Tasty

When I visited my mum the other day I asked if I could borrow my favourite of her recipe books, which is a blank book she used at school for home economics and has added to ever since.

I love to peruse it, and not just because it has some of my favourite recipes in (my grandmother's doughnut recipe is faithfully recorded, as is my ouma's pannekoek recipe, designed to serve up to a hundred hungry people at a church bazaar). I love to see my mum's handwriting develop, from the straight up and down cursive she used at school to transcribe recipes for things like kidney soup, to the sloppier cursive she used when I was little to write down recipes for funny face cakes, and rice krispie treats. Later the handwriting is more brusque, in capital letters. And now, now it has computer printouts stuffed in the front, recipes googled for and then forgotten.

I love this book, and I have only borrowed it (I'll return it Mum, I promise!). But one day, a horrible day in the future I really don't want to think about, I'd like to say to my sister, you keep Mum's wedding ring and eternity ring. I want her recipe book.

Not safe for children

Train brain

What do you do on your commute?

Heard at Canning Town tube station

Would Inspector Sands please report to the operations room immediately.

Past times

The news comes that someone from the past will be where you are now. And you are simultaneously struck by a wave of apprehension, that in a city of millions of people, they will be the one you run into, and a wave of acceptance, because really, so what?