I know this sort of thing happens to the most of us from time to time. You’re writing and listening to someone speak at the same time, and end up writing down mid-sentence what the person just said, making whatever you were writing make either zero sense, hilarious, disturbing, or some combination of the three. Or you’re daydreaming, but accidentally vocalise an element of this daydream, most often resulting in mortification followed by rapid self-justification.
Yet I’d argue that this sort of thing seems to happen to me, at the moment, more often than the average. And yep, 99% of times it’s got something to do with food.
This is probably because, 99% of the time I am preoccupied with food in one way or another. My next meal, my shopping list, whether the bananas in the fruit bowl classify as ‘small’ or ‘medium’, what I’d do if Tesco stopped making the specific kind of hot chocolate that makes up a very important part of my everyday diet, whether that extra large grape yesterday should have actually counted as two grapes... I've managed to work around it, mostly, such that I can (reasonably) effectively multi-task and continue to go about my work and studies during the day (fear not, if you're my line manager or studies advisor reading this). But I'd be lying if I said that these sort of mix-ups didn't happen a little too frequently.
Turns out the Ulster University e-book database contains zero books about smoked paprika. Good to know. Probably to be expected for an academic collection. Thankfully it did contain the Jane Ogden I was after, so my government Masters loan was worth it. And thankfully for Jane, she didn't end up in my casserole that evening.