese cooking wine, ginger and garlic to hand!

It is little things like this that keep me going. I had to defend myself this week when someone I barely knew launched an astonishing attack on my much beloved project. What was the point he asked? Why bother testing the recipes? Why not just reprint them? Why was it taking me so long?

Hmm. I employed the “bubble” technique recommended by Lisa over at The Sassy Minx to try and avoid being crushed by it all. And then in my mind I blew a big raspberry in his general direction!

I kept two aside as it’s my second date with the New Yorker tonight. Wonder what he will make of them…