No, no, no, no! Whatever happened to womanly curves?

Excuse me, Miss Zellweger, but if it weren't for the Louboutins and the little green dress you could have fooled me into thinking that I was looking at the back of a svelte young man.
Since when are curves superfluous?

I am starting to see a trend here...

You know that I'm magical, And I am the original, I am the only one to make you feel this way (K. Minogue)

Your audience gives you everything you need (Fanny Brice)

Ah, Mr Ghaddafi... The world used to be your oyster, didn't it. You got away with almost everything with some of the world's leading politicians as your enablers, I might add.

No holds barred in your mad, bad world. Somehow being reviled doesn't seem to matter where you come from. In fact, it becomes an excuse to unleash the crazy.

All the world's a stage, a scribe famously once wrote. And every stage has its entrances and exits. What's that sound I hear? Do you hear it too, Mr Ghaddafi? It's the sound of one hand clapping.

Will the last person leaving the theatre please switch off the light?

Ah, Elizabeth...

And ah, the Fifties... Where people still were well-spoken...

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Yes, but is it art? (Patsy Stone)

The modern vegetarian creates stunning dishes that are simply packed with flavor, bursting with colour and sensational textures. All these adjectives leave you wondering whether they have invented the eighth world wonder and will be selling it at Sotheby's next along with a Picasso!

But it is the latest trend so how could I not hop on the bandwagon, dear Reader?

So behold below my attempt at cracking the canon with a warm cauliflower salad mixed with baby spinach leaves and red onion, drizzled with a vinaigrette of red wine vinegar, with some sultanas and acacia honey for added sweetness. Naturally it wouldn't have been quite complete without some snipped dill, for which I lazily resorted to my kitchen scissors. We ate it as a main.

On a final note, the carnivore in me has been screaming for the last half hour to be let out of its cage...

If you're afraid of butter, use cream (Julia Child)

In my opinion rhubarb is completely underrated. Imagine my glee then, dear readers, when the kind people at Panos decided to add a rhubarb tartlet to their otherwise rather bland selection. I'm too lazy to drive over to Paul's and God knows, I'm incapable of scoffing a whole tart on my own (a tart eating a tart... Oh never mind!). My appetite may be Gargantuan but I do know a limit when it's staring me in the eye.

Anyway, yesterday I was forced to rely on a rather less elegant form of transportation than I am used to. Those in the know will surmise that I am referring to my rather pink yet astoundingly elegant velocipede. An appointment, in an abbey on the other side of the country no less, meant that I had to hop on public transportation.

So there I was ruefully surveying my surroundings when it dawned on me that there was a Panos bakery nearby. 'A rhubarb tartlet, my good man', I trilled only to realise that I had gone out without my purse. Oh the shame of it. I did not feel like relying on the courtesy of a gentleman, and for that matter, there was no gentleman in sight. A quick body search yielded a 2-euro coin and so off I hurried, with my pastry in my handbag.

I ended up consuming it contentedly with a cup of good afternoon tea.