tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50054883549051050582024-03-12T04:51:06.948+00:00The New Thought FoxpostJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.comBlogger228125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-3213889596349601302012-10-14T19:36:00.002+01:002012-10-14T19:37:05.914+01:00Pumpkin Gnocchi with rosemary and cobnuts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So it's autumn, and the markets are bulging. There have been comments in the media repeatedly recently about how the awful summer has made for bad harvests and so on, and I'm sure that's right - I saw it in the fields in Cornwall in the summer - but it hasn't shown up at our farmers' market yet. Even so, I'm doing a bit of trying to eat less meat and make more of the vegetables and generally reduce our impact a bit, as well as minimising the hit to wallet, waistline and world that meat represents. In fairness, this is made a bit easier because Brixton farmers' market doesn't have what I regard as a stellar meat stall, so I'm safe enough. When nobody has big hunks of ham hock or pork shoulder sitting out in pride of place on their stall, it's easy enough not to have made <a href="http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2007/09/carnitas/" target="_blank">carnitas</a> for dinner <i>again</i>.<br />
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The squashes were great when I showed up at the market a week or two ago and I bought a huge kabocha with a lot of enthusiasm and no plan at all. Some of it became soup (some of which is still in the bottom of the freezer), and more became curry, and quite a lot became these gnocchi. Squash goes a long way between two hungry squash eaters.</div>
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And I bought cobnuts, despite the fact I didn't own a nut cracker. I shot a few of them across the room before I hit on the teatowel/rolling pin combo, and since then they've shown up in piecrust and pesto and a heap of other things...and Tom bought me a nutcracker, after nut shrapnel punctuated his work-related Skype call from across the room.</div>
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I've never been that hot at gnocchi - they always fall apart or come out gummy or both. I know you need to keep the amount of flour down to minimise the chew, but you do need some to keep them together and so on. I think I hit on the answer this time: a good firm fleshed pumpkin. The ordinary butternuts are too wet. If they're what you have to use, chop then roast, rather than steam, to maximise the amount of water you drive off.</div>
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Somehow these became a speedy we've-been-wandering-around-town-all-day dinner. They're quicker than you think, really. All the time is in the prepping and steaming of the veg and the rest is easy.<br />
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<b>Pumpkin gnocchi</b></div>
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This recipe makes enough for four, but they freeze really well if you lay them out on a tray lined with baking parchment in your freezer overnight and transfer them to a freezer bag when you next need the tray or the space in the freezer. You can cook them straight from frozen, too - they take one whole minute longer...that's all. Instant dinner!</div>
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<u>Ingredients</u></div>
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250g potatoes (I used a particular variety known as 'white'. Yeah. High science. Cheap supermarket baking potatoes, chosen for their ease of peeling. They worked great.) </div>
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300g pumpkin (this was about a quarter of the big kabocha I had. I'm not sure sure specific amounts are really important here.)
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The method I was vaguely following (<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/recipes/pumpkin-gnocchi-with-sagebutter-sauce-905208.html" target="_blank">this one</a> from the Independent) told me I needed 160g plain flour. I didn't, I needed less, and then felt I needed less even than I'd used. As I said above, you need to err on the side of less, but you'll need to be the judge of your own dough.</div>
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A good pinch of salt</div>
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<u>Method</u></div>
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First, peel, cube and weigh out the veg, then steam until fork tender (about 20 minutes for half inch cubes of potato and less for the squash).</div>
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Make the dressing at this point, so that you can heat it up when the gnocchi are boiling.</div>
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Let the veg steam dry and cool for a few minutes before mashing or passing it all together through a potato ricer (which is a thing which looks like a giant garlic press and I only own because I inherited it from my grandmother...the average kitchen shop will have one!). Add a pinch of salt and around 80g of plain flour. Mix together - it should form a very soft dough. You're looking I think for something which holds together and which can, with the aid of flour, be persuaded not to stick to too many things. I suspect you'll need around 120g of flour in total, but start lower and work up.<br />
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When you think it's reached a good consistency, divide the dough into four portions and, on a floured surface and with well floured hands, roll each one into a rope around a half inch thick.<br />
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Gently reheat the pan with the dressing, and set a big wide pan of water to boil.<br />
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I used a bench knife to slice the ropes into little sweetie-type cushions, and then poked them a bit until they were all about the same thickness. Drop as many as will fit in a single layer into your pan. <br />
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Gnocchi are magic, and sink to the bottom until they're cooked, and then bob up to be fished out by you with your slotted spoon.<br />
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Transfer your little dumplings to the hot butter sauce (careful, spitty), and keep cooking until all are in the sauce. Carefully turn them over to coat them, and serve on warm plates with parmesan grated over.<br />
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<b>Cobnut butter dressing with rosemary</b><br />
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(This is enough for a half recipe of gnocchi)<br />
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I used a double handful of unshelled fresh cobnuts...I forgot to weigh them. Bad Hazel. I suspect 100g of shelled hazelnuts would be more than enough.</div>
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A sprig of rosemary (thyme would similarly have been lovely, but neighbours don't leave thyme bushes invitingly hanging over their garden walls for casual passersby to harvest the odd needle from...)</div>
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A pinch of chilli flakes (optional)</div>
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100g of very best salted butter</div>
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1 clove garlic, thinly sliced</div>
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Salt and freshly ground black pepper</div>
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<u>Method</u><br />
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Shell the nuts if required, using a more efficient method than a rolling pin and a tea towel, and chop them coarsely.<br />
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Heat the butter in a big frying pan and when hot add the nuts and rosemary. Cook gently until the nuts begin to colour, then remove the rosemary and stir in the chilli flakes and garlic. Cook for 30 seconds more, until you can smell the garlic. Remove from the heat and grind over plenty of black pepper and a small pinch of salt.<br />
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Keep to one side until the gnocchi are ready.</div>
postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-41984542880432006042012-10-04T23:21:00.001+01:002012-10-04T23:21:41.260+01:00Cinnamon whey bread buns.There are days when you never finish anything. There are days when you barely start anything without getting distracted. There are days when you find you forgot to do one important thing and have given your time to fifteen pointless ones. There are days when it gets to five pm and you realise with horror that you have achieved nothing, but nothing, and rush to cram some work into the last hour of the day and end up staying on just so you can feel like you accomplished something, and still leave hours later knowing you haven't.<br />
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For those days, there is baking. You can come home and break out the emergency butter and emergency sugar, and weigh and mix and taste and cook, and at the end you have something to show for it. It might be late, but who cares? You have buns - and tomorrow you can take them into the office and people will say nice things and it will be another day.<br />
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Yeast dough isn't usually for evening baking, and this whey bread isn't really for making cinnamon buns, but they came together quick enough and with hot coffee made for the perfect breakfast.<br />
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I used Dan Lepard's sweet whey bread recipe from <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Handmade-Loaf-Dan-Lepard/dp/1845333896/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349387927&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Handmade Loaf</a>, which begins with the instructions for how to make fresh cheese using rennet, which I never have in. I have made a paneer a few times with lemon juice or yoghurt, though, and freeze the whey to make this slightly enriched bread. He makes it into a slightly sweet soft white sandwich bread, good for breakfast toasting and similar. It's like a less rich challah, to my mind - with butter and milk but no eggs. Tom and I have made it a few times and cut the honey somewhat to make it better for savoury uses. Here I kept the honey at the original levels to keep the sweetness.<br />
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I haven't tried making this with ordinary milk. I suspect you could sub 150ml milk, simmered for a minute and mixed with 150ml cold water. The simmering kills enzymes and changes proteins and similar, and mixing it with cold water will both drop the temperature and give the liquid a texture closer to whey. Haven't tried it though. I usually use <a href="http://www.journeykitchen.com/2011/11/how-to-make-paneer-at-home.html" target="_blank">this technique</a> for making paneer - it's very quick, and the paneer itself is delicious in Indian recipes or, if you don't press it, as a soft cheese to eat with berries and the like instead of yoghurt.<br />
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The filling is a standard one for Tom and I - 75g salted butter; 75g dark brown sugar; 15g powdered cinnamon. Soften the butter (but don't melt it totally) and mix the other two ingredients into it.<br />
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After the dough has risen twice and is ready for its final shaped rise, on a floured surface roll it and push it out into an oblong roughly 18 inches by 36 and spread the filling all over it. Roll it up tightly and slice it into 2 inch rolls. Pack them into a baking tin lined with paper, close but not quite touching. I used a 9 inch square cake tin for the 'presentation' buns, and put the mucky off cuts into a round sponge tin. <br />
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Preheat the oven while the buns do their final 45 minute rise (now they'll be butting up against one another), then bake according to Dan's instructions, checking ten minutes before the end (buns bake quicker than loaves) and switching the tins around a couple of times during baking. They should be well risen and golden brown.<br />
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While the buns bake, make a quick glaze by heating together the juice of one lemon with 30g of caster sugar. Boil it for a few minutes until it begins to get syrupy (the bubbles begin to get larger). As soon as the buns come out brush this all over their surface.<br />
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I felt better.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-85549584320449262602012-08-05T22:16:00.002+01:002012-08-05T22:40:39.337+01:00Pistachio petit-four cake.I have had a fascination with this cake for some considerable number of months. I've been wanting to make it and wanting to make it and wanting to make for AGES. I very much love Deb's <a href="http://smittenkitchen.com/" target="_blank">Smitten Kitchen</a> blog - so much so that I pre-ordered her cookbook the day it came out and I'm waiting with bated breath for it to show up. In the meantime, I'm baking my way through the back numbers - which brought me <a href="http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/06/16/pistachio-petit-four-cake/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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I was explaining the cake to Will - while we were eating <a href="http://thehawksmoor.com/" target="_blank">enormous steaks</a>, now I think about it - and bemoaning the fact that it's hard to make for work and anyway was enough of a spectacle that it really needed an event suitable for it. Whereupon Will invited me to his birthday bash, which involves approaching 20 people in his parents' beautiful house, barbecuing, eating and drinking... Also plenty of chasing about with two labradoodles, one of whom was clearly designed to be in a cartoon, trying to make friends with the horses and biting nails over the Olympics. Brilliant.<br />
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The cake itself is remarkably easy to make. That's sort of the thing about baking - you do one step after the other, just like the recipe says, and it all comes right in the end. You do have to measure, and it <i>is</i> worth doing the little things that seem fussy, like weighing your batter into the tins to make sure they're the same thickness or browning the nuts before you grind them...and when you do that, it all works. I only had 2 cake pans for a 3 layer cake, so I did a lot of weighing out of ingredients and dividing them so that I could bake in stages. <br />
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Producing the cake was overkill. Totally. It was enormously excessive and unnecessary, and went down brilliantly. I will do it again.<br />
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I followed Deb's recipe more or less exactly, except that I used store bought marzipan (because I had some and don't really possess the tools to make it from scratch) and my own rhubarb and vanilla jam instead of the apricot she specifies. The jam functions as glue, and adds a necessary sour note to the sweet cake. I also ground the entire quantity of pistachios into the batter, rather than keeping a third of them for decoration. I actually did this by mistake, and then found in the comments that other people thought it was better that way anyway. I invented an olive oil praline for the topping, partly because I love making praline but mostly because the idea of making marzipan roses didn't really excite me. Not good at decorative. The topping did give nice crunch, too.<br />
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The only change I would make would be to switch the vanilla extract for 1 teaspoon of almond extract. I think a strong vanilla flavour faintly tips this cake towards the sickly, where a bit of nut extract might ground it a bit more. Also nice might be a drop of orange oil, or maybe a little orange zest in the ganache - some citrus would help the sour jam cut through the richness.<br />
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I am not going to reprint Deb's directions, because she does them <a href="http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/06/16/pistachio-petit-four-cake/" target="_blank">so excellently over on Smitten Kitchen</a>, but please see below the ingredient list converted for the usual UK/European measures.<br />
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<b><i>For the cake layers</i></b><br />
<i>115g shelled and skinned pistachio nuts</i><br />
<i>400g caster sugar</i><br />
<i>300g cake (or plain) flour</i><br />
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<i>1 tablespoon baking powder</i><br />
<i>½ teaspoon salt</i><br />
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<i>225g unsalted butter, at room temperature</i><br />
<i>115ml whole milk</i><br />
<i>2 teaspoons vanilla extract (see note, above)</i><br />
<i>5 UK medium eggs, lightly beaten</i><br />
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<b><i>For the filling and ganache</i></b><br />
<i>500g marzipan (this is enough for roses too, though you will need a few drops of food colouring)</i><br />
<i>Cornflour, to roll out marzipan</i><br />
<i>280g sour-sweet, but not to strongly flavoured jam - apricot, plum, rhubarb or gooseberry are ideal.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<i>450g 72% cocoa chocolate</i><br />
<i>300ml double cream</i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Split ganache! Agave syrup being used to fix, and a lot of <br />
dirty vessels as I panicked a little bit...</td></tr>
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**My <b>ganache </b>SPLIT!** I was devastated. I think this was because I probably didn't get the cream quite hot enough. I did manage to rescue it, though - here's how:<br />
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Put about a quarter of the split ganache in a bowl and heat up 2 tablespoons of an invert sugar syrup in a small pan. This could be corn syrup, or perfectly runny uncrystallised honey - I used agave syrup, which I like because it doesn't taste of much. Golden syrup should work as well, or glucose syrup. Pour the hot syrup into the split ganache and STIR. Stirstirstir. When the ganache smooths out, add about another quarter of the split stuff and stir some more - it should carry on thinning out. If it doesn't look like it will, add another couple of tablespoons of hot syrup and stir some more. Keep mixing hot syrup into the ganache until it all goes shiny and smooth, and then use quickly before it sets.<br />
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Making the <b>praline</b> is very easy indeed, though because it involves hot sugar should not be done with children or pets anywhere about who could get burned. <br />
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Prepare a tin with a small piece of parchment paper and put it on a heat proof surface. Take 25g of pistachios and toast over a medium heat until smelling nutty and beginning to brown. Remove and set aside. <br />
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Add 50g of plain white sugar to the pan and spread out to cover the bottom. Keeping the heat on the low side, watch the sugar liquefy. You may need to stir a little to make sure it melts evenly. When it's all melted, watch it turn to a light amber. Remove the pan from the heat and add a tablespoon (or thereabouts) of good olive oil. Stir in the pistachios and pour the whole mixture onto the prepared pan. Spread the pistachios into a single layer and leave to cool completely. <br />
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When cool, use a large sharp knife to chop the praline into pea-sized pieces and scatter them over the warm ganache of the cake. (If the ganache is set, you can use a hair dryer to melt it enough that the praline sticks!)<br />
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Serve the lot to 17 hungry people.<br />
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<br />postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-1836598544327115422012-07-28T23:52:00.002+01:002012-07-28T23:52:48.442+01:00Guacamole.So normally making guacamole is very simple for me: I put an avocado into one of Tom's hands and a knife in the other, and say something like; 'We're having chill for dinner!' and guacamole happens. I genuinely didn't know how, until, deserted, I had to figure out how to make it for myself.<br />
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Here are most of the ingredients. Typically, I didn't pull one key element out of the refrigerator but we can have that as a surprise later.<br />
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NB that piece of chilli is frozen - they come in great big bags, especially if you buy them at the Indian grocers, and nobody can finish them that fast. I freeze them and then cut lumps off as required - they defrost enough to be easily to cut in about 2 minutes.<br />
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First task is avocado stoning, where you halve the beast, smack a knife into the stone (carefully avoiding cutting off own hand at wrist, or any wayward fingers) and then turn the knife like a clock hand to release the stone. This works like a dream, though I sometimes find getting the soapy stone off the knife is a bit of an adventure.<br />
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Using a butter knife, dice the avocado flesh and then remove it to a bowl with a spoon. Voila:<br />
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Juice your half lime and sprinkle over some salt. Leave to macerate for 20 minutes or so, while you mince 1 large clove of garlic and about an inch of red chilli. <br />
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Cut a medium-large tomato in half and remove the seeds (I usually throw them in the main dish, if it's a saucy one), and then cut the flesh into large dice. Take the leaves off around 6 big sprigs of coriander/cilantro and chop coarsely.<br />
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Pour off any lime juice which hasn't been absorbed into the avocado and mash it a bit with a fork or a spoon, depending on how ripe your avocado was. Stir in the chilli, garlic and tomato. Add the coriander/cilantro just before you serve it, and taste to see if it needs more salt. With chips, chilli, quesadillas, tamales, bread...anything, really. It doesn't keep so you really should finish it. Yes. That's why you should finish it. Ahem.<br />
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Technically, 1 ordinary avocado could probably be said to yield 2 servings. This has never really been noticeable for me.<br />
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<b><i>Making Guac, the Tom Way</i></b><br />
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Take one soft avocado. Cut around the stone and separate the halves. Smack a large knife into the stone (miss own arm and fingers) and give a slight turn to remove the stone. Use the butter knife to dice the flesh and then spoon it into a bowl. Add the juice of half a lime and around half a teaspoon of salt. Leave to macerate for around 20 minutes.<br />
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In the meantime, finely dice half a deseeded chilli and a clove of garlic. Remove the seeds from half a medium-large tomato and dice the flesh quite chunkily; a finely sliced spring onion is optional. Coarsely chop the leaves from 6 or so sprigs of coriander/cilantro.<br />
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Drain any excess lime juice from the avocado and mash it coarsely. Stir in everything else. Eat all at once, with gusto, chips or Mexican dishes.<br />
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Er. This was the day it got to bedtime and I found I'd accidentally made fairy cakes. True story. These things happen to me...postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-37929105508235024582012-07-23T10:31:00.002+01:002012-07-23T10:37:50.539+01:00Success! (with pitta)I had a marvellous weekend. Stuff went well. I cleaned, to start with. Sometimes that's a mood that takes me. The weather was beautiful. A friend came around for dinner. We went to Ikea, and even that was fun. I managed to scrounge a lift to the supermarket and didn't have to do my shopping online. I learned to play a new piece of music on the concertina AND figured it out sort of on the guitar. <br />
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We'll skate over the dental experiences of Friday and the fact that my lover is still 5,000 miles away - though the first of those was less bad than it could have been, and the second, well, he seems to be having fun and sends me a lot of photos.*<br />
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But Success with Pitta, on the third attempt, was my crowning glory. I cheered when I saw the balloon in the oven. The key is a blisteringly hot oven...<br />
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<strong>Pitta Bread</strong><br />
Adapted from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum<br />
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<strong><em>454g bread flour</em></strong> – I used a combination of flours, because I’m the kind of person who can get excited about that kind of thing, and went with 200g of strong white bread flour, 200g of 00 flour and 50g of spelt because I like how it tastes. Don’t use too much wholemeal, but otherwise any bread flour combination will be fine.<br />
<strong><em>295g water at room temperature</em></strong> (using leftovers in the kettle is a good option, chlorine is bad)<br />
<strong><em>12g salt</em></strong> (around 2tsp, err on the low side) <br />
<strong><em>7g instant yeast</em></strong> (one of those little sachets)<br />
<strong><em>27g olive oil</em></strong> (around 2tbsp)<br />
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Combine everything in a bowl into a sticky mass then cover the bowl with a plate and go away for half an hour. This lets the flour soak up the water properly, making it easier to work.<br />
<br />
Kneading. This is a soft dough, it’s going to be sticky. Remove all jewellery, then scrape it out of the bowl into your hands. Proceed to stretch in your hands and then scrunch it back up and pull it in a different direction, keeping it in the air so it doesn’t stick to anything except your hands. <br />
<br />
Keep going for 10 minutes. You’ll notice the dough changing in texture – you’ll be able to stretch it more before it starts to break. If you haven’t used any brown flour, you should be able to stretch the dough into a little windowpane without it breaking. Your arms will probably hurt a bit, but hey, got to get the workout in…<br />
<br />
Using your third hand (or significant other, or just dealing with the fact you’re going to cover the bottle in dough), drop about a teaspoon of oil in the bottom of a bowl. It can be the first bowl, with bits still stuck to it, don’t look at me for extra washing up. Scrape the dough off your hands into one lump and put it on top of the oil, turning it to coat.<br />
<br />
Cover the bowl again, and put the dough in the fridge for at least 4 hours, punching it down every half an hour or so. You can leave it there for up to 3 days.<br />
<br />
An hour before you’re ready to bake, turn the oven on to its highest setting – if you’ve got the option of dual grill/oven, use that to get the temperature up as high as you can. Put a cast iron skillet in to preheat, too, or your very thickest baking sheet.<br />
<br />
Half an hour before baking, take the dough out of the fridge and divide into 12 more or less equal Clementine sized balls. Start with the first ball formed, keeping the rest covered with a cloth. On a floured surface, roll each ball out as far as it will go (probably only about 10cm at this point) and re-cover to relax.<br />
<br />
Go round again, and roll the first round of dough out to less than half a centimetre thick – they will be around 18cm in diameter. Keep flouring! <br />
<br />
Check the oven temperature – it should be about as hot as it goes at this point. I Love My Oven Thermometer, and it read around 250 degrees C. Transferring your round of dough onto the hot surface without it getting all folded up is a bit of a skill, but I discovered the oven glove was a better tool than my hand because it was wider and flatter and had fewer things to catch on. The other oven glove was definitely involved in the handling of the hot pan. I only managed to burn my knee and was reasonably thrilled about that.<br />
<br />
Slap the dough round onto the hot skillet, quickly close the oven and time 3 minutes. The bread should have puffed up like a balloon. Pick it out with tongs and move to a wire rack to cool; repeat with each round.<br />
<br />
Stuff with Stuff. I made falafel, but halloumi and salad and pickled chillies is a bit of a fantasy for the remaining breads, which are in my freezer awaiting inspiration…<br />
<br />
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<br />
*Of <a href="http://voodoodoughnut.com/" target="_blank">VOODOO DONUTS</a>, no less.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-78103355166312782862012-01-21T23:58:00.002+00:002012-01-22T00:02:31.019+00:00Civilisation.<p class='bloggerplus_image_section'><div class='bloggerplus_image_section' align='center' style='clear:both;'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEhutNLiWNMoZLQFzAqdJmFU55cIxkvMeDW1z9MOpNddQKz4v-KfkB6VsLcRFU2cn3V8FBgBdygoxvC1f3XH7G7-gXzqI8GD3MoCKJSLMimnHZJhD297LgMxj0hl2KsFpESeibNLb9Wv9K/'></div></p><p class='bloggerplus_text_section' align='left' style='clear:both;'>The British Museum is one of my all time favourite places. I find history fascinating, and am in awe of the ingenuity of our species throughout time. Vast palace without metal tools? Sorted, 2,500 years ago. Symmetrical, polished stone statues three times the height of a man made of a rock found many miles from where you want it? We've got this, 3,500 years ago. Beautiful polished axe heads made of hard and beautiful greenstone taking hundreds of hours to make? We did that, 5,000 years ago. And you can still see these thing. We made beautiful things, perfect things, way back before we had running water or cures for diseases or reliable long distance communication - at the same time women ground wheat for flour by hand, on their knees, for so many hours every day that it permanently damaged their skeletons. They would be breathtaking achievements today, but so much bigger then.<h1></h1></p><p class='bloggerplus_image_section'><div class='bloggerplus_image_section' align='center' style='clear:both;'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1oTdVXC_RBhLpChsVNLUNwBqpSk1nJtrbBWdjatJpNwOvkIxuOVctz4ZIr5_kPdSmOLX4a0qJilopV_GsVIplEKEMflCG_Ri_72r5eKIpY3nWAL6PYby31zoifZej-LvPD1E-mTqwdzhE/'></div></p><p class='bloggerplus_text_section' align='left' style='clear:both;'>The mummies bother me - dead bodies on display like this - but that thought forces another: that's a person. What would he think of me, of this, of us? What would strike him most about today, if he got up and dug his eyes out of that canopic jar over there, untangled all his layers of bandages and wasn't too distracted by the fact somebody had pulled his brain out through his nose with a hook...?</p>postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-58613505755934061292011-11-06T20:08:00.004+00:002011-11-06T20:24:57.839+00:00Nanowrimo...I should say, I'm not doing it. I feel I'd be setting myself up for failure, though kudos to those who do, like Hannah here, who might kill for this if she ever sees it...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6036/6319007847_6c02b83c49_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6036/6319007847_6c02b83c49_o.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>(Hannah is beautiful, for reference, see <a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6033/6295512752_b7b1ef6ff0_o.jpg">here</a>, even if she is dressed as a zombie.)<br />
<br />
I had half a mind earlier this week to try and write a blog post every day or similar, but I decided that was probably too much. I wrote an epic 2,750 word email yesterday, and today I read much less of a book about investment. I did get to eat this brilliant cinnamon bun though. The Nordic Bakery is brilliant...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6219/6319007411_2418c49787_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6219/6319007411_2418c49787_o.jpg" width="640" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Before all of that, and nearly too late - I made possibly my all time favourite thing to make...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6096/6319007649_12ea292c50_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6096/6319007649_12ea292c50_o.jpg" width="640" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>...mincemeat. I love Christmas cooking. And soon, I will make stollen.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-28830797123773261242011-11-01T23:30:00.001+00:002011-11-01T23:31:24.263+00:00A Zombie Tea Party<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://homepage.mac.com/grahamallsop/Zombies/pictures/picture-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://homepage.mac.com/grahamallsop/Zombies/pictures/picture-8.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://homepage.mac.com/grahamallsop/Zombies/">Courtesy of Graham</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>I love being a host. It's so satisfying to put a group of people in a room and and watch them talk. I love feeding them, and talking to them, and introducing them to one another. I love being the catalyst, the centre of the web. It's what I loved about producing theatre - being the facilitator, creating the space and conditions for other people to do things, which in turn makes something larger than the sum of its parts. It's what is fun about being a civil servant, in a way, and why I want to run a food businesss - the creation of conditions for good things to happen.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6104/6294978085_bba055a2bb_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6104/6294978085_bba055a2bb_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
We got it right with this party - all the time we spent sending invitations designed to make people laugh, ratchetting up enthusiasm, making cake, well and truly paid off.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6034/6294974393_dd6bdc041e_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6034/6294974393_dd6bdc041e_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
The house was full, everyone talked, the pumpkins were carved, the skulls were decorated, games were played. People met new people.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://homepage.mac.com/grahamallsop/Zombies/pictures/picture-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://homepage.mac.com/grahamallsop/Zombies/pictures/picture-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://homepage.mac.com/grahamallsop/Zombies/">Another one of Graham's. (They're mine...)</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table> Great evening.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-3458067909074521442011-10-30T18:34:00.002+00:002011-10-30T18:37:41.341+00:00Getting up at 5.30 on your birthday, or How To Make Croissants...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6108/6267581240_e45ffcc6ea_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6108/6267581240_e45ffcc6ea_o.jpg" width="640" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>We all know I love to bake. I would be a whole lot fatter without my work colleagues to help. There are certain traditional times when everyone brings in something edible into the office: birthdays, and when they come back from holidays. I add in 'whenever I feel like baking' to that list...and that's often. So when I get to one of the times when everyone brings things in, I'm on my mettle to produce something a bit <i>more</i>....so I spent 3 days making croissants for my birthday.<br />
<br />
It began on Friday night, when I mixed sourdough leaven and yeast poolish (batters made of flour, water and wild or cultured yeast). <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6168/6246118369_0bfb42903a_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6168/6246118369_0bfb42903a_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leaven - sourdough batter, made with equal parts water and 00 flour and a spoonful of my sourdough culture. Poolish is<br />
identical, but switch a tiny amount of commercial yeast for the culture. I have no idea why it should be called poolish....</td></tr>
</tbody></table>It finished as the sun came up on my birthday. In fact. this is what before dawn on your birthday looks like if it's mid October and you live in London:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6048/6267576462_e0a250fc82_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6048/6267576462_e0a250fc82_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monday 17th October, about 7.20am.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Croissants are a bit of a faff, even for somebody who really doesn't think that 24 hours is too long to wait for a loaf of bread. You make something a bit like a baguette dough (so that's very soft and very white)...<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6106/6246641448_aafb3c017a_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6106/6246641448_aafb3c017a_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dough bulk rising.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
and you roll it out, plonk a slab of butter in the middle and wrap it up like a parcel...<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6111/6249420862_ba05889a77_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6111/6249420862_ba05889a77_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laminating croissant dough with butter: and roll and fold and roll and fold and roll and fold and...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>...and you roll it and fold it twice every half hour, for 3 hours, until, eventually, you're allowed to shape them.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6098/6267071047_1911bc1520_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6098/6267071047_1911bc1520_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aren't they cute? I was aiming for mini ones, but they baked up to suitable breakfast size...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
It was Sunday evening by this stage - I could probably have got to this point 24 hours earlier but I wanted to make sure I could bake them on Monday morning, because who wants a day old croissant? I was going out with my friends to have brunch on Sunday, too, so it's a good job the dough is pretty forgiving - you can put it in the freezer and things to slow it down. Next time I make them though I want to do what they tell me about when I bake them, because I'm hopeful that will just perfect the texture.<br />
<br />
On Monday morning, they looked like this:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6118/6267571776_4aa6272ba5_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6118/6267571776_4aa6272ba5_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All glazed up.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>And they baked beautifully. Everybody thought I was mad, but *I* was the one who spent a whole hour on the bus with the heady smell of fresh croissants warm on my lap instead of stinky London morning commuters.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6229/6267057205_71c579612f_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6229/6267057205_71c579612f_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
I'm not going to try and write out the recipe, it would take too much explanation. Tom and I have a new Bible -<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6226/6295241849_c44a9b7f17_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6226/6295241849_c44a9b7f17_b.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
It's really excellent, if you're into this kind of thing. Lots of detail, lots of explanation, lots of wonderful photos. I think the croissant recipe would probably total about 20 pages, but it's hard to count and certainly not that hard to do. This is the second time I've made this recipe and they really did come out well. I am beginning to think I might make a few changes next time, because I'm not getting just the texture I want, but I need more time for that - and a lot of people to eat them...<br />
<br />
There are a few more photos <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/sets/72157627899632542/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6115/6267060431_e665a18c05_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6115/6267060431_e665a18c05_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-30723113857856702382011-09-12T22:00:00.000+01:002011-09-12T22:00:04.500+01:00Sunday Afternoon.I bought a coat - a spy coat. Trench coat. Double-breasted, mid length, mac. Inspector Gadget, or flasher chic if you forget the trilby. They're everywhere right now. I've been looking for one for a while, and my housemate handed me a 30% off, one day only, voucher for Gap he didn't think he would be using. I went to get out of the house, and because I thought they'd probably have something. I found the coat. It was grey rather than the traditional camel colour I really wanted - which was a bit of an issue as a friend has a similar item. Anyway. I put it on. It fitted pretty well and I liked the longish length it had going. I took an iPhone picture in the mirror to send to Tom for Opinions. I wandered around the shop for a while clutching the coat and waiting for an answer. After 10 minutes I had exhausted the shop and decided just to buy the coat. 30% is a good deal, and it's just on today, and it IS the kind of coat I've been looking for, and I don't spend THAT much time with the friend. As I leave, I get a text. 'Out with Jenn, we both agree the coat is only so-so.' I turn around and go back into the shop. I know I will never wear the coat. I tell the cashier that a friend has just told me she owns the exact same coat, because saying 'my boyfriend doesn't really like it' sounds even more dumb. He gives me an odd look, but returns it for me...7 whole minutes after he sold it to me.<br />
<br />
I text Tom the story. His response: I love you. I tell him that he's the only person on earth who would...postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-61731860442788812302011-09-12T21:38:00.003+01:002011-09-13T09:53:58.359+01:00What To Do With Monster.I went on holiday for a month. It was hot and sunny in the south of France, and damp and English in London. My garden has become a jungle, and everything is a size bigger than it should be.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6206/6141121097_0b48bf8b1c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6206/6141121097_0b48bf8b1c.jpg" /></a></div> <br />
There are mushrooms three inches across under the birch trees and clearly the homes of gnomes, a bright yellow pumpkin as big as my head which looks like a roc's egg, runner beans 18 inches long and fat with big purple beans, where the snails haven't got them - and under the parasol leaves near the front of the vegetable patch I found Monster.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6151/6136639984_66ce21dfe8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6151/6136639984_66ce21dfe8.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Monster is a courgette. Monster weighs 1.5kg, or 3.5lb in old money. Monster is practically as long as my arm. My dad told me not to take him on a train because he might get classed as an offensive weapon. Who could possibly be offended by Monster?!<br />
<br />
His eating demanded ceremony and attention. I didn't think he was going to get cooked at all, my week is so busy. Today my curry date (third in a week, but all delicious) cancelled a little to my relief. I will see the friend next week for idli and dosai, and we will be both be relaxed and ready. All the way home on the bus I pondered. I googled and thought and risked antagonising the motion sickness and the smelly man with ear hair who sat beside me for a while.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6202/6141029625_7fd0b67f5e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6202/6141029625_7fd0b67f5e.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Monster: roasted with lemon and rosemary; stuffed with crispy sausagemeat, chilli and pear.<br />
<br />
I knew there was going to be sausage, but it took a Nigel Slater recipe, obviously, to tell me that I wanted it to be *crispy*. The rest is my idea...<br />
<br />
<b>Marrow with crispy sausage and pear</b><br />
<i>Serves 2 very hungry people, or 3 with a salad</i> <br />
1 large courgette, or several smaller ones, weighing about 1kg in total after trimming.<br />
Rosemary sprigs (about six 2 inch ones)<br />
1 lemon<br />
olive oil<br />
8 butcher's sausages, around 400g<br />
1 hard conference pear<br />
1 tbsp coarsely chopped parsley<br />
1 small red chilli<br />
3 cloves garlic<br />
Sea salt and black pepper<br />
<br />
Preheat the oven to 220℃. Cut the courgette into 3 inch lengths, and then in half vertically. With a spoon, scrape out the spongy inner flesh (and add to your compost to feed to next year's Monster). In a large bowl, toss the pieces with a couple of spoonsful of oil, the zest of the lemon, plenty of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place the pieces skin side up in a heavy roasting tin or casserole dish and tuck rosemary sprigs all around and inside. Bake for 20 minutes, or until beginning to colour, then flip the pieces over. It will probably take 40 minutes all told, it's done when a fork goes all the way through easily but don't overdo it.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, chop the chilli and garlic finely. Strip the sausagemeat out of the skins. Heat a spoonful of oil in a cast iron pan until shimmering and crumble the meat into it - you may need two pans, or to do this in batches. If you crowd the pan the meat will steam and not go crispy. Try not to disturb it too much until it has begun to caramelise. Get it nice and brown, adding the garlic and chilli for the final 5 minutes. As it fries, chop the pear into quarters, core and slice each quarter into pieces half a centimetre thick. Remove the meat to a dish and keep warm. In the same pan, fry the pear until it takes a little colour, then add the juice of half the lemon and let it evaporate. Add plenty of salt and pepper, and return the sausage to the pan to combine. Stir in the parsley. Taste for seasoning.<br />
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When the marrow is cooked, discard the rosemary and serve with the meat.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-41113230690790600962010-09-12T21:45:00.000+01:002010-09-12T21:45:00.213+01:00No word processor.Did you ever play 'should've said'? Probably not, though you might have seen it, if improvised comedy is your thing. In Edinburgh and a few other places. A scene is started between two performers - about anything at all, usually the audience is asked for a prompt. At interesting moments, or boring moments, or any time at all that they feel like it, the audience can call out 'should've said' and the person who has just said something must say something different. With good performers, it means you can get all the funnies possible out of a given position or character or whatever. It's great.<br />
<br />
I play it in my head all the time. I guess everyone does - that argument you had with someone where, when you leave, you think of all the smart and cunning things you should have said. Or probably shouldn't have said. Or would never have had the guts to say. Wish you had had the guts to say. Going back to insert a paragraph, to edit in a more pleasing turn of phrase. I'm not really sure where to go with this except that it's an interesting sort of thought. What's done stays happen, you can't change it, there's no point agonising? Maybe that's the virtue of it. Handwritten, or on a typewriter - ink directly onto paper, anyway. No virtual words, just indelible ones, albeit in an ink that seems to run when it gets time on it.<br />
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Sometimes I go back to diary entries and read over them. I have diaries of one sort or another going back years. They have varying degrees of secrecy depending on my mood at the time. When I'm sad, it gets locked away and nobody can read it, but when I'm happy the world knows. Is that the right way around? Probably. But I'm always amazed at how inaccurately I remember things, how memory mangles things. Sometimes the edit process has come in and I 'remember' saying or hearing things that weren't heard or said. Somethings that were a big deal when I was 17 I don't even remember at all now; the entries in the diary, that I thought would point me exactly to the right memory, elicit nothing. I have prided myself on quite a good memory for events, the facts of them. Something about feeling compelled to take notes all the time. Even if I don't ACTUALLY write things up, I still sort of feel that I am. Maybe that's actually the problem? When I write things down I'm automatically composing. That probably makes sense. Anyone who reads and has an interest in words is hard pushed not to polish their own, I suspect.<br />
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It's interesting to think that everybody is probably writing in just such an inaccurate way as I am. Newspapers. Diaries. Reports. No matter how factual one tries to be, words are about atmosphere. They pass a value judgment no matter how colourless they're meant to be. Totally untrustworthy. And we can't totally unpick them, either. No matter how carefully they are taken apart and cleaned and twisted and turned around and examined, all we have to discuss them with are more words.<br />
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Too sleepy for the end of this thought. I have spent a long time thinking about memory, but I am also spending time in this job thinking about history. A lot of history comes from governments, and here I am writing things that contribute to that history. My words, my spin, my impressions. I have more opportunity to use them than I did before, and they count for more. It might not be fiction writing or poetry, but my typing is more weighted than it was before. And not by much. I'm not running the world. I'm interpreting it and smoothing it and shaping it, which seems pretty powerful from my desk next to the printer on the third floor.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-61492175203069623912010-09-08T21:03:00.003+01:002010-09-08T21:10:47.857+01:00Ecclesiastes 3.1-8<sup class="versenum" id="en-KJV-17361">1</sup>To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: <br />
<sup class="versenum" id="en-KJV-17362">2</sup>A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; <br />
<sup class="versenum" id="en-KJV-17363">3</sup>A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; <br />
<sup class="versenum" id="en-KJV-17364">4</sup>A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; <br />
<sup class="versenum" id="en-KJV-17365">5</sup>A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; <br />
<sup class="versenum" id="en-KJV-17366">6</sup>A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; <br />
<sup class="versenum" id="en-KJV-17367">7</sup>A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; <br />
<sup class="versenum" id="en-KJV-17368">8</sup>A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.<br />
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I got to read this once in Chapel. Hard to do in a way that makes it mean anything, I found, mostly because varying your tone in way that differentiates one pair of phrases from another rapidly becomes difficult. All of those repetitions don't mean the same in the way you might expect them to, either. Well. They're all about balance of one sort or another and there's solace in that rather Buddhist idea. That everything has its opposite, that generally the good times and the bad times go together and nobody gets just one or the other. I'm not sure that a piece of practical criticism is right. I was tempted. I suspect there are a dozen sermons you could find on every line, not to mention on the whole passage. It's a bit hackneyed, really. But the aphorisms have a place in a secular existence. Sometimes you need to start from the bottom up. Sometimes you get to reap the rewards. Sometimes you have to cry to remember how to be happy. Sometimes you have to throw stuff away. Sometimes you need to let your hair down. Sometimes it's for you. Sometimes it's for others. Sometimes things are over.<br />
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Sometimes they start fresh and new and full of promise. Optimism. Hope. Smiles.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-18438357399769405702010-09-08T20:51:00.001+01:002010-09-08T21:05:03.590+01:00A time to weep, and a time to laugh*<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/4944828376/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="436" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4944828376_dc233def59_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
It's September. Things always happen in September. The real New Year is now, when the weather is uncertain and the holiday is over. Lives grow across the winter while the crops have their sleep, and lives rest in the summer while the plants race. The old academic year of northern Europe is built as much around the fact that children were available to study in the winter time when the land was quiet as it is around the religious calendar. At school it always felt as though a labour in the dark and the cold would reach its full growth when the sun shone again. I work best now - a rush of energy from here to Christmas and then Christmas to Easter, and then a final push to put the gloss on the fruit before the laze of the summer. A rhythm as old as myself and much older. <br />
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So it's good to be starting a new job now. Great, in fact. The first-day-of-school feeling is the same as it ever was - nervous excitement combined with a desire to apply oneself. A summer over and term begun. This position is a totally new world for me, alien in the extreme. It's so different from anything else I have done or could be doing. I have responsibility. Things I do will make a real difference to society if not individuals. That feeling goes through the place - it's not a job you do unless you care a bit. It makes the atmosphere wonderful.<br />
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It's not a time to peep, though peeping is all you can do to begin with. Everything is changing. [Everything is always changing. Maybe one should never peep?] I am applying last year's lessons, about openness and optimism and smiling at strangers. This year's curriculum is about purpose and collaboration and maybe ambition. Bring it on.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%203&version=KJV">Ecclesiates 3.4 (King James Version)</a></span>postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-43947685594759737552010-08-23T11:37:00.000+01:002010-08-23T11:37:17.195+01:00A recent revelation.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/4785974603/in/set-72157624455092804/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/4785974603_0518dff225_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>I realised that if I had a child, it wouldn't be mine it would be ours - of me and its father (or other mother, but that's getting more complex). I wouldn't be alone with it. Sounds silly, right? Yes. Amazing how obvious it sounds. But to know it properly felt very strange. It was one of those dreamlike moments where there is a sudden certainty. I imagine those who have true religious faith have that feeling sometimes. It wasn't such a terrifying idea any more, the being solely responsible for another human being thing, because I wouldn't be <i>solely</i> responsible. It halves the burden, like a partnership is meant to - and you have to have some knowledge of a truly mutual relationship to understand that. It's only fairly recently that I've begun to have some inkling as to what one of them might be, too.<br />
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Not that I'm certain about the procreation thing. Apart from the biological icky (of which there is plenty...piles, peeing, sleeplessness, nappies, GIVING BIRTH and so on) and even with the sharing element, it's still an enormous thing, the biggest life change I think it must ever be possible to make. You get over the icky, I guess. Plenty of elements of being human are icky. As well as personal responsibility there are more peripheral moral or social elements too. Hard to think about them, though - human society since the beginning has been about the raising of children, always. It's one of the basic purposes of civilisation. Perhaps <i>the</i> basic purpose. Now, though, one might think about pressure on resources and levels of pollution and so on, and whether it is possible to justify having a child in that environment. And one also might wonder how we as a nation or indeed wider western society can support our ever greying population if we, those of us in our twenties and thirties, <i>don't</i> have children. I don't know if the two sides of that quite cancel out.<br />
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I have been saying for a while that I'd like to foster children. Again, there's a selfishness there - if I have care of a child that is not my own flesh and blood, I do not have the same expectation for it or want the same things from it. I'm not expecting it to enjoy the same things I enjoy or follow the same paths I did - its aptitudes will not be mine. I will be forced much more to take the child as the starting point, not my own hopes for it. Of course I would hope I could do that with a biological child as well, but I can see ways it would be much more difficult. I'm sure there's an element of contrariness, too. There is in nearly everything I do however much I want to dodge it - 'everyone else wants this, therefore I want something different'. It's not the same as never ordering the same as anyone else in a restaurant though. It would be nice to do some good. I've had a lot. Some kids get abandoned at the age of 3. I suspect that it would require some large lifestyle shifting. I haven't researched it enough, it's not as though it's something I am in any way ready for now, and probably not for another decade.<br />
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I'm less anti than I was. I used to say nevernevernever. It's hard to imagine having kids later in your life because it's very difficult to comprehend where you will be later in your life, particularly when you're still a kid yourself. I'm still a kid myself. Aren't I? I feel like a kid. I find myself thinking about it more and more. There's 30, that magic number after which incidences of genetic malfunction increase dramatically. It's four and a bit years away. Boys don't have that deadline. I sort of feel I have to have made a decision by then, I guess. Four and a bit years often doesn't seem long enough. I fall back like everyone else on 'wait and see'. I don't want to miss now in worrying about then. But I don't want to miss then for being too caught up in now.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-71387168358827047892010-07-18T13:23:00.002+01:002010-07-18T13:25:48.816+01:00Experimental Cheesemaking.On Thursday, Joy invited me to make cheese. This is something I've often thought about but never actually done. I'm not entirely sure why - fresh cheeses turn out to be astoundingly simple to make. I don't think I'll ever buy ricotta again, though mozzarella will take some practice.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/4804423424/in/set-72157624526391644" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4114/4804423424_4f95d1dbf0_b.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
Goodness me but it was fun to play with though, the mozzarella. You get to a point where you have to heat it up and knead and stretch it just like you would bread in order to develop those long stretchy strings that are characteristic. What you see above is Joy, hands protected by ice cube bags, squishing a large ball of nearly cheese...it had a fantastic texture. However, we don't think we did this bit totally right - too much kneading and not enough stretching is the theory, and definitely we need to experiment again.<br />
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The first problem we encountered when we sat down to make our cheese was how much raw material to use. The mozzarella recipe called for one gallon, that is *eight pints* of whole milk. That's a lotta milk. And it didn't tell us how much it made, either. We didn't want to be drowning in little white mozzarella balls... The ricotta recipe called for two quart, which is a little more civilised at four pints, but still. In the end we halved both recipes, which meant that we made about two of the fist sized commercial balls of mozzarella you get, and around 275g of ricotta (1 cup). Manageable amounts.<br />
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That still left us buying 6 pints of milk. Lots. Mind you, milk is hardly an expensive ingredient if you're going to play with something. But it brings home how much we as a society must use, really.<br />
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So. The ricotta is easyeasy. I don't think I'll ever buy it again, it was so easy. The recipe I used was one I clipped from a few lines on <a href="http://www.davidlebovitz.com/">David Lebovitz's wonderful blog</a>, that runs as follows: <br />
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Ingredients<br />
2 pints whole milk<br />
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (we used greek yoghurt and omitted the cream)<br />
Optional: 1/2 cup heavy cream<br />
1 teaspoon white vinegar (another recipe suggests using 2 tsp lemon juice)<br />
½ teaspoon salt<br />
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<br />
Method<br />
In a large pot, bring the milk, yogurt, heavy cream (if using), vinegar, and salt to a boil. Very gently boil for one to two minutes, until the milk is curdled.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/4804424756/in/set-72157624526391644/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4082/4804424756_6884a4f057_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(looks horrid, right?)</span></div><br />
Meanwhile, line a strainer with a few layers of cheesecloth (we actually HAD cheesecloth, I always find it hard to get hold of - a very old very clean worn cotton/linen tea towel also works, it's usually possible to find something) and set it over a deep bowl. Pour the milk mixture into the strainer and let drain for 15 minutes. Gather the cheesecloth around the curds and squeeze gently to extract any excess liquid.<br />
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Storage: Homemade ricotta is best served slightly warm, although it can be refrigerated for up to three days, if desired.<br />
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This tasted fantastic. We ate quite a lot of it just standing there. Joy turned it into a rather lovely looking cheesecake afterwards, with raspberries.<br />
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The mozzarella recipe came from this book by Barbara Kingsolver, which looks lovely and which I will borrow from Joy at some point when I can reliably be in the same county for any length of time.<br />
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It's an American book, but lovely. The mozzarella recipe called for rennet and citric acid, which took a little finding. Big supermarkets sometimes have the rennet, as do health food shops. We pinched a little citric acid from a friend (Mr Loxley) who had been using it for making elderflower cordial, but otherwise would have resorted to the internet. Apparently it's quite hard to get hold of because it's a substance used to cut drugs with. We did not cut drugs, just cheese. Anyway. You also need a temperature probe. Joy bought one this time, I keep breaking them. Not sure what to do about that... Recipe follows:<br />
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Ingredients<br />
4 pints fresh whole milk (not UHT or anything)<br />
¾ teaspoon citric acid, dissolved in 50ml of cold water - used bottled, unchlorinated water<br />
¹⁄<span style="font-size: xx-small;">8</span> <span style="font-size: small;">teaspoon liquid rennet dissolved in 50ml cold water (again, mineral water) - we found that the <a href="http://www.auravita.com/product/Just-Wholefoods-Vegeren.JUWH10005.html">VegeRen</a> we were using seemed to have a different concentration </span>to the stuff the recipe was apparently using, and so just had to guess. We used 30 drops in the end, which was probably too much, I'm not sure. I want to read a bit more about the enzyme action - I THINK you can probably just keep adding until it suddenly starts to curdle, because I think it's a catalysis reaction going on but I need to know more. Anyone with any ideas let me know...<br />
1 tsp salt<br />
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Method<br />
Heat the milk to 55 degrees Fahrenheit on the stove (not much more than it's likely to be anyway if it's just come out of the supermarket fridge) and then add the citric acid. At 88 degrees it should begin to curdle. Add the rennet and keep heating to just over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (that's body heat, folks on the metric side of the sea, not boiling point!). At this point the mixture in your pan should be proper curds and watery whey. It's meant to look like this, it's not off milk... Scoop out the curds with a slotted spoon and press them together, squeezing out and pouring off as much whey as really possible as you do so. Microwave the cheese on high for 30 seconds (the recipe says 1 minute, but we halved it, so we were guessing again at this point) and remove and knead a little to remove more whey. This can get warm, hence Joy's use of plastic bags to protect her hands in the picture above. Gloves would have been more elegant, but we didn't have any. Heat again for 30 seconds and knead. You're trying to get it to stretch a bit, so heat it once or twice more until you can get it to stretch like mozzarella should, like toffee or melted sugar at the right point. It should go shiny. We didn't do quite enough of this and have ended up with a cheese closer to paneer - perfectly edible but not really pizza or salad quality. I used half of my ball to make an uninspiring pasta bake, but am going to use the other as paneer and put it in a muttar aloo curry (pea and potato, but it sounds better like that...).<br />
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All in all great fun, and like I said the ricotta in particular is a perfect recipe. To be repeated.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-42663112318700911692010-07-18T09:48:00.001+01:002010-07-18T09:48:55.636+01:00I write like...<!-- Begin I Write Like Badge --><br />
<div style="overflow:auto;border:2px solid #ddd;font:20px/1.2 Arial,sans-serif;width:380px;padding:5px; background:#F7F7F7; color:#555"><img src="http://s.iwl.me/w.png" style="float:right" width="120"><div style="padding:20px; border-bottom:1px solid #eee; text-shadow:#fff 0 1px">I write like<br><a href="http://iwl.me/w/68c65cc" style="font-size:30px;color:#698B22;text-decoration:none">Neil Gaiman</a></div><p style="font-size:11px; text-align:center; color:#888"><em>I Write Like</em> by Mémoires, <a href="http://www.codingrobots.com/memoires/" style="color:#888">Mac journal software</a>. <a href="http://iwl.me" style="color:#333; background:#FFFFE0"><b>Analyze your writing!</b></a></p></div><!-- End I Write Like Badge --><br />
<br />
NB: This was based on a piece of a story I wrote - the last blog post came up with someone I'd never even heard of. But then famously, Neil Gaiman himself hasn't come up as himself...postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-19475731584051909962010-07-13T15:45:00.001+01:002010-07-13T15:57:05.032+01:00London Calling?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/4779834702/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="430" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4779834702_695be393a1_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
I came back from San Francisco and I hated London. I've never had that feeling about London before, but where it had always been exciting and vibrant, it was suddenly closed in and narrow and full of hollow people. I'm sure that in large part the reason for this was what I'd left behind in San Francisco. Who. But more than that. I loved how, at least in the parts I was hanging out in, I could really feel that it was a city for everyone, from all walks of life and all backgrounds. The London I know is a homogeneous place of well educated well off people - often monotonous and at worst stagnant.<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">I fully admit that this is a mere impression, limited as much by my own background and what I have so far found in London. There's a lot more to the place than the people on the train and the people in the offices in the City, but they are the ones I see all the time. And they all have more to them I would hope than the commute, the job and an expensive bed they hardly see. I'm just worried that many of them don't. I love my friends, and I know them well enough to know that they have dreams that go further than what they happen to be doing right now. That the job isn't the be all and end all. We are all of us in that circle the middle class products of a middle class upbringing and a thorough education. Factory made, almost. There hasn't been a lot of space for mutation or variation to appear. I guess I'm concerned that where such things do appear they are either ignored or papered over, rather than grown and developed and encouraged and valued. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[Ha. Picking something more or less at random to listen to while writing, I hit The Clash and find myself listening to <a href="http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/london-calling-lyrics-the-clash/94eebe0a78c8dc9e482568ab00303277">London Calling</a>, all about the other bits of London - which definitely exist even if I don't see them so much for myself.]</span><br />
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It's comforting and reassuring and impervious and safe, that fairly moneyed, fairly engaging existence. That's good as far as it goes. I'm very lucky indeed to have been born when I was to who I was, I know that. I'm allowed to be a free independent modern woman, able to make my own living. But it's a well-worn path - exactly what each of us was expected to do when our parents sent us all off at good schools at the age of 4. The people who start out as the children of one earnings bracket step up to take their parents' places. They even do the very same jobs their parents do. Both of my close lawyer friends are the children of lawyers. Of course there are logical reasons for this to happen even though we all might rather it was rather less rigid than it seems to be. Elaine (who is Irish) said to me a few months ago that she was always amazed at how class ridden British* society is, how little social mobility there is. I am intrigued to find that it is less so in other countries, though relieved that it isn't the same everywhere - perhaps Britain can change.<br />
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Tom put it the best - 'people are following life, not chasing it'. It's very easy to keep putting one foot in front of the other along the clear course and never to look to right or left. I don't want to be that person. I want to take in the view at the very least and wonder all the time about whether it would be better to drop out of the race and try out the path I can see over there. It's not the path itself that is wrong, it is the blind choosing of it. The passivity of never imagining anything different. I should say that I haven't had this conversation with any of these people - it may very well be that everybody I know has thought long and hard about what else they could be doing and is well aware of what else is out there and how other people live, for them to choose if they want to. It's what I'm doing, after all, or will be if my civil service job ever materialises. I am not in any way indicting or judging my friends for following it. Just hoping that they are active in choice.<br />
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But it is awkward to keep looking around you. I remember a conversation I had with my dad when I was 14 or so, when I said I believed that there was always hope, whatever happened. He said that that was an uncomfortable way to live because it meant that one would never be content with what one actually had. Maybe the day-dreaming about life as a chef or a gardener, both of which are well outside the ordered 9am to 1am city job spec, is the same - never content with the good of what is in front of me, not quite grateful for what I have. I'm trying to avoid that too, without numbing myself. Perhaps what I'm really saying is something <a href="http://postjazz.blogspot.com/2008/12/life-for-living.html">I've talked</a> <a href="http://postjazz.blogspot.com/2008/12/ambition.html">about before</a>, about ringing everything out of every experience and being aware of what experiences are available - not letting them roll on by without a glance.<br />
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*Yes, British. I think this certainly still happens in Scotland and Northern Ireland and Wales, too. The Irish Republic is different.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-51668090317138588002010-07-09T16:08:00.000+01:002010-07-09T16:08:38.355+01:00Melon Seed Horchata<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/4777374198/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4140/4777374198_319e28a760_b.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
I have been tidying my house today. It's been a bit of a mammoth undertaking. The bathrooms still need scrubbing and the kitchen floor needs doing and there's laundry all over the living room, but it's better than it was. I don't feel like I'm living in such a pit. Of course, there are still some exploding sacks of clothes belonging to a brother and his girlfriend stuffed into a corner and more bedding than can be shaken at with a stick on one of the beds, but it's tidier. I even <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/4777264990/">re-filed my cookery books</a> and sorted out the wheat of elderly bank statements from the chaff of envelopes. I haven't hoovered; I HAVE made horchata. Not the rice based cinnamon flavoured stuff I had in San Francisco, which was delicious, but something identifiably from the same family. I bought a melon yesterday. I'm currently very very poor, due to a small amount of miscalculation and <a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/PuXESfBgilGl0Jb-424tl_UyTplRcr8rFNJCEjHRTUU?feat=directlink">the impulse purchase of a corset</a>, so any fruit I buy has to be vetted carefully and on offer before I shell out, and the eating of it has to be planned such that I eat it when it's perfect not wasting anything.<br />
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I've been wanting to play some more with <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/4777374760/">my new cookery book</a> ever since I got back; something about the amazing weather in south east England at the moment. And I had a melon. At the back of the book is a very simple recipe for melon seed horchata, that neatly takes in my need for a cool drink, my adoration of melons and my reluctance to waste the smallest part of a beautifully ripe piece of fruit. All you do is lift out the seeds and pulp from the middle as you would ordinarily, but for each cup of fruit add an equal volume of water, 1½ tablespoons of sugar and 1½ teaspoons of lime juice. You then blend the mixture until it's as fine as can reasonably achieved in a home machine and leave the lot to muddle in the fridge for half an hour. Then you strain it (ideally through muslin), add ice and enjoy. If you really wanted to, I suspect it would be fantastic with a shot of tequila. It has a great texture, a little like coconut milk in its smoothness but with a wonderful aroma of melon.<br />
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One or two things: my one ordinary sized galia melon made 1 cup of horchata, which isn't much. Use more melons, or possibly freeze the pulp until you have enough for a sensible amount. It also had a slightly bitter aftertaste. I'm debating what is likely to have caused this and have several thoughts, the most likely being that it sat longer than half an hour in the fridge and various tannin-type things might have leached out of the seeds. I also didn't use the melon variety specified by the recipe, which was cantaloupe. The stripy orange fleshed melons, iconic to me of holidays in France when I was a child, are by far my favourite variety (though I love all of them), but it's very hard to get decent ones in England. I bought one in San Francisco, seduced by the unbelievable scent as I walked past them. The ones in Tescos yesterday smelled of cardboard. Even carried carefully home and placed gently on the windowsill for a few days, they would never emit that amazing Mediterranean perfume. So. I didn't buy one. I bought the only galia I could find that smelled of flowers, and left it in the sun all day. It is a pretty good piece of fruit. I am not sure whether the seeds are likely to be much different between the two varieties, but it's certainly possible that one will produce a slightly less bitter drink than the other. I shall be hoarding melon seeds for as long as they're on offer, and trying out different varieties - everything with the pale yellow, thin skinned seeds has got to be worth a go, but I think that it's probably not worth bothering with watermelon. Better to puree the flesh in that case and drink that (definitely with lime and tequila, in that case...).postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-73733653224083033702010-07-06T13:50:00.000+01:002010-07-06T13:50:47.130+01:00Best of British, on July the 5th.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg/800px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg/800px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />
We don't have a day for Britishness in this country. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George">St George</a>'s Day doesn't exactly count - the saint is patron of at least a dozen countries and has no actual connection to the place itself. He is a guy that we liked originally because he appeared a couple of times as a sort of omen of good fortune in various battles of the medieval period. It's not a holiday. There are no speeches. A few people wave a few flags with more gusto than normal and primary school children listen to an exciting fairy tale about a man who stopped young women being sacrificed to a dragon. It's more 'patriotic' to remember the day as Shakespeare's birthday. At least he was British. Anyway, he's only the patron of England; as a nation, we're divided even on that.<br />
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I feel most patriotic I suppose on Remembrance Day - Armistice Day, the Day of Peace <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields">In Flanders Fields</a>. Is it still about the war, where we did stand hopelessly against what seemed impossible odds and triumphed at the last minute to limp from the ashes? Are my impressions out of date? Perhaps. The modern Brit abroad is arrogant and drunk, and I am ashamed of that. Do we still stand for Right, like we tried to do in the 40s? Not that it was or is ever that clear cut. We laugh at our spectacular losses in sport - we're almost proud of them. They represent that wartime Britishness, in a way. Something about not succeeding but doggedly trying anyway. Other countries celebrate winners, but we celebrate <a href="http://poetry.eserver.org/light-brigade.html">the 'glorious' defeats</a>, the underdogs, the never-had-a-chance-but-at-least-they-trieds. We call it stoicism and resignation and determination and maybe it is, but it allows us to be defeatist and pessimistic and dour yet full of injured innocence. Expecting the worst allows occasional moments of glory to be that much more exciting for being unexpected, I suppose. The British character is a figure of Romance - often self-deprecating to the point of false modesty. Strange how close humility and pride are.<br />
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I was surprised to find myself proud of my country, in an emotional way rather than a logical one it's true, but still. Maybe I could use the loaded 'love', which suggests a blind admiration for the place which overlooks or diminishes the faults, rather than the word 'proud', which to me anyway suggests the application of judgment. I assumed I wasn't. I'm as prepared as the next person, British or foreign, to poke fun at the place and its silly traditions and attitudes myself, but I seem to object to other people doing the same sometimes. And I look at that feeling and I am faintly ashamed of it. We are a small place with a big ego. Ego is unattractive, though I would perhaps rather have an honest ego than a false modesty. In some places we have influence. We ought to be a wise country given our age and our history and I wonder whether we are. I would like for the things we've had happen to us and the things we've made happen and their consequences have educated us a little. I'd like for them to have educated the rest of the world too - we are the best example* since the Romans of what happens in a large empire. I'm pretty sure it hasn't. Depressing to realise. The way that no westerner is able to win an Afghan war yet people keep trying is my favourite example of an inability to take note of the past.<br />
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Celebrating Britain is a bit naff. We're embarrassed about it. Maybe we should be embarrassed. But maybe if we were proud we would endeavour to keep the place as something of which to be proud. Do we do that? Maybe, sometimes. I want to be proud of a country that went from arrogant racism to full acceptance and integration of other races and cultures. Proud of somewhere that learns from its mistakes, laughs at itself, values itself and works always to care for the innocent whoever they are.<br />
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*<span style="font-size: x-small;">That's 'best example', not 'best' example; there is a lot wrong with our colonial past, I just mean that we have had the farshest reaching empire in the world in recent centuries, and hence when examining the subject of empire the first place to look is the state of Britain, c. 1850.</span>postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-67135397132289174362010-06-20T01:51:00.000+01:002010-06-20T01:51:40.195+01:00Somebody pressed the accelerator.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bY2PZLYlFG0/S_zAC4yvXSI/AAAAAAAAMps/Af6ZCk2HVSQ/s1600/P5022876.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bY2PZLYlFG0/S_zAC4yvXSI/AAAAAAAAMps/Af6ZCk2HVSQ/s400/P5022876.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
And time disappeared. San Francisco is a fantastic place. It's like falling down the rabbit hole - it never pays to assume anything about anybody, no matter how ordinary they might seem at first. Everyone has a story and an idea. Everybody is involved in a cause. Everybody makes and does. Everyone is determinedly and unselfconsciously individual. Everybody (*everybody*) does yoga. I've never come across anywhere where it was so difficult to buy food that wasn't organic. Nobody runs with a crowd. Where is the crowd?<br />
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It couldn't exist in England. We are too cynical, too into bathos, too proud. Too concerned with the neighbours and keeping up with the Joneses. I guess that is true in a large number of places in this country too, but not, I have the impression, in urban California. I kind of miss the self-deprecating British humour, I think in the right dosage it can generate humility and hence tolerance (we often get it wrong and use it to support arrogance or discourage ambition, both of which damage our society). Not that San Francisco is in any way intolerant. We could do with a bit of optimism back home; we lack it. A really big bit.<br />
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Things I have learned in San Francisco, so far, with 10 days left to go:<br />
- How to smile at strangers.<br />
- Most people, really, are friendly if you talk to them right.<br />
- Kung Fu.<br />
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- How to paint a wall (they're different to stages).<br />
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- Quirky people are most people, if you find the right space for them.<br />
- What hemlock looks like.<br />
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- How to change a bike tyre.<br />
- How to fit new brake blocks.<br />
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- That however tired you are, the view from the top is worth the effort of the harder path.<br />
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- What a beaver* looks like!<br />
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- Constant searching for betterment prevents enjoyment of the now.<br />
- It is possible to conform to being a non-conformist.<br />
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More things. <br />
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*Behave.postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-42112256560333539292010-05-02T17:14:00.001+01:002010-05-03T18:43:53.023+01:00I'm in San Francisco!Carrying on a whirlwind romance. Living in an appartment that has a bath with clawed feet and a woman who practises rope dancing in the front room, the whole owned by an ethnomusicologist. With plans to try every burrito in the city. And taco. And pupusa. And tamale. And wander about and watch the scenery. And go walking in some parks. And learn to surf. Hopefully, it's a last hurrah before the new job, but even if it isn't quite that it will still be amazing.<br />
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Didn't bring a digital camera, only filmy ones. iPhone blogging or stealing Tom's camera will ensue. Ta ta, I need to go and find some clothes then some brunch...postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-14553913451890239652010-04-10T12:20:00.000+01:002010-04-10T12:20:28.820+01:00Mussels and Scones: a Cornish spring...so I got distracted. Sometime I might tell you about him. I have actually been writing a blog post, but it's very long, currently imageless, and about my confusion over Ireland and Irish history. I'll finish it at some point and post it for everyone to skip. In the mean time, spring leapt up and came crashing into consciousness. Easter. Sunshine. BOOM. Amazing. I went to Cornwall for a week to walk the dogs and eat yellow food (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simnel_cake">Simnel cake</a> and ice cream lemon meringue pie) and watch <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098833/">Jeeves and Wooster</a> and get drenched to the skin without freezing and paddle in the sea to the perturbation of the canines and commune with the llamas and get adored and attacked by turns by the cats and have all my family around for approximately four hours and eat too much chocolate and generally get excited about the turning of the English seasons. It was great.<br />
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Something I've been meaning to do for ages has been to pick mussels off the beach and cook them myself. The Cornish coast is ideal for this - it's a rocky shore, but there are are some quite deep beaches which means that there are rocks exposed only for half an hour or so at low tide and also the water is relatively warm. I think it's those two things which lead to the wild mussels down there being nearly as big as the farmed ones which are under water all the time. I didn't pick anything that was much smaller than my thumb, and that was easy to do.<br />
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There are a couple of beaches I've had my eyes on for a year or two actually, to pick mussels from, but circumstances like the tide, the weather and not having a bag with me have hindered me a bit. This time, however, I finally got around to it on Holywell beach. The dogs were bemused as to why we were spending 20 minutes standing around by some rocks when there were a whole load of interesting bits of seaweed on the tideline, not to mention bunnies in the dunes. Rocky noticed me pulling things off the rocks. I think he thought that they must be like blackberries, which he loves and picks for himself whenever he can. He tried to pull off a few for himself but decided that they were better to roll in than to eat. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/129534898/in/set-72057594108608230/">Kiri</a> used to eat barnacles off rocks, it's true, but never managed mussels...<br />
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Mussels are easy to cook. There are schools of thought about whether you need to soak them in salted water with flour or oatmeal overnight before you eat them or not. I did soak them, more because I didn't want to eat them until the next day than anything else, and they were pretty grit free so I have nothing much to add to the lore on that. I ended up with a mixing bowl full of molluscs - I guess something in the region of 6 or 7 pints or two ish kilos, but that's just a guess. Enough to make a good sized starter for five, anyway. The only time consuming part of the whole process is cleaning them. You have to go through the bowl and pull of the 'beards' or 'byssus' by which they attach themselves to the rock and scrape off the barnacles (which introduce grit,), and throw away any that don't close when tapped. I guess that took me 40 minutes or so.<br />
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I then chopped about 8 shallots and a couple of cloves of garlic and softened them in olive oil. I added a wine glass full of white wine, a bay leaf, some black pepper and the clean mussels. I clapped the lid on and left it for five minutes, by which point all the shells had opened. I transferred the mussels into hot bowls and stirred some double cream (optional) and a large handful of chopped parsley into the juices. After heating through, I poured this over each portion of shellfish and served the lot with hot french bread. It's possibly my favourite dish to eat ever.<br />
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My next ambition with mussels is to cook them actually ON the beach - picking them and then barbecuing them until they open, and then dipping the meat into garlic and parsley butter. Heaven. My next wild caught shellfish plan revolves around trying to catch some crayfish in the old mill stream that runs across my parents' garden...<br />
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I had an American in Cornwall. I needed to illustrate what a cream tea is, which meant I made scones to serve with strawberry jam and clotted cream.<br />
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I firmly believe that there is little point in scones beyond vast quantities of strawberry jam and clotted cream. If you can't get good versions of both, don't bother. Handily, the West Country is brilliant at both. The scone recipe I used came out of the 'The Dairy Cookbook', which is older than I am and only still has covers because the bookcase holds all the parts of it together.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bY2PZLYlFG0/S70AxzUpWzI/AAAAAAAAKiQ/by7N8yOS7uU/s1600/P4062860.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bY2PZLYlFG0/S70AxzUpWzI/AAAAAAAAKiQ/by7N8yOS7uU/s400/P4062860.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
It has recipes for all the old fashioned things (provided they contain dairy) that one actually needs now and again and which new books rarely contain. I think you can probably read the recipe in the (rather dark, sorry) photograph, but I edit it very slightly:<br />
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350g self-raising flour (or plain flour with 2.5 tsp of baking powder)<br />
1 tsp salt<br />
2 tsp baking powder<br />
2 tbsp caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling<br />
75g butter<br />
175 ml milk, plus extra as needed and for brushing<br />
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Jam and (clotted) cream to serve<br />
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Preheat the oven to 230°C, with two or three large baking sheet inside. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder several times to ensure they are well combined. Rub in the butter until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs, and then add the milk a little at a time until a smooth dough is achieved. Knead lightly (scones are in theory better the less you handle the dough) until smooth, adding more milk if required.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bY2PZLYlFG0/S70AvtSm5CI/AAAAAAAAKiA/9f2zqRrc3dQ/s1600/P4062858.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_bY2PZLYlFG0/S70AvtSm5CI/AAAAAAAAKiA/9f2zqRrc3dQ/s400/P4062858.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Roll out the dough to around 1.5 cm thick and cut rounds about 5 centimetres across. Brush each with a little milk and sprinkle lightly with sugar to give a crunchy sweet top to each scone. Transfer them to the hot baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes until well browned. Cool on racks and eat while still warm, with jam and cream.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bY2PZLYlFG0/S70AziJBsoI/AAAAAAAAKik/0O1JT_e_Hns/s1600/P4062862.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bY2PZLYlFG0/S70AziJBsoI/AAAAAAAAKik/0O1JT_e_Hns/s400/P4062862.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-50121115156272323862010-03-07T23:42:00.000+00:002010-03-07T23:42:26.281+00:00Adventures.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/46c6e5c9b2b15ad9fa9e013fa8df421c393741db_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/46c6e5c9b2b15ad9fa9e013fa8df421c393741db_m.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">(<a href="http://eachdayaflower.tumblr.com/post/418800373/via">here</a>)</span></div><br />
Well. On the 29th of January <a href="http://eachdayaflower.tumblr.com/">Charissa</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/teddwelch">Tedd</a> arrived from Florida. On the 31st of January we went for a drive of 2,500 miles and got back on Valentine's Day. And then we all went to Cambridge and picked up some other People We Know - and a few we didn't until that day. Over the next three weeks there were always people sleeping on floors, in Cambridge or St Albans or London. Often they were me. Rarely just me. There were folk songs and whiskey at 3am. There was charades in a room with 6 nationalities, 12 or so people and around 30 degrees of various sorts. The kind of game where C19th literature of any of 5 at least cultures would be guessed instantly and references to popular culture led to 10 minutes of head scratching and incredulous cries of 'that's a FILM?'. There has been poetry and cellos and theatre and home made bread. And photographs and home developing. And concerts and gigs and alwaysmusic, written or sung or chosen with purpose always by people I know. There have been black tie parties and rainy walks around London for art galleries and cake. There was a WEDDING. There have been strangers who became friends never to be forgotten. Old friends and new friends and new places and thinking and the watching of the spring.<br />
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And today is the first evening I'm spending alone in my house since the 28th January. <br />
<br />
Goodness.<br />
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I'm not done yet. This is a lull between Trips. There are more friends here this week, and there are Plans for Dublin in a few weeks. The prospect of spending time with yet more of the best people in the world makes everything wonderful.<br />
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I'm feeling peaceful. I've had a crazy month or two - in a different way from the ones before. There have been adventures of all the best kinds, in contrast to angst and aching and a freezing of the limbs that characterised the time before. I feel spring cleaned and awoken. There's a whole world full of things to see and do. I have been trapped in this house; it has been awkward and cold and dark and confused, and now it is full of possibilities again. There might be Paris (three months, to learn) and San Francisco (three or six weeks, to know). But those aren't the point really. The new beginning that I have needed for half a year or more feels like it might be here, despite the fact that I still have no prospect of a job in the nearest future. 2010 is finally here. I finally feel that I can look at 2009 with objectivity, and see its pure highs and lows without feeling them all at once.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4004/4401911735_470602a877_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4004/4401911735_470602a877_o.jpg" width="292" /></a></div>postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005488354905105058.post-34134512551914630242010-03-02T20:59:00.002+00:002010-03-02T21:02:02.869+00:00LOOK WHAT I DID!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4399682984_787b374c3a_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="430" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4399682984_787b374c3a_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
This is a shot from my very first ever roll of film I developed myself. <a href="http://www.ilfordphoto.com/products/product.asp?n=6&t=Consumer+%26+Professional+Films">Ilford FP4 Plus</a> (125 speed) was already my favourite film, and I just became more in love with it than I was before. I don't like the graininess of faster film, I'd rather just try and adapt my photography to suit. I like being able to get the kind of clarity I achieved on the rose petals here and contrasting it with the softness of the out of focus tulips. At least, today that's how I feel. I have a couple of rolls of 400 I'm playing with at the moment.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2712/4399689550_38d899bb52_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2712/4399689550_38d899bb52_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
This roll is from my <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/4204806734/">Minolta</a>, since Graham's Voigtlander is sick at the moment. I had been a bit nervy about another roll of black and whites going through the Minolta, because <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazelsheard/sets/72157622983046863/">the ones from the last roll</a> (which granted sat about for too long before it was developed, and was 400 speed as well) came out a bit anaemic for my taste. These? Contrast is great! There are a few smudges on them and the odd little crease, but so far no scratches AT ALL. I can fix the smudges (by polishing the negs) and sort of like the creases (see left hand side of first shot). The hard scratch lines across my shots when I've had them developed by shops with machines were making me sad. These gentler and more organic imperfections I mind less. Probably mostly because I made them myself.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/4399687212_5553605f2f_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="430" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/4399687212_5553605f2f_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
Developing is FUN. Not difficult, it's just a question of measuring out chemicals and jiggling things for the right length of time. It's exciting though - you go into your bathroom and keep the light off and carefully block up all the gaps around the door with towels, then you pry your film out of its pregnant canister. You wind it onto the reel, hoping that it won't get stuck. You shut it into the tank, and turn the light on. Then there's the arcane bit with the chemicals. And then you can take the lid off and rinse it. And THEN...you can unwind the sticky negatives from the reel and hang them, using hairgrips, from a piece of string tied between the light fitting and the curtain rail - and you can look at the shots! And try and work out which ones are the good ones and which ones you really like...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">There are quite a lot of variables in developing, in terms of times and temperatures as well as film and chemicals and so on. I'm so looking forward to doing more. Though I have just had it pointed out to me that the film I've stuck into the Minolta just now, while still be B&W, requires a different not-so-easy-at-home process. Bah. Need to finish it quickly and put another one in. Which means I will have to send it away. Which means it'll get scratched. Which is very irritating.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2782/4399687800_268123a92b_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2782/4399687800_268123a92b_b.jpg" width="640" /></a> </div> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">All of this is Tom's fault. Well. It's sort of Graham's fault as well, that I was interested in doing my own development at all, and his fault that I have a scanner. But it's TOM'S fault that I have kit and chemicals and confidence to try for myself. Thanks Tom and Graham!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4398919471_24a6401b3c_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4398919471_24a6401b3c_b.jpg" width="430" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Tom)</span> </div>postJazzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00643895187240847897noreply@blogger.com3