A whimsy and a sadness

_La Fille Mal Gardee_, however gorgeous the peasant girls and however well-costumed the quartet of chickens, has music and choreography too tedious to be enjoyed at full length, sober. The human brain is thirsty enough for pattern that, if you mute the TV and put on Mahler's 5th, the music has moments of amusingly following the ballet.

The sadness: I'd made roast beef, vegetables and Yorkshire pudding. I don't know if it was a matter of incompetence of recipe or of age of the pan, but, though the Yorkshire puddings had risen wonderfully and popped neatly out of their wells in the tray, we quickly discovered from a slight strangeness of taste and coloration that they had stuck irrevocably to the tray's non-stick coating, and took it with them as they popped neatly out.

Yorkshire puddings with the bottoms removed fill more interestingly with gravy, but it felt such a waste of crispiness.