As initially described in yesterday’s post, I started in early Friday afternoon, working on our version of the King Chuck Coronation Quiche.
It wasn’t til near 11PM that the first of two pies emerged from our small oven. Then the second one slid in. It was well after midnight before the pair was lined up to cool and one trundled off to bed.
The Fair Wendy was up pre-sunrise, as planned, glued to her computer screen, with the first slice at hand.
There had been some minor kitchen drama: the fava beans, which looked green in the pie photos in royal PR, rapidly turned to dun mush, tho I followed the cooking directions. (The remainder can be recycled into soup stock, along with surplus spinach; or maybe I’ll fold it all in with the leftover heavy cream-egg & cheddar mix and try for some sort of soufflé.) Ideas are welcome.
As for the coronation ceremony, this florid and turgid British pageantry always leaves me bemused, not so much by the abundance of gold-plated bejeweled imperial paraphernalia, that’s no less kitschy because it’s supposedly all genuine.
Rather, it’s the heavy overlay of religiosity, God this, Christ that, prayers & anthems and Amens, gold crosses bouncing like kites above the throng, tbishops flaunting their seminal role in drag queen culture.
Yes, it’s tradition, but it’s happening in a country where (according to all-knowing Wikipedia) church attendance today hovers around one percent on a good First Day.
The late queen E2 was said to be a believing head of this all but empty edifice; and while one of her royal titles was “Defender of the Faith,” this part of her legacy always looks like not much more than zombie religion. Not that it was her fault, may she (& the corgis) rest in peace.
She was more active, if quietly, in the recent royal soap opera, which was on full passive aggressive display. Princess Anne, wearing her hat as Colonel of the Blues and Royals, part of the Household Cavalry, was strategically placed where her big feathery red tufts blocked the semi-banished Harry’s view from the back benches, and largely blocked him from the roving TV cameras’ view.
As the French say, “Coincidence??” He was also noticeably missing when the Corporation, err family, gathered on the palace balcony to wave at the huge cheering crowd. The tabloids & social media (me too) noticed & ran with this. But king Chuck and Queen Camilla didn’t let it rain on their big coronation parade.
Mother Nature, who it seems harbors republican sentiments, took jolly good drenching care of that.
And we’ll take care of the quiche.
Update: Don’t miss this later development: