A time-saving Saturday?

The lack of ritual, what's the time saved for?

Somewhere we came to love the non-organic. Stuff made by blokes in white coats in labs was deemed superior to primitive stuff. Grown in the ground stuff. Little seems to have changed. There's no ceremony to tea bags. Instant coffee does not fill the house with that 'wake up, it's morning' aroma. An annoying radio advert tells me politicians decide the amount of salt in my pizza. Not if I make my own they don't, plus I get the satisfaction of seeing tuppence worth of flour and water become something, the yeast activated by me working it and the heat of my hands. Despite all the slow cooking initiatives, hours spent watching Jamie Oliver on the telly, organic stuff on the supermarket shelves, branches of Iceland remain open and thriving, sales of microwaves are as high as ever, and our nation dish will soon be chicken ding.

There's plenty of disparagement handed out to us old-fashioned types who will make stock from leftovers and bones, and who will cook dishes from scratch. Tea leaves and tea pots, coffee grinders and percolators, who has time for those when there's teabags, instant granules (try saying granules and make it sound appetising), and freezer to domestic radiation device to table (for table read tray on lap) ready-made Vesta-style sweet and sour (delete sour, replace with a second sweet for an accurate description) chicken?

So. Where does all that time saved go? What's it used for? If saving it is so essential, what is it freed up for exactly? My theory is that it is wasted watching X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, Strictly Come and Watch Big Brother in the Jungle featuring Vanessa Feltz. Oh, and Jamie Oliver. Telling folk to make stock, and cook properly, from scratch.

Pizza

We had a batch of home made pizza today. Following on from one of those Guardian 'the perfect...' articles. It seems the important bits are the flour, getting the oven and the pizzza baking tray sizzling, and not over-complicating the topping. 0-0 flour, McDougalls' packs don't actually class this stuff as the dogs testicles, but near as dammit say so. Yeast and water and a pinch of salt. Less is more. Ten minutes (and more) kneading then leave it alone. After a couple of hours it was light, full of air and occupied much more volume. I got four pizzas from the two cups of flour, and with a little tomato and cheese, these were good eating. Worth the effort.

Cricket

In the test match England are in a healthy position but still have much to do. This should be an interesting game, even if the draw seems the best bet at the moment.

We lost again, to a very good team that put our bowling to the sword for six or seven overs that conceded a lot of runs, and who then produced some very tight and accurate bowling that gave them a deserved win. None of our bats gave their wickets away, played stupid, inappropriate expansive shots to get themselves out, which is massive plus. Unfortunately, no-one got going enough to challenge their total, we all got bogged down trying to stay alive. They helped themselves by holding onto every chance that came their way, too.