Time to swap recipes

Hello Cristina,

How are you doing? I’m having real trouble accessing the internet today. Everyone at work has been complaining about slow access too. I hope that I will manage to get to the end of this blog and post it. Did I hit the nail on the head about the dancing costume? Well, it was a lucky guess. And funnily enough I have also just purchased a brand new pair of running shoes. I was forced to buy them as my last pair literally fell apart when I was in the UK. I had already tried to fix the right toe with super glue so I really had no other choice. There is a sports shop on the ground floor of the building where I work so I went to choose a new pair in my lunch hour. It took me ages to decide which ones to buy, and I think the staff thought I was crazy as I kept running up and down the shop in each pair. But how can you buy running shoes I you can’t test them out properly?

I liked the picture of you and your godson. What is his name? Is he a student or is he working? And please tell us more about Claudia and Celia. Do you get to see them very often? I come from a very small family. My mum is an only child and my dad had only 1 sister, so I only have 2 cousins and I haven’t seen them for years. I am always envious of people from large families. But some of my friends who have lots of relatives say the opposite, and that family gatherings can be hard work when there are so many people to keep happy. What do you think? I suppose that the grass is always greener on the other side. Talking of families, hopefully, here is a snap of my little ones.





















What is a porteno/a? Does it translate into English? The words ‘Buenos Aires’ and ‘porteno/a’ don’t seem similar, for example people from London are called ‘Londoners’, and people from Paris are called ‘Parisians’. So why are people from people from your town called this? I feel that there might be a nice story behind the word.

You asked me to give you the recipe for the dish I made the other night with pork. It’s quite straightforward. You basically fry up as many pork stakes as you like in a frying pan then once they are almost cooked, you add a tub of sour cream (or crème fraiche) and any type of cheese that you like. You can adjust the amount of cream and cheese according to your taste. I throw lots of cream and cheese in, as I love the full fat experience! I served them up with plane boiled rice and green beans and a plate of garlic bred. I sometimes add mushrooms to the source, maybe a splash of wine if it’s a special occasion, or even sum fresh herbs. This source also works well with chicken breasts or asparagus. I love recipes like this. Just chuck everything in a pan and serve it up. Yummy! OK, now you owe me a recipe :-)

(In the previous paragraph, 5 words are spelt incorrectly. Can you find them and tell me what the correct spelling should be. Do you notice anything particular about the pairs of words? Answers next time.)

Here are the corrections from the last blog.

(1) CORRECT. To take up something (to start doing something) or to take lessons, but not **to take ballet dancing**
(2) CORRECT. To do something FOR a period of time, not **did it some years**
(3) CORRECT Why DID I give it up, not **why I gave it up?**
(4) This was the only one you missed. To dance to music, not **dancing with music**
(5) NEARLY. Something can be good for you, or not good for you so ‘Aerobics is good for me’, not **the aerobics do me well**

I appreciate that my way of correcting may be new to you, so I am glad that you like it. I will pick up on some more specific points in a later blog, but in general your writing is fairly accurate. For example, I have noticed that you make a few mistakes with present perfect, the odd article mistake, things like that. As I say, I will talk about them but before I do, is there anything that you are not sure of that you would like to ask?

I promised you the definitions to the reading words, in response to Jura’s query.

(1) To browse through a book – implies turning the pages and reading some, but not necessarily all parts, of a book. You might browse through a travel guide to find specific information about a place.

(2) To leaf or flick through a book – implies turning over one or several pages at a time to find a piece of information. For example, you might leaf through a telephone directory to find a number, or you might leaf through a restaurant menu to find a dish you like.

(3) To bury oneself in a book – implies that you do nothing else but read e.g. ‘at the weekend, I buried myself in a good book’ (all I did at the weekend was read)

(4) To scan read is to read quickly, to get the gist of something.

(5) To study, or to pore over, imply reading intently and in great depth.

I love reading fiction, and I do agree with Merce when she says that reading opens your mind to the world. However at the moment I am studying for an MA and find it hard to read anything other than non-fiction. I think my brain is so tuned in to poring over academic articles and studying texts, that I find it hard to read anything else. I would love nothing more than to bury myself in a good book, but I don’t seem to be able to right now. So I’m making do with flicking through cookery magazines and leafing through the daily papers. I’m interested to read that you like American authors, Chris. Please tell us more – personally, I love Steinbeck and Hemmingway (though not all of his novels). Some readers have asked me about my favourite book. That’s a tricky one. ‘Remains of the Day’ by Kazuo Ishiguro is up there in my top ten, as is ‘Of Mice and Men’ by Steinbeck. I also love anything by Jane Austen (but my husband Steve can’t stand her…. one of the very few things we disagree on)

Many readers have been asking me to say more about Thailand. There is a big Thai festival coming up, so I will talk about this over the weekend. But tomorrow, there will be a quiz about an important UK symbol. Look forward to speaking to you all soon,

Best Wishes
Anne

PS – well done to those of you who attempted writing the passage about dance, like Habooba and Pary.
PPS – welcome to the new readers from Brighton. Shukria asks ‘Please tell me how I can learn and memorize irregular verbs more quickly’. What ideas do you all have? Cris, can you suggest any techniques?

To fall apart (verb) – here, means to break

super glue (noun) – very strong glue

the grass is always greener on the other side (expression) – this expression means that people always want what they don’t currently have

straightforward (adjective) – simple, easy

a splash of (adjective phrase) – a little bit of (usually a liquid, because ‘splash’ is a word which is associated with water)

behind the word (expression) – to explain something (so here, 'a nice story to explain the word ‘portena’ ')

to appreciate (verb) – here, means to understand

odd (adjective) – here, means occasional, infrequent

to tune into something (verb) – here, means to be used do something

can’t stand something (verb, informal, usually used in the negative) – to really dislike something

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