Pumpkin Muffins

I visited friends in Toronto on Friday and Saturday. I do love traipsing around that city – I miss it every time I go there. We walked around my friend N’s neighbourhood near Casa Loma and ate very good sushi in Yorkville.

After a busy week, though, today was a domestic day. I cleaned my floors, threw out a pile of clutter, and made these muffins from Martha Stewart’s Whole Living magazine. I’d made them before and had some leftover pumpkin in the freezer. They’re easy and tasty and not horrible for you. I do, however, usually halve the recipe and make 10 or so muffins or ordinary size instead of 12 massive ones.

Pumpkin Muffins

3/4 cups vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice (I did not have this – is it an American thing? – but I just dumped in a lot of cinnamon and nutmeg and it was good)
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 cups pumpkin puree
1 cup plain low-fat yogourt
3 large eggs (I use two when I halve the recipe)
1 cup turbinado sugar
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush 12 jumbo muffin tins (each with a 1-cup capacity) with oil; set aside (again, you can make smaller muffins, but you’ll probably need to cut the baking time so keep an eye on them if you do).
2. In a medium bowl, whisk flours, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and baking soda; set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk oil, pumpkin puree, yogurt, eggs, and 1 cup sugar to combine; add 1 cup walnuts and reserved dry ingredients. Mix just until moistened (do not overmix).
4. Divide evenly and spoon batter into muffin tins; sprinkle tops with remaining walnuts and sugar. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes (about 30 for smaller muffins).

And as they’re reasonably healthy, you can eat them in the middle of the night and not wring your hands over it.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy last night. First, this was exciting because I only go to the movies about twice a year, and there was nobody scarfing popcorn or blowing their nose two inches from my face. The woman in front of me did have what appeared to be a platter of chicken nuggets, but she didn’t muck about with them too much.

Second, the movie was excellent. I thought it was alright at the beginning, very good about halfway through, and fantastic by the end. Today I like it even better.

I’ve always loved books and movies about spying – serious ones, not James Bond and running around with camera pens and that sort of rubbish – although I am a bit embarrassed to say I’ve never actually read anything by John Le Carré. I am, however, an enormous Graham Greene fan, and what I like about him is the way he portrays the loneliness and the moral ambiguity of that world. Which is exactly what this film does so exceptionally well.

This is a quiet movie. It doesn’t move quickly and there’s no running or shouting; everything is tense and claustrophobic. A few people actually left the theatre after about twenty minutes – there are a lot of long shots of brick walls and doorsteps and roadways, a lot of close-ups of faces and some very slow talking. But that’s because everyone is thinking so hard all the time – they’re all constantly looking at one another out of the corners of their eyes. Even the climax occurs quietly, but by the time it does, your heart is in your mouth. This is a movie that requires you to think – it doesn’t throw itself at you.

Gary Oldman was brilliant as Smiley. And Benedict Cumberbatch as Peter Guillam was, I thought, stunning, managing to be both vulnerable and terrifying. Mark Strong and Colin Firth were excellent as well. Each played his character with such tremendous restraint, so the betrayals and the private tragedies they faced became all the more heartbreaking for the silence that shrouded them. Benedict Cumberbatch, in particular, had a really wrenching scene at Guillam’s home that has stayed with me.

These men betray one another, too, and that moral ambiguity is, ultimately, the core of the film. Near the end, Smiley himself tells a lie that he knows will destroy the man hearing it, and he does so without even seeming to catch his breath first. There is no nobility in what he does, and he knows it. Loyalty to the state eclipses all other bonds.

Boots

I want these:

Mainly, if I’m being honest, because they look like something off of Sherlock, and because I’m pretty sure they would make a really excellent clicking sound as you were running down the street (away from the police, say, or after the criminal who’s been feeding lies about you to the tabloid press, before facing down said enemy on a hospital rooftop and then faking your own death).

The Inaugural Post

First posts are a bit embarrassing (“hello internet!” and that sort of thing), and nobody reads them anyway, so I won’t make this long and I won’t agonize over it.

Who am I? I’m Helen. I’m interested in lots of things, like hiking, cooking, choral singing, history, law, travel, interior design, antiques, poetry, and British television. This makes me sound about 92 years old, but actually I’m 28.

Why am I blogging? In large part, to avoid schoolwork. But also because I thought I’d have a shot at organizing my various interests into something a bit more formal and public than my own head. And because I like to write, and a blog is a better place than a diary to work on your writing because people can tell you if you’re shit.

I’m also blogging because I’m a law student, and this is my rebellion. I love law (well, some of it), but I thoroughly dislike law school. So this is my way of telling law school to fuck itself (although also please give me reasonably good grades), because I’m not going to spend every hour of every day with my head in a textbook.

So, hello internet! etc. etc.