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FO Report – Wurm!

I don’t think I’ve ever had to knit much out of necessity up until recently.  Just this winter, I’ve needed to knit a lot more functional stuff than I recall having had to in the past.  My thick winter socks, light of my feet, apple of my boots, are a pretty good example. My Wham Bam Thank You Lamb neckwarmer is another — scarves I got, but when you’re dabbling in some light travel and bushwalking, a neckwarmer kicks the arse of any scarf. The Mossy Tendrils sweater may not have been a necessity when I cast it on, but the fact that I have more or less lived in it since binding off (still haven’t woven in the ends at the armpits, but nobody sees them anyway) suggests it is filling a need I didn’t know I had. Although the word “necessity” can carry negative connotations, I love that nearly everything I’m making is being immediately put to use, or has a need to fulfil: it means everything I’m making makes my life better. Things that get put aside “for good” or “for special occassions” give me the raging heebie-jeebies (in bad cases, I break out in hinkadinks), and that applies to crockery, clothes, books, pens, everything.

Wurm is the sister to the Wham Bam Thank You Lamb neckwamer; same yarn, both featuring very simple knitting.  Just as satisfying to make and pretty damn wurm warm, I have to say.  Simple rib, then alternating stripes of stockinette/reverse stockinette, then when it’s long and slouchy, you pull together some swift decreases and then thread through the last couple of stitches. I added a little i-cord tail because that’s how I roll, motherlovers.

Warm wormy warm wurm!

Ignore the hunchback: that’s a hoodie.

Pattern: Wurm from umshlagplatz, a word I intend to incorporate more into my daily vocabulary, perhaps as an expression of surprise.

Yarn: Merino Supreme in squashed grape stain colour.

Mods: i-cord tail after threading up those last couple of stitches.

Really warm and slouchy and funky. Fell over in the snow a few times while wearing it and can attest to its warmth and cushiness as a pattern. (Note absence of pronouns to emphasise professional evaluation.)

Observe how snug our ever-charming model Totoro is in Wurm:



Totoro displaying full wurminess

I will say this: I wouldn’t want to knit it in anything heavier. On the ballband, Merino Supreme is an aran-weight yarn, although it’s definitely lighter and springier than most aran-weights, but you end up using enough the hat is on the heavy side. Still comfy, still warm, but you wouldn’t want it any heavier.  Or you might. It’s your head.

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2010 09 03 bethini knitting Comments (0) Permalink

A creature of habit

A creature of habit, I am easily discombobulated by upsets to my routine. My morning processes were chucked out the door this morning due to a pre-breakfast doctor’s appointment — this interruption clearly bewildered me, because when I got home, I decided that brown rice and nori rolls were an excellent breakfast idea. It’s like my brain starts thinking “A pre-breakfast appointment? The world’s gone crazy! What’s next? Sushi for breakfast! Ha ha hahahah!”

The start is always so innocent...

The quieter, more rational parts of my brain were drowned out by the shouty, daft parts. I think the rational brain might have been saying something like “you know, we normally have muesli or toast — delicious, filling, proven results…maybe we should roll with that?” and then the shouty, daft part retorted “shut up, square!” and launched into a deafening chorus of “Mr Clicketty Cane”. I had the brown rice in the fridge already (from the experimenting the other day); I had some fresh vegetables; throw in a little omelette and nori and you’ve got yourself a wholesome breakfast, right? Not strictly sushi, but brown rice nori rolls takes too long to say.

Nothing ominous to see here.

The first sign that maybe I wasn’t firing on all cylinders — well, okay, not really the first sign, since I was making nori rolls for breakfast, but the first one that got my attention — was when I realised I had chucked my omelette into an ungreased pan. It wasn’t the end of the world and I was hungry, so I just did the best I could in scraping it out. But my visions of neat, concentric layers of nori, omelette and rice around the cluster of vegetables in the middle would never see achievement.

What could possibly go wrong?

I don’t have a sushi rolling mat, either, but this turns out to be less of an impediment than you’d think. I thought I’d really struggle, but the rolling-up bit was the easiest step of all.

Ah, the perfect roll!

Check it out! A snug little tube of rice, vegetables, omelette and nori. I paused for a moment to bask in my cleverness. I had discovered I could live without another so-called kitchen essential, and I had a tasty, nutritious breakfast lined up. Sure, the brown rice was a little drier than the sushi rice one normally uses for this kind of thing (in the same way that the the ocean is a little wetter than a bowl of peanuts) but it rolled up and that’s all that matters, right? Wait, don’t people normally put sushi vinegar or something in with the rice before they use it? Huh. Oh well, too late now.

Oh noes!

Uhoh. This wee knife wasn’t designed to deal with slightly-aged nori sheets that have been rolled over onto themselves. I must admit, when this happened, I forced myself to accept that maybe, maybe sushi wasn’t going to be on the cards for breakfast after all.

Recovered! Seems okay.

The other slices were, I admit, a little squished. A little flattened by my forceful hand, loose rolling and slightly under-sharp knife. But they held together! Their contents did not scatter in that merry way that so often happens with sushi rolls, and that was all the encouragement I needed in my squishy-brain state. At this point, the ditzy part of my brain that had been the vocal advocate of the whole affair had exhausted itself and dozed off — permitting the more rational part of my brain to be heard. It was saying: “you know, you really didn’t have to make life harder for yourself this morning”.

The final test!

I took a roll and hurried it into my mouth as its lack of structural integrity became apparent. And then its lack of taste became apparent. Huh. Who’d have thought that cold, unseasoned rice and vegetables wrapped in nori could be so bland? I had completely neglected to throw in even a dash of soy sauce along the rice before wrapping. Dumbass.

By this stage, the rational part of my brain was laughing openly at me. We tried a second bite and, well, that was enough. The rational brain kindly pointed out that there was still fresh toasted muesli in the pantry and homemade yoghurt in the fridge and then asked the compelling question: you only get one breakfast — do you want it to be something good?

Coffee and muesli. Can’t beat tested-and-true routine.

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2010 09 02 bethini Cooking
foodin Comments (0) Permalink

For science!

Brown rice. Let’s talk about it.

Pause for brief meander down a tangent: my Mumini tried to get us kidinis to eat brown rice, wholegrain pasta and brown bread when we were growing up and nearly caused a coup. Universal face-pulling followed by a demands for another round of deep-fried sugar and tomato sauce sandwiches.  Now I’m dashing to the phone to say things like “Mumini, you’re not going to believe this: brown rice! Can you believe what they can do nowadays?”

Rice always seems to me to be a bit of a background food, bringing nothing more to the party than somewhere to put your sauce. But then along came brown rice — conversion! The archangel of grains descended unto me, naked and tender, gave me a light spanking and revealed to me the wonder of brown rice. It’s chewier, more flavoursome, and an entirely different experience to plain white rice. I’m hooked.

But then, after the archangel had gone on his or her way, doubts crept in. After the initial conversion experience, a friend who had bought some brown rice in bulk (i.e. by the cubic metre) shared his bounty with us and we had a few dud batches — I began to grow suspicious of the bulk rice supply source. We had two batches of rice from different sources; the first had yielded holy success, the second annoyance and crunchy crankypants; there was a problem here. Not wanting to imperil our friendship with accusations of offloading dud rice, I knew I had to come up with empirical evidence regarding which rice source was superior. I had to do science!

A lot of Internet folks agree that the One True Way of cooking rice is the absorption method: however, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of consensus on what the absorption method is. Some recipes say wash the rice first, some say wash and soak, some say add the rice to cold water, others to boiling, some say turn the rice down low and then move interstate — there seems to be a lot of variation covered by the absorption method. The one point upon which they all agree is don’t stir the rice. So I guess that’s the absorption method: not stirring (can you name a method after the absence of something?). Once it’s in, leave the lid on, don’t stir it, don’t check it, just get the hell away from it, trust it and all will be well.  It’s kind of intimidating, but I assume it’s because the archangel of grains is in there, working his or her magic. Massaging each individual grain into fulfilment.

So I read a whole bunch of recipes, rejected nearly all of them, and then kind of averaged them out in my head to the following:
- rinse 1/2 cup of raw rice.
- bring 3/4 cup of water to a rolling boil — and none of your pissant bibbly-bubbling, either: full ROLLING boil like the rage of Titans!
- add the washed rice and bring the water to the boil again (since the rice will have briefly soothed the water away from rolling boil).
- turn the heat down really low — use a heat diffuser under the saucepan and get it really chilled out.
- go away. Go far, far away for a while. Go and do something entirely non-rice focused. Paint the dog or have sex in the neighbour’s hammock or something. For brown rice, we’re talking 40 minutes.
- come back, turn the heat under the rice off and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

Now, only now, can you open the saucepan. You’ve passed through the purifying agony of impatience and are ready.

The first batch I did, I used the suspicious-rice. The rice that, twice now, had caused us heartbreak when all the promises made by memories of delicious nutty rice had come to nothing. Turns out our friend, the one who gave us the suspicious-rice, had also had some duds, so there was more evidence in favour of my “crappy batch/unreliable retailer” theorem.

Behold the horror that awaited me when I lifted the lid:

Experimental Portion A

Yup. That right there is a saucepan of rice. Completely cooked through, fluffy, flawless, delicious. Huh. Turns out it isn’t a dud batch of grains after all: the occasions upon which it disappointed were, it transpires, nothing to do with the grains. So I repeated the procedure on the trustworthy-rice and regretted having given each batch such judgmental titles.

Experimental Portion B

Yup.  Identical results. Completely cooked through, fluffy, flawless, delicious. Side by side:

The shocking conclusion!

Spot the subtle variations between the two? Nope, neither can I.  I can say with complete confidence that the one on the right is the first batch (i.e. the suspicious-rice) and the pile on the left is the second batch (i.e. the trustworthy-rice). But as to taste, texture, smell, fluffiness — they are interchangeable. I am ashamed of having doubted the first batch. (I had some flowers delivered to the pantry, we’ll be fine.)

Conclusions:

1. The absorption method does indeed yield flawlessly fluffy rice — but I think you have to cook brown rice way longer than you expect.  Simmering for 40 minutes is a fair while if you’re the kind of person who normally does the rice last because you assume it’s a quick, final thing.  Also, I’d like to know who circulated that dirty rumour? People treat cooking rice (and pasta) as if it’s some zippity-quick thing that you should do only when everything else is poised and ready to leap onto the plates: my experience is inevitably that everyone sits around for at least an hour waiting for the ginormous pot of water to boil and then for the rice or pasta to get its sweet arse cooked. No sir. I say get that water boiling before anything else and have the rice or pasta cooking while you do the rest.

2. I don’t think I really had a second conclusion. Or if I did, it got blasted out of my head by my tangential rant about why people think rice and pasta are quick to cook. I’m going to hunt down whoever said that you should do the rice and pasta last. And then I’m going to poke them in the eye with an undercooked macaroni: one poke for every time I’ve had to delay my dinner and apologise to the waiting starving. Which will be a lotta pokes.

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2010 08 31 bethini Cooking Comments (0) Permalink

I gots questions. Well, one for now.

M and I are zooming off to sunny Tasmania for a week of looking for whales, noodling around National Parks and potentially buying an alpaca in order to carry home all the cheese we plan on buying (alpacas don’t eat cheese, right?). But before I depart there’s something I would like to raise:

Dilemma: what should you do when you want both a breath mint and a bathroom break? I have trouble working out in what order to conduct these two tasks.  If I have the mint first, I feel I have to delay the bathroom break because having a mint is a primitive, remedial form of eating and one does not eat while one conducts a bathroom break.  On the other hand, if you come back from the john and immediately have a breath mint, it looks a bit odd.  There’s something about needing oral refreshment after a visit to the loo that just doesn’t sit right with me.

This is just one of the issues facing me as I try and make a meaningful path through the modern world.

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2010 08 21 bethini etc. Comments (0) Permalink

Book noodling

I’ve got three that I finished just recently, and I want to talk about them:

Orlando: a Biography – Virginia Woolf

Continuing my thriving Virginia Woolf infection.  My God, that woman was fantastic!  I want to go back in time and kick my earlier self in the shins for not appreciating her more — I tried reading her fiction in my undergrad studies and I just didn’t get it.  I loved her diaries and letters, but I had my ears shut to her fiction.  Jeez, what a dillberry. Anyway, Orlando, in case you didn’t know, is one big love gift to Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf’s dear friend and lover.  And what a hoot it is.  Orlando, the main character, is an English aristocrat born during Elizabeth I’s reign.  The book, as his biography, explores his personality, his sexual adventures and his career as a landholder, gentleman of court, ambassador, gypsy — I won’t go on, because I don’t want to spoil it.   Oh, and he changes sex halfway through and lives for about 300 years.  Clever-clog readers will recognise Orlando: he is Vita Sackville-West. She didn’t live for 300 years, of course, and she remained consistently XX-chromosomed her whole life, but all the same, he is she. The novel is Woolf’s celebration of her, which makes it perhaps the coolest gift ever.

But I don’t want to make it sound like one long fanfict: the book is enormously fun because it does a whole lot more than celebrate Vita. It pokes fun at standard literary tropes, especially biographies and takes pot-shots at some notable historical figures, as well as some of Vita and Virginia’s contemporaries. It also wrestles with some major themes about writing, which really got me thinking, especially the interaction between the mind of the writer and the zeitgeist in which they are trying to create. Orlando is just great. It’s funny, juicy and fun; it’s interesting and thought-provoking; it tells a good story and it fairly gallops along.  And since it’s by Virginia Woolf, the language is intoxicating, flowing, rich and forceful.

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony – Robert Calasso

I don’t know where to start explaining this book. I’ll start simply and see where that takes us: it’s a book about, and full of, Greek myths. That makes it sound like some Bumper Classic Illustrated Greek Myth Omnibus, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t.  It retells many of the Greek myths — certainly not all of them, that would be an epic undertaking — and shows how they are all interconnected: the way that a myth’s impact (Calasso takes the abduction of Europa as a starting point) ripples outwards, as side players, families and witnesses are influenced by the events.  The book creates a whole-world perspective of the Greek myths, revealing the way they interweave and overlap.  It also touches upon the way the myths echo through Western culture, through our archetypes and major cultural themes. It’s beautiful and well-expressed, and is structured in such a way that it just flows and you are swept along with it.  There’s a lot in this book, so I found I had to stop and have regular breaks in order to rehydrate and tell M that my mind had been blown a-gain, but it is worth every moment.

One of my favourite lecturers at uni — who went on to be my Honours supervisor — introduced me to this book.  He referred to it a lot in his classes and it intrigued me, so I grabbed a copy the first time I saw it at a second-hand book sale. I wonder if I should email him and say thank you.

nice cup of tea and a sit down – Nicey & Wifey

The book of the blog of the biscuit, Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down. It’s a book about tea (specifically, optimal tea-drinking procedures) and biscuits. Fun, light and easy to read. I have a handful of books in a similar vein — not about biscuitry, I mean, but light, interesting, funny and keenly interested in their subject. I find them vaguely therapeutic, not to mention deeply enjoyable to read, especially when everything feels a bit serious, or if I’ve just finished reading something intensive.

nice cup of tea and a sit down is divided into four main bits: “A Nice Cup of Tea”, “Some Biscuits”, “A Little Bit of Cake”, and finally, presumably just to tie in with the title, “And A Sit Down”. Each one has short chapters on different elements of the overall topic, and the Biscuits chapter is by far the most thorough and entertaining.  It’s somewhere between a Guide to Biscuits and a series of reviews, surprisingly informative and very entertaining. The “A Nice Cup of Tea” chapter deals with some of the issues surrounding tea brewing procedures and preferences, while the “A Little Bit of Cake” chapter talks about, well, you can probably figure it out. It’s funny and clever, but you do feel that biscuits are where the authors’ passion truly lies. And rightly so. The book has an endearing, strongly English feel to it, too, which induces in me a peculiar craving to visit the place and sample as many biscuits as I can. The “Sit Down” chapter I can take or leave; it deals with some of the challenges in trying to enjoy a cup of tea anywhere besides home, and takes a kind of wry, middle-aged, rolling-eyes-at-the-modern-world, “all I want is a nice simple [noun]” tone that I get bored with quickly, but it doesn’t go on for too long and it’s not a bad end to the book.

A final note: where are all my bookmarks going? Is there some sort of bookmark party I’m missing out on? I used to have tons of the buggers.

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2010 08 21 bethini etc. Comments (0) Permalink

FO Report – Wham Bam Thank You Lamb Neckwarmer

I have to be honest, this pattern is so simple and cool that it hardly needs an FO report at all.  But then you wouldn’t get to see this:

Snug.

Or this:

Totoro is ready for winter!

Pattern: Wham Bam Thank you Lamb Neckwarmer from Insaknitty.  It’s a garter-stitch rectangle that you then sew up, off-centre.  It sounds like nothing at all, but it completely rocks.

Yarn: Cleckheaton’s Merino Supreme (now discontinued) on 5mm needles.

Liked it. Would knit again! Warm and loose and foldy and slouchy (well, on me — less so on my stylin’ model up there), it looks awesome.

You got time on your hands? Found a monastic order and cast on something in laceweight.  You got a cold neck and not much time? This is your baby.

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2010 08 19 bethini knitting Comments (0) Permalink

Purple

When I was a wee Learner Knitter, I asked my Mumini how many balls of wool it took make a jumper. She said ten, so I bought ten.  Thus began one of the longest-running sagas of my knitting life.

Cleckheaton have discontinued their Merino Supreme line, and I think it’s for the best. I am locked in an abusive relationship with the stuff. It’s thick and buttery and springy and soft; it’s machine-washable; it comes (well, it used to) in a good range of colours; you can persuade it to play the role of an aran-weight, but it can lend itself to worsted gauge and, in a pinch, you can use it for bulky-gauge patterns. In short, it’s bloody nice wool. Except: take another look at that ballband.  That yardage is not a typo —- one ball is 59 metres.  I used to love this stuff so much. But then, I had a bit of a change of heart: no more will I be in thrall to Merino Supreme’s siren song. No more.

Don't be fooled.

It’s the dark purple stuff that did it. That was what I bought ten balls of, as per Mumini’s direction. I don’t think she realised it was even possible to sell 59 metres of yarn and call it a ball. Ten balls of that is — let me save you the calculations — 590 metres, which most knitters will admit is not really enough for a jumper.  That didn’t stop me trying. After the third jumper was ripped back, having heartbreakingly shuddered to an inevitable premature demise halfway through a sleeve, I put the dark purple stuff in a bag at the back of the stash, where it could compare notes with the other yarns and think about its hurtful ways.

During a big destash this year, I found the bag of dark purple stuff, humbled. I decided it was time for its second chance (well, fifth or something like that, but who’s counting?) and brought it out.  Once again, it started flaunting itself and telling dreadful lies.  Ten balls, it said to me: ten balls for a jumper, there are ten balls here.  Sure, they’re a little brief as balls go, but it’s still ten balls, right? And I stomped my foot and spun my ballwinder and uttered a mystic curse that caused the letterbox to explode and said Enough!  I rebelled.  I did not have enough for a jumper! I did have enough for a few smaller projects, and I was going to defy the strangely-ingrained rule in my head that says “enough for a jumper = you MUST make a jumper” — two rebellions in one swoop! Well, a whole bunch of small swoops.

Divided, it fell.

I win.

Two pairs of thick, winter-proof boot socks; one garter-stitch neckwarmer:

Snug.

(This is cheating a bit; I love this picture so much I’m using it on another post as well.)

And a hat-in-progress:

Proud purple, bent to my will!

(Wurm – click ‘kollektion’ and scroll down)

I’m down to my last balls (hello Google search results!) and showing no signs of slowing down. I would like to say I have experienced real knitterly growth here, but the fact is that I’m still gloating over breaking free of the thrall of the purple stuff and I’m pretty sure that maturity and growth usually preclude that sort of behaviour.  Nonetheless, I’m proud. This has been several years coming.

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2010 08 17 bethini knitting Comments (0) Permalink

Brown

For someone who doesn’t go for brown much, there’s a lot of brown in my life right now. The bananas in the fruit bowl have even turned brown, mocking me, discarding their traditional yellow garb to fall into step with all the brown in my life.  Some browns are bad:



Bad brown! Bad!

Despite that tasty-looking gentle golden-brownness, this bread is a dud with a capital Duh. See how tall and puffy it is? That’s right! Not very. I made the dough waaaay too wet and there was just no structural integrity. The yeasts did their best, bless their little hearts, and it swelled and rose; but it was like a rising porridge rather than a dough. I baked it anyway to see what would happen because that’s the kind of cook I am! Curious!  It did not go well. This is an exception, though. Most browns are good.

Brown yet zesty!

Pretty, huh? No. No they’re not pretty and I resent your patronising lies. They are awesome, zesty and tangy and interesting, but they are not pretty. They are very brown and mushy-looking. The jar on the left contains a lime, chilli and ginger pickle I made about a month ago, and the jar on the right contains a wholegrain mustard I made a week ago.  Both recipes recommended allowing them to mellow for a month and a week, respectively, so they were ready at the same time. Synchronicity, yo! I love it.

Despite heralding from my extensive “mysterious things in jars” collection of cooking endeavours, they’re pretty good. The lime, chilli and ginger pickle was an adaptation of this spiced lemon pickle from cuisine.com.au (swap limes for lemons, double the ginger); I tasted it warm, as soon as it was made — actually, I seem to remember I burnt my mouth on the bloody stuff) and it was…ehhh, so-so.  Although it was rich and deliciously lime-o-licious, it had a bitter aftertaste, and was overall a bit like a really savoury marmalade. But, as per the recipe, I left it in the fridge for a month with an informative post-it note attached, alerting the unwary fridge explorer as to its contents.  The flavours have indeed mellowed, blended and softened, and now it is a really tasty, sour, gingery relish.  Hooray!  I haven’t the faintest idea what to serve it with. Toast? Most things go well with toast.

The mustard in the other jar is teetering on a rickety fence, a puff of wind away from toppling into dud-territory. I used apple cider vinegar instead of white wine vinegar, but I don’t think they’re as interchangeable as I assumed — the apple cider vinegar is really pungent and sour and comes through very strongly. Freshly made, it was not pleasant. No no no. However, maturity is a process. After a week of mellowing in the pantry, there’s been a big change in Mr Mustard Jar.  He’s grown out of his pushy, aggressive ways and is beginning to be a bit more laid back, letting his inner beauty, the warmer mustard tones, come through.  He’s still a little vinegary, a little pushy, but another week and who knows? He might be fit for polite society.

A lot of things I cook are brown, which is both entirely coincidental and a challenge to photograph alluringly. You know what else is hard to photograph alluringly? Bran loaf.

Brown yet wholesome!

This has been breakfast for the past couple of days: toasted slices of sultana and carrot bran loaf.  God, I’m going to have to think of a sexier name. How about…Cowgirl Slices?  Or Sex-in-a-Circus-Tent Breakfast Bread?

Sliced, toasted and tasty --- and brown!

These pictures are making me hungry. I don’t wear brown, I dye my hair because it’s brown, and I don’t think of myself as a brown-fancier. But when I look around, it’s everywhere. A lot of things I cook come out brown; I want them to, they’re notably delicious when they do.  Not just baked bread, either: daal, mushroom bourguignon, lentil soups, toast, muesli, brown rice. I could go on. I shan’t. You’re welcome.

Some browns are just sexy and they know it:

Brown: you either got it or you don't.

Brown is like nature’s default: nourishing, wholesome, natural things tend to be brown.  Wood, soil, my four-legged little sex bomb up there, bread, grains, seeds, nuts — all brown (except pistachios, which straddle the line dividing brown from green and are therefore either endowed with sanctity or an abomination, and either way the less said the better).

I may not wear brown, but I respect it.  Brown, we salute you!

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2010 08 15 bethini Cooking Comments (0) Permalink

Un-kerploded (Kerploey Part 3)

Behold! For my repair angel hath descended upon my kitchen! Thanks Dadini! For just the bargain price of some roasted coffee beans and a couple of chocolate Digestives, he came, he saw, he resurrected the oven.

Magnificent.

We pulled the beast out of the wall (I took a moment to clean out the scunge from the cavity, a sentence guaranteed to spike my Google search hits), pulled the back off and replaced the element — I feel so self-reliant and independent, since I didn’t have to call in a professional tradie, but the reality is that I couldn’t have done it and all credit goes to Dadini, may his Digestives never break in his coffee. It needed a wicked clean, since the ruptured element had belched ash and smoke all through the oven. I choose to enshrine this unusual state of cleanness through these photos.

Fiercely good.

I thought it’d be a huge pain in the arse, but cooking without the oven has been almost a non-issue. Despite thinking of it as the heart of the kitchen, essential to all things culinary, we’ve worked around it. The number of things we oven bake is surprisingly low — but for those things, there is no substitute. Bread, for example. Making bread without an oven is a definite challenge. We took to bringing ziploc bags of bread dough with us when we went to family dinners and begging use of their oven. Not optimal, but kept us in sammiches and toast for a while. Pizza is a bit tricky without an oven, too, although I have heard legends speak of pan-fried pizza and other mysteries.

I don’t want to give the impression that I could go on living without the oven for any long time — I think we only really got through it so easily because we knew the oven-free state would be short-lived. If we were talking save-up-and-buy-a-whole-new-oven level of repairs, we might have to go without for a long time and I’d find that challenging.

Wait, I just thought of something. We’ve got a Webber on the back porch, which has made mighty fine pizza in summers past (when it was too hot to stand having the oven on, but standing outside next to a barbecue seemed fine) — I bet I could make awsome bread in that if I had to. Hmm…

…can you hear the gears in my head churning? I can. It’s as loud as hell in here.

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2010 08 12 bethini Cooking Comments (0) Permalink

Real yoghurt?

While I was poking my latest attempt at homemade yoghurt — bouncing the back of a teaspoon on the skin cautiously, trying not to break the surface, all the while making the kind of face you see caricatures make in political cartoons — M asked me how I would know for certain it was yoghurt.  He pointed out that, for all external appearances, fresh yoghurt and curdled milk don’t have a lot to distinguish them. And, after all, if you were going to make curdled milk that wasn’t yoghurt, you would pretty much follow the yoghurt-making process, but omit the culture — you’d bring the milk almost to a boil, then let it cool a bit, then store it at a warmish temperature for six hours or so: and what you got at the end of that would definitely be thick curdled milk.

This lead to an interesting discussion regarding context and certification: perhaps the only reason people accept that what they buy in tubs as yoghurt in the first place is the certification that comes with a business slapping its logo on it. Given a tub of thick, tangy dairy product, would you be reluctant to try it? What if it had “Yoghurt” written on it? What if it was written in texta, and spelled wrong? And given to you by a homeless lady with one pocket full of peanut shells? On the other hand (if you’re not inclined to source your dairy products from the temporarily-between-housing sector of the community), you buy a sealed tub labelled “yoghurt” in the supermarket, already you’ve got certain (entirely reasonable) expectations regarding non-toxicity, nice flavour, etc., so the tub of thick, tangy dairy product has a different context altogether. But then, what about things like YoGo, Ski and YoPlait, which are marketed as “yoghurt” (or a close approximation) but most of whose products are so low in yoghurt cultures, they make me puke if I eat them because they’re essentially just flavoured milk thickened with gelatine? Are they yoghurt?

The homemade stuff presented a whole new set of parameters, or, really, an absence of them. Nobody else was around to point at it and say “That right there is Yoghurt, mate”, thereby encouraging me to dive in, spoon-first. There have been a few (okay, buckets and buckets) of previous attempts that, upon opening, turned out to be just that little bit too runny, and not quite tangy enough, to really make me want to risk eating them. M pointed out that if I ever wanted to be sure I was making yoghurt, I’d eventually have to plunge in. (Whoa, swimming in yoghurt…I bet that feels good…)

M volunteered to be the first guinea pig in my dairy experimentation, and ate about half a cup of what we were calling yoghurt. Didn’t kill him! Not even a bit! Recognising that non-fatal does not equal edible, it was my turn as the representative of the lactose-intolerant sector of the community to sample. I tried, I enjoyed, I puked not. The next morning was the big test: a yoghurt-based meal: fruit and yoghurt for breakfast! A substantial enough portion of yoghurt to trigger any effects if there were any to be triggered.

Lesson learned: macro shots aren't always sexier

I wasn’t sure if I should post this…it seemed like such a personal milestone that I wasn’t sure if it was something I can share. I’ve tried so many times and failed, but now…now I think I can say it. I did it! I made yoghurt! Fresh, thick, homemade yoghurt. Go me! Now let’s see if I can do it again. And again. AND AGAIN! MORE YOGHURT! STAND BACK WORLD!

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2010 08 11 bethini foodin Comments (0) Permalink