Something the cat dragged in
I still feel like something the cat dragged in . . . and the cat was in a really bad mood and was looking to annoy–or possibly horrify–the residents of the house. I can do horrify. These hollow eyes, the baggy grey skin, the contagious* looking hair, the vague gibbering . . . .
Pudding** is the only answer. So, first, did everyone see b_twin_1′s Apricot Chocolate Chip Cake a few days ago?
APRICOT CHOC-CHIP CAKE
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup (200g) chopped dried apricots
1 cup apricot nectar
125g butter
2/3 cup raw sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups coconut
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup choc bits
METHOD:
Soak apricots in nectar 1 hour (don’t leave much longer than this).
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a deep round 20cm cake pan.
Beat butter and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy, add egg yolks and coconut, beat well. Stir in apricots and nectar, sifted flour and choc bits. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, fold into mixture.
Pour into cake pan and bake for 1 1/4 hrs, stand 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
* * *
So I’ve been thinking about chocolate and apricots. Mmmm. Now some of you out there in pudding/dessert*** land must know the Rosie’s Bakery books? I have the first two, there may be more of them by now, and the titles alone are worth the price: Rosie’s All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed No-Holds-Barred Baking Book and Rosie’s Chocolate-Packed Jam-Filled Butter-Rich No-Holds-Barred Cookie Book, both by Judy Rosenberg. You already know what you’re getting into, when you pick one of these up.
In the cookie book there’s a wonderful recipe called Almond Apricot Sandwiches. Wonderful, that is, for anyone who is or has a stay at home mother, wife or husband, or who doesn’t have hellhounds to walk, pianos to play, stories to write, etc–or who is a professional baker and does this all day long. For the rest of us . . . it’s one of these recipes where you have to roll the dough into a monster log and chill the thing for hours and hours. And halfway through you have to drag it out of the refrigerator–where it is taking up unholy amounts of space besides, or it is to those of us with tiny undercounter, or in my case understair, refrigerators–and adjust the roundness of the log. Good grief. Well, okay, actually this is kind of necessary: when it’s still room temperature, refrigerator-cookie dough tends to relax. And there are a few refrigerator-cookie recipes–Sunshine’s Killer Zebras is one of these–where I do chill the dough, because you have to. But I’m always looking for ways to avoid it.
But for the Almond Apricot Sandwiches the punishment has only begun, because–as, I admit, you might expect from the name–after you’ve spent more hours and hours slicing logs into flawlessly even cookies and baking them . . . then you have to FILL them† with the same flawlessly even hand you used to slice the beggars.
So I created the Yes, And I Have Dust Under the Bed Too (Among the Boxes of Books) Lazy Slut’s Apricot Almond Chocolate Bars.
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 ¾ c all-purpose white flour
¼ c rice flour or corn starch/flour
¾ c confectioner’s/icing sugar (you may want less: this is a lot: Rosie is like this, and so am I)
½ c chopped almonds
1 c butter
Mix the dry stuff together, bar the almonds. Cut and smudge in the butter thoroughly, like you were making pastry, but no more (just like you were making pastry). Then make a little well and pour in the egg and vanilla. Beat this with a fork till it’s mixed and a bit fluffy and then start working it into the butter mixture. You will eventually have to use your hands. Knead it smooth.†† Just before it gets smooth, add the almonds, and work them in. This should feel like slightly slick (because of the egg) shortbread dough or cookie-press cookie dough. If it doesn’t, add a little flour or a little milk. A little.
Spread, squish and pat into a 13 x 9″ pan. If you’re a purist, prick it a little. Bake 20-30 minutes in a 350 F oven, till the edges are turning golden.
Let cool. You don’t want the top still warm and porous or it’ll go mushy when you put the jam on.
Now spread about ¾ c apricot jam over your cookie base. I have an Aga, so I run it back into the warm oven a minute or two, just enough to make the jam melt a little so it coats evenly. It’s not worth turning the oven back on for, and see above, about mushy. Also, you can get really bored, waiting sequentially for things to cool off again. If you feel like chopping more almonds, I sometimes throw another half cup of them over the jam.
Now melt about 6 oz strong dark chocolate (Rosie asks for 3: I like my chocolate glaze fairly emphatic) with 1 T butter (either in a bain marie or over very gentle heat); beat together, and then drizzle over the jam. The glaze then needs a couple of hours to set, although it’s not a tragedy if it smears a little when you cut into it.
Prejudice Note: the original uses ground almonds and almond essence, which I don’t like. If you do, you’ll want to experiment in that direction. Better yet, buy the book. You won’t be sorry.
* * *
* Sic. Think of the worst hair day you can imagine. Yes.
** The cross cultural life. It’s like what you put in your car to make it run: I can’t say either ‘petrol’ or ‘gas’, they both sound wrong.^ I used to say dessert, like a normal person. Then I came over here and everyone in my immediate vicinity seemed to say ‘pudding’.^^ What’s worse is that there’s some U and Non-U thing going on there, and I’m not close personal friends with any of the Mitfords or with Professor Higgins. Or for that matter with any Covent Garden flower sellers. I will do my rant on Thank the Gods I’ve Kept My Foreign Accent so the Natives Know Immediately What They’re Dealing With some other day, but for the moment, brace yourselves, but I tend to say ‘pudding’ when I mean ‘dessert.’
^ At the moment, I can say ‘diesel’, but this car will eventually wear out–poor thing, if I don’t rip something crucial off bouncing over the landscape first. Volkswagen built its cars to run on roads.
^^ Peter still says ‘wireless’ when he means ‘radio’ and ‘establishment’ when he means ‘shop’. I knew he wasn’t to be trusted.
*** Aaaaaugh
† There’s a whole chapter of sandwich cookies in Rosie’s Cookie Book. The horror, the horror.
†† Rosie uses her food processor all the time, including here. I have never bothered to learn to do this kind of thing with a food processor; when I was learning to bake they didn’t exist, and my hands are a lot cleverer than my eyes about recognising when something is where it’s supposed to be. Also, I hate washing food processor parts.
comments
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Mmmmm … cookies……
And I have discovered those books are available here in Oz. My wishlist just got *longer*.
I should send you some Australian dried apricots. Completely different taste to the Turkish ones. Customs and Quarantine would probably confiscate them though :(
Mmmmm, I just drooled all over my keyboard. Those look great!
Yum.
soupsoupsoupsoupsoupsoupsoup (all the way from NY to you).
You mentioned Sunshine! Is there a Killer Zebras recipe? More importantly, is there a Cinnamon Rolls as Big as Your Head recipe??!? I reread Sunshine recently and drooled over the cinnamon rolls. A few years ago, we had a coffee shop at my library that made fresh cinnamon rolls every morning. They weren’t quite as big as your head, perhaps half a head, but they were FABULOUS and I mourn them (the original coffee shop owners have moved on). My waistline, however, doesn’t mourn nearly so much. :-)
Robin’s earlier response to the Sunshine’s Recipes query: http://robinmckinley.livejournal.com/10712.html
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“And halfway through you have to drag it out of the refrigerator–where it is taking up unholy amounts of space besides, or it is to those of us with tiny undercounter, or in my case understair, refrigerators–and adjust the roundness of the log. Good grief. Well, okay, actually this is kind of necessary: when it’s still room temperature, refrigerator-cookie dough tends to relax. ”
I just read a tip for keeping cookie dough in shape while it chills. Make it the diameter of a paper towel roll tube, wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and slide into the tube for chilling. Sounds do-able.
Sounds like making a different kind of nuisance out of a nuisance to me. YOU do it and report back. :)
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Well, if you’re going to bake, you are automatically in for a bit of “nuisance”. You’re going to shape it and cover it anyway before chilling, so why not slide it into a tube? Then you can fit it into the ‘frig with less concern about things banging into it.
??? Because I don’t do refrigerator cookies.
You are a cook after my own heart (as in, nothing wrong with being a lazy slut at least some of the times). I really LIKE bars: one pan, no frosting or filling, very rarely fiddly. I like cookies too, but I won’t make any that call for filling or rolling out and cutting: drop cookies or shortbread only for me. And I do not own a food processor, mostly because washing a knife and cleaning a cutting board has it all over food processor maintenance.
I love apricots and agree with Marian Tracy (whose cookbook “Real Food” is one I use more than most) that they are at their best when dried. I’ve never used Australian ones–I buy California dried apricots because the flavor is more intense than the Turkish/Mediterranean variety. I don’t think I’ve yet encountered anyone else who grew up eating apricot pie, but it is traditional in my family. (No chocolate, though.) I will try to remember to post the recipe when I get home.
The Alpha Bitch was very good today and showed beautifully, but we got dumped. It didn’t surprise me after I saw the style of the judge’s winners dog. Sigh. Two shows tomorrow (horrible LONG day), two different judges–we’ll see what happens. My VILE camera was next to useless today, too. It’s got to be replaced.
Hope you start feeling better soon. ::sends good thoughts::
Yes, I just LIKE bars too–and yes, bars or drop cookies and shut up! :) There aren’t too many I’ll frost either, too fiddly, but Butter Bombs are worth it. And I do make filled muffins/cupcakes. I do have the food processor–I bought it specifically to make hummous because I like it stiff (my hummous is a whole different animal than the thin smooth shop variety)–and do occasionally use it for other things. But indeed . . . I’d rather wash the knife and cutting board. Besides . . . I’m old, I’m pre-industrial revolution, I like contact with the STUFF rather than doing it all by machinery.
Hmm. Don’t know Marian Tracy.
Good luck with Alpha–and the CAMERA. You’re just finding excuses!!!!!!
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I love dried apricots and even use them in my apple pie (recipe already posted), but no way, no how, could anyone who has had good fresh apricots (even someone who hates the fuzz as much as I do) claim that dried is better. Fresh apricots come with an aroma that is delicate and fragrant and are juicy and mouth melting. We have a variety here called Diamantopoulou which are tiny and unprepossessing but you can smell them three metres away from the market stall… Unforgettable. Also lovely in gallettes, and stewed in a sweet white wine… They are coming into season shortly. Yum!
Yes, well you’re missing the fact that those of us exiled to weird-weather England never see an apricot fresh off the tree, pretty much. We like dried better because they ARE better. (I also hate the fuzz.) But I almost won’t bother to buy fresh apricots because chances are they are, and will remain, hard, tasteless little cricket balls, till they abruptly rot. Sigh. And yes, I’ve been kicking myself I didn’t remind everyone, when I posted my apricot recipe with btwin1′s, that I didn’t remind everyone that your apple pie has apricots in it.
No, the damn thing wouldn’t focus and the room was dark; you have to hold it out from your body to see what you’re trying to shoot, so it doesn’t stay steady, AND it’s SLOW. And to add insult to injury, worth next to nothing in trade-in. Grrr.
TRADE IN? So you have a NEW one? (Mind you, I am sweating *my* new one extremely–the main thing is WHY does it sometimes TAKE photos and sometimes NOT? It makes all the noises and so on . . . but you plug it into your computer later and only SOME of the photos are there . . . arrrrrrgh.)
I suspect that the Californian dried apricots are similar to the Australian ones. Very intense flavour. And for the lazy cook available in packets already chopped….. ;)
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I was able to get Californian dried apricots one year, many years ago, but since then we’ve only had the Mediterranean ones that I can find. And yes, the Californian ones were lovely – sharper, but delicious. Anyone like to start an export/import business for us deprived people over here in Europe? :)
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I hope you feel better/have a better hair day soon!
Hmm…. Recipes. I’m a scientist by day and cooking is too much like work.
It is nothing at ALL like science!!!! Put that ‘The Science of Food’ BACK on the shelf and stop cutting yourself with it!!!!
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what do the brits call the dessert we style as “pudding?” (ie, butterscotch or chocolate pudding, served cold.) Do they say things like “Oi, Ethel–we’ve got pudding for pudding this evening!” ? could one get stuck in an infinite pudding loop?
hope you’re feeling better.
Peter’s gone to bed, so I can’t ask. :) My impression is they don’t use ‘pudding’ as a dessert type. You have custard or creme brulee or mousse or something. Indian pudding, for example, is treated with disbelief. :)
No, actually, I feel so sordidly awful that chocolate is a survival mechanism rather than a cheerer-upper. Ugh.
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Christmas pudding? Plum pudding? Bread pudding? Summer fruit pudding?
Right on. Not at my own best, either, I do sympathize. But you know, as I do, that we will come out the other end of this in time. Solidarity! :)
Pity about the pudding, though. And they don’t mean the same thing by custard, either! At least, I recall that custard there is a liquidy thing you buy in a carton, rather like egg nog; but custard for me is always baked, with fresh nutmeg grated over the top.
Oh, hell, now I want baked custard, and it’s after midnight…
Solidarity! It’s a little hard to rub our lightly cut wrists together from four thousand miles away, but hey. . . .
Custard seems to come both ways over here, or maybe it’s just that the American version has got tacked on. But yes, you get offered ice cream, pouring cream, or custard with your sticky toffee pudding or your brownie. :) Now *I* want sticky toffee pudding and it’s nearly midnight . . .
What is Indian pudding? I haven’t had breakfast yet, so it is the time for believing impossible things.
Cornmeal and molasses, and it cooks a LONG time and gets all deep and mellow. :) I’ll post a recipe some day.
Your talk of pudding and custard has me longing for egg custard tarts on of the things on my list of THINGS TO EAT WHILE IN ENGLAND. My mother always says, with a sigh, “Oh, my mother made great egg custard tarts”, to which I reply, somewhat tartly, “well, you should have got the recipe, shouldn’t you?”, this being a sore point between us. If something is lost for good, and you have never tasted it, being constantly reminded how good it was, is not exactly constructive, nor particularly comforting.
tut tut. I have VAST faith that you could INVENT the superb, the PERFECT egg custard tart. So stop gringing at once, and start thinking . . . :)
I wouldn’t want to rub your nose in it, being dairy-free that you are. I do however make a truly superb creme brulee, which is heavier than a baked egg custard, and my mother has a wonderful hand with a creme caramelee… But these are too rich for summer in Athens. They are purely winter sweets for us. Now I am aiming for Colonels: lemon granita in a shot glass of frozen vodka sounds like just the thing… Or fruit salad with a touch of the citrus eau de vie… Or pound cake with vanilla ice cream with hot bitter chocolate sauce.
I am trying to think salads and you are dragging my mind to the gutter of deserts… (Sigh) Where I cheerfully follow.
Have salad AND dessert. That’s MY standard answer.
One of the things I will briefly go off my no-dairy for OCCASIONALLY is a really SUPERLATIVE creme brulee.
Ohh, Indian pudding. And toffee anything. Lord have mercy….
I do have a story from this week so hilarious that the mere telling of it lifts my gloom level slightly–but as it’s boss-related, I think I’ll have to put it in an email. :)
And yah, Susan, stop with the gringin’! :) If any of us could invent a custard tart recipe out of thin air, I would suspect it’s you. Will expect it any day now….
I think I’ll have to put it in an email. :)
********* Yes! Yes! And then I’ll change the names and POST it! [evil grin]
And yah, Susan, stop with the gringin’! :) If any of us could invent a custard tart recipe out of thin air, I would suspect it’s you. Will expect it any day now….
*********** YES. Susan, are you LISTENING? :)
I have been doing my investigations… My mother’s seventy first is on Saturday and I promised her a dessert (if the psychiatry / psychology project is done). I was thinking apple pie or baklava, but egg custard it may be… We have an egg guy at the farmer’s market who brings eggs collected that day, and they would certainly help. I shall see… and let you know.
“And lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil” – Hah!
Yes! It’s pure Monty Python, or maybe Basil, just before he whacks Manual upside the head…
When I was 16 I stayed with a french family for a summer in Normandy, and to repay their hospitality I made a “pudding anglais” for them. I loved sotted dick so that was what I made – they didn’t have suet so we had to get raw beef fat from the butchers and make our own. I guessed amounts (the foriegn borders affecting cooking thing is SO true), and finally, with great excitement I produced a near perfect spotted dick (to my amazement more than theirs – I was english, could not ALL english cook puddings as their heritage? Bien sur!).
They placed it on a large tray, and threw sugar all over it – well, OK. Next out came the brandy bottle – celebrating my lovely pud? No, drowning it!! It was swimming in brandy. Before I could recover, they lit the whole lake – I swear it made a “VAHWOOOM” as it took hold. Staggering under the flaming suety weight, my friend’s mother carried it into the dining room to cheers of applause, with the lights turned off. I just wanted the fire brigade before they ruined my work of art :)
And the reason for the conflagration? Christmas puds. All english puddings in this french village will forever be flaming puddings!!! I can think of some puddings which this might improve, but possibly not all :)
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LOL!! The first time *I* met spotted dick I thought they were, ahem, having me on! :)
Pudding can be a lot of things – the ‘pure’ form, as in a jam sponge pudding, that is steamed or baked, or Spotted Dick (suet sponge with raisins/sultanas in it), or there again there’s using the word just to denote the sweet course that follows the entrée. Using the word in its double or pure form, one of my favourites was Sussex Pond Pudding* – for which one needs the arteries of a fit 10-year old to enjoy with a clear conscience! My grandmother used to make this, but…(sigh).
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sussex_Pond_Pudding
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Oh heavens! I make Sussex Pond Pudding! In fact I make SEVERAL different kinds! Being an American I don’t have to get drawn into which is the GENUINE one!
Feel better!
Thank you!
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I have a brand-new food processor to try out and I may just have to get those books to play with it…
The one cookie recipe I will reliably bake, even though it requires refrigeration for a minimum of THREE HOURS is Pierre Hermes’ Chocolate Sables. They’re worth it. Every single bite of them. =)
which appear where–?
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The chocolate sables recipe appears here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E4D7113BF934A35752C1A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
It’s on the NY Times website, on page three of that article. If the link doesn’t work, go to the Times website, enter “chocolate sables” in the search box, and it’s the first link that comes up. The dough is very dry, when it’s first worked, and I’m still half playing around with the idea of adding an egg into it, for moisture. But that would change the cookie texture, so I argue with the dough each time I make them, forcing it into log shapes by sheer force of will.
The recipe comes through just fine. This may or may not be a good thing. :) Yes, my favourite ginger cut-out cookies are a nightmare to work.
Robin said: “The recipe comes through just fine. This may or may not be a good thing. :) Yes, my favourite ginger cut-out cookies are a nightmare to work.”
Oh those sound delicious. I very much want to bake something today, but my husband made us bread pudding today (using my exploded bread; not a pretty story), so I feel like I would be pushing my luck in the weight department.
The dear scale told me I gained 3 lbs in one week, today, even following Weight Watchers. I’m choosing to believe it’s water weight. =)
I’m sure to post them one of these days.
Good luck . . .
Hmmmmm….mind if I shorten that title to “[...]Lazy Slut’s Apricot Almond Chocolate Bars” for PWYF? I can put the full version in the body of the post, but I think if I use the whole thing in the title, it will cut off and casual browsers will not be able to see what it’s a recipe for.
Re the cultural divide: my mom and I were once in a fish and chips establishment (ha) in London and found ourselves in need of more napkins. We knew that it was supposed to be “serviette”, but neither of us could feature the greasy guys behind the counter actually using that word. Of course we knew better than to ask for “napkins”…so we just sat there muttering at each other: “You ask!” “No, you! You’re the one who wants them!” We never did get any. :)
THE BRITISH DON’T USE NAPKINS. Don’t you KNOW that?! Shame on you. :)
(Yes, of course you can shorten the title.)
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The correct thing to do in these circumstances is to wave hands around helplessly and say “Do you have a paper – um – thingy – you know…?”
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Thank you for the recipe which is most drool worthy, but more than anything thanks for the title. As a certified lazy slut with dust all over her piles of books, CDs, magazines and collections and, most particularly, all over her boxes of books under the bed, it is a great comfort to know that I am NOT ALONE in this.
Pathetic efforts from time to time to cure the piles (only of objects luckily) fail because of an unfortunate habit that means I keep adding to them. Sad as this fate is, I far prefer it to the pristine life of those who do not suffer from the obsessive collecting/reading/listening habits. (I am sure there is a subset who do have these habits and a life and a pristine house, but they must surely be in the superbeing category and can only be admired from a far, as there is no hope of emulation).
No, they’re WEALTHY and they have STAFF. Of course they get THROUGH staff rather quickly, because it tends to have nervous breakdowns and be sent away weeping piteously.
I should *trademark* Lazy Slut Baking. :)
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Absolutely. Then write how to books for everything. Or else license it out for others to write Lazy slut tidying up manuals. Which would be entirely appropriate. ;)
So, is this how I’m going to become wealthy and famous at last! Okay! :)
Dammit, Robin, I just spent sixty dollars on books, and now I have to order both of those. Also you haven’t put up the recipe for the Killer Zebras yet. Sulk.
I know chocolate cinnamon rolls are both possible and good. I wonder if it would be terrible to try chocolate cream cheese cinnamon rolls. With Danish pastry dough. How would you incorporate the cream cheese? Frosting? Filling? It already gets pretty gooey, with the cinnamon filling and the ganache…
I think I just need a bucket of lard and a spoon.
I will post my recipe for deep fried cheesecake with whipped cream and chocolate sauce very soon. Sugar/fat shock.
my recipe for deep fried cheesecake with whipped cream and chocolate sauce
********** eeeep . . .
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Or deep fried chocolate ganache balls with cinnamon?
Someone sent me and my ex-boss some sweets from America last Christmas – some of them were dried fruit dipped in melted dark chocolate…. mmmmmmm…… I don’t have much of a sweet tooth (my comfort foods tend to be on the lines of steak and kidney pie or Cornish pasties), but those were serious heaven.
Having very recently been diagnosed with coeliac disease (after nearly a year of trying to convince doctors that there really was something wrong with me), all these baking recipes make me salivate ten times more because I know I can’t have them. But this looks like one that might just work with a gluten-free white flour and it sounds so delicious. I will definitely give it a try.
Fortunately, I read Sunshine for the first time recently but before my diagnosis so it wasn’t too painful! :)
good luck!!!
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Oh, God, that’s Rosie’s in Boston.
I spent about three months temping for the Division of Insurance, which was handily located right above South Station, and I used to jaunt down and buy some pastryish thing (oh my God the raspberry bars) every day. It’s kind of amazing that I’m not twice my size; it’s really not *surprising* that I ended up with as many cavities as I did.
And now I’m practically living with a guy right by their *other* location, plus I kind of want to start cooking when we get a decent kitchen–and a dishwasher, because I am lazy–and will have to make these, so I’m doomed. Doomed! But pleasantly doomed. And now I have to go raid the kitchen.
(Also, er, hi. I just finished Dragonhaven today–awesome!–and was wandering the Internet, so.)
:)
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“So I created the Yes, And I Have Dust Under the Bed Too (Among the Boxes of Books) Lazy Slut’s Apricot Almond Chocolate Bars.”
That’s what that space under the bed is for, isn’t it? Dust and books…and a smidgeon of cat hair! I salute someone so well grounded in reality. :)
Only a SMIDGEN??! I’m ANKLE DEEP in hellhound hair, weeping into my dustpan!
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“That’s what that space under the bed is for, isn’t it? Dust and books…and a smidgeon of cat hair! I salute someone so well grounded in reality. :)”
—- Unless of course you have a tall bed (the last person to live in my room propped it up on bed stilts and at my request left it that way; very useful, although I always feel like I’m back in the dorms), in which case you stuff as much under there as possible. I think my most interesting under-the-bed inhabitant is a microwave (long story [and yes, that made me feel even MORE like I'm living in a dorm, although it's not plugged in or anything... Now I just need the mini-fridge....]).
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Anything that involves dark chocolate and dried apricots is bound to be worth while. California dried apricots, preferably (you can order them in large quantities from The Apricot Farm).
Oddly, it sounds like spring in southern England this year is just like the spring we are having in central Utah at 5960 feet above sea level. We had snow & frost last week, and I was out putting buckets and flowerpots over my lilies. I think I saved all but one. Most of the apricot blossoms had already been frozen before they even opened. Then yesterday it was over 80.
I’ve been interested in your whippets’ digestive problems, as it sounds a lot like my rescue Gordon setter’s problems (though in his case the enzymes turned out not to help).
I was very pleasantly surprised this morning when, on reading an e-mail from Amazon telling me about a new book by Diana Wynn Jones, I noticed at the bottom among other advertising, A NEW BOOK BY ROBIN MCKINLEY. WHAT??? I immediately pre-order it, then go to your website. No hints of new book. Oh well – I would much prefer that you write new books than that you keep your website updated.