Its the taking part

Periodically, they hold a baking contest in the Crown. And tomorrow its fruit cake. Now I can't bake. But there are beer prizes, so I am lured in. The judges still talk about my bread with a kind of fascinated horror. Indeed, I came first and third in the 2003 mince pie contest and have a certificate to prove it. The fact that the only other entrant was relegated to second on a technicality is neither here nor there. I won beer. And it was good.
So last night I knocked up a fruit cake. Unfortunately, I was missing a few ingredients. So I used orange squash instead of lemon juice. And glace cherries instead of walnuts. And dried apricots instead of dates. And I have no idea what polenta is, so I put in an extra egg instead. Its also the first time I have used the decrepit electric cooker that came with chez rich & I discovered that all the markings on the dials have long since worn off. So I turned a dial until a light came on & waited until it went off. That's a preheated oven at 180C, probably.
Now once this would have worried me. Once I would have weighed & measured the ingredients and double checked the oven temperature. But why bother because, and this is key to my baking style, once its in the oven I go into the garden, get distracted & burn the crap out of it. Last night I was potting on fuchias. And I have ended up with something resembling a fire blackened paving slab.
But that doesn't matter because, in true olympic spirit, its the taking part that counts. Last place is better than no place. Besides, I don't have to eat it, the judges do, and there is a certain joy in that. And who knows? Maybe there will be a shortage of entries. Last place may be in amongst the prizes. And free beer is good.