Rebuilding, comfort food, reading plans

Ready for the holiday, I've stocked up on reading and viewing.

New Year's Eve viewing is a Wallace and Gromit feature

which I haven't seen before. Aardman have produced some of the funniest animation videos ever, and this will be a nice finale to an iffy year.

Then peaceful reading, Angela Thirkell, a writer I used to have no patience with, thought she was snobbish and Not Funny. 

Now I get her better and really enjoy her sending up of snobbish people. I understand she's not poaching on Trollope's settings or characters, but respectfully extending them. So I'm set for a marathon

And I'm revisiting Watts Towers, the solo work of visionary folk artist, Simon Rodia, now a national landmark. 

Created from scrap materials, broken dishes, glass, shells, wire, over years, it was his dream to make something big.  

I like to go back and revisit his ideas now and then, and this book, intended for young readers and perfectly fine for all of us, is a great way to do it.

Talking of building, remember the fire I missed over Diwali, which wiped out the dumpster enclosure? 

Today is the rebuilding. Just a day's work.

Nice to watch a crew working flawlessly together, knowing what they're doing.

And comfort food is important to close out a stressful year. I've been vaguely thinking about milk puddings, as in childhood, and since I didn't have macaroni, my first thought, it having all gone into soup, I remembered my mom used to make vermicelli pudding. 

I sort of remembered how it went, looked up the time and temperature, and went from there.

So, I have some good Italian pasta, and next thing, this was happening. 

Cooked pasta, added into a milk, egg, sugar, golden raisin,  vanilla mixture, knob of butter, then all baked for an hour at 350°f.

I love food baked in glass dishes

Pretty good. The new napkins in action already.

That should round out the year. Laundry done, bed changed, next,  garbage out, and I'm set. I won't be too sorry to wave goodbye to the old year.