Ginger Tablet

Birthday Marmite

It felt like the right time to give Marmite another go. I get asked about my feelings for this slick salty mess fairly often and I generally say respond that I simply don't know, that it's been a while since I tried it.

In truth I always assumed that I hated it, but as it last touched my tongue many, many years ago, there was always a chance that my taste buds had matured (or deadened) and would now accept this condiment. So to be sure, I had an early morning fling with Marmite once again in recognition of a special day.

Today is my stepmother's birthday and she was the person who first brought Marmite into my life. My stepmother is made from strong stuff and generally starts the day with a potent smear of something smelly on hot toast. Marmite, anchovette, stinky cheese.  She is not one for fruit cascading delicately over granola. That's a breakfast for those of us who are weak in the morning. For those of us who would probably choose to survive on cake alone before 11 am. I've had cake and fruit for breakfast twice this week already. 

But I can be tough now and then, especially when it reminds me of home and of a person I miss.

This is what I prepared for myself this morning:

It's a deconstructed cheese and marmite toasted sandwich (obviously).  It was important to have two halves because I needed a safe space to run to in the event of a Marmite apocalypse in my mouth. I needed to have some strong cheddar (one of my oldest friends) within close biting distance.

What you can't see in this picture are the deep pools of butter that the Marmite is resting on. This was the key, my British friends told me, of gradual Marmite acceptance. A great deal of butter and a thin smear of Marmite. The ratio can then slowly balance as you become accustomed to ingesting black sodium paste.

What you can see is Marmite's little trick of looking like chocolate spread. Asshole.

Before I tell you how I felt about this breakfast, let me tell you a few things that I like about Marmite:

• the packaging, especially the bright colours and dark, ominous glass
• the B vitamins it's supposed to contain
• the glossy, thick, smooth texture that looks like printing ink

But here are my feelings about Marmite on toast:

Still revolting after all these years. Still like sucking on a bouillon cube. I couldn't taste the butter underneath. I was crying out for the butter! The Marmite just masked everything with it's aggressive vegetably salt. I ate half of the piece of toast. I tried to eat it all, but my jaw would not open to accept it. I had no control over my body's reaction.

There has been a salty taste in my mouth all day.

Is this the end for me and Marmite? I'm not sure. In the past I've had some success with learning to love things I hate by repeatedly trying them. Hating them, hating them, hating them and then suddenly, one day, getting a little urge to try again.  A little craving that can be nurtured into full-blown acceptance. You never know.

So my darling stepmom, please see this masochistic act as a way of remembering you today when we are so far apart. I'm sorry that Marmite is still not a shared love. I'll have some cake for you tonight instead. And maybe tomorrow morning as well. Happy Birthday!

It's still mostly a secret

I've just begun work on my new online journal; www.katiemcgown.info. This space will document what I make when I'm not making food. It's a spot for old work that I continue to be fond of, pictures from exhibitions and documentation of studio experiments. Sometimes there will even be cake. I've only just started to flesh it out, but if you want an early look, you are more than welcome.

More food next week! x

At Long Last: A Recipe for (Candied Rhubarb) and Ginger Tablet

Do you see those ugly chunks of candy up there, dear readers? Those are my belated present to you. They were supposed to be for our six month anniversary, but I was busy that day. Here they are now, though. A little token of my great appreciation for you popping in here now and then. Six months and thousands of hits. Pretty nice. Thank you so much.

So here is a recipe for Candied Rhubarb and Ginger Tablet. A candy of my dreams. Tablet is a Scottish variation on fudge. It's basically crystallized sugar and butter, so the texture is firm, a little bit like maple sugar candy. You can make a plain one, but I like to add some other flavours. I would also like to nominate the first person to pair rhubarb and ginger as my anonymous patron saint. Together they are invincible. The ingredients for this recipe are very simple: sugar, butter, condensed milk, rhubarb and ginger marmalade. But their assembly is a bit of a trick. This was the third time I had made tablet and I think I finally nailed it with these nuggets. I think I am finally ready to write about it. It's a daunting thing to make in Scotland; everyone's granny does it the best. Way better than me. It's a candy that relies on loads of steady stirring and knowing just the right time to turn off the heat.  Granny skills.

The first time I made it, I stuck a candy thermometer in the pot so I knew exactly when it got to the right temperature. I took it off the heat, stirred like made for exactly five minutes and then poured it onto a baking sheet. I followed the recipe exactly and it was a disaster. It tasted as good as a load of sugar and butter can taste (i.e. amazing), but I had left it to cook for too long and it was horribly grainy. You don't want grainy tablet. It feels like sucking on sandpaper. 

The next time I made it, I found instructions that relied on sight and texture rather than temperature. It was perfect. I ended up with a pristine pool of candy that I smugly cut into perfect squares and disseminated at Christmas.

I had no qualms as I set out to make a third time, this time for you. It started well. Everything bubbled in my great black cauldron as I stirred and stirred and stirred. After about ten minutes the bubbling liquid was just shot through with wisps of caramel colour. In the next five minutes the whole mass changed from white to warm gold and I knew it was almost time. I checked the texture and it was right, too. I turned off the heat, stirred it again and then went to add some ginger marmalade to the mixture. While I was opening the jar, the sugar mixture almost boiled over the top of the huge pot I was using. Not a good sign. I quickly added half the jar and stirred again like mad and then poured the whole lot onto a baking sheet.

It was very ugly. I was deeply disappointed. The tablet had cooled just enough before pouring to make an uneven and craggy surface. I tasted good, and the internal texture was perfect, but it was marred by this ugly crust. I pressed the candied rhubarb into the top of the still-warm mass and took my heavy heart to bed.

The next morning I told my Scottish flatmate of my disappointment. "It looks perfect!" she said. I thought she was joking, the jerk. She assured me that she wasn't. That tablet should look a little rough. That is was undesirable to have a smooth finish. (In my head) I gave her two hundred dollars for making me so happy and making my tablet feel so secure in its appearance.

I brought some into work the next day and my boss said exactly the same thing. That she and her siblings used to fight over the rockiest pieces. She said my tablet was great. I did my work extra efficiently that day.

So, dear readers, it's ok to be ugly! Not that you guys know anything about that. But if you make this recipe and it doesn't come out looking like a freshly watered skating rink, don't worry about it. If it crumbles when you take a bite and makes you want to rot your teeth out one by one, then you've done it right. How liberating is that?

(the underbelly of the tablet was smooth to the touch)

Candied Rhubarb and Ginger Tablet

I think this is a great basic recipe. There are loads of photos and really good step-by-step directions. If you've never made tablet before, you should look at this first. Do you see the problem, though? That's right, this site shows a perfectly smooth end result. This was the reason I was so upset with my ugly tablet baby. But don't worry. This person lives in the colonies (in Scarborough, ON!). Something was lost in the translation. Back here in Scotland, people like it a bit rough.

• 4 medium stalks of rhubarb
• 1 kilo of white sugar (try to use cane sugar) plus 1/2 c
• 100 grams of butter
• one tin of condensed milk (not evaporated) about 400 ml
• a little bit of milk
• about 1/2 c of ginger marmalade*

1. Wash the rhubarb and cut off any yucky ends. Cut the stalks in two and then slice them lengthwise in three or four strips. By my calculations, you should end up with 24-32 long and slim pieces.
2. Lay the rhubarb on a lined baking sheet and cover them with 1/2 c of sugar.
3. Bake for about 2.5 hours in a very low (as low as possible) oven with the door open just a wee bit.
4. Take them out when they've shrunk in size and are covered by the most delicious rhubarb syrup you have ever tasted. They'll be chewy but still pliable.
5. Now for the tablet. Get out your biggest pot. A really, really big one. If you don't have one that's enormous, please half the recipe. Now would be a good time to ban all children from the kitchen, too. This recipe involves a lot of boiling sugar. An accident with this stuff would be horrible. Ugly tablet is good, ugly and maimed children are bad.
6. Over medium-high heat, pour in 1 kilo of sugar. Add just enough milk to make a thick paste. Now add the condensed milk and the butter. Stir it up.
7. Continue to stir almost forever.
8. Is it just starting to get a little bit golden? That's good. Is it still lily white? Keep stirring.
9. You need to stir way more than when you make risotto.
10. Is it golden yet? All the way through? Good. You're really getting there. Now keep stirring.
11. Aside from the colour change you judge the readiness of tablet by the texture of the residue on the wooden spoon you are using to stir. The sugar liquid will solidify on the spoon as soon as it reaches the cool air. If this thin layer is gooey, it's still needs to cook. If it has micro grains, it's ready. If it has macro grains, you are in sandpaper land**. Test this by running your fingernail through the residue on the wooden spoon.
12. When it's golden and you have micro-grains, take the pot off the heat. (Remember, it will still be hot enough to melt your flesh). Give it a quick stir and then speedily add the marmalade. Even better, get a friend to add the marmalade as you continue to stir.
13. After two or three minutes, pour the mixture onto the baking tray (you could grease it first, but I didn't and it was fine).
14. Press the rhubarb into the top of the mixture. Alternatively, you could chop it and add the bits right into the mixture at the same time as the marmalade.
15. It will start to solidify almost instantly. Score it into squares as quickly as you can. I didn't do this and ended up wrestling to get it into chunks the next day.
16. Eat tiny delicate pieces with tea and coffee.

* I used to use about three balls of finely cut candied ginger and a few tablespoons of the syrup it lives in. The shops were out of that this time, so I used jam instead. Not only is it easier (finely dicing candied ginger is very messy), but I think the ginger flavour is better distributed this way.

** What do you do if you left it on too long and ended up with macro sandpaper grains? It's ok. Just pour it onto the baking tray and let it cool. Then crumble it up and use it to top yogurt or fruit or incorporate it into a cake or a crumble. It will still be amazing.   

 

A Darling Zucchini

I had never seen round zucchinis before this year. They're called Eight Ball Zucchini Squash in North America. I'm not sure what they call them in the UK. Maybe Round Courgettes.

These sweet and spotted little orbs produce all kinds of strange feelings in my heart; I suddenly have the urge to make stuffed zucchini. That has never, ever, ever happened to me before.

You can use these in exactly the same way as their oblong cousins, although apparently their flesh is slightly denser, so slightly better for frying. This one was sliced and roasted with tiny tomatoes, peppers, garlic and thyme and then piled onto a baked potato already blanketed with a thick layer of cheese.

Joining a Club and Making Pops

I recently joined the Daring Bakers, an online baking club with monthly challenges. This was an unusual move since I'm not a real 'joiner'. More of a misanthrope who occasionally feels like getting drunk with other people. Joining tends to involve group activities centered around displays of athletic fortitude and I hate that stuff. But at least in an online club I would never have to complete a scavenger hunt or go paintballing. And although I also tend to bristle when there are rules and guideline that I haven't made up myself, I do like a challenge and I think that constraints are interesting and it is this part of my manifold personality that spontaneously signed all of me up.

This month we were supposed to make Cheesecake Pops. Little bits of cheesecake on lollipop stick dipped in chocolate. That's cute. I had wanted to make cheesecake for a while, so I was initially enthused. Plus I had a baby shower late in the month and that seemed like the perfect venue for a ridiculous cheesecake snack. But I'm pretty picky when it comes to cheesecake and there are only a few things I'm willing to entertain. One is a classic all white no-nonsense cheesecake with a graham cracker crust and the other is an apple toffee cheesecake with a hint of cinnamon. There was just no way I would be flexible enough to dip balls of cheesecake into chocolate. It just didn't fit into either of my approved categories.

But I still pretty much kept to the rules. I made the half the cheesecake recipe, but I did add a little hint of cinnamon. And I did include a sort of superfluous stick in there. A hunt for lollipop sticks wasn't really turning my crank, so Cadbury Fingers was my compromise. I baked and cooled the cheesecake as required. Stuck the biscuit sticks into them. Left them in the freezer overnight.

Then instead of chocolate, I caramelized some apple slices and slipped them under my frozen pops. I made a caramel sauce and scantily enrobed them. They sat on little gold papers. My flatmate's comment was "those look cumbersome". She was right.

They were really difficult to eat. Not at all like a lollipop. More like a really gooey wee square of cheesecake with a biscuit sticking out the top. I like the idea of dessert coming with a handle, but the cheesecake was glued down by the caramel so the biscuit was a useless apendage. But they did elicit a fair number of Mmmms.

I think it's fair to say that the biscuit here was more than unnecessary and I won't be making these again. The cheesecake, apple and caramel combo was pretty hot, though. That will probably be repeated. But in easy-to-eat full-cake form.

I had a quick glance around the other members of this club (there are hundreds) and theirs look prettier and easier to eat. They followed the rules. If you want to see what things were supposed to look like, you can find better examples here at the Daring Bakers' Blogroll.

I don't know if I'm going to be a valuable member of this community. I'll give it another month or so.

Pictures from Passover

On Sunday night I took surreptitious pictures of our Passover Seder. We used the most delicate Passover dishes and this year as my grandfather called out the ten plagues, I managed to keep up and dropped ten tiny stains on my plate.

 

I managed to drink all four glasses of wine as well. Elijah must have helped me a bit.

Once again my internal glutton squashed my internal photographer and by the time the camera came out, my matzoh ball soup was gone.

In a tribute to my father, I put salt in my soup without even tasting it first. I'm sure it needed it.

And while I spent most of the weekend anticipating this brisket and tzimmes, braised together in an incredibly tender, flavouful and unphotogenic heap,

the real reason I made the five-hour journey to London was to hear my grandfather sing.

Smug Bread, Happy Gut

Making homemade bread is a fragrant and delicious way to feel superior to those around you, but according to this article, it also could be a lot easier to digest than the commercial stuff. Sensitive Geniuses take note.

Whisky Galore at Glasgow International

In the tiny window between Thursday night and Sunday afternoon I managed to attend 19 art openings and three parties and go to one pub. I am broken and incapable of focusing either my thoughts or my eyeballs. The recovery process is ongoing. But while I can't have a nap, I do have my acute sense of accomplishment to keep me going. I have no regrets about this weekend; I grabbed every free beer and whisky cocktail that I could. It would have been impossible to do more. Here's what Friday to Sunday looked like:

Friday:

This day served as a reminder for why I no longer go out on Thursday night if I have to work on a Friday. Fortunately the openings started early that afternoon.

Maurice Doherty at The Science Centre

Embarrassing but true: when I walked into the gallery and only saw bottles of Barcardi Breezer on offer, I was a little bit excited. Alcopops are not permitted to urban brats normally, but I absolutely would have drained one had it been the only thing available. But despite the display, when I approached the bar there only seemed to be beer in the ice bucket. I had a Corona instead. Points for: cold beer and white wine, lime for my beer, real glasses, a selection of juice for people who don't want to start drinking at 4pm or for those of us still trying to replenish our fluid levels from the night before. Slightly weirded out by the server's latex gloves. 8 out of 10.

Callum Stirling at the Mitchell Library

Famous Grouse is a sponsor for GI and I thoroughly approve. J and I started with a whisky and ginger ale while we tried to make new conversation with people we had already seen at the previous opening and a couple of times the night before. I suggested that we just start a game to replace these chats as we will inevitably continue to run into the same people over the course of the weekend. Everyone laughs: everyone is too tired to think of any games. We resign ourselves to repeating our small talk endlessly. J and I move on to the much nicer whisky and ginger beer. He has another one. I think about it, but by the time I get to the bar, they're out. I decide that that's probably just fine. The opening's almost over anyway. 8 out of 10.

Catherine Yass and the CCA, Harald Turek at Intermedia

 Dropping our bikes off back at J's and wolfing down a small and provisional dinner, we next arrive at the CCA. This is a major space with a chronic shortage of alcohol at their openings. They also have a proclivity for entering into dodgy booze sponsorship arrangements (pear cider is vomitous). How pleasantly surprised we were to once again be offered whisky and ginger beer and for there to still be quite a good amount left even though we'd arrived more than halfway through the opening. It wasn't spectacular, but it was decent. 7 out of 10.

Low Salt and The State: The alcohol wasn't free here, and my exhaustion was kicking in. We had a (very cheap) pint and went home to watch Whisky Galore which had just arrived by post. A happy coincidence.

Saturday:

A day lovely enough for me to wear my new sun dress. Albeit with tights and my cardigan firmly in place. I had started formulating my strategy days earlier, and it is precisely this level of planning that allowed me to attend nine openings in five hours, using no form of transportation other than my wee feet.

Jonathan Monk and Tramway

On the alcohol-front, it was a piss-poor start to the day. One harried server grumpily poured tiny glasses of sweaty wine in the face of a massive glut of people. No beer, no special drinks. The red was fine, perhaps even more full-bodied and drinkable than I would anticipate at an opening, but normally Tramway puts on a better effort. Unenthused. 5 out of 10.

To be Alert is to be Decorative

Run-of-the-mill crates of beer at the door of a dirty industrial space. Perfect. It's normally all I ever want. I also liked the way we were offered a beer before we even entered the space and the pulltab tops of the Tuborg. I wore mine like a ring for the rest of the evening and showed it to a lot of people who were not at all interested. 7 out of 10.

Ernst Caramelle at Mary Mary

We had four minutes to see this show. D, my companion for the evening, made us extend it to eight minutes when he saw the bottles of Baltika. In the end we needed 6.5 of them to neck the bottles and make a quick decision about the nature of the show. Sub-standard beer bottle opener, though. 8 out of 10.

Kalup Linzy at Washington Garcia

There were approximately 300,000 people in attendance for Kalup Linzy's performance that evening and we all liked it. It was in fact a minor miracle that allowed the Glasgow art scene to enjoy and laugh along with songs that were basically addressing complex identity politics, a pretty unfashionable subject matter around these parts. In homage to this miracle (and because I couldn't move) I didn't find the bar until after the show. At that point my already-jubilant mood was promoted to giddy levels by the glasses of rum and coke on offer. I love rum and coke; it reminds me of a lot of good things in my life. The young lad pouring the drinks looked like a boy I used to scoop ice cream with almost ten years ago (not a euphemism). I drank two while wadding in warm pools of nostalgia. I loved everything then. 9 out of 10.

Kate Davies and Neil Bickerton

At this point I was definitely drunk. Instead of drinking more, I looked carefully at the art work in a fashion I only adopt when I am trying to look more sober than I am. If I had wanted a beer, I think there would have been one, though. 7 out of 10.

xxx

Melanie Gilligan at Transmission

Do you want to be my best friend? Because by the time I got to Transmission I was pretty sure I wanted to be yours. After hugging my former tutors, I proceeded to play bartender and open up bottles of beer for all my best friends (i.e. the people around me whose names I knew). When someone opted for wine instead, I was affronted. When a girl actually mistook me for the bartender and asked me for a beer, I politely pointed to the opener on the table in front of us. I then ran upstairs to the upper gallery where the art was located. It was a quiet and involved performance. I put on my extremely focused face again. I got bored and started to tell my friends about how my bike lock exploded earlier that day. I got shushed and left the gallery. I can't remember what kind of beer Transmission was serving, but there was a lot of it, even late in the evening, and apparently some wine, too. 7 out of 10.

Laurence Figgis and Sharon Thomas at Glasgow Print Studios

This place was serving Samuel Adams so the Americans were psyched. I imagine I would have started punching people in euphoric fits if someone had handed me a Labatt's 50 at that moment so I won't judge them. When all the non-Americans  started complaining of the too-sweet taste I took the opportunity to tell them exactly how Canadians tend to feel about American beer. My friends appreciated my cultural insights. Additionally, I thought that the provision of rice cracker snacks and jelly babies was genius.8 out of 10.

Karen Cunningham, Luca Frei and Babak Ghazi at Project Room

The beer at the Project Room was free. Crazy. 7 out of 10.

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The night continued. I eventually took myself home when my conversation slipped well into the 'inappropriate' zone. I slept with all my clothes on.

Sunday:

I woke up early and perky because I was probably still drunk. I completed some needlework and drank a lot of water, went back to bed for a while and then grabbed some brunch. There were still openings on my itinerary. I ate a lot of carbs and pork products to prepare.

Katri Walker and Dani Marti

These kind folks had a wide variety of juice. That was really nice. They had beer too, but I just couldn't face it. Juice and crisps. That's everything I ever wanted right at that moment.8 out of 10.

XXXXXX

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Ani Baronian and Nim Wunnam

This show had interesting looking cheese and crackers and grapes. It was a classic touch. They were also making cups of tea for their visitors which was lovely. My body was quickly shutting down and didn't want to ever accept anything into it again. Except maybe some sausage. and a bit of chocolate. But still, it was a good offering for a Sunday afternoon. No alcohol, but really no one was missing it.8 out of 10.

That was the end of GI for me. It was exhausting, it was informative, it was pretty fun. I never did find a really immersive magical spectacle of an opening -- not that the work itself wasn't magical (because some of it is), but the openings themselves didn't quite match it. There was rarely music, hardly ever food and while there was plenty to drink, a lot of the time it wasn't that special. I'm greedy during festivals: I want to be overwhelmed and amazed. Because of this, no one achieved a perfect score of 10 glasses this time. But there were some really solid efforts in the Provision of Free Booze and I would like to thank and commend the participants of Glasgow International for that.

Because I'm still tired, I haven't provided individual links to the shows and artists. Instead go to the GI website here to find out about times and locations. It's worth it even without the promise of free beer.

Glasgow International: The Quest Begins

Last night Glasgow International opened and I dutifully went to all of the shows I could sneak my way into. Here's where I found free booze:

Jim Lambie at GoMA

I was excited about this. I thought it might be swish. This is a major show in a major space by one of the Glasgow art titans. I had fanciful visions of champagne and canapes. That was before I heard they were expecting 3000 people. Then I had visions of long queues and feeling stuffy. Unfortunately, I was eerily psychic.

This is what's appropriate at a large-scale opening: You walk into the main exhibition area and scan the work and the crowd and figure out where your friends are. Once you have established the location of your community, you join the queue for drinks. If this queue exists at all, it should be just long enough to scan the room for art and friends and enemies once more and perhaps have a little flirty banter with the person ahead of you. Then, armed with your beverage (preferably a special cocktail, nice beer or drinkable wine) you can swoop over to your friends and laugh and point at the people art around you (in an amused and constructive way).

This is what actually happened: We arrived quite early and had to line up to get into the main room. Once inside, we could see no art nor individuals in the heaving mass of humanity crawling about the hall. There was an epic queue for drinks, and since the art was invisible, we didn't even pretend to look for it. After waiting for a long time in the stagnant line, it started to move quickly. This was because they had run dry. Half and hour in. Not a good sign. A stampede to the upstairs bar ensued. I sent J and tried to look at art. As there was no alcohol in the main room anymore, half the population cleared as well and it was possible to at least catch some glimpses and spot some friends. J never came back down, so I had to go upstairs to the permanent collection (i.e. not what I was there to see). He was pinned into a room choked with people all desperately glugging. This wasn't even a sign of the alcoholism of the nation, everyone really was just hot and thirsty and tired by now. I grabbed my glass of wine from him and immediately got back in line for a second one. Good thing, too, because they were out once more a few minutes later.

Now, I know it's not my inherent right to expect a glass or two of wine at a regular art opening. But this was a big event on the social calendar. Stops should have been pulled. It was reasonable for me to expect magic. If you are going to print that many invitations, you need to expect that many people and plan for them and not make them feel like inconvenient cattle. It is not appropriate for your guests to have to wait so long for a drink. Some of them were probably important, even. And having security guards barking at us and barring us from already-crowded rooms was awkward. We were invited attendees, not bargain hunters banging down the doors at 6 am on Boxing Day. A little civility would have been nice. 

Poor form GoMA.

4 out of 10 glasses

Jonathan Scott at the Glasgow Art Club

Perfectly appropriate variety and quantity for a smaller opening scheduled in between bigger events. Plus nice washrooms.

8 out of 10 glasses

xxx

Jim Lambie's Afterparty

The real afterparty had a stupidly rigid ticket system. These puppies were hard to come by and each invite only admitted one. Poor. People need to bring dates.

Anyway, just up the way from that party, Jim Lambie opened one of his studio spaces, brought in beer and a DJ, curated a wee show, and threw a bunch of glitter on the ground. Anyone was invited. I didn't stay that long because I had a ticket to the real party (thanks A!), but I thought it was a super generous gesture and I liked the glitter and the art.

9 out of 10 glasses

The GI Launch Party at the Social

Studio Warehouse has installed a bar in their gallery for the duration of GI and this was the first event. It was pretty good, ample drink tickets for a range of beer/wine/cocktails, DJs in the slick indoor bar area, live bands playing under the railway arches outside. There were even waiters carting trays of snacks in a startling admission that we cannot live by free beer alone. Loads of pretty people, but not enough for toes to be trampled. It felt like an amped-up version of a typical Glasgow art scene party and I guess that was an appropriate vibe for the evening. The dancing was quite late coming, only getting started as I was leaving (these are not related facts) and I also was not a fan of the strict ticket system, but as all my dear ones managed to score some in the end, I'm only deducting one glass for that.

Good job, folks!

8 glasses out of 10

I'm already tired, but there's three more days of this. Will anyone achieve 10 glasses? Stay tuned...

The First Ever "Outstanding Achievements in Providing Free Booze" Awards

Food is not a priority this week. Instead, all nourishment will be gleaned from contemporary art and free beer: it's Glasgow International again!

This festival kicks off this weekend and runs until the end of April. You can read about the shows and events at the official website.

And since every gallery and loads of alternative venues will be hosting new shows, there are a lot of openings to attend. This translates into a lot of free beer to be consumed.

While I will be formulating loads of incisive, harsh and lazy opinions about the work on display, that's not what I'll be sharing with you. Instead I've devised a basic system for evaluating the quality of the alcoholic offerings at each of the openings. Each event will be marked, and the results will be posted as quickly as my hangover will allow me near a computer. My awards for Outstanding Achievements in Supplying Free Booze will be declared on Monday.

Events will receive a mark out of 10 for each of these criteria:

* Amount

* Quality

* Variety

* Correct Serving Temperature (i.e. is the beer cold? does the red wine feel a bit sweaty?)

* Availability of Correct Serving Vessel (i.e. did they run out of glasses for the wine?)

Special awards may be given for:

*Most obscene amounts of hooch

*Best sponsorship arrangement

*Prettiest people drinking free alcohol

*Horniest/Funnest party as a result of the free alcohol

Everything kicks off tomorrow night, so watch for the first post on Friday. Until then, pray for my liver.