Channeling a fictional english housewife

I've been reading Agatha Christies' "The Postern of Fate" recently, and feeling very domestic.  So after a half hour ride on my bicycle, I began to make shepherds's pie.  I'd been meaning to make the dish in any case, the book just adds a certain flavor to my actions.  (As a side note, my boyfriend and I did talk about my last blog entry - Things are picking back up, and he's still the love of my life.  So the following recipe does take his corn and dairy allergies into account).

First I chopped an onion and began to caramelize it in the largest frying pan with some olive oil.  Next, I peeled and smashed a whole head of garlic.  Not a bad way to practice my palm-heel.  Into the pan went the smashed garlic with a touch of sesame oil.  I pulled my carton of mushrooms from the fridge and minced half of them and added them to the pan as well.  Then I mushed around my ground beef and added it to the pan, allowing it to just brown and start producing juices.  I poured the juices from the meat, garlic, and onion into an adjacent pan and spread the meat as the first layer in a baking pan.  Then the extra into a bread pan. Bonus pie.

At this time I recalled that the last three bottles of the stout I'd made with my best friend last Winter were still in my basement.  I retrieved them and placed two in the fridge, pouring most of the third into the pot with the drippings.  The remainder filled half a pint glass for me.  I decided that the other two bottles should go perfectly with dinner.
To the nascent gravy I added sherry vinegar, thyme, cayenne, bay leaves, garlic powder, onion salt, crumbled sage I've been drying in the pantry, more thyme, sea salt, a splash of cider vinegar, and a few handfuls of flour over the course of the next hour as it simmered.

For the second layer I chopped up carrots, celery, broccoli, the remaining mushrooms, and set aside my bag of fresh english peas.  (Everything is english today.  I even had earl grey for afternoon tea).  I steamed the chopped vegetables until they were just barely cooked and then spread them in the pans atop the meat.  The peas I poured over to fill in any gaps.

It was around this point where Tommy Beresford asked in my head "Well, what's for pudding?"  Ah.  I thought to myself.  Quite right, fictional englishman.  If I'm going to the trouble of making a nice dinner with a matched beer, I had better well make dessert.  I brought some pie crust and two packages of berries (cherry, raspberry and blackberry in the first, strawberry in the second) and left them out to defrost in the pantry.

Then I chopped and steamed most of a bag of russet potatoes, leaving the skins on for smashed potato topping.  They took quite a while to cook through, so I cleaned the kitchen from Phase 1.  When the potatoes were finally soft enough, I dumped them into the large pot and mashed them  - manually, with a masher and a wooden spoon - together with half a log of honeyed goat cheese and a touch of coconut milk.  Then I spread the  goat enhanced smashed potatoes on top of the two nearly full baking dishes and popped them in the oven for twenty minutes at 350 degrees.  Then I turned them around and baked them another ten minutes.

When I pulled them out the second time, I set them on the counter to cool.  I'll pop them back in for another ten-ish minutes just before dinner at seven.  Now for dessert pie.  My frozen berry packages were not quite defrosted, so I put them in the sink with room temperature water while I chopped about a half dozen small plums.  After greasing the pan with canola oil, I rolled out the bottom crust and laid down the layer of strawberries.  Then the mixed berries, then my plum slices.  And the top crust.  You get it.  I made a pie the lazy way.  But I forked the damn edges, put the little slits in the top, and it'll be damn delicious, so shut it.  I don't have to bother with making my own crust.  (...That comment was to Albert, the english butler in my head, giving my modern cookery of frozen pie crust disparaging looks.  If you're not Albert, please disregard.  If you are... Well.  Damn.  Sorry fictional-character-come-to-life, but it's either you stop existing or I go to the mental ward.  I trust you'll do the right thing).

Now the berry plum pie is cooking, and my dinner guests arrive at 7pm.  And I still haven't cleaned up the laundry.  I think I'll end my stint as an english housewife before then.

Geek Girl Problems

Do you ever have the problem where you bring your boyfriend to an event, and everyone there assumes that you are there as his guest, instead of the reverse?  That happened to me today.

To catch you up, my boyfriend dropped out of the Society for Creative Anachronism in 2008.  We got together around June and I've been persuading him to come back.  I've only been involved in the SCA for a couple of years, but I've managed to do some neat things.  However, I'm not very well known in my own region.  My boyfriend however, before he quit, had been fencing in the society for twenty years and had developed a reputation.

Kinda like dating this guy.

To start off, it's been a very rough week, relationship-wise.  I knew going in that he had communication issues.  What I didn't know was the scope of the problems that could create.

Fast forward to todays' event.  This was our first time attending an event together as a couple, and his first in five years.  Before we even reached the gate, he spotted a posse of his old fencing friends, none of whom he's contacted since quitting.  He decided to approach them first.  They spotted us and and converged on my boyfriend before we even reach the awning.  He immediately dropped my hand and started catching up.  A couple of people are awkwardly left out in the initial rush and end up beside me.  Feeling oddly stranded, I introduced myself to the people whose body language told me they had zero interest in who I am, except as relating to my boyfriend.  I can't blame them - that's how everyone reacts when meeting new people attached to an old friend.  He told me later, in the car, that he had just panicked at seeing so many old friends converge on him at once.
What bothered me was that my boyfriend, by separating as soon as they approached, sent very clear messages that we are less than attached.

Sorry babe - you're cramping my style.

Eventually, we approached Troll and I paid for him to get in, since he'd forgotten to get cash.  He was then immediately swept off by another unknown woman with a short cryptic explanation of "Apparently she needs to show me something, I'll be right back".

I spoke with a friend from my theater troupe for a bit  by the gate and ran into my boyfriend in the hall a few minutes later.  He said the woman was showing him where the dayboard was, so he could get some water or caffeine (dayboard being event food).  At this point, we ran into another woman who, when I introduced myself just said "Oh, you're the one who came in with Boyfriend" - with the inflection implying that's why I was at the event or in the society.  I replied that I'd been in the SCA for awhile, and that I had been working on X, Y, and Z.  Her reply was "Oh, I just meant that was how I remember you.  Now you have another characteristic" pointing to my apprentice belt.  Great.

We both ended up having a good time at the event.  Mostly by virtue of splitting up, he to the fencing list, and I to the throwing range.  But in the car ride home, he kept giving me these worried looks.  I felt tired, and a little irritated, but it was hard to put my finger on why.  But I think I have it.  He kisses me as we part, on the lips, on the forehead.  But there's something missing.  I don't feel that he wanted to spend time with me at this event at all.  And when we were together there, I was treated as an accessory.  So I didn't want to spend time with him, either.  What marked it was how conscientious some of my male friends at the event were in contrast to my absentminded and absent boyfriend.  They'd greet me courteously and come sit just to talk to me, and he could barely give me the time.  Near the end, I asked him to watch me throw axes as I'd just learned today. He forgot or didn't listen, and left for the fencing list again.

That last throw had a bit of extra oomph.

He wasn't fencing today, just catching up.  I really enjoy fencing, and was looking forward to trying the SCA style.  I wanted to start fencing with him.  But if all of the other fencers treat me as some kind of self mobilizing baggage attached to my boyfriend, I cannot start.  I'm honestly not sure what I can do to be more assertive of my personality without coming off as a so-called bitch. This isn't to say everyone reacted this way. Just enough.

But I won't tolerate being treated as arm candy.

"Arm Candy" started as a joke.  I'm seventeen years younger than my boyfriend, and at twenty six, I still get carded.  So it's easy to understand how our relationship could be misinterpreted at first glance.  We've joked about it between the two of us.  But I didn't think I'd have to worry about that in the SCA.  It's full of creative people who have serious hobbies.  I never have this kind of issue when I'm on my own, making my way.  And yet, when I appear with someone, I'm immediately dismissed as lesser.

Fuck.  That.  Shit.

I've developed a sudden affinity for axes.  And throwing things.
These shall be my method of rebellion.
Woe unto the shortsighted.

His relative inattention didn't help either.  I may be making mountains out of molehills, but I don't think he flirted with me once today.  There were kisses.  There was some hand-holding.  But there was nothing behind it.  Not once did I see a flirty gleam in his eye.  Not once did he seem excited to see me, or to be there with me.  And whenever I saw him, I felt my own enthusiasm for the event drain out of me.  I tried to suggest joint time at the different activities, and it worked for a little while.  But one or the other of us just seemed to keep getting bored.  And any time he looked at me, he just seemed unhappy.

Part of me wants to find a way to assert myself as a human being with separate talents while broadcasting that we're happily "taken".

The rest of me wonders what the hell happened to the fun and the fire, and what can be done to light it again.

You can fix anything with a bit of solder, right guys?