Weirdy cauliflowers and cake and more cake (and banana shallots, again)

Oh dear. I uploaded this picture almost two weeks ago with the intention of expressing my confusion at this teeny tiny weird looking cauliflower (cunningly snapped next to my iPhone to show you how small it is), and to express my dismay at the contents of my first Riverford box but a) I realised the box wasn't actually so bad (lots of lovely blood oranges and delicious sweet plums, an aubergine, some huge portobello mushrooms, onions and this odd thing) and b) lots of actual eating got in the way of writing about my usual diet of food porn.

So instead I'll give you a snippet from the food porn headlines of the day, which is that M&S are dropping their long running "This is not just any melt in the mouth chocolate fondant...." ads to make way for a campaign adjusted to giving customers value for money.

You can read about it here in today's Independent.

I don't know about you, but I'm sick to death of all this austerity retro cooking bullshit. Yes, it is indeed a great thing to "rediscover" cheap cuts of meat and not to waste food. But that doesn't mean we can't celebrate it. Or dream about the joy brought by a good ribeye when one can afford it and the treat of a sugar and cream laden pudding given we are definitely not living with rationing?

I for one am looking forward to the new Sophie Dahl cookery show starting on BBC2 tonight. My first thoughts when I heard about her book and then the show were, "Oh please. Beautiful rich model famous because she once carried a few spare ounces of puppy fat boasting about how much she can put away without getting fat again. Give. Me. A. Damn. Break."

But then I softened a little and realised that if she's flying the flag for cake and cookies she's ok by me (more on cake at a later date. Maybe tomorrow. I baked 200 of the little munchies last week, contracting gastric flu somewhere along the line so just the thought of them makes me sick. Really hope it's not making the 100 people I fed them to on Saturday night sick too).

There are amazing cakes in every baker's window and all the fancy cake shops, and it's sooooo easy to turn out something edible yourself. Therefore the cheap nasty shit filling supermarket shelves really annoys me. Stuff that reminds you of your childhood, or at least helps you reminisce through mint Viscount-tinted glasses, is just about ok. But people, if you're going to treat yourself, you need something either high end (expensive) or home baked (preferably with the love, tears, well wishes or whatever else applies of yourself or your nearest and dearest).

If Miss Dahl champions this sort of gluttony, I'm all for it.

Christ, I have so many cake blogs to write I am beginning to realise why I am so fat. From the last week alone, which happened to coincide with my birthday, there are the cakes baked for me, the cakes bought for me, the Pierre Herme macaroons, the cakes I baked for others, the cake books bought for me...

PS. Thanks to last night's episode of Masterchef I now know what a banana shallot is. In the cooking challenge they all immediately grabbed a banana-shaped shallot and set to the mussels or the chicken prep. I thought, "What a cleverly-shaped shallot. The normal ones are such a bitch to peel and pop out of your clammy grip during chopping." And then it dawned on me...